Now some aspects of this that are not considered are that wizards in particular, perhaps due to their ego and power are usually semi-antisocial and most likely to be feared and distrusted by the community and society.
Why? No, seriously, why? Why are wizards inherently antisocial? And, even more importantly, why are they distrusted? With Wieldskill, Eagle's Splendor, and not needing to bother with stats, so they can actually afford a decent Charisma, unlike the fighter, they can get much higher social skills. Illusionists, as of UA, even get social skills as class skills. And that's ignoring their power to completely dominate the minds of others. Hell, at high level they can come to a town and suddenly "have always been there." Even Bards get that kind of magic.
Whereas fighters, provided they have the same religion as the community and are not a source of disorder are likely to have the support and faith of the community and society.
Why? Why are fighters inherently lawful and good? Why are they pillars of the community, despite not having the ability to single-handedly guard the community from any plausible threat? Hell, a wizard could even feed his entire village and ensure they have clean water, and I dunno about you, but I'm going to value the guy who can make sure my village can survive even the most brutal of famines and droughts and even aid the labor force with zombies or golems or whatnot.
In addition wizards are physically not as strong, which does have a major impact on survivability, particularly in the levels to 10.
Miss chances. AC boosts. Sorry, but no. It really doesn't past level three or five, and even then, not really.
Another factor is the pyramid shaped scarcity of wizards by level.
The number of wizards of a given level is largely shaped like a pyramid so that the higher the level, the less number of wizards of that level exist so a 10th lvl wizard might exist in a medium sized town but a 15th lvl wizard might only exist in a much larger area and likely very few of them would exist what to say of anything beyond that.
Cool. That level 15 wizard is unquestionably the single most powerful being in that plane of existence.
Actually, it's worse than that. That means that the max level for the setting is 15 or so, meaning that all monsters have to cap out around that CR or else the setting would be overwhelmed. Therefore, that wizard is easily one of the most powerful beings in the universe.
The scarcity of wizards is governed by another factor, since the wizard is a knowledge based class and as everyone knows in the D&D world of the middle ages knowledge and learning were restricted to a few, the wizard will most likely need an aristocratic background to be able to acquire that knowledge and learning and advance. Not something available to most people, but only a select few individuals of aristocratic background.
Or be scouted out by divinations. Or be from the merchant class. Or be sponsored by a noble house. And that's assuming that the world is in a bizarre mideval stasis, something that falls apart, as Tippy showed quite well in his explaination of a Tippyverse.
Now different rule systems regard magic and spell casting may exist, but it is not the case that a wizard is
able to use all of his spells at one, and the need for scarce use of his prepared spells in a day further limits his ability to be the dominant force all the time or even most of the time.
Stinking Cloud. Evard's Kinky Tentacles. Suggestion. I can go on, but I don't think that's needed. Single spells can easily end encounters. Especially on a Domain Wizard or a Focused Specialist, the limit of spells per day is effectively meaningless if they play up to their intelligence score.
That is why I think a good case can be made for fighters and also the other non-magical
classes and against over-appraisal of spell-casters which seems to be the case.
A case full of holes and based on faulty assumptions.
While all wizards might not be the archetypical wizard who has delusions of power and grandeur, I would they their class as a whole has a tendency towards
such a thing.
Why?
Particularly as they gain in level and therefore believe that they can bend reality to their will and see other people as instruments created to fulfill their purposes and goals.
Again, why? Why are they inherently anti-social? And why is a fighter, who at similar levels can swim through pits of lava with no long-term ill effects, not prone to similar things?
Not to mention the tendency towards isolation particularly from society which manifests itself
in the wizard profession as a result of the nature of the class itself (requiring much study in a library or so)
and also from the general mistrust towards magic-users which does to some extent exist in the society of a D&D world.
Why is spending time in a library incompatible with social interaction? And why would a village treat the person who can is inherently better than a dozen fighters at protecting them and obviously has some investment in doing so?
Not to mention that this distrust by society is further reinforced by the tendency to see wizards as holding
the common man (considered to be most members of society) in contempt and being skeptical of and not adhering to the religion of the society.
Again, why? What leads to this? Why was this not counteracted by some superhumanly charismatic bard or just an Enchanter with some spare time on his hands?
Power which is the basic question between classes in the D&D world depend on a lot of things.
Yes. They're called class features.
For example, in the D&D world of the middle ages,
Why?
the basic form/structure of government is monarchy.
Again, what leads you to this conclusion? Democracy is thousands of years old. Why is a senate not an option?
There is usually one religion to which conformity is expected to be an accepted member of society.
One religion that's hardly universal. And, seriously, comparing a world where multiple gods are universally accepted as existing and can be objectively proven to real life? Hardly a good comparison.
Non-conformity means expulsion and banishment.
...No, not really.
Wealth, aristocratic titles, barons and so forth are another form of power.
Another form of power you've already declared that all mages have.
Similarly common law (not the English), and the traditions of the community are another.
One thing that a wizard can effortlessly change?
Now a fighter and wizard exist within this world.
And?
Now all classes have a social rank, and fighters also do not necessarily think, plan and fight alone.
And? What does this matter?
Unless a wizard is considered to be one of the preceding powers mentions such as a wealthy baron.
Except you've already stated yourself that wizards must be wealthy. Please stick to your own arguments.
Although a wizard in this world could also be considered to be a new force such as innovation and an innovator for example Johannes Gutenberg the inventor of the printing press or a force which disturbs this feudal balance through some innovation ushering in a new age.
Any time a wizard wants feudal power, he can take it. "Balance" only exists because wizards don't want to bother disrupting it. Otherwise, Suggestion, Dominate, Programmed Amnesia/Mind Rape/Sanctify the Wicked, Modify Memory, and so on all invalidate that.
Well It seems pretty much like dogma so I will leave it there, although I will say that whether a class is powerful or weak or dominates the game depends on the DM and how powerful he allows the class to become. I don't think there is anything absolute about it, but since such a suggestion is received with so much hostility I don't think there is any point in arguing. I think that whether a class breaks the game or not depends on whether the DM allows it to, not something inherent in the game.
Rule Zero fallacy doesn't fly, man.
But since any questioning of that assertion regarding fighters and spellcasters is received with so much hostility I will not bother making any more posts in the thread and simply consider this matter resolved or dropped.
Pointing out flaws in your reasoning isn't "hostility."
Wizards have more weaknesses than players sometimes remember but they are more powerful than fighters of the same level.
Except they don't. A wizard is a Solar in Exalted 2e. If they want to be, they're invincible. It's also boring as hell if they are.
However, this doesn't bother me and it has rarely bothered anyone I've played the game with. In play, I have rarely seen a fighter player being sidelined or becoming disgruntled at his character's level of effectiveness (relative to that of a wizard).
That is, however, purely at the whim of the wizard. Or the wizard playing smart. It's been well-established that Batman and God wizards play relatively well with others.
petty i know, but i just want to say:
tomb of battle.
i know most people think it is broken but i find its the perfect counter-argument to people who insist that spellcasting is over powered.
If people think it's overpowered, quite frankly, that shows ignorance of the system.
Tome of Battle is powerful, but only in comparison to classes that are hideously weak, like the fighter. To use JaronK's tier list, something while fraught with problems, is still a decent guide for those not particularly rules-adept. Tome of Battle makes melee usable, and if people think that's overpowered, they need to reevaluate the system.
Bob, the Dragon has magic resistance, and made its roll.
SR-No spells or Assay Spell Resistance.
It also smelled you coming.
Dragons don't get Scent.
You better roll initiative.
Against a dragon? Unless it's Old and has a well-tailored spell list, a roll is completely pointless.
Go first and kill it.
Whatever, Bob. Guess what, you never did memorize those spells. The party was attacked in the night by a pack of Moon Demons. The fighters and clerics were able stand their ground...Bob...fought valiantly...
After recouping in town, they are able to hire a couple of wizards to serve as spellthrowers while the fighters, once again, save the day and slay the dragon. : )
Rope Trick.
3. Levels count. If a 5th level wizard is wrecking, the player is cheating the game. If a 15th level wizard isn't wrecking, the player is cheating himself.
The problem is that's not true. While a low-level wizard does, indeed, lack the world-destroying power of a high level wizard, Stinking Cloud is available.
Or, if they were actively trying to abuse the system, an Illumian could use Extra Slot to have 9s, if they really wanted.
And the fast car runs out of gas after a couple of minutes while the slow one is a hybrid that gets fifty miles a gallon.
Sure. And the Wizard is a Galaxy-class starship.
The most limiting thing about Fighters is their hit points. In theory this is true of wizards, but (in general) if they're taking damage, then the group is losing rather badly.
If a wizard is taking damage, they're fighting a mage.
This was, of course, before the fighters in my group discovered how to break Armour Class - making it so that challenge-appropriate creatures couldn't hit them!
How did they do this? AC is so hideously expensive, even using the chain shirt stacking trick, it's still inefficiently expensive.
Campaign assumptions mean a lot. The above analogy shows that. Does the Wizard get to use up all his spells in an encounter or two, after which we can pull back and rest in perfect safety so he can recharge? If so, then the wizard looks a lot more powerful. But if we have time pressure, aren't easily able to locate a resting place, Rope Tricks are not treated as "the world stops while you rest" spells, etc., the Fighter's ability to use his full power in every encounter while the wizard must husband his spells moves the balance to favour the wizard less.
First, I'd love to know why finding a resting place would matter if you said Rope Trick doesn't help.
Also, a fighter isn't going to be surviving well without the wizard.
The Wizard often takes his teammates for granted - how easy is it to blast off those big spells without that burly Fighter between you and the enemy?
Quite easy, actually. But even if it wasn't, you can have mind-slaves or summoned minions do the fighter's job just as well.
Especially if that enemy's first save goes well?
Using spells that allow saves for nothing that don't hit large groups on enemies? On the first turn?
You've got more problems than a BBEG. Your wizard must have taken some intelligence damage somewhere along the line, and is probably incapable of casting.
We're actually back to CLW wands, but the fighter does normally get some healing up between encounters. The Wizard doesn't get his top level spells quite so easily, though.
Yes he does. It's called "not using it."
Does that trap the Big Bad with us (so he can attack the Wizard) or on the other side (so he can withdraw and plan)?
It traps the big bad and the fighter, and keeps then 10 feet from each other. Fortunately, the fighter listened to the much more intelligent mage, and bought some Anklets of Translocation.
