How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm going to take hit on this, but...this goes back to what I've said a million times before - balance is BS!. Balance is neither a good thing nor a requirement for D&D. 4e's everyone is the same is a sticking point for me. 3e was bad enough. (I've played both, ran campaigns in both and am not disparaging any edition, per se)

Unless you want to not be a wizard, at which point balance matters quite a bit more.

This idea that a wizard is the most powerful thing at higher levels is what is supposed to happen. But since DMs try not to kill PCs anymore, the idea that you actually have to make it to higher levels get lost in the sauce.

Sure a 7th level caster could do some pretty cool stuff, but they had to get there first and a kobold with a lucky crit could end the career of a wizard as easily as a lowly snake and a failed poison save. Does nobody remember the phrase, "wizards are squishy"? Or how about the converse, "Hey, meat shield, protect the caster."

Because this isn't balance.

Hey guess what fighter? Level 1? That's it. That's as good as it gets. Really! Because the game is "balanced" over levels. So enjoy level one, because every level afterwards you get closer to being obsolete.

Incidentally, your job is to be personal bodyguard to the wizard. Yeah, you get to be a hireling! Doesn't that sound fun?

Know what it doesn't sound like? Any story, ever.

Read mythology. No, I'm serious, go read a few myths, read some fiction. Go read Greek mythology or Japanese mythology, read up on the Three Kingdoms and on Roland and on Gilgamesh. Now point out the number of "meatshields" who do nothing but protect the wizard. And point out the number of godly superpower wizards that are the protagonist.

I'll wait.

Now point out how many stories are "And this this rediculously awesome warrior guy did something way over the top and basically impossible and it was really rad."

I think the comparisons support me far more then they do you.

In fantasy genres balance should be a dirty word unless you are talking about thief skills.

Only if you want the game to be Wizards and Wizards: A Wizardplaying Game.

 

[Barastrondo]

This idea that a wizard is the most powerful thing at higher levels is what is supposed to happen. But since DMs try not to kill PCs anymore, the idea that you actually have to make it to higher levels get lost in the sauce.

Well, more significantly we're in an age where people might say "You know, I've played levels 1-5 a dozen times before: can we just start at 6th level this time around?" This is a perfectly reasonable expectation, particularly when play time becomes the most precious resource available to a player. The players have paid their dues in time and effort, just not with the latest proposed particular characters. If a group doesn't have time to ensure that players play for a year or so with a subpar character before they get to the character they want to play, the "time-invested-justifies-dramatic-power-inequity" model is flawed.

Personally, I have a fondness for systems that start at closer to balance, but that's largely because it's so easy by compare to make things properly askew when you start from a position of equity than it is to make things equitable when they start from a position of clear imbalance.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Only if you want the game to be Wizards and Wizards: A Wizardplaying Game.

Did I mention I HATE playing wizards. Yes, mythology has many examples of fighting types taking on wizard antagonists, I concur, and often times it is the gods themselves that get involved through a (im)mortal hero.

Frankly, I would be happy if D&D had NO wizards, I find them to be either modeled after Elminster, Raistlin or Gandalf (unfortunately in that order) or some really goofy eastern Wire-fu take-off. I like that wizards are easy to kill at lower levels. As for Fighters "peaking" at 1st level - sorry, I don't buy it. You can make a saving throw versus almost any spell, you cannot save versus two-handed sword. With a high magic game, fighters can do as much or more damage than a wizard of appropriate level, in any edition.

Also, when a wizard is out of spells, what do they have to fall back on? Nothing. Your wizards have never been out of spells - DM failure. Gary didn't pull punches (Tomb of Horrors anyone) and neither do I. If there isn't at least one time when the monsters are breaking down the door while the wizard is frantically trying to re-memorize spells, something is wrong.

Fighters are CRUCIAL to a swords and sorcery game (that's why it's called swords and sorcery). Sure a wizard can take out armies with powerful fireballs from three hundred yards away. Let a thief backstab the bastard and see how many spells he casts while he's bleeding out from his kidneys on the floor. Wizards are inherently easy to kill because they believe that all that power makes them invincible and when you are sitting upon the lofty perch it just means there is farther to fall when you are pushed.

The "balance" in a wizard/fighter relationship is one of give and take. Wizards can usually take down a fighter even at 1st level with a magic missile likewise a fighter can throw a rock and kill your garden variety mage. At 6th level the magic-user has powerful long range spells that do great damage. The fighter (in every edition) has many many more hit points and much better saving throws against said powerful magic - a fireball that does 36 (the max a 6th level wizard can do) hp of damage is scary for a 6th level wizard (who may have 24 if they are lucky) but a fighter who has a decent set of hp rolls will have in the neighborhood of 35 - 50 and this is prior to the save for half and not including any magic armor or fire resist magic they may have. 36 is easily shrugged off and then the fighter gets to swing - if the wizard hasn't rolled 4 for hp at every level - this fight is over.

The problem I see is that over the years players feel "entitled" to always win. Guess what, even from the early days there was always the description of a character death in the example of play, right up until 3e. Hell, the NPC cleric even bought it in the basic solo walk through in the Mentzer edition. I don't see a balance issue - I see a whiny player issue. Play with a DM who could care less if you live or die and strictly runs an adventure and leaves the living and dying up to you and chance and all this pissing and moaning about balance goes away, quickly.
(okay stepping off the soapbox - grognard walking)

 

[SSquirrel]

Nakor, just about the coolest character in Feists books explains once why wizards do not dominate everyone else.

Wizard casts spell.
Second wizard counterspells first wizard.
Third wizard counterspells second wizards counterspell.

Fighter walks up and chops first wizard (or second or third) wizard in half with sword.

In many ways, Nakor was really the heart and soul of that book series. Let's have a moment of silence in his memory. *grin*

Want an orange?

BTW, to the earlier question from someone, yeah I did know the world was based on their D&D game. Feist likes to talk about it in forewords pretty often

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Read mythology. No, I'm serious, go read a few myths, read some fiction. Go read Greek mythology or Japanese mythology, read up on the Three Kingdoms and on Roland and on Gilgamesh. Now point out the number of "meatshields" who do nothing but protect the wizard. And point out the number of godly superpower wizards that are the protagonist.

Most of the great warriors of mythology & legend are not mere mortals. Either they have been bestowed with offensive and/or defensive blessings by divine entities or are semidivine themselves.

Gilgamesh, son of a goddess; a demigod. Roland, a great paladin possessed of artifacts and quite blessed; fought no mages, just a bunch of Islamic knights & warriors.

Odysseus, grandson of Hermes.

Achilles, son of Thetis, a nymph, who bathed him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable.

So yeah, they're going to be a bit more resilient than a mere mortal who picks up a sword and sets out to become a great warrior. They are going to have an edge from the very start.

 

[kenjib]

It's still limited, though. Generally, magic won't make a bunch of extras line up so they can be conveniently roundhouse-kicked by the heroes, but that certainly does happen in supposedly non-magical action movies.

I think that magic people in literature can sometimes create destruction on a far larger scale: going so far as bringing ruin to entire cities (or more!) in a short amount of time. It all depends on what the story needs to have happen. A roundhouse kick, however, can only do so much before it seems kind of silly (paging Chuck Norris!)...

Merely because magic could do anything doesn't mean the PCs could do anything. Any ability, whether magic or otherwise, has almost limitless consequences. Conan may be a lucky guy, but he also has a good sword-arm; under the right circumstances, that talent can defeat almost any foe.

In my original post I was pointing out that "defeat[ing] any foe" is precisely the kind of D&D focus that is not as key to literature - and even when it happens the motive/goal behind it is usually what's really important. In that literary context, any ability does not have almost limitless consequences. There is a wall of suspension of disbelief that eventually you will hit if you push this. Can Conan's sword-arm alone allow him to travel 1,000 miles instantly? Will it allow him to raise a castle from the earth by himself overnight? Will it bring his dead friend back to life?

Magic, however, by it's very nature does not have this wall. If desired, anything Conan can do could be handwaved away using some kind of magical ability. The reverse is definitely not true.

Problems arise when you fail to define "magic." It means something different in every game world and it must be definied, i.e. limited. It's not a given that someone who can raise an island with magic is more powerful in game terms than a swordsman; what is involved in casting that spells? Is it fast? Expensive? Tiring? Time consuming? What else can the magician do?

I've seen systems that ran into problems by including "martial arts." Martial arts quickly included unarmed combat, armed combat, throwing weapons used by Asians, chi techniques, Taoist sorcery, and ninjitsu, all rolled up into one. A problem? You bet! Why? Because it steamrolls over other characters who might focus more specifically on sorcery, unarmed combat, and so forth.

That may be true in D&D but it's not a problem at all in literature - this difference is exactly what I'm talking about. The fact that literature does not have to define magic gives it a very different role. People just do magical things and the potential is limited only by what the needs of the narrative demand. If limits exist, they are imposed by the author in order to further the story - often to heighten the risk in conflict and increase tension or to avoid the risk of deprotagonizing the hero.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Most of the great warriors of mythology & legend are not mere mortals. Either they have been bestowed with offensive and/or defensive blessings by divine entities or are semidivine themselves.

Gilgamesh, son of a goddess; a demigod. Roland, a great paladin possessed of artifacts and quite blessed; fought no mages, just a bunch of Islamic knights & warriors.

Odysseus, grandson of Hermes.

Achilles, son of Thetis, a nymph, who bathed him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable.

So yeah, they're going to be a bit more resilient than a mere mortal who picks up a sword and sets out to become a great warrior. They are going to have an edge from the very start.

And wizards are different?

Gandalf is the archangel Michael.

Merlin is the antichrist.

The origin of Elminster and Gandalf is Odin, who's, you know, a god.

Hell, the very name "magician" owes it's origin to Zoroastrian priests!

Sorry, wizards are just as supernatural as Hercules is. It's both or nothing.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Gandalf is the archangel Michael.

Well, if you want to talk Gandalf, then you're back to fighters being "meatshields"- very competent, yes, but nobody in the Company is even in his neighborhood.

Elminster, being derived from the D&D system, is going to find few warriors his equal.

 

[pawsplay]

Well, if you want to talk Gandalf, then you're back to fighters being "meatshields"- very competent, yes, but nobody in the Company is even in his neighborhood.

Except Eowyn, who kills the Witch-King, and Aragorn, the only one who can wield Anduril against the forces of Mordor. Apart from those two, who did all the dirty work besides getting their butt kicked by Saruman, you are right.

 

[pawsplay]

That may be true in D&D but it's not a problem at all in literature - this difference is exactly what I'm talking about. The fact that literature does not have to define magic gives it a very different role. People just do magical things and the potential is limited only by what the needs of the narrative demand. If limits exist, they are imposed by the author in order to further the story - often to heighten the risk in conflict and increase tension or to avoid the risk of deprotagonizing the hero.

That's a rubbish way to write fantasy. Orson Scott Card would box your ear for saying it. You can certainly take that approach. You can also have espionage organizations that don't have a defined adminstrative structure, they just do secret and espionagey things. You can have fights in which the warriors just do a little of this and a little of that until you decide it's time for one of them to drop. You certainly don't need geography.

The problem is that the result will be bloody stupid.