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

[Stormonu]

This is a feat regularly accomplished by orc war leaders. Does this involve anything more than Intimidate, maybe a rank or two in Diplomacy, and being tougher than the

Has the Leadership feat been overlooked in this discussion?

 

[Mort]

Has the Leadership feat been overlooked in this discussion?

It was actually discussed:

1) The leadership feat is, frankly, overly powerful as a feat compared to any other feat (though I think too many feats are underpowered so I wish this was not the case); but more importantly

2) Since anyone can take it, it's mooted as an equalizer for the fighter. The morphing of the original topic has become: what does a fighter bring to the table and is it enough. With a decent side tanget of can non-D&D characters that one would consider a "fighter" be adequately modeled by the fighter class as presented in 3e?.

 

[pawsplay]

I think many classic "fighters" are difficult to shoehorn into the 3e Fighter class. However, I think Boromir, Madmartigan, and Blackbeard the Pirate are not examples. They are among the subset whose principal abilities are to fight really well, which in turn convinces other people to fight alongside them.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd certainly consider the Spartans from 300 as fighters.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think a lot of mythological warriors are well modeled by the fighter class. They just happen to have abilities above and beyond those classes due to things like having divine ancestry and/or having had rituals performed upon them. In D&D terms, they're either not mere humans or have had permanent ritual magics done to them.

Some others even have gods taking an active interest in their futures, tipping the scales this way and that...mechanically, that's just having a powerful ally, not a class ability.

 

[Stormonu]

This is sounding almost like a variation on the "no true Scotsman" argument; if the person in question has abilities beyond being able to fight in decent armor and with a sword, "they can't really be a fighter, they have to be something more".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's as if nobody ever heard of dual-classing/multiclassing/gestalting...

 

[pawsplay]

I think a lot of mythological warriors are well modeled by the fighter class. They just happen to have abilities above and beyond those classes due to things like having divine ancestry and/or having had rituals performed upon them. In D&D terms, they're either not mere humans or have had permanent ritual magics done to them.

I don't think that should bar them from discussion any more than Gandalf's angelic nature, Merlin's half-fiend blood, or Belgarion's divine gifts make them ineligible to be spellcasting archetypes. The Greek heroes simply live in a world where "My Dad (or Greatgrandfather) is a God" is a fairly common feat/race/template/path for PCs.

In fact, I wrote up a cute Heroic template for 3.5 once, that mirrored half-fiend and half-celestial, using a single Domain associated with their parent as the source of their spell-like abilities. Hercules, as a fighter/barbarian with the ability to use the Strength domain as spell-like abilities, works out pretty well.

 

[Bluenose]

It's also noticeable that you don't really need to invoke Merlin's half-fiend nature, or Gandalf's angelic status, to make a D&D-style spellcaster that can do the sort of things they do. In fact Merlin can be done without several whole schools of magic, if you make him a Wizard, and still match up to most of the things he does in the tales (flying Stonehenge across from Ireland might be a little hard).

You can look at this with most of the classes, in a way. They're wide enough in scope to cover a wide range of heroic archetypes. Wizard covers a huge range of spellcaster types, who are often in practice specialised in a few sorts of magic, and gives access to them all. Rogue covers con-men, pickpockets, spies, scouts, burglars, detectives, and a lot of other skilled and cunning types. Fighter covers people who use weapons really well - and disregards the warriors who have something extra about them, whether it's extraordinary abilities or leadership talents.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't think that should bar them from discussion

That actually wasn't my point: I was just observing that some of what they do is not because of what they have trained to be, but because of what they inherently are...just like how first level Human, Half-Orc and Elf fighters with the same feat, weapon, and armor choices will have different abilities.

So if you look at Mythological Warrior X, and note that he can fly, the mere fact that he can fly doesn't mean he isn't a pure fighter- it may be that his flight is an innate racial ability, not something from his class (in D&D terms).