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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dioltach" data-source="post: 5487794" data-attributes="member: 21843">One way that might provide balance between wizards and fighters is to make wizards physically weaker. As in, one blow can kill them, even at high levels.In the Conan story mentioned by the OP, the wizard died from a single hit from Conan's axe. Conversely, in a 2e AD&D game I was running at the weekend, one of the magic-users in the party took full damage from a dragon's breath weapon and still had enough hit points to run away, while another magic user took bite damage from the same dragon and barely felt it.One solution would be to introduce the wound point/vitality point system. Critical hits don't do multiples of standard damage: they go straight to the opponent's wound points. Seeing as most characters' wound points are the same as their CON score, regardless of level, even powerful wizards will only have a few WP, say around 10. This encourages fighters to invest in Improved Crits. In fact, I'd say Conan has an incredible critical threat range, lobbed his axe at the wizard and took him for all his wound points. Even if he hadn't killed him, in game terms the wizard would now be suffering significant penalties.Of course wizards still have an array of protective spells, but they do in fantasy too. Non-magical opponents have to find ways around those protections, like magical weapons.I'm not saying that the WP/VP system completely solves the problem, but it would definitely make any wizard think twice before putting himself in harm's way.</blockquote>

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