D&D General How Old Are Your Wizards?

[Umbran]

So I'm curious what category people feel their Wizards should be in, ranging from:

What do you mean "should be"?

Like, what age should products present them in art? What age should we play them? What?

Broadly
In products - I hope products present wizards of a variety of adult ages, races, genders, body types, and so on. Diversity in presentation is a good thing, not just in wizards, but across character types.

I'm okay if products stick to depiction of adults. They probably ought to put some thought into how they approach children in deadly situations.

In play - whatever's good for your table is fine.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Plus magic seems to age wizards a bit fast:

1927:

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1938:

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While this is obviously the movie team not paying attention (or maybe not caring) re: chronology. I kind of like the concept of the wizard hitting the "old person" look quickly and then staying there. So most just remember wizards as Old because that's what they see for the majority.

Plus it seems to destroy their fashion sense. Look at that smooth mofo in the first picture. What happened?

 

[greg kaye]

Plus it seems to destroy their fashion sense. Look at that smooth mofo in the first picture. What happened?

Something far better than happens to many people as they get old.
(but this isn't really the topic of the thread).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Generally, I don't play Wizards very much, as I find their lack of class features (in most editions, not just 5e) disappointing. However, I have thought of a few, and mostly they tend to be adult, the "fresh out of college" type. But there is one exception.

Should I ever get into a 13th Age game and have my other go-to character preferences already covered by someone else (e.g., there's already a Paladin and a Monk or Sorcerer would be redundant 'cause we have lots of damage-dealers), then I may someday play Dodec O'Hedron, second-youngest member of the O'Hedron automata (the only younger being his sibling, Icos.) It's meant to be a half-silly, half-serious take on questions of inheritance, family, Frankenstein and his monster, etc. Technically, Mr. O'Hedron would probably be a "child," as he's probably not even a decade old, but being warforged, he was created with adult intelligence and a significant set of inbuilt knowledge. Hence, "other"!

 

[Stalker0]

mostly 20-30s for a standard adventurer, I only bust out the old wizard in games like high level one shots. It just never felt right to me to have some 70 old man as a 3rd level wizard.

 

[Maxperson]

The common fantasy trope of a Wizard (even a 1st level one!) being an old man wearing a robe and a big hat has been with D&D ever since the beginning. However, as time has gone by, the requirement for a new Wizard to be aged has been eroded by players, DM's, authors, and other fantasy influences. Even without these requirements, the iconic Wizard picture in the 5e Wizard is an older man.

So I'm curious what category people feel their Wizards should be in, ranging from:

Child Wizards (Tim Hunter from Books of Magic, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter)
Adolescent Wizards (Pug from Magician: Apprentice, Skeeve from Myth Adventures, Garion from the Belgariad)
Adult Wizards (John Constantine from Hellblazer, Harry Dresden from The Dresden Files, Medea from Jason and the Argonauts*, Schmendrick from The Last Unicorn)
Old Wizards (Merlin from the Matter of England, Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien's works, Abernathy from the Landover series, The Baba Yaga from Slavic folklore**)

*the original "hot sorceress", most likely, a trope that's just as ingrained as the "old man in robes".
**not to be confused with John Wick!

Please refrain from arguments about who is or isn't actually a Wizard, but is instead a Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Avatar, or what have you!

My wizards are generally adult to old. A prodigy might be 1st level and still adolescent. The prodigy category includes PCs if the player wants his wizard to start young. For the rest, wizardry starts in adulthood and continues on with constant learning until they are old. Many old wizards are powerful, but many semi-retired and really stopped learning and advancing and so are old and low to mid level in power.

Note that by many, I mean relatively many. Spellcasters in my world are fairly rare, even in the Forgotten Realms. I've altered that aspect of the setting.

 

[Lanefan]

In my games they average 8 years older than Fighters, as we still use the 1e age adjustments by class rule.

 

[Charlaquin]

It just depends. I will say that there is more of a tendency for old wizards, and I don't remember ever seeing an old first level fighter.

Depending on what you consider “old.” I have seen a few fighters who were retired former veterans, with their first level status being explained as them having been out of practice for a long time. But they’re usually more on the older side of middle-aged rather than full-on elderly like wizards often are.

 

[Andvari]

In Basic and AD&D wizard could get old really fast once they learned the haste spell.

 

[Mort]

In Basic and AD&D wizard could get old really fast once they learned the haste spell.

IME the AD&D haste spell aged the fighters FAR more than the wizard. Attacks were doubled but spellcasting was not!