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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5888421" data-attributes="member: 87792">That depends on the world.  Being able to sling a minor cantrip like ray of frost makes you little more powerful than simply being able to throw a dagger.  But it changes the tone. I think that one spell per day hasn't been true even at first level literally for decades.  Second edition specialist wizards could manage two and third edition three at first level.  (This ignores cantrips).  And yes, even one spell per day that is (a) completely reliable and (b) contains no risk.  And (c) just takes a small amount of time to prepare and can be cast in a single action.  You might not get much of it, but that doesn't make it other than cheap.  Expensive magic is WFRP style (2e or 3e).  Where using magic has a risk of demons coming to either posess you or eat your face.  Or magic Call of Cthulu style where using magic costs sanity - an almost non-renewable resource.  As it is, every day you are allowed for trivial effort and no long term consequences to re-write the rules of reality.  D&D 3.X is balanced round four major encounters per day - an almost obscene rate.  If we work on the principle that the average encounter holds one opponent per PC (which given some are likely to be really large) an average PC under this balance is going to kill over a thousand people per year.  Life is obscenely cheap with that setup.  Which doesn't make magic anything other than cheap.  And not all D&D spells are combat spells - Overland Flight or the like would certainly have helped the trek to (or even round) Moria.  I have.  And with Jack Vance, an archmage could hold maybe six spells in his head.  (And from memory also use swords). What D&D mages are derived from is tabletop wargaming battlefield artillery.  Then possibly you're unaware how much of an outlier D&D mages are.  A mid-level mage could take on a Harry Potter mage and probably win (especially as Harry Potter mages aren't that tactically smart).  And every single edition of D&D has failed at balance because magic has been too cheap.  Gygax explicitly said that he made the seemingly overpowered martial classes in Unearthed Arcana to try to balance casters with non-casters, and other than Robilar (who had many one on one sessions with the DM), almost every famous character at Gygax's table was a spellcaster.  2e had its problems - being able to cast <a href="http://www.alchar.org/~aedil/Campaign/WizardSpells/Phantasmal_Force.html" target="_blank">Phantasmal Force</a> twice per day (at level 1!) is pretty overpowering.  3e - half the tier 1 classes are the primary spellcasters in the PHB - and the non-casters don't often make it up to tier 3 (and those that do tend to be classes like those in the Book of 9 Swords). The point you miss by bringing up balance is that (as 4e has demonstrated) there is no balance issue with wizards being able to cast magic missile at will rather than falling back on a crossbow.  It's a way of feeling cool even if the crossbow bolt is technically stronger.  And there's nothing wrong with feeling cool.  Where the wizard dominates is that the fighter basically starts with the ability to get somewhere on his own two feet or whatever he rides, and his end goal is to stick a sharpened piece of metal in someone.  The wizard starts off much the same - but it's the long distance teleports, the major illusions, invisibility, charm person, etc. that gives them far more power than the fighter in the long run.  To hit someone with a sword you need to reach them...</blockquote>

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