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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6654225" data-attributes="member: 996">I suppose EGG being a fan was reason enough for him.   Dying Earth is a classic of science-fiction that influenced later, equally classic works, like MZB's Darkover, or Wolfe's remarkable Urth of the New Sun - but it's not fantasy, and it's highly repeatable, fire-and-forget memorized formulae were nothing like any sort of magic that came before.  Even so, Vance's take on magic was convenient from a wargame design PoV.  The limited ammunition and specific effects for specific ammunition choices were dynamics wargames had handled with artillery, which wizards were analogous to in Chainmail, something that didn't change with D&D.  The casting was also relatively quick, where most traditional magic would involve long, elaborate rituals.  So it fit neatly into D&D's style of combat, too.  The obvious thing D&D took from Moorcock was alignment - Law/Chaos in 0D&D, later expanded with the Good/Evil axis.  Moorcock had not take on magic that I ever noticed.  Magic did magic stuff, mostly it was items that delivered combat-useable magic.  Elric was supposed to be a sorcerer, but essentially most of what he did under that rubric was call on Arioch for divine intervention or remember something about some monster a rival sorcerer had just summoned.  For the most part he just held onto Stormbringer while it ate armies.  There was no real consistency in how magic worked, though there was some when it came to how gods worked.  You left out Perseus - about the only mythic hero who was decked out with magic items like a D&D character.But, honestly, I don't see a strong reason to try to fit in all of those.  Some are pretty obscure.  Not that Archbishop Turpin - about the only example 2e could dig up for a 'Cleric,' even though he never healed anyone and fought with a sword & lance - is exactly a household name. Circe could turn men into animals.  Either by tapping them with a wand, or by feeding them a magic potion slipped into their food or wine, depending on the version.  That was /all/ she did as far as magical power went.Casters, and caster-equivalents, like Circe (a daughter of Helios & and grand-daughter of Oceanus), tend to be clever, have a small number of remarkable supernatural powers, and to cultivate and trade on a fearsome/mysterious reputation that they can't really back up when the hero's decapitating them.  And, in D&D terms, they would mostly be 'monsters' or NPCs.   D&D rapidly expand what spells could do to cover just about any supernatural feat ever attributed to just about any caster, artifact, deity or monster in any collection of folklore or nominally-fantasy work of fiction available to it's creators.But, the mechanism remained artillery-like, most spells being cast from a safe distance, and all being so many rounds of magical canister to be expended judiciously at the most opportune moment. Hmmm, well, yes, actually:   the name on the left in each of your comparisons there is the Hero, and we all know what happens to the villain.   Mind you, Beowulf wouldn't just up and kill Gandalf or Merlin, because murdering old men isn't his thing.  Old women who gave birth to trolls, maybe...  And neither Gandalf nor Merlin would have any reason to put themselves in such a situation.  Merlin would want to set himself up as court magician, and Gandalf would probably be there to retrieve some trinket from the dragon's horde.  Both would accomplish their goals with a lot of persuasion and very little magic.  Indeed, the same could be said even if we were talking Sturla's vision of Beowulf in world without any overt magic, where Merlin and Gandalf would just be old charlatans. That heirarchy is better handled by level than class.  There are extremely weak casters in genre (like Skeeve or Tobas or - well, most caster-protagonists, unless it's some Lensmen-esque powertrip, where everyone who matters is a god-being), there are extremely powerful warriors (already listed upthread). Relatively few heroes in myth or genre were defined only by their prowess with a weapon.  If you recall any of the old Giants in the Earth articles, the writers would typically give such characters many levels in both fighter and thief, and add special skills and abilities on top.  Because heroes were usually pretty varied and remarkable in their talents.  D&D has never done that well.  And, there's no game-balance or game-design reason for it.  You could take the basic (and, damn, high DPR as it is, it really is basic) combat power of a 5e Champion fighter, give it all the non-combat utility of a 5e Thief rogue, and still have a class that wouldn't necessarily overshadow the Barbarian or Monk, let alone any of the casters. Look at what casters actually /do/ in the source material.  Not their rep, but their actions when they're being ganked by the hero.  The disparity is there, it's just in the opposite direction you think it is.</blockquote>

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