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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 4520080" data-attributes="member: 3649">My general overall 'ratio' answer is 'the amount it takes so that the number of wizards doesn't tip the balance of power one way or the other'. They either mostly cancel each other out by neutralizing each other's magic, or they simply don't deign to meddle in mundane affairs all that much. It's a rare, rare wizard that's actually interested in battles and nations and who is king, etc; they're much more interested in cataloging the 79 properties of heated gissia seeds or whatever.I generally think of 20-50 people in  large locale will be wizards,a nd that's the entire range from students to masters; most of them will top out at 4-8th level. Wizards are like specialist surgeons or trial lawyers back in the 1940's; it takes a lot of money, brains and connections to be one. You don't just find one in every town.Most of the NPC population rolls on straight 3d6, so many of the people who become wizards are destined to not be all that good at it. It'll be the rare NPC wizard that gets 4th level spells and the percentage only goes down sharply from there.Most wizards are going to prove pretty useless overall in a pitched military battle where the number of fighters outnumbers them 10,000 to 1. They might get off a couple three spells in the first few minutes, fry something like 20 of those 10,000 people, then some farmboy is going to put a three-foot-long arrow in his throat and down he goes. The minute that wizard shows himself, one of the captains on the other side is going to yell '100 gold bonus to the man who kills the mage!' and suddenly Mr Magic User is going to be the most popular target on the field. Even if they're pretty decent level, they're going to run out of spells waaaay before the enemy runs out of arrows. There isn't a '15-minute adventuring day' in a military battle.Most wizards do best when they stick to being smart rather than getting out on the battlefield. Scrying out enemy locations, using familiars as scouts, mind controlling some key messenger, etc. Then we go back to then being countered by the wizards on the other side, etc etc.</blockquote>

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