Are high level mages always more powerful than high level warriors?
Lapa
Member Posts: 73
When your party levels up and monsters as well, your combat and strategies becomes much more dependant on magic. You can't just use your typical hack & slash tactic (which is pretty common in BG1) but have to cast some spells to protect your party or soften enemies defences. Usually mages/priests are characters which really decides if the battle is lost or won. For example one succesfull horror spell can win the battle for you at the beginning.
I was just wondering how could a level 30 fighter manage against level 30 wizard? Or a party of 6 fighters against 6 mages? I really can't see fighters winning that battle unless they are having godly gear. Wizard slayer class might be an exception...
Btw, are there any famous high level warriors in forgotten realms? I can find much information about some powerful wizards (Elminster, Khelben, Irenicus...) but not so much about epic warriors.
I was just wondering how could a level 30 fighter manage against level 30 wizard? Or a party of 6 fighters against 6 mages? I really can't see fighters winning that battle unless they are having godly gear. Wizard slayer class might be an exception...
Btw, are there any famous high level warriors in forgotten realms? I can find much information about some powerful wizards (Elminster, Khelben, Irenicus...) but not so much about epic warriors.
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Comments
Well, there's a lot.
I think Ed Greenwood said it best when it came down to Fighters vs Mages. Paraphrasing obviously, but if the Fighter came straight on versus a prepared Mage, the fighter deserved to die. However, a Fighter caught a Mage who wasn't 100% prepared, the fighter probably was going to wipe the floor with him pretty brutally.
It reminded me of HK-47 from KOTOR. You don't fight Jedi with a blaster. You poison them. Blow them up. Cut their air supply. Using a blaster is for fools and dead men.
Statistically, there is an adventurer for every ten normal people, 50% of these adventurers are fighter types and only 10% of this much are wizards, and that's because they aren't really meant for direct combat.
They must memorize spells and prepare tactics in advance. Magic costs money and material components. Also, anyone who flirts with mystical energies might end up drawing attention of powerful beings.
Lapa, in forgotten realms there's Artemis Entreri, Bruenor Battlehammer, Drizzt Do'Urden and Azoun IV , but wizards are usually the most popular because mental characters tend to keep things happening.
In BG Mages are unquestionably more powerful after the first few levels (or until you get your hands on a Wand of Fire) since there's effectively no limits on resting, beyond those you set for yourself, which completely throws out the main advantage of a warrior over a wizard, High Level Wish-resting effectively completely removes all spell-casting limits, though since the wish list is random, you might not get the option every time.
And as for your question. A single lvl 30 mage could EFFORTLESSLY obliterate 50 level 40 fighters easily, IF he was knew they were coming and was prepared to fight them. On the other hand, if they caught him unawares, even a lone level 8 fighter could cut him down pretty easily. On the other hand, unless there was a very pressing need to fight, most wizards would simply teleport away to a safe house, and begin scrying on the forces to deterimine their strengths, weaknesses, and why they're attacking him, then act accordingly.
think about it. you know a fight's coming, how many spells do you cast before you initiate the battle? how many rounds would that cost you if did that during the fight?
on the other hand a fighter is ready as soon the proverbial hits the fan!
it'd be cool to have a mod for enemy AI (mostly when you know that a conversation will initiate a fight), where when they see your mages preparing spells like summonings and buffs, they do the same. not to start a fight, but just in case!
if i was standing about and somebody approached me and then stood 20 metres away casting stoneskin, mirror image, summon monsters: alarm bells would start ringing!
A well prepared and well played Mage, just has far more access to powerful 'cheese' in a fight than a warrior at that level. With project image, contingencies, spell triggers, time stop, improved alacrity, limited wish, wish, etc... the mage could practically wipe the floor of him without hardly breaking a sweat...
As it stands, low level mages are pretty much better than warriors as well, since Sleep is a gamebreaker.
Of course my money's on the party of six high level Fighter/Mage/Thieves...
Hilarious: my brother and I wanted to settle this dispute (me Mage vs. him Fighter) once, using 3rd Ed. paper DnD. We agreed level 20, and could choose from all possible magic items from the DMG.
I won: casting fly was enough to thwart all his plans: he forgot a ranged weapon and did not realize that flying would be an option!
Moehahahahahahaha!
In 3rd edition, HP progression continues at the same rate, but spells are still capped at their original caps, aside from the handful with no caps prior that cap at caster level 25 in 3rd editon. Only epic level spells go higher then that, unless you spend a boat load of feats to increase the Dice limit of a spell by 1 per feat.
3rd edition works reasonably well from 1-20, but what balance there is completely unravels once you hit epic levels. 2nd Edition actually stays roughly the same overall up to 30, which is the normal max for characters. BG doesn't really show this as the fact that ToB was rushed, and there's already a lot of flawed mechanical decisions in place means BG's High level was doomed from the beginning to be a broken mess.
BG1 was handled very well, and had several mechanics that were PnP accurate, that were thrown out when transitioning to BG2, for no real reason, as well as inconsistent implementation of Kits. Some are ridiculously way more powerful then they should be, while others are substantially weaker then they should be. And the ones that are more or less correct, are compared to the broken and erroneously more powerful kits and called underpowered.
Every level above 30 in 2nd edition PnP requires performing tasks for a Divine sponsor per level (you no longer again xp after 30, and all classes progress towards divinity at the same rate), which gives you a Divine HD per completed task and slowly increasing access to lesser divine powers until you reach 40 and become a Demigod, and control of the character passes to the DM.
Epic Spells in 2nd edition PnP are RIDICULOUSLY more powerful then the ones in BG. Except IA, which is actually a bit weaker, cause all it does is reduce spell casting time of spells 9th level or lower by 5, to a minimum of 1 for 4 rounds, not removing the 1 spell per round limit, like the BG version does.
Spoiler tag added. -Jalily
3rd edition is the poster child for "Fighters cannot get nice things".
But, much like in 2nd edition for dual-classing, Fighters are still very front loaded. They gain most of their benefits quickly and make an excellent base for a multi-class character.
Low magic campaigns hurt mages even more then fighters, since they have trouble finding new scrolls, having to depend heavily on their 2 spells per level to fill out their book limiting their ability to quickly re-purpose their spell casting if they lack the proper spell for the job, as well as using up their xp, time and gold to craft the wands, rods, staves, to prop of their limited spells per day. Also, in low magic setting, monsters requiring high strength magical weapons don't exist or aren't a focus of your adventures mostly, making fighters easier to use. Yes, mages will wreck your day, to a degree, but they paid A LOT for that power. Low magic setting also tend to have a deep seated distrust or persecution towards magic, making it a much riskier profession.
But in other circumstances the mage is very likely to beat the figher pretty easily. Unless the fighter happens to be a paladin with a holy avenger.
That said there are things that fighters can do to turn the fight to their advantage. A ring of spell turning is very powerful in P&P. Magical arrows are good to interrupt spells because the protection from magical weapons (and mantle, etc) spells just don't exist. And the contingency spell in P&P is nothing like the BG2 incarnation. This is assuming core rules of course. Add in the supplement cheese and it gets very unbalanced.
But the game isn't supposed to be one on one PvP style combat. And that is where they equal out (and one of my big problems with NWN which tried to balance out FOR PvP). Fighters can keep on going for ever so long as they have healing or just really good armor. Wizards eventually run out of spells. With that being said, there is a lot to be done with spells like summon monster. Means that they don't really need tanks. They can summon them at will.
"There are old soldiers and there are bold soldiers. But there aren't any old, bold soldiers."
Whereas Mages just sit around in towers reading books all the time. What are they going to die of? A paper cut?
Try this same fight in 4e (which is rather Fighter-centric).
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In BG, it seems that Fighter-types get the best end-game saving throws and HP, so that's something in their favor. Their HLAs can be pretty darn brutal, and BG(1/2) mages never learn the really good spells like Fly, Teleport Without Error, or Plane Shift -- and they can't use Gate to bring in a Solar.
@Lapa: in a game designed by nerds, would you really expect the top political positions to be held by jocks?
Mages on the other hand have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and power that drives them forward, even when not directly adventuring, they holed up doing research into new spells (which grants extra XP when successful), scrying about subjects of interest or working magical theories.
That, and most caster simply live longer, either by magical or divine intervention. Most of those 21+ mages are at least a couple centuries old..some going back 2-3 thousand years. (Halaster Blackcloak is the oldest known NON-undead mage in Faerun, his age being placed between 4-5 thousand. Larloch is oldest known non-god, former mortal in the Realms)
Brooch of Anti Magic shell= fighter putting the mage in a headlock and noogieing him to death.
Anti-Magic shell cancels any and all magic in its area of effect, to my knowledge the only thing available to a mortal that could cancel it is the Blackstaff, a unique magic item held by Khelben. There may be some spells that could counter it temporarily, but unless it actually destroys the brooch the fighter could turn it back on, and how many turns is it actually going to take for a fighter to kill a mage with no spell protections or magic items.
And where exactly does this item come from? I don't even know of any greater artifacts that could cast antimagic field more then 3/day.
Lots of ways actually. Just trap him in a windowless Force cage slightly larger then the anti-magic field (Effects like Force cage, wall of force and the like aren't affected by anti-magic fields). That'll give you 24 hours to figure out what to do with him and re-pick spells. Like build a corral of walls of force, then create a wall of iron on top and tip it into the corral, 5 round creation inescapable crushing trap.
Or if you're an epic caster, just blow him away with 10th level spells (throwing him into Orbit with Nailed to the Sky would be particularly funny, allowing you to sit back and watch via crystal ball as the cold vacuum of space works it's "magic". Or Demise Unseen (Kills and instantly reanimate the fighter as a ghoul under your complete control). They have a 50% chance of ignoring the effects of an anti-magic field.
So yeah, wizards always wins especially in FR when all these spells are easily accessible. In Greyhawk however, the wizard will probably die of age before he could find the first spell he needed.