Fighter vs Mage, 1 on 1

I am wondering, who do you think would win in some kind of arena battle, fighter (of any flavor) or a mage? I guess there are three possible scenarios of the battle:
1) Only basic gear is allowed, no potions
2) Best possible gear for a class is allowed, but no potions
3) Best possible gear -and- potions are allowed
A separate scenario is also whether pre-buffing is allowed.
Also, there are probably thresholds for levels where the outcome would change. For example, a low level fighter would probably easily beat low level mage in all three settings, with or without pre-buffing but a high level mage would probably beat fighter in all settings apart from 3?
I guess it comes to the question - can a fighter without potions break through the mid- to high-level mage's defense (PfMW, PfNW, PfME, Stoneskin, Spell Immunity) and can a mage break through the defence of a fighter who took a potion of magic blocking?
So, at what levels and in what setting (1,2,3, with and without pre-buffing) do you think each class would win?
1) Only basic gear is allowed, no potions
2) Best possible gear for a class is allowed, but no potions
3) Best possible gear -and- potions are allowed
A separate scenario is also whether pre-buffing is allowed.
Also, there are probably thresholds for levels where the outcome would change. For example, a low level fighter would probably easily beat low level mage in all three settings, with or without pre-buffing but a high level mage would probably beat fighter in all settings apart from 3?
I guess it comes to the question - can a fighter without potions break through the mid- to high-level mage's defense (PfMW, PfNW, PfME, Stoneskin, Spell Immunity) and can a mage break through the defence of a fighter who took a potion of magic blocking?
So, at what levels and in what setting (1,2,3, with and without pre-buffing) do you think each class would win?
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Comments
Mages are kind of a hard counter to fighters. They have far too many tools to both make themselves immune to anything the fighter can do, and deal obscene amounts of damage that no fighter can mitigate.
low level, the fighter probably wins, but if is not lucky with ST the mage wins, there are many low level spells that if the ST is failed leave the fighter hopeless, blinding him, stunning him, slowing him, webbing him and so on.
from mid level the only chance a fighter has is starting at very close range and not buffed, as he can disrupt the mage with a fast enough weapon before the mage uses the cheap and fast lev 2 invisibility spell that let him then gain some distance, self buff, call summons and impose to the fighter his chosen tactic.
a potion of magic blocking is not that much useful against a mage controlled by an human, lasts only few rounds, protects only from spells on target, but not from summons and (i am not 100% sure) aoe ones.
the mage can still use summons, and if that potion is allowed i suppose that a full charged wand that summons helpers is also allowed, or go invisible, for a very long time if the lev 2 spell is used, and wait that many potions expire. the mage really does not need to cast planetar, ADHW and other high level spells, can easily win vs every fighter using lev 3 or lower spells, ie stacking some webs and taking him out with his sling or MMM while the fighter, even with good ST, will probably fail to save to at least one of the webs, so every attack hits ignoring his AC and the mage thac0.
if the fighter manages to save vs all the webs and escapes the trap the mages goes invisible, rest, remaining invisible for the 8 hours needed, and try again with all the slots filled with spells.
there is really no story. a medium level mage properly played and with mid level equipment has no problem to beat a end game fighter with the best end game equipment and potions unless they start not buffed and side by side, then there is nothing he can do vs a GWW with a fast enough weapon.
PFMW the fighter uses a not enchanted weapon, stoneskin and the fighter uses a weapon with elemental damage so keep the mage disrupted, it is the only chance a fighter has to win.
I guess it also depends on the size of arena. Wouldn't it be possible for a fighter to run away from the range of ADHW or web or anything else that the mage throws? And do arrows have larger range than some of these magic?
Also, would Wizard Slayer have any chance? Or Inquisitor, with True Sight and Dispel Magic?
Or, more generally, could -any- class win against a mid- to high-level mage that is played properly by a human?
In a large area the mage can keep out of the way using invisibility and just throw summons in from a distance. I'm dubious that any available summons could do much against the fighter (particularly not if he's allowed to use healing), but the mage could probably at least keep himself safe in a stand-off (unless against a fighter/thief of course).
and i am not even factoring in the SoTM that let him go invisible in no time after each spell all day long.
depending on the level the mage can stack in sequencers webs and other spells that even with shorty ST the fighter can fail to save, and the mage can lower the ST with greater malison.
a blinded, webbed feebleminded or slowed fighter has no chance to win, and also one that is turned to stone.
you named maze, and if returning from the maze the fighter finds a bunch of skull traps or delayed fireballs he will take damage, while the mage, if the room is not so small that he can not avoid to be in the sight range, can sleep invisible how many times he want, while the fighter can't see and touch him.
obviously it is not possible with the engine limitations, as well as to be mazed in a 2 men party means automatic defeat with the engine as it is, but if we talk of what they can do, without considering the problem of an engine that is not designed for human vs human battles, i would say that as mage i would fear a fighter, even a shorty one with that cloak, only if we start not buffed at very close range.
the mage has all the advantages and can counter or avoid almost all that the fighter can do, is not in a hurry and has only to wait that the fighter fails a save, while been able to sleep undetected has unlimited rests and tries.
summons are not a big problem for a high level fighter with healing potions or a good regeneration item, but can be annoying and buy to the mage some time, maybe the time to cast a spell without being disrupted, and if a planetar is there instead of low level summons he can actually be dangerous, is not something that the fighter can ignore continuing to focus on the mage, assuming that he can see the mage at all. a mage has ways to cast very fast, rov, wands, sequencers, and can go invisible at will, spells, potions, SoTM, the last allow him also to go invisible right after casting a spell, he don't have to time his casting so the spell is cast right at the end of a round and the next rounds begins almost immediately after, so he can use a spell or potion to go again invisible.
and at high level is RoV + AoP + improved alacrity that make the diference, not ADHW or a planetar, TS and PI are completely optional, but why not use them?
vs an inquisitor or maybe a wizard slayer if can be different, the inquisitor can true sight him and dispel him, at least before the mage casts si divination and abjuration, and a good player will see and/or dispel the mage before he has time to set up those defenses, so as mage i would fear him a lot more.
i am probably biased as i have much more experience and skill using casters (and thieves) then fighters, but still, even if i know that a good fighter player can be much more effective then me in that role, i still think that there is no comparison and starting from a little distance and not very close the mage from mid levels always wins.
then the arrow ignores the PFMW, its damage is adsorbed by the stoneskin, but the elemental damage works, and is not enough to really damage the mage, unless the fighter has a lot of ranged apr (GWW), but can disrupt the mage, and this is what brings to the mage huge problems.
a wise mage is aware of all this and strikes only when he is ready, and when he does it try also to have a way back, as even with greater malison active the spells can be saved.
@gorgonzola I think you are underestimating how strong a top level fighter can be.
There is almost no chance that a well-equipped dwarven fighter will fail a saving throw against web, far less petrification. His saving throw vs spell will be at worst -5, so web would never work even when malison is active unless the mage also had a specialist bonus.
- Base 6
- Shorty bonus 1
- ring prot -1
- ring Gaxx -3
- amulet Seldarine -4
- Helm Balduran -5
The fighter might have better saves than that of course - for instance using the amulet of spell warding, +3 ring or from the hell trials bonus. And that does not even take account of their ability to use potions or other buffs to counteract any use of malison - that would be a standard response by any fighter.
As I said before it's really difficult to do spell damage to someone wearing the unmodded Cloak of Mirroring - your skull traps, wiltings etc will have zero effect. Timestop and physical damage is probably the most realistic option for the mage to be successful, but that relies on having room to maneuver in so that the cast can be made uninterrupted.
By the way, even invisibility is not a total protection for a mage. There are several items that a fighter could use to dispel that and the fighter also has access to large numbers of summons (particularly from staffs of earth and fire) that could potentially help track down an invisible mage. Area damage guided in by summons could be nasty - the mage had better make sure he's immune to fire or he could be extremely rapidly toasted by the scorcher ammunition from the Big Metal Rod for instance, even if his location is not exactly known. Frag grenades and fireballs are other options to track down and damage a hidden enemy.
Attacking the sword has another problem - it has AC -20, so even a high-level fighter will only hit some of the time. Better to save your attacks for more vulnerable targets, and only swing at the sword if there's nothing else you can hit.
For general anti-summon purposes, there's also the Skull of Death helmet - one casting of Death Spell per day. If the mage tries to flood the area with summons, the fighter can clear them out. Once.
The mage is weakest in lvl 1, need to babysit but that is an investment to got a strong char in the later stages where brute force not always enough to win.
but please don't under estimate a high level mage...
he can make himself invisible at will with the staff, he can make himself immune to all the things the few summons able to see trough invisibility a fighter has at his disposal and also all the aoe weapons he can use but mainly he can rest at will as after he has survived trough what the fighter can do to hit him while invisible he can use PI, that also go invisible using the staff, to spam wish, from the spell book and the 2 other scrolls available in the game, as one is needed to learn the spell.
given the number of PI a high level mage has and the use of a potion of insight from a quick slot the chance that a mage fails to get the rest option are very very little, it happened to me maybe once in many runs where i abused of wish resting.
and even so, if there is enough space in the fighting arena to be out of the sight of the fighter the mage goes invisible and rest normally, while the fighter has to wait 8 hours without doing anything if his ways to deal with and invisible toon are all used, or else the mage takes some little damage, goes invisible again and continue to rest.
this is an incredible advantage for the mage as the fighter can count only on one rest, as he uses an item with charges/day it is lost, as he depletes his healing potions he can only rely on regeneration items, while a mage can create PI clones that send mordy swords and planetar against the fighter, spam every useful spell, and then wish to rest all day long.
or can spam PI that after wishing for rest can cast shapeshift and spam TS, in mind flyer form, warewolf form or golem form each PI will do damage, even if the fighter brings his ac to crazy levels, as every hit during the TS ignores ac and is always successful.
as every PI will spam also some mordy and a planetar, if the previous ones are not still alive, to keep the warrior engaged for the round needed to spam an other PI and the round needed to cast improved alacrity and spam wishes there is few the warrior can do to counter it, a single planetar and some mordy are not a problem for a top level warrior with the best items, but fighting them over and over can be a problem, and it is not the main weapon of the mage, only something he does to annoy the fighter and gain some time.
if the mage can survive what the fighter can do against a toon that can go invisible at will and has the best protections in the game, and i don't see as a well played mage can not survive it, there is nothing that the fighter can do to avoid to be stat drained to death or killed by the high apr of a warewolf improved hasted that ignores his ac as hits during a TS.
obviously this is not the first thread of X vs Y, who will win?
many others has been done in the years, on those forums and elsewhere and there is no real way to know if the proposed strategies will work, who really would win, as the engine does not allow to test it for real, but i stil find those threads useful and interesting as there is a lot to learn reading the proposed strategies.
- At low level my bet is on the warrior although I wouldn't be certain of the outcome (a successful blind means game over for the warrior).
- Hard to comment on mid level (we'd need to determine what is mid level first then which point of the game is considered to determine access to magical items)
- At max level, I don't think the warrior has a chance as the wizard simply has too many hard counters:
- - In case he needs to start unbuffed, the wizard can self buff instantly with a mix of contingencies and sequencers. If he wants to keep these options for a more offensive phase, he can simply invis, buff then go to town
- - Time stop, shapechange (I don't believe any item can protect you from intelligence drain, could be wrong on this).
- - Invis / Mordenkainen's sword (I can't think of many (if any weapon) that can damage them)
- - Strip the warrior from his magic resistance and use whatever spells he wants (even fully resisted, an unlimited supply of Abi Dhalzim's / fireball and the like will generate an infinite amount of damage)
- - Should the warrior be lucky and kill the wizard, he will most likely be very disappointed to realise he has just killed a clone while the wizard was seeping a hot cup of tea invisible in a corner.
- - Imprisonment (except if the warrior is a raging berserker)
- - Keep a wish to reset his spellbook at the end o the fight so he is immediately ready for round 2 in the arena.
The list goes on and on and on which isn't very surprising considering arcane casters are by far the most powerful characters at high level.
Only exceptions I could see to this (but even then the warrio would have a shot without being garanteed victory): if the fight start at very close quarter or if the warrior is a wizard slayer using darts (to quickly stack up spells misfire chances) and the wizard has some unlucky rolls.
The point I was trying to make was that, given their choice of equipment, fighters are far more difficult to kill than is generally recognized. I already noted that the strategies you suggested earlier based around spell damage won't work and a top-ranked fighter would also have no trouble at all dealing with a stream of planetars and mordy swords. I haven't used any healing consumables (like potions or rod of resurrection) when playing this game for many years and regeneration + passive equipment abilities (like Blackrazor for instance) would be more than enough to keep HPs high in this situation unless the mage intervened more directly (for instance using PW:blind, then malison which may make the fighter potentially vulnerable to things like slow or symbol:stun.
But do not underestimate he low level mage - e.g. at level 1 a specialist mage with blindness and pre-cast armour (very long duration, can be kept up at all times) has a good chance to win with typical level 1 equipment. Fighter just needs to miss 1st attack and fail a difficult saving throw.
as the mage can use the staff or a potion to go invisible even the miscast magic of the WS has little use, the mage has only to wait that its effect expires.
What i would fear is a GWW from every warrior with a weapon that has elemental damage, as the elemental damage animation can possibly prevent the mage even from drinking an invisibility potion, but maybe not from going invisible trough the staff and even if the mage starts with a stoneskin on, that we can regard as a long term buff, not as a buff adopted for that particular battle, the disruption from the elemental damage is enough to carve trough the skins then to activate a second GWW without the mage being able to use pfmw.
about berseker and imprisonment the rage lasts only 10 rounds, a high level PI lasts more, and he don't know when the mage will try to use imprisonment on him, so the mage has only to wait that the rage expires, he has all the time in the world as he can remain invisible as long as he likes and has many PI to attack, even without the wish rest. even with the best items the mage can not cast imprisonment faster then 4, so the berseker can probably make himself immune to it, but he has to do it twice for each PI and has not unlimited use of the rage.
@Grond0 even with a 15 ft radius, that is not in the game, the mage or his clone can cast imprisonment in 4, i am not sure that the fighter, even with speed boots, can escape from it if the mage blocks his movement with some summoned and well placed mordy swords and his own body.
sure the fighter can use both the boots and the armor, thing that costs some ac, but let him move at 4x speed so for a mage not only is not easy to trap him, but even to be in the right spot to cast TS and have the fighter in the aoe, i try to see the things from both the perspectives.
the fighter with 4x speed can kite everything, run fast away from aoe spells, if is not protected in other ways from them and he can use vorpal weapons to kill the summons mordy included, with hit and run tactics, he is not weak at all and also he has many possible ways to counter most, but not all, the mage can do, and he can make the mage pay hard every error.
but here i am not only talking of a fight that the engine does not let happen, but even of a different engine where the TS has the PnP aoe...
Imprisonment is a touch range spell and the caster becomes visible when they begin the cast - so the PI would have to be pretty lucky to complete a cast before being interrupted. However, the fighter wouldn't have to rely on interrupting it anyway - drinking a potion of invisibility would break the spell even if true sight were active.
i think that in the end the one that will win is the one that is controlled by the better player as every one of them can somehow counter what the other can do in some way.
until TS kicks in at least, if the mage is good enough to reach the point when he can safely cast it.
Me use da 2 remaining rounds of the TS to prepare tea for me and cheese fondue for familiar
However, in "real life" situations, things aren't so clear cut. A lot of times the outcome of an armed conflict is a matter of who "gets the drop" on whom first, or who attacks first. A wise fighter isn't going to attack a prepared mage openly, and she certainly isn't going to announce her intention to attack or, worse yet, try to do a villain's monologue to the mage's face before taking action. She'll make a plan to surprise the mage with the attack. And a surprised mage is usually a dead mage, especially if the fighter has obtained information about what contingencies the mage is known to use, what gear the mage has, what wards are in place, and goes in prepared to deal with those things with pre-chosen and carefully designed gear of her own.
That actually reminds me of this adventure book (think classic Choose your own adventure style books. I miss those
So, yeah... It ultimately comes down to proper strategy, planning and taking advantage of your opponent's weaknesses. Or, you could use this argument to say a clever Thief would win vs both.
Well, duh. NEVER mess with clever thieves or bards.
the thief can not compare with us fighters, is one of the weakest cl.. "(never ends the phrase as is stabbed ).
"stupid fighter", tells the mage, "he deserved it, but as i have always a stoneskin on..." (steps into a spike trap and triggers it).
Thanks for the memories, I remember reading that exact same book as a kid. It was pretty epic actually, very well put together with complex branching paths, multiple ways to achieve the same objective, and even hidden secret side quests.
The protagonist was a ninja, in the service of the ninja deity Kwon(I think?), which was a tiger. This was about the coolest thing that my 13 year old brain could imagine.
Mage gang unite!
That's the one!