Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:wizardsandmelees 9442.jpg|frame|"If by 'war gods' you mean '[[Game Breaker|flame spewing apocalypse in human form]],' then yeah."]]
{{quote|''Your wizard is like [[Pokémon|Magikarp]], except instead of [[Magikarp Power|Gyarados]] it evolves into [[Olympus Mons|Mewtwo.]]''
|'''DivineDragoonKain''', User on [[GameFAQs]] Pen and Paper RPG board}}
{{quote|"As if it is OUR fault that they chose a class not capable of doing everything."
|'''[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0764.html Vaarsuvius]''', ''[[The Order of the Stick]]''}}
''Melee classes gain power as they level up at a linear rate. Magic users gain power as they level up quadratically.''
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First off the idea that [[Reality Ensues]] for warriors at some point. They hit the limits of human (or near-human) ability and can't bend physics any farther. Since warriors don't have magic how is physical force supposed to beat say an intangible ghost or some supernatural baddie with the magical ability to ignore it. Basically warriors can only be so fantastic so even as they improve those improvements mean less.
Secondly, In such a setting there may be dozens if not hundreds of small time mystic dabblers, but they quickly thin in numbers only to resurface as potent adventuring wizards, culminating in the classic mystic powerhouse like [[The Lord of the Rings|Gandalf]] or [[Forgotten Realms|Elminster]], or the [[Evil Sorcerer]] in the [[Evil Tower of Ominousness]]. Meanwhile the [[Conan the Barbarian|Conans]] and [[Beowulf]]s have the run of the place, being able to both solo and group. In essence, the mage players/character labor under the promise of a hard road with great rewards at the end.
Thirdly, there's more than a bit of [[Wish Fulfillment]] here. Gamers and by extension game designers tend to be geeks by definition. The idea that a wizard (generally a something of a brainy bookworm) may start out weaker then the [[Dumb Muscle]], but surpass them entirely in the end proving that its what you know not how strong you are holds a lot of inherent appeal. Especially to those that had a higher chance of running afoul of the real life [[The Bully|bullies]] and [[Jerk Jock|jocks]] who [[Kids Are Cruel|tore up their antique Tolkien]] or whatever.
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Attempts to keep warriors' capabilities "normal" are far less prevalent in works of Eastern origin, and so the trope has weakened slightly in the minds of the younger generation. The common result is [[Charles Atlas Superpower]].
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* Played straight in the [[Nasuverse]]; anyone who can reasonably defend oneself will have: A) [[Superpowerful Genetics|supernatural and possibly divine blood]], or B) knowledge of [[Functional Magic|magecraft]]. Of course, then you have absolute terrors like [[Fate/stay night|Cuchulainn]] who know magecraft, are divine, can move, fight, and kill, faster than human eyes can track, and may have a [[Super-Powered Evil Side]].
** As Archer points out early on in the visual novel, "It's fine if you think I can only use bows...." He actually uses a kind of magic that lets him use a whole lot of swords all at once, including Saber's [[Wave Motion Gun|sword that fires energy blasts]].
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** It should be noted though that in season seven, Willow didn't lose her power. She just got more hesitant to use it, since there was a very real possibility of her going crazy and trying to end the world again.
** Buffy finally caught up in Season Eight {{spoiler|by becoming a [[Flying Brick]].}}
* The spirit of this is invoked in the ''[[Mitchell and Webb]]'' comedy sketch "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit]".
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Some [[Tabletop Games|Tabletop RPGs]] suffer from this.
* ''[[
** Another problem is that as primary casters gain levels, they gain access to spells that allow them to do pretty much anything. A Wizard, Cleric, or Druid with access to the huge list of spells published for them can fill almost any party role—often better than the classes designed for that role—while a fighter gains variations and slight improvements on "hit enemy with stick". So it's even more than "square", since casters have growing effects themselves (usually in more than one variable, too), number of times these can be used ''and'' flexibility.
** Originally the intent of ''D&D'' was that the common man was a Fighter and he would be more powerful at low level, but someone who performed magic (a Cleric or Magic-User) would make sacrifices at low level to become more powerful at high level. But this was further balanced by Fighters getting the best followers at high level (and at the time, henchmen were quite valuable even if they were low-level) and because Fighters were the only ones who could use magic swords. The majority (60%+) of magic swords were intelligent and carried special spell-like powers. Since a Fighter was the only one who could wield one, those found in treasure would usually end up in his hands. This limited spell-like ability made up for the Fighter having no spells of his own.
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** One key part of this is that 4E provides a basic standard power progression through the levels for all classes and that all classes advance at the same rate (the last point already held true in 3rd edition, but it's worth re-emphasizing). Specific added class or racial feature powers aside, every fifth-level character for example will have two first-level at-will, a first- and a third-level per-encounter, a first- and a fifth-level daily, and a second-level utility power at its core, period. Moreover, the effects of most individual powers remain largely fixed now instead of growing automatically more powerful with increasing character level, as often used to be the case with spells in earlier editions; the exceptions are mainly some class abilities that can't be swapped out for other powers in the course of the character's career as "standard" powers can, and the fact that the basic damage output of at-will attacks—which unlike encounter and daily powers don't come in levels higher than first—finally doubles upon reaching 21st (!) level in order to keep them competitive.
*** Unfortunately this started breaking with Player's Handbook 3, which started to shear away from the standard level progression, and shattered with the "essentials" line, which returned to the older model of having unique progressions for every class and making martial classes "simpler" to play...which obviated one of the major points of 4th Edition to begin with.
** Averted in 5th edition. Not because spellcasters and warriors gain power at the same rate, but because warriors now scale '''''less''''' than linear increase (their rate of offensive power increase halves after level 8 when attributes hit their [[Cap]]) while wizards still have quadratic scaling.
** ''[[D20 Modern]]'' is another 3.X variant. It tried to balance casting by making it so that all but the most basic casting was limited to prestige classes which even then could only reach level 10 and 5th level spells. This fails on a few accounts.
*** Firstly, magic is still very versatile even with the limited number of spells printed, indeed the spells that destroy evidence are often mandatory (corpses and piles of blood tend to raise questions in a modern setting but there's a clean spell that takes care of that in 6 seconds) and the base classes best suited to enter casting classes are the skill focused ones (so it's impossible for mundane skill focused characters to compete when mages start as said skill focused characters).
*** Secondly, even magical d20 modern campaigns depend on humanoid monsters with class levels instead of more powerful monsters so spell resistance and energy resistance, the official checks on magic power, are much rarer (of the 1-8 adventure printed in the Urban Arcana book, a mere 4 foes resist some form of energy, and one resists a type it's unlikely the PCs will actually use).
*** Beyond that, it just means most casters are some degree of [[Magic Knight]] instead of pure casters, which isn't that much of a nerf. Since you can only take 10 levels of casting class anyways, why not take 1 level in Field Scientist (add your intelligence to your armor class) or Holy Knight (add your charisma to your saving throws) and make your casting stats the [[One Stat to Rule Them All]]?
** Obscure ''[[Ravenloft]]'' subsetting ''[[Masque of the Red Death]]'' perhaps goes a bit ''too'' far in nerfing wizards. First it makes magic take a long time (rounds per spell level) and risk corruption each casting, and secondly a lot of spells just plain old won't work on Gothic Earth and thirdly it's near impossible to find spells. It's still useful for utility, but most casters are completely and utterly useless besides that. Comparing them to martials is hard, largely because in all three incarnations of the setting the other classes have massive balance disparities.
* ''[[Hackmaster]]''' (based around the older second edition ''AD&D'' rules) slightly subverts this by pointing out that looking at the abilities of high level characters and comparing them to those offered in other classes was rather pointless, as there was a pretty good chance you'd be stone dead long before you got that far.
* In the ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'', this trope falls in slightly murky waters. Wizards (shugenja) are most decidedly quadratic—a rank 2 shugenja is immensely better than a rank 1 shugenja, and a rank 1 bushi is ''extremely'' likely to be able to carve either one of them into cat food. Among bushi (warriors), however, rank doesn't mean a whole lot—a higher rank means you have higher skills and stats, since rank is derived from skills and stats, but the only thing a bushi gets from rank-up is a new School Technique, which, while nice, is generally not as big of a power step as it is for shugenja. Why does the trope still apply? Because that same shugenja who didn't stand much of a chance before at rank 1 can now have elemental spirits char you into a skeleton by asking nicely, that's why.
* The original ''[[
** Also, just about ''everyone'' in a typical RQ game will have some minor magic spells. Dedicated priests or Rune Lords (servants of their gods, like ''D&D'''s Paladins) have access to significantly more powerful divine magic, without the usual limitations most people have on them. To balance it, they have to spend most of their time on religious duties, severely cutting into their adventuring time.
* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy]]'' plays this straight with a few armies. Lizardmen are a particularly drastic example. Hero Level Sarus are hard fighting warriors and while Skink Priests are solid casters, their lack of access to different Lores (and the Lore of Heaven isn't the greatest lore in the world) and the fact that they're made of tissue paper means that they're often not worth it (at least without an Engine of the Gods). On the other hand, Lord Level Sarus are merely really good fighters whereas Slaan's access to all the lores, the different abilities you can give them and the sheer power of their casting abilities means they can often devastate entire units all on their own.
** ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[Ars Magica]]'' subverts this trope somewhat. On the one hand, magical progression is definitely quadratic and warrior progression is definitely linear—but firstly player character magi normally start play after a 15 year apprenticeship so they're already way ahead of even the most hardened warrior rather than starting weaker and having to catch up; and secondly each player normally controls two characters, playing both a mage and a [[Muggle]], so there is no direct competition between the power levels of different types of characters.
* In the [[Old World of Darkness]], [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|werewolves]] and other shifters were the single most fearsome sort of player character at lower levels. At the upper end, not so much. Their high-level abilities are certainly impressive, but other creatures surpass them, such as [[Mage: The Ascension|mages]]. At Arete 1, mages have nothing more than a [[Sixth Sense]], but at Arete 10 they can basically rewrite reality on a whim.
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A Sidereal martial arts master can split a soul and jump to [[Heaven]]. }}
* ''[[The Dresden Files (game)|The Dresden Files]]'' RPG runs into this with mortal characters because of how the attack and damage values are laid out for spells. A "starter" wizard will likely be able to throw around 3 and 4 shift attacks, rolling from 3 or 4, which gives them about as much kick as a cop with a shotgun might have. But while most character types will increase their effectiveness primarily through increasing skill rolls (same shotgun, better at aiming it), wizards increase both damage ''and'' skill rolls—so not only is he throwing around a more intense fireball, he's more likely to hit you with it. Within a few milestones, while that cop is shooting his Weapon:3 shotgun rolling from 5,<ref>Meaning that an average roll against someone rolling a 3 on defense works out to a 5 shift hit, enough to kill a normal human, but barely</ref> a wizard using his favored element might be firing off a Weapon:7 attack, also rolling from 7.<ref>Meaning an average roll against a 3 on defense works out to an '''''11''''' shift hit</ref> The main thing keeping them in check is that a blown spell roll does damage to the wizard, and the Laws of Magic, which state that a wizard isn't allowed to kill a mortal with magic (which doesn't stop bad guys, obviously). That said, there ''are'' abilities outside of spellcasting that can make a character hit just as hard, and be tougher to kill, but they're still magical abilities.
* While it was played straight in older editions it is now mostly averted in the fourth edition of ''[[The Dark Eye]]'', while wizards can still be incredibly powerful, a single hit by an arrow or a powerful swing of a melee weapon will cause them to lie on the floor moaning in pain or at the very least make casting spells quite difficult. And while any spellcaster can learn to use weapons, they can rarely attain the same mastery as warriors since they lack the physical attributes to raise their combat talents as high as the warriors. The fact that the most powerful pure damage spell is partly [[Cast
== Video Games ==
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* Played a hundred percent straight in very early (and now defunct) MMO ''Sierra's Realm''. Warriors at early levels could solo quest easily, dealing considerable damage and killing monsters rather speedily, whereas mages were next to worthless on their own, unable to so much as dent even the rats in the newbie zone. At higher levels, Warriors could still hold their own, though they required full suits of top-tier armor and high-end weapons all sporting as many enchantments as was possible in order to keep any sort of pace with the harsher monsters and possible PVP encounters. High level mages, on the other hand, were capable of obliterating absolutely anything in their path no matter what they wore - even completely naked, a high-end mage could wipe out the game's 'Boss' in only a few choice spells. Warriors were wise to keep their PVP flags permanently turned off, lest a stark nekkid mage toddle over and utterly vaporize them before they could so much as close to melee range.
* Many Roguelikes such as ''[[Angband]]'' and the original ''[[PLATO Moria|Moria]]'' (and their many variants) play this straight. Mages are hard classes to keep alive at first, but they become major death dealers by the endgame. Warrior-like classes are fairly easy to keep alive but don't deal as much damage in the endgame.
* The text-based RPG ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131026002234/http://www.skotos.net/games/grendel/ Grendel's Revenge]'' had a rather interesting relationship with this trope through it's history. At first it was inverted, magical monsters were fairly balanced with young fighter monster for the first 50 or so levels, but the fighter monsters could get a host of passive, always on [[Status Buff]]s as well as timed ones from Leader monsters, whereas magical monsters had very few ways to get a status buffs at all. This got progressively worse since fighter monsters could wear better armor, get skills to boost their weapon skills (and the weapons gotten improves) while magical monsters could only wear a small selection of non-armor magical gear. At the 200+ level mark, fights between equal level solo magical and fighter monsters would be very hard for the magical monster's player since their attacks could not penetrate and they had no defense. Only by using sneak tactics like stunning, teleporting enemies into traps (which Builder clan mates had to prepare for the magical monster) and other means could they hold their own...all of which were not that effective against the fighter player to begin with, which ''still'' had very good resistances to these tactics. To make it worse, the maximum number of skills/powers/abilities was capped at '''7''', so magical characters could not get nearly as diverse a power set compared to fighters, and only [[Level Grinding]] to 700 could get you that far. Magical player outcries got so loud and exceedingly ''deconstructive'' (the game forum was for many months ''full'' of dissertations and long arguments on exactly how and why magical monsters had the raw end of the class system) that the designers made a series of wide ranging nerfs, buffs, and rebalances to fix the issue...which sometimes snowballed into creating other imbalances. It's worked, mostly, but the current state of game balance is unknown at this time.
** And ''don't'' get us started on game balance issues involving the non-combat classes!
* Played straight and later [[Inverted Trope|inverted]] in ''[[
* Inverted in the early years of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', where spellcasters scaled linearly and physical attackers scaled quadratically. Shiny new raid dungeon weapons massively boosted physical damage, while a new staff gave casters...more mana. Stat increases from equipment also followed this pattern; strength boosted physical damage, but intellect only increased caster longevity. Meanwhile of course, the physical attackers used the infinitely replenishing resources of energy and rage. The situation was eventually remedied by greatly increasing the amount of "spell damage" stat found on caster gear, and altering the allotment of item budget "stat points" for caster weapons to favor magic damage over useless weapon damage.
** Rage as the resource system made this happen, pre-Cata - the more damage you deal, the more rage you have, which then lets you do damage for real. Therefore, since the beginnings of [[WoW]], warriors sucked at low gear levels, getting rage starved and thus not able to "press any buttons", and then about halfway into an expansion their "white" (non-rage-consuming) damage exceeded a certain point and they suddenly get 100% rage every time they swing a weapon. A rather simple fix for this happened, however; rage intake now occurs on hits at a flat rate, based on unmodified weapon speed. Taking damage (which is usually suicidal unless you're tanking) and a couple of abilities also grant Rage, for those dry spots.
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*** And then inverted once you get access to the endgame and postgame, where enemies who are highly resistant to magic and obscenely overpowered swords (especially) and spears start popping up everywhere. Your mage hitting everyone for 200,000 damage starts looking weak when a single sword user (or the secret characters) can do upwards of 1 million damage between their attack string and their Purify Weird Soul attack. Sure they only hit one character, but most things in the Seraphic gate can take a volley of Great Magic and then stomp you in return. Very few things, on the other hand, can take a full combo from most sword users, especially Lenneth, with the Dainslef or Angel Slayer equipped...
** Averted, though, in ''[[Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria]]'', where mages are [[nerf]]ed considerably compared to the other installments. There are still occasions, however, where the right spell will make certain enemies much easier.
** Finally, ''[[Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume]]'' brings it back with a vengeance: The mages are alright at first, but are mainly best for building up the charge meter...until that is you get a staff that will push a mage's spell power into the quadruple digits, and gives Great Magic. Immediate game-breaker when you consider your physical attack power unbuffed may be around 5-700 by the end of the game.
* In most ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games, magic attacks almost always outweigh melee attacks by the endgame. The [[Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army|Devil]] [[Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon|Summoner]] games, however, do a decent job of averting this - Raidou's sword will always be one of your best friends.
** The ''[[Persona]]'' games vary. While the guns can be very powerful in the first Persona game and other weapons can sometimes be useful, the magic attacks often outclass them, depending on the user and their compatibility with their Persona. ''[[Persona 2]]'' embodies this trope, especially with how much team attacks were rewarded in both games. ''[[Persona 3]]'', however, can actually wind up with physical attacks being ''more'' powerful than special attacks with enough work. ''[[Persona 4]]'', meanwhile...players often don't even buy any weapon upgrades to their characters to save money, and what would be the point of telling them to attack? Just use your Persona to buff your characters and do special attacks. It's better.
*** And even when doing physical attacks in ''Persona 4'', it's better to use physical-based Skills; the Attack command is nearly useless. Even the [[Cast
** Completely subverted in Nocturne though, as there, magic attacks actually get weaker the higher your level is, whilst physical attacks get stronger with level.
*** And nevermind the fact that you can only reliably damage the [[True Final Boss]] with physical attacks.
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** This is also zig-zagged with a couple cases. Veigar isn't very strong early and mid-game...but once he gets his AP up and gets a lot of good items, he's unstoppable to compensate for a weak early game dependent on farming. LeBlanc meanwhile can take people out before they can even blink in the early-mid game; but once people get more health, she starts to lag behind a bit. Basically; if you have Veigar, you're going to want the match to last longer and if you have LeBlanc, you want push them so hard they surrender. Another example of a late-game mage is Malzahar, who goes from being a good lane pusher to being someone capable of killing any other character in a 1 v 1 fight in an incredibly short period of time. If Malzahar wins the middle lane team fights can rapidly become extremely lopsided thanks to his power curve and the area of effect, damage over time nature of his spells.
* In ''[[Fable]] II'', magic attacks start off as pathetically weak, doing virtually no damage and merely knocking foes back a bit, if even that. Guns and melee weapons are much more powerful at this point, melee being just a bit stronger. By the time you learn level 5 spells though, you can nuke huge crowds of enemies with a single spell, while using physical attacks take far longer. Ranged combat ends up being the linear line in the equation, being potent but not overpowered all through the game (unless you happen to grab the [[Game Breaker|Red Dragon]]).
* Being based on ''[[
** Since the expansions and the introduction of Epic levels, this balance has shifted a little. With the proper equipment, a warrior is all but immune to magic, while a wizard still has precious little HP.
** In both, the NWN and [[NWN 2]] Original Campaigns the trope is even more accurate than in Pen&Paper D&D, simply because of absolutely no resting restrictions. A wizard can literally exhaust all spells in a fight, then retreat a few steps, rest for about 10 seconds, and continue with fresh spells as often as he wants, even if it means resting every minute or so. This inherent flaw was corrected in add-ons and lots of custom content via restricting resting to safe areas, adding random encounters while resting, or even restricting resting to no more frequent than every 5 minutes.
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** And during the second battle against the Linear Guild, the [[Fan Nickname|CoDzilla]] idea of overpowered clerics and druids was explored when the gnome druid was able to take on half the Order, and only the cleric Durkon was able to match him in both physical and magical combat.
* Richard in the [[Looking for Group]] comics is insanely overpowered. It's less clear with the others, but most magic users do seem to have an edge on non-magic users.
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' both Torg and Gwynn have [[Took a Level
== Web Original ==
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[[Category:Tabletop Game Tropes]]
[[Category:Wizards and Witches]]
[[Category:CRPG Tropes]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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