Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''Your wizard is like [[Pokémon|Magikarp]], except instead of [[Magikarp Power|Gyarados]] it evolves into [[Olympus Mons|Mewtwo.]]''
▲[[File:wizardsandmelees_9442.jpg|frame|"If by 'war gods' you mean '[[Game Breaker|flame spewing apocalypse in human form]],' then yeah."]]
|'''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."
▲{{quote|''Your wizard is like [[Pokémon|Magikarp]], except instead of [[Magikarp Power|Gyarados]] it evolves into [[Olympus Mons|Mewtwo.]]''|'''DivineDragoonKain''', User on [[Game FAQs|GameFAQs]] Pen and Paper RPG board}}
|'''[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0764.html Vaarsuvius]''', ''[[The Order of the Stick]]''}}
▲{{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]''', ''[[Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|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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The divide is usually exacerbated by the ease with which a young warrior can go wading into combat compared to a novice mage. The fighter just needs decent armor and a weapon, and with their marvelous [[Meat Shield]] [[Hit Points]] they can get into the thick of things and do reasonably well. Magical weapons aren't required but can (usually) be used immediately and give amazing bonuses. Wizards on the other hand (especially young/low level ones) have no such easy shortcuts to massive magical power, they have to study, find or invent spells, and discover magic items that aren't so powerful they cause them to go into a [[Superpower Meltdown]]. In the meantime they are nearly defenseless in a fight.
Yet the trend reverses at higher levels. As the trope name says, the power of a warrior is linear. It grows at a steady pace. But a wizard's power is quadratic or even [[Exponential Potential|exponential]]: as it grows, the rate of growth also grows. Thus, wizards must at some point become the more powerful class. Whether it's the game designers intentionally "making up" for lots of frailty for many levels, or a quirk that comes up during play, the wizard simply outpaces all but the most [[Min
This isn't just a [[Sour Grapes Tropes|Sour Grapes]] complaint against [[Squishy Wizard
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
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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However, if this results from a development mistake, or enough complaints convince the author/programmer to change things, there are ways to limit the awesomeness of wizards. These include [[Power At a Price|restrictions on magic itself]], the two classic examples being the [[Mana]] mechanic or the even more restrictive [[Vancian Magic]]. Both of these serve to cap how often a wizard can cast spells. Preventing casting spells whilst wearing armour is another, though this is often partially countered by providing a range of protective magics that work much like normal armour ''only better'', but of course for a limited time. Other restrictions also exist; a common one is simply to make the wizard [[Squishy Wizard|Squishy]]. Others involve sanity and [[Karma Meter|corruption]] systems, or making the casting of a spell a tactically debilitating act.
As you can imagine, players who specifically chose wizards and worked hard to keep them alive with the promise of great power for their effort can be...upset by this game balancing [[Nerf
These fixes can result in or from some pretty strange logic and situations. Sure, the wizard can do more amazing and effective stuff than the warrior can, but the warrior can do his less impressive things indefinitely! That makes up for it, right?... Well, sometimes. A tough flurry of [[Random Encounters]] can suck a mage's supply of game breaking magic, which will [[Too Awesome to Use|force them to save a bit of juice]] for that final boss, and not waste their power. But in some games, wizards can recover their magic faster as they level up, and other games have infinitely available elixers that recover magic quickly. Still other times, you end up with the opposite problem, wizards whose capacity to fight is so restricted that you wonder why the warriors even bother to bring them along (when this makes sense, it's because of the [[Inverse Law of Utility and Lethality]] being applied).
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|Examples}}▼
== Anime
* 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
** 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]].
* Inverted in ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'': Hokuto Ryuuken is a variant style of Hokuto Shinken which heavily uses magic at the base of its style, as [[Charles Atlas Superpower|opposed to breath control and push-ups]]. And it's still stated to be explicitly inferior to Hokuto Shinken, to the point where Kenshiro doesn't even bother to [[Mega Manning|copy techniques]] from the school.
* Both played straight and subverted in the ''[[Slayers]]'' universe. Normal swordsmen such as Gourry and physical brawlers such as Prince Phil can only do so much in a land where magic is common knowledge and taught in schools (at least in one part of the world). Swordsman Gourry mainly gets by with supernaturally-powered swords, namely the [[Forgotten Superweapon|Sword of Light]] for the first set of novels and throughout all of the anime, and the [[Forgotten Superweapon|Blast Sword]] in the second half of the novels. The subversion comes in with the magic system. Humans can expand how much magic they can cast by increasing their stamina (Pool Capacity), but the actual strength of their magic (Bucket Capacity) is predetermined at birth. Zelgadis was a poor spell caster when he was a human, but thanks to the properties of the brau demon [[Heinz Hybrid|he was mixed with for his chimeric transformation]], both his Pool and Bucket Capacities are higher because brau demons, according to [[Word of God]], have a lot of magical power. In other words, the non-divine can only do so much to increase their magical output.
* Possibly lampshaded in ''[[MAR]]'', where Kouga, one of the knights in the evil Chess Pieces, is incredibly tough, but his lack of magical power means that he's ''automatically'' the weakest of his rank. He is easily defeated and humiliated by [[The Lancer]] Alviss, whose has a high level of magical power (and competence).
* In ''[[
* Played around with in ''[[Those Who Hunt Elves]]'', though as this is a comic series the actual state of affairs isn't pinned down. Most relevant is the backstory of an [[Arrogant Kung Fu Guy]] who specializes (entirely) in kicking people in the knees, who after winning a tournament was challenged by "a Thin Man", an emaciated mage who used self-buffs (and expectation of the knee kick) to easily overpower him. Being too arrogant to recognize the serious flaws in his combat style, he decides this trope is clearly in effect, secretly changed his field of study, and has since been wandering around kicking people in the knees with invisible magical shielding up.
== Literature ==
* ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' subverts this by having the title barbarian outwit the wizards he faces...some might say mostly by act of author-induced [[Villain Ball]] on the part of the wizards.
* Drizzt Do'Urden, R.A. Salvatore's famous character, both subverts this and falls victim to it. Frequently, he or one of his companions completely thrashes a powerful but unprepared wizard, but there are rare occasions where Drizzt is nearly dispatched by wizards who have, as yet, posed no threat to him, exemplified by his being duped into stumbling into a realm populated entirely by demon lords by a Quadratic Wizard in ''The Pirate King''.
** On of the best is when Artemis Entreri, Drizzt's [[Evil Counterpart]] and one of the deadliest assassins in the world, is put up against a battle wizard he doesn't manage to catch off guard. Said wizard proceeds to utterly school him without using a spell above fourth level. The ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' versions of Stoneskin (have to be hit a certain number of times before you take damage) and Flame Shield (when you hit someone, the attack [[Attack Reflector|hits you]]) is pretty hard to beat.
* ''[[
** The series makes it clear that the reason wizards don't rule the world is not that their magic doesn't give them the power to do so, but that wizards naturally fight among themselves (''Sourcery'' claims that the plural for wizard is 'war'), and magical conflict is incredibly destructive. The widespread abuse of magic would quickly make the world stop making sense. It's analogized to nuclear weaponry, with talks about avoiding a "first use of magic" in war, and the ancient mage wars leaving behind high levels of residual magic (ie. nuclear fallout) in the present day. The entire organizational structure of modern wizardry exists to keep them all in one place and encourage them to waste their energies either plotting against each other, immersing themselves in research, or enjoying their cushy academic position.
* Played straight in Steven Brusts's ''[[Dragaera]]'' series, where the single most powerful non-god is the well-beyond-legendary undead mage Sethra Lavode, who is notorious for being able to wipe out armies. She's also probably nothing like what reading that sentence will make you assume her to be like. For instance, her favorite method of wiping out armies is {{spoiler|with another army, but with better logistics.}}
* Also subverted in Stephen Brusts's ''[[Dragaera|Jhereg]]'' series with some degree of regularity, as demonstrated by the signature quote: "No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style."
* ''[[
* A weird Gamebook example: ''[[Goosebumps]]''. One special edition played more like a gamebook and required to keep track of items. The hunter sounds rather easy because you can fight off obstacles a lot better, but in practice, the spellcaster was the easiest. On the spellcaster path, you were able to avoid almost every single obstacle until you met the [[Final Boss]] unless you made one choice. The hunter meanwhile had more "Useless" items
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[
** 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]".
== Myths & Religion ==
* Most mythology avoids the whole problem by making ''everyone'' magic; heroes like Hercules, Gilgamesh and Cuchulainn would have either supernatural origins, supernatural backing, or both. While they do exist, very, very few mythological heroes are genuine [[Badass Normal
* One of the best examples is in the Elder Edda, the ancient and very much valor-oriented compilation of Viking oral traditions. During the Svipdagsmal, the hero Svipdag receives enchantments from his mother, Groa, one of which protects him from magic to the extent that "Yet never the curse of a Christian woman/From the dead shall do thee harm." From the perspective of the poem's original audience, a dead Christian woman was a [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]] combination of all the attributes that would have made up the deadliest possible spellcaster (to the Vikings who feared Christians like Christians today fear Satanists or Neo-heathens themselves!) (Also it should be pointed out that Groa herself was dead when she gave him this magic, so it's not like this was all a theoretical situation.)
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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
** 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.
** Fighting Men progressed at a faster rate than Magic Users. The difference in XP progression was later (3.0+) deemed ineffective, largely due to when game designers learned basic math and common sense. They realized that given the same amount of EXP the wizard was at best one level behind the fighter, and later actually progressed faster. Getting rid of this also fixed broken multiclasses.
** ''AD&D'' has rules about followers, so a high-level warrior can easily attract a small army. Sadly, it was often ignored, especially since it required the character to own a keep. Warriors also got [[Hit Points]] from high Constitution while wizards didn't. AD&D2 class XP awards, quite sensibly, altered class balance depending on the game style: in relatively peaceful ones, utility spellcasting allows wizards and priests a little XP all the time, in war/dungeon warriors get XP bonus for each defeated opponent.
** ''[[
** Special powerful creatures could then resist the new unresistable spells. Of course a spell to temporarily reduce a creature's Magic Resistance [[Lensman Arms Race|soon developed]]...
** Yes, another way that earlier editions of D&D dealt with this problem was giving a lot of the more powerful monsters (the kind high-level adventurers would be facing) magic resistance (called anti-magic in some of the early editions). Even relatively low magic resistance could really ruin a caster's day, because, first, magic resistance was a flat percentage, meaning that it ''didn't matter'' how powerful a caster you were, your spells still had the same chance of failing completely, and, second, because there were ''no'' spells that could directly penetrate resistance. Third edition radically nerfed magic resistance into spell resistance by changing those two things: powerful casters are ''more likely'' to penetrate spell resistance, and there were a number of spells that could simply ignore it (the orb spells were incredibly broken, partly for this reason)
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*** One notable example would be the Holy Word cleric. It's a no save spell that allows you to paralyze anything that is five levels below your caster level, which is normally your class level, with no save (and kill anything ten levels below you, but paralyzation = death anyway). Just with the core books, a cleric can get + 6 to his/her caster level, so anything that isn't more than two levels higher than them is going to be paralyzed more than long enough to die. With other books, you can specialize and get as much as + 35 to caster level, which means that you can instantly kill anybody within earshot who doesn't happen to be 40 levels above you. Nothing would survive. (Luckily, the DM can get around this by making his enemies good aligned, but there is also [[Evil Counterpart|a spell that is Holy Word, but for killing good aligned people.]]). Less an issue of a specific rule failure than a design decision. High-level spells often offer no chance to avoid. This was originally why Magic Resistance was introduced. Again, one feature ran into another.
** Another strange design decision was giving clerics access to heavy armor and most shields. This combined with two feats (Persist Spell and Divine Metamagic: Persist Spell) and one item (the nightstick, usually in multiples) allows a cleric to, at the cost of one spell slot per day, be every bit as effective as a fighter in melee while ALSO being able to call on nearly unlimited divine power.
*** The history here is a bit muddled. Clerics (or Priests in earlier editions) always had access to good armors, but no good offensive abilities, magical or martial. The common complaint is that they couldn't do anything well except heal and maybe tank a little, so they were given huge upgrades in both their magical abilities and their martial abilities (generally requiring magical augmentation) in 3rd edition. At first glance this didn't appear unbalanced, especially since most players would tend to either heal all the time anyways or make reasonably effective (but not to the point of replacing Fighters) melee fighters. The real brokenness comes in two flavors. First, creative uses of certain spells and feats (such as the aforementioned Divine Metamagic: Persist Spell) allowed spellcasters in general to break the game wide open. Second, even if you restrained these ridiculous abuses Clerics (and Druids) ended up by far the most versatile class, easily switching from tank, to healer, to controller etc. Ultimately the later is the reason they are largely regarded as stronger than Wizards and Sorcerers; if you allow all the insanity arcane spellcasters are stronger, especially with the multiple Prestige Classes like <ref>
** Notably, Evil-aligned Clerics tend to make better Necromancers than Necromancers themselves. A specialized Wizard must surrender the ability to cast spells from two other schools of Arcane magic in order to receive said specialization, which confers only one extra spell from their specialized school per day and a +2 bonus to Spellcraft checks. Evil clerics, solely so that the mechanic that the ability of a Good-aligned (or, rather, Positive Energy-channeling) Cleric to turn or destroy undead has its [[Evil Counterpart]], to rebuke or COMMAND undead. Most incorporeal undead also have a standard touch attack that afflicts ability drain, which can be a [[Game Breaker]] even at higher levels. What's worse? Some undead [[Viral Transformation|create spawn]]... and ''control it''.
** Druids are another example, able to combine the devastating Natural Spell feat with their animal forms, allowing them a melee presence on par with the strongest warriors while ''losing none of their casting power.'' Worse, at higher levels they can change form several times a day; morph into an eagle, rain lightning and fire on the enemy from safely out of reach, land, morph into a dire bear, wade into melee...and all while their animal companion is busy doing the fighter's job.
*** Heck, druids are ridiculous at level one. Produce Flame + Animal Companion with multiple attacks = Ouch.
*** Actually druids can get overpowered in so many ways that they might choose their way of bringing destruction to the world: First of all they're two in one - animal companion might be as useful as another fighter in the group or a tank for solo fighting. Secondly the spells - core spell list gives a druid wide range of destructive spells - from lightning and firestorm to earthquakes and elemental storms. Every single supplement introduces new spells and if you make your DM accept this "expanded" list you're walking god of destruction whose enemies die from single looking at you. Next comes your summoner option - at higher levels you can bring your own army of elementals, fae and animals to battle for you and they can also be empowered thanks to supplemental feats and spells. Finally druid's trademark ability to wildshape allows them to develop as plot demands - scout as an eagle, swim as a shark, maul enemies as a dire bear (sacreficing your armor bonuses for ability boosts). Did I mention that 3.5 allows you to use metal weapons and certain deity allows druid to wear metal armor? Now add wild property or attach wilding clasp to your amulets and you don't loose your armor bonuses in wild shape. To go even further - there are multiple prestige classes to empower those abilities - from Warshaper's ridiculous wildshape bonuses to Planas Shepherd total overkill in all the ways.
** The supplement ''Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords'' caters to those who prefer their warrior-types more superhuman. The ''Tome of Battle'' classes have received a [[Broken Base|mixed reception]]. It's either a step in the right direction, or growing existing [[Animesque]] trend into "Weeaboo Fightan Magic", or melee combatants' rebalance simply doesn't change much in comparison to CoDzilla or Wizards in the first place.
** Averted in 4th edition, which defines "martial powers" alongside "arcane powers" and "divine powers"
** 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
*** 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
* 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 40
* ''[[Ars Magica]]'' subverts this trope somewhat. On the one hand, magical progression is definitely quadratic and warrior progression is definitely
* In the [[
** This continues in the [[
** [[Geist: The Sin Eaters
* Played straight in ''[[Dark Heresy]]'', as generally until 4th level a Psyker gets spells such as Cheat at Poker and Summon Local Vermin. Once a Psyker gets to Psychic level 3 (available at 4th level) such as Punch Through a Tank with Your Bare Hands, Warp Reality So That You Can Ricochet Your Bullet Off of a Random Frying Pan and Kill the Enemy General from 5
** Or worse. Not many quadratic wizards have to worry about being sucked into the Warp because they botched their roll.
*** Death is actually the lesser evil here, as it only damns the psyker himself. On the other hand, demonic possession means dropping an unbound daemonhost (a monster from the top shelf of the bestiary, with more magic power than humans can possibly attain) in the middle of the party. This is not only a near guaranteed [[Total Party Kill]] but a potential planet-level threat, well capable of undoing the achievements of a whole campaign.
* Played slightly less straight in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]]''. Wizards get quite a lot of useful utility spells, but none that can break campaigns, and you need a very high-level wizard indeed to get the ability to reliably deal more damage with spells than the party warrior. Becoming a high-level wizard basically ''requires'' DM intervention due to the steep trappings costs (required possessions before you can become one) and the required roleplaying aspects. In addition, wizards in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]]'' suffer from pretty much the exact same problems as psykers in ''[[Dark Heresy]]'', to say nothing of the fact that all the filthy peasants the party interacts with hates you because the Empire's official religion teaches that [[Burn the Witch|wizards must be burned on bonfires]], and most of them are illiterate and can't read your 'please do not burn by order of the Emperor' papers.
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* In ''[[Do DT]]'', a tabletop RPG from Sweden, mages can become unimaginably powerful later into the game, once they've spent a large amount of experience points in magic. The way magic works, they have few direct damage spells, but the effects and usefulness of the spells more than makes up for it. That warrior who specced enough to one-hit a smaller dragon is giving you trouble? Mind-flay him to death, scare him to madness or maybe turn him into a plant and then set it on fire? Easily done.
** In fact, since the amount of magic is determined by a dice-roll with a set chance for an extra roll, you can in theory have a mage with an arbitrary amount of magic (this troper had a mage with double the "average" amount, with all special stuff added he could have an effective magic amount of about 233, whilst normal is 50-ish).
* [[Legend Game System|Legend]] was specifically designed to avert this - warriors and wizards alike are equally Quadratic.
* ''[[
{{quote|
A Terrestrial martial arts master can split a boulder and jump over a house.
A Celestial martial arts master can split a city wall and jump over a mountain.
A Sidereal martial arts master can split a soul and jump to [[Heaven]]. }}
* ''[[The Dresden Files (
* 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 ==
* The original ''[[Diablo (
* ''[[Luminous Arc 2]]'' has a rather notable trait about this. While [[Luminous Arc|the first one]] is actually more balanced, the second one seem to use this giving highest MAG Fatima and Sadie (who graces the bottom page picture, compared to [[Mighty Glacier]] Rasche) very high AO (turn frequency) and Movement. Their strongest spells? They hit 5 spaces up to 7 panels away.
** This is eventually justified. {{spoiler|From a gameplay perspective, that is. It's a plot point that late-game enemies tend to be very resistant, if not immune to magic.}}
* 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
* 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
** 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 ''[[
** 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 [[
* ''[[Maple Story]]'' [[Inverted Trope|inverts]] this, if only for the main stretch of first job through fourth job promotion, for the Explorers. Magicians start extremely powerful while Archers, Warriors, Pirates, and to a certain extent Thieves are scrambling for kills at early levels. As everyone hits third job promotion, Magicians stop gaining power so quickly while everyone else catches up. Then fourth job is reached and Magicians are left in the dust, except for [[The Medic|Bishops]], who are needed for their extremely powerful buffs.
* ''[[Sacred]]'' has its quadratic equation begin at level 1. Low-level mages are utter gods compared to fighters, with spells such as Gust of Wind, which propels multiple targets miles away for ungodly amounts of damage, and poisons them. Firebolt, the starting spell, is akin to a sniper-rifle, easily reaching 1000 points of damage very early on. Fire Spiral is even worse, having no break between damage calculations, meaning anything that wanders into it will take damage every single second it remains in it. Even 30.000-HP dragons can die from a single Fire Spiral if they are lured through it at their slow pace.
* ''[[Dragon Age]] Origins'' has earned the nickname "''Dragon Mage: Origins''" due to the insanely overpowered mage class. It's not one that takes a lot of finesse to do
** Actually any character could outclass a Mage as far as damage was concerned if they developed poison making and had several kinds of poison bombs, since the bombs had no casting time, decent [[Area of Effect]], high fixed damage and low cooldowns. What made mages so good were [[Game Breaker]] spells with awesome utility like {{spoiler|Force Field, Crushing Prison and Cone of Cold}}. Though the fact that they could cast spells like Storm of the Century and Miasmatic Cloud and kill enemies before they ever even closed with the party (and in some cases before they could even think about ENGAGING with the party) certainly didn't hurt.
*** In addition, the Arcane Warrior class lets a mage be a far better tank than any warrior. They do less damage per second than blaster mages and even less damage than regular warriors, but by the end of the game they can have something like twice the armor value of a warrior, maxed out elemental resistances, and absolutely ridiculous bonuses to resist getting knocked down/frozen/etc.
** ''[[Dragon Age 2]]'' tries to avert this by making all the classes more balanced. Mages are a lot better at killing groups of weaker enemies, but [[The Archer|archer]] Rogues are nearly as good once you get a few attack speed boosts, [[Dual
*** Though in Nightmare Mode all the melee characters become much less useful due to friendly fire, forcing the party back to a warrior for tanking, a ranged rogue for opening chests, and two wizards for stunning as many bad guys as possible while you deal with the enormous hordes of powerful enemies.
* While ''
** Ironically, Baldur's Gate 2 has certain features that allow a fighter/barbarian character to actually become devastating, even when solo, without violating game mechanics. One can use Imoen, a thief, and buy a master thief potion, then pick pocket the Kangaxx character, pre-lich transformation, and gain the Ring of Gaxx, a powerful ring of regeneration. Then gain the ring a second time after the defeat post-lich, and wear two of them simultaneously, for a very powerful regeneration effect. Combined with the boots of haste and the spell-rebounding cloak and a powerful armor, the figher/barbarian becomes an unstoppable juggernaut otherwise soloing through the game, even on the hardest difficulty.
* ''[[Might and Magic]] 6'' & ''7'' plays with this trope. Warriors tend to be better in the beginning until the mages get access to their stronger spells and enough mana to be able to use it reliable, at which point magic users outshines them. However at the end game you gain access to blasters which make both equals in damage dealing but the warriors come out on top again. Clerics and Sorcerers still have a fair few [[Game Breaker
** Though, at least in 7, fighters are still quite impressive assuming you're willing to get in close range with that Blaster-spamming Robot. There are plenty of impressively powerful artifact weapons that will let you hit for hundreds of damage.
* An unusual case of this trope being averted in ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'', which becomes far more apparent later in the game. [[Fragile Speedster|Aika]] and [[Squishy Wizard|Fina]] learn magic rather quickly and Fina is the most powerful spell caster out of the six main characters. However, melee weapons become more diverse in effect (i.e [[Standard Status Effects]], plus elemental powers depending on the color you pick for the weapon) later in the game, and melee specialists, namely [[The Hero|Vyse]] and [[Badass Grandpa|Drachma]], will ''greatly'' out-power magic by the time the player reaches Dangral Island. Taken even further when more "boxes" and crystals with spells become available to buy (for low prices no less), and most of them are more powerful than any party member with high magic stats.
** Also, magic draws from the pool of "Spirit Points", as do Super Moves, that the party members share. Items with spells in them do not have this setback, making the player rely on the also-much-more-useful Super Moves. An example would be the "Curia" [[Yin
* In the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series:
** In the first half of ''[[Kingdom Hearts (
** Somewhat averted in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
** Played relatively straight in ''[[
** And in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
* Zig-Zagged in the [[Tales
* The ''[[
** ''Radiant Dawn'', and to a extent the previous game, averts this. Most enemies, even ''[[Mighty Glacier|Knights]]'', have decent resistance and mages have been further [[
* ''[[
** The first two avert this, since magic isn't that useful in the first; it's mostly used for healing and support. In the second game, The Prince of Lorasia is the best tank and melee character, while the princess of Moonbrooke sits back and wastes groups of enemies with her magic. The Prince of Cannock can do either, though of course not as well as the dedicated characters.
** Pretty much averted in ''[[
** Building on its predecessor, ''[[
** ''[[Dragon Quest Monsters]] Caravan Heart'' plays this straight, as the early spells (Blaze, Fireball) can be inferior to a monster's raw attacking power, and you only have six spell slots per monster. However, those six spells carry over for every reformation, including being powered up, so once a monster has Thordain or Explodet (which hits all enemies), Heal All, and Revive, they're set.
* ''[[Phantasy Star Online]]'' plays this straight overall, but it's a long road getting there. Forces start by being barely able to kill a room full of enemies before needing to go recharge their mana, while physical types have a far easier time of it. The Forces quickly outgrow their Hunter and Ranger counterparts, playing the trope straight, but hit a brick wall in Ultimate difficulty where the enemies' magic resistance gets a huge boost, subverting the trope. However, if you keep playing that Force and level up their high level area magic, you can easily clear an entire room in seconds without suffering a single attack, while a Hunter or Ranger would be swamped by the sheer number of foes. Even better, a Force with high level Jellen and Deband can raise their defense so high and the reduce enemies' attack so low that even a Force, weak armor and all, is in no real danger.
** Definitely subverted in ''[[Phantasy Star]] III''. Most characters have techniques; the handful who don't, including Rhys, your PC in the first generation, start out as competent warriors but by mid-generation are dishing out the most damage, hands-down. Only healing techniques tend to be useful; combat techniques are far outclassed by standard attacks.
** Subverted in ''[[Phantasy Star]] IV''. The first and second times he joins your party, Rune is of much higher level than the rest of your party and he can wipe out entire screens of enemies with a single spell. As the game progresses and the rest of the characters catch up to him, the difference in damage output tends to even out.
* Varies throughout the ''[[
** A preface to this: In many games in the series (''[[
** Oddly enough, reversed in the original ''[[
*** White Mages are actually better tanks than fighters. They have the Ruse spell, which raises evade by 80. Cast it a couple of times and almost no enemy can hit you. With careful leveling, they can do damage comparable to fighters.
*** If anything, the original Final Fantasy is Linear Fighter/Quadratic Black Belt. Black Belts start out substantially weaker than fighters, typically achieve parity somewhere around the volcano stage, and go on to become spicy kung-fu death on a stick in the endgame.
*** Played more or less straight in the [[Enhanced Remake|GBA remake]], though. Unless you get the [[Infinity
**** Even more reversed in the PSP and Iphone Remake, where Warriors get Barbarian Swords...which is ALWAYS even MORE powerful then the Ultima Weapon, while the best the Black Mage gets is...a shiny new dagger. However, the lack of new effective offense spells makes Mages incredibly useless as anything besides support, especially since endgame Red Mages can do anything the Black Mage can, and more.
** ''[[
*** This may have been referenced in ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'', where Onion Knight's limit break is "Class Change," turning him into a sage when using magic attacks and a ninja while using physical attacks.
*** Oddly enough though, one of the most powerful classes mid-game (at least in the DS version) is actually a Geomancer... Despite how they were often a little unpredictable and worthless in most games, and frequently tossed aside as either a joke character or only used for a few semi-decent abilities, then ignored. Despite that they attack with, of all things, [[Improbable Weapon User|BELLS]], they actually can deal nice physical damage when being dual-wielded (mostly due to the fact that Dual-Wielding is utterly ''broken'' in that game) and their special attack (which literally ''has absolutely NO limits'' to how much you can use it) may be somewhat unpredictable, but they actually deal consistent magic damage and bypass magic defenses, along with not getting as much [[Useless Useful Spell|worthless status-inducing effects]]. It may actually not be that uncommon for a Geomancer to get lucky and be the first person to hit for damage [[Dragonball Z|in the Vegeta Level]].
** ''[[
*** But one of the best abilities (considering how little one has to work to obtain it) is obtained by a melee class, the Samurai. It hits every enemy for damage near 7.5k damage...and considering you get it at a point where enemies may have a couple thousand...''ouch''. Expensive to use but the game throws Gil at you like candy on halloween...and you can just spam it without any thought of finances near the end of the game...they throw thousands of gil at you and there's nowhere to spend it.
*** As things go, by endgame the three active physical skills that don't suck (RapidFire, Finisher, and Jump) pretty much become your bread and butter due to the sheer damage you can do with them, especially since you can only use two skills at a time anyways (unless you're a mime).
** ''[[
*** + Ultima + Ultima + Ultima. Not dead yet? Just let me use Mimic with Gogo now...
** Played straight and inverted in ''[[
** ''[[
*** Case in point: black mages received a serious [[Nerf]] when "Manaburn" parties became popular at high levels. These parties, consisting of five black mages and one miscellaneous class (typically a bard or red mage for mana regen), would have the non-mage member pull something and then all the mages would rain holy hell down upon the monster before it could say "broken".
*** Red Mages did play the trope straight. Early on, they were basically a weaker version of a Paladin with a couple debuffs, since the early damage spells just weren't MP efficient even for a mediocre melee character. They couldn't really compete well with White Mages or Black Mages early on because of the slightly slower spell gain and significantly lower MP pool. Late game, they are one of the most indestructible classes, capable of doing decent melee damage, the best debuffers, the best buffers, and more than capable of competing with White Mages and Black Mages (the Red Mage spell list is much smaller, but they do get the most commonly used spells from both classes).
*** Scholar is another example, starting very weak and becoming much more versatile late game. Early Scholar is basically a Black Mage with almost no spells, but Cure added to the list. Late game, not only can Scholar replace Black Mages or White Mages with ease, but they have several unique spells of their own that no other class can ever get.
** Many enemies in ''[[
** Averted in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' where the wizard and summoner classes are most potent in the early and mid game, but fall off a bit in the late game as you start to pick up increasingly powerful characters, most of whom are warrior types. The long charge times of magic, especially summons, also limit their usefulness. But if you've got a mage with [[Game Breaker|Calculator skills]], it's played straight again.
*** To elaborate, most magic-using classes rely on fairly finite MP to cast spells, which can have charge times ranging from immediate to longer than the battle is likely to last. The calculator skillset, however, allows the character to access most of the spells she has learned from many of the magic classes, including some of the more powerful ones, and apply them to enemies instantly at any range without the expense of MP, provided said enemy meets the criteria of a player-generated mathematical "formula." This potentially allows mages to throw veritable nukes into enemy numbers or heal all their allies at once. It's somewhat limited by the calculator class's turtle speed and poor magic stat, but this is easily overcome by giving a black mage (a class with a very high magic stat and decent speed) calculator as a second class.
** Mechanically reversed ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' where weapon attacks scale quadratically with the Strength stat and magic attacks linearly with the Magic stat. In addition, the junction system punishes casting spells, especially the best available spells, as doing so reduces the power of junctions. However, any character can acquire a Strength junction, so in practice it turns out to be quadratic warriors, linear no one.
* In ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'', this applies less to magic users (Mysticality classes) and more to rogues (Moxie classes). Because the Moxie stat determines your character's chance of dodging regular attacks, thieves may be the weakest characters offensively, but with high enough moxie, enemies can only damage you when they land a critical hit (about 1 in 11 chance).
** Though it does apply to the other classes as well, in a "Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards, Half-Ass Thieves" manner. Mysticality classes are difficult to play at low level, with low hit points, lack of skill with weapons, and weak spells, but they dominate the high-level content, with massive damage and the ability to target elemental weaknesses. Muscle classes start off pretty decent and remain pretty decent all the way through. At high level, they don't do quite as much damage as Mysticality classes, but they're much more survivable due to massive HP and good defenses. Moxie classes are easy to play at low levels (because nobody can hit them), but are considered to be underpowered at high levels (though they still excel defensively, ranged weapons are weaker than melee weapons, and they have no high-damage attack skills or spells, so killing high-level monsters can take a while).
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** For example: most classes must rely on what they find, buy, salvage or wish for in order to proceed for success. Wizards can take random junk, put it in piles, and zap it with a polymorph spell until it turns into something they need. Other classes will likely have to use limited-charge wands of polymorph to do this reliably.
* Because of it takes a good deal of inspiration from Nethack, [[Ancient Domains of Mystery|ADOM]] is just as bad. A good mage will be able to fire elemental blasts of all kinds, death rays, summmon minions (which you can eat, meaning infinite food), teleport at will, carry hundreds of thousands of pounds, replicate any number of rare tools at will, and so on. ''And'' because they're pretty much guaranteed to become a [[Magic Knight]] anyway, they're great at melee also.
* Played straight in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] 2: The Sith Lords''. At early levels you really wanna play the Guardian and max up their feats, as Sentinels and Consulars die easily, but at high levels a character will take out an entire room with just one or two Force Storms. But let's also not forget the [[Magic Knight|Jedi Weapon Master]] who can still learn force storm, and can take out a room by jumping back and forth from enemy-to-enemy after cleaning up the trash with Force Storm.
** YMMV for Jedi in KOTOR's class system, Guardians can always get a wide range of powerful force abilities. Non-force using party members, on the other hand, are quite limited compared to the force-users, playing this trope straight.
* ''[[Star Ocean]]'', at least the first two games (and the PSP [[Enhanced Remake
** Also, the Healbot can be ordered to just use a one-hit weak-spell that does nothing but hit once and causes a stagger.
* The ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' series goes back and forth with this:
** In the first game probably does it to the greatest extent. Not too far into the game (round about Chapter 2-3) you can pick up Ether Staffs, which allow for Great Magic, but also boost magical power well into the quadruple digits, so without using Great Magic, you'll be out-doing the whole rest of the party for damage by a ludicrous factor; the lion's share of standard encounters will go down with one round of Lightning Bolt to the whole enemy group. With Great Magic, well, even bosses are going to go down in a hurry.
*** 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 [[
** 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.
** Newer games, notably ''[[
* [[Defense of the Ancients]]: Inverted with style. Early game is rocked by mages, late-game a single warrior can take out five mages.
* In [[League of Legends]], linear- and quadratic-ness depend entirely on the champion you are playing: unlike DotA, spellcasters DO scale with items. As a general rule of thumb, carries are moderately strong early and mid and dominate late, but tend to be very squishy to compensate, casters (including physical casters) are strong early and mid game, but fall off late and assassins are weak early, but dominate mid game and are still a threat late. Played straight with bruisers, who are generally strong in early and mid game, but lose effectiveness as enemy champions gain the means to actually take them down.
** 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.
* It's tough to start as a wizard in ''[[Gothic|Gothic 2]]''. You don't even get any spells for the first third of the game, so get ready to use light swords and run very fast. But, if you stick with it, the later bosses become ridiculously easy. A properly built wizard can kill the last dragon in three shots, before he can even attack you.
* Normally used in the ''[[Avernum]]'' series, where priests and mages tend to become demigods in the second half in the games, vastly overshadowing the warriors' usefulness. Averted, however, in ''Avernum 6'', by having quadratic wizards ''and'' quadratic warriors. With the introduction of dual-wielding, a properly built fighter is the best source of single-target damage in the game.
* ''[[
** You can also get the best ending if you have very high charisma...which is extremely easy for mages since they have a spell that greatly increases their charisma. Planescape also gives an additional advantage for spellcasters by being much more dialogue-oriented than most RPGs. There's only 4 mandatory fights in the entire game; everything else can either be bypassed or solved through diplomacy. Because of this, intelligence, wisdom and charisma are extremely useful stats, as they allow you to get the best dialogue options. Mages will by definition have high intelligence, should have enough character building points left over to also boost their wisdom, and can learn the aforementioned spell to boost their charisma.
* The ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]]'' series embraces this trope. Might-oriented heroes are good in short games or as scouts or garrison leaders, but heroes with a lot of Spell Power throwing level 5 spells tend to dominate the late game. This is reflected in the different types of town: Those associated with Mighty heroes like the Barbarian build up fast, but those associated with extreme magic users tend to take longer to build up but get the most powerful creatures like Titans or Black Dragons.
** But at an even later stage, the balance shifts again: despite mage being able to wipe out a small army with one spell, it will be merely a drop in a bucket for the endgame legions, while Might heroes empower each and every creature on their side. Though of course, buffing them with ''spells'' is quite viable too.
* Played straight in most ''[[Elder Scrolls]]'' games.
** ''Morrowind'' has the infamous alchemy/enchanting bugs, where a player with a good level of competence in one of those skills could make potions or enchantments to make them better at making potions and enchantments. Recursion ensued and pretty soon one was more powerful than the Daedra lords themselves (literally, in the case of Bloodmoon). Meanwhile, one could only get a fraction of the power if they went purely-melee, depending on loot items.
*** It's worth noting, however, that alchemy and enchantments are far better at serving melee characters than magical ones. Offensive magic is serviceable in the original game and high-level buffs can make you all but invincible, but by the expansions you're doing too little damage too slowly to enemies who have a very large chance of resisting, absorbing, or even reflecting your spells, while you have a very small mana pool that doesn't recharge naturally. By Tribunal most spells are completely useless, though enchanting and alchemy remain powerful throughout the three games.
*** [http://lesswrong.com/lw/14h/the_hero_with_a_thousand_chances/zza?c=1&context=1#comments “I like to call this a 'Morrowind Singularity.'"]
*** Of course, in Morrowind it was possible to create spells. It wasn't difficult to make a fireball extra potent or give it an insanely large blast radius...
** ''Oblivion'', whilst revamping the enchanting and potion-making systems, still had a nasty magic exploit. You could not gain experience from casting spells unless they affected an enemy or yourself. Cue making custom 1-magicka self-targeted spells that you could spam non-stop. Pretty soon you had level 50 spellcasters with god-spells that could kill anything (except the admittedly-broken leveled enemies) with a single touch. Meanwhile the warriors, with the same time investment, would still be stuck at level 15 by then, a paltry level that still has weak loot.
** Played straighter in ''Daggerfall'' where spells could be learned or created that would scale up with level. In later games, spells created within the limits of an early mage's magicka supply would become obsolete later, and clutter the spell list while more powerful versions would have to be sought out. But in all games, weapon skills are generally more efficient means of damaging, and buffing a more efficient use of magicka.
** Played somewhat straight with ''Skyrim'', mostly due to the way the system works; Mages can summon something to take the brunt of damage for them (two, with a Master Conjuration Perk), have alteration to act as their armor if necessary, and master level destruction spells can wipe out areas once you deal with the issue of having low health (usually dealing with the issue takes the place of summoning). NPCs are all shown to be weaker in comparison to a high level PC regardless of class, but a Mage power leveling Destruction will find himself at a top tier (relative to the low level he would have) rather quickly, allowing him to level support magic skills at leisure, whereas a warrior power leveling their weapon will find themselves being a squishy warrior, unable to properly defend against the enemies they fight unless they go back to an easy part and power level an armor skill.
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*** However, if mages specialize in enchanting, and use certain potions to strengthen alchemy, or better yet specialize in enchanting AND smithing, it is entirely possible to create armor sets which reduce all spell costs of a certain school of magic to zero. If you played a destruction mage, you can now cast unlimited destruction spells, or if you play an alteration mage, you can raise your tank to truly ridiculous levels.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'': A tip from Bioware staff:
{{quote|
* In "[[Mass Effect 2]]" it depends on the difficulty.
** At easier difficulties, mages (Adepts) rule, when you can take down hordes of space zombies without firing a single shot.
** At harder difficulties, everything is pretty much immune to those abilities until their primary defense is stripped, making the direct damage classes (Infiltrator and Soldier) the best.
*** That said, leveling the Warp power, taking Energy Drain as your secondary power and picking the Assault or Sniper Rifle when on the Collector ship it is possible to build an Adept that can deal death at all levels.
* In full force in ''[[
* Used to a degree in [[Dawn of War]] 2: Retribution with the Chaos campaign. The Chaos Sorcerer, Neroth, is frustratingly useless early on. You will lose count of how often you've had to stop and drag his [[Squishy Wizard]] rump off the ground. However later in the game with the right skills and equipment, he can decimate entire hordes of enemies single handedly, firing off two massive clouds of doombolts for a single casting or sending three huge fireballs at the enemy, automatically firing off flurries of doombolts periodically and more depending on what spells you've given him. However your other heroes can thankfully still hold their own towards the end.
* The [[World of Mana]] has a love/hate relationship with this trope, depending on what game you're playing.
** [[Final Fantasy Adventure]], despite its [[One
** [[Secret of Mana]] embraces this trope to its fullest; while the magicless Boy is easily the strongest damage dealer early on, he falls to the wayside as soon as the Girl and Sprite gain their various elemental spells.
** [[Seiken Densetsu 3]] eliminates the problem by allowing everybody to become [[Magic Knight
** [[Sword of Mana]], a remake of [[Final Fantasy Adventure]], plays it straight unintentionally, mostly through the introduction of a slew of [[Good Bad Bugs]].
** [[Legend of Mana]] and [[Children of Mana]] both invert the formula ''hard''. In former, magic is almost always weaker than just smacking something with physical attacks, and in the latter, well...at least you have the capability of [[Healing Hands|healing magic.]]
* Inverted in the ''[[
* Played almost painfully straight in ''[[Majesty]]''. When your wizards are low-level, expect to hear their "I'm melting!" death cry very often. However, as the occasional lucky wizard survives a little longer (or keeps getting resurrected), and if you keep the library well-stocked with new spells, they quickly turn into apocalyptic forces that are only stymied by the rare magic-resistant enemy. About the only thing faster for clearing a group of enemies is to set a high bounty and then spam the barbarian god's berserk spell on your units, which gets very expensive very fast.
* Inverted in ''[[Vindictus]]''. Mage character [[Cute Witch|Evie]] is easily the most powerful character at low levels, due to her strong magic shields and powerful ranged magic attacks. Her quick evasion skills also helps compensate for her lack of defensive ability, since all low-level bosses being [[Might Glacier]] types. As the game progresses and strong [[Lightning Bruiser]] bosses become more common, Evie's defenses do not scale as quickly, thus it becomes progressively harder to solo. By comparison, the other characters get heavier armour and develop powerful defense and attack skills that make them far more survivable against later bosses, with Tank Fiona and Scrapper Karok becoming the predominant solo characters.
* Inverted in ''[[
* ''[[
* [[Global Agenda]] has the Assault class, an absurd tank and a good destroyer, depending on build, but is nearly useless at low levels. The most sought-after teammate class (exceeding even the medic!) at higher levels.
== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[The Order of the Stick
** Note that Vaarsuvius contributed more to the battle than the entire rest of the order together (except Belkar, who got ahold of an at-will fireball attack), and V only fled after the battle was already lost and invisibility was the only spell s/he had left.
** In the commentaries to one of the books, Rich admits that Vaarsuvius is, by this point (the party is around level 13 or 14) pretty much a living god, capable of single-handedly affecting the outcome of the battle. Having him/her get knocked off the wall and be unable to rejoin the others was an intentional plot to limit V's impact.
*** To drive this point home even further, it's important to note that V's particular magic specialization (and as a side effect, forbidden magic schools) are pretty much universally acknowledged as the worst possible way to play a wizard. Vaarsuvius would be much, much more powerful if V didn't bar conjuration and necromancy.
** In another of the books, the Order (who are based on D&D 3.5e) meet and fight their 4e counterparts. When V realised that mages had been largely nerfed to try and balance out the classes, s/he was of the opinion that wizardry would quickly die out in the 4e world, as nobody would spend years or decades studying the arcane arts when they could become just as powerful by bumming around in a bad neighbourhood.
** 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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== Western Animation ==
* [[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]. At the start of the show, Sokka is the most capable warrior left in the Southern Water Tribe who hasn't already gone to war. His sister Katara is a [[Making a Splash|waterbender]] who is self-taught and only really knows two tricks. Sokka, while still no match for Prince Zuko, was still a more capable fighter than her. About halfway through season 1 Katara learns the [[Exactly What It Says
== Real Life ==
* If humans are the [[Squishy Wizard
** Even better, soldiers have been kicking ass since the first wedge became the first knife...then [
** Speaking of physicists, to quote ''[[Mass Effect]] 2'', "Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space." Throwing stuff ''really'' hard and counting on it not slowing down may be a warrior move, but it took a wizard to come up with it (and more wizards to implement it).
* Education. The more you get, the longer you wait to start your career, and the more you'll be living on Ramen Noodles. But the earning power of a bachelor's degree is considerably higher than a high school diploma, and a Phd makes a bachelor's look like nothing. In comparison, you could run around and lift weights, hoping for a sports scholarship or to join the military, but even if you succeed, that's a capability that will ''decrease'' in value as time passes and your body breaks down. And in the military, you'll never make officer unless you finish your education, meaning once you get hurt badly enough it's the trailer park for you.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Red Fish Blue Fish]]
[[Category:Power At a Price]]
[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
[[Category:Tabletop
[[Category:Wizards and Witches]]
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