Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Difference between revisions
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*** 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.
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* ''[[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 from Hit Points]] stops the wizards from becoming war gods.
== Video Games ==
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