Squishy Wizard/Playing With
Basic Trope: A character possessing powerful mystical abilities is physically weak.
- Straight: Matthias Longbeard is a powerful sorcerer, but he's not so great in close combat.
- Exaggerated: Matthias controls vast amount of elemental forces, but can't run up a flight of stairs.
- Whenever Matthias, the master of Reality itself, gets poked, he explodes for some reason
- Justified: Matthias has been in the wizarding business for a while and age has caught up with him.
- Studying magic tends to involve spending countless hours in dusty libraries, so Matthias never got a chance to exercise.
- For whatever reason, wearing armour is counter-productive to wielding magic, so Matthias doesn't wear any. The result is this trope.
- Matthias is a lich, so his body is highly decayed
- Downplayed: Matthias is physically weaker, but can fight in close quarters if he needs to.
- Inverted: All mages actually are very hard to damage due to all of their mystical shields and wards. However they really can't do much damage compared to a good swordsman and can't use any metal weapons.
- Subverted: In times of great need, Matthias can summon the ability to become a Kung Fu Wizard
- Or, Matthias happens to have a pretty good defensive spell that keeps him alive.
- Matthias has the physique of a string bean, but he is also a black belt, which more than makes up for it
- Double Subverted: Except after he uses these abilities, Matthias requires a 12-hour rest to regain full strength.
- Parodied: Matthias can control time and space, disintegrating enemies with a flick of his wrist. But if you so much as nudge him he'll fall over in a crumpled heap.
- Deconstructed: The Big Bad recognizes Matthias' power. He orders his minions to focus their attacks on Matthias. Matthias wipes out much of the minions with his powerful stats, but he is eventually overpowered by the sheer numbers. His friends try to help, but they are disorganized and vulnerable by this surprise attack.
- Reconstructed: Matthais' physical vulnerability reveals that magic is just another tool or skill, and that mages are just as human as everyone else.
- Zig Zagged: Matthias is as vulnerable or invincible as the plot demands -- in one episode he can be injured only by special magic weapons and in the next he trips over a pebble and breaks his foot so his comrades must take on the next dungeon without him.
- Averted: Matthias uses buff spells, becoming stronger than most Badass Normal characters.
- Or, Matthias regularly exercises at least an hour a day, so he's actually pretty fit for a wizard.
- Enforced: "This wizard character is too strong. We need to weaken him a bit."
- The wizard couldn't be balanced if he weren't squishy.
- Lampshaded: "Is waving that stick around all you trained in?"
- Invoked: Matthias is told to stay in the back of the party's attack formation, keeping him out of the line of fire while giving him some range for his spells.
- Defied: The Big Bad recognizes Matthias' power. He orders his minions to focus their attacks on Matthias. Turns out it was all a Xanatos Gambit made up by Matthias: by focusing his henchmen on Matthias, the rest of the party can focus on him. The other way around would have taken longer, and while still doable, this way is more direct.
- Discussed: "It seems weird that this guy can breath fire, but gets taken down by a sprained ankle."
- Conversed: "Don't you think wizards should have some actual combat training?"
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