Mage/ Fighter: Examples

[Scowling Dragon]

I need as many examples as Possible of Warriors in books, movies, videogames in settings where mages also exist, and how that dynamic works. Not in P&P games though.

I need this to analyze how it could be possible to create a P&P game where Magic is both interesting and dynamic whilst at the same time allowing for Fighters to have a equal share in the Process.

Do NOT talk about your opinions in THIS thread. Just tell of examples and how the Dynamic worked. Where mages the only shindiggers that mattered? Or did nobody care?

[ArlEammon]

I need as many examples as Possible of Warriors in books, movies, videogames in settings where mages also exist, and how that dynamic works. Not in P&P games though.

I need this to analyze how it could be possible to create a P&P game where Magic is both interesting and dynamic whilst at the same time allowing for Fighters to have a equal share in the Process.

Do NOT talk about your opinions in THIS thread. Just tell of examples and how the Dynamic worked. Where mages the only shindiggers that mattered? Or did nobody care?

Hm....
Barnabus from Dark Shadows. . . I don't think he used magic much in combat, but he was both a warlock and a vampire.

[Makensha]

Every example I can think of from the Shannara series was basically magic users were rare. In Wishsong, they traveled with the World's Best Fighter, and he could basically take on anything they ran across. Once magic came into play though, fighters were screwed.

In Supernatural Step, the few non-magic (VERY FEW) generally got by or even were superior to magic users by way of sheer fighting prowess. Of course, one was a huge monster and the other had eight arms... also, most magic users just weren't very good.

In one book I want to say was called Black Rising (I can't find it though), normal people of incredible skill gained magic assisted fighting just through sheer focus (mages focused to use magic). They would still get the crap beaten out of them by a proper mage though.

In yet another book I can't remember, mages were more like prophets. They gained their power through their god. They were not actually threats themselves, but when they called on their god to aid a battle, watch out. The god would also ensure that the prophet would be treated well when the prophet's army lost a battle. But the prophet was basically at the mercy of the god. If the prophet fell out of favor, one way or another the god would kill him.

In Magic: The Gathering, a normal warrior can kick the crap out of a mage of equal mana value, generally because that equivalent mana value goes into special effects.

In Dragon Age, a warrior can get next to and annihilate a mage by interrupting their spells.

In Star Wars, most mages can't withstand prolonged missle silo barrages. Or treachery.

[Traab]

Tarma and Kethry from a Mercedes Lackey series, Vows and Honor.

Its a bit of an odd mix, mainly because kethry, who is the mage, has a magic blade called Need, that has as its main power, if a swordswoman uses it, she is protected from magic, but if a MAGE uses it, she can fight like a blademaster. But in general its the standard setup of, warrior up front, mage in the back. Its just in this case, if the bad guys get past her spells, and tarmas blade, they still have to fight kethry who can use her sword like a master.

[Yora]

All Force Users in star wars seem to be fighter/mages. Just Magic does not seem to work for them.

In Dragon Age the Chuch has specialized warriors who were trained and altered with magical substances to be resistant to mage and able to hunt down mages that stepped out of line.
One magical dictatorship led to mages being forced to be registered and live in guilds unter permanent observation by those Templars. All mages who try to avoid it are treated as security risks and either brought to the guilds by force or killed. In addition to their magical powers, they are also at high risk from demon possession, and demons like to seek out mages who want to flee from the Templars and offer them demonic magic to do so. As a result, those mages who try to escape are indeed very likely to turn out as possessed monsters.
Didn't really work out in the long run, as eventually entire guilds rebelled at once and defeated their guardians, leading to another great mage-war with lots of actually demon-mages running around free as well.

[Man on Fire]

Berserk has Shrieke, magician capable of destroying an army or two. However, because her magic requires her to leave her body and go to spirit world, to contact spirit she then needs to convince to help her, it leave her vunerable, so rest of the party has to protect her. Which means that most of times she doesn't overshadow guys like Guts, who can go toe-to-toe with giant monsters at ease.

In Black Company very powerful wizards aren't that common, titular mecenary bad only really has three of them, Goblin, One-Eye and Silent, who specialise in illusions and blocking enemy wizards during the battle, or, if they're unable to, localize them, so somebody else may take them down. There are some quite powerful wizards in this world, like Ten Who Were Taken, infamously hard to kill, but still can be outmanevured and outsmarted. In battle they're first target for whatever heavy weaponery other side has, including enemy wizards. As the story progresses they do add some magical means of warfare.

In Fionavar Tapestry wizards draws their power from other person, the Source. Their power is ultimately dependent on vital strenght of the Source, shall it fall exhausted or would they be epareted, wizard would be powerless. if Source dies, they can never use magic again and cannot replace it with another Source. This tends to keep wizards out of the battlefields, the one we saw in battle remained outside the combat and was throwing spell, sending messages, keeping eye close on flow of battle and healing the wounded from the command hill. There are records of one wizard who had Source powerful enough to be able to defeat whole armies by himself, but that's an ancient history.

[Tengu_temp]

Drinking game: take a shot each time someone only reads the title of the thread and posts examples of characters who are mages and fighters at the same time.

[Dienekes]

An interesting one is Bayaz/Logan Ninefingers in The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. Bayaz is your basic Gandalf stand-in while Logan is a Frenzied Berserker of the worst sort.

The dynamic is actually sort of balanced out. Bayaz can do amazing things, like randomly set things on fire or destroy objects. But doing so weakens him drastically and he generally can't pull off anything too powerful more than once or so a day. He also can be killed just as easily as anyone else, but doesn't age, so he's stuck as an old, un-athletic, fat man. Also it's shown that magic takes a long, long time to learn and generally the greatest practitioners specialize on something of interest to them, his was fire and latter craftsmanship. And for the really big types of magic he had to go on a quest to set up the ritual that would eventually lead to his victory.

Logen, on the other hand goes crazy and murders everything within a 5 mile radius while laughing like a nutcase and proclaiming he is death incarnate. When he is not being utterly ashamed at his past violent life and fear of losing his control, again.

So in brief, mages were very rare, and very specialized. They can do a lot of little things or one incredibly powerful thing in a day. And to do the great stuff like weather control, or creating a disease, or what have you it takes a lot of time and effort and the requires an entire party to go about getting what's necessary.

Meanwhile the warrior types are allowed to be suitably badass, and tend to have more practical knowledge. Sure Bayaz may know who the king was 200 years ago, but Logan knows where they're probably going to be ambushed, how to hunt and survive in the wild, and how to keep a party of adventurers together without relying on threats.

[Manga Shoggoth]

The Belgariad and The Elenium by David Eddings are possibilities.

In the Belgariad, the fighter contingent is provided by Barak, Mandorellan, Lelldorin and Dunark (and to a lesser extent, Silk, but he's more of a thief), and the Mage department filled by Belgarath, Polgara and (partly) Garion.

The Elenium revolves about a group of Church Knights (the fighter bit is obvious here) and Sephrenia (who tutors one of the knightly orders in magic). May be not quite what you want as the Knights do perform a small amount of magic, and Sephrenia turnes out to be more like a Cleric than a Mage. Tengu_temp may like to take a shot at this point - I have some very nice mead.

In both cases the dynamic was basically that the fighters dealt with the combat situations, and the mages tended to deal with the more complex situations.

In the Belgariad, the Will and the Word (their term for magic) has a number of limitations, so it was better to have fighters around to deal with the more mundane issues.

The Elenium used a simillar dynamic, but handled things slightly differently - spells were requests directed to a God in the God's own language (at least one of the knights - Kalten - was useless at magic because he had no head for languages - including his own...). Sephrenia was awesome at magic patly because she spoke the language fluently (and because she turned out to be the goddess' older sister - it makes sense in context...)

EDIT: Having made my comment above, I just noticed that Tengu_temp is from Poland. They make awesome mead there...

EDIT the second: How could I forget Negima - here we have the pairing of a Mage with a support character (supposedly a fighter) - the dynamic here is that the fighter takes forward defense, and the mage acts as the artillary. And they often marry each other...

[Makensha]

Drinking game: take a shot each time someone only reads the title of the thread and posts examples of characters who are mages and fighters at the same time.
Or maybe a lot of mages just happen to also be fighters... I really don't know to which post you refer.

[Serpentine]

Tamora Pierce has mages, fighters, fighters who are mages, and the occasional mages who are fighters.
The dynamic, let's see... Powerful mages just really aren't that common in Tortall. Most people with magic can do a little healing and some practical tricks. Really powerful magic has two very important downsides:
1. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every man turned into a tree, there is a tree turned into a man. If you create weather in one area, you take it from another. And so on.
2. There appears to be a trade-off in power vs. precision. One particularly powerful mage, for example, expresses jealousy of lesser mages for all the useful things they can do. He could never heal someone, because the wave of power would kill them. Where lesser mages could use their magic to blow out a candle across the room, he has to get up and put it out himself or else he'll blow up the candle and the wall behind it.

Magic also tends to be tied up with one's lifeforce. Try to do too much, and you start leeching away your very vitae and start dying.

[Dr.Epic]

Any alchemist from FMA.

[Ramza00]

Any alchemist from FMA.

http://oi40.tinypic.com/91m6vb.jpg

Not all alchemists in FMA, though he did take leadership for this specific reason.

[Kitten Champion]

The Dresden files. Wizards like Harry obviously play a starring role but they also live in a continuum of badass normals and mystically empowered warriors, and they can definitely pull their own weight.

Powerful Wizards are limited by White Council law which prevents using magic as a killing tool, or messing with human heads. There are certain inherent weaknesses to magic as well -- limited access to power, spells that are messy in confined areas, inability to use modern technology effectively, a certain amount of time required to accomplish anything... and a few other things I've forgotten.

Meanwhile, the badass normals -- who have access to things like claymore mines, assault rifles, helicopters, computers, ect -- are increasingly savvy in their interactions with the magical world. This can make them both a legitimate threat and asset to wizards.

[Dr.Epic]

http://oi40.tinypic.com/91m6vb.jpg

Not all alchemists in FMA, though he did take leadership for this specific reason.

Oh please! If the DM throws a rust monster at your party, does that make the fighter any less of a fighter?

[GolemsVoice]

Geralt, from the Witcher saga.

The balance is clearly tipped towards wizards (or sorceresses), because powerful wizards ARE able to call down hell upon an army, although doing so weakens them and requires a ritual (and might not be possible if you only count the books and not the video game).

An average wizard will still be able to beat an average fighter, since he can throw fireballs and shield himself, but he isn't invincible, and an arrow or a sword still kills him just as well. And there are many soldiers, and few wizards, even though they are a staple in every army.

The wizard's real power is political, however, since they, especially the sorceresses, have maneuvered themselves into positions at courts and other key areas.

Geralt, genetically enhanced monster slayer, spends most of his time unravelling the plots of powerful men and women, especially wizards.

[Dr.Epic]

Majin Buu/Evil Buu/Super Buu/Kid Buu

[KillianHawkeye]

Majin Buu/Evil Buu/Super Buu/Kid Buu

Is Majin Buu supposed to be an example of a mage, or a fighter? :smallconfused:

[Man on Fire]

Geralt, from the Witcher saga.

The balance is clearly tipped towards wizards (or sorceresses), because powerful wizards ARE able to call down hell upon an army, although doing so weakens them and requires a ritual (and might not be possible if you only count the books and not the video game).

An average wizard will still be able to beat an average fighter, since he can throw fireballs and shield himself, but he isn't invincible, and an arrow or a sword still kills him just as well. And there are many soldiers, and few wizards, even though they are a staple in every army.

The wizard's real power is political, however, since they, especially the sorceresses, have maneuvered themselves into positions at courts and other key areas.

Geralt, genetically enhanced monster slayer, spends most of his time unravelling the plots of powerful men and women, especially wizards.


However, you need to remember that there was one wizard who was so good at combat he did beaten the living manure out of Geralt.



Tamora Pierce has mages, fighters, fighters who are mages, and the occasional mages who are fighters.
The dynamic, let's see... Powerful mages just really aren't that common in Tortall. Most people with magic can do a little healing and some practical tricks. Really powerful magic has two very important downsides:
1. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every man turned into a tree, there is a tree turned into a man. If you create weather in one area, you take it from another. And so on.

It's similiar to how magic goes in Earthsea.

[Tengu_temp]

Or maybe a lot of mages just happen to also be fighters... I really don't know to which post you refer.

You want examples? Here:

Hm....
Barnabus from Dark Shadows. . . I don't think he used magic much in combat, but he was both a warlock and a vampire.

All Force Users in star wars seem to be fighter/mages. Just Magic does not seem to work for them.

Any alchemist from FMA.

Majin Buu/Evil Buu/Super Buu/Kid Buu
Bottoms up!



EDIT: Having made my comment above, I just noticed that Tengu_temp is from Poland. They make awesome mead there...

EDIT the second: How could I forget Negima - here we have the pairing of a Mage with a support character (supposedly a fighter) - the dynamic here is that the fighter takes forward defense, and the mage acts as the artillary. And they often marry each other...

Mead is the traditional Polish drink, after all. As well as one of the few alcohols I actually like.

As for Negima, it's generally true. Negi himself breaks the tradition by becoming both a mage and a fighter, but he's the main character of a shonen manga so that's not very surprising.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Holy Grail War combat in Fate/Stay Night is supposed to work in teams, with a single wizard providing strategy and magical support paired with a single fighter-y superhero bodyguard to do actual damage (somewhere between Mahou Sensei Negima and Pokemon, really), but everyone cheats and the main ("mage") character has a death wish so it usually doesn't.

The alternate continuity spinoff Fate/Extra enforces the mage and fighter roles a little more, though, so I guess that counts, especially for people who don't contract Casters. That's ritual dueling, though, not "real" fights. Mostly.

Video games with non-D&D based casting often have a dynamic set up where mages are good at crowd control and handling groups, but a single powerful fighter can deal a lot more damage to a single target (e.g. the aforementioned mage). Mass Effect comes to mind, as Biotics there are primarily traps and debuffs and you still need someone to actually shoot the enemy unless they're the weakest brand of mooks.


Basically, if you limit magic in some way rather than D&D's paradigm of "magic can do whatever the hell the game designers feel like to sell more splatbooks", or if you enforce teamwork in some other way, it can work.

[Ramza00]

Oh please! If the DM throws a rust monster at your party, does that make the fighter any less of a fighter?

Roy Mustang isn't a fighter though, he is more of an artillery, sniper, archer with his abilities.

[Starbuck_II]

Game of Thrones video game, both characters are warriors as well
1) Mors Westfort, shinchanger: can control his animal companion completely (you mind merge).

2) Red Priest Alester Sarwyck: Fire mage, can't create flame usually, but can control fire (making it burn stronger, combust, spread, reistance to fire, etc).

Granted, mages aren't very common in the setting.

[JustSomeGuy]

Does James Earl Jones in Conan count?

[Dr.Epic]

Is Majin Buu supposed to be an example of a mage, or a fighter? :smallconfused:

Both: he has strong physical attacks and magical attacks.

[Douglas]

Wheel of Time. Warriors matter only because there are so very many more of them than mages. The extreme tip top of the mage power curve is capable of single-handedly annihilating armies of many tens of thousands of ordinary warriors, but that magnitude of power pretty much automatically puts you in the series' main cast and they're still a tiny fraction of even just the "main" cast.

More typical WoT mages are worth maybe a few dozen normal warriors in battle.

One on one, warriors can only win if they get surprise. The main organization of mages has a practice of recruiting elite warriors as bodyguards to make sure that doesn't happen.

[KillianHawkeye]

Both: he has strong physical attacks and magical attacks.

The OP is not looking for hybrid characters, he is looking for
as many examples as Possible of Warriors in books, movies, videogames in settings where mages also exist, and how that dynamic works

Hence my confusion regarding Majin Buu, who does both.



I think DragonBall is a bad example of this in general. There are relatively few magic-using characters, and those that do exist are mostly non-combatants whose sole purpose is to train or otherwise power-up one or more of the main characters. Thus, there is no attempt within the setting to balance fighters with mage-types.

[Scowling Dragon]

Yes I am not looking for Hybrids. Im looking for the Bearded mage who wears a dress and has spells, and the Fighter who smashes stuff with his pecks of steel, for Research Purposes.

[Doorhandle]

Here. Bask in the glroious wiki. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SwordAndSorcerer)

[Man on Fire]

There are many names I would call tvtropes. Glorious ain't one of them.

[Fri]

Fairy tail is a series about mage guilds. But apparently, non supernatural warriors also exist there. At one point the main character fight a pair of warriors who thought of themselves as mage killers. They said that the weakness of magicians are that magicians have weak body and they need time to cast their spell. Which is utterly false in this setting. Since all kind of supernatural power, ranging from ability to create and control ice, summoning creatures, using guns that shoot magical bullets, being able to meld into walls, or fighting using magical armor, is considered as magic. So maybe if you're fighting a traditional book-learning wizard you'll have those weakness, but since by being a supernaturally all-powerful dragonblooded creature you'll also be also considered as magician, depending on those weakness to fight magicians will be your demise.

Since in this series most magicians also have excellent constitution and physical fighting ability for some reason, being a non-magical fighter is a total disadvantage. I'm actually pretty annoyed by this, I can't see any point to use non-magical warriors for your mission or whatever in this setting. But as evidenced by the example I mentioned, they still exist!

[dps]

In The Elder Scrolls games, you can play as a warrior or as a mage, as well as characters who are both or neither. You'll find all 4 as NPCs as well.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to discuss how the dynamic works without discussing my opinions, though. How it works is strongly affected by the choices you make in character creations, which of course is in turn strongly influenced by my opinions.

[Lamech]

Dresden Files is a pretty good example. The normals have a tendency to use things like cruise missiles, holy fire*, and anti-personal mines.

A good fantasy example is TES. Especially later versions. Fighters can still be highly effective.

Tales of Phantasia, has a couple mages, but warriors still rock.

Final Fantasy (some of them at least) yeah, warriors are superhuman, but they aren't wizards.

Fire Emblem has mages and fighters on fairly even footing combat wise.

Supernatural the T.V. show. The two main characters are more or less completely mundane. In most episodes.

*Okay we've never actually seen this, but someone really needs to whip up some Holy Napalm.

[Lupus753]

In the Fire Emblem video games, both physical and magical fighters have linear growth. You have swords, axes, and lances, which do various damage to different weapon types in a rock-paper-scissorsesque Weapon Triangle. The same thing applies to magic, with wind, fire, and lightning (or light, dark, and anima, in other games). Magic has lower base damage, but fewer enemies have good magic defense than defense and magic can attack from one or two squares away. There are also bows, which can only attack from two squares away but deal extra damage to flying units. In Radiant Dawn, magic was useless while in the most recent game, Awakening, it seems to be better than melee.

In Final Fantasy Tactics, magic starts off better than physical fighting. It does more damage at further range. But then fighters get their own long-range, high-damage attacks (Monks and Samurai are probably the best classes overall in that game). Besides, late magic spells have long charge times that severely hamper effectiveness. Unless you get Arithmeticians, who use arithmetic variables and divisions to strike at multiple enemies from infinite range at zero MP cost, if you know how to use it right.

[thubby]

league of legends has a universe packed with reality bending mages that get stabbed to death regularly.

one piece is similar. though magic isn't quite magic explicitly, you have super powered being running around and regular guys with swords fighting them.

in both cases the maximum ability of standard humans is just significantly higher.

[Corvus]

Don't forget Conan (the original Conan from R. E. Howard's stories). A warrior in a world where magic was rare, dangerous and mosly evil.

The 3E D&D variant rules set Iron Heroes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Heroes) did a remarkable job of capturing the sword and sorcery feel of Conan style adventuring, even though it has a few flaws.

[GenericMook]

As previously mentioned, the Dresden Files has some examples of legitimate fighter/mage dynamics. There are four normals that actually fit the role (Sanya, Michael, Shiro, and a certain someone that gets their hands on Fidelacchius), and they're essentially mid-leveled Fighters with awesome enchanted weapons and divine aid. If you're willing to allow guns in this, then Murphy definitely qualifies. Then you have a ton of supernatural creatures that are serious bruisers. Only a very small amount of supernatural creatures actually do toss around magic, but those that do are generally pretty damn dangerous.

Wizards, on the other hand, are about as varied as it comes. A wizard's skill in combat generally depends on both their talent and their experience. You've got wizards that are more capable in dealing with the subtle matters, and then you have wizards that can throw some serious damage. There's even a group - the Wardens - that are the equivalent of DnD-gishes.

Then you have your supernatural creatures that are also capable of using magic. A lot of these are dangerous due to the sheer amount of time they've been around. Beyond that, you have your supernatural heavyweights like Mab or Uriel.

As you can expect, things tend to skew towards anything remotely supernatural. If you're a normal person, you basically want to run away as soon as possible. Knights of the Cross and wizards like Dresden can face off with most supernatural non-casters with some difficulty, but things usually start going downhill when some supernatural entity that can throw around spells go in the mix.

As for the heavyweights, well, they rarely get involved. Mab, Titania, and Uriel, for example, don't really do much on stage. Most of the work they do is done either behind the curtain or by proxies.

[Avilan the Grey]

Many of the secondary characters in the Dresden Files. Especially the knights of the cross (basically Paladins without magic).

The Soldier class in the Mass Effect games.

[JustSomeGuy]

Finn the human from Advrnture Time... he is the only remotely normal being there.

Also, everyone who isn't Merlin from the Athurian tales.

[Daer]

this might help you find out pairs and where to look for
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SwordAndSorcerer

[Liffguard]

Magic users in the Second Apocalypse books are pretty much unbeatable by normal people and can in turn destroy entire armies, level hills and bring fortifications crashing down. They can walk in the sky and compel others to do what they want. However, there are not entirely uncommon artefacts called chorae that render the bearer completely immune to magic and kill all sorcerers on contact.



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[Bling Cat]

I think I saw A Song of Ice and Fire mentioned earlier, but it wasn't really expanded upon. I have no idea how familiar you are with the setting, so I'll try to give more details.

It's a very low magic setting, so it may not fit your purposes perfectly, but better too many samples than too few. The only mages we see are often quite powerful, but not in the way that makes them great fighters. Their spells often have some kind of price that must be paid, for one type of religious magic appears to use blood sacrifice, and the spells they cast are time consuming, often taking the form of illusions or what prophetic visions. I believe that we only have two characters confirmed to be killed through magic, although several are speculated about. Magic is described by one character as a 'sword without a hilt'. Powerful, but costly to the practitioner.

That's one way to balance magic that I've seen, don't diminish it's power but increase it's cost.

[Lamech]

Magic is described by one character as a 'sword without a hilt'. Powerful, but costly to the practitioner.
Not always costly to the practitioner. The shadows were outright paid for with another's life force. Nor have we seen any particular cost to face changing, that just takes a hell of a lot of training. Pyromancy while risky as all hell and again possibly requiring a lot of training. However it doesn't seem to have any particular "cost" as long as you don't immolate yourself. Necromancy seems free of cost to the user. Sure it required a lot of murder and torture, but it seems pretty under control otherwise. The Undying life drain not only cost them nothing, but outright GAVE them strength (and IIRC it was implied to extend their life).

Basically magic is not cheap. But the cost can be paid in a lot of different ways. Hard work, risk, or someone else footing the bill.

This actually probably lends itself pretty well to an RPG. You have hard work, (requiring a lot of skill points or whatever) to be useful. Or you have risky methods, spells that works well, but might have nasty effects. Or you have costly methods, magic that is powerful but leaves the caster (or someone else) weakened or dead.

Although it does lend itself to a good system.

[Bling Cat]

Not always costly to the practitioner. The shadows were outright paid for with another's life force. Nor have we seen any particular cost to face changing, that just takes a hell of a lot of training. Pyromancy while risky as all hell and again possibly requiring a lot of training. However it doesn't seem to have any particular "cost" as long as you don't immolate yourself. Necromancy seems free of cost to the user. Sure it required a lot of murder and torture, but it seems pretty under control otherwise. The Undying life drain not only cost them nothing, but outright GAVE them strength (and IIRC it was implied to extend their life).

Basically magic is not cheap. But the cost can be paid in a lot of different ways. Hard work, risk, or someone else footing the bill.

This actually probably lends itself pretty well to an RPG. You have hard work, (requiring a lot of skill points or whatever) to be useful. Or you have risky methods, spells that works well, but might have nasty effects. Or you have costly methods, magic that is powerful but leaves the caster (or someone else) weakened or dead.

Although it does lend itself to a good system.
True, that may have been an oversimplification. You summarised it nicely however.

You also have other added risks, such as the fact that a lot of the methods you described would be illegal in any functional society, so powerful magic users wishing to avoid repercussions would have to be discreet.

[bmosley45]

I am a huge fan of dark fantasy/swords-and-sorcery types of fantasy. Most of the time in these stories, magic wielded by sorcerers could be countered and combated by warriors using mundane methods that were not well known. For example, in Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, they square off against some wizards who throw lightening/energy bolts, and Mouser counters the attacks by tying a string to the hilt of sword - - when the bolts came at him, it would travel down the length of his sword and down through the length of string, which he would whip back at the wizards (all of this is written and described far better than I am right now).

I hate how magic in most fantasy settings are used as a "Dues ex Machina", which is why I like the more subtle magics of Robert E. Howard.

Definitely check out Robert E. Howard's Conan (beware of the high level of racism in his books, though), Michael Moorcock's Elric, and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Classic fantasy where magic doesn't rule over everything, but instead provides a backdrop to intense, personal and dark stories.

Hope that helps.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Wouldn't the Amberites and the Lords of Chaos from the Zelazny "Amber" novels count as fighter/mages for the most part? Merlin, son of Corwin, for example, seems to be quite adept with a blade, yet he is also a noted sorcerer and uses spells quite frequently.

This was a bit less explicit in the early books, but Brand was definitely a fighter/mage type with his "living Trump" abilities and so on.

Scowling Dragon, you really might want to consider re-titling the thread, unless this is meant to be some kind of experiment in how many people don't read the OP or anything else in the thread but the title.

[Lamech]

Scowling Dragon, you really might want to consider re-titling the thread, unless this is meant to be some kind of experiment in how many people don't read the OP or anything else in the thread but the title.

No, no I think it should be left. FOR SCIENCE!!!

Also how has this example not been been mentioned? OotS! Also Erfworld! Yes, both of them compensate by giving the fighters superhuman abilities, but they have both fighters and mages.

[kitep]

First, what's P&P?

There's the hobbit. Mages seem to way overpower warriors.

There's the D&D books with Raistlin and company. Again, wizards win by a landslide.

There's a tv show called Supernatural. The boys (warriors) put a beat down on witches on a rare but regular basis. But they often do it by knowing a magic ritual themselves, and having items that stop the witch's magic from working on them.

There's the tv show Merlin. Arthur beats magic users all the time, but it's usually with Merlin working secretly in the background to tilt things Arthur's way.

There's the video games Diablo and Diablo 2 (I've never played 3) Things seem pretty balanced, though the warrior classes often use magic to augment their warrior prowess.

There's the Wizard of Oz. A group of commoners take down the wicked witch.

[GloatingSwine]

I think the thing to do is ask yourself the following question:

Why can't the warrior use magic?

That goes for everyone else in the setting as well. Why doesn't everyone use magic for everything?

And there are two to avoid. The first is "you have to be born magic", becuase that's just a bit boring, the second is that magic requires study, because unless you're really careful with how the magic works there's no way around the fact that trivial magics would be passed on to just about everyone.

If you come up with an interesting answer to that, you can use it as your balancing mechanism between wizards and warriors. Maybe everyone actually can use magic, and the difference between warrior and mage is a matter of degrees, the warrior can't produce any effects that he could reliably use in combat, so he relies on a sword, but he can use his limited abilities to protect and strengthen himself (see: Codex Alera). Maybe the ability to use magic at all comes with a specific set of disadvantages that the warrior can exploit (for instance, magic can only be used by those who have made a compact with the fae, but they are rendered critically vulnerable to iron in a way they cannot trivially protect against, iron cuts through their magical shields and poisons them). Maybe it's even more extreme, everyone can use magic but the process of using it twists and marks the user in ways that are debilitating unless magic is used to counter them. A mage in that setting is someone who has given up everything else and relies solely on magic to do everything, essentially, and there might be a reason why the common people don't use magic, even if they technically could, and he is so weakened by his use of power that he may be completely helpless if he even meets a warrior.