Magic and the game

[internerdj]

Alot of talk is that meleers are underpowered at high levels. Historically magic as a legend of itself doesn't seem to be full of summon monster x's and fireballs; it is full of divination mostly, even in the cases of most summons. Sometimes it delves off into enchantment. By and large wizards are for knowing the future.

If you were to rewrite either the arcane classes or the spelllist to a more historical flavor along the tack that the melee classes seem to have been taken, what would you do?

I'd also be interested in hearing in flashier legendary examples than I am aware of.

[MrNexx]

An interesting option was the Birthright Magician class. They were able to cast any 1st or 2nd level spell, but from 3rd level and higher, they were limited to Illusions and Divinations.

[internerdj]

That is interesting.

[MrNexx]

The Bards in Birthright were similar; they could learn magic like a magician, but they also had complete access to Enchantment spells (because those were magical elven spellsongs, exclusive to the bard class, not standard spells). The only people who could cast like a full mage had either elven blood or a deific bloodline.

[Roderick_BR]

There are some wizard variants around that are less flashy than the 3.x wizard.
Most of them just need to have some spells toned down, really.
Historically (and in many movies), wizards also uses rituals for stronger effects, that can take from hours to days to be cast, and lots of curse effects (like debuffings, and polymorphs).