Casters are commonplace but are just as strong as fighters

I like
>Casters are very rare but are significantly stronger than fighters
combined with
>use of magic is extremely situational, exhausting, and/or not reliable

it depends on the story, one of my campaigns only a specific endangered race is capable of casting magic and you have to have a convincing story/reason as to why your character is adventuring since they also prefer to stay with their clans and even so they are about equal to fighters in power but their utility surpasses everything and the more they use their magic the stronger it gets but it has significant drawbacks to their physical well being at that point.

Not sure if this is a shit or not though.

Depends, what kind of thing you want magic to do?

If it's killing monsters and stuff then just as powerful as a fighter.

If your game is based on the assumption that certain skills/abilities must be avaiable to the party (e.g. unlocking doors, tracking, etc) and you want mages to be able to cover this for other classes that may be missing, then it should be "different" (horizontal, to the fighters' vertical power)

If you want magic to handwave encounters/situations that may be repetitive (e.g. crossing the world to find someone to revive a friend may be a interesting quest for the first to or three times, at the 10th time however, it will be repetitive, so you just have a olayer cast 'revive' on the fellow) then it's going to be powerful in ways that may or may not directly translate to day to day stuff.

If you want any combination of the three, then you better be really cleaver so you don't end with a god-class

I dont like either of these options. I think castors should offer significantly different tactical advantages to other classes and act as a kind of force multiplyer.

Have as many casters as you want and make htem significantly stronger than fighters at high level, but add additional constraints to leveling up.

A mage who spends his life as a murderhobo sleeping in tents and fighting hobgoblins should never be able to get much farther than that.

Becoming a high level mage should require years of dedicated study.

Something like, a fighter levels up when he gets enough XP, but mages have some additional requirement. A wizard has to accomplish some major project, invent a new spell, etc. to go past a certain level threshold. A sorcerer has to find the source of his magic bloodline. A cleric has to do a quest for his god.

Let them be strong, but make them work for it. A caster shouldn't be able to vastly outclass a fighter for the same amount of effort.

Casters are rare but can only perform a few specific physics-defying feats and can't just chuck fireballs and spam sleep every round

>Casters are every party member and rely on GM sympathy to remain alive for the duration

I prefer the second option by a long shot, if you're just gonna shoot some small magical fireballs you might as well be an archer. But D&D really fucked up with making them as accessible other characters.

I like two types of magic;
>Anyone-can-do-it hermetic magic which just requires you know someone who knows how to do it and a special, relatively rare magical focus (25 gp is a relatively high amount of money, about $2000 USD).
>No effects above the sort you might expect of Bestow Curse, Explosive Runes/Glyph of Warding, or a Vistani curse, but nifty and can be used so regularly some civilizations require upkeep by mages to power teleportation at regular times or other utilities.

>Magic requiring some sort of divine bloodline or soul-binding enchantment, gets into the higher echelons of power.
>Doesn't require study, but making the best use of it requires intelligence, usually tied to an artifact, a location, or a major cosmic event.

I like for some magical proficiency to be decently common.
Arcane tricksters, eldritch Knights, various low level of multiclassing are all pretty run of the mill. It's true caster talent (i.e. dedication to a single sorceror/warlock/wizard class, and sticking to it) that's really rare.

ROW ROW

Casters are very rare but are significantly stronger than fighters
Anyone can learn magic

I love the idea of magic being both mystical and a science at the same time. That in the big cities you have mage colleges teaching firebolt and the regular while in the dark corners of the earth in mud huts in swamps the Devil can be caught by showing him his reflection in a mirror just because he's so vain. The problem is trying to make them both work at the same time.

A million times this.

Casters are rare, secretive and all around extremely mistrusted/feared.

Magic is an inborn gift, which some races in the world entirely lack.

Casters are rare, secretive and all around extremely mistrusted/feared. 90% of them can't chuck firebolts or summon elementals, but they will use curses,hexes and miracles that defy logic to fuck you up 7 was till Sunday. A clever wizard/mage never engages a fighter directly, unless he is also of a martial disposition

Magic is an inborn gift, which some races in the world entirely lack.

Casters are rare and more powerful than your average joe guard however there are equally rare heroic fighters on par with them.

This basically

best solution

Casters are very rare and significantly weaker than fighters

why do casters even exist then?

They aren't geared towards combat, they have the greater privilege of departing from the material realm

I keep them generally equal in my settings. Unless your in sigil you aren't going to see many mobs past 7th level.

The fighters who are are akin to legendary wizards are all built with weeaboo fightan magic

Shitty casters are relatively common. The local village witch doctor, the guy who brews potions, and some of the most highly ordained priests in your town might each know a little magic, but none of them would stand a chance against average joe guard. Any caster powerful enough to be a PC is exceptional, but there are equally exceptional fighters that could potentially match them.

Anyone could theoretically learn magic, but it's fucking hard to learn, most people don't have access to the necessary knowledge, and ultimately isn't very rewarding unless you dedicate your entire life to studying it.

Casters make fighters obsolete by late-early point of career.
They are also commonplace.

Fighters are literally the bottom-feeders, seen as cripples by the rest.

One of my settings plays with this a bit. Magic is about as powerful as ever, but it requires a lot of preparation to do anything other than really simple spells. To get around this, most mages inscribe specific spells on their gear so they can use spells they're fond of at a moment's notice, but this doesn't let them pull off the really scary stuff a mage can do.

In other words, if a fighter can catch a mage off-guard, I'd put my money on the fighter (especially if they're Blessed, but that's a different can of worms). However, there's nothing more frightening in my setting than a mage that's had time to prepare. Expect nasty tricks in any case, expect 10th-degree reality fuckery if they really know what they're doing.

>Magic and skill are both sources of power. There is magic in the way the plowman tills his fields, magic in the runes inscribed on the sage's codex, and magic in the rituals performed in honor of the Storm God.

Why hello Earthdawn, how are things going with your new edition?

I was aiming more for Glorantha, personally.

Casters can be useful but are very specialized.

Those who specialize on utility or support style spells will never be as strong in combat as a dedicated combat experts but can operate on par with skill monkeys. Those who specialize in combat magic will never have the raw utility that a skill monkey but can generally fight on par with combat experts.

Proper PC class examples such as a fully fledged Wizard or Fighter are rare and prime examples of "people who can cast spells" and "people who know how to fight" respectively, and are significantly stronger than novices such as the members of a small town guard.

Any farmhand is capable of learning a few cantrips.
Lighting a fire, sharpening a blade, washing some clothes etc.
A few might learn some martial magic, getting a stronger punch, more stamina faster run, lifting heavier objects, just to show off with their friends or because their dads taught them.
Hedge wizards will know very many useful spells such as secure message recording moving faster, making your cart run better, translating languages, making you heal faster.

If you have the knack and your village has the money a promising young lad may be sent off to the city to either apprentice or enrol in pigfarts.
Certified Pigfarts casters will usually do a tour in the military, using spells like create trench, build wall, magic artillery, detect enemy and peel vegetable. specialised branches do exist with spells like raise undead being taught but rarely used as it either leads to casters exploding as they wrestle over control of some tattered bones, or zombie plagues affecting both sides.
After completing their service They will usually then either return home or set up a practice.
A few rich or very talented casters will go on to further education at the definitely there university and learn more theory based spells, having to show an original casting or research to get their degree or doctorate in various magical fields.

>Common casters are only as strong as fighters.
>More powerful casters are very rare.

>fighters can do extraordinary shit just as much as casters can, at every PL, but their powersource ia training and conditioning their bodies, rather than external magic gifted to them or an ability to hack the universe through their own understanding of how it works.

>Casters are members of an organized minority religion widely despised by the populace who are not allowed to own land or marry into non-caster families. They are forced to wear an identifying marker in the form of a large, pointy hat and children commonly throw stones at them. Casters are blamed for most crimes and widely treated with suspicion.

Casters are cute sluts who routinely get fucked by the party Barbarian.

>Because lots of people who play D&D like to assume that every joe blow guard, peasant soldier, and mercenary has several levels of fighter when the truth is that only your most elite of the elite guys are at most a 1st or 2nd level fighter.

The thing is is that the NPC classes they have are just as powerful as fighter class levels. Fighters just suck a hairy asshole in most editions, friend.

This guy got bullied a lot IRL.

I enjoy magic the most when it's mysterious and occult. Emphasis on ritual rather than improvisation; more like a science that taps into the hidden music of the world rather than a power source casters simply draw from with willpower and experience. Not too many decent settings with this kind of magic though.

I quite like magic based on religion and belief aswell. Still focused on ritual, but in a way more centered on spiritualism and the self rather than precise measurements.

I would rather have:
>there are no casters, spells are completely situational and depend on some object, place or time.

There are less casters then fighters, but casters are just as strong as fighters.

A nation needs a lot more soldiers then it does wizards, witches, hearth-healers and magical men, but for adventuring parties they are obviously pretty even. The demographics should have nothing to do with power level.

>The thing is is that the NPC classes they have are just as powerful as fighter class levels. Fighters just suck a hairy asshole in most editions, friend.

NPC classes were only really a thing in 3e, and as lame as the Fighter was, the Warrior NPC class was even worse.

But that still didn't keep people from using Fighter to represent every guy who waved a sword.

And the Adept NPC spellcaster class is no slouch compared to the non-caster PC classes, but nobody ever used it and instead statted every spellcasters as a Cleric/Wizard/Druid/Sorcerer when those guys were also a minority even among spellcasters.

I very much don't like the first: In settings where magic is commonplace, I usually prefer there not to be 'casters'; rather, everyone does magic, and that's part and parcel of being good at whatever it is you do: the warrior uses magic to fight, the farmer to grow and clean his crops, the smith to make things, and the sage to help read and write better.

I have only ever seen the later used so that gms/dms could beat martial scrubs down with magic at every turn.

In my setting, "magic" is just anything really amazing and requires super special training to learn and that most people don't go around openly sharing.

Learning a spell that lets you shoot fire from your fingertips is magic. Learning how to forge mithral and adamantine into anything useful is magic. Learning how to see in the dark is magic. Learning how to run 100 mph and reliably fall from 1000 feet without any serious injury is magic. Learning how to bargain with and outbluff a devil is magic. Learning how to loose a half dozen arrows in a handful of seconds and hitting your target several dozen yards away is magic. Knowing a rare monster's weakpoints and the most efficient way to target it is magic.

"Spells" are just a specific kind of magic. Most magic is more subtle and less flashy than that.

Former. Great for lower-fantasy and levels the playing field for all types of players.

If the second is true, might as well just make every character a caster and ignore martials entirely, somewhat like how Exalted does it.

FIGHT THE POWAH

I prefer settings where fighters are rare but significantly stronger than casters. Does anything cater to me?

>A dedicated war mage should be on par with an archer.

What's the point of a war mage in that case? Why would you send your best and brightest off to magic college to be trained in the arcane arts for years when you can just a peasant boy a bow and a quiver of arrows and achieve the same result?

This is the best way to approach this IMO.

A mix. Your average caster is roughly as strong as your average fighter. In fact, your average fighter is probably better in combat, but the caster can do more shit. But the uncommon caster should be well ahead of the uncommon fighter.

>When a peasant boy with a bow and a quiver of arrows-

I'm gonna stop you right there. This is the argument against CROSSBOWS and firearms, not actual archery. That shit takes practice to master, along with an amount of strength needed to wield whatever kind of bow that you happen to be using.

I don't care about the rest of your argument, I just wanted to point out that bows do require some level of skill (that is relatively more than crossbows).

Low fantasy, eh?

okay but D&D already has this garbage in place so you're already spoken for

Combat mages should be your artillery peices or employed like a ww1 machine gun.

DOTS NIGGA!

But seriously, I like casters being rare as shit but amazing. Like Lord of the Rings. Ideally, everyone would roll a martial class then the GM would decide who has the ability or luck to be a caster. But they wouldn't tell anyone, who it would be up to the characters to figure it out if they want to invest the time to do so.

>Magic comes from a Unified Force[Mana]

>It is all encompassing and can change reality based on thought.

>There are no classes, only a plethora of schools/traditions/paradigms that anyone can learn from a book/guru/self-experimentation.

>Spells are macros that one can permanently encode within themselves so that they don't have to go through a complex sequence of ideas every time they want to do something magical. Spells are completely utilitarian, and are widespread public domain.

>No such thing as Martial vs Magic. If you want to punch a dragon in the face, and you have a regular human body, you better cast a combat spell before your shit gets pushed in.

>Spellcasting only has limits based on how much change you want to make. Using Mana within the human body is slightly enervating, and when someone is drained, they are fatigued physically.
Magic that makes minute changes doesn't take much at all, but magic that makes large scale changes is extremely draining.

>Most people try to overcome their limited capacity for magic by obtaining familiars, which are extra-dimensional creatures(But may be any creature) with larger capacities for mana, which through a pact can be linked with. Having a familiar does change the soul of the caster, which tends to make minor physical changes as well. A caster with a troop of monkeys as his familiars may develop a penchant for bananas, or grow thicker sideburns.

>The practice of making familiars out of people is called enthrallment. It is something that can only be done willingly, and from there, a singular focal point can draw on the mana of others to create larger spell effects. Large groups of thralls around a contractor are called tribes,familias, corporations, nations, or trusts, based on their theme.

absolutely love it, will steal

That's literally false. Many older D&D editons had lords and super heroes of 6th-8th level running around.

Shit a drunken retard in the temple of elemental evil is a Fighter 4. I don't get where this meme comes from.

The second one. I run Dark Sun so it's much more efficient to go "shit just got real" when a caster shows up: the players (even casters among them) are already primed to be concerned by magic, more so when casters are a rarity. It's that magic "mic drop" moment when a defiler sucks 100 slaves dry and nukes a pyramid with Magic Missile that makes them interested in the setting.

It also creates conflict when there's 1 or 2 casters in a party and makes them feel significant. At the same time, the martial characters have more of an underdog aspect because while they CAN kill casters, if that caster sees you coming he's going to break out some voodoo and it's bad news for you.

#2 is just more fun/interesting for Dark Sun, dunno how other settings would work for it.

>What's the point of a war mage in that case? Why would you send your best and brightest off to magic college to be trained in the arcane arts for years when you can just a peasant boy a bow and a quiver of arrows and achieve the same result?

Because a peasant boy with a bow and a quiver of arrows is not an actual archer. He's just a peasant with a bow and a quiver of arrows.

He would not be given a bow and arrows to begin with. He'd be given a pointy stick and tossed out in front of actual archers so he could die for them.

That said, having a mage be equal in terms of pure offense to an archer makes sense when you also remember that a mage also provides some utility that an archer can't.

It just means that a single mage isn't going to waltz onto the battlefield and take out entire formations through overwhelming firepower all by their lonesome.

>Potential spellcasters are rare (one in a thousand); actual spellcasters are very rare (one in several thousands); really powerful casters are incredibly rare (one in a million)
>Fighters are common. Incredibly gfted fighters who can fight on par with actual spellcasters are very rare (one in several thousands). Superhuman fighters who can fight on par with really powerful spellcasters are incredibly rare (one in a million)
You know, the way it should be.

In a lot of cases, you have to realize that there aren't really tons and tons of casters, we're just used to seeing them because

A) We have them in our party.
B) What comparative few are out there band together in coalitions/guilds in order to further their like-minded goals. Society doesn't necessarily shun them in a lot of settings.

But in some cases that stand out:
1) Mages are in hiding for some reason or other, separating them from one another. They are not teaching the art where applicable because they don't want there to be too many people doing what they do and risk being exposed.
2) The setting is low fantasy, making you extra lucky to ever see magic.

And aside from that, we make the mistake of making most mages we ever see be actually pretty powerful, just because magic is cool.

I like it where casters are less common than fighters (not too rare, though), but the more powerful either is, the more rare that they are to find. You have your common nobodies, your every now and then people that are fairly adept, the few incredibly competent, and then the very rare kind that people tell stories about how legendary that they are.

...

More like "Not mixing high fantasy casters with low fantasy fighters"

>>Casters are commonplace but are just as strong as fighters
this

I fucking hate caster autists
Fuck off and play a man's class.

Magic is everywhere and there are monsters and magical phenomena all over the world
Magic usable by people is relatively rare being largely tied to bloodline or some sort of magical accident
People that use magic can either externalize it like casters or internalize it like martials
Casters can use magic based off a theme like fire or illusions but not both
Martials use magic to enhance their physical abilities to superhuman levels
Both "classes" can learn to intrnalize and externalize in small amounts e.g. the Martial learns to wreath his weapon in flames or the Caster learns to use magic to increase his speed

They're so rare nobody has any defenses against their esotoric tricks.