How could normal Late Medieval/Early Modern soldiers (European or Asian) pragmatically counter or defeat wizards on the battlefield? Casters can toss fireballs, shoot lightning, levitate boulders, raise the dead, heal themselves, and so on. What can regular humans do against that?
Bonus points: Think of methods that don't involve assassinations out of battle, long-range artillery bombardment, or infecting wizards with anthrax, smallpox, or bubonic plague
This is the part where you define what your mages can do, according to what setting, how powerful they are (which depends on setting)...
Someone post that "depends on so many factors" picture, please?
This discussion is irrelevant until we know what specific type of wizard from what specific setting you are talking about.
Depending on your response, the answer to your question lies somewhere between "almost effortlessly" and "they can't."
>martials are bound by human limits
>wizards are bound by what I say
hmmm I wonder
YOU decide the weaknesses wizards have in your game, user. There are not that many fantasy settings I can think of where a wizard is utterly unmatchable vs. a warrior of sufficient skill, so if you decide to make it that way that's YOUR decision. Nobody else has to be accountable for it.
Yet us say D&D 5e until faggot gives us an answer.
By being waaaaaay more numerous?
By declaring them heretics and witches and stirring up frenzy against amongst the common people, giving them no quarter anywhere and forcing them into hermitude where they can be picked off alone?
Cavalry charges and ambushes too fast for them to react to?
>Casters can do all the bullshit ever
>Regular people have nothing and are not even allowed to use actually intelligent methods to deal with the bullshit
This is a bad scenario and you're a bad person.
In the Late Medieval/Early Modern eras, soldiers swung swords, volleyed arrows, and fired guns.
In those eras, anyone claiming to be a wizard was put into a sanitarium.
In a world where magic is possible, no modern limitations clearly apply. Therefore a nonmagical hero should likewise be able to manage grand and epic feats.
I mean, a real world human would struggle taking on a bear on their own, but then you've got these stories of knights triumphing against gigantic, flying, fire-breathing dragons.
A good wizard could take on those Late Medieval countries you brought up as an example, but that's all right, because a proper hero guy can too. Just send him against the wizard and then keep well clear while he takes care of it.
They can't do it in D&D.