Defeating Overpowered Wizards
| Writing Fantasy Novels |

How have you seen magic affect warfare?
If anybody can use magic then why would we have swordsman and archers?
How can an army lay siege to a castle when wizards can incinerate a battlefield with a glance?

THEN... if the wizard did cast the spell successfully, you have to have a healer on hand, because now the wizard is out of commision for 3 to 5 more turns because the spell drains his health down to 10, meaning one hit from the enemy and he's dead. After the battle the group can't just move onto the next quest, they have to wait for their wizard to rest for a week or more to regain his health, because wizards regain their health slower then any other class, in addition to their health going down faster per hit then any other class. The rest can be down to only 2 days if your group got lucky and the wizard is an Elf so heals faster.

And people wonder why so many DM's homebrew the wizards in their games. It's because wizards straight from the rules book are weaklings who are liabilities in battle.

The wizard class in D&D was not intended to be used as fighters in battle, instead they are intended to be the character who reads the books, solves the riddles, and communicates with other races. They are educated scholars who can speak vast amounts of languages. They make the weapons for the fighters. They make holy relics for the priests. They are craftsmen. Remember the fighters in D&D are supposed to be illiterate barbarians with no ability to read and write, no diplomacy skills, no languages, and no crafting skills. They are there to fight. In a D&D group the wizard is the diplomat, the translator, the scholar, chef, herbalist, and the one who makes the magical weapons the fighters uses. The wizards make the magic items and scrolls used by the healers. The wizards gather the herbs for the druids and alchemists. In D&D wizards are not designed for nor intended to be used in battle. You have to homebrew double class if you want to use a Wizard in battle in a D&D game.

Part of the reason I like how D&D handles wizards, over the way other media uses wizards, is because while D&D wizards can cast super insane over powered spells, the spells don't just happen at the flick of a wand. They require time to prep. The wizard has to head out into the field and gather herbs. He has to scour through libraries in search of old chants to learn. He doesn't just know this stuff, he really has to work for it. Then in battle he can't just run out there wands blazing, he has to hide in the back with a fighter protecting him, while he preps stuff, he maybe has too risk his life to run out into the battlefront to pick some danged flower essential to the spell, and then he doesn't just cast the spell without consequences. It takes a huge toll on his health to cast a single high powered battle spell, and if he's not careful the energy drain alone will kill him, and then he's days before he can even get out of bed let alone try to cast a second spell.

I like how the D&D rules let wizards have insane powers, but don't let them just run around like weapons of mass destruction with those powers. It really makes playing a wizard a challenge because you have to constantly be on your toes worrying about how badly the side effects of casting are going to hurt you.

Well...when I write wizards, which is the only thing I write, because I love wizards, I use the D&D core rules for the wizard class as the basis for my wizards in my novels and short stories.

The series I write (which has 130+ novels so far) is about 3 wizards whom, in their world are thought to be the most powerful wizards of all time. Most people are scared shitless of them, thinking of wizards as invincible. Warriors and such come at them with everything they got because the rumours about these guys are wild.

But the reader follows the wizards themselves through their every day life, and so the reader knows first hand, that there is a vast difference between the reality of what these 3 men can do magically and the rumors that exist about wizards. Readers see that while the world fears wizards and is filled with all kinds of rumours that makes wizards out to be invincible battle mages, the reader sees these 3 men who are struggling just to survive. They are driven from their homes, never able to settle down, have to live on the run, are forced to scavenge for food in the forest because no one will welcome a wizard into their home.

Readers see that they are in ill health most of the time and are physically very weak. They suffer from constantly being sick, they long for being able to just stop and rest for a week, without the fear of having to flee yet again. They try to hide the fact that they are wizards from strangers they meet. They know nothing of fighting and battles and wars, and are educated scholars who excel at book learning and have no skills at war. They are simple men, just trying to get from one day to the next. They are not looking for quests or treasure or monsters. They just want to be allowed to have homes and families like everyone else. Things they are denied because the world fears wizards so badly.

Readers see the reality that magic can't solve everything, magic is highly limited, and when faced with a warlord in battle, the world's 3 most powerful wizards turn tail and run, because while the world thinks magic can do everything, they know their magic has limits and they can't win a fight against a warlord using nothing but magic.

Given the time to cast a spell, any one of them can make big things happen, but casting magic in the heat of the moment on the battlefield isn't possible and would cost the wizard his life.

So, for example there was a scene in one story where the wizards spend the night camped out with some bandits they met. And one wizard is cooking super for the rest of them, and one bandit notices he's just cooking "regular" like - not using magic. The bandit asks him about it, "Why don't you just use magic to start the fire?" "Why don't you just make bread appear out of thin air?" "Why aren't you using magic?" And the wizard answers with: "We have a long way to travel tomorrow. I can't afford to spend half the morning in bed resting."

Magic weakens them physically. Almost as though magic was a virus. Like how when you get the flue and you are weak and aching for days and just can't do anything no matter how much you want to. Magic has effects like that. It helps the wizards do things, but at a cost to their health.

So in the scene above, he could have waved his wand and poof fire or food magically appear, but he had to weigh out was the cost worth it? Was having instant food tonight, worth being sick in bed for hours, perhaps days afterwards?

The main character of the series, has been a wizard longer then the others. He himself is the most powerful wizard the world has ever known. And he also has a nickname tacked on to his name to prove it. Once know n as Quaraun the Pink Necromancer, he is now known as Quaraun the Insane. A title he hates, but can not run from. His companion, a wizard nearly as powerful, is likewise dubbed "The Crazed".