How to balance wizards?

[ragnarok]

I try to create my own background-free Rpg, and thus far it sounds pretty good and halfways balanced.

It tends towards fantasy and is free of Classes and Levels. My problem comes with characters, able to handle magic and/or the supernatural. It's mainly a philosophical problem which I somehow try to regulate ruleswise.

The Problem: Why should anyone play a non-wizard, if a wizard is able to emulate nearly to all "worldly" skills with some spells?!? Why play a sneaky thief, if the wizard can make himself invisible, silent and disintegrates doors which locks would otherwise be picked? Why play a politican, if a Psi can charm most people with ease? Why play a warrior, if a wizard can cease whole battalions of enemies to exist? In most games there's no such reason, besides that an wizards' apprentice has problems to survive the first few hours of gaming, thereafter he will slowly begin to "outshine" the other characters.

Since I don't "belive" in classes, I don't have classes in my System and thus im also not able to do class-related-restrictions. There's also no point that a magican can't take a big weapon as profiencey and become similiar gifted in meele as a warrior.

Does anyone know a background-free solution/reason for this problems? I know it seems to be quite impossible to find a genral working answer, but perhaps YOU know of one?

Example for "What I'm searching for": One could mention that wizards need to make gestures to cast spells and are thus hindered by heavy clothing or armor.
This is background independent and gives "worldy" characters (warriors in special) a little edge above wizards (at least in combat), but still most other characters can easily be replaced by a wizard with the right spells.

Example for "What I'm NOT searching for": Magic Users are forbidden to use any weapon at all because of local laws. This is unsuitable because it's campaing-dependent, plus MagicUsers can disguise themselves as nonmagicusers far to asily.

Sorry for the spelling-errors, English isn't my native language, but I hope you'll understand my questions/problems.

[NPC gnomad]

If someone has a magic power that duplicates a skill eg: stealth, lockpicking then make them take that skill with the 'special effect' that it is magic ( you can move silentley with your elf boots or sing a song to charm the spirit of the lock... whatever, it's still a skill).
Totally disallow flash bang spells like fireball,.. they are just a d&d convention anyway. If the power is not the same as a skill (eg: grant invisibility to others, cause warts, repel undead) then make it slow working, difficult and subtle enough to balance with the other skills.

[Flower of December]

Have magic be powered by taboo. Each domain of magic comes with its own restrictions on behavior. Violate taboo and those oints you put in that magic skill lose their punch.

[Mekgames]

Have you ever played Shadowrun? Or Aeon? Magic users in these games aren't that great. Ok in Aeon they give them extra stuff besides the psi, but I normally ignore that. In an open character development system where you spend points on what you want to spend points on magic can be detrimental. Yes you can eventually get incredible powers, but it takes a lot of XP and inevitably everything else suffers. Sometimes you need someone who is actually skilled. Don't make your magic so overwhelmingly powerful. Create a setup where the magic is all well and good, but it still requires use of some skill. Telekenisis is all well and good. But if you are in a situation where you want to be discrete and need to get through a door you can't blast thorugh it. And while theoretically you can pick the lock with TK you need knowledge of how locks work to do something like that. And that means you have to spend XP on that skill which then doesn't go to the next spiffy keen Psi power. You can make systems like this. You have just been playing too much D&D where these things are not taken into account unless you have an excellent GM who is willing to make up rules.

[Misguided]

IMO, the key to an open system is that anyone can POTENTIALLY do anything. The word "potentially" is critical. If it is truly possible for any character to master everything (i.e. magic and combat and stealth, etc.) then you have a system design problem. There was another recent thread on this same subject, but I don't recall which one. I think you can create balance by presenting far more useful skills than anyone can realistically purchase (because they are hard to get or because there are multiple levels of proficiency, etc.). Players should have to choose how to develop a character and being a jack-of-all-trades should have the trade-off of mastering none.

[GB Steve]

They are easy to use and cheaper than Mages.

Although you make a claim for background free, the setting is obviously Heroic Fantasy. There are quite a few generic HF games aorund and personally I'd probably find your game more interesting if there was something to tie in background and system. Still YMMV.

The things that restrict magic in the background can either be social (it's heresy) or economical (spell components are expensive), time based (you need to study for 20 years), racial (you need fairy blood - which marks you out as a pagan heretic unless well hidden) or rules based (no PC mages as in early Pendragon). These are quite general and don't all tie you down to any specific background.

One of my favourite treatment of magic is in Unknown Armes. Casting spells requires some previous sacrifice on the part of the Mage, which has to be commensurate with the spell being cast. So for example to cast a fireball you might have previously had to burn something that you own and treasure. In UA, these sacrifices are not petty and it is hard accumulate the charges, as they are called to cast much magic.

I'm not sure it matters if magic is powerful. Look at the Scooby Gang in BtvS. There are 6 characters one of whom is a superhero, another is a powerful witch, a third has lesser magical powers, one has great knowledge and learning and the other 2 are engaged to be married. Yet they all get a fair amount of screen time. There are many episodes in which Buffy does not dominate.

TTFN,

[Shawn Conard]

Couple of ways to balance mages:

First, using magic could be very dangerous for one background related reason or another. Anyway, maybe magic involves messing with things with man really was better off not knowing, or that the raw energy used to shape spells was unstable and could backlash. Thus, casting constant spells is just asking for something bad to happen. If you take this approach, be sure not to make spellcasting useless, just dangerous when people use too much.


Second, magic could cost points of one type or another. Yeah, every game tries this one. Yeah, whatever. This could be health, fatigue, mana, or even something less obvious. Maybe it drains strength, or willpower, or something.


Third, magic could have some limitations that must always be held, simply due to the nature of magic. As in, all magic in this world is loud and obvious. Thus, an invisbility spell, while it would make you invisible, would certainly alert everyone around that _something_ was going on. Likewise, all magic could be subtle, in which case obviously magic effects (like turning people invisible) would not be allowed. Choose some other adjective and play with it.


Fourth, mages might be able to sense when magic is used nearby. Thus, for beating up on non-mages, spells are pretty cool. However, as soon someone needs to sneak past a mage (or maybe even just a non-mage guard who happens to have some latent magic talent), they are going to wish that they had some non-magic skill to help them. This works better if mages aren't all that rare, and if latent magic talent exists. That way, players can never be sure that their spells will slip by unnoticed.


Fifth, spells could take a lengthy ritual to cast. Minutes, or even hours. Thus, the advantage of non-magic skills is that they can react quickly to changing situations. No sense waiting a half hour for your invisibility spell when you really need to be hidden in the next ten seconds. The problem here is that balancing mages becomes even more tricky in some ways. They will still be powerful, but may never get a chance to cast anything in a quickly moving storyline.


Sixth, you could just forget about balance issues and declare that in your world mages are obviously more powerful than non-mages. Most likely, all the players will be mages. On the other hand, is that such a bad thing? Ars Magica did things this way. Actually, so did Dying Earth, which is (warning: plug) one of my favorite games. If you do this, you can, optionally, mage magic more expensive to learn. Whatever. This still leaves game balance issues between mages and non-mages.


Seventh, maybe mages are more powerful, except that magic is helpless against one known material. Silver, gold, cold iron, some mineral, salt, or whatever. Maybe it is something common, or maybe it is something rare that you made up just for the game. Whatever. The important thing is, that material operates just like magic doesn't exist. Maybe it even disrupts spells which touch it. If this material is iron, by the way, this brings back the old tricks of hanging a horseshoe above your doorway, or touching coins to a nail to see if they are real.


Eighth, magic could be dumb. Once a spell is created, it is seperate from the mage and interacts as it was created to do, rather than how the casting mage would prefer. Thus, a spell of protection wouldn't really exist. Rather, a mage could create a wall or sphere or force, preventing things from passing though. But does light or gas pass through? What about magic? Remember that the casting mage is stuck inside this thing until the spell fades or he dispels his own magic. This isn't terribly fulfilling, as it required a lot of GM intervention/decision, and it takes the tactical wargame approach to magic. However, it is appropriate for some settings (like Warcraft or Myth...).


Hope some of those ideas are to your liking.

As for preventing mages from using armor and weapons, why? This is appropriate for a great deal of mages. Just create rules where not everyone would automatically want the heaviest armor, and you will see a great deal of mages opt for the lighter stuff (or for no armor at all). Same goes with weapons. If a mage has no reason to fight in melee, they won't be likely to drag around a greatsword.

Actually, you really should decide what mages are in your game. I'm getting the feel that they are pretty much D&D mages. Is this really what you want? If so, keep in mind that even in D&D, some mages will wear armor or use big weapons. It is rare, but there are reasons to do it.


~Shawn Conard

[ragnarok]

Thanks @Gnomad, I'll really consider this approach.

@Marigold Mao: Thanks for the idea but this would be to campaing specific.


Originally posted by Mekgames
Have you ever played Shadowrun? Or Aeon? Magic users in these games aren't that great.
...
You can make systems like this. You have just been playing too much D&D where these things are not taken into account unless you have an excellent GM who is willing to make up rules.

In fact I'm trying to avoid this because of shadowrun. Mages are not that great in shadowrun but they can do magic PLUS they are also able to do everything equally good as the other characters.

Let's presume you make two characters, one streetsamurai and a mage:

After a year(or so) of intense play the samurai is a cyberzombie with all attributes maxed, the skills are all insanly high and so on (You can still power him up with XP and a little bit with money but it really doesn't make any sense to "develop" this character any further, after all does it really matter if you have the Firearms Skill with 20 or 22? You'll blow away Dragons anyway with a Holdout-gun).

The mage followed an other approach: Because he started all ready pretty competent in magic (at least in Shadowrun2.0 they did), he first focussed on removing his starting penalities (Starting Mages in Shadowrun have lesser skills, attributes and less equipment), at some point he'll be nearly as competent as the samurai (for the later the "jump" from 20 to 22 didn't make anysense, so he now spends skillpoints on skills like agriculture (HE allready has all the other skills to some extend and nobody said Cyberzombies are sane)). Cyberware for the mage can be substituted by magic items called Spellstorages (if I recall right).
Now as the mage is as competent as the samurai he can really start to master magic:
While the Samurai is in some kind of dead-end, the mage is just beginning to develop (and at this point they're booth equal compentent).

[delor]

I think Shawn got most of them, but three other ideas.

One, as a varient on the "easy to detect" thing but without needing to have lots of magic using people, keep magic rare and powerful but make the detection range really huge. Then, have a very powerful force that activly seeks magic-users in your game, opposed to the players. Either an anti-magic organization, or a "great powerful evil" or something like that. Middle Earth roleplaying did this; the stronger the spell and the closer to the bad-guys' areas you were, the more likely you were to draw attention and the more attention you will draw. Use a powerful spell fairly close to Lothlorien, and you might get a spy, assassin, or kidnapper on you. On the other hand, try the same thing someplace unsafe, say, near Mount Doom, and you might get an army unit or a ringwraith chasing after you.

Two, possibly instead of or in addition a temporary cost (mana, health, stamina, willpower, whatever), consider a slow but permanent cost. Maybe mages slowly go insane, like in WOT. Maybe magic slowly destroys the body of the wizard, so they die way earlier than other players. Maybe it causes them to forget things, draining XP and skills. Essentially, either mages will be decaying enough in other areas so as thier net power remains fairly on par with other players, or they'll be more powerful but then they'll die and have to create a new player; if new players start out at a lower level than old players, then this might keep the mages in check.

Third, you could do a "great balance" thing, where mages can do things but there's always an equal cost. For example, a mage could turn invisible and sneak by one threat, but later in the game they'd be noticed when they normally wouldn't be. Or, a mage could cast some sort of buffing spell on a fighter to give him +1 to attack in a fight, but then in a fight later on (DM's choice, so they don't go out fighting weak opponents to work off the curse) the fighter gets -1 to attack.

-Delor

[Moochava]

Here's the deal: mechanically, there's no difference between the ability "I can slay many foes with my bow" and "I can slay many foes with my lightning bolts." Ditto with "I can get people to do what I want because I have incredible charisma and mad political connections" and "I can get people to do what I want because I'm a mentalist." Ditto "I can go unseen because I'm incredibly stealthy and know how to stay hidden" and "I can go unseen because I have The Power to Cloud Men's Minds." (I've been getting old serials of The Shadow radio drama off of Morpheus, and I recommend everyone else do likewise. Go Shadow!) Anyway, despite a few tweaks here and there, what a mage does is just what an archer does, is just what a diplomat does, is just what a burglar does, whatever. If you're using a skill-based system, just look at what a magic ability emulates to determine how much it should cost and how powerful it should be.

Frex, just make shooting bolts of lightning mechanically similar to shooting arrows, with a few pros and cons either way, and make the Shoot Lightning skill as difficult to learn as the Archery skill.

Likewise, make Psychic Domination and Diplomatic Persuasion do about the same thing, and have them cost the same.

Likewise with Hide in Shadows and Cloud Men's Minds: the two skills function very similarly, with a few advantages and disadvantages on either side, and they cost about the same.

This means that a mage really is no better than his mundane counterpart. The lightning guy and the archer both do nearly the same thing, and they spend the same amount of skill points. Maybe the lightning guy's better against metal armor, but the archer is better if it's raining, or something, but all in all, they're about the same. Ditto with the professional locksmith and the guy who can voodoo doors into opening, or the conjurer who can summon elementals compared to the politician who's got a four-man goon squad.

----
Kyle

[NPC Tyrethali]

In a game with laser cannons, why throw pebbles?

Well, maybe the laser cannon is hard to use. Similarly, magic could require intensive training, mental focus to the exclusion of all else, etc.

Not everyone has a laser cannon. Perhaps magical training schools are exclusive. Perhaps not everyone can be a wizard. But that's really more of a setting thing.

Malfunctions. Make magic unpredictable. I've always felt magic is best when it's a personal, subjective, unique thing, instead of just another scientific and rational way of altering reality. When magic succeeds, it should be more spectacular than when a normal skills succeeds. And when magic fails, the effects should be more spectacular than a normal skill failing. And certain creatures and elements might react strangely to magic. Death magic 'healing' the undead, for example, or the iron example mentioned above.

Power supply. How does magic work? If it comes from inside the user, then overusing it could leave the spellcaster enervated, exhausted, or expired. If it's tapping into some kind of universal ambient energy type, using it might lower the local energy, making magic suddenly more inefficient, and thus leaving someone who only knows how to use magic helpless. If one is petitioning a greater being for power, one had better make sure that greater being likes them enough to help out.

Other options. Maybe magic only works on the magical. Thus, becoming a mage makes one vulnerable to all sorts of hostile mystic attacks, whereas being normal is signifigantly safer.

Or maybe the laser cannon is just better than the pebbles. If you define something as being ludicrously powerful and capable of replacing other skills in every way, don't be surprised if it gets overused.

[Mithras]

Easy.

One on each shoulder.

(sorry)

[NPC Whymme]

Divide magic in different schools. Fire-based magic, confusion of the senses (invisibility and the like), demonology, and so on. Then restrict mages to one or two schools. So a a mage can have invisibility spells or charm spells, but not both. A mage can thus be equal to a thief or equal to a politician, but not better than both.

Then make spells and so on very specific (the invisibility spell only lasts half an hour. It doesn't muffle sounds, smells, and what have you. It requires words and gestures to cast - which can be a pain if you're invisible right at that moment, and spying in the enemy conference room).

Finally make spells cost XPs. The choice between buying a spell or upping a skill should mean something; doing the one means neglecting the other.

And then you could have nifties as limiting the possible number of spells a mage knows (maybe as a function of magical skill), or using a supply of magic points that empower spells, with the mage not being able to cast anything anymore after he's used up all those points.

Whymme

[Lost Cub]

Here go my two cents... that is, three ideas.

1. Magic can't duplicate all. Perhaps spells are bizarre, subtle and unobvious, and players need to be very resourceful to put them to good use.

2. Mages get a very limited spell selection.

3. Casting spells isn't easy. Maybe characters must pass some non-magical attribute or skill check to have the spell do what he desires.

LC

[KlausGreen]

I think I may be out on a limb here but it sounds to me as if you normally engage in games with players having incredible power with little or no actual effort invested in the process?

I based this on the assumption that Wizards could do EVERYTHING just like that and that you mention incredible advances for characters in ShadowRun after merely a game of playing.

If we are talking incredible superhero type power I don't see a problem with magic being powerful as you would have to create other super-skills to emulate other facets of great achievement, for instance being a melee fighter is not just about swinging a sword with skill but the ability to slaughter armies or dragons with very few strikes and rogues will wander through (or on) walls and speak to shadows in order for them to do as he wants.

If you want a superhero campaign restricted, simply say that if you want one of the super-designs you must train this exclusive to other areas of expertise.

If I somehow have misread you I think you should concentrate on the learning aspect of magic. All depending on how obscure you want magic to be:

Is it strict and logical like mathematics and thereby just requiring a student willing to spent the time and effort needed to accumulate and assimilate the knowledge of magic, then you should cover it using the same mechanics as you do all other skills in your campaign. If you have training difficulties implemented in the system (like Mathematics is a Basic Learning Cost Skill, while Astrophysics is an Advanced Learning Cost Skill, triple cost) you should decide on how difficult the premises of magic would be to understand for people compared to the learning principles of the other skills in the system.

If magic is not strict and logical, if it requires special mental qualities you should require exceptional mental statistics (attributes) backed up by special skills or meditative thought routines to allow the character to get into the special mind setup needed to cast magic. Again if you have a Points based system you'll soon find that if the mages require high mental scores they are not as likely to be as good warriors as the characters who place higher scores in physical attributes. I would also press that if magic requires intense focus and a strict mental routine combat spells would not be available at all and fatigue would instantly render the mage without any powers unless his mental strengths are truly phenomenal.

Magic might also require something unique within the individual, something that cannot be created and simply HAS to be there physically in order for magic to work. This would mean that magic becomes one or a series of Traits (Advantages/Backgrounds - pick your system!) allowing the character to manipulate the magical energies of your game system. This will also mean that the character sacrifices the possibility of gaining other advantages, especially if advantages are only selected during character generation and forms a basic foundation for the entire life span of the character.

A variation of the third possibility is to link it to something that is a social or physical stigmata; all mages might be blind, crippled, have a different skin color or something else. Don't make this specific as different things would be stigmatising all depending on the setting of the campaign. So if the power of magic is selected by the character he is automatically "rewarded" with a series of hindrances as well. With no bonus points associated...

Personally I prefer the first solution as magic could easily be considered at least as multi-facetted as the normal plethora of skills, making the range of possible magic skills to learn very long indeed. This works even better if there are no "spellbook" but more a range of magical boundaries dictated by the various skills, the level of those skills and maybe the inherent potential of the individual in question (depending on Attributes and/or Advantages/Traits).

KR KGA

[NPC Belac]

One of my games doesn't have actual rules for advancement, its mostly narrated. (Characters advance, its just not covered by rules exactly. For example, a player might gain better science knowledge by going to college. It's a fairly free form campaign.)

Sorcerors in that setting are very powerful, and since there's no specific advancement rules, there's another way I balance them. Several, actually.

1) It takes a lot longer how to use combat spells than it does to wield a sword. It takes longer to learn how to use healing magic than it does to learn first-aid. A mage slowly learns how to do everything, while a warrior will quickly excel in just one thing.

2) Not everybody is suited to be a mage.

3) Most of the other characters have some sort of special trait that allows them advancement in non-mage things that lets them equal mages in overall power.


Also, one other thing I could say:

If mages can learn how to wield swords and wear armor, why can't fighters learn how to use magic?

-Belac the Rambler

[Patrick Chipman]

I realize this may be an unpopular opinion, but magic doesn't need to be balanced in a metagame fashion. The way magic operates is tied directly into the metaphysics of the game universe, which means that any balance system you use will feel "wrong" in game universes that aren't very close to the one you envisioned when you wrote the system.

If you do decide to tie in a metaphysic, be sure to state the metaphysic and base your rules off it. If the metaphysic is appropriate to the universe, balance will come naturally (if it is appropriate, of course). In Skew Effect, for instance, where magic is a sort of somewhat unreliable "alternative science," the metaphysic dictates that magic is personalized to each magus (which means "spell trading" doesn't exist; each magus must be knowledgeable enough to create his own spells); that magic is tied to a rare energy (Ethereal Force) that comes from the breakdown of matter or energy via magic or from the biological processes of sentient beings (which means that magic is very expensive); that magic cannot be learned intuitively (point expenditure to buy component skills); and that, since the magus is the impedance transformer that transforms and releases the magical energy, failure is relatively common (spell casting relies on a skill check, modified by the power of the spell).

[ragnarok]

@KlausGreen in Special
Originally posted by KlausGreen
I think I may be out on a limb here but it sounds to me as if you normally engage in games with players having incredible power with little or no actual effort invested in the process?

I based this on the assumption that Wizards could do EVERYTHING just like that and that you mention incredible advances for characters in ShadowRun after merely a game of playing.

Besides that in Shadowrun characters have awesome power and I said a year (and not a game) of playing I have to admit: Yes, my example is highly exaggerated and of course skills of 20 or even higher are ridiculus, especially if skills of 8 will be more than enough 90% of the time (except if you want to kill dragons with a holdout-gun), but my statement stays the same:There's some kind of (skill-)level where it makes little sense for a normal character to develope the skills any further.

A better not that exaggerated example: If you play a streetsamurai a long time and all for this character suitable skills are at 6-8, the attributes are also at their max(which are in shadowrun actually easier to advance than skills) you'll probably learn new skills (agriculture!?) not that suitable to that character, but hey why not? What else to do with the XP?

If the Mage started at the same time like the samurai, and spend all his XP in the same things as the samurai, his Attributes will be maxed out as well, and the Samurai-skills will be around 5-7. Ok, he doesn't have the cybergoodies, but they can be substitued in most cases fairly easy with magic. Now we have a Cybersamurai and a Mage-Samurai, both nearly to equal in worldy power. But while the samurai is in the State-of-the-art-Dead-end the mage can and will advance slowly above him.

Anyways: My mages will not be as powerfull as those in Shadowrun or D&D and maybe I'm just overcautiously...

[Stephen Tannhauser]

If what you want is a "background-free" reason why magic doesn't eventually replace all manual skills in a game... well, there isn't one.

Magic is a totally fictional construct. Hence, EVERY PRINCIPLE YOU ESTABLISH ABOUT IT WILL INFLUENCE AND SPECIFY THE BACKGROUND OF THE WORLD IT EXISTS IN.

To use your own example -- why master thieving skills when you can just learn spells to pick locks, pockets, move stealthily, etc? Every possible answer to this relies on making background assumptions.

If you assume that it's because magic is rare and hard to learn, that immediately establishes a world where wizards are rare and intelligent individuals.

If you assume it's because wizards can only use a few spells at a time before exhausting themselves (whereas a thief can pick a hundred locks in two hours with only blistered fingers to show for it), then that establishes a world where magic requires energy, and wizards must either cooperate or seek energy sources (Places of Power, etc.) to accomplish world shaking feats, and where magic is kept in reserve for critical actions (because you can't just keep trying again and again).

If you assume it's because magic requires an inborn talent which isn't common to everyone, the frequency with which "Mage-Gift" pops up will determine huge amounts of your background. Imagine how different most D&D campaigns would be if there were only about twenty or so wizards in the WORLD, and one of them was in your party. Think of the reactions of just about everyone to that wizard.

Magic is the one thing that can't be made generic and background free, because every single worldbuilder has their own vision of it and how it shapes their universe. So don't try. The best you can do is get something that matches a majority of fairly common elements, and then show how to modify it for each setting.

[ragnarok]

Originally posted by Stephen
The best you can do is get something that matches a majority of fairly common elements, and then show how to modify it for each setting.

Wow! I belive that's the ultimate answer (Why didn't I think of it?). Thanks very much to all of you!

[Robert A. Rodger]

Originally posted by Stephen
Magic is a totally fictional construct. Hence, EVERY PRINCIPLE YOU ESTABLISH ABOUT IT WILL INFLUENCE AND SPECIFY THE BACKGROUND OF THE WORLD IT EXISTS IN.

We ran into this problem and realization while working on our fantasy system. I’ve never been a fan of setting heavy games, and feel most GMs are interested in their own settings anyway, so decided to do something as setting free as the Player’s Handbook. But the magic system demanded that the game world works in certain ways. It is very challenging to balance those two concepts. “Your world can be anyway you want it, except that it must have this, this and this. But other than that, it’s all yours.”