Caster supremacy

Caster Supremacy is the tendency, in many fantasy RPGs, for magic-using focussed characters to be outright better than any other character in the game.

This usually occurs because the designer, GM and/or players have an existing preconception of what mundane or martial characters are capable of, but have no such conception for magic. Thus, magic using characters are designed without a restriction that other characters have, and no similar restriction is introduced to balance them.

This is usually further amplified by the tendancy to

• underestimate the real-life effectiveness of mundane skills or the meaning of high statistic values (for example, the lead designer of Pathfinder estimating the difficulty of a seasoned warrior catching a weapon fastened by a cord, by considering how difficult it was for them to catch their mouse when it was tied to their wrist)
• treat in-game abstractions as reality when judging the effect of mundane skills (for example, the lead designer of D&D 5e ruling that it was unreasonable to reduce a PC's hitpoint damage by shouting to inspire them to fight because doing so could not heal wounds, even though HP is an acknowledged abstraction including the PC's fighting capacity as well as physical injury)

The most common categories in which caster supremacy manifests are:

• Replacement Supremacy: the caster can do everything another character types can do, possibly better, plus cast other spells. For example: a wizard who can cast Invisibility and Fireball has the ability to deal large amounts of damage and to be stealthy, which covers the abilities of both a Fighter and a Rogue.
• Permission Supremacy: the caster has ways quantified within the rules of producing certain effects; other character types should be equally able to produce them but have no such rule quantification, leaving it in the realm of GM fiat. For example: a game's spell list may include a spell for opening a locked door. It would also be perfectly possible for a strong character to break down a locked door, but many games will not include rules for this. This means that the wizard player has an absolute specification in the book that they can open locked doors, but for the stronger mundane character it is only decided by the GM.
• Narrative Supremacy: the caster's magic can affect the ongoing narrative dramatically while other character types have no mechanisms for doing anything equivalent. For example: a wizard may have a spell along the lines of Control Weather, whereas a fighter may not have any equivalent ability. Although this makes sense in-character, it does not make sense in terms of participation balance between the players at the table.
• Defensive Supremacy: the caster can make themselves rapidly immune to attacks from mundane characters. This is typically done with some combination of flight and protection against thrown/fired objects.
• Setting Inconsistency: the setting fails to provide any reason why not every character has some access to magic, nor why those who do have access do not rule the world by definition.

Balance Attempts

A number of standard ways of balancing casting abilities generally turn out not to work:

• Magic is Rare: in settings in which wizards are declared to be rare, the power of a Player Character wizard is increased; the party will not be affected by rarity because the PC wizard will always be present, but their opponents can be argued to have had less reason to anticipate a magic user showing up.
• Magic is Scary: in settings in which magic users are considered dangerous, the PC magic user will still always be available in hostile environments, and another party member will be able to handle most social interaction.
• Magic is Risky: settings in which casting spells has an extreme risk to the caster can be balanced, but usually also require magic users to have other options for competently dealing with situations (which usually equates to magic being partially available to all character types). If a single character type is focussed entirely on magic, their player has no way to avoid the risk other than not participating in the game.
• Magic is a limited resource: this depends on the GM being comfortable allowing the magic-user's player to sit at the table waiting, unable to act, until the next chance to rest; many GMs will avoid this by making rests easier, removing the balance. In addition, at high level in many games magic becomes so essential that not allowing the wizard to recharge their magic whenever it is low is suicide. The assumption that "a fighter can swing a sword all day" is also wrong; in most systems, the fighter will also take damage back from any significant opponent, meaning their limited resource is their HP pool. The assumption is also unrealistic, as real life athletes and fighters constantly have to manage physical exhaustion, including by restricting their use of certain techniques.

Examples

• In Dungeons & Dragons 3.5th edition and prior, the Knock first level spell can do the work of a 20th level Rogue.
• In Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition and prior (except 4th edition), the Alarm first level spell can defeat a 20th level Rogue.
• In Shadowrun 4th Edition and higher, most magic abilities cannot be effectively countered except by other magic. This is compounded by the setting rule that only 1% of the population have magical abilities, making it difficult to argue that any but the largest enemy organization would have prepared for one.
• In Numenera, the Numenera of the title are magical artifacts which are the theme of the game; the caster equivalent class ("Nano") can simply use more than any other class.

Aversions

• In Dungeons & Dragons, 4th Edition, all classes have resource-management based powers that have special effects, and Wizards are restricted to powers with a particular theme.
• In Fragged Kingdom, Magic is just a modifier to skills which allows them to be applied in unusual circumstances. Magical effects in combat are restricted to energy blasts comparable to arrows; the majority of special effects in combat are created using alchemical potions and equipment which any character can wield.
• In Ars Magica, wizards are more powerful than other character types, but every player's main character is a wizard and they are played alternately in adventures.
• In Invisible Sun, all PCs are wizards, and the character types represent different attitudes to magic.