One of the early challenges I had with writing fantasy is the urge to have Swiss Army knife characters. The caster could fight without magic and the warrior would gain the ability to cast powerful magic. I was in high school, so this might not have been as surprising as one would think. I never wrote the story and the characters were junked, but it did teach me a lesson. Characters need to know their role and not be everything.
This isn’t to say that casters shouldn’t fight and warriors can’t use magic. For example, Nyx can use a crossbow with decent accuracy and she can use a mace without bashing her own head in. Is she highly proficient? No. She can brawl like a streetfighter, which can come in handy if her magic is blocked, but it isn’t a clean or useful method of fighting trained warriors.
I think this question is why I’m always nervous about giving Luke any magic items or powers as the series progresses. Yet, I noticed something when I did have a version of him that involved magic powers. He never used them. I could never find a way to comfortably fit what I wanted him to have into his style. So, Luke is changed from the original evolution to suit his style. This also told me that talented warriors should never be given full magic because you run into the issue of ‘what did they fight with?’ If you’re a master swordsman and can hurl fireballs with ease, nothing can stop you.
So, I look for balance as a character evolves. If they gain new abilities as a series progresses then they should fit what they are and not severely alter them. I do think this kind of evolution is necessary in certain story types. Raising the power of villains without doing so to the heroes makes their inevitable victory rather far-fetched to me. That goes back to the rivals post where I said that rivals should be equal and there should be a sense that either can win.
What do you look for in warriors and spellcasters or other action-type heroes? Do you like them to have a few non-role abilities?
Legends of Windemere 
what I look for in one word vulnerability…
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Always good and necessary. We talking emotional, mental, or physical?
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I think they should have weaknesses to some degree in each of those catagories, as do all of us… it makes them human and 3 demensional…
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People tend to forget one of them. Usually the emotional. So many unflappable fantasy heroes.
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batman spiderman, the x men all had their emotional problems… Batman turned his fear into a weapon… but was still effected by the death of his parents is one example… most of the real good heros were flappable to some degree… Even Superman was vulnerable when it came to his emotions…
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I believe that the character’s abilities should make sense. If the character is a warrior, then he/she should have the knowledge and skills of a warrior. If, for some reason, the character has abilities outside of the norm, a good explanation should fit. Is it an inherent ability, or an ability that was gifted by a more powerful being? If it’s useful for the character’s story than I have no problems with this. But, I don’t believe that it should be something that’s equally, or more powerful than what the character has access to. Maybe there should be limits on it as well?
For me, the story is what’s most important. Everything has to play together in order to make it a good (or great) story, and above all else, the reader should be able to believe in it. If you suddenly have warriors chucking magic missiles and sorcerers are throwing on full plate and charging into battle, all the while calling lightning down on the battlefield, you’re almost guaranteed to lose the interest of your intended audience.
Should the hero and the villain be equal throughout the entire story? Matter of opinion, personally. While I may enjoy reading such a story, I find myself really falling into those in which the hero isn’t as powerful as the villain. The hero may be more powerful than any other of the villain’s minions, but if he/she wants to truly save the day, then it’s going to take more than magic or brawn to do so.
On the reverse, the villain need not always be as powerful as the hero either, but has the ability and enough smarts to make life miserable for the hero while staying just out of reach. The hero may have all of tools he/she needs at his/her disposal, but if the villain can create enough distraction, it may be possible to get the upper hand when hero is not at his/her best. (Something like this can be seen in the first of my books; The Rise and Fall of John Rizzerio)
Thank you for posting this, as well as allowing me to take up some space in your comments!
R.
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You’re welcome. Good point with the reason for powers. I can’t go into details on mine because it happens later in the series I’m working on. I do find magic given to warriors more often the plate mail on wizards, so I think the standard is wizards can’t switch.
With the hero and villain, I agree. The post I referred to was about rivals and villains do tend to have the upper hand at first. Though who is to say what constitutes more powerful? Superman could physically crush Lex Luthor, but Lex is smart enough to be on the same level as Supernan.
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The best way to answer your question would be to tell you the tale of how I played my Diablo I character. I made him a warrior, but I knew some monsters that await me would be much more difficult to beat without magic, so I pumped his strenght and magic (oposed to advised vitality,for longer life). I had to have two sets of gear that I needed to constantly swap and leave at the town square, depending on which level progression I was doing. I had to have extra inventory space to carry both possible improvements in weapons, as well as tons of space cramping magic leveling books. This was a back and forth weakness, other then strenght, even tho at first sight my character looked like an omnipotent badass.
What I want to say is that what I look for is balance. Having a character masterfully weld both spells, weapons, charisma, be stealthy and cunning is highly overwhelming, because you want to showcase him or her using each and every one of these abilities, which can get draggy and tiring. This does not mean that character classes should be strictly pure or made inept on purpose each time they try to learn something new, its more of a “don’t overdo it” kind of a thing. I must say I also like to see a character put out of the comfort zone of his abilities and reading how does the character handle learning and wielding something new.
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Learning new skills is always fun to write. Your Diablo character sounds tough to use.
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Yes, that is another thing, the mana and HP managing gets really hard at the last levels 🙂 This is only Diablo I tho, future instalments of the game changed everything I no longer have this freedom regarding character creation,which is a bore.
Diablo III made basicly every character have some sort of spells, connected narrowly to their class, so playing a warrior (barbarian) there is no fun as well, because I am limited to barbarian typical spells seen allready everywhere (charge, whirlwind, thunderclap, deadly throw), while it would have been nice to use lightning strikes or fireballs with him, but perhaps at a higher cost (for example, each time I wanna learn a spell, I lose hp or something). D&D pc game had a wonderfull system like this and your character was a lot more personal.
Something unusual and different is always good and like I said, it is nice to read about a class character leaving the comfort zone of his abilities 🙂
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Curious how this translates to writing. Leveling in writing is tough to pull off. 🙂
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Yes, compared to a pc game where you just shine for two seconds then distribute a few attributes.
Tome personaly, leveling writen is kind of like a gradual rupture, like that list of qualities you wrote about some time ago and what would one look for in an adventurer, the emotion of surviving and achieving those and consuming the drive that made the character do it in the first place.
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I remember an old anime where you can pinpoint the leveling up of characters. It was hilarious.
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I like them to stay within their roles. Lack of magic for a warrior is a weakness. Weaknesses are cool when the author shows how the character works around that limit by using their other skills.
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What a warrior learning a scanning or minor healing spells?
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Yeah, I think minor healing spells are ok, or ability to see stealthed enemies. Just not too many of these special abilities. Plus they have to have done something awesome to gain these abilities.
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Or there’s a tradition in their family for having small quirks. That’s how I had to explain Luke’s seeing sound ability. Random roll during character creation, but it became so integral to him that I couldn’t ditch it.
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yeah, that makes sense, I can go with that. I like it best when I know about their special abilities ahead of time so they aren’t just brought out suddenly and used. I like the tension in a fight waiting for the char to pull out their ability.
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A power that’s a secret weapon is great. You can even see hints of it being used without drawing attention. It’s how he senses things coming.
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I would expect characters to have styles that represent their backgrounds. In a world where magic is a known hazard of the world, I would expect military training to cover basic anti-magical defense, rather like infantry today is trained in dealing with chemical weapons.
So a warrior would start out with a layman’s understanding of the basic principles of combat spellcasting, how to recognize when an enemy spellcaster is starting a spell, and how to gauge the area of effect in order to get out of the blast radius. If magical items are a part of the world then how to recognize and identify such items would be covered as well, even if it’s as simple as “if you see something on the battlefield that is glowing green, mark its location and inform your CO ASAP.”
A warrior is going to see magic in terms of threat potential and have a healthy respect for spells and magical items. He or she would be very cautious in using magic, treating spellbooks and such as unexploded ordinance. I suspect a warrior would never be entirely comfortable with using magic, but would be willing to do so if the mission called for it.
Spellcasters, on the other hand, tend to be more like academics. Their training is to think first, and act only when the situation is understood. This doesn’t mean that they are necessarily slow in a crises, but that their first impulse is to gather information while taking all possible defensive actions. So I would expect a spellcaster’s combat style to reflect that–quick to block, holding back on offensive strikes until the best shot presents itself. A spellcaster is also likely to see physical combat as a last resort. Her or his first impulse is to find a magical solution to a crises, and to only engage in close combat if there is no other option.
Just my thoughts.
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Good thoughts. What about the adventurer instead of the soldier? Do you think a warrior that works alongside a wizard would develop an interest in magic? I’m thinking more along the lines of support instead of combat magic.
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“Adventurer” is kind of a tough concept to find a real world equivalent for. (One of the difficulties I have with a lot of fantasy, actually.) I suppose the best models would be the African and Arctic explorers of the early 20th Century, who tended to be very unorthodox in their methodology.
A mercenary soldier is going to be more flexible in terms of tactics and equipment than a member of a standing army, but is still likely to think in terms of threat assessment–“Is this item more dangerous to me than to the enemy?”
However, people who work closely together in a potentially hostile environment are going to do some cross-training, both for survival value and simply to pass the time. So I can see a warrior and a wizard sitting around the campfire and talking shop. How much magic a non-wizard can learn depends upon the magic system of the world, of course.
There’s also the matter of just how much one person can learn. As Ahz said to Skeeve in “Another Fine Myth”, “If what you’ve told me about the lifespan of your people is accurate, you’ll only have time to learn one or the other.”
Also, characters who are good at everything are boring.
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That’s why I like characters to gain minor abilities that are more support than damage. Maybe even a dangerous or barely used power. I like idea of a power being given that the character doesn’t see a use for. Like blood that can be used as an all-purpose antidote.
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From a narrative standpoint, it’s a lot more exciting for a character to find a creative way to use an existing power to solve a problem than to suddenly gain a new ability. Having a warrior learn a “useless” spell as part of the training process and then find a combat use for it is the kind of thing that makes for a good adventure.
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I really wish I could explain what I have planned, but that book isn’t out yet. I’m having issues with the final part of the power evolution. What I originally planned went too far, so I’m struggling to water it down. I think I have it figured out, but I might have to sacrifice one of my favorite, most useful powers to make it work.
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There are ways to make a power temporarily unavailable to the character. For example, if you have a warrior learning magic later in life, he might very well have control issues that a mage–who began magical training at an early age–isn’t expecting.
Suppose that the warrior experiences an unexpected side effect–his fireball burns a colleague or his flight spell stops suddenly, resulting in a nasty fall. The mage who is training him can only offer encouragement and advice to work on concentration exercises, but the warrior’s faith is shaken and his casting falls apart.
So in the critical part of the adventure the warrior isn’t able to do the magic that would negate the danger or drama, and has to fall back on his warrior skills. Meanwhile, you can have him working and struggling to overcome his fear of magic so that when the next big battle comes he is able to get past the fear and concentrate enough to throw the spell and save the day.
Before you just discard the ability that is causing you plot problems, maybe you could work a reason for the power to be unreliable into the story arc?
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The ability itself isn’t causing me problems. The downside if it is used too often is that the hero gets very hungry. To the point where he’s about to pass out.
Part of the plot has him making a decision between stepping up to the next level of power and sacrificing part of what he can do or staying at his current level. I’m really torn on what to do because of the personality of the character. Man, it blows trying to explain something that involves spoilers.
I guess it comes down to a character deciding on sacrificing something important to reach a new level of power or staying at the level and holding onto that special something.
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I like them to have some weakness, in both proficiency and personality. Warriors have one type of weapon they are horrible with and casters one school they can’t master for example. They also need a reason for these; not just “I can’t use a bow because I can’t.”
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The proficiency weakness is interesting because you don’t see much attention to it. Warriors tend to have a lot of weapons that they can’t use because they never trained in it. On the other head, casters don’t typically have schools that they’re weak in because they use so few spells in books.
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