The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Arbane]

Let's compare.

AD&D Fighters: Great at dealing direct damage and surviving. Yay!
AD&D Wizards: Can do anything they can imagine. Yay!

To me, those don't even seem to be in the same ballpark. You still have the "fighters can't do anything out of combat" problem and the "wizards can do anything" problems.

I guess it's time to post...

Spoiler: Caster/Martial Disparity Bingo (Pathfinder Edition)

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So part of me feels this was intentional as they incorporated various overpowered spells mingled among the normal ones. Truly spectacular spells for the more heroic campaigns existed in the books alongside some of the worst uses for a spell lot ever conceived.

Someone pointed out that in AD&D, the Magic-User spells at 6th+ level aren't for dungeon explorers, they're for dungeon administrators.