Is Magic itself Overpowered?

[eggynack]

I'm just surprised you picked Healer as your counterexample instead of, like, Hexblade. Now there's a class that's not overpowered.

I like healer because it's prepared and goes to 9th's. While the question here was presented in a way that could be answered with hexblades, or hell, even with paladins, the question is often expanded to, "Is 9th level prepared casting intrinsically powerful?" which demands something like the healer. In that fashion, the healer is a class capable of answering more questions, and thus serves as a more general counterexample. I suppose I could more tailor my responses to the individual questions at hand, but starting at a relatively deep level allows flexibility, such that you don't have to say, "Fine, well in that case, I'll go with the healer, which does fit all of your new requirements."

[Troacctid]

Same with stuff like Cone of Cold. You want to know why its a 5th level spell? Because back in AD&D, it didn't run the risk of destroying your loot. It froze potions and scrolls, as opposed to boil/incinerating them like Fireball or Lightning Bolt.

It's not really the same. Cone of Cold has a pretty long range, works on enemies regardless of their level, and is save-half instead of save-negates, so none of the drawbacks of Color Spray apply to it. I mean, it has drawbacks, but they're totally different drawbacks.

[torrasque666]

It's not really the same. Cone of Cold has a pretty long range, works on enemies regardless of their level, and is save-half instead of save-negates, so none of the drawbacks of Color Spray apply to it. I mean, it has drawbacks, but they're totally different drawbacks.

Crap. I meant to put that in the "spell that are too high level thread." crossed my wires.

[MyrPsychologist]

Actually, if you think about all the classics, we have non-magical heroes (say, Hercules or Perseus) exploiting magic items (the Nenean Lion's pelt, or the winged sandals of Hermes) and cunning to outsmart enemies that are frequently magical (such as dragons, gods, or demons). There's absolutely no reason that a game should have mundane characters weaker than their magical counterparts of the same level, because that's what a level means.

If you have a problem with a wizard being just as strong and skilled as swordguy, then have level 1 wizard represent the most rookie of apprentices, and level 1 swordguy represent the hardened veteran of more wars than he can count.

The problem with translating mythological or fantasy figures is that it becomes very difficult to differentiate exactly what they are and what "abilities" they use. Hercules has massive strength that FAR exceeds a humans, is this a reflection of a gish with all day buffs? A fighter? A ToB fighter? Maybe just a totemist? The point is: it's up to interpretation and your perception of a hero may not be the same as mine.

BTW. I totally think Perseus is a gished out favored soul.

[Taelas]

You can build a character that, through magic, can do the same thing as the mythological characters, but seeing as they don't, y'know, cast spells in those myths to do their thing, then they aren't casters.

[Flickerdart]

Hercules is pretty magic. He's the son of Zeus, and has superhuman strength. If that's not magic, I'm not sure what is.

It's not magic because he's only a guy with abs. The amount of abs is irrelevant.

The problem with translating mythological or fantasy figures is that it becomes very difficult to differentiate exactly what they are and what "abilities" they use. Hercules has massive strength that FAR exceeds a humans, is this a reflection of a gish with all day buffs? A fighter? A ToB fighter? Maybe just a totemist? The point is: it's up to interpretation and your perception of a hero may not be the same as mine.

BTW. I totally think Perseus is a gished out favored soul.

Doesn't really matter how you stat him out, as long as your guy does what Hercules does - solve problems with muscle power and wit. Perseus is fine as a Favored Soul so long as he never casts a single spell in battle.

[Brova]

It's not magic because he's only a guy with abs. The amount of abs is irrelevant.

Magic doesn't mean casting spells. It means doing things that are supernatural. Like punching a lion to death. Or rerouting a river to clean out some guy's stables. Those aren't spells, but they're totally magic.

[AvatarVecna]

This is starting to sound an awful lot like the "Guy at the Gym" fallacy.

I'm just going to clarify: a Core-only, by-the-book Monk 20 has 23 ranks in Jump, synergy bonus from Tumble, ~16 Str, 90 ft movement, and a +30 competence bonus to Jump from an item. That gives them a total Jump check of +82, for an average check of 92. That gives them a high jump of ~23 ft, with another 8 ft of reach from his own personal height. That's a pretty high jump...for a normal person. The Olympic record IRL is 8 ft 1/4 in, a DC 32 check in D&D. A 2nd level character with 5 ranks in Jump and Tumble, Skill Focus: Jump, and 16 Str, given 20 chances, can match that once and beat it once. I'll say that again: Olympic level athletics can be accomplished by a second level character. That should put into perspective what I expect out of high level non-magic characters. And what do I get? A mere 23 ft high jump. The absolute kings of Jumping from a fluff point of view, and Monks can't even triple Olympic records.

Sounds whiny, right? Oh, boo hoo, a 20th level Monk can't make Olympic athletes look like toddlers, so what? A Monk 20 shouldn't look like Jackie Chan; a Monk 20 shouldn't look like Bruce Lee. A Monk 20 should look like Kung Fu Panda. A Monk 20 should look like a ****ing Super-Saiyan. A Monk 20 shouldn't just be Jumping 20 ft up, they should be jumping up a couple hundred feet, and fighting on the way down...assuming they don't just hold themselves there through sheer force of will.

Magic is overpowered in comparison, but I think it's operating on the right level...maybe a little too high, but it's closer to the right ballpark than most any non-magic option. A fight between 20th level characters should be an epic battle that can't be ended through cheap tactics...and it should reshape the battlefield, or maybe even the local climate.

[Hecuba]

Which brings me to my point. Magic itself isn't broken or overpowered...but prepared casters are. I know many probably already realize that, but when i hear people talking about banning magic from campaigns altogether i can't help but shake my head.

Well, I don't quite agree, but I think that you're reasonably close to the root problem.

The issue isn't that, in the abstract, having spells is a problem.
The issue is that:

1. Certain specific spells are too flexible (wish/miracle, shapechange, Shadow X, etc).
2. The non-specialist class lists, taken as a whole, are too flexible.

Admittedly, removing 1 would probably do much more to bring Spontaneous casters in line with T3 classes than it would Prepared casters. But Spontaneous Casters still have enough spell availability to make 2 an issue.

Essentially, the key is to make the lists narrower.

Assume we've killed or nerfed the big offenders indicated in 1 above and consider this wizard mod:

• Level 1: Access to all cantrips & one school of magic for other spells.
• Level 5: Access to another school, but only for spells 2 levels lower than your highest level spell known.
• Level 10: As level 5, but 3 levels lower
• Level 15: As level 5, but 4 Levels lower
• Level 20: As level 5, but 5 levels lower

We still have a prepared caster. We still, given the wizard's ability to acquire scrolls, have a caster with the capacity to exceed the number of spells known that a Sorcerer has. But we have likely reduced the RAW flexibility enough that the character is closer to the low Tier 2 or high Tier 3 range than easily sitting in the Tier 1 range.

And all we really did was limit the scope of spell selection.

[Masakan]

Well, I don't quite agree, but I think that you're reasonably close to the root problem.

The issue isn't that, in the abstract, having spells is a problem.
The issue is that:

1. Certain specific spells are too flexible (wish/miracle, shapechange, Shadow X, etc).
2. The non-specialist class lists, taken as a whole, are too flexible.

Admittedly, removing 1 would probably do much more to bring Spontaneous casters in line with T3 classes than it would Prepared casters. But Spontaneous Casters still have enough spell availability to make 2 an issue.

Essentially, the key is to make the lists narrower.

Assume we've killed or nerfed the big offenders indicated in 1 above and consider this wizard mod:

• Level 1: Access to all cantrips & one school of magic for other spells.
• Level 5: Access to another school, but only for spells 2 levels lower than your highest level spell known.
• Level 10: As level 5, but 3 levels lower
• Level 15: As level 5, but 4 Levels lower
• Level 20: As level 5, but 5 levels lower

We still have a prepared caster. We still, given the wizard's ability to acquire scrolls, have a caster with the capacity to exceed the number of spells known that a Sorcerer has. But we have likely reduced the RAW flexibility enough that the character is closer to the low Tier 2 or high Tier 3 range than easily sitting in the Tier 1 range.

And all we really did was limit the scope of spell selection.

that's pretty much the long and short of it, just don't give them so many types of spells to use.

[Necroticplague]

No. Magic isn't overpowered. The problem is that martials are underpowered.

[Kelb_Panthera]

As others have said, the problem (if you want to call it that) is not with spontaneous vs prepared casting, or magic in general, or, I even daresay, with casters vs non-casters.

The problem lies with a relative handful of spells and overly broad access to spells in general. All of the T1 and T2 classes are "overpowered" when compard to any baseline intended to include non-caster classes and disregarding the game's base CR guidelines for creatures and obstacles.

The real problem, however, lies here; there is no universal standard for baseline competence in these discussions. If casters are overpowered and non-casters are underpowered then -no one- is at the "correct" level of power and varying degrees of optimizational skill make the whole thing even more of a useless morass. Then the whole problem gets exacerbated by the near complete disregard for proper use of WBL excepting in regards to artificers. There aren't even any guides on the matter save a few resources for getting desirable effects as cheaply as possible.

That people bandy about terms like "broken" and "over/underpowered" as though they were objective truth is baffling.

[Dread_Head]

In my opinion there are two ways in which casting is over powered in comparison to mundanes. Note that I'm mainly referring to tier 1 and 2 casting here as like eggynack and Troacctid pointing out there are plenty of casting classes which are balanced against fighters and monks.

1) The breadth and versatility of spells available to wizards, clerics, druids and archivists. Given a days notice (or by being well prepared, or with good use of divinations etc.) one of these casters can have spells ready providing a solution to any (vaguely level appropriate, we're not talking lvl 1's against great wyrms here) problem you could present them with. This is something that a mundane just can't achieve, a day later they will at best have slightly different options and they can't guarantee a solution to any problem.
2) Certain spells (polymorph line, planar binding line, etc.) available to these classes can solve many if not all problems presented to them. These spells will solve or help with just about any problem presented. A mundane will have tools available to it but even the most optimised mundanes options aren't even in the same league as polymorph.

The first problem can be solved by banning prepared casters and only using spontaneous casters such as sorcerer, favoured soul and spontaneous druid/cleric. This doesn't solve the second problem though as they can still choose the most powerful spell at each level and leave mundanes behind in the dust. To solve the second problem you need to identify the most op spells and ban or nerf them all. This is quite a lot of work so my preferred suggestion is to replace all tier 1/2 classes with thematic fixed list casters along the lines of the Beguiler, Warmage and Dread Necromancer. By making sure the lists you choose have none of the broken spells on you can balance the casters to be around tier 3 / 4 and at such a level mundanes (eg. ToB, well optimised rogues, scouts, barbarians and even fighters) and other subsytems (binders, incarnum, etc) can compete.

Its also worth noting that tier 1 casters are only overpowered when compared to classes like fighter and monk. Most reasonable people playing a wizard won't be noticeably op when in a party composed of a warblade, wildshape ranger and cleric. And a party composed of a Wizard, Cleric, Archivist and Druid will be well balanced within itself and provided the DM is throwing higher CR challenges at them can enjoy a fun and challenging campaign. Balance problems only exist when you have a party which looks something like wizard, druid, battledancer and ninja and this is as much due to the low power of some classes as it is to the high power of spellcasting.

[martixy]

There are spells that are too powerful. That's true regardless of who casts them or how. Let's set aside the Shapechanges and Gates of the world for the moment.

The real issue is OPTIONS. Linear wizards, quadratic warriors. Some classes in the game get more as they level up than others. More options, more choices, more tools. A 20th level wizard is a different character than a 1st level wizard in ways that really aren't comparable to a fighter or rogue's progression. Most of the game's issues stem from that fact.

Can you have fun with a mundane character? Sure. Can you build a party where mundanes and casters are both relevant in combat? Again, sure. But they are not, and will never be, truly balanced.

Let me note that that in itself is not an inherently bad thing either, both as far as potential power disparity and realized disparity. Not with the scope of table-top RPGs.
(At least that's my opinion.)

Also, I believe you meant Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards.

[Arbane]

Hercules is pretty magic. He's the son of Zeus, and has superhuman strength. If that's not magic, I'm not sure what is.

I knew that reply was coming. Greek myth is a bad argument for this, since EVERYONE important in it is descended from Zeus somehow.

How about Beowulf, then? Allegedly a 'normal' human, but he kills monsters with his bare hands and goes swimming in full armor... for three days straight.

Part of the problem is that fighters and rogues are 'realistically' limited to what That Guy At The Gym can do. Wizards are limited to what magic can do... which is, apparently, EVERYTHING.

[Troacctid]

How about Beowulf, then? Allegedly a 'normal' human, but he kills monsters with his bare hands and goes swimming in full armor... for three days straight.

Sure, he says he does. You don't have to be a Wizard to put skill ranks in Bluff.

[AvatarVecna]

Sure, he says he does. You don't have to be a Wizard to put skill ranks in Bluff.

Actually, I'm pretty sure a Construct could do it. In fact, my new personal headcanon is that Beowulf is just an Ahnold-esque Terminator who got sent back way too far...and also into the wrong dimension.

[Anlashok]

Hercules is pretty magic. He's the son of Zeus, and has superhuman strength. If that's not magic, I'm not sure what is.

Fighter with a fancy inherited template is still a fighter.

Magic doesn't mean casting spells. It means doing things that are supernatural. Like punching a lion to death. Or rerouting a river to clean out some guy's stables. Those aren't spells, but they're totally magic.

unarmed strike is apparently an SU ability now.

[AvatarVecna]

unarmed strike is apparently an SU ability now.

Also, IIRC, he killed the Nemean Lion by shooting it in the mouth with a bow. Actually, that's probably a sign of how awesome Heracles was: he was a legendary switch-hitter.

[Brova]

This is starting to sound an awful lot like the "Guy at the Gym" fallacy.

Part of the problem is that fighters and rogues are 'realistically' limited to what That Guy At The Gym can do. Wizards are limited to what magic can do... which is, apparently, EVERYTHING.

I'm not saying you aren't allowed to do stuff that's physically impossible if you're a Fighter or a Rogue. Fighters should totally be able to punch lions to death or kill dragons with their bare hands. Rogues should be able to teleport through shadows or turn invisible. But those things are not mundane. They are super obviously not mundane, and trying to pass of those classes as mundane makes people try to nerf them. People complain about "Rogue space" in a way that they just don't about color spray or gate.

The issue isn't that, in the abstract, having spells is a problem.
The issue is that:

1. Certain specific spells are too flexible (wish/miracle, shapechange, Shadow X, etc).
2. The non-specialist class lists, taken as a whole, are too flexible.

No, it's not. The issue is that spells are too good. A Wizard isn't powerful because he can cast color spray and sleep and silent image. He is powerful because he can cast any one of those spells, and they win encounter while other people are killing single enemies. Versatility isn't power. Power is power.

The problem lies with a relative handful of spells and overly broad access to spells in general. All of the T1 and T2 classes are "overpowered" when compard to any baseline intended to include non-caster classes and disregarding the game's base CR guidelines for creatures and obstacles.

Assuming I'm understanding the bolded part correctly, I disagree with that. If you run a competently built and played but not heavily optimized (i.e. casting cloudkill and glitterdust, but not abusing planar binding or Persistent Spell) Wizard through a gauntlet of level = CR encounters, he bats about 50%. Or, exactly and mathematically level appropriately.

The first problem can be solved by banning prepared casters and only using spontaneous casters such as sorcerer, favoured soul and spontaneous druid/cleric.

But none of those characters are actually broken. They can do broken things, but so can everyone. Candles of Invocation exist and have a price in gold. The game is already broken from the word go if you aren't willing to accept some bans. If casters just don't abuse polymorph/simulacrum/gate, they aren't overpowered. They're just better than mundanes. The problem shouldn't be solved by nerfing casters in general. It should be solved by nerfing specific spells, and buffing mundanes in general.

[NichG]

I have to agree that the way this question is asked is somewhat nonsensical, but the reason for that is actually at the heart of a lot of the balance problems that you find with magic in D&D.

That is to say, what the heck does 'magic itself' even mean in D&D?

D&D encourages people to treat 'magic' as a catchall phrase that can and should be able to do literally anything. This is the kitchen sink fantasy thing kicking in - 'magic' has to cover the range of any kind of supernatural thing any kind of character ever did or could do in any fiction out there. So the result is that labeling something 'magic' is pretty much meaningless in D&D. Classes where their main design constraint is 'they use magic' become broken and overpowered because that isn't actually a design constraint, so you have a class which is defined as 'this character can do things'. Classes that have other strong design constraints, such as 'this class only has abilities which manipulate shadows' or 'this class only has abilities which create and control undead', don't create nearly as many problems.

But saying that something is about 'magic itself' in D&D is kind of meaningless, because 'magic' doesn't really mean anything.

[Aldrakan]

There's nothing inherently overpowered about D&D's magic system. Far less restrictive casting systems have been far less powerful in other games. I think it's more down to two fundamental issues: heroic fantasy and equal opportunities.

A staple of heroic fantasy is the evil wizard in his dark tower, with his armies of monsters and dread magic and so on. To properly allow all variations of this archetype requires someone with an incredibly wide range of powerful abilities. And once you've devoted yourself to giving wizards such a diverse set of abilities, the question of why they don't have more shows up, since the limitations placed upon them are quite arbitrary, until basically every weakness a wizard could have has a specific spell to counter it.

Then there's the general assumption of at least equal abilities between PCs and NPCs. PCs and NPCs are built using the same systems. Anything an NPC can do, a PC can do too, usually better. The reason players don't take NPC classes is cause they're worse. This doesn't apply to races like demons of course, but you can hardly expect the main enemy to never be human.

What's missing here is that in heroic fantasy stories, the heroes are generally underdogs, who for reasons or morality, or opportunity, or inherent ability, don't have access to the powers of their enemies. Sometimes they're still really powerful, but the main enemy usually has something that puts them on a different level.

But there are evil groups, PCs tend to have vastly more opportunities than your average person because they write their own backstories and gain power automatically by fighting people, and there's no such thing as a "super-wizard" for them to face.

So the only thing that really separates the big bad evil sorcerer, who for plot reasons needs the capacity to create and destroy armies and create worlds, from the PC wizard, is level. And that gap needs to start closing for the PCs to stand a chance.
You could come up with fixes to this, but I think they'd involve massive reworking of the spells available and still mean treating PC and NPC advancement and abilities differently, which there aren't good rules for doing.

[Masakan]

No, it's not. The issue is that spells are too good. A Wizard isn't powerful because he can cast color spray and sleep and silent image. He is powerful because he can cast any one of those spells, and they win encounter while other people are killing single enemies. Versatility isn't power. Power is power.

.....That is an absolute load and you know it.

[Necroticplague]

.....That is an absolute load and you know it.

Not entirely. Even if the only spell you could cast was Shapechange, you'd still be among the most powerful classes. The problem is spellcasters get both versatility with a large amount of available powers, and the powers they get are immensely strong.

Of course, this isn't true of all spellcasters. Fixed-list casters and bards are pretty balanced, despite being casters, healers are still rather weak (outside of Sanctified Spells or Gate abuse). This is generally accomplished by limiting both the scope (smaller spell list) and the power (of spells that are generally weaker).

[Masakan]

Not entirely. Even if the only spell you could cast was Shapechange, you'd still be among the most powerful classes. The problem is spellcasters get both versatility with a large amount of available powers, and the powers they get are immensely strong.

Of course, this isn't true of all spellcasters. Fixed-list casters and bards are pretty balanced, despite being casters, healers are still rather weak (outside of Sanctified Spells or Gate abuse). This is generally accomplished by limiting both the scope (smaller spell list) and the power (of spells that are generally weaker).

So it would really come down to spellcasters choosing not to use the spells that would so obviously break the game.
This is why i would never touch poly-morph with a 10 foot pole

[MyrPsychologist]

As others have said, the problem (if you want to call it that) is not with spontaneous vs prepared casting, or magic in general, or, I even daresay, with casters vs non-casters.

The problem lies with a relative handful of spells and overly broad access to spells in general. All of the T1 and T2 classes are "overpowered" when compard to any baseline intended to include non-caster classes and disregarding the game's base CR guidelines for creatures and obstacles.

The real problem, however, lies here; there is no universal standard for baseline competence in these discussions. If casters are overpowered and non-casters are underpowered then -no one- is at the "correct" level of power and varying degrees of optimizational skill make the whole thing even more of a useless morass. Then the whole problem gets exacerbated by the near complete disregard for proper use of WBL excepting in regards to artificers. There aren't even any guides on the matter save a few resources for getting desirable effects as cheaply as possible.

That people bandy about terms like "broken" and "over/underpowered" as though they were objective truth is baffling.

I like to use t3s as a baseline myself. With t2 and t4 the variance I am typically okay with tolerating. This means that there are far fewer "overpowered" or "underpowered" classes and these classes have issues based on fundamental aspects of the class. It also puts a lot of martial builds right into an acceptable range.

But it would shift the focus of this kind of dialog to more about how can we fix the classes that are t5+ and what truly makes t1 t1?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm not saying you aren't allowed to do stuff that's physically impossible if you're a Fighter or a Rogue. Fighters should totally be able to punch lions to death or kill dragons with their bare hands. Rogues should be able to teleport through shadows or turn invisible. But those things are not mundane. They are super obviously not mundane, and trying to pass of those classes as mundane makes people try to nerf them. People complain about "Rogue space" in a way that they just don't about color spray or gate.

That level of realistic mundanity isn't what anyone is talking about when referring to mundanes. They mean classes that, at the very least, lack spellcasting ability or its equivalent or, at most, lack any spell-like, supernatural, or spellcasting ability of any kind. They mean fighters and rogues and, sometimes, even things like ninjas or monks or even up to paladin and ranger, despite their limited spellcasting abilities. The context and culture at play here changes the meaning of the word "mundane" to something other than its literal, dictionary definition.

Conversely, "magic" is usually referring to the spellcasting mechanic or one of its loose equivalents (invocation use, psionics, shadowcasting, and/or even truenaming or meldshaping) or often any form of spell-like, supernatural or spellcasting ability at all.

In this particular thread, it's rather obviously referring to the spellcasting system.

No, it's not. The issue is that spells are too good. A Wizard isn't powerful because he can cast color spray and sleep and silent image. He is powerful because he can cast any one of those spells, and they win encounter while other people are killing single enemies. Versatility isn't power. Power is power.

This is extremely short-sighted. Having a dozen ways to solve a situation is inherently more powerful than having just one. Even after eliminating the most obviously powerful spells (whose power comes from their versatility, ironically enough) like the polymorph line, summoning spells, and calling spells, you can still crush encounters readily enough by simply choosing the most appropriate spell or even combinations of spells that can be cast in a single turn or two. Some of the best options can solve a number of different encounters.

Assuming I'm understanding the bolded part correctly, I disagree with that. If you run a competently built and played but not heavily optimized (i.e. casting cloudkill and glitterdust, but not abusing planar binding or Persistent Spell) Wizard through a gauntlet of level = CR encounters, he bats about 50%. Or, exactly and mathematically level appropriately.

This is just plain wrong. The polymorph and summon X spell lines alone can decimate most encounters. Nevermind, most encounters will have a silver bullet spell that can utterly unravel them even when the DM tries to close off all such options. This latter point can be avoided by players intentionally rushing head-long through adventures without even trying to find out what's ahead and/or the DM throwing what amounts to entirely random encounters at the party. This amounts to players, either deliberately or not, running their spellcasters pretty foolishly and very deliberately avoiding the most obviously powerful/versatile options every time they could learn a new spell.

Just because individual groups can fix a problem doesn't mean there isn't a problem. In fact, I believe that's the essence of the oberoni fallacy.

[Brova]

Fighter with a fancy inherited template is still a fighter.

He's not "mundane" though. I mean, is Superman mundane because his class is "Reporter" and his race gives him flight, invincibility, super strength, hyperspeed, and lazer vision?

unarmed strike is apparently an SU ability now.

You think "punch a lion to death" is a thing people can do in the real world?

Again, I'm not saying that Fighters shouldn't be able to do supernatural stuff. I'm just saying that they aren't mundane if they do.

That is to say, what the heck does 'magic itself' even mean in D&D?

That's a legitimate question. The answer is probably two things.

First, there's just "magic" as a catchall for supernatural powers. And you need those to compete in a high level playing field. They don't need to involve chanting or ancient tomes, but they need to be mechanically and conceptually "not natural". That can be because you have trained super hard (a lot of Anime/Manga characters), because you happen to be a creature which is sufficiently badass to play at the appropriate level (Thor), or because you have an artifact that gives you mystical powers (Kylar Stern).

Second, there's "magic" as a power source, which generally means Wizards or Sorcerers or whatever. That's a thing that exists, but it's not really super meaningful absent a bunch of other power sources you believe in.

.....That is an absolute load and you know it.

Not really. Imagine the least versatile character possible. He has one ability, and that ability is "deal infinity damage to any number of targets within line of sight". That character has zero versatility, but he is incredibly powerful.

Obviously, Wizards aren't quite that dramatic. But I don't think you can seriously claim that the reason Wizards are good is their versatility. I mean, it is a factor, but it's not nearly as important as factors like "getting to cast cloudkill" or "learning solid fog". It ultimately comes down to this: you only ever do one thing in response to any problem. And if you have something that solves all your problems, it doesn't really matter what else you can do.

It's why (single classed) Rogues are good and (single classed) Bards aren't. The Rogue is capable of doing level appropriate damage with a lot of attacks that consistently hit flat-footed touch AC. The Bard isn't. He's capable of doing a wide variety of stuff, but most of it is not very good past ~10.

That level of realistic mundanity isn't what anyone is talking about when referring to mundanes.

That's just not true. Seriously, people still believe that Tome of Battle is "too anime" and "not mundane" despite the fact that the abilities it gives mundanes are barely level appropriate at 10th level and are (almost) all just "I hit it with a sword, but it hurts more than normal."

This is extremely short-sighted. Having a dozen ways to solve a situation is inherently more powerful than having just one.

No, it's not. If you have a solution to a problem, the problem is solved. Whether you had a bunch of other solutions or not does not make the problem any more or less solved.

The polymorph and summon X spell lines alone can decimate most encounters.

So you think polymorph doesn't constitute serious optimization? Using that spell at all requires you to read four books, several web articles, all the relevant errata, and any other changes.

Also, summon monster? Really? The thing that summons chaff at CR = 1/2 level?

Nevermind, most encounters will have a silver bullet spell that can utterly unravel them even when the DM tries to close off all such options.

But the Wizard doesn't get all the silver bullets. He gets what he prepares. That's it. Seriously, run the SGT. No cheese, Core + 2 books, level 5/10/15. The Wizard over-preforms, but he does not sweep.

[Ssalarn]

No. Magic isn't overpowered. The problem is that martials are underpowered.

I think it's a little bit of both. High level wizards have powers that would put the mythological exploits of deities from some real world pantheons to shame. You've got to go to really high power anime to find characters capable of emulating the abilities of 9th level casters (maybe some of the most powerful casters from the Malazan Book of the Fallen series?), but the only way to gauge whether a martial is 1st level or 20th level through a description of his abilities is to look at what he's fighting and how successfully he's doing so.

Martials need a leg up, magic needs a couple steps down. Or, the game needs to more clearly define the expectations of what a level X character means. Things like "A 7th level character should have reliable access to flight", and then ensuring that each class has the tools to meet that expectation.

Also, summon monster? Really? The thing that summons chaff at CR = 1/2 level?

The summon monster line of spells is actually the best set of spells in the game (going from good to ridiculous in the hands of a class like the PF Summoner). At the end of the day, as long as you have access to all 9 versions of the spell, you've got all the tools you need to be Tier 1. At low level you can summon up creatures that provide you with alternate methods of travel, as well as portable walls and meat shields, at high levels you can dial-a-cleric by summoning up your very own Solar angel. If you don't know what you're doing and you just throw the summoned monsters at the enemy, sure, it's not great, but that's not a weakness of the spell, it's a weakness of the player.

[Milo v3]

Magic is not overpowered. Some implementations of magic are overpowered. I mean, look at bards, binders, incarnum, mesmerists, hunters, magus, investigators, or shadow-casting.