Wise mage or powerful mage?

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I red Elminster in Myth Drannor, The Temptation of Elminster, Elminster: The Making of a Mage, the Dragonlance Chronicles, the Dragonlance Legends (the trilogy about the twins) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Bilbo the Hobbit. After this bit of reading, my favourite mage is currently Elminster. Personally, I think that Raistlin loving power above all and having quite a bit of power does not make him that cool. Olorin is interesting but we do not learn enough about him in the trilogy. Who is your favourite and more importantly: why? Do you think, being wise is less important than be powerful (as a mage)? I do like to give a lot of wisdom to my mages (D&D roleplay). Anyone knows any other cool mages? What about a female one for a change. (No, I have not forgotten you, lady of Mysteries)

 

Eww, anyone but Elminster.

Here's a few other ones though:

Elric (Michael Moorcock, Elric of Melniboné)
Pug, Macros the Black (Raymond E. Feist, Magician)
Belgarath, Beldin, Belgarion, Polgara (David Eddings, Belgariad and Malloreon)
Rand, the Forsaken (Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time)

Doesn't seem to be as many female mages, all I can think of are mentioned above (Polgara and half of the forsaken). Oh wait, there's one or two more in Feist's books. (Not in Magician, though.)

I guess my favorite one is Pug. The only wizard of two worlds able to use both greater and lesser magic, and probably the most powerful, to boot. He's a cool character, I like most by Feist.

And nobody cares about wisdom if you have enough power, Raistlin proved that.

 

I think Gandalf is cool; I despise Elminster.

As for whether wisdom or strength (in terms of power, not muscle), is more important to a good mage, I'd say, from a non-roleplaying standpoint, that wisdom is more important. Better to have someone with a little power, but understanding of magic, rather than someone with a tremendous amount of power in his hands, but unable to use it wisely.

 

Now, I knew that some people prefer wisdom to power, while others think the opposite way. What I surprises me is that while you have a different opinion on the matter you both dislike (if not hate) Elminster. Could tell me why or what attribute makes another mage more interesting than him? Is it because you are jealous of the attention Mystra gives him?

 

I don't think that too many people are jealous of the attention given by an imaginary Goddess of magic. Personally, I just dislike overpowered NPCs. Hell, I've never even read any of the Elminster-based books.

 

I'm mostly tired about the fact that he's the game designer's pet character, i.e. nothing will ever happen to him. With that silly eversmoking pipe he should've died from lung cancer by now.

And what's probably even more annoying is his way of putting his nose into other people's business and getting away with it (if all else fails, using Elminster's evasion, level 9 spell, a contingency teleport with *six* (yes, *six*) conditions for it to activate).

That Mystra thing reminds me of my friend's Rifts/Palladium character with his 6000 megadamage (that's 600.000 normal) hit points and the god of magic as his friend (they usually play chess together, though the god has always won so far). (He's been played many years, if anyone wonders about the hit points.)

Oh, and he's not much more than Gandalf in Forgotten Realms. (Tolkien had one, we need one too! Yeah, right.) As a side note, I can't think of a single D&D character apart from him who I really dislike. So it's just him

 

Other wizards I liked a lot include Ged from "A Wizard of Earthsea" and Sybel from "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld". Both are powerful and reasonably wise, but not foolproof.

I haven't read any Elminster books, so maybe he's less lame than he seems. But I doubt it. In the general material, he's presented as the very stereotype of a meddlesome old wizard. Unlike Mordenkainen (his Greyhawk equivalent), he doesn't get overmatched or tricked. He's not even really mortal. You could imagine one day becoming as powerful as Mordenkainen if you were good and lucky. Elminster just gets stuff dumped on him by Mystra. Mordenkainen isn't even the most powerful wizard in his group, he's just the leader.

I like Gandalf a lot more because he more active, wiser, fallible, and *has a purpose*. Gandalf is here to do a particular thing: oppose Sauron. He does that pretty well, but he's not the world's expert on all things the way Elminster is sometimes portrayed. Similar to Mordenkainen, Gandalf is part of a team and not necessarily the most powerful member of it. Saruman and Galadriel probably have more raw power and, in Galadriel's case, more wisdom. Gandalf's virtue is that he *acts*.

Elminister is just too much of everything, IMHO.

 

What is the thing with the 6000 megadamage? As far as I know 6000 Mega is 6 Giga which has nothing to do with 600 0000 (600k).

And Vormaerin, maybe you should read the books before talking about the characters. At least you admit the possibility that you might be wrong but then, you start again with Gandalf. You first finish the trilogy before talking so much about how proactive he is.

Anyway, I’ll try those books you named and maybe I’ll get a more critical view about Elminster.

 

Perhaps. But when a character is consistently presented as awful and uninteresting, it doesn't inspire me to spend money to learn if he really is as awful and uninteresting as he appears.

 

Ah.. wizards..
My favorites:
Mordenkainen (he's the man)
Ged (he has character and beautiful storytelling to boot)
Raistlin (the anti-hero, although a bit of a drama queen as well. nevertheless definitely one of my favourites)
Larloch (evil necromancer so powerful that he doesn't even bother showing up )
Elric (the coolness factor. I wonder how he'd fare without his sword though)

Elminster.. YUCK! If you want to know a bit why people don't like him, check out the wotc boards and do a search
As for powerful female wizards.. there are the 7 sisters (children of mystra) all very powerful. Midnight (becomes the next mystra after the incumbent is killed). However, all of these are also YUCK! Anything faintly related to mystra is also YUCK

 

True, but Boromir was the only member of the fellowship who was not at least partly non human. And look what happened to him!

Besides, my main point of comparison was Mordenkainen, who is purely human and is known primarily through campaign world source material.

Greenwood's presentation of Elminster in the novels may be better than the bazillion appearances in Dragon magazine, published adventures, and FR sourcebooks that I am familiar with. But nothing about Elminster in those media (and precious little about the FR in general) leads me to think I should invest the time in the books.

Anyway, another mage character that I liked is Richard Tierney's Simon of Gitta. I don't know how available the books are, though. The Winds of Zarr is one. There is supposed to another called "The Drums of Chaos" but I've never run across it. A lot of the short stories are collected in "Scroll of Thoth". Though he's not a wizard in the swords and sorcery spell heaving sense, more in the gnostic/hermetist 'expert in occult lore' style.

Edit: I think Elric would actually fare pretty well without Stormbringer. Its obviously handy (well, when its not chopping up allies), but he did do without it for a long stretches of time. He was the most powerful sorceror in Melnibone (and, thus, the world) before he even got Stormbringer.

[ July 29, 2002, 23:44: Message edited by: Vormaerin ]

 

Since I’m a DM and we play in Forgotten Realms’ campaign settings, I am more interested in stories taking place there (although I’m currently reading Dragons of Summer Flame from the Dragonlance settings). I suppose Larloch and Mordenkainen are from Forgotten Realms. Does anyone know a book related to them? Note: if you question the availability of a book, I would probably not be able to get it here, where I live. Oh and does someone know a book which describes casting as more than : he whispers and gesticulate quickly and then... I would like to be able to describe magic more thoroughly to my players. By the way, Aragorn can seen as more human(purer) than Boromir, not that I wish to start on that subject. If you wish to know more about that, read: The History of Middle-Earth: The Book of Lost Tales. I warn you though, you are in for true boredom if you are looking for action.

It is good to know I’m not alone. I and Taluntain appears to be the only one here to have read the books and we like Elminster. But I must say that in order to know Elminster you need to read The Making of a Mage and at that time Elminster cannot possibly be seen as too much of everything.

ADDED: Oh I forgot something, please answer my first question as well. If you do not wish to scroll up, here it is in somewhat different words: “Does anyone (other than me) cares about the wisdom a mage possesses?”.

[ July 30, 2002, 16:07: Message edited by: Gurtha a'coia ]

 

In the Rifts system, one point of megadamage equals 100 points of normal damage. It is a silly system.

Elric doesn't do well without his sword. Just read all the books and see what happens when he's without it. Of course, if he has a good supply of drugs to keep him on his feet, his summons pack quite a punch. (He summons godlike beings, eat that, D&D conjurers )

 

Mordenkainen is famous mage from the original D&D campaign world, Greyhawk. His only novel appearance, as far as I know, is a chapter in one of the "Gord the Rogue" books by Gary Gygax. He might have made an appearance in some Greyhawk title I haven't read. Bigby and Tenser have about the same amount of 'airtime' in that series.

Since Mordenkainen, Tenser, Bigby, Rary, Otiluke, Melf, Otto, Nystul, Leomund, and Drawmij are all explicitly Greyhawk mages, I always wondered what excuse they used for their spells/items being known in the FR. Some sort of plane travel, I suppose.

Larloch I have never seen a print reference to, other than the spell "Larloch's Minor Drain" in the PHB. I *think* he is supposed to be FR wizard, so maybe he shows up in one of those books.

As for your wisdom question, a wise weakling is more valuable than a powerful fool, but that's not necessarily what makes for an interesting character.

I hadn't heard that Boromir's lineage included any non human blood. The Prince of Dol Amroth has elf blood in his line fairly recently and Aragorn has elven and maiar ancestors. I believe the line of the stewards had some non numenorean blood, but it was mingled with other human races AFAIK.

I have read all the Elric books (the six originals and the four or five more recent ones he figures in prominently). He is capable of functioning quite well without Stormbringer. Stormbringer is more convenient, of course. The times he was relying on Stormbringer instead of the drugs and ended up without both were bad news. Remember, although he carried Stormbringer on *most* of his adventures, he actually spent far more of his life without it. Not just before he acquired it, but also all the time he lived with Zarozinia and never touched it. There are other stretches as well.

[ July 31, 2002, 00:15: Message edited by: Vormaerin ]

 

"By magic potions and the chanting of runes, by rare herbs had her son been nurtured, his strength sustained artificially by every art known to the Sorcerer Kings of Melniboné. And he had lived - still lives - thanks to sorcery alone, for he is naturally lassitudinous and, without his drugs, would barely be able to raise his hand from his side through most of a normal day."

That's from the beginning of Elric of Melniboné, before he had the sword, but true, as long as he had drugs, he could function nearly as well as a normal melnibonéan. When he still ruled Melniboné, or stayed with Zarozinia, he didn't have any need to do well in combat, as there wasn't any. However, after Zarozinia disappeared, Elric went looking for her - with the runesword.

 

Yes, of course. Stormbringer is better than the drugs, both from the energy point of view and for other reasons. That's not the same thing as saying 'he doesn't do well without Stormbringer". Remember, he fought in that naval engagement against the Young Kingdoms raiders, then managed to cast a major Summoning spell even after the drugs started to wear off. He also led the attack on Yyrkoon's forces in Oin (including summoning large swarms of fire and water elementals) quite successfully. When fighting those reptile people near the lost city, he proved far more skilled and effective than any of the other combatants even though Stormbringer had no effect on the bad guys whatsoever. Managed to cast another major summoning spell in the course of that battle, too. There are also several cases where he was captured and deprived of Stormbringer, yet managed to lob spells and kick butt in the process of recovering Stormbringer and escaping.

Could he have done everything he did without Stormbringer? No way. But was he still a world class warrior and wizard without it? Yes.

 

***Remember, he fought in that naval engagement against the Young Kingdoms raiders, then managed to cast a major Summoning spell even after the drugs started to wear off.***

You mean the part where he nearly died?

***He also led the attack on Yyrkoon's forces in Oin (including summoning large swarms of fire and water elementals) quite successfully.***

Didn't the ring he wore aid him greatly in summoning? Don't remember anymore if summonings even tired the summoner like normal spells do in your average fantasy book.

***When fighting those reptile people near the lost city, he proved far more skilled and effective than any of the other combatants even though Stormbringer had no effect on the bad guys whatsoever.***

Ah, the olab. Skilled and effective? Yes, but being skilled has nothing to do with physical strength or stamina. In the rpg (Stormbringer, not the D20 thing), he's very weak, but can't be defeated easily simply because his melee *skills* are more effective than most. And remember he had Stormbringer in the fight, and it gave him some (not much, but some) strength, even if it didn't have any source to drain it from.

***Could he have done everything he did without Stormbringer? No way. But was he still a world class warrior and wizard without it? Yes.***

Agreed. Skill prevails over brute strength.

Hmm, I need to read the series again at some point. Let me just read the last book of the Wheel of Time first. And the Belgariad. And the Malloreon. And fifteen more books I've bought, but haven't had time to read yet.

 

Yes, he nearly died in that fight, because he was deliberately goaded into pushing the pursuit far past the duration of his drugs.

And the summonings do take a lot of energy. There are numerous cases where he is exhausted after a summoning or uses Stormbringer to build up his strength before beginning. Its not clear exactly what the Ring of Kings does. It certainly serves as proof that Elric is the Emperor of Melnibone and beneficiary of the many pacts made by that line. Its not clear if it does anything to help summon though, it seems to matter more in the negotiation phase.