Wizard (Dungeons & Dragons)
character class in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game
The wizard, formerly known as the magic-user or mage, is one of the standard character classes in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. A wizard uses arcane magic, and is considered less effective in melee combat than other classes.
Publication history
Creative origins
The Magic-User class was inspired by the spell-casting magicians common in folklore and modern fantasy literature, particularly as portrayed in Jack Vance's The Dying Earth short stories, and John Bellairs's novel The Face in the Frost. Gandalf and Saruman from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Merlin of King Arthur fame also influenced this class.
Wizards memorize their spells, then forget them when cast in the fashion of magicians from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series of novels.
Dungeons & Dragons
In the original version of the game, magic-user was one of the base character classes. Magic-User was one of the three original classes, the other two being Fighting Man (renamed Fighter in later editions) and Cleric.
The Magic-User was physically weak and vulnerable but compensated for this with the potential to develop powerful spellcasting abilities. In practice a mid- to high-level Magic-User was a combination intelligence gatherer and walking artillery, gathering information about possible dangers not yet seen and augmenting the physical combat abilities of the other classes with potentially devastating long-range and area attacks.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition
"Magic-user" was one of the five core character classes available in the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) Player's Handbook.
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