Editing Gish (section)

==The Gish Problem==

One problem with fighter/mages: They have a tendency to not be balanced. Most systems compensate for the power of spells by making spellcasters fragile, and the gish, in order to work as a "magic fighter", usually needs to be on at least the second line of combat. (Maybe somebody could write something about D&D's issues here)

Various solutions have been tried. A few include:

*Making the Gish very much a "jack of all trades, but master of none"; they'll never be as good at melee or magic as a specialist in either, but can fill in for both as needed.
*Making the Gish more specialized than "magic fighter" sounds like. Say, they can act as an off-healer, or their magic is mainly focused on non-fatal status effects, or both their spells and melee are single target only.
*Making the Gish hyper-specialized in one of or both melee and magic. For example, they teleport around, but that's usually the limit of their magic use.
*The Gish gets the worst of both worlds as well as the best. While they can cast spells and fight with a sword, they can't wear armor while casting, nor they do anything else when casting a spell.
*Make them all offense, no defense, or vise versa.
*The Gish [[Combat roles|occupies a role]] distinct from both; e.g., while Mages are '''burst''' damage dealers, and Warriors are Tanks, the Magic Knight specializes mainly in '''sustained''' damage every round. (Mainly an MMO thing, but if you're doing a class system with a focus on roles, this solution is at least functional.)

When these breakdown you get [[CoDzilla]]