Witch and Warlocks, Wizards, Mages Sorcerers which is more powerful.

[Shadowedeyes]

It depends on the edition, but here was my experience with the two. In 3e/3.5/PF1 wizards overall seemed stronger because they got their higher level slots a level earlier than sorcerers, and didn't have the increased casting time with metamagics, which allowed them use of Quicken Spell. Not to say you couldn't make a powerful sorcerer, but with limited spells known it was a bit harder to leverage their strengths. The wizard was a bit more involved thanks to Vancian casting though. In 4e, which I only played a little of, the two were pretty distinct from each other given that the wizard was a controller class and sorcerers were strikers. 5e buffed wizards in how they prepared spells, but the two still tend to play how you describe, especially since the Sorcerer's exclusive access to metamagic in this edition means they work best having a few really good tricks to specialize in. Wizards do have the strongest spell slit to choose from though I'd argue.

[BitVyper]

Overall, D&DFinder wizards (in the editions I am familiar with) are probably "better" than sorcerers if you're looking at the game as a game, but it's not a vast enough difference that I'd say they're really more "powerful." A "real" D&DFinder wizard has to actually discover or otherwise find those spells in a non-information-age setting to get access to them and a sorcerer may or may not have any control at all over what spells they get. If the difference between them were vast, it'd be one thing, but it's not THAT big. Which one is more likely to be really nuclear is something that exists outside of the mechanics. I guess you might argue for wizards there simply because I'm pretty sure all the super high level canon characters are wizards and not sorcerers.

Most of my memories of 3.5 are mixed up with my way more recent memories of Pathfinder now, so I don't remember all the abilities real well, but as I recall in 3.5 some key metamagics and abilities for getting good magic damage didn't exist, and casters were a lot more motivated to focus on save-or-die type stuff, which is both higher level and situational, so favours wizards. On the other hand, once you actually get into higher levels where using all that stuff gets a bit trickier without particular builds, being able to just whole-hog spam the same spell over and over without giving up your options is pretty good. 3.5 is a bit hard to judge though, because caster builds kind of went to the moon and could do anything, which was like one of the main complaints about it. Quicken spell is nice, but without using metamagic rods, it burns pretty high level slots, and while a wizard has access sooner, a sorcerer has the flexibility to make that less of a big deal.

Actually HAVING access to higher level spells is a limited advantage that only exists at specific levels, so I'm not really including it in these measures.

Pathfinder I can speak to better. Blasting is a lot more effective in Pathfinder, both for sorcerers and wizards in different ways. Sorcerers with the right bloodlines can dump a ton of extra damage into relatively low level spells that they can just spam forever. You can reliably get 1.5x a wizard's damage without raising the level of a spell at all, which gets magnified over more and more enemies. Wizards are still really good at using lots of metamagics, and if you start adding stuff like lingering and disruptive to your fireballs, you suddenly have lots and lots of battlefield control while still doing damage. Of course, Pathfinder archetypes mean a wizard can be a sorcerer, but I already talked about that.

But like all of this is neglecting that probably 70% of the time, euphoric cloud and grease are the spells that will solve your entire encounter by removing most of the problems so that the barbarian can just go do a bajillion damage to the boss.

[JohnDiggle]

Great answers here. Guess its really how each individual creator chooses to display their magic system.

[Sharpandpointies]

Great answers here. Guess its really how each individual creator chooses to display their magic system.

It boils down to that, since these things are fictional and thus do not have an official, real world ranking.

[Shadowedeyes]

Overall, D&DFinder wizards (in the editions I am familiar with) are probably "better" than sorcerers if you're looking at the game as a game, but it's not a vast enough difference that I'd say they're really more "powerful." A "real" D&DFinder wizard has to actually discover or otherwise find those spells in a non-information-age setting to get access to them and a sorcerer may or may not have any control at all over what spells they get. If the difference between them were vast, it'd be one thing, but it's not THAT big. Which one is more likely to be really nuclear is something that exists outside of the mechanics. I guess you might argue for wizards there simply because I'm pretty sure all the super high level canon characters are wizards and not sorcerers.

Most of my memories of 3.5 are mixed up with my way more recent memories of Pathfinder now, so I don't remember all the abilities real well, but as I recall in 3.5 some key metamagics and abilities for getting good magic damage didn't exist, and casters were a lot more motivated to focus on save-or-die type stuff, which is both higher level and situational, so favours wizards. On the other hand, once you actually get into higher levels where using all that stuff gets a bit trickier without particular builds, being able to just whole-hog spam the same spell over and over without giving up your options is pretty good. 3.5 is a bit hard to judge though, because caster builds kind of went to the moon and could do anything, which was like one of the main complaints about it. Quicken spell is nice, but without using metamagic rods, it burns pretty high level slots, and while a wizard has access sooner, a sorcerer has the flexibility to make that less of a big deal.

Actually HAVING access to higher level spells is a limited advantage that only exists at specific levels, so I'm not really including it in these measures.

Pathfinder I can speak to better. Blasting is a lot more effective in Pathfinder, both for sorcerers and wizards in different ways. Sorcerers with the right bloodlines can dump a ton of extra damage into relatively low level spells that they can just spam forever. You can reliably get 1.5x a wizard's damage without raising the level of a spell at all, which gets magnified over more and more enemies. Wizards are still really good at using lots of metamagics, and if you start adding stuff like lingering and disruptive to your fireballs, you suddenly have lots and lots of battlefield control while still doing damage. Of course, Pathfinder archetypes mean a wizard can be a sorcerer, but I already talked about that.

But like all of this is neglecting that probably 70% of the time, euphoric cloud and grease are the spells that will solve your entire encounter by removing most of the problems so that the barbarian can just go do a bajillion damage to the boss.

Pretty much. You probably can speak to Pathfinder way better than I. I will point out that with Quicken Spell it was more that before metamagic rods Sorcerers couldn't use Quicken Spell at all, which hurt their nova potential compared to wizards. Metamagic rods pretty much solved that though. Man were those things crazy, I'm surprised no one pointed that out during design.

[The MunchKING]

Because I've been playing a bunch of Final Fantasy Pixel remaster, I'll point out in FFV the class called "Sorcerer" is now called "Mystic Knight". And they are very interesting compared to a standard Mage. They cast their spells on their swords, and then after that everytime they hit you with the Sword, it also hits you with the full power of the spell they cast. So while that makes them slower than your standard Black Mages, it also makes them WAY better at long, grindy fights, because the Black Mage is spending 10 MP per turn to cast an aga spell, but the Mystic Knight casts it once for 10 MP and then keeps trucking for the whole fight on no additional resources.

Also there was a Magus class in FF3 that was pretty much just a straight upgrade to Mages. More spell slots, higher INt stats, etc. They weren't as good as Sages in terms of sheer variety of spells they could cast, but they could keep going for a long time.

[Rightoya]

While individuals with any of those names can be of any power-level, it does generally seem as if sorcerers are the most likely to be cosmically powerful reality-warping characters, followed closely by wizards. Witches, again just on average, are usually the weakest, being the most likely to be characters restricted to things like casting curses, and middling projectiles, as well as being the most likely to have easily exploited weaknesses like water or nailing their footprints to the ground.

Huh, maybe that is just because i lack Dungeons and Dragons knowledge, but as far as i am aware is a witch just the female equivalent of a wizard, just like a sorceress is the female equivalent of a sorcerer?

[Sharpandpointies]

While sorceress and sorcerer are somewhat interchangeable (aside from, in Hollywood especially, their clothing, ugh), witch and wizard generally are not considered to be so. Even in various different kinds of mythology, legends, etc.

[The MunchKING]

Huh, maybe that is just because i lack Dungeons and Dragons knowledge, but as far as i am aware is a witch just the female equivalent of a wizard, just like a sorceress is the female equivalent of a sorcerer?

Witch and Warlock are usually the gender versions of each other, not wizards.

[Sharpandpointies]

Witch and Warlock are usually the gender versions of each other, not wizards.

Absolutely.

…outside of Anima.

[Rightoya]

While sorceress and sorcerer are somewhat interchangeable (aside from, in Hollywood especially, their clothing, ugh), witch and wizard generally are not considered to be so. Even in various different kinds of mythology, legends, etc.

Witch and Warlock are usually the gender versions of each other, not wizards.

Interessting, i think the only time i have even seen a Warlock was in some videogames, and i always assumed it was just the dark counterpart of a magical paladin. And my idea that witches are the female equivalent of wizards comes probably from Harry Potter , but what is the actual female equivalent of a wizard then?

[Nik Hasta]

Interessting, i think the only time i have even seen a Warlock was in some videogames, and i always assumed it was just the dark counterpart of a magical paladin. And my idea that witches are the female equivalent of wizards comes probably from Harry Potter , but what is the actual female equivalent of a wizard then?

Depends on franchises, some don't have gender segregation for the terms and some actively play with it.

In the manga Witch Hat Atelier, all magic users are called witches regardless of their gender.

In the Discworld series, wizards are male magic users (being an eighth son of a eighth son makes you guaranteed to be a wizard) but in Equal Rites, Esk was born female and was a wizard nonetheless.

Witches are classified more by their distinct approach approach to magic and their inherent intuition and wisdom rather than being specifically female. There was a boy that went off to become a witch at the end of Shepherd's Crown as I recall and Jason Ogg and Mr Brooks are both effectively considered male witches because of their extreme skill and affinity within their chosen professions granting them witch-like abilities (smithing and beekeeping respectively).

Potter obviously uses the terms in a gendered fashion as does other things that were influenced by it.

[Sharpandpointies]

Interessting, i think the only time i have even seen a Warlock was in some videogames, and i always assumed it was just the dark counterpart of a magical paladin.

There's some info on the actual, 'historical' background, but Warlocks being a made-up thing, really, people use the phrase as they wish. ^_^ However, going by the 'historical' fiction of Warlocks, they tended to be considered to be 'male witches'.

And my idea that witches are the female equivalent of wizards comes probably from Harry Potter , but what is the actual female equivalent of a wizard then?

Harry Potter DID do the whole 'women wizards were called witches' thing, which surprises me not at all given the author.

The term wizard - if one checks the dictionary - isn't gendered. Given it's a fictional thing, it's also unsurprising that people have associated it with specific genders in their own fictions (as Nik notes) but that's not based on anything but personal preference to the best of my knowledge. Wizard as a term simply goes back to basically 'Wise Person'.

Again, all of this boils down to 'these are mostly fictional things (outside of followers of the wiccan religion who use the term witch, go talk to them about witches and gender separation, I can't and shouldn't speak to that) and people who use them tend to put their own stamp on them.' There's no real rule.

[Rightoya]

Depends on franchises, some don't have gender segregation for the terms and some actively play with it.

In the manga Witch Hat Atelier, all magic users are called witches regardless of their gender.

In the Discworld series, wizards are male magic users (being an eighth son of a eighth son makes you guaranteed to be a wizard) but in Equal Rites, Esk was born female and was a wizard nonetheless.

Witches are classified more by their distinct approach approach to magic and their inherent intuition and wisdom rather than being specifically female. There was a boy that went off to become a witch at the end of Shepherd's Crown as I recall and Jason Ogg and Mr Brooks are both effectively considered male witches because of their extreme skill and affinity within their chosen professions granting them witch-like abilities (smithing and beekeeping respectively).

Potter obviously uses the terms in a gendered fashion as does other things that were influenced by it.

Sounds like all these terms have no truly distinct meaning and can basically mean the same.

There's some info on the actual, 'historical' background, but Warlocks being a made-up thing, really, people use the phrase as they wish. ^_^ However, going by the 'historical' fiction of Warlocks, they tended to be considered to be 'male witches'.

That reminds me, i think i have actually heard that term in context of the historical witch trails in school, and just forgot about that.

Harry Potter DID do the whole 'women wizards were called witches' thing, which surprises me not at all given the author.

The term wizard - if one checks the dictionary - isn't gendered. Given it's a fictional thing, it's also unsurprising that people have associated it with specific genders in their own fictions (as Nik notes) but that's not based on anything but personal preference to the best of my knowledge. Wizard as a term simply goes back to basically 'Wise Person'.

Again, all of this boils down to 'these are mostly fictional things (outside of followers of the wiccan religion who use the term witch, go talk to them about witches and gender separation, I can't and shouldn't speak to that) and people who use them tend to put their own stamp on them.' There's no real rule.

Makes sense.