Quote Originally Posted by kikix12 View Post
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In general Magic Knights, Paladins/Templar, etc are the ones depicted as the merging of the durable melee fighter and caster types. Lacking in the potential strength of both sides unless they specialize. Like Paladins do as anti-undead/demon wielding holy magic in addition to their blessed equipment for dealing with undead/demons.

Also a big flaw in the ones you bring up is that the setting needs to have no forms of anti-magic in order for the mages to surpass physical warrior types. Saruman for instance would be helpless against a warrior outfitted in anti-magic gear outside of trying to levitate objects to throw at the guy, if he lived through figuring that out.

Any setting where anti-magic is a regular and common thing, especially for policing mages? The mages are brittle and have to pick their fights carefully lest they get crushed by their more physical oriented enemies.

There is also the fact that when magic is in the setting mage superiority over physical opponents only really works as long as the physical opponent lacks enchantments. A fire mage trying to take on a warrior decked out in anti-fire gear is going to get crushed easily becaue that warrior can face tank a dragon's breath attack without need of a barrier. Which is also typically how dragons die in many fantasy stories.