[@Keksalot] Hey man, no one's forcing you to take part in this. If you don't like the rules, you don't have to play. Hahaha.

That being said, I don't think I've made wizards "pitifully weak." I just don't let them become stupidly powerful. I think someone being able to shoot a burst of flames from the palms of their hands is pretty powerful in and of itself. I mean, what could possibly be dangerous to a wizard if they have the ability to heal all their wounds, resurrect the dead, shoot things with lightning, and control their foes' minds all in the run of a day? Not much. I want the world this this takes place in to be genuinely dangerous because nature itself is dangerous, not "because magic." The ability to alter the world around you with unknown powers should be a unique and possibly deadly ability, and I don't want just any average Joe to be able to use it. I don't want chef Jordon Hamsay at the local inn to be able to light up his meals with his fingertip, but I do want the great sage who's studied the arcane his whole life to be able to cast and control man-made fire.

Don't get me wrong, I love wizards and magic in fantasy, but I also like there to be a hint of realism to my fantasy settings (I know, I know.)

As I said in other posts, I'm tired of seeing wizards be these insanely powerful people in almost every fantasy universe. It just never made much logical sense to me that some 22-year-old orphan can burn his enemies alive while also deflecting incoming arrows with his sword, just because he's a main character.

This is a low-magic setting, if you need a name for it. Think of Conan the Barbarian, for example. Magic exists, but it's very unhinged, unpredictable, and can't be used regularly. If that's not up your alley, you do you my guy. This probably wouldn't be the roleplay for you, in that case. I totally encourage players who want to use a magical character, but, like I said before, I don't want that character to be able to just cast his way around everything I throw at them. It's a balance thing. In the same breath, if someone is thinking of playing 18-year-old Joe Blow who wield a hammer the size of a tree in one hand, I wouldn't be accepting that, either.

As for your notion that I just want to have monsters for the sake of having monsters, that's not the case, either. I explained that mana exists in the air, and that it can somehow seep out into the world. Unicorns wouldn't necessarily be magical beings, but a breed of wild horse that evolved over time due to some exposure to raw mana. The arachs, which play a major role here, aren't your steretypical dragon. They don't breathe fire, or any typical fantasy trope. They're just really big, dangerous reptiles.

There's just as much incentive to play a wizard here as there is to play a warrior. In fact, I'd argue that there's not as much incentive to play a warrior over a mage in other settings, because of how limitless magic is. Why be a regular thief when ou can just study a book or two and turn yourself invisible? Why be a regular warrior when you can take a week off, and learn to magically buff yourself up, no training required? Those are the things I want to avoid. I want this world to feel like something you can actually live in, and feel how dangerous a medieval world actually is, even with access to magic.