There has been a lot of debate and discussion concerning spellcasters in recent threads, and these 3 gentlemen seem to be the popular consensus for the MOST powerful wizards around.

So...which one of these 3 do you think is the most powerful....

<font color="yellow">Elminster</font> - He is the consort to <font color="silver">Mystra, Mistress of Magic</font> and is basically designed to be unbeatable in BG and the Forgotten Realms both.

<font color="white">Gandalf</font> - Stood toe-to-toe with a Balrog and lived to tell about it. He also fought off the Nine Riders by himself (although the battle isn't seen by the hobbits or Aragorn). Finally, he swings a powerfully magicked sword in addition to his spellcasting. abilities.

<font color="red">Raistlin Majere</font> - Defeated the goddess, Tiamet, on her home plane by himself. Any other questions?

<font color="white">Gandalf</font> and <font color="yellow">Elminster</font> never killed a diety...then again, they never tried to either.

For sheer power, I would probably have to go with <font color="yellow">Elminster</font>.

Anybody that has played PnP knows that - if a DM says an NPC is unbeatable - then they are. Pure and simple. The party WILL lose if they ignore the DM's advice.

I don't think Gandalf can safely be compared to the two D&D wizards. Magic and spellcasting - and as a result of that the power of spellcasters - is managed very different in the D&D multiverse as opposed to Middle Earth.

Gandalf is quite powerful compared to the mortals in Middle Earth, but him being a lesser 'deity' himself - he is a Maiar, as I believe Sauron is too, although the latter is more powerful - I don't think he could safely challenge a greater diety of that world.

And Elminster isn't specifically designed to be unbeatable either. In the BG games he is, but in the books he isn't. He is immensely powerful though, but not a lot more than Raistlin. Even Elminster would be hard-pressed if he would challenge a diety on it's home plane, and remember that he isn't the only Chosen of Mystra.

Just for the sake of argument, if Gandalf were a D&D character, both Elminster and Raistlin would easily be able to beat him.

What book has Elmister in it? I'm a big fan of the books.

however Gandalf is more or les imortal.so you have to take that into account. and the balrog
was the next strongest creature, second only to sauron.

plus gandalf doesnt need a whole bunch of bat guano etc to cast spells plus he doesnt have to re learn used spells

i have to go with gandalf he's one of the strongest of the maiar.he takes so long to beat sauron because he is not allowed to use his true powers.
in human form gandalf would probably lose to elminster.but in his true form he would spank the old gandalf wannabe.i have no idea who the other wizard is.

Raitlin defeats Tiamat? what book did that happen in? (could it be that I'm more behind in my reading than I thought I was?)

I knew that he tried to take out Takhisis, but Tiamat??

Come to think of it, is Tiamat even a goddess of Krynn? I don't remember reading about her.

Well... Thanks a lot for spoiling half the story of lord of the rings. :mad:

As for who is stronger, between those 3, you cannot really say, because it depend on the whim of the writer. Both Elmisters and Raistlin have been made in different version, At first, Elminster was only a mage, then Ed Greenwood wrote the novel about his "childhood" when he was a fighter, thief, priest and then mage. So a new version of elminster was created for the game. Then Ed Greenwood wrote elminster as even more powerfull than that, so a new game version of emlinster came out.

So, he used to be a regular mage, maybe level 20 mage at first. Then they changed it to something like a level 2 fighter/level 5 thief/level 9 priest/level 30 mage. Now in the third edition he is even more powerfull than that.

Same thing for Raistlin, in the pen and paper game, there is NO WAY for a mortal to kill a god. A god can only be killed by one or more other gods of same or more power. But the guy who wrote the dragonlance novels decided it was possible, so Raistlin killed one. Same thing for that bard, "No Name" in the forgotten realm, that weakling bard killed Moander.

So basically, what I am saying is that we can't know wich one is the more powerfull, because the novels writer do not respect any rules, and change the version of their characters as soon as the whim take them. In my opinion, this is not very professional.

Takhisis IS Tiamat.

I go with Rand Al'Thor and Richard Rahl :D . No, seriously, Gandalf the White (not the grey), could easily brush aside Elminster!