This is true, this thread raises a good point about how magic users should dress. It’s a great idea for Dungeons & Dragons really since bad guys often target the wizard first. My next magic user shall dress like Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish from Game of Thrones, lol:
This is, of course, accurate.
I tried it, back in the day. “No, no, I dress like a merchant. NO robes, no pointy hat. Because in this particular DM’s world, the immutable first law was KILL THE CASTER FIRST, even if three brawny apes in plate mail are chopping you into chunky salsa, KILL THE CASTER IMMEDIATELY!”
This was a truism even in the case of creatures who shouldn’t have known to do this, like cavemen or dinosaurs or gelatinous cubes. Ignore the warriors, dodge the thief, GET THAT CASTER, before he gets his first initiative!
The second law was EVERYONE AUTOMATICALLY KNOWS WHO THE CASTER IS, AND KNOWS TO KILL HIM FIRST. Attire is irrelevant. Everyone could be completely naked, and the bad guys still knew who the caster was, and WENT for him.
The DM had to give in on the third law, which was INVISIBILITY IS COMPLETELY USELESS, AND EVERYONE AUTOMATICALLY KNOWS WHERE THE CASTER IS, because everyone else at the table agreed that this was categorically unfair.
I spent a LOT of time invisible. It got to the point where the warriors carried brooms to sweep aside the dust, flour and sawdust to prevent footprints, and we just sat and camped outside the foggy areas and waited for the fog to dissipate. That DM worked SO hard to make invisibility useless, because it was the law of nature to KILL THE CASTER FIRST!
I used to wonder if he’d ever think to make a monster whose job it was to sit on the BBEG’s shoulder and psionically cause instant heart attacks in casters. He hated casters SO much… unless they were on the bad guy team…