How would beings like wizards, holy knights, liches, and fairies be integrated into a modern war environment? Trying to come up with stuff for an urban fantasy campaign. Need help coming up with cooler encounters.
>>92713422>How would beings like wizards, holy knights, liches, and fairies be integrated into a modern war environment? In what system, faggot?
>>92713450swade, because exploding dice please monkey brain.
>>92713422Liches and Necromancy would probably be outlawed under this settings Geneva Convention (which would be enforced by powerful mages capable of orbital striking you)
>>92713422>How would beings like wizards, holy knights, liches, and fairies be integrated into a modern war environment?They would replace it.
>>92713528That would probably be true. Though I'm running with wizards having a soft cap in ability.I do think a single necromancer of adequate skill would be phenomenal at holding a position.
>>92713535This anon is rightWhen a nation has a sufficiently powerful enough wizard they'll basically be a WMD that can be deployed at any time
>>92713422If there are races that favor the underground to the point of building extensive tunnels, like dwarves, orcs and goblins, there can be an entire branch of the military dedicated to underground warfare. Like, they won't need standard artillery, but would have their own needs for armored vehicles, drones and engineering units. In my setting it's called the Sweeper Corps, and recruits mainly among orcs and dwarves. A 'sweeper' in this sense is as common a word as a 'marine'.If there is an astral plane, there can also be a dedicated branch of the military just to war on that front.Undead and golems can replace a lot of cannon fodder infantry.Top tier special forces would be ludicrous capeshit-adjacent teams of vampires, djinns and other magical fellows.Countering magic would be even more important than modern electronic warfare, so you'd have embedded antimagicians or mobile counterspell machines and these will be prime targets for artillery/snipers/saboteurs.
>>92713422Tell me what a wizard can do first. Are we talking unreliable personalized mages with only a few spells or are we teleporting and calling meteors
Depends entirely on whether you've got>heh, foolish wizard, your silly spells are instantly defeated by an ak, the world has moved on past wacky mysticism...or>the wizard cast TND and evaporates france
>>92713422GURPS Technomancer is good although it's set in a Vietnam War through 1990s alt history. Nuclear reactors can be used as necromantic mana generators, which mages use to build more magic items than they could otherwise.Magical direct attacks are unimportant compared to smart bombs or rocket launchers, but incorporeal creatures, bullet immunity spells, and enchanted magic-piercing bullets are all big advantages equivalent to modern first-world tech fighting a third world country. Military golems are brutally overpowered and a squad of conventional infantry supported by several humanoid golems carrying machineguns and a floating eyeball drone is a TPK for the average party.
>>92713810>Sweeper CorpsI'm interested.I imagine shape charges and intelligent demolition come into play a bunch.>>92713964For my personal use I'm heading towards the top tier wizards being street level supers on average. Mastering a handful of signatures for 'quick use'I imagine magic defenses and minor magic being more wide spread. Things like lines of salt etc not requiring a wizard.Wizards are more like big military hardware. Desirable, but no piece wins alone. More dresden files less wod mages.Mainly I just don't want wizards being the only real players in setting.That said I'm listening to everything. If someone has an idea for what super-wizards would do I might just save that for some awaked deity etc.
>>92713422Something I'd like is like a near-future setting about interdimensional invaders, or like wars against demons or angels or some such nonsense that focuses on the grand-strategy element of things. Like- I think media in general just defaults to 'oh the Americans will do all the shit for the rest of earth' in these types of stories. A part of that is down to Hollywood making movies for an American audience, and down to having access to the American military and not others (filmmakers basically can use the military as props and actors for free so long as they aren't overly critical against the institution). But still. I mean- yeah practically speaking the US in the short-term is going to do all the heavy-lifting, but I'd like to see stuff where there's coordination with the rest of NATO and other alliance networks, and navigating the decision making that goes into dealing with the magical hoo-haw-ery. As an example, during WW2 the Allies had to do a lot to help the French feel like they were involved in the decision making- despite Free France largely being a non-factor for the most part. I mean they weren't nothing, but the French kept insisting on being treated like a major power when they clearly weren't (at that point), but in order to keep them happy, tamp down on disagreements, and to try to prop up their regime they had to involve them a lot in the decisionmaking anyway. That sort of shit would be interesting to explore.
>>92714117Perhaps the most obvious advantage of combat golems over human soldiers is that they do not die. Clearly any nation and particularly its soldiers will appreciate if somebody else is sent into the crossfire, and if that somebody doesn't object, then all the better.From a more economical point of view, combat golems are plain cheaper than soldiers. The latest generation of titanium golems is slightly more than $100,000 apiece, about as much as an M113A1 armored personnel carrier. When all costs are factored in, it becomes clear that this is in fact dead cheap: no costs for food, no time-consuming and very expensive training, no widow's pension and no funeral. They achieve skill levels which can be considered adequate for grunts.Golems are never exhausted or hungry, they don't require even a minute's sleep and are tougher than many armored fighting vehicles with no maintenance being required. They do not protest against suicide missions and work tirelessly to dig miles of trench systems or deploy labyrinth networks of razorwire. They can also stand guard duty indefinitely. Golems can operate under any conditions without requiring specialized survival equipment or even clothing.Golems can operate most unsophisticated small arms and light support weapons, and retain brutally respectable close combat efficiency. The latter can't be underestimated, as targets are increasingly well protected by spells against conventional firearms. A ST 40 punch is less easily deflected. Also, their high strength makes them popular in infantry units, as they can carry more than their share in munitions, food and other necessities.
>>92714139And in case nobody gets what I'm talking about, here's a pitch off the top of my head. Lets say some sort of magical apocalypse or demon invasion happens in Europe. The US and Canada being isolated from them would probably have the most resources to throw at the problem, but would have to deal with waves of european refugees. But once in Europe they'd have to coordinate with the local governments and their militaries to contain threats and make decisions on who gets priority. And you could also deal with the Russians being total fucks about it and refusing to cooperate with NATO until they are forced to admit they can't solve the problem alone, and the end of the campaign is in Russia which has gotten phenominally worse than the rest of the continent.
>>92714142Cadillac GLU-3B Silver Man, USA, 1979Although the GLU-1-series proved satisfactory, the Army soon issued a requirement for a new family of golems. The new generation, the GLU-3-series, entered service in 1972. It was made of titanium and dubbed Silver Man. Stronger, tougher, lighter, more reliable and nearly impervious to rust and other environmental hazards, the GLU-3 was such a success that it continues to see service to this day, spawning even more variations than the older type. Since golems have become more widespread, it became more and more important to field anti-golem weapons. This has led to heavier armaments, and most current golems carry at least a heavy machine gun with armor-piercing ammo. The GLU-3B entered service in 1979 and is armed with a 12.7x99mm Saco-Browning M212 heavy machine gun (a modified M2HB, p. HT119). 300 M8 API rounds are carried (for light encumbrance). Since 1982, M811 SPDN (Dam 13d(2)+) rounds are available, and since 1991 M903 APS (Dam 17d(2)).ST: 40, DX: 12, IQ: 9, HT: 15/40Speed: 6 (12 mph)Armor: PD 4, DR 12Weight: 750 lbs. unloaded, 900 lbs with one gun and 300 rounds (Speed 5)Energy to activate: 1,200Cost: $107,400Abilities: Fist-12 for 4d+1 crushing damage. Throws grenades to 140 yards.Weapon: Saco-Browning M212, 12.7x99mm -- Malf Crit, Dam 9d(2)+, SS 20, Acc 14, 1/2D 1,500, Max 6,800, Ewt 60, AWt 90, RoF 10*, Shots 300, Rcl -1.
It literally depends 100% on who you feel like wanking off. It doesn't matter how strong a dragon or other fantasy thing is if you've already decided the modern forces are the protags who need to win.
>>92714120Well then you probably dont bother deploying wizards at all if you can help it. Form a mage-college and get them scrying for enemy aircraft, or telekinetically pulling satelites out of the sky. Get them enchanting anti-tank missiles and generally just creating wonder weapons. If you insist on deploying battlemages then load them up with anti-gas, concealment, detect magic, scrying and counterspell. You probably want one per platoon to provide tactical intel, but really if you're attatching a magic user to a group like that you really want it to be a pair of clerics. A fireball isnt substantially better than a grenade or airburst artillery, and arty is a hell of a lot cheaper to train.
>>92713422GO READ SHADOWRUN, CHUMMER.
That all depends on the power level, and if the players have access to magic, themselves.If they don't have magic, then every mage is a mini-boss or full fledged boss.If they do, how common are modern-war-magi? One per 10? Per 100? Per division? Are there black-ops mage squads?Imagining that mages aren't rare, what does one bring to the battle of guns aside from "Magic gun?" Do they change the terrain, turn troops invisible, or perhaps can see through walls? I imagine most magi, if they're common, are more of support casters, rather than "Magic bullets do 1d4 force damage."If they are rare, how powerful are they? Is every mage a 120mm artillery shell, ready to go off the moment one sees anything look at them funny? Are they necromancers that ensure soldiers don't stay down for long? Maybe they heal the injured and revive the dead and are kept in reserve, and are therefore a major target for the enemy.I'd personally go for the later. Every objective is doable until one of the enemy starts glowing and levitating. Then shit has immediately hit the fan and plans 'A' through 'C' are null and void.Perhaps players are tasked with taking out high-value clerics and magi to ensure the front line can advance. They don't even need to be the one to shoot the mage, just get recon and call in an air-strike. Maybe the mage can even survive an airstrike, and they're the only one still alive when the PCs start unloading onto the weakened magical monstrosity that is a high-powered wizard.>Start shooting>Ten more mages appear in mid-air, all mirror images>The heavy gunner's weapon jams, the sniper's scope shatters, and one of the players see a pin come out of one of the grenades on their vest>And one mirror image in the back starts chanting while they're distractedMagical damage would be the least interesting thing about a modern-war-mage. Have them be the powerhouse in the room.
>>92713810I read antimagicians as arithmeticians and thought of college professor types following military units on the battlefield that use their own set of mathematics in order to redirect the flow of magic and the supernatural in a way it's harmless. Something like they aren't magic themselves, but they know how laylines work to amplify and dampen magic, so they know how to weaken or counter mages by just known when and where to engage. It'd be mostly predictions but focused on localized phenomena, sort of like a weatherman knowing the path of a storm by measuring barometric pressure.
>>92714311A single mage should be your pic related, a coven of witches/ mages circle should be high level DnD duckers where they phase out a small country out of reality/ stop time etc. rival countries have their wizard team try to dispel it
>>92713422One of the major changes in modern war was the sheer industrialization of it. You have the opportunity here to play with magic on an industrial level. This can either be immensely cool, or incredibly lame. You tread on dangerous ground. There is a great risk of magic losing its "magic" and turning into the mundane. You should think heavily on how you'll avoid this.Nobody here has yet mentioned the primary school of magic that can be easily integrated into pre-existing military structures, and the one that our ancestors tried the hardest to get to work: DivinationIn 2023 the United States Government spent $100,000,000,000 on intelligence gathering, which is more than 10% of its entire military expenditure. This opens the door to some pretty fantastical industrial magic shit.Here's an idea I just came up with that I'll give you for free anon:>Duga Radar meets Stonehenge. Antennae already have a sort of magic to them. They've got complex math and weird shapes going. The Duga radar was a giant set of Soviet missile early-warning antennae. They still exist, even if they don't work, and look really trippy and cool. While they were running they were so powerful that they interfered with amateur radio, causing a mysterious sound known to The West as the "Russian Woodpecker"You can make your giant magical divination array any weird shape you want and nobody will question it. The weirder and spookier the better. One final advantage of such an array is the opportunities it gives you, the DM. It's always a crapshoot giving powerful Divination magic to your players, especially if you're writing the setting and encounters as you go. But if you're the DM running the shadowy government organizations the PC's are fighting against? You already know all the information the mysterious magical-megastructure is going to produce, but now you have an excuse to use it against the PC's.
>>92713422shadow run?
>>92713422Look at Shadowrun for inspirational.
>>92713422You essentially end up with Sci-Fi. Replace magic with psionic, tech gadets, drones, robots and nano machines and you get the same results. So just copy your go to space opera and change the names.
>>92713422Logistics of warfare would be seriously impacted by magic. When you have units that are capable of teleporting people and equipment, conjuring floating disks, summoning animals and constructs and raising the dead under your full control, creating food and water out of thin air, buffing people for higher strength, stamina and speed, instantly healing people and repairing broken or damaged equipment, polymorphing fully-equipped soldiers into small and easy-to-carry (or considerably more mobile) creatures, animating objects and tekekinetically moving them with your mind, suddenly a lot of problems about transporting and stocking up your squads become considerably less serious. But on the other hand, if you start relying on your mages a bit too much, losing them might effectively doom the the rest of the squad to a slow death from hunger or exhaustion.
>>92714311
>>92716304
>>92716304>No lignum vitae option>into the trash it goes
>>92713422Enchanters are defacto spies, Divinators and Illusion wizards are an awesome combo, working with drones and info gathering in the battle for the divinator, and Illusion wizards try to trick their enemies with fake squads moving in a distant side to "flank" or dispelling rival illusions.Evocation wizards can either work as living mortars for when the normal ones get fucked or there's some dire need of them. Perhaps enchanting ammo for special effects aside from just explosives rounds, maybe even making non-lethal shocking ammo.Conjuration wizards can bring extra ammo from special HQ that are near the conflict zone, teleport new squads waiting to deploy, and if things are really tight bringing vehicles and drones. The bigger/various the target, the most exhausting the wizard ends. And it's better to bring extra ammo constantly instead of bringing a car and having the wizard not being able to bring more supplies. Hell, let them summon Hellhounds but with the possibility that the wizard can't control them, so it's a 50/50 chance of it being the right call.Transmuters are more for a defensive side because of how rare this magic could be used on combat. Maybe they can act as silent breachers, turning walls/doors into sand to let a squad pass. But they can also be healers, fixing wounded soldiers, lifting any curse they get, or altering the whole squad so they have stronger legs to jump a wide gap between buildings or maybe resist heavy gunfire if they're under attackNecromancers could be more like flankers. They can go on their own as assasins or saboteours to give curses to any squad that have a good position holding the ally squad, or bringing dead team mates with them for a final push to get to an objective. Useful but still kind of a difficult subject.
>>92717572Anon, you know that to have access to such tree we first need to get through the enemy's 7th warlock division of the primal blessed swamp of Denetros.
>>92713422I feel mages would be valuable not only for their practical skills in the arcane and fighting other wizards, but especially in how they could complement modern technology. Mechas would border between impossible to highly unpractical in real life by the laws of physics alone. Now add magic that could bend those rules and you just got the new edge in warfare.Also wizards could provide new solutions to current problems, like seal away in another dimension radioactive elements that have a theoretical half life of hundreds of thousands of years. Thus making the use of nuclear weapons more common since we can easily compensate for some of their catastrophic consequences.
>>92718337Figures. Shit like this is why all the best mages go merc at some point. Even if we do take Denetros you know the pinkos will just scorch the earth.
Consecrated cocks.
>>92713422Well, besides golem limbs being combined with cybernetics to allow soldiers who’ve lost limbs to rejoin the fight, I bet there’d be ways to use cybernetics to enhance magic, or vice versa.
>>92713422Even ignoring all of the offensive capabilities magic would have, just with its ability to enhance reconaisance it would be invaluable in every modern military on the planet.>>92713450>he doesn't know what worldbuilding is
>>92720483>he doesn't know what worldbuilding isi need you to understand that we cannot meaningfully discuss magic in modern warfare without a baseline of what magic we're talking about.
speaking of gurps are WW1 era bolt action rifles, pistols, SMGs etc enough to balance a 100pt human soldier against monsters like orcs and skeletons found in the dungeon fantasy books. Seems to me like most monsters in those books have point values far above 100, but also WW1 weapons would be out of context
>>92714298>>92715481>>92715487I do appreciate all the shadowrun recommendations. I'm just trying to avoid the cyberpunk mainly.>>92714939>Duga Radar meets Stonehenge.That's sick Idea, thanks anon.>>92718639>like seal away in another dimension radioactive elements that have a theoretical half life of hundreds of thousands of yearsThat could actually be a really good impetus for things from the other coming to knock on our door for using their plane as a dump zone.>>92719526Have to imagine these aren't that useful for combat.>>92721141Its an interesting area of thought. I figure an orc would have to be tough enough to make using barbaric weaponry competitive with firearms. I think supernatural toughness would need to be the main consideration.I figure undead aren't more durable than their living counterparts but need to be rendered down to fragments to completely neutralize. >>92721030there have been some suggestions in this thread but if people need a common touch stone, I imagine a fifth edition d&d wizard is fine? I don't know what stuff they can get up to in backstory, but even a 20th level wizard is hardly omnipotent by rules.
>>92717703>Enchanter, Transmuter, NecromancerRight>Divinator, Illusion wizard, Evocation wizard, Conjuration wizardIn case you've forgotten, Diviner is the word in English. Like Illusionist, Evoker, Conjurer it's easier to type.I'd say Diviners are de facto spies and intelligence agents given that spying is about finding out information. They with Illusionists would take on significant counterintelligence roles too. Evokers, following D&D wouldn't be enchanting ammo, that's for Enchanters. Notably you left Abjurer off your list.
>>92721141>>92721656You're thinking about orcs and skeletons completely wrong, especially in a ww1 setting. Orcs can carry bigger and meaner guns than you can, there's no reason for them to hit you with an axe when they can handle an LMG the way a human handles an assault-rifle. Warhammer 40k already answered this question, even if they answered it in a slightly different context.As for the skeletons/zombies? Chemical weapons sure are neat when they don't affect your own troops.
>>92713637There are workarounds.
tanya the evil is a good image.
>>92713637Civilizations already have WMD that can be deployed at any time. That capability was unlocked over 60 years ago with SLBM's. At least with a wizard you can poison his food or stab him in the back or something.
>>92713422This is spoilers, but in the webcomic Sword Interval there's a lich that is a CIA asset
You don't have a group. Post the social security numbers, passports, and birth certificates of your players.
>>92720483If you're not posting statblocks or discussing mechanics for a specific game, the thread does not belong on this board.
>>92719514Don't say that...I heard they invented a new type of wand made from the sap of a tree, caoutchouc or something.It will soon be the main weapon of the magikarmy.
>>92722237That’s assuming the orcs have guns, I was imagining portal opens somewhere in WW1 europe and normal fantasy orcs as statted in gurps dungeon fantasy come through to fight a group of infantrymen, would this be a balanced and fun scenario?
>>92713422The question depends on whether you want your fantasy element to be a secret world (see VtM) or a normal part of daily life (see Shadowrun)The later is much harder of course, you have to make it make sense - in a world where wizards can call down meteors onto a far away city there's no real need to develop nuclear ICBMs
>>92724497That might be fine for the sappers, but if the rest of us use those we'll just be saps.
>>92724847>>92721141Would this be a balanced and fun scenario? I guess it depends what you think fun is. I certainly would not think it would be balanced to fight 0 AD tech level orcs with 20th century weaponry. It gives me real vibes of some pasty posh british fag mowing down an army of Zulus with a Maxim. Unless the guns are super under-powered in the system then this feels like when that dentist went out and killed a lion.
>>92729137I mean, if Orcs are bullet resistant due to supernaturally tough hides and run as fast as horses I imagine it becomes a bit less real world analog.Which i suppose makes guns super underpowered.However >>92722237in this scenario it just goes the other way but for orcs. When your units are pound for pound better. I'm not familiar with 40k, but i thought regular humans just kinda get slaughted by orcs, and it takes the army of the space marines to even the odds?as an aside I figure space marines might be how giants would field themselves. Fewer but stronger types.The counter argument is maybe there are fewer orcs to humans, but that sort of goes against the convention of orcs being the 'horde' type monster.I kind of picture orcs as either rampage incarnated into a human shape, or planet of the apes, with those talking gorillas from DC being the leaders.
Would wizards form a ruling upper class?
>>92729137In close quarters (like a dungeon) a party of four players with WW1 guns (maybe one automatic weapon) against a gang of orcs I'm not too sure it would be a walk-over. Would love to hear from people that have more experience in gurps to comment
Rolled 8 (1d20)>>92713422I roll to calm down the enraged Hind. >yoshi yoshi, who's a good transport helicopter gunship hybrid with an off-center cockpit?
>>92735472Well, what’s stopping them?
>>92737943Anarchist wizards?
A question I think is relevant to the thread: do you think it would fit the "magic in a modern setting" better a case where magic is treated more like science, with "schools" training mages to produce the same results in a predictable way through practice? In that case higher level wizards would either be old men that dedicated their life to their art, or some genius who reached some kind of breakthrough and/or moved magical research in an alternate direction. That still can leave space for some odd cases where your specialization leads to developinga coutner from the current accepted "meta" and you can surprise the competition.Or do you prefer a case where magic is more like an innate ability, not everyone is born equal, and your "research" and training is more of an inner journey where you can find the optimal use for your unique power, and the limit is your dedication and self discipline? This can lead to more unique power sets, but can be prone to have clear cases of some wizards being born better than others, because not all powers are equally powerful or useful, and someone with a good innate magical ability that trained it well is always going to be better than someone with more mundane, or mediocre, abilities.
>>92740424I tend towards treating magic as an art rather than a science.You can train people all you want, but nothing gets the cold hard predictability of modern machines except machines.In this case a magical martial art might be a good idiom. Everyone can be taught to throw a punch, but some people are going to be better at certain variants.
>>92713528>>92713629I think Necromancy would be popular though to do things like preserve bodies/mend them to be presentable, requesting identification, and forensics/intel. Just imagine the fucking headache of enemies when you killed a scout but all the info they learned is still gonna be extracted later, their bodies lock into rigor mortis forming a middle finger and a grin.>>92713422I think being a mage in warfare could be kind of boring when you think about it, your job is going to end up being:>Anti-magic field/counter spelling attacking mages or ones trying to scry or use mind control>Scrying to gather intel>reshaping terrain>Open portals for logistics and transport>Enchanting things.>So many enchantments>90% of your job just ends up being spamming enchantments on the gear of infantry.
>>92740973How are any of those listed things boring?Those all sound like active jobs that require pretty much constant adjustment.Exhausting seems more like it.
>>92741583I admit that I mostly figured it’d be boring for anyone who gets into military stuff expecting active combat service but I feel like a bulk of work for mages is largely non-combat and depending on how rare individual mages are it might be seen as too big of a risk to have them on the frontlines and risk losing them.
>>92716317I'm honestly a bit confused as to why wood was used and not clay or something
>>92742385Do you pretend to be a mage anon?They get paid gold coins for a reason you know.
>>92741850Even the dudes actually expecting active combat service usually have short bursts of it in between routine shit and sitting on their ass most of the time. Depending on the power level and the scale/powers involved in the conflict it might very well be a case not unlike the holy grail wars in fate/stay night, where it's mostly days of planning before a showdown that can last minutes.
So we've covered wizards in this, but what about others? Surely there are some warrior/berserkers types.
>>92747561Warriors are just your rank and file grunt while berserkers would probably become the guys who clear buildings
>>92747932I was thinking warriors end up closer to jedi. Any one with character levels or template should be heroic in power.I don't like just letting caster types be super heros.
>>92713422If they mix, magic should be almost none existent in the hands of most people. Like Bright.
>>92747561They can work perfectly well with more or less magic tech involved, there's definitely niches to be filled, from covering a mage while he casts to fighting summons or assassinating other wizards.
>>92747561>>92747932Warriors, to me, are just like rank and file soldiers in my mind.While nameless rank and file soldiers can be nifty, they're not usually the ones you see as the go-to characters.A powerful warrior would be something akin to a sergeant or lieutenant. They're leaders, but they're not the ones calling the big shots.A berserker, on the other hand, would be the first ones in the room after the door is kicked down, the shock troops, or the absolute madman with the flamethrower.All that changes when you add magic to the mix, though.Do the squad-leaders have magic enchantments to let them dodge bullets? Are the berserkers juiced up on some potion of bull's strength and are kicking down walls instead of doors? Would a rogue actually be invisible? Does a ranger's K-9 unit have an owlbear?Finding where the magic stops would be the big question as to how combat evolves in the time of automatic weapons.
>>92713422I like the Warhammer (40k) approach that the chaos dwarfs and iron warriors have, their god lets them summon demons and they then stick those in giant industrial war machines, a wizard can wipe out entire armies sure, but wizards that powerful are incredibly rare and can only block bullets from so many angles before getting distracted and hit in a non covered spot
>>92751976Since these are basically d&d classes I assume that they are competitive at least in combat with wizards of that caliber at least in theory. I'm really focused on options player characters and important badguys could take. Its weird that wizards are assumed to be able to call down wmd's but a modern knight is expected to be about as good as a soldier.Wizards are well and good, but it does limit threatening options if they're also the only ones who really matter.I figure beserkers are working themselves to beyond human, rogues can get away with batman level invisibility and dodges etc.Whether magic stops with wizards is one thing, but I don't think the fantasy aspects should.
>>92749103Wasn’t that a terrible movie? I don’t know why you’d want to emulate it.
>>92754329But, see, a Knight is was not a normal solider. They were wealthy enough to have the best armor and weapon, the best trained, and had a horse to charge into battle.A knight would the equivalent of a tank. Fast, tough, deadly, and prohibitively expensive.So the question returns, how many wizards are there, and how powerful are they? If they're common and generally not that impressive, how would they make a difference? They're just dudes with a gun, but with extra steps.For wizard to change the face of warfare, they need to be powerful. Otherwise, the gun will be mightier than the spellbook, which would be lame.
>>92716317>Enchanted Battle Suit using magicYes I agree>"GOLEM" SuitEr... no.Having "A.I." assisting technology, or "M.I.A." (Magical intelligence assistant) assisting magi-tech is one thing. But when you have a perfectly capable T-1000, you don't then "improve" the design by sticking a human instead.Golems are already perfectly battle ready. "Golem" suit is peak stupid.Maybe it's just the name that is bugging me.
I feel like necromancy would end up being the primary black ops option, kill someone and summon their spirit to get intel, ghosts for long range scouting, zombies or skeletons for guarding, on command mob of mobs when fighting anywhere modern given the graveyards, secure storage for the lich phylacteries of your best units in black sites etc. There's the shock factor of it too, when your enemy will summon you from wherever you go once dead then basically keep you bound forever then you're a lot less likely to actually want to fight to the death. There would be no real point in combat when scry and die means you can just teleport a bomb or portal basically everywhere. I'd give even odds that even if you 'win' you'd get fucked by whatever magical WMDs and stable anchored portals that suddenly open to hell or something.>>92757435This is true, bind a demon or elemental into the battle robot body for a little extra oomph and a near perpetual power source.
>>92757336I know a knight was not a normal soldier. I'm saying its weird the ceiling for them is a lot closer to reality. To answer how many and how strong?I can't really answer how many.But I like to imagine their overall effectiveness comparable to the dresden files, or some of those mutants in MG3 that serve as bosses.>If they're common and generally not that impressive, how would they make a difference? Easily. Take a handful of witches on their broom.A virtually silent, virtually undetectable (by radar) traveler that requires no serious infrastructure or military hardware would be invaluable for reconnaissance. Summoning and commanding demons behind enemy lines. Calling up weather to help or hinder.>They're just dudes with a gun, but with extra steps.Only if magic is limited to colored laser beams. Which if that's what one wants then its great.
>>92757705I think the main point of contention is that if you want someone who is not a wizard to compete with a wizard, you have to either give them magic too, or some other sort of supernatural ability, which might as well be magic. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In this case "wizard" and "knight", along with other classifications, are just going to be different names given to different specialists. Nothing prevents a wizard to work out and use magic to buff himself even further. That was actually called out at the beginning of Fairy Tail: one dude wanted to close in against a mage, expecting him to be physically weak, and the answer was pretty simple, in that every mage knows that you can't afford to be weak so most of them train hard to cover that side.
>>92757973As a side to this, there's another option, which I think is more in line with some here may expect: you can be like this guy, and kill "wizards" even without powers, but he was a rather extreme case of being highly skilled, and the death rate in such operations was usually not that great for the others. In this case it was possible because he could assassinate people with powers that had a very limited power set, and often enough some crippling downsides to their powers as well, I don't really see it as a viable option against more conventional wizards that have a wide selection of spells.
>>92757973Gotcha. Yeah, it was a terminology confusion. I don't actually have any disagreement with you. I guess my goal now is to speciate out specific subdivisions and work from there. My preferred system tends to run characters with narrow purviews.
>>92713422Well, I bet slaughterhouses could be used to harvest energy for necromantic rituals.
>>92722237Skeletons generally handle at least simple weapons, and anybody can work a bolt-action rifle with almost no instruction.
>>92757435IF you have a sufficiently intelligent AI aligned to you and only you.Would be a shame to send your armies of T-1000 in battle and discover the enemy researched a control-spell to make them betray you at the worst possible moment, enemy who don't intend to keep those working after that because they've demonstrated how easily they can be beaten.Even with mind-control also on the table, I'll take my chance with the soldier who is actively working to avoid mind-control yet work under your order.>>92757608>bind a demon Very trustworthy choice, I do not see what could possibly go wrong, does it give you a receipt for the soul you've traded?>elementalTemperamental
>>92761167I mean depends on the demon. Ars Goetia is full of demons whom really don't care about your soul. That said I have to wonder why anyone would get into necromancy when golem creation in most settings is usually more powerful and doesn't require sacrifice/evil magic. Demonology might be a decent counter balance. I mean we've made combustion engines which are just contained tiny explosions. How temperamental does an elemental have to be to be a nonviable power source assuming it's effective?
>>92768067I think Necromancy might be "cheaper"With golems you need alot of resources to build the golem and then do the possibly resource intensive ritual to make it work meanwhile with necromancy all you need is a corpse and sufficient enough mana
>>92713422In a world where magic exists, the methods of warfare will be massively different from our current methods. Consider the evolution of the gun.The first gun was the cannon, big ass siege weapons that were slow to move, and hurled stone balls at walls. This was done because it was more effective than any other siege weapon. The Trebuchet was the pinnacle of siege weaponry before the cannon, and those had to be built on site over the course of months during a siege. Being able to drop a wall in weeks, or even days, was the deciding factor for using the cannon over anything else.>A wizard can just Stone to Mud that wall awayFrom the cannon came the hand cannon, because why not make it smaller? Crossbows were the preferred ranged weapon, because it only took a few weeks to git gud at, unlike a long bow that takes a lifetime of training. The downside was how long it took to reload, and the complexity of the construction. A hand cannon was just a tube of metal with a hole drilled in the side. It took a less effort to reload, if not less time, and were very powerful, able to punch a hole through armor.>Instead of teaching your soldiers how to use a crossbow, teach them some basic cantrips. A bolt of fire, a glob of acid, a blast of freezing cold doesn't much care about armor eitherFrom the hand cannon, we perfected the design, allowing us to reduce weight, improve range, etc. The reload time was still a bitch, but line infantry allowed you to put a lot of lead down range, so you'd be bound to hit the other guys>Putting a bunch of dudes with explosively flammable material together is just YEARNING for a fireballFinally, the musket evolved into the repeating rifle, and the modern era of battle began to take shape. A few grunts with a specialist or two making up squads in a much larger organization, deployed where their skills would be most effective>Ya know, like an adventuring party for the government.tl:dr, guns wouldn't evolve in a magic world
>>92768468>tl:dr, guns wouldn't evolve in a magic worldOh yeah absholutly.I see now reason a world with spells/runes that allow easy shaping of metal, on demand explosion, and can still kill with plain projectile would develop such a contraption.
>>92768656Your comic is the exact reason why they won't design a gun. Why would I make a gun, when I can make a more ergonomic wand?>Easy shaping of metalCan be done on the barrel of your rifle>On demand explosionWhy make a tiny explosion to propel a bit of metal, when I can just make a big explosion at your feet?Making a wand that fits neatly in the palm of your hand, allowing you to effectively target anything you point at would render a gun pointless, because why go through all the steps it takes to fling a little bit of metal at mach speeds when you can make a wand of magic missile?
>>92713422>How would beings like wizards, holy knights, liches, and fairies be integrated into a modern war environment?Ususally boils down to "how are you making tech and magic distinct if you are", its easy to fall into the trap of making magic an accepted part of every day like.Because then you end up with magitech, if magic is too obscure you will always end up with secret society stuff.Generally if you want them to work together then you need it defined, what is magic and what isn't magic.Throwing a fireball can be done with a grenade, summoning a localised blizzard to obscure allied movement is absolutely magic.
>>92714157>can't source enough titanium for SR-71s without buying from soviets>still uses it to make golems
>>92768698>Why make a tiny explosion to propel a bit of metal, when I can just make a big explosion at your feet?More kinetic energy, more focused killing and longer range using less magic.I posted the pic, but as someone defending Fantasy vs Gun I'll absolutely agree with you that magic can be made as OP as you want.>why go through all the steps it takes to fling a little bit of metal at mach speeds when you can make a wand of magic missile?Is magic missile actually as powerful and harder to block as a bullet?
>>92713422Reading through all the posts it naturally goes in the direction these sorts of discussions always go into where it assume unlimited use of magic from endless zombie waves to fireball on demand to summoning hell demons to rape the opposing army without having to get out of your seat and having a succubus suck your dick while you watch.I know this is another no-effort post but at least consider what the limitations are and then build around that so we can avoid the typical "Why would I make guns when I have magic!"
>>92770655>"Why would I make guns when I have magic!"Because aesthetics. Autist simply forget that fantasy exists to be fun, so the thing you consume for escapism doesn't have to be logical, it has to be enjoyable. So the answer is simple - just think of what aesthetics you want and adjust the setting accordingly. Also, I'm sick from idiots who think that magic and science must oppose each other, those who don't think that these things can be combined should kys.
>>92770174Elemental spirit assisted mining and divination-aided prospecting. Professionals talk logistics.
>>92770730I think that if you want to combine modern warfare with magic one of the things you have to think of would be international conventions, so you have to put down a few limitations here and there to work around, otherwise it would indeed be an all-in fest of undead hordes, golems, clones and the like being uranium rays fodder.
>>92742385different alchemical / magical properties because its alive in a sense? also wood like this could be made to regrow which would ease repair / maintenance requirements
>>92770631It really does come down to how magic works in the system in the end. The whole reason crossbows and muskets became so popular was because it took a couple weeks to teach a dirt scrapping peasant how to use them, instead of the years and years of training to use a bow, or the lifetime investment in feeding, training, and equipping a knight. When your trained from childhood soldier gets killed by Jim the Turnip farmer who spent three weeks learning how to use a gun, making a fuckton of Jims is simply more effective. The same applies to magic. If you need a college degree to cast Light, magic would have a very niche use, and be considered too valuable to waste in war. You don't send a trained surgeon to serve as a field medic, after all.>Magic Missile vs BulletUsing current DnD logic, MM beats a bullet. A musket does 1d12 damage with an optimal range of 40 feet, a maximum of 120, once every other round at best. A first level wand of MM does 3d4+3 damage, which can be split between three targets at 120 feet range, and is can not miss, can strike ethereal creatures, and bypasses pretty much all damage resistance.The only advantage muskets have over a wand of MM is that a wand has a limited number of charges, but that can be compensated by just carrying another wand or five. Hell, a musket costs just as much as a wand of MM, before taking ammunition price into account. Plus, anyone who tells you that you can reload a muzzle loader in 12 seconds is full of shit. The most elite of line infantry could reload in 20 seconds in ideal circumstances, your average grunt could in about 40-60 seconds.
>>92773938Part of the reason they had Muskets cost so much is a sad attempt at game balance with the completely over the top economy of D&D where Gold is everywhere but is somehow still valuable. The mechanics of D&D are also hard to translate into reality because IRL people sometimes die outright from a single knife wound as they do a bullet and sometimes people get hit by Lightning and walk away but player characters can literally meattank things that would usually kill regular people 20 times overNow if we want to talk about shit past mechanics I do think Shadowrun kind of shows a pretty good perspective. Magic should be getting studied by like Science does with experts experiments and constant attempts to push the limits of the medium and endless revisions of what is possible and not with it. Magic also isnt in opposition to technology or else Wizard would all be mud covered tribesman refusing to wear pants and papyrus to record spells when they could carve them into their arms. A D&D style setting would eventualy evolve into something that effecivently tries to use Magics ability to circumvent to the laws of physics to do batshit stuff like power impossiblly complex computers mechas and railguns while colonizing space and other planes of existance
>>92768698>when I can make a more ergonomic wand?Exactly! Have you ever tried to stick a gun down your urethra? Not as easy as a a wand of fireballs, let me tell you!
>>92774051True, DnD is a pretty bad example to pull from, but Magic Missile is a staple there, so it's the best place to draw from. Depends on the setting strikes once again. Could use WoD, where all it takes to kill a thousand year old vampire with five hillbillies with home made dragon breath shotgun shells and a bit of luck.With Shadowrun, you have a world where mundane was the way things were until magic decide to make a grand revival and throw everything out of whack. Instead of having ancient wizard colleges that have been figuring out magic for the last thousand years, you've got a generation or two worth of trial and error, with various spirits and dragons giving clues and hints along the way. In that thousand years of arcane study, you'd totally have mages figuring out ways to use magic to handle mundane issues, if it weren't for the repeated magical cataclysms that keep fucking happening to highly developed arcane civilizations. It's like if the Manhattan project did their experiments in the middle of Manhattan, instead of the desert, over and over again.There would totally be convergent evolution of mundane technology, done with magic. The refrigerator in your home wouldn't use thermal exchange with refrigerant gasses to stay cold, powered by steam boilers carrying power along copper wires, you'd have a magical rock that just stays cold for as long as the magic stays active. Instead of hiring a repairman to fix the busted coil on your fridge, you'd hire a runecarver to etch the frost glyph again, cause it got warped during a mana storm last week or the like.It all comes down to how prevalent magic is over all. If Joe Average can manage a few cantrips by going to public school and taking the right classes, you'd have very little reason to do all the time and investment needed to develop mundane science. Why put all the time, energy, and manpower needed to find a cure for cancer, when your local priest can cast 'Excise Tumor" three times a day?
>>92770730>Because aesthetics. Autist simply forget that fantasy exists to be fun, so the thing you consume for escapism doesn't have to be logical, it has to be enjoyable. So the answer is simple - just think of what aesthetics you want and adjust the setting accordingly.best take.
>>92773938>>92774051It is quite feasible to make a fantasy setting match in strength a modern army and even outdo it if you give them literal divine help, like having a super-AI telling you every weakness the enemy have but unable to act and force-multiply by itself.But you need to accept to boost the fantasy side until a low level trooper can still practice basic magic or use magic item.I see no point having Fantasy vs Gun setting that systematically end with a nuke.>>92774051>Magic also isnt in opposition to technology or else Wizard would all be mud covered tribesman refusing to wear pants and papyrus to record spells when they could carve them into their arms.Magic can be shaped to enforce a tech level.>A D&D style setting would eventualy evolve into something that effecivently tries to use Magics ability to circumvent to the laws of physics to do batshit stuff like power impossiblly complex computers mechas and railguns while colonizing space and other planes of existanceOr go full magitekWe can imagine it as the path the wizards had not taken yet because they were distracted by magic being vastly more flexible.
