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Magic and Guns, How do you do it?

glutton

Inkling
With the 'guns making magic obsolete' comment I was thinking more about the varied uses of magic as compared to guns moreso than whether a side using guns or magic would win in a war, I wouldn't think that guns alone would make possible effects such as mind control, flight, invisibility, teleportation, phasing through solid objects, shields, shapeshifting, increasing your physical attributes, matter/energy manipulation, healing, etc. obsolete. Especially since the TS didn't seem to be talking about technology in general but specifically guns.

So if magic can't do anything like that and can only shoot less potent blasts than guns for example, I would think of magic in that world as being relatively limited.
 
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Kobun

Scribe
Guns as a populist tool to equalize engagements with the elitist magic wielders seems more likely to me, but obsolete...? I'm not so sure. When compared with the already existing versatility of war mages, given the clumsiness of early firearms attempts people inventing guns might question the practicality of exploring that line of technology.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Firearms could be more limited than magic, supposing that magic is real.

Firearms can do a few things:
1) Shoot in a straight line, requiring line of sight.
2) Projectile hits with incredible speed and destructive power.
3) When ammo runs out, use the firearm as club or spear (bayonet).

That's it unless you're talking about more modern weapons & munitions.

I can think of hundreds of ways magic could exceed the limitations of firearms. The important thing to understand is that with firearms (by themselves) you're limited by expectations grounded in reality...physical laws. With magic you're not. You set the limitations. Placing limitations on magic is an important aspect of world building, but the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.
 
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X Equestris

Maester
It's also worth mentioning that a lot of gunpowder weapons could be hampered by wet powder. Quite a few battles throughout history, all the way up to at least the Battle of Honey Springs in the American Civil War, were lost because one side got their gunpowder soaked.
 
Another thing is, what are the mages going to do when guns start to appear? I can think of some really useful spells, that a combat-minded mage might work on perfecting, preparing a battlefield with, or practicing to cast at high speed:
  • high-powered: stopping bullets (it might work best if it's specialized)
  • complex: illusions and suggestions to make the shooter waste his shot, not see the enemy closing in, or even fire at his friends
  • efficient: jamming the gun-- just twist or lock a bit of metal, or turn the powder inert
  • ruthless: detonating the gunpowder-- ooops!
  • simple: raise a mist over the battlefield

Then you could have mages on the other side trying to deflect that, and gunfighters of your own ready to take advantage of your spell: you distract or block their shooters for just the right moment, and yours rush in for the kill.

I always think of technology as having more hair-trigger power ready, so its power actually gets used at full strength, plus it might (or might not) be able to mass-produce that so there's a lot of guns for every wizard. The flip side of that is that it needs every piece of those machines and their supply lines working, and may not have any other uses until the inventors come up with them; wizards tend to have more ways of finding what's a weak link and using it.
 
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