So there’s this game called Arknights, which is set in a universe where they didn’t figure out the gunpowder, but they gave rocks that can be used to fuel the magic (and also give you magic rock cancer, go figure). So they have guns, but they’re basically only usable by one race of characters that are known for their innate talent for precise magic control, and everyone else sticks to crossbows and ballistas, or else more traditional magic.
Comment on Expecto patronum my ass!
NichEherVielleicht@feddit.org 18 hours agorockerface@lemmy.cafe 11 hours ago
Ziglin@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
This made me think about what would make a magic gun in the setting superior to a regular gun. Assuming it’s just more powerful it shouldn’t make much difference since everyone is just running around with a wand that can kill someone at will anyways. In the case of the weird wand connections that I barely remember even happening outside of one scene in the books (and more often in the films) I suppose it would be useful.
The main advantage of a gun would seem that it is instant (no incantation, just aiming) and could probably be silenced.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
Rate of fire, accuracy, range, and additional bullshit. Most of the limitations on fire arms are due to material science, weight, or just keeping it clean for example a lot of MGs have overheat issues with continuous fire, heavier rifles weigh a lot, and careless firearms are stupidly complex making them prone to failing due to dirt build up for example.
Mind you this depends on the settings limitations but something as simple as a cooling rune on an MG42 turns into from the huns buzzsaw into the huns sawmill since there would be at minimum reduced risk of barrel slag. You could have single soldiers treating M2 browning like fucking grease guns, weild .50 cal snipers like 1911s, or teleport ammo right into a Heckler & Koch G11 so as to never have to disassemble it to reload.
That’s just what I can think of off the top of my head, if the setting allows you could probably create a magitech self charging lasgun from Warhammer 40k, so basically just an archeotech lasgun from 40k.
To quote Speaker D “This is because the metric for OH, FU- is three to six guys with shotguns hanging out somewhere they weren’t expecting”. This is a quote in relation to World of Darkness by the way.
Ziglin@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
You make a good point, I had not really considered magic guns on the baddie side which is probably the only one which would use it. I was mostly considering single targets which is mostly all that the protagonists fight.
A magic gun could probably also have been used to non fatally injure the dragon in the tri wizard cup.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
While it’s true that in most situations the baddies would probably be the ones using the magic guns that doesn’t mean the good guys can’t use it, for example with Harry Potter you couldve had the Weasleys using suped up Sten guns to fight the dark wizards to their advantage who would smear at such technology. Really it’s down to what the writer wants to impress.
night_petal@piefed.social 8 hours ago
Why bother with small arms at all when you could teleport hundreds or even thousands of MOABs directly where they need to be?
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
For the same reason we don’t use MOABs for everything? Sometimes you only want to kill some people or perhaps you want to leave the surrounding area intact.
Ziglin@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
This whole thing about wands being able to do basically the same as a gun also me realize that one could see the Harry Potter books as a group of kids with stun guns and gadgets fighting the idiot baddies who just use guns and can’t get a single plan to go right because of some dumb bs.