Re: [!! SPAM] Re: Foreign Magic - flavour and crunch

From: Stephen McGinness <stephenmcg_at_sxkbmukJUS8XlQEw4CYOv6aBQkScIOSS6wQtHlQCdsajBQ57WMRUbj1NqA4mA-f_B>
Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 16:43:23 +0100

 > Try thinking of a real-world example. If Gloranthan Magic worked in
 > the RW, and a group of animists crossed over into our world in some
 > combat zone, the US Army would not know how to protect their soldiers
 > or vehicles from the effects of cast Disruptions or rampaging Wolf
 > Spirits.

I can understand where you are coming from with this but I get a sore tummy when I try to think of magic in the real world! :-)

I'm not sure comparing the effectiveness of technology against magic would correlate particularly well with the comparison of one magic against another. I play superheroes quite a lot and when you begin to bring physics into the game to try and explain things, they often go downhill very rapidly...

I'm not sure that protection magic would not work against rifles and explosions - the level of damage might be a problem though. :-) As for technology, the stab-proof vests should be as good, if not better than leather and kevlar might provide some decent deflection protection against bow fire.

I do think that the non-magic enhanced might be at a disadvantage though. I cant imagine the effects on the troops when their opponents rose into the air and cast lightning at them! :-) Heavy machine gun fire might dissuade such tactics but teleports and elementals etc...

As I said, my tummy is beginning to hurt...

David Weihe wrote:
>
> > > If countermagic works less
> > > well then Disruption (et. al.) would be more effective, giving
> > > the weird magic user an edge. The other guy can't dispel his
> > > magic, can't counter his magic, and can't even see what his
> > > magic is... sounds like an edge to me.
> >
> > That's right - there is an edge on both sides. What I am trying
> > to do is decide whether the edge should be on offensive or
> > defensive magic.
>
> Try thinking of a real-world example. If Gloranthan Magic worked in
> the RW, and a group of animists crossed over into our world in some
> combat zone, the US Army would not know how to protect their soldiers
> or vehicles from the effects of cast Disruptions or rampaging Wolf
> Spirits. Likewise, if the animists could close to hand-to-hand combat,
> kevlar vests would be worse than useless, and a bayonet-equiped M16 or
> an entrenching tool would not be nearly as good as sword or spear and
> shield.
>
> OTOH, a bunch of Praxians would have no idea how to deal with modern
> high velocity rounds fired by snipers a mile or more away, or air
> dropped cluster munitions from Predator drones, or even a
> time-on-target artilliary barrage from a half dozen separate
> emplacements.
>
> This implies that offensive magic works, but defensive magic would
> suffer the penalty of different OtherWorlds. I think that the
> likeliest effect from two Gloranthan forces using magics from different
> OtherWorlds, without any special methods to handle the other side's
> magic, is a double kill. This is yet another reason that very few
> Gloranthans concentrate their magic on a single OtherWorld.
>
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