First you have to decide if your guns can have multiple attacks per round like a fighter with a bow. Or One shot per round. Second how deadly they should be.
1A. Multiple attacks. Treat as Simple weapon with hand crossbow stats with a different range but no loading property
1B. Crossbow with loading property.
2. how deadly. Deadly to commoners d6. Deadly to first level pcs. d12.
Another thing you can do: Have magic create a byproduct that makes gunpowder react violently. Let's say someone creates a fireball... what if the magic conjures up not only the kinetic energy needed for heat, but the process ALSO introduces a burst of oxygen as well to fuel it into a controlled explosion upon impact, but the oxygen is created in like a cloud all around the area, including the oxidizer in the ammunition. The added oxygen would dissipate in the open naturally, but inside the bullet casing or chamber wouldn't have a way of escaping. This would make muzzle flash blindingly bright and the explosion in the chamber less controlled. This wouldn't be a problem for single-fire bolt-action weapons or revolvers, but rapid-fire weapons would be either too hard to control or even potentially explosive. It'd be like the ammunition would be constantly having its chemical composition changed whenever someone cast a spell nearby that would make certain technologies totally unfeasible and left to magic to fill the void instead since the very nature of magic would be constantly affecting the environment around it.
Actually, when you think about it, in a world where spells are commonplace, guns would be more dangerous to the person carrying it than to anyone else. It'd be like having a grenade on you but everyone else is holding the pin since it'd be really simple to make a spell that just discharges all the ammo in a weapon at once. See someone holding gun? Cast 'spark' and make every bullet in the magazine explode simultaneously, taking out the would-be shooter and anyone standing near him. The only solution would be to have magically resistant bullets which would be probably really difficult to produce and again would limit magazine capacity to 6 shots at most, and even then, powerful magicians could still turn the bullets against their users.
I'm making a urban fantasy campaign where muggles are nonexistent, everyone knows that magic exists. A problem I encountered was one of guns, since I want to keep it high fantasy and shooting a troll with a machine gun would be weird for the group. (I'm not saying no guns, cuz I'm okay with older rifles or pistols.)
I have therefore decided to dive into history. I find the best point to cut off gun use is the American revolution because magicians can interfere with gun mechanics, killing more people in the opposite army then the guns do. So instead of developing guns, they are developing magic devices.
I myself am not American, but I would appreciate any help from people who know about the subject.
Try World War I/II firearms, such as the M1911 pistol, Thompson SMG, M1 Garand, StG 44 assault rifle, and various other SMGs, handguns, and bolt-actions. I'm thinking of creating stats for various WWI, interwar, and WWII weapons eventually.
Another thing you can do: Have magic create a byproduct that makes gunpowder react violently. Let's say someone creates a fireball... what if the magic conjures up not only the kinetic energy needed for heat, but the process ALSO introduces a burst of oxygen as well to fuel it into a controlled explosion upon impact, but the oxygen is created in like a cloud all around the area, including the oxidizer in the ammunition. The added oxygen would dissipate in the open naturally, but inside the bullet casing or chamber wouldn't have a way of escaping. This would make muzzle flash blindingly bright and the explosion in the chamber less controlled. This wouldn't be a problem for single-fire bolt-action weapons or revolvers, but rapid-fire weapons would be either too hard to control or even potentially explosive. It'd be like the ammunition would be constantly having its chemical composition changed whenever someone cast a spell nearby that would make certain technologies totally unfeasible and left to magic to fill the void instead since the very nature of magic would be constantly affecting the environment around it.
Actually, when you think about it, in a world where spells are commonplace, guns would be more dangerous to the person carrying it than to anyone else. It'd be like having a grenade on you but everyone else is holding the pin since it'd be really simple to make a spell that just discharges all the ammo in a weapon at once. See someone holding gun? Cast 'spark' and make every bullet in the magazine explode simultaneously, taking out the would-be shooter and anyone standing near him. The only solution would be to have magically resistant bullets which would be probably really difficult to produce and again would limit magazine capacity to 6 shots at most, and even then, powerful magicians could still turn the bullets against their users.
Most firearms that use metal bullet casings (which were invented in the late 1800s), were actually designed to make sure fire didn't make the round go off instantly. It'd take a massive amount of heat and time to prematurely set off a round with fire, since the metal absorbs most of the heat, else soldiers fighting in warm climes would have major issues. The only way to set off a round is to actually put it into a weapon and pull the trigger, striking the firing pin against the primer, which creates a spark that causes the powder to explode.
A fireball spell wouldn't be enough to set the weapon off, since it wouldn't be either hot enough, nor does the fire last long enough, for the bullets to be activated, since the primer on the back of the cartridge is designed to be set off ONLY by the weapon's firing pin or other hard blow, not heat. I don't think heat metal would cause the cartridge to set off, since the smokeless powder inside of it relies on a spark, not just simply heat.
Fireballs exploding entire assault rifle magazines (most of which hold up to 30 rounds), which the average modern soldier carries up to 6 of on their person, is overpowered, especially if you implement that mechanic as each individual round doing, let's say, 1d4 fire damage per round of ammunition the person is carry/currently inside their weapon's magazine, plus the one contained in the gun's chamber (if any, some LMGs and LMGs have open, rather than closed, bolt designs that don't allow for an extra round to be loaded in).
I am currently working on how to implement various guns into D&D with balanced stats (I included a recoil mechanic that requires a strength save or you hurt your should and take damage if you fail it for the more powerful weapons).
I didn't mean the fireball igniting the ammunition, I meant that under normal circumstances, the amount of atmospheric oxygen is not sufficient to cause an explosion of fire on its own (Unless fireball spells are nothing more than spontaneously creating a flammable gas, which, you know, could be a thing). The added oxygen needed to make it happen would have to be supplied by the spell itself. If that's the case, then the extra oxygen might just be generated all over in a cloud, wherever there's space, including inside the bullet casing, throwing off the chemical composition of the round and making it unpredictable which would make rapid fire weapons impractical.
Morever, and more simply, magicians could simply use a 'spark' spell to set off ammunition prematurely, which would make guns even less practical in a high-magic setting as a general use weapon. Unless the guns themselves are also imbued with magical properties AND magic-resistant ammunition, guns would be niche weapons used either at very long range or extremely close and relying upon concealment and surprise to be effective.
Another option is to have guns actually shoot 'spellshot', so you'd have a revolver that fires magic missiles or a trench gun that spews fire.
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DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I didn't mean the fireball igniting the ammunition, I meant that under normal circumstances, the amount of atmospheric oxygen is not sufficient to cause an explosion of fire on its own (Unless fireball spells are nothing more than spontaneously creating a flammable gas, which, you know, could be a thing). The added oxygen needed to make it happen would have to be supplied by the spell itself. If that's the case, then the extra oxygen might just be generated all over in a cloud, wherever there's space, including inside the bullet casing, throwing off the chemical composition of the round and making it unpredictable which would make rapid fire weapons impractical.
Morever, and more simply, magicians could simply use a 'spark' spell to set off ammunition prematurely, which would make guns even less practical in a high-magic setting as a general use weapon. Unless the guns themselves are also imbued with magical properties AND magic-resistant ammunition, guns would be niche weapons used either at very long range or extremely close and relying upon concealment and surprise to be effective.
Another option is to have guns actually shoot 'spellshot', so you'd have a revolver that fires magic missiles or a trench gun that spews fire.
There is no space in a bullet casing, since it is completely empty. Also, fireball is an explosion that expands outward from a certain point instantly. Meaning that it creates a firey blast. The blast might damage the weapon if it hasn't been maintained properly, but won't harm the ammo.
While the powder inside a bullet casing is flammable, it is inside a non-flamable metal case. You simply can't light it up with the spark cantrip, since the ammo would count as a non-flammable object.
Why are you so obsessed with making guns impractical and almost useless in D&D?
I'm not obsessed with making them useless, I have nothing against guns. I'm merely stating that in a world overflowing with magic, guns wouldn't be AS useful as they would be in a low magic campaign. Guns are a tool, they behave the same way over and over. They're built the same way, work the same way, and in a world with the unpredictable energies of magic, as soon as any magician understood how a gun works, they could easily develop a means to counteract them because why wouldn't you? Why would a magician just leave themselves vulnerable to a non-magical attack as effective as a firearm? It doesn't make sense. You can't say "You can't just blow up ammo, it's impossible!" because guess what, so is casting fireballs and generating spontaneous combustion at will. Magic does the impossible, that's kind of it's thing.
The OP was looking for opinions on how to implement firearms, if any, into an 'urban fantasy' setting with high magic. D&D on its base level isn't quite high magic. As the guide says, it's difficult to simply sell magic items because they're beyond the understanding of most people. So, in basic D&D, yeah, guns would be super effective. I'm not trying to keep guns out of D&D, I'm just suggesting ways guns COULD be relevant in a world where magic is so much more powerful and common.
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DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I'm a gun nut IRL, but I do not like to mix my D&D with guns of any variety.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Yeah those things did exist, but mainly as exotic experimental weapon. If it were actually good at doing what it was supposed to do then it would've been a much more common thing and wouldn't be regarded as special or unusual today. ^^
I'm not obsessed with making them useless, I have nothing against guns. I'm merely stating that in a world overflowing with magic, guns wouldn't be AS useful as they would be in a low magic campaign. Guns are a tool, they behave the same way over and over. They're built the same way, work the same way, and in a world with the unpredictable energies of magic, as soon as any magician understood how a gun works, they could easily develop a means to counteract them because why wouldn't you? Why would a magician just leave themselves vulnerable to a non-magical attack as effective as a firearm? It doesn't make sense. You can't say "You can't just blow up ammo, it's impossible!" because guess what, so is casting fireballs and generating spontaneous combustion at will. Magic does the impossible, that's kind of it's thing.
The OP was looking for opinions on how to implement firearms, if any, into an 'urban fantasy' setting with high magic. D&D on its base level isn't quite high magic. As the guide says, it's difficult to simply sell magic items because they're beyond the understanding of most people. So, in basic D&D, yeah, guns would be super effective. I'm not trying to keep guns out of D&D, I'm just suggesting ways guns COULD be relevant in a world where magic is so much more powerful and common.
Right, but the OP seems to be cherry picking technology. High magic = no guns ... and what else? Would magical power generation mean no fossil (or fissile) fuel needs for engines, electiricity, etc? Are postal systems or internet necessary if messenger spells are ready at hand? There's so much modern and previous era technology that would likely not have been developed if the world was abundantly magicked. If magic already does the job, is the elegant solution, why develop a cruder more labor or energy intensive tool?
To anyone who will point to Shadowrun as a counter example, let's not forget in that world, the magic was asleep during the "modern earth" age, so humanity developed it's technology. Then magic awoke and interrupted the world. So, not the best world building example if I follow what's being poised.
The thing you're not taking into consideration is availability. Magic might be the more elegant solution, but if it requires a wizard to use when wizards might be only one in one thousand or one in ten thousand people, that's not very useful when you can give a musket to anyone with two arms. This gets even more pronounced the more magic it takes- sending spells that can transmit over hundreds of miles require very high level casters. A telegraph might not be as good, but it can be used by someone with no magical ability at all. It's like how firearms out-competed longbows well before there was a firearm that could match the range, accuracy, and armor-penetrating ability of an English longbow.
Magic only prevents tech from being developed if magic is cheap and commonplace.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The thing you're not taking into consideration is availability. Magic might be the more elegant solution, but if it requires a wizard to use when wizards might be only one in one thousand or one in ten thousand people, that's not very useful when you can give a musket to anyone with two arms. This gets even more pronounced the more magic it takes- sending spells that can transmit over hundreds of miles require very high level casters. A telegraph might not be as good, but it can be used by someone with no magical ability at all. It's like how firearms out-competed longbows well before there was a firearm that could match the range, accuracy, and armor-penetrating ability of an English longbow.
Magic only prevents tech from being developed if magic is cheap and commonplace.
You are right that it depends on "how much magic?" But in the context of this discussion, predicated on a specific query, the OP is specifically looking to cut off the development of firearms because of the prevalence of magic, so the question "why just firearms?" stands. It's implied they want a "modern" world just with "open magic" and somehow "gun limited" because of magic. That's cherry picking world building and requires a bigger think other than saying "modern world but with high levels of D&D magic, therefore 16th century guns." You can do it, but would it be convincing?
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The thing you're not taking into consideration is availability. Magic might be the more elegant solution, but if it requires a wizard to use when wizards might be only one in one thousand or one in ten thousand people, that's not very useful when you can give a musket to anyone with two arms. This gets even more pronounced the more magic it takes- sending spells that can transmit over hundreds of miles require very high level casters. A telegraph might not be as good, but it can be used by someone with no magical ability at all. It's like how firearms out-competed longbows well before there was a firearm that could match the range, accuracy, and armor-penetrating ability of an English longbow.
Magic only prevents tech from being developed if magic is cheap and commonplace.
That also depends on the level and availability of magic items. You don't need a wizard standing ready for everything if something like message can be a common magic item.
Message has a range of 120 feet and gets blocked by many barriers. It's fine for discreet communication when, say, you're in a crowded room. It's utterly useless for communicating at long distances. It's like one of those toy walkie talkies that were popular when I was a kid, not a cell phone.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The thing you're not taking into consideration is availability. Magic might be the more elegant solution, but if it requires a wizard to use when wizards might be only one in one thousand or one in ten thousand people, that's not very useful when you can give a musket to anyone with two arms. This gets even more pronounced the more magic it takes- sending spells that can transmit over hundreds of miles require very high level casters. A telegraph might not be as good, but it can be used by someone with no magical ability at all. It's like how firearms out-competed longbows well before there was a firearm that could match the range, accuracy, and armor-penetrating ability of an English longbow.
Magic only prevents tech from being developed if magic is cheap and commonplace.
That also depends on the level and availability of magic items. You don't need a wizard standing ready for everything if something like message can be a common magic item.
Message has a range of 120 feet and gets blocked by many barriers. It's fine for discreet communication when, say, you're in a crowded room. It's utterly useless for communicating at long distances. It's like one of those toy walkie talkies that were popular when I was a kid, not a cell phone.
It was just an example obviously. The general statement still stands.
Yep, if you have magic developed to a level that the development of gunpowder based firearm is stunted or derailed, I'm pretty sure the Wizards and presumably Artificers would be developing many other magical "betters" to what the OP would recognize as "muggle" infrastructure. See prior thread on how the law may work in a high magic world.
Begs another question, not just firearms and technology may be developmentally stunted, but social concepts too. It's a debated work, but there's the "guns, germs, and steel" argument where a tech influence, some experience with diseases ahead of the rest of the world, and natural resources led to a number of hegemonic orderings of the world over the past few centuries. In a place where magic is widespread enough to discourage or disinterest the development of a technology pretty important to the last few hundred years of history, how else would the world order have changed? Would we have democracies, or is the world largely governed by a magic caste with varying degrees of benevolence to the non magical, etc.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think that semi-automatic guns WOULDN'T work with magic. Maybe flintlocks would work, because it is rather simple. I would be very opposed to bolt loading, semi-automatic, percussion cap, revolvers, and lever action rifles.
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I am part of the Cult of Grammar. Respect us. Or we will find the slightest mistake in your grammar, and never let you forget it. Clones would have saved Star Wars, and Kylo Ren sucks. MAKE THE EMPIRE GREAT AGAIN!!! I am a stormtrooper, and the Skywalker family is made of nothing but idiots who are insane. Cough Anakin and Luke Skywalker Cough
A machine gun might have more moving parts than a musket, but they both follow the same laws of physics. If an advanced firearm doesn't work, there's no real justification for a more primitive one doing so. Unless you've got something like the Forgotten Realms where there's a deity (Gond) who keeps it that way.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Good point.......... OH!! I have a suggestion! What if the semi-automatic weapons had to fire enchanted round, or else the guns just kinda..... Detonate in the user's hands. And, magic is.... Magic. It can't just MAGIC guns into being able to fire several times in a row, it is also high fantasy. Maybe it should be restricted to a Hombrew Subclass with proficiency in guns.
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I am part of the Cult of Grammar. Respect us. Or we will find the slightest mistake in your grammar, and never let you forget it. Clones would have saved Star Wars, and Kylo Ren sucks. MAKE THE EMPIRE GREAT AGAIN!!! I am a stormtrooper, and the Skywalker family is made of nothing but idiots who are insane. Cough Anakin and Luke Skywalker Cough
Don't even TRY to argue with me about Star Wars.
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First you have to decide if your guns can have multiple attacks per round like a fighter with a bow. Or One shot per round. Second how deadly they should be.
1A. Multiple attacks. Treat as Simple weapon with hand crossbow stats with a different range but no loading property
1B. Crossbow with loading property.
2. how deadly. Deadly to commoners d6. Deadly to first level pcs. d12.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
Another thing you can do: Have magic create a byproduct that makes gunpowder react violently. Let's say someone creates a fireball... what if the magic conjures up not only the kinetic energy needed for heat, but the process ALSO introduces a burst of oxygen as well to fuel it into a controlled explosion upon impact, but the oxygen is created in like a cloud all around the area, including the oxidizer in the ammunition. The added oxygen would dissipate in the open naturally, but inside the bullet casing or chamber wouldn't have a way of escaping. This would make muzzle flash blindingly bright and the explosion in the chamber less controlled. This wouldn't be a problem for single-fire bolt-action weapons or revolvers, but rapid-fire weapons would be either too hard to control or even potentially explosive. It'd be like the ammunition would be constantly having its chemical composition changed whenever someone cast a spell nearby that would make certain technologies totally unfeasible and left to magic to fill the void instead since the very nature of magic would be constantly affecting the environment around it.
Actually, when you think about it, in a world where spells are commonplace, guns would be more dangerous to the person carrying it than to anyone else. It'd be like having a grenade on you but everyone else is holding the pin since it'd be really simple to make a spell that just discharges all the ammo in a weapon at once. See someone holding gun? Cast 'spark' and make every bullet in the magazine explode simultaneously, taking out the would-be shooter and anyone standing near him. The only solution would be to have magically resistant bullets which would be probably really difficult to produce and again would limit magazine capacity to 6 shots at most, and even then, powerful magicians could still turn the bullets against their users.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Try World War I/II firearms, such as the M1911 pistol, Thompson SMG, M1 Garand, StG 44 assault rifle, and various other SMGs, handguns, and bolt-actions. I'm thinking of creating stats for various WWI, interwar, and WWII weapons eventually.
Most firearms that use metal bullet casings (which were invented in the late 1800s), were actually designed to make sure fire didn't make the round go off instantly. It'd take a massive amount of heat and time to prematurely set off a round with fire, since the metal absorbs most of the heat, else soldiers fighting in warm climes would have major issues. The only way to set off a round is to actually put it into a weapon and pull the trigger, striking the firing pin against the primer, which creates a spark that causes the powder to explode.
A fireball spell wouldn't be enough to set the weapon off, since it wouldn't be either hot enough, nor does the fire last long enough, for the bullets to be activated, since the primer on the back of the cartridge is designed to be set off ONLY by the weapon's firing pin or other hard blow, not heat. I don't think heat metal would cause the cartridge to set off, since the smokeless powder inside of it relies on a spark, not just simply heat.
Fireballs exploding entire assault rifle magazines (most of which hold up to 30 rounds), which the average modern soldier carries up to 6 of on their person, is overpowered, especially if you implement that mechanic as each individual round doing, let's say, 1d4 fire damage per round of ammunition the person is carry/currently inside their weapon's magazine, plus the one contained in the gun's chamber (if any, some LMGs and LMGs have open, rather than closed, bolt designs that don't allow for an extra round to be loaded in).
I am currently working on how to implement various guns into D&D with balanced stats (I included a recoil mechanic that requires a strength save or you hurt your should and take damage if you fail it for the more powerful weapons).
I didn't mean the fireball igniting the ammunition, I meant that under normal circumstances, the amount of atmospheric oxygen is not sufficient to cause an explosion of fire on its own (Unless fireball spells are nothing more than spontaneously creating a flammable gas, which, you know, could be a thing). The added oxygen needed to make it happen would have to be supplied by the spell itself. If that's the case, then the extra oxygen might just be generated all over in a cloud, wherever there's space, including inside the bullet casing, throwing off the chemical composition of the round and making it unpredictable which would make rapid fire weapons impractical.
Morever, and more simply, magicians could simply use a 'spark' spell to set off ammunition prematurely, which would make guns even less practical in a high-magic setting as a general use weapon. Unless the guns themselves are also imbued with magical properties AND magic-resistant ammunition, guns would be niche weapons used either at very long range or extremely close and relying upon concealment and surprise to be effective.
Another option is to have guns actually shoot 'spellshot', so you'd have a revolver that fires magic missiles or a trench gun that spews fire.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
There is no space in a bullet casing, since it is completely empty. Also, fireball is an explosion that expands outward from a certain point instantly. Meaning that it creates a firey blast. The blast might damage the weapon if it hasn't been maintained properly, but won't harm the ammo.
While the powder inside a bullet casing is flammable, it is inside a non-flamable metal case. You simply can't light it up with the spark cantrip, since the ammo would count as a non-flammable object.
Why are you so obsessed with making guns impractical and almost useless in D&D?
I'm not obsessed with making them useless, I have nothing against guns. I'm merely stating that in a world overflowing with magic, guns wouldn't be AS useful as they would be in a low magic campaign. Guns are a tool, they behave the same way over and over. They're built the same way, work the same way, and in a world with the unpredictable energies of magic, as soon as any magician understood how a gun works, they could easily develop a means to counteract them because why wouldn't you? Why would a magician just leave themselves vulnerable to a non-magical attack as effective as a firearm? It doesn't make sense. You can't say "You can't just blow up ammo, it's impossible!" because guess what, so is casting fireballs and generating spontaneous combustion at will. Magic does the impossible, that's kind of it's thing.
The OP was looking for opinions on how to implement firearms, if any, into an 'urban fantasy' setting with high magic. D&D on its base level isn't quite high magic. As the guide says, it's difficult to simply sell magic items because they're beyond the understanding of most people. So, in basic D&D, yeah, guns would be super effective. I'm not trying to keep guns out of D&D, I'm just suggesting ways guns COULD be relevant in a world where magic is so much more powerful and common.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I'm a gun nut IRL, but I do not like to mix my D&D with guns of any variety.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
They're not unusual. We just call them bayonets.
Right, but the OP seems to be cherry picking technology. High magic = no guns ... and what else? Would magical power generation mean no fossil (or fissile) fuel needs for engines, electiricity, etc? Are postal systems or internet necessary if messenger spells are ready at hand? There's so much modern and previous era technology that would likely not have been developed if the world was abundantly magicked. If magic already does the job, is the elegant solution, why develop a cruder more labor or energy intensive tool?
To anyone who will point to Shadowrun as a counter example, let's not forget in that world, the magic was asleep during the "modern earth" age, so humanity developed it's technology. Then magic awoke and interrupted the world. So, not the best world building example if I follow what's being poised.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The thing you're not taking into consideration is availability. Magic might be the more elegant solution, but if it requires a wizard to use when wizards might be only one in one thousand or one in ten thousand people, that's not very useful when you can give a musket to anyone with two arms. This gets even more pronounced the more magic it takes- sending spells that can transmit over hundreds of miles require very high level casters. A telegraph might not be as good, but it can be used by someone with no magical ability at all. It's like how firearms out-competed longbows well before there was a firearm that could match the range, accuracy, and armor-penetrating ability of an English longbow.
Magic only prevents tech from being developed if magic is cheap and commonplace.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
You are right that it depends on "how much magic?" But in the context of this discussion, predicated on a specific query, the OP is specifically looking to cut off the development of firearms because of the prevalence of magic, so the question "why just firearms?" stands. It's implied they want a "modern" world just with "open magic" and somehow "gun limited" because of magic. That's cherry picking world building and requires a bigger think other than saying "modern world but with high levels of D&D magic, therefore 16th century guns." You can do it, but would it be convincing?
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Message has a range of 120 feet and gets blocked by many barriers. It's fine for discreet communication when, say, you're in a crowded room. It's utterly useless for communicating at long distances. It's like one of those toy walkie talkies that were popular when I was a kid, not a cell phone.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yep, if you have magic developed to a level that the development of gunpowder based firearm is stunted or derailed, I'm pretty sure the Wizards and presumably Artificers would be developing many other magical "betters" to what the OP would recognize as "muggle" infrastructure. See prior thread on how the law may work in a high magic world.
Begs another question, not just firearms and technology may be developmentally stunted, but social concepts too. It's a debated work, but there's the "guns, germs, and steel" argument where a tech influence, some experience with diseases ahead of the rest of the world, and natural resources led to a number of hegemonic orderings of the world over the past few centuries. In a place where magic is widespread enough to discourage or disinterest the development of a technology pretty important to the last few hundred years of history, how else would the world order have changed? Would we have democracies, or is the world largely governed by a magic caste with varying degrees of benevolence to the non magical, etc.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think that semi-automatic guns WOULDN'T work with magic. Maybe flintlocks would work, because it is rather simple. I would be very opposed to bolt loading, semi-automatic, percussion cap, revolvers, and lever action rifles.
I am part of the Cult of Grammar. Respect us. Or we will find the slightest mistake in your grammar, and never let you forget it.
Clones would have saved Star Wars, and Kylo Ren sucks.
MAKE THE EMPIRE GREAT AGAIN!!! I am a stormtrooper, and the Skywalker family is made of nothing but idiots who are insane. Cough Anakin and Luke Skywalker Cough
Don't even TRY to argue with me about Star Wars.
A machine gun might have more moving parts than a musket, but they both follow the same laws of physics. If an advanced firearm doesn't work, there's no real justification for a more primitive one doing so. Unless you've got something like the Forgotten Realms where there's a deity (Gond) who keeps it that way.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Good point.......... OH!! I have a suggestion! What if the semi-automatic weapons had to fire enchanted round, or else the guns just kinda..... Detonate in the user's hands. And, magic is.... Magic. It can't just MAGIC guns into being able to fire several times in a row, it is also high fantasy. Maybe it should be restricted to a Hombrew Subclass with proficiency in guns.
I am part of the Cult of Grammar. Respect us. Or we will find the slightest mistake in your grammar, and never let you forget it.
Clones would have saved Star Wars, and Kylo Ren sucks.
MAKE THE EMPIRE GREAT AGAIN!!! I am a stormtrooper, and the Skywalker family is made of nothing but idiots who are insane. Cough Anakin and Luke Skywalker Cough
Don't even TRY to argue with me about Star Wars.