Yeah see in that nice lovely long post up there I addressed how once you throw in magic and a fanatsy setting all those basic human limitations things become a rather moot point. That goes even more so for swords which could be enchanted to do anything from simply being unbreakable to automatically deflecting things, such as bullets, for you. After all any melee fighter worth his salt has some sort of enchanted weapon.

Which of course leads to the arms race thing but I've been there and don't really want to go back. But basically given equal knowledge equally complex and advanced magic and technology are always equal in power. Its the humans in control that make the difference.

I'm not sure, but last I recall the idea was, "How is it in FF, they have these bipedal robots that walk and have heavily sophisticated AI, but nobody's developed a decent sidearm projectile yet?"

And I think that the idea was already solved through the fact that gunpowder is messy, unsafe, and difficult to use, and a couple Magic Missiles...well....never miss. I agree that the rest is sheer geek, (and alot of fun) but I'd like to point out that we're pretty far off topic by now.

anyway. Having said.

It really depends upon the context of magic we're talking about. Look at a couple of book series' magic style and try and compare it. The Magician by Trudi Canavan had "Magic barriers" that were completely impenetrable, except by other mages. Dungeons and Dragons carries Protection from Arrows, which is damage reduction to any ranged attack.

Asking about a fictitious magic power that is completely undefined is really hard to compare to other weaponry. I mean, hell, if we're talking Magic vs Guns, what magic are we talking about? Clerics from DND? Wizards/Sorcerors? Wu Jen from Legend of the Five Rings? The Force?

I'd prefer magic, but that's just the fantasy nerd/writer in me talking.

When we're talking about the damage done between the two, guns win just about every time, except the most powerful magic spells. Swords are never even close, because swords are close range, brutal, savage, and pretty ineffective if the person has any armor to speak of. Bullets pierce, and can more or less destroy anything they touch after being fired. Magic is too undefined to truly compare it.

Weird, I've seen videos of martial arts masters catching paintballs without breaking them. Of course it was set up like that video up there, not 5 guys in the paintball arena firing wildly at the acrobatic deflecting omni-black belt.

I simply do not believe in magic. Besides, everyone's ideas on the use, limitations and practicality of 'fantasy' magic is vastly different. So, discussion on that subject is in itself moot unless you define those terms explicitly.

So pardon me for showing a real life example instead of just saying what I believe magic to be.

Yeah except the entire point of this thread is Guns vs a combination of swords and magic. We are all, or should be perfectly aware of the fact guns beat swords in real life. This entire thread is pure mental excerise and debate on personal beliefs about magic. To that end every person argues from their favorite system of magic and we try to find a common ground.

If you don't want to discuss in term of magic why exactly are you in the thread. Not to be an ass but really was there a point other than to make the rest of us feel bad for discussing in the hypothetical? I mean really from the very first post it was pretty obvious this thread wasn't really interested in real life examples.

I my self have no real belief or faith in magic. That does not stop me from engaging in conversations regarding system and styles of magic, espicially in regards to game systems. You just came off as condescending and a bit like you hadn't actually bothered to read most of the thread. As topical as it was it was well rather off topic in context.

about any body dodging any sort of projectile, if you are talking about magic, you need to remember that Haste willl pop up somewhere down the road...

FF has plenty of gun/magic mixes. FF7 had Barret and Vincent (and will have DoC soon too, to further fluent the point), FFX-2 had the Gunslinger class, FFTA had guns in it too. FF9 had some in it as well, I believe, though none of the party used them.

This is why I like DMC. You combine Swordwielding, Gunslinging, and Magic (DTing, Quicksilver, Dopleganger, and others) into one being who kicks more ass then anyone else. :3

Now, in a real fantasy setting, guns CAN work, but are usually ignored in favor of magic. Weather this is diserved or not isn't the point, the point is that's what happens.

Wow, I posted this last night and its already almost 5 pages.....many valid points have been brought up. The fact that 'magic' is an entirely subjective idea doesn't help debate much, but hey, its already been said that this is about fun anyway.

Guns:
Pros: Require much less training to be used more or less effectively. Range. Armor piercing. Can cause great internal damage.
Cons: Limited ammunition. Requires reloading. Projectiles can be deflected off-course by wind, slanted armor, ect. Cannot be used for defense (other than "the best defense is good offense").

Swords:
Pros: Not limited by ammunition.
Cons: Takes longer to train a swordsman. Extremely close ranged. Sword attacks cause less overall bodily damage and are more easily defeated by armor than a high momentum projectile.

Magic:
Pros: Most versitile of the three (attack, defense, healing, augmentation). Harder to stop ("only magic can defeat magic," and a cookie to the first person who can guess where that quote is from). Generally has more 'flash' to it.
Cons: The hardest to master/train. Reletivlely few people have an aptitude for it (according to most fantasy settings). Limited by the strength of the mage.

Conclusion: Barring the sort of God-like wizards (Teclis, Lerris, etc.) that could decimate an entire continent by themselves, guns/technology would have the edge, because it would be easier to outift an entire army of ranged fighters. There simply wouldn't be enough mages to combat the multiudes. However, in a fantasy setting, you'd have to take into consideration that magically augmented warriors would be faster/stronger/harder to kill then normal humans. So it would come down to whether or not the tech army could kill the wizards while dealing with enhanced enemies. Add in the fact that magic could be used to break an enemies morale (it would likely be more demoralizing to see your comrades dissolved/fried/ect. by magic than to see them shot), then it gets even more complicated. In the end (again barring supermages, and superweapons likes nukes, ect.), then a pure tech army versus a pure swords/bows/magic army would still be decided by the people; strategy, morale, and training.

*OctoberRaven gets a cookie.

Let's pit armies of Mages, Gunners, and Swordsmen against each other in mass scale combat.

Guns jam/overheat/run out of ammo. Reloading takes time, enough time to get gacked.

Magic can misfire, which can take out the mage wielding the spell as well as some others. Mages also run out of 'ammo' eventually.

If a sword breaks or gets dull, it can still be used as a knife or a club. Throwing a gun at someone will MAYBE knock them out. A Mage without spells is as useful as a commoner in combat. However, swords do not have the range of magic or guns.

However, in a numbers game, the Mages have the advantage because their weapons of choice can bring their dead back to life. I'd still bet on the swordsmen though.

Also, to Sessh: Uncle from Jackie Chan Adventures.

Maybe we need to specify the discussion: It started out as a, "Why aren't guns used as projectiles?" Not, "Is every form of magic stacked on top of each other better than guns?" Swords were just dragged into it. I mean, we all know that if you put elemental magic, necromancy, summoning magic, healing magic, and any other form of magic all into a ball of awesome, it's going to be better than any gun, imbued or no.