What does /tg/ think of magitech as a concept? Too overdone? Too anime?
>>48005389
Done right, it can be cool.
Done like most people do it, it's just as boring as everything else.
>>48005405
what do you consider doing it right?
>>48005389
A misguided attempt at eating your cake and eating it too. Rarelly done well. Makes sense in a full science-fantasy setting in wich, rather than having technologized magic, you get magicized technology. Arguably you get both/neither since the boundaries at that point are blurry as fuck.
>>48005413
Like how Warmachine does it, maybe?
I wouldn't know. Most people just treat it as "It's like steampunk, but magic instead!" and don't do anything more to make it unique.
>>48005413
not him but picrelated
>>48005413
Not that anon but imho the point is that if you understand perfectly how something works it's not "magical" it's just science from an universe with alternate laws of physics. Viceversa something completelly "mundane" that's too advanced for you to understand seems magical. With magitech/science fantasy you have to walk the fine line between the two. It's very hard.
>>48005462
What's wrong with 'weird science' in fantasy, though? It could certainly be interesting to have scientific fields of study where the conceits of reality are very or even completely different. Would it be a bitch to do in a way that makes sense? Maybe, but I think it would be neat.
>>48005389
Depends. If it's just a stupid mech that looks like a mech and acts like a mech, but has glowing runes on it, it's stupid.
A sail ship with runed masts that keep its sails filled? That's more my style.
Remember that a magic sword is magitech too.
>>48005438
different anon but personally i like the concept of steampunk hybrid with magic, what i don't like is how unimaginitive people get with it, because its such a great concept treated like complete dogshit, its a shame i tell ya.
>>48005483
>>48005483
Nothing per se. It's just very rarelly done well or consistently because people like to call it magitech rather than weird science so people go to it with preconceptions.
>>48005493
>>48005516
Also what these 2 gentlemen anons said.
I like it.
What ISN'T too anime these days?
Can this be Magitech: General?
I'm currently building a world and I wanted to take a very practical approach to the use of magic.
I thought about electricity, being generated by skellingtons runing in coils (they never tire).
Or magic used in construction works, to lift things, cut stones and such...
If you have any nice pictures it would be most appreciated.
>>48005389
I don't see it as surprising that engineers would take figurative black boxes of unknown workings (which likely violate the laws of physics as we understand them) and attempt to plug them into designs, as long as they have known and replicable inputs and outputs.
In a world where the scientific method exists, and there are replicable phenomenon which nonetheless are somehow impossible to be fully understood through research, surely magitech would then result as a logical conclusion?
>>48005389
>>48005438
My current campaign heavily features magitech, and I have no shame in admitting that I'm just running it "like steampunk, but with magic instead!" - because it's a fairly light-hearted campaign styled after Final Fantasy, so it has some purposefully cliché things like that because it helps amplify that JRPG theme that's going on. Were it any other campaign I probably wouldn't have included any such technology at all.
>>48005884
I'm of the opinion that most things are not anime enough.
>>48005462
This argument is, quite frankly, stupid. The idea that magic should always be "magical" flies in the face of what would happen to it, and additionally several thousand years of magical practices that humanity has already gone through.
Do you think that the shamans of yesteryear sat in awe and wonder about their rituals? No, they didn't, they got down to business and did their job of contacting the spirits and asking for their aid to change reality in some way. The people who dont know how to do this shit? MAGICAL
Do you think hermeticists sit in awe of their rituals? No they don't. They know what to do, what not to do, and do their rituals to alter reality, call on spirits, and just do magic. Teh people wondering what that weirdo is doing? Magical.
Magic becomes banal and boring to the practiced master. Magic that has been analyzed in a scientific manner becomes a form of science and this is inevitable for any form of magic that has consistent rules. But the lay people would take it as something strange and wonderous, just like many who don't know the first thing about how computers work.
>>48005944
You should take a look at the Eberron setting books for 3.5 D&D. Takes D&D and puts it into a magitek universe with elemental powered flying ships, a train that travels by lightning, living constructs made for war that have been freed, all kinds of neat magitek.
>>48005389
Interesting, but rarely done well.
I much prefer a fantasy setting with buried ultra-tech, like in Secret of Mana.
>>48005462
>it's not "magical" it's just science from an universe with alternate laws of physics
Why can't it be both magic and science?
>>48006262
thx
I'm kind of trying to do world building right now for a biopunk magitech based setting.
Basic idea is that only living things can conduct mana/psi/the force/whatever, so living machines or brains used as batteries can generate lots of energy and do crazy shit. Highly technological cities start to look like H.R Giger paintings as a result.
Part of it is that magic can be detected and measured to an extent, but its properties are not fully understood. But enough results can be reliably replicated as >>48006007 said that it's useful. It's speculated that mana comes from "the soul", since only sentient beings can continuously generate it (hence using brains as batteries), but the actual soul itself has never been found or detected in any experiment.
Decent premise?
>>48006445
Quite decent. I really love the idea of Cities looking like H.R. Gigers paintings.
>>48005449
That's a bad example... point of Arcanum was that magic and technology can't be mixed and even break each other. While technologists had steam engines, guns, airships and steampunk stuff, mages had medieval-level tech, even though it was enchanted to work a little better.
>>48005413
When the writing is good so the worldbuilding falls into place around it without gimmicks or concern.
>>48006262
Eberron is great. It's basic premise is that it takes 3e D&D magic, analyses it and then find actual practical use for it. And people who can start making a shitload of money from it, unlike certain settings with insanely overpowered archmages who use magic for nothing else than throwing fireballs at each other and scratching their asses, while peasants still dig in the mud.
>>48005389
I'm quite fond of it, but I'm an engineer and a worked-out-magic-systems autist, and really don't watch any anime, so my idea of "magitech" tends to look rather different to what you're thinking of. I really just like anything that provides a new and interesting technical toolbox to play with.
As far as I can tell, when people mean magitech they just mean "let's put a soft science fiction idea or modern appliance in a fantasy setting, because technobabble is magic anyway, but we'll make it spiky and floaty and add lots of glowing lines and crystals."
>>48006262
Exactly, this is why I dispise the argument that magic should be something where you only see a bunch of old dudes in their underwhere randomly shitting lightning for no other reason because they can.
If you can do certain spells over and over again it's only natural to find a use for it. Is fire "magical" because the first human saw a tree catch fire after being struck by lightning? In a way yes but then he learned how to do it himself.
This is also why I hate the generic fantasy setting because it never shows the natural outcome of a bunch of people who can do magic on a regular basis especially DND magic.
Create water? Time for a desert city!
Permance? What happens if I cast fly on these giant stones and cast permanence on them? Flying cities!
Why arn't we fielding giants in our army?
Where are my Dragoons on flying horses with enchanted rifles?
Why arn't the nobles body guards walking around in glamored full plate armor?
>>48008013
And, for what it's worth, I also prefer my magic to be weak and limited enough that using magic with other forms of technology is as much about using physical constructions to augment the capabilities and overcome the limitations of what is practical to do with magic, as it is the other way around.
It's like electricity. Electricity is useful for lots of things, and we use it in lots of stuff. But even though your car has an electric battery and wires and motors on board, your engine still runs on gasoline and transmits its power to the wheels using mechanical shafts and gearing. The steering probably uses mechanical linkages and hydraulics and not solely electrical actuators and sensors; the engine is cooled with a radiator and not thermoelectrics; the brakes use brake pads and not an electromagnetic mechanism; the car is held together with screws and bolts instead of electromagnets.
And you actually might have (almost) any one of these features on your car, but at the expense of cost and other drawbacks.
>>48005389
>What does /tg/ think of magitech as a concept?
I love it.
>Too overdone?
No, just too badly done. Mostly because it relates to:
>Too anime?
In my experience, people usually say that when they mean to say 'superficial' and/or 'flashy'. In that case yes.
>>48008057
Look, D&D has its problems, but you've got your expectations all wired wrong.
The problem is extrapolating from the PCs and thinking there is a ton of other wizards that are just as powerful. There isn't. Most spell casters will barely break 6th level with a rare few reaching 10th.
A very small number, probably less than a dozen worldwide, will reach anything approaching 15 or 20.
In addition, the number of people smart enough to cast those spells, as you need the requisite stat to cast higher "circle"/sphere/level/whatever spells, will be a quickly shrinking pool of individuals. Were talking the extreme end of the bell curve here. And that's if they even take up spell casting.
The number of wizards able to cast Permanency, a 5th circle/10th character level (because I fucking hate the confusion of using level for spells and character levels) spell will probably be a couple hundred, worldwide. They are also going to demand lots of money to cast it. Kingdoms have a limited supply of gold that they can use to get the reagents and to pay the mage to cast it. Flying cities are going to need a fuckton of castings over several hundred years and at an expense that would bankrupt entire empires.
Yes, you take a few clerics out into the desert and have them cast create water all day, but I'm sure the gods will have something to say about that, and how much of a waste it is and also how the desert god is getting really pissed off. Any accident that indisposes a cleric or two and suddenly you've got issues of dehydration. Logistics would be a nightmare. Don't even think about farming systems since the amount of water required for that quickly outstrips the capabilities of the spell.
Giants are a no go, as they tend to survive in small clans and they eat a lot, like holy hell.
I'll give you the nobles guards tho.
So basically, all of your problems with the D&D magic system boil down to not understanding the economics, logistics, and demographics of the world.
>>48005389
It's my favorite form of fantasy.
>>48005413
To me, Eberron or Ivalice.
>>48005389
Spelljammers did it better.
>>48005389
I think it can be done well.
>>48008571
>The problem is extrapolating from the PCs and thinking there is a ton of other wizards that are just as powerful. There isn't. Most spell casters will barely break 6th level with a rare few reaching 10th.
On paper that's nice but here's the thing:
When PC's level up the world tends to have to level up with them. Otherwise there's literally no challenge in anything they do. Once PC's reach level 10 if you say "okay congradulations you're the only level 10 characters in the world" then suddenly the only thing that can challenge them are... other worldly monsters.
Which is fine if you wanna do that but it's also kind of restricting. One of the fun things about D&D is fighting "rival" characters or opponents of equivalent skill.
Note that this issue is a bit different in older editions/4e because in that game monsters and NPC's were built differently.
>>48005462
while that a way you can seperate magic and science, it's not the only way to do it.
That's a pretty limited perspective.
>>48009542
that's not necessarily true.
You don't have to go all the way to 'you are the only level 10 character in the world', there are plenty of stops before that.
'most towns have never seen a level 10 character', but the pcs are going to where those level 10s are, or they come after the pcs. Being rare isn't even close to not existing in terms of being able to set up an adventure.
>>48009482
Then why show such a shit example?
>>48009542
No, the GM masks that possible.
In 'reality' they have to travel to places where there are greater challenges, or they just stop leveling up. Hence why you have communities with 5th -10th level characters running them. they didn't want to go on and do bigger and better things, so they made a kingdom.
>>48009638
>Final Fantasy 6
>>48009620
So either level 10 characters don't exist or there's enough of them that PC's can encounter them as adversaries to which the issue of "What the hell are these level 10 NPC's doing?" once again becomes a subject of debate.
>>48008571
thing is, in D&D, you don't need people to do all that stuff. Magic items are pretty easy to create (at least in 3.x and 4e) and they are basically indestructible, need no maintenance or fuel.
Yes, few clerics won't have enough spells to supply whole city through Create Water... but Decanter of Endless Water is dirty cheap (9k isn't much) and produces 5 gallons/sec forever.
It's even worse in Pathfinder where item creation isn't even limited by caster level or spells known, and costs only gold, not xp.
Eberron shows logical results of the presence of D&D style magic, but doesn't go far enough. For absolute worst (best?) results the ruleset can produce, google Tippyverse. Its insane
>>48009542
4e is a bad example, IMO, the game is build so the world still levels up with characters, even if NPCs lack class levels. 5e is much better in that regard, basic orcs could still be dangerous even to high level character in large enough groups, thanks to bounded accuracy.
>>48009700
>what are level 10 npcs doing
a few of them might be supplying a city with a small amount of useful protection and enchantments. Or they might be by selfish and decided to set up self sustaining enclaves away from people.
Or fighting each other, or spending at least some of their resources protecting against each other. Or hiding.
Areas are big, and until you get to actual epic levels it's actually hard for a caster to be reaching all the parts of that area.
So all the towns might know about the 3 great wizards in the capital, and the 4 reclusive ones out in parts of the woods. I could fit all that in Rhode Island.
Rhode Island has 39 munipalities, so 38 towns that never see a high level caster, and 7 high level casters.
So if what you meant is that the existance of high level casters means that there will be places what show the effect of high level casters, you are correct, but those places can easily be the minority.
>>48005413
Have wizards use magic to do science. Microscopes and telescopes augmented by scrying magic, dangerous experiments conducted using magical wards, laboratory conditions manipulated with clever evocation magic, complicated machinery powered by magical motors, etc.
Additionally, these wizards study magic using scientific principles. Even if magic is impossible to fully logically understand, they should still try, and occasionally fail to make sense if it with the scientific method.
>>48009700
>What the hell are these level 10 NPC's doing?
Paladins are crusading in Hell.
Warlocks open portals to Hell.
Liches use hellish fiends to BBEG even more.
Et cetera
>>48009774
in 3.5 at least, those items require XP to create. So creating them requires the wizards to be willing to give up some of their power, thus limiting how many there are.
That's the real reason why eberron is different, they give item creators a pool for building items outside of taking permanent setbacks to their power.
>5gal/sec
what? okay, so sometimes the writers have no fucking sense of scale, but if you change that down to basically what a decanter constantly poring out water would be like, you need shit tone of those to sustain a city of any size.
If setting is centered on it and it's important part of it's feel (like Eberron) its fine. Not my thing, but I can respect that.
If it's just thrown into generic fantasy setting (or any other) with little consideration and/or reason other than "we need moar random cool shit" it is cancerous.
>>48005449
This >>48007849 also Arcanum is most overrated crpg ever.
>>48009891
>what? okay, so sometimes the writers have no fucking sense of scale
It's definitely on purpose. The maximum setting on a decanter is labeled "geyser".
I think it's set that high specifically to enable shenanigans.
>>48010506
I now remember that, and some part of my brain had made me think that mode was limited to a rounds per day.
Probably because either it got house ruled, or it just seemed more sensible.
>>48006262
You just abused the words "Magic" and "science" to the point they don't mean shit anymore.
>>48009438
>Eberron
muh nigga
>>48009438
>Ivalice
