PDA

View Full Version : Magic As Technology



Neon Knight
2007-02-17, 03:37 PM
I was planning on running a game where the traditional warfare system of the medieval period was replaced by something close to modern warfare. The primary cause of this radical shift in tactics and strategy was to be magic, but I found that with my limited knowledge of spell casting and magic items in general, I couldn't come up with much.

What spells and magic items can be sued to replicate indirect artillery, radios, etc.?

Dhavaer
2007-02-17, 03:39 PM
Telepathic bond does radios well. There's no indirect spells I can think of, though.

J_Muller
2007-02-17, 03:54 PM
Can't you just pour potions of explosion down a cannon barrel to replace gunpowder?

Dhavaer
2007-02-17, 03:55 PM
Can't you just pour potions of explosion down a cannon barrel to replace gunpowder?

Alchemist's Fire? No, that doesn't explode. Very few things in D&D actually produce concussive force.

Adlan
2007-02-17, 03:56 PM
Wands of Magic missle in place of rifles mayhap? with recharge twigs.

oriong
2007-02-17, 04:04 PM
A lot depends on whether or not you're talking about magic items or spells. A magic item is often preferable to a spellcaster since they're more durable, less of a target, and can be used often unlimited times per day.

Radio
Telepathic bond (basically team mics or walky talkies that lasts at least an hour and a half)
Dream (unlimited range, but only usable asleep)
Message (0 level, and over 100 foot range)
Magic Mouth (on a shot arrow or trained animal)

The best is probably the Whispering Wind spell for long-distance communication. Since it only goes to places the spellcaster knows about it's mainly good for messages to specific 'radio towers' or other permanent locations. Remember that at higher levels Teleport and Dimension Door are often just as good if not better than normal communication.

Actually the absolute best is the Scrying spell, scrying allows the casting of Message through the scrying sensor. Greater Scrying is better and has no 'interference' problems.

The best magic item would be a crystal ball of telepathy (or two crystal balls of detect thoughts) or Ring Gates.

Illusions can make extremely effective 'signal' spells for simple communication, or serve as a kind of 'semaphore code' by creating illusionary symbols or runes that only your side knows the meaning of.


Indirect attacks would work best by Summoning spells, Control Weath, Call lighting, Storm of Vengeance, Ice Storm, or Flame Strike.

Neon Knight
2007-02-17, 04:28 PM
Wands of Magic missle in place of rifles mayhap? with recharge twigs.

Actually, the crossbow will fill that role. When I say modern warfare, I actually mean WWII style artillery, tanks, helicopters, and air forces (beasts and large humanoids), mixed with WWI style trench warfare. in other words, utter hell.

oriong, that idea for radio towers using whispering wind is absolutely brilliant. I love it.

Woot Spitum
2007-02-17, 04:46 PM
You could always take a magic/steampunk setting (like Eberron) and ramp up the tech level to include things like electricity and chemistry while still keeping magic involved. I remember once reading a fantasy short story (unfortunately I can't remember the name or the author, sorry) that was very similar to what you described. It had a tech level around WWII, but also all the fantasy creatures fighting in the armies. It had all these neat little details like every fifth bullet in a clip being silver in order to deal with werewolf scouts. I wish I could remember the name though...

martyboy74
2007-02-17, 04:50 PM
Any sufficiently advanced - and in particular, reliable - magic would be indistinguishable from technology. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0344.html)

On a more serious note, it wouldn't be that hard. Bombers could be replaced by a large, flying creature, presumbable with many appendages. Fighters could replaced by warlocks with a particularly fast brand of flight, and a highly destructive invocation.

\/ Thank you, that explains a lot.

Dark
2007-02-17, 04:53 PM
10[fps]*3600[seconds per hour], or 36000 mph. (Someone show me where I screwed up, that makes no sense).
The part where you went from feet to miles :)

It's about 6 mph.

Lord Zentei
2007-02-17, 05:03 PM
Excellent idea for a project. I was considering doing something similar way back, though time constraints meant I had to ditch the project.



Wands of Magic missle in place of rifles mayhap? with recharge twigs.

You don't even need to recharge them. Ammo clips for modern automatic weapons hold about as many shots as wands have charges.

Wand of fireballs for support weapons. Invisibility for infiltrators.


I would suggest taking a gander at globalsecurity.com (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/index.html) for references on modern warfare, both for detailed analysis and information on weapons and systems as well as OOB from fireteam to corps level.

Another helpful page, though this is on a Star Wars versus Star Trek site, it will be useful for the purposes of a quick and easy reference for what would be expected in a set of combined arms elements: linka (http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Ground/index.html).

Hopeless
2007-02-17, 05:10 PM
Just a thought but there are alternative magical items based on the existing feats and by that I mean Potions.
You don't have to know the spell, have it on your character's existing spell list and whilst normally it can only effect up to 3rd level spells there are prestige classes that allow this to be extended to much higher spell levels (In Magic of Faerun there's an Alchemist prestige class that does this) and I believe its either the DMG 2 or Unearthed Arcana that allows for potions to come in different forms so imagine a scrying orb being used to scan an area, a simply glass sphere being smashed to release a dimension door effect so they can virtually instantly travel to that perused location or just throw in something equally deadly such as obscuring mist so a 30' area around this opening is now obscured so troops can rush through or perhaps a silence, 15' radius so no vocal warnings can be made.
And as for weapons what if they use Summon Monster items of this type perhaps a Type II spell boosted by the Extend feat so they last for x2 as long and set them loose behind enemy lines to divert attention from their true target i wonder what would happen if a few Touch to range boosted Disguise Self items were used to alter potential enemies to make them attack each other? (Touch to range is referring to a feat in the Ultimate Feats guide that increased the range of spells normally restricted to Personal or touch range allowing them to either be applied to others or increased from touch to 25 +5' per 2 level as Summon Monster does).

Take a look at the Artificier class in the Eberron Campaign Setting for more ideas or just make use of metamagic and item creation in what books you have, chain spell used to be +3 levels under 3.0 now I believe its +4 levels, then Empower Spell is still +2 levels, Still & Silent spell are +1 and Energy Substitution is +0, just imagine having a weapon designed to use any energy descriptor in case you're not sure which one will work, or a means to give your troops wings to fly up to the top of a battlement even spider climb, perhaps invisibility and more importantly Non-detection to thwart divination spells as that mkes the scanner sense them as the object its been cast upon if I remember correctly useful when trying to evade detection and don't want to rely on invisibility when you suspect they can detect magic or see invisible.
Please note against telepathy nothing should work better than a ring of mind shielding so check out the spell used for its construction and whilst its description is actually quite lame that protection should also apply against psionic based mind attacks after all if the mind is shielded then how can it be mind blasted?
Take care and all the best!

Fizban
2007-02-17, 06:02 PM
There's a regional feat in the Player's Guide to Faerun that lets you use wands even if you're not a spellcaster. Combine that with wands of various levels, and you've got your standard weaponry. Everything after that is just bigger and better wands. For tanks and such, if you make the item sufficiently big and bulky that it can't be used by a normal adventurer (that is, someone entering buildings on foot) it qualifies for a 50% price break.

Vehicles can be accomplished in many different ways, depending on your style and sources. The most obvious would be to use large creatures, such as elephants, triceratops, and so on, but if you have the right books you can use actual vehicles or moving buildings. The arms and equpment guide has basic stuff on vehicles, with stormwrack sandstorm and frostburn featuring terrain specific ones. The stronghold builder's guidebook has rules for creating mobile strongholds, and if you're only animating one stronghold space of 20'x20' it's suprisingly cheap.

The thing about mordern or semi-modern warfare in DnD isn't about how to make it work, it's about how to keep it from working too well. Teleportation and extra-dimensional storage make transporting troops even easier, unless you have an in game reason why not (such as all the casters capable of pulling it off being worked overtime to produce machinery, but this has it's own problems). Also, with the power of magic a lot of things get smaller. The standard size of a wand means that you can have the same weapons you'd put on a tank in your pocket for the right price. Also, ammo will eventually be an issue. Sure a magazine only holds about as many shots as a wand, but I'm betting bullets are a lot cheaper than buying a new gun every time you run out. But since the OP is using crossbows that doesn't seem to be an issue so it doesn't matter.

For artillery, there's already catapults and trebuches. Shrink item should make transport much easier.

And hey, you've even got mustard gass in Cloudkill, and gas masks in complete arcane.

Chavik
2007-02-17, 06:12 PM
I mentioned this in the favourite mount thread..... giant dragonfly with sidecar saddles with wand users, air-worthy chariot behind it with a heavy repeating crossbow armed ranger, and a staff-wielder = Apache Helicopter

similar ideas like giant wasps as fighter jets work too

Hyfigh
2007-02-17, 06:16 PM
It's not really technology per se, but a world with magic wouldn't need many builders. Wall of Stone or Iron plus Fabricate means you can make any stone or iron products just by casting a couple spells.

Castle building takes about a day with this....

Rumda
2007-02-17, 06:25 PM
well for indirect explosive artillery you just need need to use the explosive spell metamagic feat

NullAshton
2007-02-17, 06:33 PM
A delayed blast fireball in a glob of quintessence. Use something like explosive metamagic fireball rods, to propel the delayed blast fireball. It removes the quintessence, and upon impact the fireball explodes.

Lord Zentei
2007-02-17, 06:35 PM
The main problem with attempting to acheive parity between magic and tech is the difficulty of mass production, since for magic items that requires a spellcaster with a Craft Item feat to expend XP.

OTOH, in the real world, technology feeds on itself: you make tools to make the tools to make the mass production plants to make the items, and at each stage you can use workers and engineers who needn't know all the underlying science.


If we want to go this route, then ideally, it would be possible to create magic items that cast spells repeatedly, specifically the spells neccesary for the creation of the items in question, including the production items. Moreover, characters w/o spell slots would have to be able to use them (with the right feats and/or skill ranks), and XP expenditure would not be required.

Wizards would then be relegated to overseeing such mass production projects supplying their Craft Item feat as project engineers. Other than that, they would act as researchers for new magi-tech.

Collin152
2007-02-17, 06:35 PM
Design an Iron GOlem to resemble a vehicle, and install a manner of arrow slits. Get some wizards in thee with wands of disintegrate. Ta da.

Rumda
2007-02-17, 06:40 PM
Wizards would then be relegated to overseeing such mass production projects supplying their Craft Item feat as project engineers. Other than that, they would act as researchers for new magi-tech.

which is exactly the role in the real world which similar people (i.e. scientists engineers) are most effective in in warfare, on the whole

Lord Zentei
2007-02-17, 06:41 PM
which is exactly the role in the real world which similar people (i.e. scientists engineers) are most effective in in warfare, on the whole

My point indeed. :smallwink:

Collin152
2007-02-17, 06:42 PM
Also, please recoginse the tactical efficiency of illusions. FOr example, using multiple castings Move Earth or a similar spell to make achasm and Hallucinary Terrain to ceonceal it can lead an enemy army into a major pitfall, though I can't think of a real world parallel.

Raum
2007-02-17, 06:45 PM
You can duplicate just about every piece of modern warfare with magic...excepting indirect fire. The LoE requirement is going to make that difficult.

You could create a few homebrew spells to duplicate indirect fire, but I'd just leave it as is. It'd be interesting to see what tactics change without indirect fire. No softening up a position before attacking for one...if you have LoE to attack they have LoE back to you.

Ikkitosen
2007-02-17, 06:46 PM
Houserule that non-casters can make wands with fewer charges/lower level spells/lower caster levels. Then you have factories of guys giving up a few xp each and churning out weapons.

Wands of higher level spells have 1 charge only, and are bigger/bulkier like staves. Perhaps they are eternal wands, useable 1/day.

Have beasts in your world that are resistant to magic - maybe they were bred that way due to warfare style. They are then viable "vehicles" without being soft targets for opposing troops and their weaponry.

Reduce gp crafting costs for many minor magical items - without this it's hard to have your 1-shot LAW fireball staff without breaking the bank.

Collin152
2007-02-17, 06:49 PM
Golems have immunity to magic! They make tanks! Especially replicating the heavy expenses thereof. Just plesae, don't make a flesh golem tank. Please.

Maxymiuk
2007-02-17, 06:49 PM
Enchant a catapult with the Distance enhancement and you have your indirect artillery with a maximum range of 4000ft. Granted, it's not even a mile, but that's the best you're going to get with any weapon or spell in D&D. And you can always houserule that catapults can get multiple Distance enchantments, thus giving them a range of up to 20,000ft. (4 miles) making it the Big Bertha of D&D - it's big, scary, and people will try to destroy it at the first opportunity.

Raum
2007-02-17, 06:51 PM
OTOH, in the real world, technology feeds on itself: you make tools to make the tools to make the mass production plants to make the items, and at each stage you can use workers and engineers who needn't know all the underlying science.Hehe, that brings up an amusing picture. An assembly line of spell turrets casting Continual Flame on sticks of wood...the price of Everburning Torches would drop!

Collin152
2007-02-17, 06:51 PM
Better yet, enchant the Catapault to be Distance and Flaming Burst!

martyboy74
2007-02-17, 06:52 PM
Ah, indirect fire would be easy. Just use the elevator gnome trick with magical items to protect them in space, and have them summon walls of irons above opponents.

Hell, you've just invented satellites!

Elevator Gnome trick:
Get two wizard gnomes to cast Tenser's Floating Disk. They both get on the other's disk. One of them jumps, therefore their disk goes up. This causes the other gnome to rise, thus launching raising his disk. This happens until the gnome's judge themselves to be high enough, and they tell their disks to stop moving.

Maxymiuk
2007-02-17, 06:57 PM
Better yet, enchant the Catapault to be Distance and Flaming Burst!

Ah, but that lowers the max possible range on our hypothetical Big Bertha.

Make the ammo Flaming Burst. You can enchant it in batches of 20 after all...
(yes, I know this only applies to arrows, bolts, and sling bullets. But then again, they don't say you can't do the same with catapult boulders :smalltongue:)

Rumda
2007-02-17, 06:58 PM
Golems have immunity to magic! They make tanks! Especially replicating the heavy expenses thereof. Just plesae, don't make a flesh golem tank. Please.
it gives a new meaning to the phrase meat shield, but anyway the raw materials would be plentiful on a battlefield

Dhavaer
2007-02-17, 07:00 PM
Elevator Gnome trick:
Get two wizard gnomes to cast Tenser's Floating Disk. They both get on the other's disk. One of them jumps, therefore their disk goes up. This causes the other gnome to rise, thus launching raising his disk. This happens until the gnome's judge themselves to be high enough, and they tell their disks to stop moving.

That doesn't work.


The disk floats approximately 3 feet above the ground at all times and remains level. It floats along horizontally within spell range and will accompany you at a rate of no more than your normal speed each round. If not otherwise directed, it maintains a constant interval of 5 feet between itself and you. The disk winks out of existence when the spell duration expires. The disk also winks out if you move beyond range or try to take the disk more than 3 feet away from the surface beneath it.

Collin152
2007-02-17, 07:05 PM
That doesn't work.
So research Tenser's Flying Disk. Pending Dm approval, and mandates they don't know that trick.

Yvian
2007-02-17, 08:26 PM
Weird logic

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M198_howitzer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M198_howitzer)

Artillery
M198 howitzer
US$527,337
Gold = $670/ounce
3 gp per ounce
so 1 m198 howitzer costs 262 gp.

It hard to buy any decent magic items for that price.

I was going to suggest renting a wizard with a flying carpert and a improved invislity spell to rain dustruction from above, but it seems that Artillery is dirt cheap or D&D is a very inflationary enviroment. I think the latter. I am going to have to ponder a better way to convert gold pieces into real world currancy.

Hyfigh
2007-02-17, 08:28 PM
Ooh, another. Warforged with alter self, polymorph and such can turn themselves into any animated objects (they are constructs). Add in wand sheath and wands of (insert nasty spells here) for another form of mobile artillery.

My friends and I discussed having a Warforged wizard/sorcerer cast wall of iron and fabricate to make some huge ballista bolts. Then he polymorphs into an autoloading ballista (same concept as the auto-crossbow) and lets loose with ballista bolts.

Neon Knight
2007-02-17, 08:30 PM
Wow. So many good suggestions. I'm gonna have alot of fun with this campaign.

Thanks for everyone for their suggestions. I was wondering, is their any spell that could work as propulsion Like some big concussive force that could be used to push something? That might be the answer to our dilemma about indirect fire.

Rumda
2007-02-17, 08:44 PM
well either explosives spell or old fashioned mechanical force, or maybe a bigbys hand variant...

Sir_Banjo
2007-02-17, 09:33 PM
Well, if you're looking for firearms and the like, make up a gauss weapon. You'd have to edited it slightly but you could say the projectiles are crystals that are filled with a magical charge and then shot down a anti-magic field. If you're really stuck, say "a wizard did it.".

Fixes all problems, apparently.

You could also have airships, trains etc propelled along in a similiar matter. DnD is largely geared up for melee combat and spells, so I'm not sure how you'd go with making the weapons predominantly projectile based.

You may want limit the rifles to single shot if you want melee to still be important.

Dhavaer
2007-02-17, 09:42 PM
Weird logic

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M198_howitzer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M198_howitzer)

Artillery
M198 howitzer
US$527,337
Gold = $670/ounce
3 gp per ounce
so 1 m198 howitzer costs 262 gp.

It hard to buy any decent magic items for that price.

I was going to suggest renting a wizard with a flying carpert and a improved invislity spell to rain dustruction from above, but it seems that Artillery is dirt cheap or D&D is a very inflationary enviroment. I think the latter. I am going to have to ponder a better way to convert gold pieces into real world currancy.

Gold is much cheaper in D&D, though. Wizards give US$20 = 1gp as a general rule.

oriong
2007-02-17, 09:56 PM
Weird logic

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M198_howitzer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M198_howitzer)

Artillery
M198 howitzer
US$527,337
Gold = $670/ounce
3 gp per ounce
so 1 m198 howitzer costs 262 gp.

It hard to buy any decent magic items for that price.

I was going to suggest renting a wizard with a flying carpert and a improved invislity spell to rain dustruction from above, but it seems that Artillery is dirt cheap or D&D is a very inflationary enviroment. I think the latter. I am going to have to ponder a better way to convert gold pieces into real world currancy.

Yeah, D+D gold coins are not at all as valuable as their real world version, which is understandable if you consider the sheer wealth contained in a single dragon horde (or the possibility of magically created materials as well).

I believe d20 modern had a suggested 'conversion' of something like 1 gp = 20 $ which is a much more reasonable amount when you look at the fact that a 'good' meal is 1/2 a gold piece (about 10 dollars), which works out about right if you assume a poor meal is something like junk food or 'value meals', a common meal is a drive thru dinner, and a good meal is a sit down resturant of some kind. Heck, the price of a carved wooden holy symbol is 1 gp, and if you took that to be the modern conversion that piece of wood would be worth over 200 dollars.

Collin152
2007-02-17, 11:23 PM
Wow. So many good suggestions. I'm gonna have alot of fun with this campaign.

Thanks for everyone for their suggestions. I was wondering, is their any spell that could work as propulsion Like some big concussive force that could be used to push something? That might be the answer to our dilemma about indirect fire.
Telekinesis, sustained force, combined with command words and any one of the many spells that let you speak over a great distance. I'm sure it won't work, but it's a start.

oriong
2007-02-17, 11:44 PM
Actually it's not true that you can't do indirect fire, you just can't pull it off quite as easily.

Some examples of indirect fire spells:

Ice Storm/Flame Strike- This is a little bit iffy since there aren't really very good rules on actually targeting spells but both of these spells are tall columns, if you can see a point above the target (say if sight of the target is blocked by a tree line or a wall) then you should reasonably be able to target the spell there, so long as the column produced by the spell is not shorter than the barrier.

Cloudkill- The clouds of poison sink down, so they can be created above an area and then fall down, blanketing the area below. It will take a bit of math to work out exactly where the clouds will touch down though, and you'll probably want them to be pretty close overhead since they're not terribly fast.

Storm of Vengeance: this is basically the ultimate indirect attack spell, it affects everything under a 360 ft. radius cloud. Control Weather can be used to a lesser degree, although it is not likely to actually inflict damage.

Spells that create a continuing effect such as Fire Seeds or Delayed Blast Fireball can be delivered to an area through various creative methods.

Call Lightning, Lightning Storm, Horrid Wilting, Holy Smite and spells like them do require line of effect but they also do not have anything that 'leads' back to the caster so they still can be effective since it can be very difficult to detect the original caster.

Sardia
2007-02-18, 12:09 AM
There's got to be a use for Shrink Item and variants of it.

Turn a raging fire into a small piece of cloth (Guncotton? Heh), stuff it into a metal tube, and ram a projectile in front of it.

Figure out how to make a shrunken projectile that expands on impact (or shortly after) and you have nasty weapons indeed. Great trick to pull with an arrow anyhow, if you think that hitting the target qualifies as being "tossed onto a solid surface".

And there's your grenade or catapult bomb, too-- place a shrunken iron ball carefully into a metal case and throw it. Shrapnel galore when it hits and expands.

oriong
2007-02-18, 12:56 AM
If you want a good indirect damage item a single use object of Storm of Vengeance is about 7,650. So if the object in question was some type of enchanted arrow or bolt it could be fired over an enemy camp and activated or even just delivered by a small flying object or creature. Depending on how the DM rules targeting a similarly designed object of Ice Storm or Flame Strike would cost 1,400 or 2,250 respectively.

Dervag
2007-02-18, 02:36 AM
Recommended reading:
"Advance and Retreat", "Sentry Peak", and "Marching Through Peachtree", by Harry Turtledove;
The "Into the Darkness" series, also by Harry Turtledove;
"Hell's Gate" by Linda Evans and David Weber.

Halcyon_Dax
2007-02-18, 03:06 AM
In a techno-magic homebrew campaign setting I've done I created a magical grenade i really like.

A specially prepared scroll of fireball (prepared in such a way as to 'activate' when the paper is ripped) wrapped around a very thin glass cylinder containing alchemists fire, surrounded by caltrops, and all of that in a thin aluminium or tin tube.

This device would, on impact, pierce the scroll and the cylinder with a caltrop, causing the entire device to

1. Explode
2. Cover an area with flaming caltrops

Needless to say, the PC's loved em.

Zincorium
2007-02-18, 03:27 AM
Well, for those who've read the Guardians of the Flame series (something I recommend to anyone who understands rpgs), the mages in there came up with a magical alternative to the gunpowder the protagonists used. They superheated water in a pressurized vessel so that it was above the boiling point but was unable to turn into steam, then put it into a form of stasis where it remained a stable powder that regained it's original form (superheated, highly pressurized steam) when mixed with regular water. Fill muzzle loaders with 'powder' charge, introduce water through a small hole in the breech, and you had a formidable gun.

A spell that duplicates Dust of Dryness except for requiring a lesser impact (say, a firing pin) would work extremely well. Even regular Dust of dryness would work, with a sufficient trigger mechanism, but it's 850 gp per dose which gets expensive rather quickly. On the other hand, one hundred volumes of even non-superheated water released all at once would blow a gun to smithereens, so you'd have to carefully label the charges.