Is Technology Inherently Superior to Magic?

[Destro2119]

So recently I have been wondering about how magic and technological societies differ, in that one is typically constantly medieval and the other highly advanced over time, and I decided that it is because of the difference in magic and technology.

It seems to me that technology is superior in effectively every way to magic, from raising the quality of life to military power to overall societal advancement.

For example, we know that IRL technology can be industrialized on an incredible scale. I have yet to see magic becoming industrialized as even a possibility in any DnD system, let alone setting. Plus, the fact that crafting feats or abilities are required leads me to conclude that it is simply impossible to industrialize magic. Tech 1, Magic 0.

Another is the accessibility of magic vs. tech. Magic requires magical aptitude in at least a 10 or 11 in a mental stat to become a magewright or a wizard. Meanwhile, even a 9 int or even 7 int commoner can study in a university for some years and get the training to become a engineer or a scientist of particle physics. Plus, it takes a DC 20 UMD check to use a wand, while even babies can use iPads. Tech 2, Magic 0.

The military might of technology vs magic is also considerable. It takes 5 levels for a wizard to hurl a ****ty easy save fireball and he can only do it once per day. Meanwhile, mortars and tanks have shells manufactured by the millions (industry for the win again!) and can easily destroy some bearded fool in bathrobes from miles away. Plus, nukes can destroy cities, which is not even something any spell can even do. I am pretty sure Eberron would lose vs 1930s earth, and even the Tippyverse would be easily conquered by Modern earth. Tech 3, Magic 0.

One of the most important points is the overall advancement of society. A purely technological society, as demonstrated by Stellaris and multiple other sources, has the potential to grow and develop over time into an incredibly advanced society that benefits everyone, from the humblest agri-worker to the Presidents, as proven by the Khen-Zai for an in universe example. Meanwhile, the average fantasy land or magical society has nothing but wizards in ivory towers lording it over dirt farming peasants doomed to toil in medieval savagery until the local star novas or something. An example being all of Forgotten Realms. Tech 4, Magic 0.

Finally, high technology realms are much safer than magic realms. The vast majority of magical realms, from Netheril to Azlant, collapse because of some magical apocalypse and never even get the chance to reach intergalactic levels. Meanwhile, the vast majority of technological realms such as Stellaris or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri reach intergalactic levels and usher in eras of peace and plenty. Tech 5, Magic 0.

Again, this is only my surface interpretation of tech's superiority to magic. If anybody wishes to offer arguments to the contrary, I would love to hear them.

[noob]

The typpyverse does not go as far in magic exploitation as infinite wish traps does.
The high end in magic is far remote from all that makes sense.
Yes overall a huge proportion of the high tech worlds are far preferable to live in and gives better quality of life to the global population relatively to magical worlds.
(the high tech worlds where it is bad to live in are usually intentionally grimdark or meant to be rpg universes like shadowrunner or warhammer 40k)

[Kayblis]

Ok, I'll bite. Are you really comparing 2020s tech to the baseline magic items in the DMG? And High Sci-fi space games to medieval D&D? While you're at it, why not compare how a spaceship is a better way to reach the moon than a common horse, if we're throwing all standards in the trash bin?

If you want an actual comparison, you need to look at how both achieve the same points, not how one fares with 1000~2000 years advantage while the other isn't allowed to grow. Using post-scarcity sci-fi in contrast to basic medieval magic is the farthest from an honest comparison you can get.

Let's talk your points. First, you require years and years of study to learn both, and only one is bound by physical laws like material supply and processing feasibility. A factory producing cars is not just the factory, it's a huuuuge supply chain that connects many different sectors to provide the materials, tools and labor for all the tasks needed to produce a car. A small magic center with a handful of magic men can produce stuff from thin air, such is the point of magic. This means that, given the same time and resources, magic organizes much much faster and isn't prone to falling apart due to uncontrollable circumstances, like economic shifts.

Second, wands require an UMD check if you don't have the spell on your list. Welding tools require 2 years of training. That's a more fair comparison, as both are tools made for people that work in their field. Ipads require you to learn how to use it, which isn't hard for people born with it, but older people struggle - while Magic Items don't require anything to work, other than a command word, so they're actually easier to use. You can't compare apples to oranges and then complain that they're different.

Third, military. Modern tech is all about direct damage, while magic can make you immune to damage pretty easily, so a single wizard can take all modern weaponry to the face and laugh. This is a point you miss, maybe comparing modern mass-produced tech to baseline damage spells in the PHB might not be the best comparison. Also, you can make Spell Traps of damaging spells to shoot every round if you want, so there you go, infinitely repeating area damage without ammo limits. A single wizard can set up tons of those. You can also set up impenetrable defenses like Walls of Force, that completely negate any modern weaponry no questions asked. If direct damage doesn't solve an issue, modern military can't solve it. For the last point, Apocalypse From the Sky. Look it up.

Fourth, society. Sure, go ahead, give tech all the advancement they need and leave magic behind. In 2021 we still have world hunger as a huge, seemingly unsolvable issue. This is solved by magic with repeating Create Food/Water traps. So are all health issues we currently struggle with, as repeating Restoration/Healing spell traps solve them all. This is actually included in the Tippyverse, as it's one of the easy issues. Going with 'possible' post-scarcity high sci-fi alleviates this a bit, but at that point you're comparing cyborg apples to oranges, which is apparently the theme here.

For the final point, I guess you've never read one of the thousands of grim, apocalyptic future sci-fi works around. Stuff may go well, or it may go terribly badly. The dystopian future genre is actually much larger than the bright future one, as it's a more realistic and less naive to assume things won't develop in a perfect way when humans are involved. Not to mention your magical society can fall to a magical apocalypse just as well as your future socitety can fall to aliens. You don't really gain much in the end of the world scenarios.

[ezekielraiden]

Not really. Technology and magic both have advantages. Tech is generally reproducible so anyone can use it. But it relies on external energy sources, and struggles to overcome limitations like conservation of energy. Magic is usually restricted only to the few who can learn it, inherit it, receive it as a blessing, or bargain for it. But it needs no other energy source than itself, and the ability to research new spells means presumptively unlimited potential.

The Wheel of Time's Age of Legends (or late Second Age) is a demonstration of what a society with both high technology and high magic can be like--both for good and for ill. Want was pretty much eliminated, and wealth was trivial to generate, so the only interesting challenges became doing things for humanity. But it was also a deeply stratified society, which was completely comfortable manufacturing fully-sapient engineered beings to do labor for it (the Nym) or using what amounted to indentured servitude (the Aes Sedai and their use of Da'shain Aiel.) It's very possible that you could still end up in a society where there are social classes and incredibly rigid, unbending roles and norms, despite no one dying of preventable illness and crime being essentially unknown.

Alternatively, look at the Chozo from Metroid, especially Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The Chozo are (or were, before they ascended or whatever) a deeply spiritual people who learned how to tap into powers others would consider "magic," including clairvoyance, telepathy, and non-conserved energy sources. Yet they are(/were) also a highly advanced race technologically, who could integrate biological elements into their technology, while also having matter-energy transfer and spatial-modification technology. They're a people who have melded technology and magic into a holistic union, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

[Destro2119]

The typpyverse does not go as far in magic exploitation as infinite wish traps does.
The high end in magic is far remote from all that makes sense.
Yes overall a huge proportion of the high tech worlds are far preferable to live in and gives better quality of life to the global population relatively to magical worlds.
(the high tech worlds where it is bad to live in are usually intentionally grimdark or meant to be rpg universes like shadowrunner or warhammer 40k)

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?

[Destro2119]

Ok, I'll bite. Are you really comparing 2020s tech to the baseline magic items in the DMG? And High Sci-fi space games to medieval D&D? While you're at it, why not compare how a spaceship is a better way to reach the moon than a common horse, if we're throwing all standards in the trash bin?

If you want an actual comparison, you need to look at how both achieve the same points, not how one fares with 1000~2000 years advantage while the other isn't allowed to grow. Using post-scarcity sci-fi in contrast to basic medieval magic is the farthest from an honest comparison you can get.

Let's talk your points. First, you require years and years of study to learn both, and only one is bound by physical laws like material supply and processing feasibility. A factory producing cars is not just the factory, it's a huuuuge supply chain that connects many different sectors to provide the materials, tools and labor for all the tasks needed to produce a car. A small magic center with a handful of magic men can produce stuff from thin air, such is the point of magic. This means that, given the same time and resources, magic organizes much much faster and isn't prone to falling apart due to uncontrollable circumstances, like economic shifts.

Second, wands require an UMD check if you don't have the spell on your list. Welding tools require 2 years of training. That's a more fair comparison, as both are tools made for people that work in their field. Ipads require you to learn how to use it, which isn't hard for people born with it, but older people struggle - while Magic Items don't require anything to work, other than a command word, so they're actually easier to use. You can't compare apples to oranges and then complain that they're different.

Third, military. Modern tech is all about direct damage, while magic can make you immune to damage pretty easily, so a single wizard can take all modern weaponry to the face and laugh. This is a point you miss, maybe comparing modern mass-produced tech to baseline damage spells in the PHB might not be the best comparison. Also, you can make Spell Traps of damaging spells to shoot every round if you want, so there you go, infinitely repeating area damage without ammo limits. A single wizard can set up tons of those. You can also set up impenetrable defenses like Walls of Force, that completely negate any modern weaponry no questions asked. If direct damage doesn't solve an issue, modern military can't solve it. For the last point, Apocalypse From the Sky. Look it up.

Fourth, society. Sure, go ahead, give tech all the advancement they need and leave magic behind. In 2021 we still have world hunger as a huge, seemingly unsolvable issue. This is solved by magic with repeating Create Food/Water traps. So are all health issues we currently struggle with, as repeating Restoration/Healing spell traps solve them all. This is actually included in the Tippyverse, as it's one of the easy issues. Going with 'possible' post-scarcity high sci-fi alleviates this a bit, but at that point you're comparing cyborg apples to oranges, which is apparently the theme here.

For the final point, I guess you've never read one of the thousands of grim, apocalyptic future sci-fi works around. Stuff may go well, or it may go terribly badly. The dystopian future genre is actually much larger than the bright future one, as it's a more realistic and less naive to assume things won't develop in a perfect way when humans are involved. Not to mention your magical society can fall to a magical apocalypse just as well as your future socitety can fall to aliens. You don't really gain much in the end of the world scenarios.

Apocalypse from the Sky is inferior to nukes. Nukes should also kill an ethereal wizard because its forces disrupt molecules.

Ok, then what would an "equally advanced" magic society look like? Assume both the tech and magical society have 10000 years of advancement from stone age. I bet dollars to donuts that tech world is better place to live and could easily beat magic/fantasy world in a GATE style fight.

[Destro2119]

Not really. Technology and magic both have advantages. Tech is generally reproducible so anyone can use it. But it relies on external energy sources, and struggles to overcome limitations like conservation of energy. Magic is usually restricted only to the few who can learn it, inherit it, receive it as a blessing, or bargain for it. But it needs no other energy source than itself, and the ability to research new spells means presumptively unlimited potential.

The Wheel of Time's Age of Legends (or late Second Age) is a demonstration of what a society with both high technology and high magic can be like--both for good and for ill. Want was pretty much eliminated, and wealth was trivial to generate, so the only interesting challenges became doing things for humanity. But it was also a deeply stratified society, which was completely comfortable manufacturing fully-sapient engineered beings to do labor for it (the Nym) or using what amounted to indentured servitude (the Aes Sedai and their use of Da'shain Aiel.) It's very possible that you could still end up in a society where there are social classes and incredibly rigid, unbending roles and norms, despite no one dying of preventable illness and crime being essentially unknown.

Alternatively, look at the Chozo from Metroid, especially Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The Chozo are (or were, before they ascended or whatever) a deeply spiritual people who learned how to tap into powers others would consider "magic," including clairvoyance, telepathy, and non-conserved energy sources. Yet they are(/were) also a highly advanced race technologically, who could integrate biological elements into their technology, while also having matter-energy transfer and spatial-modification technology. They're a people who have melded technology and magic into a holistic union, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Well then 100000 AK-wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can still beat a magic world, just going from that.

EDIT: Just to clarify, we assume 3.P magic system and classes.

[Mephit]

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?

Tippyverse is an extrapolation of 3.5 rules per RAW. It's not a fictional, wholly-original imagination of what a high-magic society could be like.
It also explicitly excludes epic magic because it becomes way too reality-breaking to make any sense of it.

I think your thesis is too vague to actually engage, since what magic is or can be is not clearly defined.
In the context of RAW D&D, sure, real-life technology is superior, if only because most spells are for combat or at least conflict-related (be it social, stealth or some other form). The designers are not interested in providing a magic system that can lift society to a pseudo-industrial age, because the setting is supposed to be medieval.


For a high-magic concept that rivals sci-fi, look at the Ninth world from Numenera, where the distinction between technology and magic is vague because both can create otherworldy phenomena.

[noob]

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?

Magic is stronger if you use the op stuff like wish traps making wish traps making wish traps making ice assassins of deities.
But in terms of quality of life it is really bad for the common people because usually casters do not want to share their power or comfort with the common people.
So yes tech is superior to magic for the quality of life of the common people which is a really important thing(if not the most important).
But if all you care is about winning wars with armies that have 10^1000000 more teleporting soldiers than the opponent army have atoms then magic is better but most magical creatures for mysterious reasons do not use dnd magic to its fullest and take actively detrimental decisions for themselves.

[Kazyan]

Since fantasy magic is generally designed such that it can preserve a traditional fantasy setting, sure. Essentially, unless the author of any setting is trying to push the boat out pretty far, magic is immediately kneecapped by the fact that the authors are not making science fiction and specifically want the setting not to do any of the things you've described.

If magic were allowed to actually create prosperous societies, then you couldn't have a million dirt-poor farm boys for your Chosen One to hail from. You couldn't have adventures where you walk around on foot and fight a beholder with a sharp metal stick. If magic were allowed to be widely-accessible, then the reader wouldn't feel like the protagonist is special and unusual for learning magic, which lowers the appeal of those things. If magic were allowed to be an industrial powerhouse, then you couldn't have giant army battles where 1000 humans run at 1000 orcs with sharp metal sticks. If magic didn't have medieval stasis, then you couldn't go questing for the 10,000-year-old artifact of might from The Ancient Ones that is said to be powerful enough to slay the dark lord. And if magical worlds were safe, you couldn't get to fight bandits every day.

That's why authors aren't going to let any of that happen, and why high-tech worlds tend to be nicer in those respects. It's not that you couldn't design a magical world where everything is great, but rather, that is simply not what people usually read about magic for.

It also might be worth noting that in a pre-industrial society, our modern idea of "progress" is completely foreign, and people don't tend to improve their world relentlessly like we try to do today. The ancient Greeks had a working steam engine, and they didn't really do anything with it.

[Destro2119]

Since fantasy magic is generally designed such that it can preserve a traditional fantasy setting, sure. Essentially, unless the author of any setting is trying to push the boat out pretty far, magic is immediately kneecapped by the fact that the authors are not making science fiction and specifically want the setting not to do any of the things you've described.

If magic were allowed to actually create prosperous societies, then you couldn't have a million dirt-poor farm boys for your Chosen One to hail from. You couldn't have adventures where you walk around on foot and fight a beholder with a sharp metal stick. If magic were allowed to be widely-accessible, then the reader wouldn't feel like the protagonist is special and unusual for learning magic, which lowers the appeal of those things. If magic were allowed to be an industrial powerhouse, then you couldn't have giant army battles where 1000 humans run at 1000 orcs with sharp metal sticks. If magic didn't have medieval stasis, then you couldn't go questing for the 10,000-year-old artifact of might from The Ancient Ones that is said to be powerful enough to slay the dark lord. And if magical worlds were safe, you couldn't get to fight bandits every day.

That's why authors aren't going to let any of that happen, and why high-tech worlds tend to be nicer in those respects. It's not that you couldn't design a magical world where everything is great, but rather, that is simply not what people usually read about magic for.

It also might be worth noting that in a pre-industrial society, our modern idea of "progress" is completely foreign, and people don't tend to improve their world relentlessly like we try to do today. The ancient Greeks had a working steam engine, and they didn't really do anything with it.

So fantasy people are thus naturally inferior to even our medieval societies? Because its a misnomer to assume science was dead in "The Dark Ages" it was alive and well.

[Destro2119]

Tippyverse is an extrapolation of 3.5 rules per RAW. It's not a fictional, wholly-original imagination of what a high-magic society could be like.
It also explicitly excludes epic magic because it becomes way too reality-breaking to make any sense of it.

I think your thesis is too vague to actually engage, since what magic is or can be is not clearly defined.
In the context of RAW D&D, sure, real-life technology is superior, if only because most spells are for combat or at least conflict-related (be it social, stealth or some other form). The designers are not interested in providing a magic system that can lift society to a pseudo-industrial age, because the setting is supposed to be medieval.


For a high-magic concept that rivals sci-fi, look at the Ninth world from Numenera, where the distinction between technology and magic is vague because both can create otherworldy phenomena.

Well real life does not work by RAW so magic does not necessarily start from RAW either otherwise everyone would not be able to see from more than 100 ft away due to perception rules. What about now?

[Gnaeus]

Well then 100000 AK-wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can still beat a magic world, just going from that.

EDIT: Just to clarify, we assume 3.P magic system and classes.

100,000 AK wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can’t beat a single core only Wizard 20. They have no way to kill a wizard Astral Projecting from another plane. And he can pretty easily kill hundreds or thousands per day. When they start getting hit from fireballs launched by invisible caster, they’re gonna what? Spray bullets around in hopes of hitting something they can’t see? Nuke their own base? If they somehow “kill” him he pops back to his body and returns next day with better tailored spells.

If the wizard in question has a higher cheese quotient he can do that at level 11 with a planar bound nightmare.

They also can’t beat a single high level Druid. Control Weather: your base is in a hurricane forever. Aberration wildshape Dharculus. Sit on the ethereal plane in the middle of their base. Kill people hentai style whenever they are alone or asleep. Randomly summon high level monsters to go on murder sprees in command HQ tent or officers mess or the hanger. Yeah, they can kill a 112 hp, DR 15 noble salimander that just popped into a barracks full of sleeping dudes. But I bet they can’t do it before he casts his 3 fireballs. And there will be 2d3+3 more summoned in your base in the middle of the night every day. With Djinni and arrowhawks and earth gliding elementals backing them up. Every ammo dump gets its own fire elemental with orders to burn it all.

There are easily half a dozen nations in the FR alone that could kill 100,000 guys with AKs and jets. They might nuke Thaymount but Szass Tam doesn’t care what kind of mundane weapons you have. Without clerics, it’s just 100,000 shadows or wights. You ever see a zombie movie where military fights zombies? Now imagine if the zombies were intelligent, resistant to normal weapons, stealthy as hell, could see in total darkness, killed and transformed with a touch and were lead by an unkillable super-genius with artillery support. With like vampires and ghosts and other liches as sub officers. That’s not even being meta. Undead wave tactics are his listed strategy of choice. He’ll thank you for the invasion when all his wights have AKs. He also has a nation full of high level wizards who could do all the other stuff if he didn’t feel like pwning the aliens personally. Or if you split your troops or something.

I can keep going. Beguiler 18. Sneak into the base. Replace the top general or their secretary. Drop a couple dozen charms and dominates. Use your unbeatable bluff to explain to high command that the source of magic is in the underdark and all we need to do is send 50,000 men down that hole over there to secure it. Bye Felecia.

Until your “technology” advances to the point where you are genetically engineering high powered mutants and psychics (magic by another name) it isn’t even a contest.

But then it seems you are aware of that:

Yesterday 02:20 PM
Default Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
I have to agree that the PF wizard would win. First off, one man, especially a wizard, is very hard to find, unless (paraphrasing a previous poster) "he is a moron and the Chinese have superhuman skill."

Then you would just employ the standard wizard techniques til the Chinese army is dead.

BTW, remember, the thread is Wizard vs Chinese army on a fair playing field. Putting the wizard on Earth at all is a major aid to the Chinese

[Kazyan]

So fantasy people are thus naturally inferior to even our medieval societies? Because its a misnomer to assume science was dead in "The Dark Ages" it was alive and well.

Careful with your terminology ("X people are thus naturally inferior") there. But people IRL do tend to have a very dim view of the advancement of science in medieval societies, and when they write medieval fantasy, that perception becomes their fiction's reality.

[gijoemike]

Well then 100000 AK-wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can still beat a magic world, just going from that.

EDIT: Just to clarify, we assume 3.P magic system and classes.

I will see those 100,000 AK wielding troops with 1 use of command undead, a 1st level spell, used on a Shadow CR3. Those troops are in serious trouble. 1 shadow played normally will easily kill dozens if not hundreds. When backed with intelligent command from a cleric/wizard commanding 10,000 could be killed by 1. Imagine 3 or 5 shadows now.

Forget CR 3 shadows, move on to full on Ghosts. Now the undead is an intelligent in-wall walking assassin. What mundane non magic thing can hurt incorporeal undead coming up from the ground?

Frankly I find cheesing out incorporeal undead unfair for this exercise. Lets instead throw an invisible stalker at that same army. Lots of ppl start to die when they sleep. Nothing ever appears on the camera or heat sensors. This creature is a blob of air without distinct shape. It also has perfect fly so it doesn't need to get near dogs. A hovering death breeze forever under the effect of invisibility. Or imagine it attacks the 3rd rank of infantry. Now the army will just spray and pray causing 1000s of wounds/deaths from friendly fire.

What about a werewolf.
Does all 100,000 soldiers have silver bullets? Silver blades? An AK does 3d4 damage? A basic werewolf has 10/silver DR. And it has regen. I assume the soldiers would learn quickly and there would be snipers with silver bullets as support. Let's hope the werewolf doesn't get imp invis cast on it. If the rule set were 2e or 5e the werewolf would just kill everyone.

What about scry and fry tactics?
A group of wizard of moderate level would find the leadership of the invading army. Say start with generals and work down to lieutenants. It would be impossible to protect these people from the amount of hate that would just appear out of nowhere. Mundane defenses are built in layers. A single teleport without error bypasses all of it. One cannot lead an invasion or battle if every single person that can give orders is dead.

What about a bard and a few suggestions and charm persons later?
Now you have an entire spy network that can sabotage supply lines. Follow this up with a few dominates and now the army will be killing themselves.

Iron golem?
15/ adamantine DR. Those bullets cannot hurt it at all as golems cannot be crit. Bombs might hurt it. It has over 100 hp.


Those fighter jets cannot carpet bomb and nuke their own cities. What happens when anything mentioned above gets to a city. What about 10 of that thing in a city? What about a group of 10 of those things in 10 different cities? The point here is quality over quantity. A single lvl 15 wizard is easily worth 10,000 troops and magic worlds have horrible things that only magic can defeat.

[gijoemike]

I am not sure how this digressed into a war of magic vs fully mundane. That wasn't the point of the first post.

Destro2119: Your assumption mad in the first post specifically

For example, we know that IRL technology can be industrialized on an incredible scale. I have yet to see magic becoming industrialized as even a possibility in any DnD system, let alone setting. Plus, the fact that crafting feats or abilities are required leads me to conclude that it is simply impossible to industrialize magic. Tech 1, Magic 0.

Is flat wrong. Forgotten Realms is set after a great apocalypse around year 13XX. In the 600's there were magical mythals set in all the major cities that allowed everyone to do insane wondrous things. This included free dimension doors, free healing cuts broken bones, minor creation abilities, minor repair abilities, removal of disease, feather fall after 6 feet, magical lights everywhere, massive city wide defense systems, and much more. And all major cities had teleportation circles to other major cities. Travel was instant and safe. At this time there were magical floating sky cities and underwater paradises.

Then horrible war broke out some jack ass sucked up too much magic and the deities fell from the sky and everything went bottom up. Whole cities fell from the sky and other cities drowned.

But in a published & still supported D&D setting magic was wide spread and industrialized. But the setting and expectation of when the Players will play is set after all that.

[Destro2119]

100,000 AK wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can’t beat a single core only Wizard 20. They have no way to kill a wizard Astral Projecting from another plane. And he can pretty easily kill hundreds or thousands per day. When they start getting hit from fireballs launched by invisible caster, they’re gonna what? Spray bullets around in hopes of hitting something they can’t see? Nuke their own base? If they somehow “kill” him he pops back to his body and returns next day with better tailored spells.

If the wizard in question has a higher cheese quotient he can do that at level 11 with a planar bound nightmare.

They also can’t beat a single high level Druid. Control Weather: your base is in a hurricane forever. Aberration wildshape Dharculus. Sit on the ethereal plane in the middle of their base. Kill people hentai style whenever they are alone or asleep. Randomly summon high level monsters to go on murder sprees in command HQ tent or officers mess or the hanger. Yeah, they can kill a 112 hp, DR 15 noble salimander that just popped into a barracks full of sleeping dudes. But I bet they can’t do it before he casts his 3 fireballs. And there will be 2d3+3 more summoned in your base in the middle of the night every day. With Djinni and arrowhawks and earth gliding elementals backing them up. Every ammo dump gets its own fire elemental with orders to burn it all.

There are easily half a dozen nations in the FR alone that could kill 100,000 guys with AKs and jets. They might nuke Thaymount but Szass Tam doesn’t care what kind of mundane weapons you have. Without clerics, it’s just 100,000 shadows or wights. You ever see a zombie movie where military fights zombies? Now imagine if the zombies were intelligent, resistant to normal weapons, stealthy as hell, could see in total darkness, killed and transformed with a touch and were lead by an unkillable super-genius with artillery support. With like vampires and ghosts and other liches as sub officers. That’s not even being meta. Undead wave tactics are his listed strategy of choice. He’ll thank you for the invasion when all his wights have AKs. He also has a nation full of high level wizards who could do all the other stuff if he didn’t feel like pwning the aliens personally. Or if you split your troops or something.

I can keep going. Beguiler 18. Sneak into the base. Replace the top general or their secretary. Drop a couple dozen charms and dominates. Use your unbeatable bluff to explain to high command that the source of magic is in the underdark and all we need to do is send 50,000 men down that hole over there to secure it. Bye Felecia.

Until your “technology” advances to the point where you are genetically engineering high powered mutants and psychics (magic by another name) it isn’t even a contest.

But then it seems you are aware of that:

Now the discussion can truly begin

So to step away from militarywank, how would both societies advance in terms of quality of life? A lot of people I have seen say "wizards are selfish and will never help others," but under 3.P rules magic can technically be learned by anyone. I do think that certain objects are better for tech, like lightbulbs (until someone binds a lantern archon) but big stuff, like industrial tech and effects like FTL, etc are far better for magic.

How would you handle this?

PS: In 3.P, in the average fantasy world, it is absolute possible to mass-produce magic according to scientific principles. PM me for more info.

PPS: What class would you use instead of Beguiler if Beguiler were forbidden?

[Jazath]

Apocalypse from the Sky is inferior to nukes. Nukes should also kill an ethereal wizard because its forces disrupt molecules.

Ok, then what would an "equally advanced" magic society look like? Assume both the tech and magical society have 10000 years of advancement from stone age. I bet dollars to donuts that tech world is better place to live and could easily beat magic/fantasy world in a GATE style fight.

From what I can tell the power of magic can reach near unlimited levels. With nukes sure, they cover a whole lot of range and bring out a whole ton of damage. But you could reproduce a nukes effect with simple magic. Not only that a spell can be more controllable then tech assuming your high enough level, magic could even destroy planets with destructive energy, sap the life out of creatures, bring others back to life, can tech bring back people to life? No, It can't. So magic is more powerful than tech. What tech could do magic could do better.
Also, on that subject, no matter how high level you are when using tech, magic is still more potent than tech could ever be. Could you create a war fortress in thin air with tech? Even if you assume your using a replicator from a tv show, you still need OVERWHELMING power to create a large fortress. With magic you do some words and gestures and their you go. While your at it conjure armies from thin air and create magic weapons and you're ready for warfare.

Anyone can use tech, but only some can use magic.


A magic society would not, in my opinion, be "equally advanced" than technology. When a society advances it's either culturally or technologically increasing, all of what I think magical can progress just means that their are unique ways to apply its effects with runes, contingent spells, and permanency to create more efficient and controllable versions of modern appliances.

Why not combine magic and tech? Best of both worlds.

[Gnaeus]

I am not sure how this digressed into a war of magic vs fully mundane. That wasn't the point of the first post.

Destro2119: Your assumption mad in the first post specifically.

Well, first OP started comparing spells to nukes and then he started arguing about 100k guys with AKs being able to take a world with 3.pf magic, although we can see from his post yesterday that he is well aware that they can’t.

The war is more attractive to discuss than the society because even though it is still clear that 3.pf wins, it wins with tippyverse style tricks not commonly seen in play, or with non-rules style extrapolations. Like “fantasy world wins because its ruler has access to superhuman intelligence and wisdom” “what does that do?” “IDK no one has ever seen what a society with superhumanly smart rulers looks like”. Or “what if the the most creative people in the world became immortal?” “IDK, the worlds greatest artists and composers all died after a human lifespan”. Or the fact that magic items last forever make create stuff traps drive post scarcity societies at some point, because the investment creates an unending supply of goods. Which can be used to make more traps all creating resources.

[SquidFighter]

So fantasy people are thus naturally inferior to even our medieval societies? ...

I find it pretty funny to think of fictional things as having "natural" characteristics. I mean, fantasy people can only be as inferior to anything if you write them that way ...


Back on topic : While magic does not prevent technology, it does remove a lot of the need for it.

Take medicine, for example. Why would there be a need to develop medical sciences if there are eternal lasting magic items that can cure any and all (natural) diseases. You don't need a whole lot of them either, one per household maybe ?
Electricity is a good one, why figure out how to make electricity by all kinds of ways, when you can just call it out of thin air ? Or summon a creature made of it ?
In fact, why do you need electricity in the first place ? You can have eternal lasting light and heat with magic items.
Travel ? Planes and cars are cool inventions, but pale in comparison to magical flight or teleportation.

Now, you can go on about the plight of the less fortunate of those fantasy worlds, who maybe couldn't afford the magic. But to then declare technology to be better in that regards supposes that said technology is also available to our less fortunates, which I find highly debatable.

[Bugbear]

For example, we know that IRL technology can be industrialized on an incredible scale. I have yet to see magic becoming industrialized as even a possibility in any DnD system, let alone setting. Plus, the fact that crafting feats or abilities are required leads me to conclude that it is simply impossible to industrialize magic. Tech 1, Magic 0.

Well, first off you really should not just count what you read in books. If you want to say that most, if not all, RPG writers lack imagination: that would be fair enough. Though also that most RPG publishers want to only publish set specific things, and most are against the idea of 'magic tech'.

If we only stick to D&D settings. Spelljammer is close to industrial magic. And you have the Forgotten Realms. Neitheirl, for example, had mythellars and quasimagical items. A quasimagical item was an item that acted as a permanently activated magical item, provided that it remained within range of a mythallar. Quasimagical items were actually created with the common folk in mind, simple creations to assist in the everyday tasks of the middle class. The first such items to enter the markets were roomlights, tiny globes that lit up upon command. Magical provision of running water and plumbing came next. An elf living inside any ancient elven mythal had does of powers and spell effects that effected them daily.

And, I guess if you have to use a d20 system to represent rules....you'd be using d20 Modern, right? So characters living under such rules need crafting feats or abilities.

Another is the accessibility of magic vs. tech. Magic requires magical aptitude in at least a 10 or 11 in a mental stat to become a magewright or a wizard. Meanwhile, even a 9 int or even 7 int commoner can study in a university for some years and get the training to become a engineer or a scientist of particle physics. Plus, it takes a DC 20 UMD check to use a wand, while even babies can use iPads. Tech 2, Magic 0.

Again, using d20 Modern to compare rules vs rules: So D20 Modern does not have the magical aptitude, but you still need a higher then average score to get things done. And you will need lots of skill points and those are tied to high ability scores. To be a D20 Modern engineer takes 30 skill ranks, for example.

Also magic and tech don't compare as even babies can use simple items of either that are made for everyone to use.

The military might of technology vs magic is also considerable. It takes 5 levels for a wizard to hurl a ****ty easy save fireball and he can only do it once per day. Meanwhile, mortars and tanks have shells manufactured by the millions (industry for the win again!) and can easily destroy some bearded fool in bathrobes from miles away. Plus, nukes can destroy cities, which is not even something any spell can even do. I am pretty sure Eberron would lose vs 1930s earth, and even the Tippyverse would be easily conquered by Modern earth. Tech 3, Magic 0.

Well, again comparing to a single 5th level D20 Modern solider with a M79,a single-shot grenade launcher...and d20 wealth rules make it unlikely a 5th level solider could even buy one.

Constructs and magic weapons can be mass made as much as tanks and guns. Many magic places in many magic settings do this.

Well, it should be obvious that magic can destroy a city.

One of the most important points is the overall advancement of society. A purely technological society, as demonstrated by Stellaris and multiple other sources, has the potential to grow and develop over time into an incredibly advanced society that benefits everyone, from the humblest agri-worker to the Presidents, as proven by the Khen-Zai for an in universe example. Meanwhile, the average fantasy land or magical society has nothing but wizards in ivory towers lording it over dirt farming peasants doomed to toil in medieval savagery until the local star novas or something. An example being all of Forgotten Realms. Tech 4, Magic 0.

Note the Forgotten Realms is also an example of a "overall advancement of society".

Finally, high technology realms are much safer than magic realms. The vast majority of magical realms, from Netheril to Azlant, collapse because of some magical apocalypse and never even get the chance to reach intergalactic levels. Meanwhile, the vast majority of technological realms such as Stellaris or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri reach intergalactic levels and usher in eras of peace and plenty. Tech 5, Magic 0.

Well, you might want to check your history...every technological empire has fallen two. It's not like tech empires never fall....sci fi is full of them: The Old Republic or Empire of Star Wars. The Federation of Star Trek. The colonies of Battlestar Glattica.

Also note Spelljammer reaches intergalactic levels.

Again, this is only my surface interpretation of tech's superiority to magic. If anybody wishes to offer arguments to the contrary, I would love to hear them.

When comparing apples to apples, they are the same.

[Destro2119]

Well, first OP started comparing spells to nukes and then he started arguing about 100k guys with AKs being able to take a world with 3.pf magic, although we can see from his post yesterday that he is well aware that they can’t.

The war is more attractive to discuss than the society because even though it is still clear that 3.pf wins, it wins with tippyverse style tricks not commonly seen in play, or with non-rules style extrapolations. Like “fantasy world wins because its ruler has access to superhuman intelligence and wisdom” “what does that do?” “IDK no one has ever seen what a society with superhumanly smart rulers looks like”. Or “what if the the most creative people in the world became immortal?” “IDK, the worlds greatest artists and composers all died after a human lifespan”. Or the fact that magic items last forever make create stuff traps drive post scarcity societies at some point, because the investment creates an unending supply of goods. Which can be used to make more traps all creating resources.

What evidence can you provide that magic items or traps last forever?

Also, what specific evidence can you provide that "it is clear 3.pf" wins?

[Destro2119]

From what I can tell the power of magic can reach near unlimited levels. With nukes sure, they cover a whole lot of range and bring out a whole ton of damage. But you could reproduce a nukes effect with simple magic. Not only that a spell can be more controllable then tech assuming your high enough level, magic could even destroy planets with destructive energy, sap the life out of creatures, bring others back to life, can tech bring back people to life? No, It can't. So magic is more powerful than tech. What tech could do magic could do better.
Also, on that subject, no matter how high level you are when using tech, magic is still more potent than tech could ever be. Could you create a war fortress in thin air with tech? Even if you assume your using a replicator from a tv show, you still need OVERWHELMING power to create a large fortress. With magic you do some words and gestures and their you go. While your at it conjure armies from thin air and create magic weapons and you're ready for warfare.

Anyone can use tech, but only some can use magic.


A magic society would not, in my opinion, be "equally advanced" than technology. When a society advances it's either culturally or technologically increasing, all of what I think magical can progress just means that their are unique ways to apply its effects with runes, contingent spells, and permanency to create more efficient and controllable versions of modern appliances.

Why not combine magic and tech? Best of both worlds.

Tech societies can mass-produce the resources needed to construct a replicator/nukes. You need high level people to do the same with magic. Also, what is this about "combining" magic and tech?

[Gavinfoxx]

They are both two different ways of achieving exactly the same things?? Like seriously, I have a handbook on how to make a full post scarcity society using 3.5 rules, it's not hard, and doesn't require high level casters. The question doesn't make any sense in the first place, neither is superior at the high end. They both do the same. Maybe having both would let you get certain effects earlier?

And why can't you combine both. Have enchanted mecha-golems. Why not? This isn't Arcanum where they don't play nice with one another.

[Destro2119]

Not really. Technology and magic both have advantages. Tech is generally reproducible so anyone can use it. But it relies on external energy sources, and struggles to overcome limitations like conservation of energy. Magic is usually restricted only to the few who can learn it, inherit it, receive it as a blessing, or bargain for it. But it needs no other energy source than itself, and the ability to research new spells means presumptively unlimited potential.

The Wheel of Time's Age of Legends (or late Second Age) is a demonstration of what a society with both high technology and high magic can be like--both for good and for ill. Want was pretty much eliminated, and wealth was trivial to generate, so the only interesting challenges became doing things for humanity. But it was also a deeply stratified society, which was completely comfortable manufacturing fully-sapient engineered beings to do labor for it (the Nym) or using what amounted to indentured servitude (the Aes Sedai and their use of Da'shain Aiel.) It's very possible that you could still end up in a society where there are social classes and incredibly rigid, unbending roles and norms, despite no one dying of preventable illness and crime being essentially unknown.

Alternatively, look at the Chozo from Metroid, especially Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The Chozo are (or were, before they ascended or whatever) a deeply spiritual people who learned how to tap into powers others would consider "magic," including clairvoyance, telepathy, and non-conserved energy sources. Yet they are(/were) also a highly advanced race technologically, who could integrate biological elements into their technology, while also having matter-energy transfer and spatial-modification technology. They're a people who have melded technology and magic into a holistic union, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

So is any of this advancement possible under 3.P? If so, how?

[Gavinfoxx]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...Je09i8KWw/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...-wmYVaheI/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...1cTleQHds/edit

Read these.

[Morty_Jhones]

the anser is simply NO. there both good at diferant things

as for whena tec socity goes to war with a magic one, try reading the darksword set, marget and tracy do a good job of exsploring that very thing in the books.



also look at weapon damage, the standard fire arm does 2d6/2d8 damage or 1d10 by default rules, yes thats lot enough to on average put down any civilian or basic warrior. A Warror Veteran might have the Hp to take it.

BUT

most D&D 3.5 basic foes can take that and LOL, also a suprising amount of monsters have DR against piercing weapons like guns, so they have real trouble doing signifecant damage to them.

throw in a Joker like silver or adamantine DR, Rapid/Fast healing X and guns rapidly fall off in damage potental, espeshaly since by D20 modern rules any enchanted ammo has a straight 50% failer rate when used in rifled weapons , which is any that alows you to add your dex bonuse to attack roles. and you can see why even in a tec world a cross bow might still be your best weapon.

[ezekielraiden]

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?

The Tippyverse is not so much "high magic" as "magic evaluated frankly." It doesn't restrict itself to genre conventions, but exploits advantages where they can be discovered.

Nukes should also kill an ethereal wizard because its forces disrupt molecules.

Why should it? Nukes are physical things. Atoms are physical things. Physical attacks of any kind except things that are explicitly Force effects do not affect ethereal creatures, unless otherwise noted. If you're going to start saying "well a nuke SHOULD count as a Force effect," you're inherently biasing the rules by allowing the tech side to gain new attributes without allowing the magic side to do the same (such as researching an anti-radiation spell, which is a perfectly valid idea--Pathfinder has anti-radiation spells.)

Ok, then what would an "equally advanced" magic society look like? Assume both the tech and magical society have 10000 years of advancement from stone age. I bet dollars to donuts that tech world is better place to live and could easily beat magic/fantasy world in a GATE style fight.

I assume you are going to allow equivalent amounts of ambition and desire to change/fix things?

So, magic has an initial leg up, due to some people being just innately born with power (sorcerers), and even more importantly, some being gifted power from gods or other similar beings. The divine/"gifted" side is especially significant because this allows teaching of magic, and thus can inspire the development of new magic from other sources wanting to imitate, surpass, or simply understand it. Divine magic used intelligently eliminates infant mortality, women dying in childbirth, unclean water, and food preservation.

Such groups will still have an advantage in warfare if they can gather together, and feeding large numbers of people is difficult for low-level clerics (or druids), so you'd still likely see the rise of agriculture and cities. But things would look very different; sewage and sanitation would be easily handled with magic, and druidic assistance in weather control and crop yield enhancement would mean much less labor (and land) would be needed to support any given population size. Cities are thus likely to become larger more quickly than they did on Earth. Doubly so because mid-level spells like stone shape, wall of stone, wall of iron, and transmute mud to rock allow for the creation of sturdy infrastructure without tons of awful, backbreaking labor. A handful of clerics casting wall of stone and stone shape day after day could easily replicate many of the great wonders of the world with far less required labor. Transportation can also be simplified, once infrastructure is available, by employing permanent teleportation circles or gates, but since this requires very high-level casters (17+), it won't happen until after other means of transporation have already been put in place--so roads will still be necessary until it is worthwhile to employ permanent circles or gates.

With the rise of cities, yet disease mitigated and a relative abundance of food and clean water, more city-dwellers can be focused on skilled labor and education. This will permit an accelerated rise of an educated, literate class that can then learn wizard- and archivist-type spells. Since such skills can be learned by anyone who has sufficient Intelligence (remember, most Wizards will never gain a ton of class levels, so it doesn't matter if most of them don't have Int 19; Int 15 is sufficient for the vast majority of "career" Wizards or magewrights). From there, developing magic items that do not require personal magical talent would be enormously valuable, economically; exactly the same impulse that drives a tech-based society to develop new patents would drive a magic-based society to develop new magic items, which (based on the magic item creation rules) can potentially be quite diverse in power and application. Perhaps most importantly on that front, a true specialist in magic item creation can get a ton of crafting-cost reductions if we fully exploit the rules of 3.P, potentially allowing very powerful items. And because a +5 weapon is still a +5 weapon no matter who wields it, it is possible to overcome (some) of the faults of so-called "non-tech" weapons like bows and swords through magic item bonuses.

Even with repeated setbacks as we experienced in the real world (such as the Bronze Age collapse, the Greek Dark Age, the fall of Rome, the fall of the Islamic Golden Age, etc.), yeah, I'd say 10,000 years is PLENTY of time. I could easily see a society that is both pretty dang utopian (communicable disease is nearly gone, hunger and foul water are never a problem, construction costs and time are near-trivial) and yet still has enough pressures and concerns to continue iterating and advancing nonetheless. I mean, imagine Eberron, but with an additional couple of centuries to continue improving things like the Lightning Rail network and other mass-access magical benefits.

Well then 100000 AK-wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can still beat a magic world, just going from that. EDIT: Just to clarify, we assume 3.P magic system and classes.

Why is tech allowed an army, but magic isn't? An army of 100000 wand-wielding peasants backed by gate'd balors and Locate City bombs, for example.

It very much seems to me that you are coming into this argument with an unfair advantage provided to technology, presuming that it always has more population, manpower, and widespread access than magic could ever replicate. That doesn't seem to make sense, given that magic is best at defeating things that it took technology 95% of the time you allotted to actually fight or even find: famine, toxins, disease, and injury. Remove those (especially for infants and pregnant mothers), and you get the vast majority of the improvements to the human condition provided by technology.

Remember, we only discovered the real cause of disease very recently. Until the late 1600s, no one even knew bacteria existed, and it took another two centuries for the germ theory of disease to overtake the miasma theory. It wasn't until Pasteur and Lister (mid-1800s) that we started learning how to prevent disease purely technologically, and it wasn't until 1928 that we discovered penicillin and antibiotics. Vaccination was known for centuries, but no one knew how it worked, they just knew that it worked: expose people to cowpox (a very benign illness), and they (probably) won't die of smallpox later. We've made tremendous progress in the past two to three centuries, but we're also running into real walls as we do (consider the treatment of cancer--trivial to magic, but impossible to our current medicine--or the problems of combustive pollution, deforestation, and the looming energy crisis when fossil fuels start to run out). Even in our most purely scientific things like physics, we're running into extremely difficult problems, like how to unify relativity (and thus gravity and the "large scale" of the universe) with quantum theory (and thus all other forces and the smallest scale effects and objects), or how to safely perform genetic engineering to treat disease and modify organisms.

Magic, in many ways, gets a head start because it just works, and because it can be provided to humans without the need to experiment (via faith in deities, pacts with powerful beings, innate magic in one's blood, reverence of nature, etc.) Having a head start, and having most of these benefits be accessible very quickly: purify food and drink and create water are cantrips, abstemiousness and goodberry are 1st level spells, create food and water and remove disease are 3rd level, etc., and these are just the BEST spells for the purpose, not the only ones. But just because there's no NEED to experiment doesn't mean people won't WANT to, as has been the case since time immemorial. Especially when many more people will definitely have their daily food and water needs met, so they can look beyond basal needs and start working on self-actualization.

[AvatarVecna]

The fact that high-fantasy fiction as a rule avoids looking too different from Tolkien isn't a limitation on the possibilities of magic, but of the willingness of the reader's ability to accept it as fantasy instead of sci-fi. Generally the in-universe explanation is that what magic forces exist could perhaps take over the masses without much issue, but they are opposed by equally-powerful magical forces that defend against such things. This balancing act of the truly powerful figures is what maintains the status quo, and breaking it is simply a matter of growing more powerful than them yourself. A magic society that isn't constantly at each other's throats would almost by necessity require an entity so powerful that it cannot be opposed even by other powerful magical entities - and such a being could very well force cooperation, with the aim of improving society using the ultimate phenomenal cosmic power that can result from raising up those most in need.

This is also to the benefit of the cosmic being, for while they can operate at a scale that allows them to take over a planet, they would still need to worry about similar beings such as themselves taking over the same planet in another dimension. Thus, it is in the best interest on this powerful magical entity - even if they're the spitting image of selfish narcissistic Neutral Evil - to upgrade their helpless army of commoner minions into a helpless army of god wizard minions - if they have the ability to control high-level wizards reliably in small numbers, controlling larger numbers is relatively trivial.

Industrialized magic on a societal level isn't difficult - a commoner 1 who gains a meager amount of XP can level up into whatever class they want. A little bit of early-life attribute boosting, and they can almost certainly become a big name caster. Ideally, this society would generally push people towards wizardry in specific, with those unsuited to wizardry becoming clerics/druids/favored souls/sorcerers, or whatever they like if they're not suited to casting in general. With +5 tomes to all stats before they hit adulthood, though, 19 in 20 people will have at least one mental attribute at 15 or higher before race.

Power-leveling will see them hit 20th inside a couple months at most, and that's assuming there's no epic rules. Assuming epic play isn't a thing, at that point the only purpose XP serves is being turned into magic items and spell components - spells like Wish, which can be used to create magic items in a single round (plus however much time it took to collect the XP for that wish in the first place).

High-level wizards handle the magic item creation, druids handle the creature farms that fuel XP requirements and spell components, and clerics get involved with just about everything as needed, depending on their particular passion. The push towards wizardry taking precedent over the others is because Wizard is the class that can most easily share power. Ten wishes costing 18000 XP each will create 10 blessed books that are filled with literally every wizard spell that exists. This takes about two days worth of 9th lvl slots, as well as however much time it takes that particular wizard to make back the 180k XP it took to create them (which is a whole lot quicker than you'd think, depending on how thorough the creature farms are). So a burgeoning wizard will receive these ten books and will spend a few weeks mastering each one in succession, to make it their own spellbook going forward. The cost for spellbook creation was put entirely on the powerful wizards who could most easily bear it and recover, while wizards just starting out have access to the whole dang subsystem more or less.

(This is more expensive, and more rewarding, for wizards who become rainbow servants - they'll need additional Blessed Books wished into existence for all their extra wizard spells, but carrying around a small personal library will be 100% worth it for full access to the two best lists in the game.)

And yeah, this does end with your starting out wizard having received what amounts to ~2 million gp in charity, but given how easy XP is to get, they'll be powerful archmages before you can blink, pumping out items for next week's baby wizards and selling spells to pay back the government while still living a life of pure luxury. Even if you don't abuse the custom item creation rules to make absolute nonsense, and even if you don't let this society advance into epic, we're essentially talking a society where every single adult reaches 9th lvl spells within 6 months of graduating from childhood - and that's if they're slow! And the sheer number of powerful magic items floating around will be just absurd. This is a society who's standard of living will far outstrip most anything you see in any science-fiction - it's essentially a nation of minor deities.

EDIT: And none of this is touching on even stronger cheese, like actual wish loops, or the sacrifice rules, or custom item shenanigans, or time traveling magic, or literally anything epic. But in short:

Depending on just how hard you're optimizing your magic society, it might look like Star Wars where everybody is a force user, or like the Time Lords from Doctor Who, or like the Qs in Star Trek. At what point do we say "ten thousand years of technological advancement probably can't match that"?

[AntiAuthority]

Depends on who's writing the story.

If we're talking IRL science vs fantasy magic... Well, huh. In terms of sheer destructive power, science wins because nukes and hypothetically more powerful weapons (like an antimatter bomb). Though magic has more versatility, as science (unless something new is discovered that radically changes our understanding of this) dictates that we can never travel faster than the speed of light, while Greater Teleport allows you to teleport to virtually anywhere in the universe in a few moments.

---

If we're talking sci-fi vs high magic... Hm... Well, that's where things get complicated. As that famous quote goes...

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Spoiler: High Magic vs Sci-Fi In A Nutshell

Show

Anyway, if we're including sci-fi vs high magic, it mostly goes back to "whoever writes it." Because after a point, you're going to have magic that can allow people to teleport faster than light, much like you'll have technology that allows you to travel to anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye.

You can enhance your body with magic? Cool, you can also enhance your body with cybernetics/drugs.

You can open portals into other dimensions with magic? Just fire up an interdimensional gate that lets you do the same thing with tech.

Magic allows you to have telepathy? Use genetic engineering to give people that ability or some sort of tech to emulate it.

Magic lets you create constructs? Frankenstein did it with science, androids would also count as constructs, and such with sufficiently advanced tech.

Immortality? Well, magic can slow down the aging process/allowing you to inhabit another body, advances in medicine/copying and uploading the brain to a new body should get the same result.

A magic sword can slice though mundane metal like butter? Cool, this energy sword can do the same thing!

Magic can turn someone into a god-like being? How many science fiction stories involve characters getting incredible, god-like power because of a science experiment? (Like Dr. Manhattan)

After a point, the line between them just becomes really blurry between which is more effective. I suppose the only real difference (depending on the setting) is that technology can be used by virtually anyone, while magic usually requires some form of training/having the ability to use it at all... Then again, you have some settings where literally everyone and their grandmother can use magic, so this is subjective. After a point they can do pretty much the same things, just through different processes.

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As for why magic doesn't really elevate the settings beyond being Medieval... It's not necessarily because magic is inferior or superior in anyway. It's just because the people designing the D&D/PF/whatever settings haven't thought about the worldbuilding implications of magic in a society like that. They were mostly interested in playing games set in stories like those you'd find in Conan the Barbarian, Lord of the Rings, etc. without thinking it out too far, that's the long and short of it. Everything else (well, obviously not for the ones with internally consistent settings, but that should go without saying) is an attempt to explain the designers not paying much attention to the worldbuilding on why the setting isn't radically different from our own world's... And that's ok, I, and people like me, don't care too much about setting implications and how certain things interact with it, I just want to play a game I find fun and I can do that in a setting that makes no sense.

Gary Gygax in particular was against realism being taken seriously in games, but I'm sure there were other designers who felt the opposite way.

When fantasy games are criticized for being “unrealistic” — and by fantasy I certainly mean both imaginary “science fiction” games and heroic fantasy — the sheer magnitude of the misconception absolutely astounds me! How can the critic presume that his or her imagined projection of a non existent world or conjectured future history is any more “real” than another’s? While science fantasy does have some facts and good theories to logically proceed from, so that a semblance of truth can be claimed for those works which attempt to ground themselves on the basis of reality for their future projections, the world of “never-was” has no such shelter. Therefore, the absurdity of a cry for “realism” in a pure fantasy game seems so evident that I am overwhelmed when such confronts me. Yet, there are those persistent few who keep demanding it.

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Though if I'm being brutally honest, I imagine such a world would look more like Magitech or something, where the two become one. Fireballs are now mass produced and easily portable, constructs would be doing most of the mass production as they don't (usually) require maintenance/upkeep and magic items would probably be rather widespread but be as mundane as a lighter or a smartphone are to us. The power of magic plus the ease of use of flicking on a lightswitch...

Anyway, this all comes back down to who is writing the thing. You can easily make magic GOAT or you can make science so powerful that it dwarfs magic, or you can have both co-existing at the same level of potency.