Seeing that rifle and hearing stuff about magic at the same time reminds me of one of my favorite anime, Saga of Tanya the Evil. It's basically an odd hybridized version of WW1 and WW2 with magic. Aerial Mages in-universe were deployed by the militaries of the world as shock troops and special forces, using guns as the casting focus of their spells. The MC of the series, Tanya, becomes especially known and feared for her power in combat, earning the nickname of the "Devil of the Rhine". =^x^=
scholagladiatoria Did armor really disappear? I'd say no because even now bulletproof vests, flak vests and all that kind of stuff are still in use today. Police SWAT teams, infantry forces and even private security all make use of body armor.
"A swordsman battled a sorcerer once upon a time. In that age such battles were frequent. A natural antipathy exists between swordsmen and sorcerers, as between cats and small birds, or between rats and men. Usually the swordsman lost, and humanity’s average intelligence rose some trifling fraction. Sometimes the swordsman won, and again the species was improved; for a sorcerer who cannot kill one miserable swordsman is a poor excuse for a sorcerer." ----- Larry Niven, "Not Long Before The End"
@@JustGrowingUp84 He probably said essentially the same thing 'as' Vetinari or somesuch, the same sentiment has appeared more than once in fiction. I can say.. anyway.. that I've never read the cited book, but have seen essentially the same paragraph several times.
Technically, armour is making a comeback. It's not the same armour that Matt is referring to - it's not hardened steel as of old, but composite/ceramic plates in a carrier, but soldiers (as well as police forces) are using body armour once again to protect them against firearms and other sharp melee weapons like knives. So really, armour has only "gone away" for a few decades.
You could make the argument that armor made a resurgence as early as when kevlar was first made in 1965, and flak jackets in WW2. Armor even saw some limited use in WW1. So you could definitely say that armor hasn't really ''gone away'' for very long. But it's definitely declined in popularity and usefulness over the centuries since the early renaissance, when traditional plate/iron armor was effective. Today you need to combine materials to make protective gear effective(except usually for helmets) against modern firearms. But yeah, modern armor is becoming quite effective.
Modern composites aren't magical materials. A vest that protects against knives (that would be the plates in a carrier) sucks against guns and vice versa. The plates in the kind of vest you describe would shatter when they're hit by a bullet. The vests that protect against bullets do not have plates, they have dense fabric from robust fibers that absorb and spread out most of a bullet's energy by deforming and moving against the friction they generate against each other. In these days shrapnel (from grenades, IED, bombs, rockets... i.e. stuff with sharp edges that will cut through the fibers bulletproof vests are made of instead of moving them) causes a lot more injuries among soldiers than bullets do. So shrapnel is what the protective gear issued to soldiers is designed to protect against. Also: Militaries use some pretty nasty ammo. I'm pretty sure the vest needed to protect against a .50 BMG-round would be fare too cumbersome to actually wear in combat. And that's pretty widely used ammo for machine guns and sniper rifles.
Hardened steel is still far superior and more common than ceramic. It's also cheaper and easier to make. Pretty sure the US stopped using ceramic back in 2012. To heavy, to unpredictable, no consistency, to much residual trauma to the body.
@@FeedMeMister the reason for the comeback is because we now have the knowledge to produce steel plates that are capable of stopping any bullet (mostly lol)
I get a giggle at the people getting mad at the other creator, while the two of these guys would/do just nerd out happy as fuck together. I love seeing creators having this much fun doing something they love! you guys both rock.
Great video mate! In my defence though, you've taken me out of, context. I didn’t say swords disappeared when guns were invented. . . To quote myself, I said “How long do you think we used a sword after the gun was invented? longer than you might think, but the better the gun got, the more pointless sword became, to the point where they were phased out of warfare completely.” In reality I explicitly described that swords remained in use after guns were invented, even stating they were used together longer than most people suppose, and were *eventually* phased out of use in warfare when guns developed so much, to the point where swords became redundant. Alrighty, back to the video!
You're handling this way better than I would when someone literally not only misrepresented me, but claimed I said the opposite of what I did. In fact I think you're handling this way better than Matt would if the rolls were reversed, especially after reading his overly emotional and reactionary comments under your honest talk about hema video. Still, good to see you were able to work it out and I hope that you two can work this out. And by that I mean Matt apologise and take measures to fix the lies this video is spreading about what you said, the harm it's doing to your credibility, even though you're clearly not offended by it. I would be.
@@damienrivers3784 Don't need to be so harsh on Matt, it's clearly a simple mistake and has given us a fun video. I've misheard people before, it happens, and will simply correct the misunderstanding in the vid I have coming out.
One thing I love about "swordtube" is the sense of community these response videos engender. I don't know another community where top names will throw out responses and it will be taking in the friendly continuing the conversation way that it is here. We are all just some nerds that love talking about this mess, NO Drama.
Arguably, swords have not been phased out at all, but rather shortened. The use and training, at least for the USMC has much less emphasis but they are still issued. On the battlefield their use is basically zero. Their main use is still hand-to-hand which still comes into play in MOUT or urban operations. The issued Ka-bar knife is also in the same vein.
A series that actually does all that pretty well is Slayers. The main character is a powerful mage... and she spends most of the series' combat fighting off close-combat ambushes with her one-handed sword while trying to create an opening so she can take the time to chant a spell. Her partner can't fight with magic, but he's good at noticing and fighting off these ambushes, and has a magic sword and magic armor, so he can pull his own weight pretty well. And they're always looking for magic swords, armor, and the like, as it gives them huge passive advantages without needing the time for spells, and helps them avoid being killed off by an ambush out of nowhere.
Flatness intensifies xD On a more serious note - totally agree. Long casting times (ideally the bigger effect the longer it takes) and limitations on stamina/mana/spells per day help balance things immensely. Then you can have badass magic user that can bring a castle wall down while having to rely on weapons or resort to simple and not-so-impressive stuff when engaged in melee.
@@randomthegreat2329 Classic D&D does that surprisingly well. My PC (3.5E, Forgotten Realms, double levels so start 15, end 30 rather than 1-15) fights without warding or casting spells when dealing with generic mobs. Cue walking in on a big bad while alone. Suddenly, illusions, curses, spell-breaches and counter-spelling ensue. She'd use these against normal mobs too, but can't afford to due to low number of spell slots per day. She's got just enough for a single big fight.
And then you have Zelgadis, who is impervious to mundane weapons thanks to having a golem/chimera stone skin, so he often fights mundane opponents with just his mundane sword, and wins because why waste magic when you don't need to. And then when fighting demons or wizards, that's when he might use magic. ... and then there's Amelia and her father, who just like punching and kicking things, whether it's a good idea or not xD (usually, it's not)
i think reliability was a factor as well the early guns wasnt often very reliable . if magic in a fantasy world wouldn`t be very reliable this would change much!
@@Mrtheunnameable that is like saying : "if guns weren't reliable then people wouldn't spend time perfecting them" Well it depends. Theyw erent as reliable as swords , but they still helped a lot.
What you guys are forgetting is that magic could exist even before stone age. Like Lord of the Rings where magic permeates everything single thing because the world where literally created with it. If magic exists before civilization exists ranged weapons and stealth would evolve first and not melee weapons.
the real issue was not "firearms" ... the real issue was ammunition. once the self-contained cartridge was developed ... everything else almost immediately became obsolete.
@@wind-upboy939 mmm ... no ... "re-energizing" is not the same as self-contained cartridges. fire arms were always "re-energized." self-contained cartridges made it happen immediately. and for that matter ... detachable magazines made it even faster.
@@eljanrimsa5843 simply because a firearm can defeat any body armour ... you just need to make it powerful enough. and they had powerful enough firearms for centuries ... what they did not have was the ability to maximize that power on the battle field ... because until the self-contained cartridge was developed the reloading process of a firearm made it prohibitive on the battle field. so you fire your one or two shots ... and then use swords etc.
@@grayman7208 Are you a troll? Or do you just like writing "self-contained cartridge"? This video was about ideas one can use while creating fantasy settings. Matt showed aspects, one could use in such a setting; he compared magic with historical technology. That's all. This video is not about, why swords aren't used anymore.
Haven't seen the Shad one so I have no context. I'm here to see how nerdy Matt really is. Evil Wizard: "There is no CONTEXT to hide behind when dealing with magic, swordsman!"
Its quite clear that Shad said exactly the opposite as scholagladiatoria claims he said, and actually both agree that hand weapons and gunpowder coexisted for quite a long time.
Let's also not forget that IF you have wizards using magic in armies..........both sides will most likely have them(since magic would be pretty powerful). That means.......a balancing of power. They'll be so busy counter acting each other, the regular warriors will be free to do what they do, more or less. If a Wizard was to ignore his enemy counterparts, he/she himself would quickly fall victim to the very magic they're using from the enemy. It just ends up being the same strategical situation with different weapons. Just like early firearms and hand held weapons. Now..........if magic became amazingly cheap and easy to use, like firearms, so that you DO have an army of wizards literally, then the knight would be pointless.
Yep that's usually how fantasy battles are described, magic fighting magic and other magic users throwing spells at the other army. It's alot of counter spells and offensive spells, not a place you'd want to be a spectator at..
Another thing here, if not everyone is a proficient sorcerer, and it's not straightforward to just train peasant levies into proficient sorcerers in a few weeks, either because magic is genetically limited, a rare gift from a deity, a result of specific life experience, or simply requires a lot of practice to become proficient with, then we will likely have a battlefield with only small numbers of sorcerers who are certainly more powerful than others but their numbers will be low. Maybe countries with an efficient meritocratic bureaucracy and high literacy rates that can sort through every serf or peasant to scout for potential magic users to train would end up with mostly magical armies while countries without such things would rely mostly on a small core of magic users and vast formations of infantry and cavalry?
A lot depends on just how much of a force multiplier sorcery is, and what the administrative and political downsides of sorcery are. One can easily imagine an authoritarian kingdom (or a willing populace) mandating the wide proliferation of the sorcery gene, the widespread adoption of religious practices that increase the likelihood and intensity of favour from a given deity, or the widespread application of specific life experience. Sorcery could be a reserved right of, and/or key to, the aristocracy; or it could cause you to be shunned for reasons complex and subtle or direct and mundane; or as in our world, some middle ground or mixture of both. Depending on the answer, there could be some interesting battleship-esque dynamics of "too valuable to lose/risk in the field", or social stratification, or checks and balances, etc. "Sorcery" is such a wide open category that, like most things, the answers to our question rely almost entirely on the specifics such as our pre-existing preferences and the exact nature and state of magic in the world.
The Dread Emporer wears plate Armor making casting magic hard to impossible BUT he Carries Magic Wands in holsters and has the speed to slaughter thousands with just his magic wands
I'm with Xandercorp here, whether levied armies make any sense depends on how much of a force multiplier magic is. I mean, we have martial arts movies where the only magic is superhuman physical attributes but a single master martial artist can DESTROY an army of normally proficient soldiers. The Kamehameha blast in DBZ can destroy a fleet of ships or spacecraft. Why would a nation or an empire waste its time and resources turning farmers into moderately proficient soldiers, when it could pack all those resources into training a few master fighters capable of leveling whole armies? If, on the other hand, it's more like D&D where it takes years or decades to master powerful magic and your casters are still limited, then it makes sense to combine soldier numbers with sorcery, because soldiers without sorcerers will be vulnerable to magic, and sorcerers can't combat the numbers of a levied army.
You forget that a lot of magic systems have more simpler spells, in Sapkowski's Witcher they use magic to soothe pain for instance, you could potentially train fairly large numbers of magic users but they're probably not going to be able to summon a storm or throw fireballs around like it's nothing, but they might be able to use magic in other more mundane ways, if you have a proper ''modern'' standing army surgeons and medics with some level of magical ability and access to perhaps some sort of healing magic is something you'd definitely want, as the lack of medical knowledge (namely antibiotics, painkillers etc.) could be somewhat offset by various types of healing magic. Perhaps train is the wrong word, but you could and probably would want to employ as many people like that as you could.
Compared to people who can actually use guns, and swords effectively now? I mean, you just described the tactical training of most of the people in the comments. It doesn't matter how hard you miss. The assumption here is that Sorcery takes longer to master than Swords.
I like to think that mages on a battlefield would be like fighter planes. Sure, they could do a lot of damage against ground troops, but they are there mainly to counter the enemy fighter planes/mages.
Also, depending on the magic system, there would be magic objects that knights could use to counter magic. Plus if your magic spells aren't fast-acting, you would be screwed at short range anyway. A series that actually does all that pretty well is Slayers. The main character is a powerful mage... and she spends most of the series' combat fighting close-combat ambushes while trying to create an opening so she can take the time to use a spell (she has to say an enchantment for the decent ones). And she's always looking for magic swords, armor, and the like.
Not to mention that a mage that's going all out on the masses of troops becomes an easy target for a snipe attempt. Sure maybe they'd be able to defend against an arrow barrage if they were paying attention, but if their focused... well... the story may be different.
@@Jeff55369 A snipe attempt or a close-range attack. Maybe a lot of warfare would be trying to get your light cavalry to attack the mages at close range without being perceived by them... much like in our world with artillery.
One thing I love about "swordtube" is the sense of community these response videos engender. I don't know another community where top names will throw out responses and it will be taking in the friendly continuing the conversation way that it is here. We are all just some nerds that love talking about this mess, NO Drama.
@@tianshee Nah I'm sure that wasn't intentional, Matt was very polite in his video. This is the great thing about swordtube. While other parts of UA-cam bicker, we mastered the blade
Fun fact: the 1st-level wizard spell _magic missile_ is, in fact, unerring; it always strikes its designated targets. The real limit is that it's a fairly weak spell, especially over time (i.e. it gets better, the greater your skill with magic is, but that's it; it doesn't get tremendous), so it's typical for such characters to opt for some more beefy spells, but those can err - either because their damage type can be resisted, their area or type of effect somehow avoided, or simply because those spells require the wizard makes an attack roll.
Think my Casters were doing 60HP damage per magic middle at one point but the party tactic was to treat Magic as "softening blows" along with crossbows,bows,slings,staff sling grenades before closing into mele to mop up the survivors
If you're playing Baldurs Gate 2 and combine the Robe of Vecna (reduces cast time - so Magic missile becomes instant) and combine that with Improved Alacrity (removes 1 spell/round limit) you can literally blast off 1 Magic Missile (or fireball!) per frame, basically firing all of your magic missiles in under a second. Casting 5 magic missiles in this way is 25 D4 + 25 Damage, for an average of 87.5 damage that's very hard to mitigate. While this is in no way the most efficient use of improved alacrity, it's still one of my favourites!
This, and the three comments below, are all contingent upon ONE magic system; there are others. The point is that a spell-caster, including warlocks, can do things MOST others can not. Points to ponder: what effect would that have on a society, warfare, and general behavior. (Slightly related is the proliferation of magic items, but that's a topic for another time.)
As new rule I had armor And shields absorb mm damage as well. It would damage non-magical shields and armor as well. Magical armor and shields could roll a save To avoid damage.
Unsounded limits its magic well, I think, while still keeping it a central force in the world: 1. Wrights(mages) can't conjure something from nothing- They manipulate aspects of reality found in the environment, including in storage. 2. They need to explicitly speak what they need the spell to do, describing distances, vectors, target materials and preferably materials in the way. 3. It's not easy to learn, and not many people become good enough at multitasking, quick thinking, spatial awareness etc to be real battlewrights. Other wrights who fight learn a few simple spells but aren't very flexible in that. 4. There are materials that disrupt spells, and enchanted items are made of them. 5. Take too much aspect or keep it too long, and it will instantiate while still in your palm ports, with gruesome results. 6. Heavier or imprecise spells increase local agitation. The higher the agitation, the harder casting becomes. When it becomes bad enough the next spell could unmake the wright or spill weirdness over the whole area.
I have read Unsounded, loved it. Glad you mentioned it, it has realy interesting magic system. Also the use of the undead was quite unique. Greetings from Poland.
Reminds me a little of a the video game Torchlight where you could play a guy dual-wielding a wand and handgonne for range attacks, then switch to sword hatchet for melee, all while knowing that you have all of your arms and armor socketed to the nines with "ember" gemstones for extra elemental damage and/or reduction.
@@texasbeast239 I impulsively want to point and call you a nerd for that, but I've been playing Grim Dawn and Kingdom Come, so I can't pretend like I have some kind of high ground...
The real problems are not the damage dealing spells. A good enchanter made a whole battle obsolet ("Aah, my good friend, let us made a treaty of peace!"), a illusionist also ("they have far more troops then we expected"), a conjurer summons creatures from other planes, that singlehandly made more damage than a whole platoon, a scryer made the formations of the enemys and the allys visible on the desk of the commander, in combination with communication magic the army reacts more agile and so on. The real battle mage is a supporter! Magic is versatile, so don't use the stupid damage spells and be creative. PS: Sorry, no native speaker
in D&D i disagree cause with spells like fireball, ice storm, meteor shower, hellball etc. you can singlehandly wipe out entire platoons and even armies. pair timestop with some ice storms and fireballs and no army in the world(s) are still alive. Other systems like Das schwarze Auge you need to be creative with magic as indeed, direct damage spells are so mana expensive that you are way better off using something else
Also, a real battle mage is versatile. So, enemy wizards only trained casting fire balls and that's all they do in every battle? Our wizards should summon fire elementals (immune to fire), and equip them with magical weapons enchanted with every element, so even if enemies know some fire protection spells (which they may cast when they see an army of fire elementals coming upon them) they'll be surprised when the elemental's sword strikes them with lightning.
@@Leo.23232 also, it's reasonable to assume that kings would invest in defenses against illusion, mind control, and such (if it were a real or perceived threat). Tricks like these may work against some primitive enemies, but against powerful empires it would be an arms race.
There is something immensely satisfying about just how large they are. Like, you look at them, and you just know, “Yes, this is what I imagined cannons to be when I was six, but this time, they’re REAL!”
That was literally magic vs Technology. In which might high enough technology made one immune to magic and magic cause technology to go wonky and blow up. Which was due to magic bending the laws of nature while technology reinforced those same laws. Great game by the way, using a sword was so much easier then a gun in that especially if you wanted a little bit of magic
@@subject8776 It has been ages since i read the original stories, but for example powerful magic needs rituals, and all that. For example the bad guy wizards are sacrificing virgins on altars that kinda stuff, and it needs long prep work if its something powerful they try to do. Then if magic comes from summoning demons or such its one mistake, and they loose control of the demonic forces. Howard didnt seem to have well established simple rules though
@@subject8776 also it's mostly held in items and a lot of it could just be considered science, like having a needle that has a fast acting paralyzing agent on it. Also it's 100% a soft magic system. Just that mages can't do big things quickly, and even the matirials for simple spells take a quest to find.
The Conan stories are focused on warriors and soldiers, meaning that magic is described from outside; we get little insight into the "mechanics" of it. It tends to spread along some predictable axes, though. One is fast and weak vs. slow and strong. Truly big magic requires rituals, materials, sacrifices, timing, location, and all sorts of things that a warrior can mess up for a poor, hard working wizard. Faster magic is weaker, and often very specific; it'll make you sleepy, confused, sick, or some such thing. It might kill a man, but can be resisted through mental determination and physical resilience. The big magic is always intimately connected to gods, demons, spirits, supernatural monsters, or some such thing; it's religious magic. With smaller magic, the door is sometimes even left open to the possibility that it's not magic, at all, just clever use of science, e.g. poison. I think it's best classified as a hard magic system, as it's clear that certain rules are being followed (even if they're not explained), and it's connected to mythologies that are explained in some detail. When everything goes off the rails, and a monstrous entity of some sort is actually manifesting in the World, it always has a few moments of confusion, and that one vulnerability that Conan relies on: that it can bleed, and, since it can bleed, can be killed. That is, if there's a sword wielding, hard to kill, strong, extremely stubborn, either courageous or insane, beast of a Cimmerian around, which there tends to be. Lucky thing, that. In some ways, it's a good representation of how magic has been perceived historically. For instance, the sources of power are supernatural entities (e.g. gods, spirits, mythological creatures), it can be fought through virtue (courage, resilience, etc.), and "all" religions are assumed to be true, in the sense that the worshipped entities are both real, powerful, and supernatural.
@Boris Simeonov naw, compared to the magic in Conan even that's high magic. Magic is super rare in Conan to the point where the largest show of magic i can remember is a fog cloud to disguise an army... And that was made by a millennia old lich that was the most powerful sorcerer of his time too. Most displays of magic in Conan could be easily explained with a few liberties, down time, and poison. It's mostly smoke and mirrors, (poison mixed into the fog that does xyz), and almost no sparky sparky boom i don't recall a single fireball from any of the short stories. It's the difference between old superstition and modern Harry Potter magic.
I read an amazing discussion on D&D magic and the logical reasons why magic users would be limited on armour use. Essentially: Every spell comes with residue, unspent mana, like gunsmoke from a musket barrel. This is why spellcraft can detect lingering spell effects, because the conversion is imperfect and leaves magical residue. Normally this is pretty harmless stuff, it dissipates as smell, or light (octarine coloured maybe, but still light), or as warmth. But sometimes it dissipates into nearby materials. Over a single spell nothing would happen, but over days, weeks, years of using magic your very pores exude the stuff and any gear you wear regularly is affected. It might loosen or tighten the fibres of a cloak, shrink or expand metal plate, make materials slightly harder or softer. Now for fabric this is no problem, you can add or remove patches with a needle and thread in a few minutes even on the road. But something more substantial, like a full plate harness, that has tight tolerances and adding a few mil of length to the neck can mean your gorget jams, or maybe the elbow joint shrinks and now you can't bend the arm. Or the whole thing starts to rattle and shift making fine motion nearly impossible. So a new wizard might start with a smart suit, or a fine armour set, and over the years find nothing fits right, so it is easier to just embrace it and wear a big floppy hat (that probably started like a popular style of the time), and a big long robe and cloak (easier to flip and fold and patch that way), rather than waste HOURS of every day modifying clothing and equipment to look nice. Why look nice, you are a wizard. Even for gear, fine blades might mar, but a sturdy club still hits hard regardless of shape.
- SEE EDIT BELOW - As some have pointed out, Shad's video does not promote the misconceptions you talk about here... he acknowledges the coexistence of swords and firearms, but doesn't go into detail because it's beside his point. I wish you had framed this video as adding detail rather than correcting, because this is a bad look. EDIT: Glad you guys corrected this clearly and without drama. Kudos Matt & Shad; this is why we love your videos!
You hit all the points here that must always be made when this comes up. For me, the fact that “battle magic” has become what most people think of as magic since D&D is the real shame. And even D&D, despite coming out of the context of lightning bolts & fireballs taking the place of canons in the Chainmail miniature rules, started out with much less “battle magic” than it has today. Magic in the Matter of Britain, REH’s Conan, & Tolkien’s work-to cite just a few contexts-often provided a real contrast against the arts of Mars rather than just another tool in service to them.
I've always hated "It's magic, I don't HAVE to explain it!" In a world where magic is just an instant do-whatever-without-rules button, there's zero need for wizards in the setting. Wizards are magical PhDs. A good wizard is one who understands the rules better than his peers. It's interesting that the question is "knights vs magic." If magic becomes part of warfare, wouldn't knights learn magic? We could be talking something like D&D's Paladins and Eldritch Knights, or we could be talking about knighted wizards with officers' training on top of their magic knowledge. The latter wouldn't get nearly as much hand-to-hand training, of course, so they probably wouldn't be the stereotypical image of a knight. And this is where I counter the inevitable "what if magical power is something you're born with, and learning just hones it?" I argue that such a society would treat mages like nobility, and probably knight them. This, of course, assuming that society doesn't deem magic evil and mages can't spin their powers as divine blessing.
If magic was real... Then I wouldn't be able to use magic. In fact, my power comes from my very Soul... Kin to what "power" is in Demons' Souls. A manifestation of ones own Will or Desire upon the fabric of the Rifts between realities. Soul Arts... Spiritual Energy... The root of existence beyond the material rift... My own power, not one from this world nor from another.
Shad did not say 'swords disappeared when firearms were invented', he actually said 'how long did we use the sword, after the gun was invented, longer than you might think, but the better the gun got, the more pointless swords became.'... 'to the point they were phased out of warfare completely'. Shad was reasonably accurate imo, swords today are likely very rare. Matt Easton makes it sound like Shad said firearms displaced swords almost immediately.
To the viewers of this channel that hadn't, nor will ever, watch Shad's video on knights and mages, nor his latest video responding to Matt about sticks in warfare: 3:50 Matt:"From the outset, the reason I'm making this video is, Shad made some comments about how swords disappeared when firearms were invented." Shad's quote: (quoted or closely paraphrased) _"Really think about it, how long did we use the sword after the gun was, you know.., invented, _*_longer than you might think,_*_ but the better the gun got, alright.., the more pointless swords became became, to the point where they were phased out of warfare, completely."_
@@povilzem Nah, it's just a small misunderstanding. The only reason I made the comment is because when there is a misunderstanding between two youtubers, the people who only watch one or the other, only know one side's view and thus are very likely to fall for and propagate the misunderstanding further. Giving people easier access to both views is how you stop misunderstandings. Sorry for the text wall, I'm bad at making my point in a small amount of words.
@@My_initials_are_O.G.cuz_I_am Dunno. Not the first one. And this one so far is worst. And i cant see situation at which i would decide to spend time and make a video response and would not have even for a second though (maybe i misheard? OR maybe i just missed smth there). More realistically is that matt wanted to maintain egagement of audience even though he heard shad clear. Still pretty lame, but at least it is.. human, i guess. As alternatives are just... i dont know. But anyway, not the first time and with each time it happens the less conviencing this excuse is.
@@TokarevArtyom People make mistakes all the time, and it's better to assume someone is busy or tired or worn out lately, or something like that, than to assume even the slightest malintent. Playing Devil's advocate for others can be tiring but with the tiny stuff like this, it's better for your wellbeing in the long run.
@@My_initials_are_O.G.cuz_I_am I do it all the time. And i do it both ways. And i make an observation. Pretty much if we look on matts back`n`forth with other YT guys and THEIR back`n`forth with other creators, pattern is not on matts side. Maybe he is just rushing. Maybe he is awlays tiired. But regularity of said mistakes is obvious. And once we take into consideration area of such mistakes... It become less conviecing, that it is just mistakes. Cause, you know, if person just mistakes time after time he would make such mistakes in different areas, wont he? Anyway. Everyone would make up his mind. Hopefully. But i hope matt would be more careful next time and play some devils advocate in his head, before rushing with replies.
honestly if you read some grimoires from the past you would notice that sorcerers and magic practitioners often had swords because of the belief that swords could harm and inflict pain to demons and spirits, witches and necromancers( black magic practitioners) would craft something called a blasting wand for that purpose, but a blasting wand required a long ritual that involved a long knife or a sword by itself. there are some writings in occult books that a good way to rid someone of a curse or illness is to cut the air around the person with a sword in hope to wound the evil spirit to drive it away
i feel like the witcher books make the best use of sourcerers in fantasy. there is a huge toll for magic, it's not pleasant, there are not a lot of them, and they kind of die a lot in battle.. of course there is a transition from a world full of magic, and the world of humans, that's a classic. being a timeline or an invasion or a conjunction of dimensions, doesn't matter, it's made for make it familiar enough to the reader. yep the witcher's setting is kind of my favourite so far. there's a lot of "why should you do that just because you can?".
I've often thought of a having a game where "magic" was basically just science. "Mages" have flamethrowers (and wear asbestos) or make bombs or poison gas (and wear gas masks). They make healing potions. One interesting possibility is that slingers become very powerful with the use of bombs. Also, a lot of the quests and crafting could revolve around gathering the necessary materials for this "magic" ... saltpeter from a bear cave, for example.
That's basically the Alchemist class for Pathfinder, you make bombs, brew potions and make inventions that make your powers stronger. You can absolutely run a low-magic campaign where only Alchemist "magic" is allowed in Pathfinder
If I were a knight in a world where magic exists, I think I'd be looking for some magic swords, and magic armour. Screw being a non magical girl in a magical world, become a paladin?
Aren't paladins / templars anti-magic by nature? As in Dragon Age where the templars drink lyrium to (partially) resist or negate magic. That's a solution.
@@KnightofGascogne it depends on the setting. Holger the Dane had the magic sword Cortana, and most of the other paladins of Charlemagne had their own magic swords.
@@Benjaminy2k Both are good. ofc magic weapons would help a lot vs wizards using magic shields for ex. but anti-magic counter measures must be a thing in a fantasy setting. I just like the Dragon Age setting, I think magic and magic users were well thought of for a world of high magic.
Use magic to imbue armor to make it stronger. Weapons to be more piercing or ignore magic shielding. Use magic to increase speed stength perception and reflexes. In short improve every aspect conventional melee with magic. No support spells. No damage spells. No misile spells. Would be an interesting rpg class.
I enjoyed this video, even though I’m more of a history guy than a fantasy guy. I thought your final point, of wizards being thin on the ground, was the best point you made…saved the best for last. Even in a world where wizards exist, your knightly fellow will have a lot more non-magical bad guys to fight, even if they are orcs. He’ll need cold steel to deal with them.
I really enjoy the conccept of spellswording in fiction. In a forgotten realms book, don't remember which. A mage enchanted a sword on an allied knight. And that was awesome.
I watched both videos. Shad made a quick comment about guns but did say they and swords existed together for longer than many people think. The point was how to balance a magic system without making warriors obsolete. Good points brought up on that account in both videos. Would love to see a video on various historic guns reloading procedures.
Modern militaries STILL use daggers, bayonets, and hand-axes. Guns are complex mechanical devices, and Murphy's Law is in full effect with them. Then throw in the extreme conditions they're exposed to in terms of geography, meteorology, etc. And with urban warfare in close quarters such as house clearing comprising a huge bulk of modern combat, enemies can spring right up in soldiers' faces and render aiming barrels and sending projectiles impractical. Sometimes you just gotta slice and dice, stab and jab.
The statement that gunpowder weapons were used by the Europeans as weapons first or more so than in Asia has a pretty complex history, and certainly isn't accurate historically. There was explosives used for artillery and hand grenades in Song Dynasty China (960-1279), certainly before Europe. The Mongols also made use of Gunpowder explosives before they were used in Europe, in-fact the first gunpowder weapons used in Europe may have been Mongols using explosives when fighting the Hungarians. Guns did take off in Europe, but it's again worth pointing out how adoption and use of firearms varied wildly depending on what time period you are talking about. Just take Japan for example, firearms were quite rare up until the Sengoku period (1467-1615) (although early gunpowder weapons and cannon seemed to exist on Okinawa which was a independent kingdom) Still so, you started the Sengoku period with very few to no firearms in Japan, weapons were then acquired from the Portuguese, and eventually copied. Firearms then became so widespread from copying so rapidly, that for a period of time, there was more firearms in the Japanese home islands than all of Europe.
So if you look at the Cambridge history of war, Vol 2 "War and the Medieval World": Chapter 20, pages 545 to 547, it describes how rock wounds represent the use of stone shooting style fire arms, as you say, from Okinawa, but in Japan from at least 1466. Even in the 16th century, they caused about half as many recorded wounds as the Portuguese derived later fire arms.
@@lachirtel1 Nice find, I'm going to grab a e-book of this and read the specifics. I just figured I would mention too because it's interesting when it comes gunpowder weapons history, and Japan specifically. Someone do correct me If I am wrong here. The Japanese of this time actually spearheaded early modern firearms usage. As I mentioned before even though these were European firearms acquired by the Japanese they produced so many there was more Firearms in Japan than all of Europe. Likewise the scale of combat was unmatched in Europe until the Napoleonic wars, hundreds of years later. At the battle of Sekigahara there was nearly 200,000 men present. Only at the battle of Vienna do we see similar numbers as far as I know. The scale of the civil war in Japan at this time was incredible, saw widespread distribution of guns, and conscripted peasant soldiers in huge numbers. We even evidently see the first use of firearm tactics like fire by rank, where alternating lines of men would shoot then kneel, with the next rank shooting over the kneeling men's heads. This is often associated with 18th century European battlefield tactics but there is evidence this developed independently much earlier in the Sengoku wars.
This is actually a good explanation for why swords and other melee weapons are so prevalent in the Warhammer 40K setting, where the technology level would seem to render such weapons completely useless. The sheer scale of the battles (in the millions of combatants) guarantees that you will never carry enough ammo with you to make it through the entire fight; and no matter how good your artillery and firing line is, it is only a matter of time before the enemy collides with your front line.
Amusingly, if you use D&D specifically as a reference, yes, the spell _magic missile_ specifically creates homing missiles. That aside, I agree with pretty much every point that you made. On the other hand... I think the arbitrary separation of magic and 'mundane' is not necessarily realistic. It depends on how accessible magic is in the setting, which depends greatly on how it is achieved. It would be entirely possible that learning both skill at arms and magic alike would be commonplace among the higher levels of military and society. Spellcasters would be the same as any other military element. If mages were powerful enough that tactics and/or strategy became oriented around them, then countertactics and strategies around putting your own casters in the best position to operate while putting an enemy's in a position where their ability to use their magic effectively is compromised would end up dictating the battlefield and war.
The stormlight archives handles this very well. They have magic swords and armour that while very rare arent especialy arcane. The most powerful magical devices for armies are soulcaster able to turn rocks into grain.
I think an interesting point to make is even if you had godlike wizards in your army there’s nothing stopping the enemy from having an equal tier wizard. So the armies would still need knights to fight it out while the wizards attack and defend each other’s attacks or fight wizard to wizard during the battle. Also, charging time for big attacks would require the wizard to be protected so they can focus on charging up their attack and aren’t having to expend energy or lose focus during that time. I imagine a wizard would be a big target on a battlefield especially at moments where they are vulnerable.
No mention of where the term "bulletproof" comes from? if you have magic in a world, just add a magic residence system. (so evil magic affects someone less if they have religious runes in their armour)
Fun fact : one of the latest bayonet charges occured in 1995, when French peacekeepers with FAMAS had to free up a bridgehead in Sarajevo. The officer who commanded the charge went on to become the Chief of Staff of the french army (Gal Lecointre).
Funny you should mention Star Wars "magic" based on your recent collaborations with IGN. Looking forward to the third installment of that review series.
@@Adam_okaay Yes. tbh I'm wondering how Matt will keep his cool in the 3rd IGN video covering the new trilogy, considering that the lightsaber fights there are absolute garbage compared to the other trilogies. I mean, how can you seriously justify the throne room fight? That's a "try not to laugh" (or facepalm) challenge.
I'd say, magic items (especially magic-resisting ones), teamwork, and tactics. Typically in RPGs Wizards are "glass-cannons", that is they deal a huge amount of damage but can't take a hit. Warriors, like knights, can absorb a lot of damage. Wizards are game-changers in a fantasy combat, but usually they aren't invulnerable, for game balance. In fantasy worlds where wizards aren't so vulnerable (in other words the world isn't balanced like a RPG), I think an author would really need to rethink the world, and especially warfare in that world, to account for it.
I have thought of a couple of things on the subject of KNIGHTS VS. WIZARDS. 1st method - If magic exists then we are in a fantasy setting. That means that you could have Armor and swords/other weapons can be made with other metals than steel which could provide resistance to magical attacks; then also the knight Armor and weapons could be enchanted which could give them the ability to attack and defend against wizard. 2nd method - Wizard's need to chant a spell and if you interrupt the spell by shooting a crossbows or attacking with missile weapons like a slingshot or throwing a knife. That way you could get close to attack with a sword. 3rd method - Vital Energy (English), Qi/Chi (from Chinese), Ki (Japanese) or Prana (Indian) are basically what martial artists which is what knights also practiced. This energy was supposed to give them superior abilities making them stronger, faster, more resilient, even able to use it to attack. If we have magic then there's got to be a balance and this is probably what is more likely a battle energy that allows you to fight Wizard's. Because if we are in a fantasy setting then there are monsters which these knights will fight.
Interestingly, the guys over at Forgotten Weapons have argued that the lever action rifle was, functionally, the world's first assault rifle and, if it had been mass adopted by the 19th century US Army, would have massively changed the face of warfare.
Ian knows his stuff, which is history of firearms technology. Karl is, well, a mediocre competition shooter with a history degree who likes to make inflammatory statements for views. Karl made the assertion based on a shooting stage he made up and assumed that his findings were relevant to WW1/WW2 era warfare. He has also asserted that bolt action rifles are obsolete, despite the fact that virtually every modern military still uses them for sniping.
When I was going through basic training when I joined the army, we got training in use of a rifle with an attached bayonet (both stabbing and bludgeoning). And that was in 2006.
"The bullet has to hit someone to have an effect on them". Not really, a bullet has to hit you to kill you or (physically) injure you. But a bullet passing close by, hitting your cover or the ground around you might make you hesitate, seek or stay in cover or run away.
Bill Mauldin did a cartoon where a GI holds up a bayonet, 'Hey... these can-openers fit on the ends of our rifles!' All Quiet on the Western front suggested that entrenching tools were more commonly used in trench warfare than bayonets.
Magic for Arthur and other stories, comes from being pure of heart, chivialrous and Christian. Arthur and the others fall from grace and lose their magic and die. We see the same story lines in Asia, India, even the bible.
Sure. Sometimes. But in other lore, magic can come from being evil. Or... they called magic evil when they believed it wasn't from God. Mind you, an army beat Israel despite God actually granting divine protection because their foes' chariots were _iron._ And morality was muddy in the ancient world (and arguably still is despite Christianity's best efforts at spin). Different things made you a good or bad person. In ancient Greece, the sin of hubris was claiming you could do something better than a god. Even when you actually could. In Japan, loyalty to family and your ruler was long considered far more virtuous than compassion for the downtrodden.
The excellent Poul Anderson novel The High Crusade, written a long while ago (Edit: 1960, I just checked), answers many of these questions...with a little stretching of it on the knightly behalf. "All they had were these pellet throwing devices, no match for Milords longsword etc. etc."
Melee->guns->magic used in different combinations or "loadouts" would be best for adapting to different combat situations ie: spell+gun or Sword+spell etc
I think overall magic is just far better simply due to its sheer flexibility, all a sword can do at the end of the day is attack and defend against those of similar weapons while a gun can stop anyone with a sword and defend against anyone with a gun. with magic you can make shields that simply reflect bullets or simply be invisible or turn a sword into dust
This video is more about swords vs magic/guns, this doesn't really answer the question of knights vs magic. The first thing that needs to be answered is what is a knight? The answer is obviously a noble warrior that normally rode a horse, wore full armor, and used melee weapons. Now that we have our premise to what a knight is, let's ask two questions, knights vs magic in a one to one dual, and knights vs magic in a battlefield. First, what would a fight between a mage and a knight look like? If the knight is on horse back and at a distance; if magic is high powered, then the mage flies out of melee range and burns the knight. If magic is medium powered, then mage will blast the knight, injuring him before he reaches the mage. The knight will be able to strike the mage with his lance and it's probably a 50/50 on who really wins the dual if anyone does, though the mage does have the advantage. If magic is low powered, then the mage is screwed as his magic won't be able to blast through the armor. If the knight is not on horse back, and in melee with the mage; If magic is high powered, the mage simply stops the knights attack and blasts him. If magic is medium powered, and assuming the mage has good armor of some kind, the mage blasts the knight, if the knight survives the initial attack, he can wound the mage. This is the same thought of who would survive in a close quarters combat, a gun or a sword. The knight can win, but magic has the advantage. If magic is low powered, then mage is doubly screwed as even if he has a sword the knight is way better trained at it. Second, what would a battle look like with magic, and would knights have a place in them? There is a difference between a knight and a common soldier, so the real question is more would there still be cavalry charges? If the magic is high powered, then simply the the battlefield would look like the anime black clover. In other words, there would be no place for people other than mages on the battlefield, like how modern guns and missile weapons rule today's battlefields. If magic is medium powered, there will still be cavalry charges, but, they would be rarely used as if there's to much mud, the mages will have a hay day, and if the day is good, there will be a lot loss on both sides. If magic is low powered, bows and arrows will just take it's place. Magic would be more used as utility and support, still integral for the army, but for logistics reasons. In a world I made up, my knights use permanent enchantments on their armor to proof it against magic. That simple solution makes it so that they must be wealthy, to be a true knight, and they can now do cavalry charges without hesitation as they have nothing to fear. That concludes my thoughts on knights vs magic.
Yep. Bayonets are analogous to spears, though, not swords. Also, the main utility is as a deterrence, to avoid close combat, and, for the last 100+ years, it has worked well enough that bayonets are very rarely used.
@@erikjrn4080 - over the past twenty years most of the combat I and others have seen has been one of two types- long-range engagement where you rarely see the enemy and more or less just fire into where you THINK they are (until you get fed up and call in the BRRRTTT :D ), or so damned close you can insult their mothers under your breath and they'll hear it. You got more of the former in A-stan and the latter in Iraq (holy hell, some of those city streets and alleys in parts of Baghdad and Ramadi were so close you could spit from one side to the other, so engagements sometimes happened at handshake distance, especially clearing blocks), so the desire to avoid close combat was wishful thinking far too often. That being said, I can't think of anyone I know personally who used a bayonet mounted. More than a few who used them- or whatever other edged, bludgeoning, or pokey thing they could get their hands on- in their hands, but I can't think of any time I ever saw or heard of a case where bayonets were fixed to a rifle and used that way.
Beautiful weapon collection. I recall reading about a British infantry unit that was overrun by French cuirassiers at Quarte Bras. They were hit by rain and many of their shots were stopped by the cuirass. US infantry fighting Filipinos around 1899 had a lot of difficulty as I believe the .38 revolver lacked stopping power. Even in 2021 a firearm is not an absolute indication of winning a fight. With a pistol, shot placement is essential to stopping a threat and delivering a disabling shot on a moving target that may be attacking you is much harder than one would think. As an instructor, I've seen people send up puffs of dirt under stress, never hitting their target. Firearms also malfunction at inopportune times due to many factors, including user error. Using hand weapons is still an essential part of training. Using some games that I've played as a reference, I think it took time for a spell to be employed so it might be like a situation where you're using a weapon like a flintlock. I would also think a bow would have a range advantage in most situations.
Gunpowder in Europe actually dates back to the 1200s, with James I the Conqueror of Catalonia-Aragon during the Campaign of Majorca of 1229 AND the conquest of Valencia in 1234. The Sarracen chronicle Kitab Tarih Mayurqa (XIII century chronicle of the reconquista from a sarracen point of view) mentions it.
The problem with this whole topic is that the power of a mage varies completely from each book to the next. Some fantasy stories especially in the context of Video games, have mages who are kind of balanced against other types of fighters, they want all their classes to be viable and do roughly equal damage, even though one is shooting a bow or holding a sharp stick and the other is casting fireballs, teleporting, can fly, or any of a hundred other overpowered abilities. That makes no sense though without video game logic or plot armor. If a story has a mage who could just snap his fingers and instantly kill a whole opposing army, bring down a meteor to flatten half a city, etc, it doesn't make for a good story because then the protagonist has no way to beat him. But such a mage would make large conventional medieval armies just a pointless waste, and to defeat them you might need another such mage, or you try to poison him, kill him in his sleep, or find some other weakness.
yeah, if you think about it, the topic is as wide as fantasy universe building. what is this world? what is this land? how humans live here and what they are capable of? what other elements (monsters, other races) are capable of? how they interact? what magic can and cannot do? every question like this can affect the topic of "mages and warriors". like, simply having magic-resistant monsters in your world justifies hiring a peasant with a pointy stick, let alone a warrior mercenary
There was an animated movie titled "Wizards" (from 1977, so many of you may never have heard of it). There were two brothers, both wizards, one good, one bad. It was set in a world where there had been technology, but that was mostly forgotten (due to nuclear war nearly destroying the world). The end of the movie (spoiler warning in case you haven't seen the movie), the brothers confront each other, and the "good" brother, who says he hasn't practiced magic in a while, says he is going to show his brother a trick their mom showed him when his brother wasn't around. Then he pulls out a gun and shoots the bad brother. A fun movie (you could probably watch it on youtube or some such thing).
Ok, so Matt didn't quote Shad exactly, but in the end they were making two different points. Shad touched on firearms whereas Matt went into depth on firearms.
I am in the USA where guns are readily available and many people carry them for self-defense. Most criminal attacks are up close, surprise and personal. Because the guns are usually concealed and have to be drawn it is difficult to deploy them in a timely manner. Once the gun is deployed shooting someone rarely drops them like in the movies. Where I live a few years ago a female cop was shot in the heart after a routine traffic stop. She still managed to deploy her gun and kill her two assailants. She got backup and survived. In WWII a buddy of mine in basic training saw a military cop empty a 1911 45 into the chest of a drunk sergeant. The sergeant still closed on the MP, picked the MP up over his head, and then the sergeant collapsed. Had the sergeant lasted another second he could have still killed the MP. Most people who carry guns in the USA today also carry defensive knives. Guns have their limitations and most people who carry guns, including soldiers, still carry blades. Body armor is also popular in the USA with police and many gun culture people. Armor penetrating blades are still relevant and carried.
I always think of the line from Alan, the Scottish swordsman in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped" when an old man has a blunderbuss pointed at him: “Powder and your auld hands are but as the snail to the swallow against the bright steel in the hands of Alan....Before your jottering finger could find the trigger, the hilt would dirl on your breast-bane.”
probably one of the most famous and popular novels about swords and swordfights made into countless versions is the Three Musketeers. Which tells you a lot about the relationship between swords and firearms in that setting. If I were a wizard, or if I was a knight going up against a wizard, I would hire as many spearmen as meat shields as I could afford.
The D&D spell magic missile does not miss. It can be blocked from its intended target by a Shield spell, or a Broach of Shielding, or perhaps a few more ways, but other than that it hits inextricably. Probably won't end the fight though. Good video, thanks.
Depends on ending the fight. we're all so used to going up against similar CR level fights but if some rando mugger lvl 1 mugger comes across a 7th level wizard throwing 4d4+4 or even 4d4+8 or hell at that level you could empower it. either way that's one dead NPC. So when you think about it. any moderately experienced party is walking around knowing they can just massacre entire villages if they wanted to.
Probably would, when you consider that each missile causes the same strength of wound as a dagger, can be launched from longbow range, and can find gaps in armor so as to always do its damage. How did knights finish off other knights?
I believe Shad never said swords disappeared when firearms were invented. In fact he pointed out that, regarding how long swords lasted after guns were invented, that it was "longer than you might think".
Hey Matt, did you see Shad's video about muskets versus longbows. Which weapon is better in melee, swords (sabers, medieval swords, two-handed swords, etc.) or muskets?
Yes I saw it today! Generally speaking, a musket and bayonet has a slight advantage over a sword, though it depends a bit on the specific example of each weapon.
@@scholagladiatoriaWhich sword would be best suited to compete with a musket with a bayonet? If you had to design a sword for this use, what properties would it have?
@@hansmeier5617 A zweihander. You can outrange a musket. But better yet, you would use a spear. It all depends on context, yet again. People who were using swords during the time when bayonets were in use did so for a good reason, that a rifle with a bayonet was too big or unweildy. Sailors, cavalrymen. Wearing a sword on your hip all day is much easier than lobbing around a spear. But if you do come into a fight with a bayonet, you have a better chance with a ridiculous thing as a spear or a zweihander. I would pick a longsword against a bayonet any day. But the thing is, wearing a longsword around is not really a good thing in an eviroment where people will probably shoot at me as it gets in the way. People used what they used for a reason. So find out what the soldiers used against bayonets and you will find out your answer.
I like the idea where the more powerful magic is, or the more frequently it used the more dangerous it's to the user. This way instead of restricting magic's abilities you put a lethal cost on it that prevents it from being completely overwhelming. Also you can do creative things, like making each spell require a specific condition/action/mentality to use it, or making the most powerful spells to require many magic users at once and being lethal to all of them afterwards. So, there is a lot of variables which you can use not only for balancing magic, but also for making it more creative and contextual.
I'll add something that it seems hasn't been addressed just yet: Magical mishaps. If a spell fails, does it just fizzle out, or can it have catastrophic results? Rather than making magic something that adheres to the laws of conservation of energy, I think it's more fun to have it do something awful if it "misfires" (like blowing up allies, causing weird mutations, creating a gap in the fabric of reality, etc.). In those cases, a wizard or sorcerer would generally only use magic when absolutely necessary or under highly controlled circumstances (like when performing a spell as a ritual in D&D, for instance). That way the wizard becomes self-limiting and could potentially give a knight a good fighting chance. Or all but the best wizards end up living very short, explosive lives.
The old Warhammer Fantasy setting worked like that, especially in the RPG version. There were no mana pools or spell slots or anything like that, so a wizard could theoretically just keep spamming multiple fireball spells or whatever every minute all day long, but every single time there was always a risk of something bad happening, especially during fights where there wouldn't be time to take precautions. And because of all the Lovecraftian horror elements of the setting, "bad" usually meant _very_ bad...
@@FarseerOfCearath I've heard of a lot of game masters implement this kind of stuff in their games lately. Some modern OSR games tend toward that route as well. It's a cool concept for sure.
Thanks Mat for reminding me of the almost pun that 15th century crewed weapons were crude. The 1866 Winchester is actually a Henry ( same company, but it was called Henry ) I wish I had a 1866 Henry Yellowboy
Why no mention of the Crimean War and American Civil War? The Confederate army initially considered fielding a pike and shot unit, but abandoned the idea.
Shad said the opposite. He said that swords continued to exist after guns were invented and did quite well until the guns improved enough to make them more effective than swords. He said it very briefly, so it is understandable that some people might think that he said guns rapidly replaced swords, but he didn't say that.
Fun fact, when the folks that invented DnD came up with the concept of spell caster while adapting the wargame rules for role playing rules, they based it on artillery, so a mage or a cannon isn't that far fetched of a trope! :D
One of my favorite magic systems is in Tanya the Evil because it addresses the magic question and the gun question by setting it in WW1. The magic is simple stuff on it's own, but can be used quite effectively. Make pullets explode like grenades, see further, human flight, etc Now the reason history ended up much the same in that world is because the geography of their world is literally just ours and because images are not only rare, but require special technology to bring out it's full potential. I don't remember if the show was any good, but I absolutely love the handling of magic in it.
1340 is the first recorded use of cannons (described as "thunders" hurling "iron balls") in the Iberian Peninsula and probably the first in all Europe, during the siege of Algeciras. Some even go as far back as the siege of Niebla in 1262, but I found that reference extremely dubious as it's apparently based on a single mention of "engines" with no further detail.
Another really interesting point: how would firearms hold up against wizards who can basically ignite stuff using their thoughts? One wizard might be enough to sabotage the enemy artillery or explode their powder storage or cause all their muskets to misfire. So a magic system that is sufficiently strong and common might keep a fantasy setting in a sort of Edo state without guns. Mages would be heavily pressed into military service by the ruling class. And they would be encouraged to have lots of children.
Druids using their magic can level fortresses, cause Hurricanes and send locusts the devistate food supplies. Siege Druids can be surprisingly effective.
If they can cause all their weapons to misfire, they could theoretically close several of their throats at once if they choose to carry melee weapons instead.
Fire Emblem basically runs on this: spells are projectiles that might not hit and, even when they do hit, might not kill, and spells have a limited number of uses in most FE games (in Shadows of Valentia, spells have infinite uses, but take some of the user's HP in exchange). And, though it is not common, there are units that can use weapons and magic.
Don't forget that Combat Body Armour (with additional plates to beef it up) is still issued to this day, along with bayonets. I heard just yesterday that the last time (in maybe the seventies) that the last time a Gurkha used a Kukri in anger was against a Chines person on the borders of the Hong Kong was in the sixties.
it does put a light on how weird damage can be in relation to the real world. In both 5e and 3.5 a single missile deals 1d4+1 damage, which is the same as getting stabbed by an above average person, which normally would hospitalize soldier or, if unlucky, in a pinewood box. A 5e 20th level wizard cast *Instant Shank* on 11 people in 6 seconds or magic-stab 136 people before clocking out for the day, quite effective considering the real world's annoying 'gritty reality' recovery rules.
One of the plains Indian tribes fighting the USA, in the 1800’s, had a medicine man who convinced the warriors his medicine/magic could protect the warriors from bullets. Armed with the knowledge that they were bullet proof the tribe were willing to fight a set price battle against an army Calvary regiment. In one of the few classic Calvary charges in American history, the two armies lined up and advanced towards each other. As they advanced the army colonel ordered his men to draw swords and charge. Seeing the swords the Indians knew they’re magic had been betrayed.and they turned and fled. Indian losses were light, but the loss was decisive for that war. The son of Napoleon 3 died in the Zulu wars. When he was abandoned to a platoon sized force of Zulu he first emptied his revolver without hitting anyone, then drawing his sword he charged a group of Zulu warriors on foot and alone. The Zulus were shocked at his courage, the bravest man they had ever encountered. Each wanted partial credit for killing such a brave man, so after he was killed each member of the war band stabbed him in the chest . All wounds in the front, because he never showed his back and constantly charged whoever was closest to him.
Little irresponsible to reference another youtuber and mislead viewers on their actual statements.... especially when used as a premise for the video. Pretty sure you weren't throwing someone else under the bus for the glorification of your own ego, but be a little more cognizant of the words you're putting in other people's mouths.
If I remember right, there was an argument amongst the American top brass after WWII after checking what kinds of wounds were most common in field hospitals. Most concluded that bayonets were less useful than before because so few of the wounded had stab wounds, but some argued that this was because most stab wound casualties didn't survive long enough to make it to the hospital.
Statistics show that even modern handguns require an average of nine rounds to kill if the victim receives medical attention, my guess is that getting cut open with a sword has much worse results. Of course, rifle rounds in contrast almost always kill because of their velocity.
@@moapchan1905 Depends greatly on the severity and nature of the cut. Cuts and stabs are actually quite non-fatal with modern medical treatment unless they specifically damage critical body parts-rapid blood loss from a damaged artery, tears in some of your organs, brain or spinal damage, etc. Bullets create a shockwave effect throughout the flesh that can basically cause parts of the body to explode, and there is basically no part of the human body where those spots are far away enough for that to not be a serious risk of any bullet. That is to say, quite a lot of the body is 'safe' to be cut or stabbed in, whereas there is no safe place to be shot in. A 1-2-inch stab in the intestines will probably be much safer than getting shot. A slit throat or punctured heart or lung, yeah, that might be worse, depending.
It's unfortunate that a great deal of the video is spent arguing against a misheard statement and thus accidentally discrediting Shad (watch Shad's reply to this video, he explains the misunderstanding that schola made), but overall a great discussion video.
The most brutal account of bayonet fighting I've read was from Korea. These two Australians were driving along in a jeep and mortar bombs started landing nearby so the pulled up, grabbed their SMLEs and jumped into the roadside ditch, and there was twenty Chinese soldiers in that ditch. And well two Australians lived to tell the tale.
SHAD DIDN'T SAY SWORDS DISAPEARED WHEN GUNS WERE INVENTED!!! He said the opposite!!! that they stuck around much longer after the gun was invented, much longer than people think! Wow, for someone who talks about context so much I'm literally stunned Matt would misrepresent someone to this degree. Obviously I think this was a mistake, that Matt wouldn't knowingly misrepresent someone, at least I hope not, but for someone who claims to be so reliable in what they say, to get this SO wrong, and inadvertently insult shad's reliability and knowledge, is deplorable. Makes me lose a lot or trust in Matt honestly, unless he fixes this. I hope Matt thinks about how he would react if Shad claimed he said something that was literally the opposite of what he had, making him look like an idiot, to thousands of people, especially on a topic he's reputed for knowing well. Probably rightly infuriated. This is disgusting and Shad deserves and apology.
Wow Matt, i didnt know you were so knowledgeable on fantasy and gaming, was a real treat to hear you speak of forgotten realms and star wars. And also, your point about melee weapons not having an expendable resource, blades will dull, chip, bend, or even break. Either way, the next time i go into battle, i will take my spellbook, assault rifle, and lightsaber. Thanks
Yes and No high Technology aptitude makes you completely immune to magic. Plus magic in that game took stamina so you could end up casting yourself to laying on the ground. Magic was also weakening in that setting, in turn based mode magic kills, go live action mode those bandits with guns Wil murder you while your trying to cast.
@@sykune ya, it was a strange system. Tech was good but until you reached end game areas or found the hidden stuff tech could be dicey. I never armed npcs with bows or firearms. They kept killing each other. That and anmo got used up real quick Still love the idea of the Necromizer.
![Fantasy Should Have Flintlock Firearms [cc]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5n9kHXXyoa4/mqdefault.jpg)
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Seeing that rifle and hearing stuff about magic at the same time reminds me of one of my favorite anime, Saga of Tanya the Evil. It's basically an odd hybridized version of WW1 and WW2 with magic. Aerial Mages in-universe were deployed by the militaries of the world as shock troops and special forces, using guns as the casting focus of their spells. The MC of the series, Tanya, becomes especially known and feared for her power in combat, earning the nickname of the "Devil of the Rhine". =^x^=
Reliability could be a factor as well
after my knowledge leaver action Rifles wasnt very reliable but very fragile ..
scholagladiatoria Did armor really disappear? I'd say no because even now bulletproof vests, flak vests and all that kind of stuff are still in use today. Police SWAT teams, infantry forces and even private security all make use of body armor.
Matt, I've always loved your brigandine - who was the maker? I've been looking off and on for years now...
"A swordsman battled a sorcerer once upon a time.
In that age such battles were frequent. A natural antipathy exists between swordsmen and sorcerers, as between cats and small birds, or between rats and men. Usually the swordsman lost, and humanity’s average intelligence rose some trifling fraction. Sometimes the swordsman won, and again the species was improved; for a sorcerer who cannot kill one miserable swordsman is a poor excuse for a sorcerer."
----- Larry Niven, "Not Long Before The End"
I know that one
Spinny spinny, no more gas
Now the skin goes wrinkly
That's sounds similar to something that Terry Pratchett might have written.
@@JustGrowingUp84 He probably said essentially the same thing 'as' Vetinari or somesuch, the same sentiment has appeared more than once in fiction. I can say.. anyway.. that I've never read the cited book, but have seen essentially the same paragraph several times.
I recognised the quote within the first two sentences. Love Larry Niven's stories.
Technically, armour is making a comeback. It's not the same armour that Matt is referring to - it's not hardened steel as of old, but composite/ceramic plates in a carrier, but soldiers (as well as police forces) are using body armour once again to protect them against firearms and other sharp melee weapons like knives. So really, armour has only "gone away" for a few decades.
You could make the argument that armor made a resurgence as early as when kevlar was first made in 1965, and flak jackets in WW2. Armor even saw some limited use in WW1. So you could definitely say that armor hasn't really ''gone away'' for very long. But it's definitely declined in popularity and usefulness over the centuries since the early renaissance, when traditional plate/iron armor was effective. Today you need to combine materials to make protective gear effective(except usually for helmets) against modern firearms.
But yeah, modern armor is becoming quite effective.
Mobile infantry: *Desire to know more intensifies*
Modern composites aren't magical materials. A vest that protects against knives (that would be the plates in a carrier) sucks against guns and vice versa. The plates in the kind of vest you describe would shatter when they're hit by a bullet. The vests that protect against bullets do not have plates, they have dense fabric from robust fibers that absorb and spread out most of a bullet's energy by deforming and moving against the friction they generate against each other. In these days shrapnel (from grenades, IED, bombs, rockets... i.e. stuff with sharp edges that will cut through the fibers bulletproof vests are made of instead of moving them) causes a lot more injuries among soldiers than bullets do. So shrapnel is what the protective gear issued to soldiers is designed to protect against.
Also: Militaries use some pretty nasty ammo. I'm pretty sure the vest needed to protect against a .50 BMG-round would be fare too cumbersome to actually wear in combat. And that's pretty widely used ammo for machine guns and sniper rifles.
Hardened steel is still far superior and more common than ceramic. It's also cheaper and easier to make. Pretty sure the US stopped using ceramic back in 2012. To heavy, to unpredictable, no consistency, to much residual trauma to the body.
@@FeedMeMister the reason for the comeback is because we now have the knowledge to produce steel plates that are capable of stopping any bullet (mostly lol)
I get a giggle at the people getting mad at the other creator, while the two of these guys would/do just nerd out happy as fuck together. I love seeing creators having this much fun doing something they love! you guys both rock.
Great video mate! In my defence though, you've taken me out of, context. I didn’t say swords disappeared when guns were invented. . .
To quote myself, I said “How long do you think we used a sword after the gun was invented? longer than you might think, but the better the gun got, the more pointless sword became, to the point where they were phased out of warfare completely.”
In reality I explicitly described that swords remained in use after guns were invented, even stating they were used together longer than most people suppose, and were *eventually* phased out of use in warfare when guns developed so much, to the point where swords became redundant.
Alrighty, back to the video!
You're handling this way better than I would when someone literally not only misrepresented me, but claimed I said the opposite of what I did. In fact I think you're handling this way better than Matt would if the rolls were reversed, especially after reading his overly emotional and reactionary comments under your honest talk about hema video. Still, good to see you were able to work it out and I hope that you two can work this out. And by that I mean Matt apologise and take measures to fix the lies this video is spreading about what you said, the harm it's doing to your credibility, even though you're clearly not offended by it. I would be.
@@damienrivers3784 Don't need to be so harsh on Matt, it's clearly a simple mistake and has given us a fun video. I've misheard people before, it happens, and will simply correct the misunderstanding in the vid I have coming out.
One thing I love about "swordtube" is the sense of community these response videos engender. I don't know another community where top names will throw out responses and it will be taking in the friendly continuing the conversation way that it is here. We are all just some nerds that love talking about this mess, NO Drama.
@@damienrivers3784 Matt literally says: “go check out Shad’s video. It’s a great video and inspired me to make this one.”
Arguably, swords have not been phased out at all, but rather shortened. The use and training, at least for the USMC has much less emphasis but they are still issued. On the battlefield their use is basically zero. Their main use is still hand-to-hand which still comes into play in MOUT or urban operations. The issued Ka-bar knife is also in the same vein.
A series that actually does all that pretty well is Slayers. The main character is a powerful mage... and she spends most of the series' combat fighting off close-combat ambushes with her one-handed sword while trying to create an opening so she can take the time to chant a spell. Her partner can't fight with magic, but he's good at noticing and fighting off these ambushes, and has a magic sword and magic armor, so he can pull his own weight pretty well. And they're always looking for magic swords, armor, and the like, as it gives them huge passive advantages without needing the time for spells, and helps them avoid being killed off by an ambush out of nowhere.
Don't forget that time another swordsman stole his badass sword and went all out with it and near outpaced Lina & co :D
Flatness intensifies xD
On a more serious note - totally agree. Long casting times (ideally the bigger effect the longer it takes) and limitations on stamina/mana/spells per day help balance things immensely. Then you can have badass magic user that can bring a castle wall down while having to rely on weapons or resort to simple and not-so-impressive stuff when engaged in melee.
@@randomthegreat2329 Classic D&D does that surprisingly well. My PC (3.5E, Forgotten Realms, double levels so start 15, end 30 rather than 1-15) fights without warding or casting spells when dealing with generic mobs.
Cue walking in on a big bad while alone. Suddenly, illusions, curses, spell-breaches and counter-spelling ensue. She'd use these against normal mobs too, but can't afford to due to low number of spell slots per day. She's got just enough for a single big fight.
oh i love that anime! best DnD est anime out there.
And then you have Zelgadis, who is impervious to mundane weapons thanks to having a golem/chimera stone skin, so he often fights mundane opponents with just his mundane sword, and wins because why waste magic when you don't need to. And then when fighting demons or wizards, that's when he might use magic.
... and then there's Amelia and her father, who just like punching and kicking things, whether it's a good idea or not xD (usually, it's not)
Just to clear some things, Shad said the better guns got the less swords were used. Not that’s swords disappeared when guns were invented
i think reliability was a factor as well the early guns wasnt often very reliable .
if magic in a fantasy world wouldn`t be very reliable this would change much!
If magic weren't reliable then people wouldn't spend time learning to use it.
@@Mrtheunnameable But they used early not reliable revolvers
@@Mrtheunnameable that is like saying : "if guns weren't reliable then people wouldn't spend time perfecting them"
Well it depends.
Theyw erent as reliable as swords , but they still helped a lot.
What you guys are forgetting is that magic could exist even before stone age.
Like Lord of the Rings where magic permeates everything single thing because the world where literally created with it.
If magic exists before civilization exists ranged weapons and stealth would evolve first and not melee weapons.
the real issue was not "firearms" ... the real issue was ammunition.
once the self-contained cartridge was developed ... everything else almost immediately became obsolete.
That's a surprising view. Why do you think so?
Well, that was the point of that video. Matt's "re-energizing" parallels re-loading.
@@wind-upboy939 mmm ... no ... "re-energizing" is not the same as self-contained cartridges.
fire arms were always "re-energized."
self-contained cartridges made it happen immediately.
and for that matter ... detachable magazines made it even faster.
@@eljanrimsa5843 simply because a firearm can defeat any body armour ... you just need to make it powerful enough.
and they had powerful enough firearms for centuries ... what they did not have was the ability to maximize that power on the battle field ... because until the self-contained cartridge was developed the reloading process of a firearm made it prohibitive on the battle field.
so you fire your one or two shots ... and then use swords etc.
@@grayman7208 Are you a troll?
Or do you just like writing "self-contained cartridge"?
This video was about ideas one can use while creating fantasy settings.
Matt showed aspects, one could use in such a setting; he compared magic with historical technology.
That's all.
This video is not about, why swords aren't used anymore.
To be clear, Shad said that as firearms improved, swords were used less and less.
Thank you! Yes this is exactly what I had said.
Japan....
@@mortenjacobsen5673japan, where the gun was favored over the sword as soon as it was introduced?
Haven't seen the Shad one so I have no context. I'm here to see how nerdy Matt really is. Evil Wizard: "There is no CONTEXT to hide behind when dealing with magic, swordsman!"
Its quite clear that Shad said exactly the opposite as scholagladiatoria claims he said, and actually both agree that hand weapons and gunpowder coexisted for quite a long time.
@@redddbaron Shad has already clarified this misinterpretation while forwarding his agreement with Matt on other points.
Let's also not forget that IF you have wizards using magic in armies..........both sides will most likely have them(since magic would be pretty powerful). That means.......a balancing of power. They'll be so busy counter acting each other, the regular warriors will be free to do what they do, more or less. If a Wizard was to ignore his enemy counterparts, he/she himself would quickly fall victim to the very magic they're using from the enemy. It just ends up being the same strategical situation with different weapons. Just like early firearms and hand held weapons. Now..........if magic became amazingly cheap and easy to use, like firearms, so that you DO have an army of wizards literally, then the knight would be pointless.
Yep that's usually how fantasy battles are described, magic fighting magic and other magic users throwing spells at the other army. It's alot of counter spells and offensive spells, not a place you'd want to be a spectator at..
@@kittehgo
I would observe such a war... Only because I can overwrite such a dimension if I must.
Another thing here, if not everyone is a proficient sorcerer, and it's not straightforward to just train peasant levies into proficient sorcerers in a few weeks, either because magic is genetically limited, a rare gift from a deity, a result of specific life experience, or simply requires a lot of practice to become proficient with, then we will likely have a battlefield with only small numbers of sorcerers who are certainly more powerful than others but their numbers will be low. Maybe countries with an efficient meritocratic bureaucracy and high literacy rates that can sort through every serf or peasant to scout for potential magic users to train would end up with mostly magical armies while countries without such things would rely mostly on a small core of magic users and vast formations of infantry and cavalry?
A lot depends on just how much of a force multiplier sorcery is, and what the administrative and political downsides of sorcery are. One can easily imagine an authoritarian kingdom (or a willing populace) mandating the wide proliferation of the sorcery gene, the widespread adoption of religious practices that increase the likelihood and intensity of favour from a given deity, or the widespread application of specific life experience. Sorcery could be a reserved right of, and/or key to, the aristocracy; or it could cause you to be shunned for reasons complex and subtle or direct and mundane; or as in our world, some middle ground or mixture of both. Depending on the answer, there could be some interesting battleship-esque dynamics of "too valuable to lose/risk in the field", or social stratification, or checks and balances, etc. "Sorcery" is such a wide open category that, like most things, the answers to our question rely almost entirely on the specifics such as our pre-existing preferences and the exact nature and state of magic in the world.
The Dread Emporer wears plate Armor making casting magic hard to impossible BUT he Carries Magic Wands in holsters and has the speed to slaughter thousands with just his magic wands
I'm with Xandercorp here, whether levied armies make any sense depends on how much of a force multiplier magic is. I mean, we have martial arts movies where the only magic is superhuman physical attributes but a single master martial artist can DESTROY an army of normally proficient soldiers. The Kamehameha blast in DBZ can destroy a fleet of ships or spacecraft. Why would a nation or an empire waste its time and resources turning farmers into moderately proficient soldiers, when it could pack all those resources into training a few master fighters capable of leveling whole armies?
If, on the other hand, it's more like D&D where it takes years or decades to master powerful magic and your casters are still limited, then it makes sense to combine soldier numbers with sorcery, because soldiers without sorcerers will be vulnerable to magic, and sorcerers can't combat the numbers of a levied army.
You forget that a lot of magic systems have more simpler spells, in Sapkowski's Witcher they use magic to soothe pain for instance, you could potentially train fairly large numbers of magic users but they're probably not going to be able to summon a storm or throw fireballs around like it's nothing, but they might be able to use magic in other more mundane ways, if you have a proper ''modern'' standing army surgeons and medics with some level of magical ability and access to perhaps some sort of healing magic is something you'd definitely want, as the lack of medical knowledge (namely antibiotics, painkillers etc.) could be somewhat offset by various types of healing magic. Perhaps train is the wrong word, but you could and probably would want to employ as many people like that as you could.
Compared to people who can actually use guns, and swords effectively now? I mean, you just described the tactical training of most of the people in the comments. It doesn't matter how hard you miss. The assumption here is that Sorcery takes longer to master than Swords.
I like to think that mages on a battlefield would be like fighter planes. Sure, they could do a lot of damage against ground troops, but they are there mainly to counter the enemy fighter planes/mages.
Also, depending on the magic system, there would be magic objects that knights could use to counter magic. Plus if your magic spells aren't fast-acting, you would be screwed at short range anyway.
A series that actually does all that pretty well is Slayers. The main character is a powerful mage... and she spends most of the series' combat fighting close-combat ambushes while trying to create an opening so she can take the time to use a spell (she has to say an enchantment for the decent ones). And she's always looking for magic swords, armor, and the like.
But the point of gaining air supremacy is so you can then bomb ground targets with impunity (or prevent the enemy doing it to you).
Not to mention that a mage that's going all out on the masses of troops becomes an easy target for a snipe attempt. Sure maybe they'd be able to defend against an arrow barrage if they were paying attention, but if their focused... well... the story may be different.
@@Jeff55369 A snipe attempt or a close-range attack. Maybe a lot of warfare would be trying to get your light cavalry to attack the mages at close range without being perceived by them... much like in our world with artillery.
@@tl8211 Yeah pretty much. Artillery is a good real world example of the role mages would play, assuming mages have the capability of aoe nukes.
There's something so cool looking about wearing a brigandine and wielding a lever action
He looks like a blade character.
One thing I love about "swordtube" is the sense of community these response videos engender. I don't know another community where top names will throw out responses and it will be taking in the friendly continuing the conversation way that it is here. We are all just some nerds that love talking about this mess, NO Drama.
I'm getting passive aggression feeling from Matt towards Shad.
@@tianshee Nah I'm sure that wasn't intentional, Matt was very polite in his video. This is the great thing about swordtube. While other parts of UA-cam bicker, we mastered the blade
Fun fact: the 1st-level wizard spell _magic missile_ is, in fact, unerring; it always strikes its designated targets. The real limit is that it's a fairly weak spell, especially over time (i.e. it gets better, the greater your skill with magic is, but that's it; it doesn't get tremendous), so it's typical for such characters to opt for some more beefy spells, but those can err - either because their damage type can be resisted, their area or type of effect somehow avoided, or simply because those spells require the wizard makes an attack roll.
you beat me to this
Think my Casters were doing 60HP damage per magic middle at one point but the party tactic was to treat Magic as "softening blows" along with crossbows,bows,slings,staff sling grenades before closing into mele to mop up the survivors
If you're playing Baldurs Gate 2 and combine the Robe of Vecna (reduces cast time - so Magic missile becomes instant) and combine that with Improved Alacrity (removes 1 spell/round limit) you can literally blast off 1 Magic Missile (or fireball!) per frame, basically firing all of your magic missiles in under a second. Casting 5 magic missiles in this way is 25 D4 + 25 Damage, for an average of 87.5 damage that's very hard to mitigate.
While this is in no way the most efficient use of improved alacrity, it's still one of my favourites!
This, and the three comments below, are all contingent upon ONE magic system; there are others. The point is that a spell-caster, including warlocks, can do things MOST others can not. Points to ponder: what effect would that have on a society, warfare, and general behavior. (Slightly related is the proliferation of magic items, but that's a topic for another time.)
As new rule I had armor And shields absorb mm damage as well. It would damage non-magical shields and armor as well. Magical armor and shields could roll a save To avoid damage.
Unsounded limits its magic well, I think, while still keeping it a central force in the world:
1. Wrights(mages) can't conjure something from nothing- They manipulate aspects of reality found in the environment, including in storage.
2. They need to explicitly speak what they need the spell to do, describing distances, vectors, target materials and preferably materials in the way.
3. It's not easy to learn, and not many people become good enough at multitasking, quick thinking, spatial awareness etc to be real battlewrights. Other wrights who fight learn a few simple spells but aren't very flexible in that.
4. There are materials that disrupt spells, and enchanted items are made of them.
5. Take too much aspect or keep it too long, and it will instantiate while still in your palm ports, with gruesome results.
6. Heavier or imprecise spells increase local agitation. The higher the agitation, the harder casting becomes. When it becomes bad enough the next spell could unmake the wright or spill weirdness over the whole area.
I have read Unsounded, loved it. Glad you mentioned it, it has realy interesting magic system. Also the use of the undead was quite unique. Greetings from Poland.
I gotta say, Matt looks pretty cool with a gambeson, brigandine, saber and revolver.
Reminds me a little of a the video game Torchlight where you could play a guy dual-wielding a wand and handgonne for range attacks, then switch to sword hatchet for melee, all while knowing that you have all of your arms and armor socketed to the nines with "ember" gemstones for extra elemental damage and/or reduction.
@@texasbeast239 I impulsively want to point and call you a nerd for that, but I've been playing Grim Dawn and Kingdom Come, so I can't pretend like I have some kind of high ground...
The real problems are not the damage dealing spells. A good enchanter made a whole battle obsolet ("Aah, my good friend, let us made a treaty of peace!"), a illusionist also ("they have far more troops then we expected"), a conjurer summons creatures from other planes, that singlehandly made more damage than a whole platoon, a scryer made the formations of the enemys and the allys visible on the desk of the commander, in combination with communication magic the army reacts more agile and so on. The real battle mage is a supporter! Magic is versatile, so don't use the stupid damage spells and be creative.
PS: Sorry, no native speaker
Personally, I prefer Necromancer who reuses fallen soldiers from both sides :p
in D&D i disagree cause with spells like fireball, ice storm, meteor shower, hellball etc. you can singlehandly wipe out entire platoons and even armies. pair timestop with some ice storms and fireballs and no army in the world(s) are still alive.
Other systems like Das schwarze Auge you need to be creative with magic as indeed, direct damage spells are so mana expensive that you are way better off using something else
Also, a real battle mage is versatile. So, enemy wizards only trained casting fire balls and that's all they do in every battle? Our wizards should summon fire elementals (immune to fire), and equip them with magical weapons enchanted with every element, so even if enemies know some fire protection spells (which they may cast when they see an army of fire elementals coming upon them) they'll be surprised when the elemental's sword strikes them with lightning.
you are assuming such magic is possible in the imagined setting, not all settings have magic capable of that
@@Leo.23232 also, it's reasonable to assume that kings would invest in defenses against illusion, mind control, and such (if it were a real or perceived threat). Tricks like these may work against some primitive enemies, but against powerful empires it would be an arms race.
Being a Turk, the frankly offensive size of the Ottoman siege cannons makes me proud
There is something immensely satisfying about just how large they are. Like, you look at them, and you just know, “Yes, this is what I imagined cannons to be when I was six, but this time, they’re REAL!”
@@a_channel2545 You're not wrong XD
There is a game that does that "Knights VS Magic VS Guns" thing quite well. It's called Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.
That was literally magic vs Technology. In which might high enough technology made one immune to magic and magic cause technology to go wonky and blow up. Which was due to magic bending the laws of nature while technology reinforced those same laws. Great game by the way, using a sword was so much easier then a gun in that especially if you wanted a little bit of magic
Molotov Cocktail for the win;). Never go into Blackrock Mountain Clan without 60 plus of them.
@@silverjohn6037 Loot every trashcan!
I like how magic works in Robert Howards stories like Conan series. Its extremely powerful, but has severe limitations as well.
Can you name some examples of it's limitations? I'm not that knowledgable about Conan outside of Conan appearing in Marvel comics nowadays.
@@subject8776 It has been ages since i read the original stories, but for example powerful magic needs rituals, and all that. For example the bad guy wizards are sacrificing virgins on altars that kinda stuff, and it needs long prep work if its something powerful they try to do. Then if magic comes from summoning demons or such its one mistake, and they loose control of the demonic forces. Howard didnt seem to have well established simple rules though
@@subject8776 also it's mostly held in items and a lot of it could just be considered science, like having a needle that has a fast acting paralyzing agent on it. Also it's 100% a soft magic system. Just that mages can't do big things quickly, and even the matirials for simple spells take a quest to find.
The Conan stories are focused on warriors and soldiers, meaning that magic is described from outside; we get little insight into the "mechanics" of it. It tends to spread along some predictable axes, though. One is fast and weak vs. slow and strong. Truly big magic requires rituals, materials, sacrifices, timing, location, and all sorts of things that a warrior can mess up for a poor, hard working wizard. Faster magic is weaker, and often very specific; it'll make you sleepy, confused, sick, or some such thing. It might kill a man, but can be resisted through mental determination and physical resilience. The big magic is always intimately connected to gods, demons, spirits, supernatural monsters, or some such thing; it's religious magic. With smaller magic, the door is sometimes even left open to the possibility that it's not magic, at all, just clever use of science, e.g. poison. I think it's best classified as a hard magic system, as it's clear that certain rules are being followed (even if they're not explained), and it's connected to mythologies that are explained in some detail.
When everything goes off the rails, and a monstrous entity of some sort is actually manifesting in the World, it always has a few moments of confusion, and that one vulnerability that Conan relies on: that it can bleed, and, since it can bleed, can be killed. That is, if there's a sword wielding, hard to kill, strong, extremely stubborn, either courageous or insane, beast of a Cimmerian around, which there tends to be. Lucky thing, that.
In some ways, it's a good representation of how magic has been perceived historically. For instance, the sources of power are supernatural entities (e.g. gods, spirits, mythological creatures), it can be fought through virtue (courage, resilience, etc.), and "all" religions are assumed to be true, in the sense that the worshipped entities are both real, powerful, and supernatural.
@Boris Simeonov naw, compared to the magic in Conan even that's high magic. Magic is super rare in Conan to the point where the largest show of magic i can remember is a fog cloud to disguise an army... And that was made by a millennia old lich that was the most powerful sorcerer of his time too. Most displays of magic in Conan could be easily explained with a few liberties, down time, and poison. It's mostly smoke and mirrors, (poison mixed into the fog that does xyz), and almost no sparky sparky boom i don't recall a single fireball from any of the short stories. It's the difference between old superstition and modern Harry Potter magic.
I read an amazing discussion on D&D magic and the logical reasons why magic users would be limited on armour use.
Essentially: Every spell comes with residue, unspent mana, like gunsmoke from a musket barrel. This is why spellcraft can detect lingering spell effects, because the conversion is imperfect and leaves magical residue.
Normally this is pretty harmless stuff, it dissipates as smell, or light (octarine coloured maybe, but still light), or as warmth. But sometimes it dissipates into nearby materials. Over a single spell nothing would happen, but over days, weeks, years of using magic your very pores exude the stuff and any gear you wear regularly is affected.
It might loosen or tighten the fibres of a cloak, shrink or expand metal plate, make materials slightly harder or softer.
Now for fabric this is no problem, you can add or remove patches with a needle and thread in a few minutes even on the road. But something more substantial, like a full plate harness, that has tight tolerances and adding a few mil of length to the neck can mean your gorget jams, or maybe the elbow joint shrinks and now you can't bend the arm. Or the whole thing starts to rattle and shift making fine motion nearly impossible.
So a new wizard might start with a smart suit, or a fine armour set, and over the years find nothing fits right, so it is easier to just embrace it and wear a big floppy hat (that probably started like a popular style of the time), and a big long robe and cloak (easier to flip and fold and patch that way), rather than waste HOURS of every day modifying clothing and equipment to look nice.
Why look nice, you are a wizard.
Even for gear, fine blades might mar, but a sturdy club still hits hard regardless of shape.
i seem to recall at some point d&d. or something like it(maybe pathfinder).. having worse potential consequences than a spell simply failing
Eldritch Knight: "What do you mean, you need to not use armor?"
- SEE EDIT BELOW - As some have pointed out, Shad's video does not promote the misconceptions you talk about here... he acknowledges the coexistence of swords and firearms, but doesn't go into detail because it's beside his point. I wish you had framed this video as adding detail rather than correcting, because this is a bad look.
EDIT: Glad you guys corrected this clearly and without drama. Kudos Matt & Shad; this is why we love your videos!
Agreed, it's a very bad look, more so because I really like Matt and his content. Hopefully he will correct himself.
You hit all the points here that must always be made when this comes up. For me, the fact that “battle magic” has become what most people think of as magic since D&D is the real shame. And even D&D, despite coming out of the context of lightning bolts & fireballs taking the place of canons in the Chainmail miniature rules, started out with much less “battle magic” than it has today. Magic in the Matter of Britain, REH’s Conan, & Tolkien’s work-to cite just a few contexts-often provided a real contrast against the arts of Mars rather than just another tool in service to them.
I've always hated "It's magic, I don't HAVE to explain it!" In a world where magic is just an instant do-whatever-without-rules button, there's zero need for wizards in the setting. Wizards are magical PhDs. A good wizard is one who understands the rules better than his peers.
It's interesting that the question is "knights vs magic." If magic becomes part of warfare, wouldn't knights learn magic? We could be talking something like D&D's Paladins and Eldritch Knights, or we could be talking about knighted wizards with officers' training on top of their magic knowledge. The latter wouldn't get nearly as much hand-to-hand training, of course, so they probably wouldn't be the stereotypical image of a knight.
And this is where I counter the inevitable "what if magical power is something you're born with, and learning just hones it?" I argue that such a society would treat mages like nobility, and probably knight them. This, of course, assuming that society doesn't deem magic evil and mages can't spin their powers as divine blessing.
Wizard means one who is wise. No more no less.
If magic was real... Then I wouldn't be able to use magic. In fact, my power comes from my very Soul... Kin to what "power" is in Demons' Souls. A manifestation of ones own Will or Desire upon the fabric of the Rifts between realities.
Soul Arts... Spiritual Energy... The root of existence beyond the material rift... My own power, not one from this world nor from another.
Shad did not say 'swords disappeared when firearms were invented', he actually said 'how long did we use the sword, after the gun was invented, longer than you might think, but the better the gun got, the more pointless swords became.'... 'to the point they were phased out of warfare completely'. Shad was reasonably accurate imo, swords today are likely very rare. Matt Easton makes it sound like Shad said firearms displaced swords almost immediately.
To the viewers of this channel that hadn't, nor will ever, watch Shad's video on knights and mages, nor his latest video responding to Matt about sticks in warfare:
3:50
Matt:"From the outset, the reason I'm making this video is, Shad made some comments about how swords disappeared when firearms were invented."
Shad's quote: (quoted or closely paraphrased)
_"Really think about it, how long did we use the sword after the gun was, you know.., invented, _*_longer than you might think,_*_ but the better the gun got, alright.., the more pointless swords became became, to the point where they were phased out of warfare, completely."_
Matt demonstrating supreme integrity here. Very impressed. Expect apology and correction.
@@povilzem
Nah, it's just a small misunderstanding.
The only reason I made the comment is because when there is a misunderstanding between two youtubers, the people who only watch one or the other, only know one side's view and thus are very likely to fall for and propagate the misunderstanding further. Giving people easier access to both views is how you stop misunderstandings.
Sorry for the text wall, I'm bad at making my point in a small amount of words.
@@My_initials_are_O.G.cuz_I_am Dunno. Not the first one. And this one so far is worst. And i cant see situation at which i would decide to spend time and make a video response and would not have even for a second though (maybe i misheard? OR maybe i just missed smth there). More realistically is that matt wanted to maintain egagement of audience even though he heard shad clear. Still pretty lame, but at least it is.. human, i guess. As alternatives are just... i dont know. But anyway, not the first time and with each time it happens the less conviencing this excuse is.
@@TokarevArtyom
People make mistakes all the time, and it's better to assume someone is busy or tired or worn out lately, or something like that, than to assume even the slightest malintent.
Playing Devil's advocate for others can be tiring but with the tiny stuff like this, it's better for your wellbeing in the long run.
@@My_initials_are_O.G.cuz_I_am I do it all the time. And i do it both ways. And i make an observation. Pretty much if we look on matts back`n`forth with other YT guys and THEIR back`n`forth with other creators, pattern is not on matts side. Maybe he is just rushing. Maybe he is awlays tiired. But regularity of said mistakes is obvious. And once we take into consideration area of such mistakes... It become less conviecing, that it is just mistakes. Cause, you know, if person just mistakes time after time he would make such mistakes in different areas, wont he?
Anyway. Everyone would make up his mind. Hopefully. But i hope matt would be more careful next time and play some devils advocate in his head, before rushing with replies.
honestly if you read some grimoires from the past you would notice that sorcerers and magic practitioners often had swords because of the belief that swords could harm and inflict pain to demons and spirits, witches and necromancers( black magic practitioners) would craft something called a blasting wand for that purpose, but a blasting wand required a long ritual that involved a long knife or a sword by itself.
there are some writings in occult books that a good way to rid someone of a curse or illness is to cut the air around the person with a sword in hope to wound the evil spirit to drive it away
i feel like the witcher books make the best use of sourcerers in fantasy. there is a huge toll for magic, it's not pleasant, there are not a lot of them, and they kind of die a lot in battle.. of course there is a transition from a world full of magic, and the world of humans, that's a classic. being a timeline or an invasion or a conjunction of dimensions, doesn't matter, it's made for make it familiar enough to the reader. yep the witcher's setting is kind of my favourite so far. there's a lot of "why should you do that just because you can?".
I've often thought of a having a game where "magic" was basically just science. "Mages" have flamethrowers (and wear asbestos) or make bombs or poison gas (and wear gas masks). They make healing potions. One interesting possibility is that slingers become very powerful with the use of bombs. Also, a lot of the quests and crafting could revolve around gathering the necessary materials for this "magic" ... saltpeter from a bear cave, for example.
Gurps
That's basically the Alchemist class for Pathfinder, you make bombs, brew potions and make inventions that make your powers stronger. You can absolutely run a low-magic campaign where only Alchemist "magic" is allowed in Pathfinder
If I were a knight in a world where magic exists, I think I'd be looking for some magic swords, and magic armour. Screw being a non magical girl in a magical world, become a paladin?
Aren't paladins / templars anti-magic by nature? As in Dragon Age where the templars drink lyrium to (partially) resist or negate magic. That's a solution.
@@KnightofGascogne it depends on the setting. Holger the Dane had the magic sword Cortana, and most of the other paladins of Charlemagne had their own magic swords.
Well that's... cheating or something
@@Benjaminy2k Both are good. ofc magic weapons would help a lot vs wizards using magic shields for ex. but anti-magic counter measures must be a thing in a fantasy setting. I just like the Dragon Age setting, I think magic and magic users were well thought of for a world of high magic.
Use magic to imbue armor to make it stronger. Weapons to be more piercing or ignore magic shielding.
Use magic to increase speed stength perception and reflexes.
In short improve every aspect conventional melee with magic.
No support spells. No damage spells. No misile spells.
Would be an interesting rpg class.
The absolute last thing an infantry soldier wants to hear is, “fix bayonets”… usually means your time on this big rock is somewhat limited.
I enjoyed this video, even though I’m more of a history guy than a fantasy guy. I thought your final point, of wizards being thin on the ground, was the best point you made…saved the best for last. Even in a world where wizards exist, your knightly fellow will have a lot more non-magical bad guys to fight, even if they are orcs. He’ll need cold steel to deal with them.
I really enjoy the conccept of spellswording in fiction. In a forgotten realms book, don't remember which. A mage enchanted a sword on an allied knight. And that was awesome.
Now I want to read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels again.
That might be trending in the opposite direction. Magic on the Disc isn’t really useful and is more destructive to the user then his target.
@@charles2703 Exactly. It comes with a price.
I watched both videos. Shad made a quick comment about guns but did say they and swords existed together for longer than many people think. The point was how to balance a magic system without making warriors obsolete. Good points brought up on that account in both videos. Would love to see a video on various historic guns reloading procedures.
Modern militaries STILL use daggers, bayonets, and hand-axes. Guns are complex mechanical devices, and Murphy's Law is in full effect with them. Then throw in the extreme conditions they're exposed to in terms of geography, meteorology, etc. And with urban warfare in close quarters such as house clearing comprising a huge bulk of modern combat, enemies can spring right up in soldiers' faces and render aiming barrels and sending projectiles impractical. Sometimes you just gotta slice and dice, stab and jab.
Yep and in WW1 it was very common to see hand weapons then rifles in use in the trench, not much room in a trench.
honing the edge of a field shovel is a legit strategy
Anyone who's seen an A10 in action knows what it must be like for a medieval infantryman to face a dragon.
You can tell this one actually is a response video because it's in the title.
I'm reminded of Dr. Light's comment in the old Teen Titans cartoon after he blasted Raven: "Bit of advice; find shorter magic words."
The statement that gunpowder weapons were used by the Europeans as weapons first or more so than in Asia has a pretty complex history, and certainly isn't accurate historically. There was explosives used for artillery and hand grenades in Song Dynasty China (960-1279), certainly before Europe. The Mongols also made use of Gunpowder explosives before they were used in Europe, in-fact the first gunpowder weapons used in Europe may have been Mongols using explosives when fighting the Hungarians. Guns did take off in Europe, but it's again worth pointing out how adoption and use of firearms varied wildly depending on what time period you are talking about. Just take Japan for example, firearms were quite rare up until the Sengoku period (1467-1615) (although early gunpowder weapons and cannon seemed to exist on Okinawa which was a independent kingdom) Still so, you started the Sengoku period with very few to no firearms in Japan, weapons were then acquired from the Portuguese, and eventually copied. Firearms then became so widespread from copying so rapidly, that for a period of time, there was more firearms in the Japanese home islands than all of Europe.
So if you look at the Cambridge history of war, Vol 2 "War and the Medieval World": Chapter 20, pages 545 to 547, it describes how rock wounds represent the use of stone shooting style fire arms, as you say, from Okinawa, but in Japan from at least 1466. Even in the 16th century, they caused about half as many recorded wounds as the Portuguese derived later fire arms.
@@lachirtel1 Nice find, I'm going to grab a e-book of this and read the specifics.
I just figured I would mention too because it's interesting when it comes gunpowder weapons history, and Japan specifically. Someone do correct me If I am wrong here. The Japanese of this time actually spearheaded early modern firearms usage. As I mentioned before even though these were European firearms acquired by the Japanese they produced so many there was more Firearms in Japan than all of Europe. Likewise the scale of combat was unmatched in Europe until the Napoleonic wars, hundreds of years later. At the battle of Sekigahara there was nearly 200,000 men present. Only at the battle of Vienna do we see similar numbers as far as I know. The scale of the civil war in Japan at this time was incredible, saw widespread distribution of guns, and conscripted peasant soldiers in huge numbers. We even evidently see the first use of firearm tactics like fire by rank, where alternating lines of men would shoot then kneel, with the next rank shooting over the kneeling men's heads. This is often associated with 18th century European battlefield tactics but there is evidence this developed independently much earlier in the Sengoku wars.
This is actually a good explanation for why swords and other melee weapons are so prevalent in the Warhammer 40K setting, where the technology level would seem to render such weapons completely useless. The sheer scale of the battles (in the millions of combatants) guarantees that you will never carry enough ammo with you to make it through the entire fight; and no matter how good your artillery and firing line is, it is only a matter of time before the enemy collides with your front line.
Amusingly, if you use D&D specifically as a reference, yes, the spell _magic missile_ specifically creates homing missiles.
That aside, I agree with pretty much every point that you made. On the other hand... I think the arbitrary separation of magic and 'mundane' is not necessarily realistic. It depends on how accessible magic is in the setting, which depends greatly on how it is achieved. It would be entirely possible that learning both skill at arms and magic alike would be commonplace among the higher levels of military and society.
Spellcasters would be the same as any other military element. If mages were powerful enough that tactics and/or strategy became oriented around them, then countertactics and strategies around putting your own casters in the best position to operate while putting an enemy's in a position where their ability to use their magic effectively is compromised would end up dictating the battlefield and war.
The stormlight archives handles this very well.
They have magic swords and armour that while very rare arent especialy arcane.
The most powerful magical devices for armies are soulcaster able to turn rocks into grain.
@@eps200 "It's over Anakin, I have the high ground!"
"What ground?"
I think an interesting point to make is even if you had godlike wizards in your army there’s nothing stopping the enemy from having an equal tier wizard. So the armies would still need knights to fight it out while the wizards attack and defend each other’s attacks or fight wizard to wizard during the battle. Also, charging time for big attacks would require the wizard to be protected so they can focus on charging up their attack and aren’t having to expend energy or lose focus during that time. I imagine a wizard would be a big target on a battlefield especially at moments where they are vulnerable.
What I'm getting from you Matt is that D&D combat with it's hit & miss and spell slots and all that is actually quite realistic. Yes, very good.
I have always thought that magical healing would have a FAR greater impact than any sort of magical offense.
Yeah, if your troops know that if they get spear in stomach and can be healed over night instead of dying soon, that'd change everything completely.
No mention of where the term "bulletproof" comes from?
if you have magic in a world, just add a magic residence system. (so evil magic affects someone less if they have religious runes in their armour)
*resistance, not residence. but maybe if the magic isn't home that day your wizard is just an embarrassed old man in a cool hat
Fun fact : one of the latest bayonet charges occured in 1995, when French peacekeepers with FAMAS had to free up a bridgehead in Sarajevo.
The officer who commanded the charge went on to become the Chief of Staff of the french army (Gal Lecointre).
Funny you should mention Star Wars "magic" based on your recent collaborations with IGN. Looking forward to the third installment of that review series.
Third? The second is out?
@@Adam_okaay Yes. tbh I'm wondering how Matt will keep his cool in the 3rd IGN video covering the new trilogy, considering that the lightsaber fights there are absolute garbage compared to the other trilogies. I mean, how can you seriously justify the throne room fight? That's a "try not to laugh" (or facepalm) challenge.
@@Adam_okaay It's been happening every Friday. Oct 01 for SW eps 4-6, Oct 08 eps 1-3, Oct 15 eps 7-9.
Link for original movies ua-cam.com/video/xJIeXkNyw_8/v-deo.html
Link for prequels ua-cam.com/video/2zEoo5sBzMw/v-deo.html
"Are Magic Missiles homing? Like a Sidewinder?!"
According to D&D, yes. Yes they are.
I'd say, magic items (especially magic-resisting ones), teamwork, and tactics. Typically in RPGs Wizards are "glass-cannons", that is they deal a huge amount of damage but can't take a hit. Warriors, like knights, can absorb a lot of damage. Wizards are game-changers in a fantasy combat, but usually they aren't invulnerable, for game balance.
In fantasy worlds where wizards aren't so vulnerable (in other words the world isn't balanced like a RPG), I think an author would really need to rethink the world, and especially warfare in that world, to account for it.
I have thought of a couple of things on the subject of KNIGHTS VS. WIZARDS.
1st method - If magic exists then we are in a fantasy setting. That means that you could have Armor and swords/other weapons can be made with other metals than steel which could provide resistance to magical attacks; then also the knight Armor and weapons could be enchanted which could give them the ability to attack and defend against wizard.
2nd method - Wizard's need to chant a spell and if you interrupt the spell by shooting a crossbows or attacking with missile weapons like a slingshot or throwing a knife. That way you could get close to attack with a sword.
3rd method - Vital Energy (English), Qi/Chi (from Chinese), Ki (Japanese) or Prana (Indian) are basically what martial artists which is what knights also practiced. This energy was supposed to give them superior abilities making them stronger, faster, more resilient, even able to use it to attack. If we have magic then there's got to be a balance and this is probably what is more likely a battle energy that allows you to fight Wizard's. Because if we are in a fantasy setting then there are monsters which these knights will fight.
Interestingly, the guys over at Forgotten Weapons have argued that the lever action rifle was, functionally, the world's first assault rifle and, if it had been mass adopted by the 19th century US Army, would have massively changed the face of warfare.
Ian knows his stuff, which is history of firearms technology.
Karl is, well, a mediocre competition shooter with a history degree who likes to make inflammatory statements for views.
Karl made the assertion based on a shooting stage he made up and assumed that his findings were relevant to WW1/WW2 era warfare.
He has also asserted that bolt action rifles are obsolete, despite the fact that virtually every modern military still uses them for sniping.
When I was going through basic training when I joined the army, we got training in use of a rifle with an attached bayonet (both stabbing and bludgeoning). And that was in 2006.
"The bullet has to hit someone to have an effect on them". Not really, a bullet has to hit you to kill you or (physically) injure you. But a bullet passing close by, hitting your cover or the ground around you might make you hesitate, seek or stay in cover or run away.
Bill Mauldin did a cartoon where a GI holds up a bayonet, 'Hey... these can-openers fit on the ends of our rifles!'
All Quiet on the Western front suggested that entrenching tools were more commonly used in trench warfare than bayonets.
Magic for Arthur and other stories, comes from being pure of heart, chivialrous and Christian. Arthur and the others fall from grace and lose their magic and die. We see the same story lines in Asia, India, even the bible.
Sure. Sometimes. But in other lore, magic can come from being evil. Or... they called magic evil when they believed it wasn't from God. Mind you, an army beat Israel despite God actually granting divine protection because their foes' chariots were _iron._ And morality was muddy in the ancient world (and arguably still is despite Christianity's best efforts at spin). Different things made you a good or bad person. In ancient Greece, the sin of hubris was claiming you could do something better than a god. Even when you actually could. In Japan, loyalty to family and your ruler was long considered far more virtuous than compassion for the downtrodden.
The excellent Poul Anderson novel The High Crusade, written a long while ago (Edit: 1960, I just checked), answers many of these questions...with a little stretching of it on the knightly behalf. "All they had were these pellet throwing devices, no match for Milords longsword etc. etc."
Melee->guns->magic used in different combinations or "loadouts" would be best for adapting to different combat situations ie: spell+gun or Sword+spell etc
I think overall magic is just far better simply due to its sheer flexibility, all a sword can do at the end of the day is attack and defend against those of similar weapons while a gun can stop anyone with a sword and defend against anyone with a gun. with magic you can make shields that simply reflect bullets or simply be invisible or turn a sword into dust
This video is more about swords vs magic/guns, this doesn't really answer the question of knights vs magic.
The first thing that needs to be answered is what is a knight? The answer is obviously a noble warrior that normally rode a horse, wore full armor, and used melee weapons.
Now that we have our premise to what a knight is, let's ask two questions, knights vs magic in a one to one dual, and knights vs magic in a battlefield.
First, what would a fight between a mage and a knight look like?
If the knight is on horse back and at a distance; if magic is high powered, then the mage flies out of melee range and burns the knight.
If magic is medium powered, then mage will blast the knight, injuring him before he reaches the mage. The knight will be able to strike the mage with his lance and it's probably a 50/50 on who really wins the dual if anyone does, though the mage does have the advantage.
If magic is low powered, then the mage is screwed as his magic won't be able to blast through the armor.
If the knight is not on horse back, and in melee with the mage; If magic is high powered, the mage simply stops the knights attack and blasts him.
If magic is medium powered, and assuming the mage has good armor of some kind, the mage blasts the knight, if the knight survives the initial attack, he can wound the mage. This is the same thought of who would survive in a close quarters combat, a gun or a sword. The knight can win, but magic has the advantage.
If magic is low powered, then mage is doubly screwed as even if he has a sword the knight is way better trained at it.
Second, what would a battle look like with magic, and would knights have a place in them?
There is a difference between a knight and a common soldier, so the real question is more would there still be cavalry charges?
If the magic is high powered, then simply the the battlefield would look like the anime black clover. In other words, there would be no place for people other than mages on the battlefield, like how modern guns and missile weapons rule today's battlefields.
If magic is medium powered, there will still be cavalry charges, but, they would be rarely used as if there's to much mud, the mages will have a hay day, and if the day is good, there will be a lot loss on both sides.
If magic is low powered, bows and arrows will just take it's place. Magic would be more used as utility and support, still integral for the army, but for logistics reasons.
In a world I made up, my knights use permanent enchantments on their armor to proof it against magic. That simple solution makes it so that they must be wealthy, to be a true knight, and they can now do cavalry charges without hesitation as they have nothing to fear.
That concludes my thoughts on knights vs magic.
We still get issued bayonets to this day, and there are soldiers who have used both edged and impact weapons in modern conflicts in the 21st century.
Yep. Bayonets are analogous to spears, though, not swords. Also, the main utility is as a deterrence, to avoid close combat, and, for the last 100+ years, it has worked well enough that bayonets are very rarely used.
@@erikjrn4080 - over the past twenty years most of the combat I and others have seen has been one of two types- long-range engagement where you rarely see the enemy and more or less just fire into where you THINK they are (until you get fed up and call in the BRRRTTT :D ), or so damned close you can insult their mothers under your breath and they'll hear it. You got more of the former in A-stan and the latter in Iraq (holy hell, some of those city streets and alleys in parts of Baghdad and Ramadi were so close you could spit from one side to the other, so engagements sometimes happened at handshake distance, especially clearing blocks), so the desire to avoid close combat was wishful thinking far too often. That being said, I can't think of anyone I know personally who used a bayonet mounted. More than a few who used them- or whatever other edged, bludgeoning, or pokey thing they could get their hands on- in their hands, but I can't think of any time I ever saw or heard of a case where bayonets were fixed to a rifle and used that way.
@@BreandanOCiarrai Thanks for the insight. Glad you made it out of those alleyways!
Beautiful weapon collection. I recall reading about a British infantry unit that was overrun by French cuirassiers at Quarte Bras. They were hit by rain and many of their shots were stopped by the cuirass. US infantry fighting Filipinos around 1899 had a lot of difficulty as I believe the .38 revolver lacked stopping power. Even in 2021 a firearm is not an absolute indication of winning a fight. With a pistol, shot placement is essential to stopping a threat and delivering a disabling shot on a moving target that may be attacking you is much harder than one would think. As an instructor, I've seen people send up puffs of dirt under stress, never hitting their target. Firearms also malfunction at inopportune times due to many factors, including user error. Using hand weapons is still an essential part of training. Using some games that I've played as a reference, I think it took time for a spell to be employed so it might be like a situation where you're using a weapon like a flintlock. I would also think a bow would have a range advantage in most situations.
So what you are saying is.....Gandalf needed a bayonet on his staff
he did have a sword too
He could put a point on top of his staff and use it as a spear?
Gunpowder in Europe actually dates back to the 1200s, with James I the Conqueror of Catalonia-Aragon during the Campaign of Majorca of 1229 AND the conquest of Valencia in 1234. The Sarracen chronicle Kitab Tarih Mayurqa (XIII century chronicle of the reconquista from a sarracen point of view) mentions it.
The problem with this whole topic is that the power of a mage varies completely from each book to the next. Some fantasy stories especially in the context of Video games, have mages who are kind of balanced against other types of fighters, they want all their classes to be viable and do roughly equal damage, even though one is shooting a bow or holding a sharp stick and the other is casting fireballs, teleporting, can fly, or any of a hundred other overpowered abilities. That makes no sense though without video game logic or plot armor.
If a story has a mage who could just snap his fingers and instantly kill a whole opposing army, bring down a meteor to flatten half a city, etc, it doesn't make for a good story because then the protagonist has no way to beat him. But such a mage would make large conventional medieval armies just a pointless waste, and to defeat them you might need another such mage, or you try to poison him, kill him in his sleep, or find some other weakness.
yeah, if you think about it, the topic is as wide as fantasy universe building. what is this world? what is this land? how humans live here and what they are capable of? what other elements (monsters, other races) are capable of? how they interact? what magic can and cannot do?
every question like this can affect the topic of "mages and warriors". like, simply having magic-resistant monsters in your world justifies hiring a peasant with a pointy stick, let alone a warrior mercenary
There was an animated movie titled "Wizards" (from 1977, so many of you may never have heard of it). There were two brothers, both wizards, one good, one bad. It was set in a world where there had been technology, but that was mostly forgotten (due to nuclear war nearly destroying the world). The end of the movie (spoiler warning in case you haven't seen the movie), the brothers confront each other, and the "good" brother, who says he hasn't practiced magic in a while, says he is going to show his brother a trick their mom showed him when his brother wasn't around. Then he pulls out a gun and shoots the bad brother. A fun movie (you could probably watch it on youtube or some such thing).
Ok, so Matt didn't quote Shad exactly, but in the end they were making two different points. Shad touched on firearms whereas Matt went into depth on firearms.
I am in the USA where guns are readily available and many people carry them for self-defense. Most criminal attacks are up close, surprise and personal. Because the guns are usually concealed and have to be drawn it is difficult to deploy them in a timely manner. Once the gun is deployed shooting someone rarely drops them like in the movies. Where I live a few years ago a female cop was shot in the heart after a routine traffic stop. She still managed to deploy her gun and kill her two assailants. She got backup and survived. In WWII a buddy of mine in basic training saw a military cop empty a 1911 45 into the chest of a drunk sergeant. The sergeant still closed on the MP, picked the MP up over his head, and then the sergeant collapsed. Had the sergeant lasted another second he could have still killed the MP. Most people who carry guns in the USA today also carry defensive knives. Guns have their limitations and most people who carry guns, including soldiers, still carry blades. Body armor is also popular in the USA with police and many gun culture people. Armor penetrating blades are still relevant and carried.
I always think of the line from Alan, the Scottish swordsman in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped" when an old man has a blunderbuss pointed at him:
“Powder and your auld hands are but as the snail to the swallow against the bright steel in the hands of Alan....Before your jottering finger could find the trigger, the hilt would dirl on your breast-bane.”
I've always preferred the deconstruction of that trope where the swordsman gets half his dome peeled back.
probably one of the most famous and popular novels about swords and swordfights made into countless versions is the Three Musketeers. Which tells you a lot about the relationship between swords and firearms in that setting.
If I were a wizard, or if I was a knight going up against a wizard, I would hire as many spearmen as meat shields as I could afford.
The D&D spell magic missile does not miss. It can be blocked from its intended target by a Shield spell, or a Broach of Shielding, or perhaps a few more ways, but other than that it hits inextricably. Probably won't end the fight though. Good video, thanks.
Depends on ending the fight. we're all so used to going up against similar CR level fights but if some rando mugger lvl 1 mugger comes across a 7th level wizard throwing 4d4+4 or even 4d4+8 or hell at that level you could empower it. either way that's one dead NPC. So when you think about it. any moderately experienced party is walking around knowing they can just massacre entire villages if they wanted to.
@@MechanicusTV Very true.
Probably would, when you consider that each missile causes the same strength of wound as a dagger, can be launched from longbow range, and can find gaps in armor so as to always do its damage. How did knights finish off other knights?
I believe Shad never said swords disappeared when firearms were invented.
In fact he pointed out that, regarding how long swords lasted after guns were invented, that it was "longer than you might think".
Hey Matt, did you see Shad's video about muskets versus longbows. Which weapon is better in melee, swords (sabers, medieval swords, two-handed swords, etc.) or muskets?
In meele, any sword is better than a musket, a bayonet is a very heavy short spear
Yes I saw it today! Generally speaking, a musket and bayonet has a slight advantage over a sword, though it depends a bit on the specific example of each weapon.
@@scholagladiatoriaWhich sword would be best suited to compete with a musket with a bayonet? If you had to design a sword for this use, what properties would it have?
@@hansmeier5617 Zweihänder :D
@@hansmeier5617 A zweihander. You can outrange a musket. But better yet, you would use a spear.
It all depends on context, yet again. People who were using swords during the time when bayonets were in use did so for a good reason, that a rifle with a bayonet was too big or unweildy. Sailors, cavalrymen. Wearing a sword on your hip all day is much easier than lobbing around a spear. But if you do come into a fight with a bayonet, you have a better chance with a ridiculous thing as a spear or a zweihander. I would pick a longsword against a bayonet any day. But the thing is, wearing a longsword around is not really a good thing in an eviroment where people will probably shoot at me as it gets in the way.
People used what they used for a reason. So find out what the soldiers used against bayonets and you will find out your answer.
I like the idea where the more powerful magic is, or the more frequently it used the more dangerous it's to the user. This way instead of restricting magic's abilities you put a lethal cost on it that prevents it from being completely overwhelming. Also you can do creative things, like making each spell require a specific condition/action/mentality to use it, or making the most powerful spells to require many magic users at once and being lethal to all of them afterwards. So, there is a lot of variables which you can use not only for balancing magic, but also for making it more creative and contextual.
I'll add something that it seems hasn't been addressed just yet:
Magical mishaps. If a spell fails, does it just fizzle out, or can it have catastrophic results? Rather than making magic something that adheres to the laws of conservation of energy, I think it's more fun to have it do something awful if it "misfires" (like blowing up allies, causing weird mutations, creating a gap in the fabric of reality, etc.). In those cases, a wizard or sorcerer would generally only use magic when absolutely necessary or under highly controlled circumstances (like when performing a spell as a ritual in D&D, for instance).
That way the wizard becomes self-limiting and could potentially give a knight a good fighting chance. Or all but the best wizards end up living very short, explosive lives.
The old Warhammer Fantasy setting worked like that, especially in the RPG version.
There were no mana pools or spell slots or anything like that, so a wizard could theoretically just keep spamming multiple fireball spells or whatever every minute all day long, but every single time there was always a risk of something bad happening, especially during fights where there wouldn't be time to take precautions.
And because of all the Lovecraftian horror elements of the setting, "bad" usually meant _very_ bad...
@@FarseerOfCearath I've heard of a lot of game masters implement this kind of stuff in their games lately. Some modern OSR games tend toward that route as well. It's a cool concept for sure.
Thanks Mat for reminding me of the almost pun that 15th century crewed weapons were crude.
The 1866 Winchester is actually a Henry ( same company, but it was called Henry )
I wish I had a 1866 Henry Yellowboy
Why no mention of the Crimean War and American Civil War?
The Confederate army initially considered fielding a pike and shot unit, but abandoned the idea.
Caus shad does not live in the real world, only d and d counts and anything in europe before 1600.
Shad said the opposite. He said that swords continued to exist after guns were invented and did quite well until the guns improved enough to make them more effective than swords. He said it very briefly, so it is understandable that some people might think that he said guns rapidly replaced swords, but he didn't say that.
You completely forgot hussites who use guns both tactically on the battlefield and taking castles / towns massively from 1419 onwards.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Jack Churchill the British Army officer who went into WWII with a sword and bow :)
Fun fact, when the folks that invented DnD came up with the concept of spell caster while adapting the wargame rules for role playing rules, they based it on artillery, so a mage or a cannon isn't that far fetched of a trope! :D
So, a mage as a canon,is Canon. Good to know.
@@0326jlc ROFL! Could not have said it better myself!
One of my favorite magic systems is in Tanya the Evil because it addresses the magic question and the gun question by setting it in WW1. The magic is simple stuff on it's own, but can be used quite effectively. Make pullets explode like grenades, see further, human flight, etc
Now the reason history ended up much the same in that world is because the geography of their world is literally just ours and because images are not only rare, but require special technology to bring out it's full potential.
I don't remember if the show was any good, but I absolutely love the handling of magic in it.
1340 is the first recorded use of cannons (described as "thunders" hurling "iron balls") in the Iberian Peninsula and probably the first in all Europe, during the siege of Algeciras. Some even go as far back as the siege of Niebla in 1262, but I found that reference extremely dubious as it's apparently based on a single mention of "engines" with no further detail.
When I served in the Norwegian army in 1990 we even at that point were issued with a baionette for the Norwegian AG3 (based on the German G2)
Another really interesting point: how would firearms hold up against wizards who can basically ignite stuff using their thoughts? One wizard might be enough to sabotage the enemy artillery or explode their powder storage or cause all their muskets to misfire. So a magic system that is sufficiently strong and common might keep a fantasy setting in a sort of Edo state without guns. Mages would be heavily pressed into military service by the ruling class. And they would be encouraged to have lots of children.
Druids using their magic can level fortresses, cause Hurricanes and send locusts the devistate food supplies. Siege Druids can be surprisingly effective.
If they can cause all their weapons to misfire, they could theoretically close several of their throats at once if they choose to carry melee weapons instead.
@@jacobstaten2366 Presumably if a mage can cause a misfire, it can also protect against a misfire.
Combining Armor, Melee, Firearms & Magic
Immediately makes me think of the games Salt & Sanctuary, Demon / Dark Souls, Bloodborne & Skyrim
Fire Emblem basically runs on this: spells are projectiles that might not hit and, even when they do hit, might not kill, and spells have a limited number of uses in most FE games (in Shadows of Valentia, spells have infinite uses, but take some of the user's HP in exchange). And, though it is not common, there are units that can use weapons and magic.
Also spells require complex movements to case so a mage doesn't have much armour.
Don't forget that Combat Body Armour (with additional plates to beef it up) is still issued to this day, along with bayonets. I heard just yesterday that the last time (in maybe the seventies) that the last time a Gurkha used a Kukri in anger was against a Chines person on the borders of the Hong Kong was in the sixties.
Ironically the spell "Magic MIssile" in D&D traditionally is indeed homing and can't miss. It does relatively low damage though.
it does put a light on how weird damage can be in relation to the real world. In both 5e and 3.5 a single missile deals 1d4+1 damage, which is the same as getting stabbed by an above average person, which normally would hospitalize soldier or, if unlucky, in a pinewood box. A 5e 20th level wizard cast *Instant Shank* on 11 people in 6 seconds or magic-stab 136 people before clocking out for the day, quite effective considering the real world's annoying 'gritty reality' recovery rules.
One of the plains Indian tribes fighting the USA, in the 1800’s, had a medicine man who convinced the warriors his medicine/magic could protect the warriors from bullets. Armed with the knowledge that they were bullet proof the tribe were willing to fight a set price battle against an army Calvary regiment. In one of the few classic Calvary charges in American history, the two armies lined up and advanced towards each other. As they advanced the army colonel ordered his men to draw swords and charge. Seeing the swords the Indians knew they’re magic had been betrayed.and they turned and fled. Indian losses were light, but the loss was decisive for that war.
The son of Napoleon 3 died in the Zulu wars. When he was abandoned to a platoon sized force of Zulu he first emptied his revolver without hitting anyone, then drawing his sword he charged a group of Zulu warriors on foot and alone. The Zulus were shocked at his courage, the bravest man they had ever encountered. Each wanted partial credit for killing such a brave man, so after he was killed each member of the war band stabbed him in the chest . All wounds in the front, because he never showed his back and constantly charged whoever was closest to him.
Little irresponsible to reference another youtuber and mislead viewers on their actual statements.... especially when used as a premise for the video. Pretty sure you weren't throwing someone else under the bus for the glorification of your own ego, but be a little more cognizant of the words you're putting in other people's mouths.
If I remember right, there was an argument amongst the American top brass after WWII after checking what kinds of wounds were most common in field hospitals. Most concluded that bayonets were less useful than before because so few of the wounded had stab wounds, but some argued that this was because most stab wound casualties didn't survive long enough to make it to the hospital.
Statistics show that even modern handguns require an average of nine rounds to kill if the victim receives medical attention, my guess is that getting cut open with a sword has much worse results. Of course, rifle rounds in contrast almost always kill because of their velocity.
@@moapchan1905 Depends greatly on the severity and nature of the cut. Cuts and stabs are actually quite non-fatal with modern medical treatment unless they specifically damage critical body parts-rapid blood loss from a damaged artery, tears in some of your organs, brain or spinal damage, etc. Bullets create a shockwave effect throughout the flesh that can basically cause parts of the body to explode, and there is basically no part of the human body where those spots are far away enough for that to not be a serious risk of any bullet. That is to say, quite a lot of the body is 'safe' to be cut or stabbed in, whereas there is no safe place to be shot in.
A 1-2-inch stab in the intestines will probably be much safer than getting shot. A slit throat or punctured heart or lung, yeah, that might be worse, depending.
It's unfortunate that a great deal of the video is spent arguing against a misheard statement and thus accidentally discrediting Shad (watch Shad's reply to this video, he explains the misunderstanding that schola made), but overall a great discussion video.
"These were not magic wands, and maybe magic shouldn't be either." - Now that is a hot take i did not experience to hear today.
you should try to be accurate in videos like this
The most brutal account of bayonet fighting I've read was from Korea. These two Australians were driving along in a jeep and mortar bombs started landing nearby so the pulled up, grabbed their SMLEs and jumped into the roadside ditch, and there was twenty Chinese soldiers in that ditch. And well two Australians lived to tell the tale.
SHAD DIDN'T SAY SWORDS DISAPEARED WHEN GUNS WERE INVENTED!!! He said the opposite!!! that they stuck around much longer after the gun was invented, much longer than people think!
Wow, for someone who talks about context so much I'm literally stunned Matt would misrepresent someone to this degree. Obviously I think this was a mistake, that Matt wouldn't knowingly misrepresent someone, at least I hope not, but for someone who claims to be so reliable in what they say, to get this SO wrong, and inadvertently insult shad's reliability and knowledge, is deplorable. Makes me lose a lot or trust in Matt honestly, unless he fixes this.
I hope Matt thinks about how he would react if Shad claimed he said something that was literally the opposite of what he had, making him look like an idiot, to thousands of people, especially on a topic he's reputed for knowing well. Probably rightly infuriated.
This is disgusting and Shad deserves and apology.
Wow Matt, i didnt know you were so knowledgeable on fantasy and gaming, was a real treat to hear you speak of forgotten realms and star wars. And also, your point about melee weapons not having an expendable resource, blades will dull, chip, bend, or even break. Either way, the next time i go into battle, i will take my spellbook, assault rifle, and lightsaber. Thanks
Arcanum answers this. Magic wins
Great game. and yes The magik in that game is deadly. Prefer the necromancer, Life and teleportation magik colleges.
Yes and No high Technology aptitude makes you completely immune to magic. Plus magic in that game took stamina so you could end up casting yourself to laying on the ground. Magic was also weakening in that setting, in turn based mode magic kills, go live action mode those bandits with guns Wil murder you while your trying to cast.
@@sykune ya, it was a strange system.
Tech was good but until you reached end game areas or found the hidden stuff tech could be dicey. I never armed npcs with bows or firearms. They kept killing each other. That and anmo got used up real quick
Still love the idea of the Necromizer.