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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SKyOdin" data-source="post: 5391139" data-attributes="member: 57939">All it takes is a catapult with a flaming projectile to get fire over a castle's walls, so fire raining down from above is something that medieval castle design already had to take into account. I agree that if flying troops were introduced to be a common and widespread part of military combat, castle design would probably change to include more anti-air defenses. It probably wouldn't be a very significant change to the overall design unless the flying troops could drop actual high-explosive bombs though.Anyways, my point has never been that it would be impossible for there to be a magic-industrial revolution in D&D. Rather, my point was that is a setting designer didn't want an industrial revolution, magical or otherwise, to take place in a setting, then it would be relatively easy to make some adjustments to make it true. I am a fan of Eberron, so I definitely am not fundamentally opposed to a magic-industrial revolution. However, I think that many people who argue for one often do so on weak grounds that rely on fridge logic. If you want to have a magic-industrial revolution, make certain that the magic in question is both cheap to use, and has a direct influence on agricultural output and industrial production.To get this discussion somewhat back on track, lets look at firearms from the 16th century: the matchlock and the wheel-lock. The wheel-lock was superior performance wise to the matchlock, since the matchlock had to loaded immediately before firing and the wheel-lock could be loaded, then holstered to be fired later. However, the matchlock was the dominant weapon of war, while the wheel-lock was never mass-produced for military use. The reason was cost: the wheel-lock was significantly more complicated in design and harder to maintain, thus more expensive.Building on that, lets exaggerate the difference with fantasy clockwork technology and maybe a little magic. It would be possible to justify having an advanced fantasy clockwork-magic self-loading firearm alongside near-medieval warfare. Since such a weapon would naturally be prohibitively expensive, it wouldn't see much use in warfare and would have little effect on military strategy, but would be useful to the comparatively wealthy, i.e. adventurers. So it is justifiable to have adventurers using repeating firearms in a near-medieval world, if a DM wanted to have effective guns without the minute loading times. (Credit for the idea goes to my brother.)</blockquote>

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