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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sixchan" data-source="post: 927480" data-attributes="member: 9189">Good Point about the Training...okay, so that won't work.Going back to the question of whether Magic slows down technology, is is possible it could speed it up?  For instance, if a mage were to discover that if he had magical crossbow bolts/bullets that spun he'd improve his accuracy with the crossbow/gun, is it possible that engineers might try harder to find a way to do it with mundane technology, and invent the rifled barrel earlier?  Scientists throughout history have had to do thought experiments because their ideas were in advance of technology, and simply not possible to do.  However, with magic it becomes possible (if not simple).  This could lead to practical applications much faster.  Magic can create very high temperatures and high currents.  This helps Metallurgy in the extraction of ores and creation of alloys.  Once Scientific interest kicks in, I'd personally expect things like Aluminium to show up earlier.Now that I think about it, in fantasy worlds there are some things that have been discovered than they were in our world.  And the chief one is Electricity.  Someone's going to discover the relationship between Electricity and Magnetism at some point.  How long before someone makes the first electric motor (by first motor I mean more along the lines of the Faraday Motor rather than a practical one)? They've got the spectrum of light down, too (well, they have spells that start with prismatic, so they know you can split light with prisms), so that helps physics along the road to the Electromagnetic spectrum (and in 1st and 2nd edition, they knew about infra-red and ultra-violet too).  So even if low technology isn't as good as magic (which I still disagree with. I'll concede on guns vs swords, but point out that swords benefit from metallurgical technology), if they work together, low tech can make way for middle tech a little faster.</blockquote>

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