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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8568503" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Will be using class names instead of character names to protect the (mostly) innocent. ("Spellslinger" in this case is a sort of pistolero-mage, a hybrid of gunslinger, wizard, and artificer.)Me: "Alright, you defeated the attacking cavemen! What now?"Spellslinger: "Well you said they seemed to be repeatedly firing some kind of energy at us that wasn't magic, right? What do they have?"Me: "As you examine the bodies, you see that they have...well, it's hard to describe. Spellslinger, you know firearms, and while these kind of look like firearms...they aren't. There's no bullet, and instead of a chamber, the front part seems to be a lens of some kind. But it has a trigger, and there seems to be a socket-able thing where one would normally put bullets for a rear-loaded rifle."SS: "That's...really weird. Can I do some test fire? I have to know more."Me: "Absolutely. You do some test firing and, honestly, your first impression isn't so much about the weapon, but about these sad sacks that were shooting at you--they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with this thing, but in your hands it's a dream. No recoil, no explosion, hardly any sound at all compared to a bullet. Do you want to do comprehensive testing, or just enough to get a feel for it?"SS: "Well...how many did we recover?"Me: "Good question. Battlemaster kinda got a bit happy with his sword earlier, and we never resolved what the complication was--so we'll say that one's damaged in the front, but the detachable ammunition-like thing still works. You can examine the broken 'gun' later to look at its parts and such. There were four cavemen in the back with the 'guns,' so that leaves three functional ones."SS: "Alright. I'll test one of them comprehensively, just in case it runs out of ammo."It would go on from there. If the Spellslinger works really hard for it, she might be able to figure out how it works, but actually replicating it would be very difficult--it almost certainly has actual circuitry and such inside, which is hard to replace in a world with high medieval/early Renaissance technology. But she might be able to make a much weaker copy, or create a weapon that requires the user to know how to use magic that can replicate the effect. (Wizards in this setting do that a lot, figuring out spells by formulaic imitation of other disciplines of magic.)</blockquote>

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