Talk:Petera

Gunpowder? Guns? I suppose the rationale is that magic keeps those from really being a force to be reckoned with, but then why would melee weapons still be useful? -Slitherrr 23:12, 4 November 2009 (EST)

I don't understand the question. They've had firearms for thousands of years, but sometimes melee is still preferred. The British used claymore weilding highlanders through the 17th and 18th centuries, and cavalrymen were attack people with sabres well into the age of artillery. -gm

It's a point that it takes a certain amount of manufacturing prowess to make guns common enough to really take over. In any case, the claymore-wielding highlanders were from a part of Britain that was well behind the rest of the country in terms of industrial development (in no small part because the English were very good at keeping them there), and firearms were useless on cavalry until breech-loading cartridges were developed. Other exceptions generally come from some special artifact of terrain, or from the previously mentioned inability to develop a manufacturing base--once a culture had seen guns in action, and had some means by which to procure them, the culture almost universally adapted them into common use. In this world, since guns have been around for thousands of years, it seems like that would essentially have to be the preferred way to fight, UNLESS some magical rationale is inserted. Even that seems to fall short, because it seems like a culture would have to have an insane number of spellcasters (who are notoriously difficult and expensive to train) to outweigh the advantage of having large groups of people who can hurl relatively efficient death from a ranged position with little training.

Of course, this is all probably just bean-plating it. -Slitherrr 14:22, 5 November 2009 (EST)

Bean Plating is good. I believe it was most likely explained by some sort of magical metalurgy.[1] Also, I think they were not everyday common, but rather common among the merchant nobles and other rich folk. Additionally, I think the standard D&D rationale is that the combustion material is "smoke powder" that has some sort of staggering cost. -gm

Also, as a bit of trivia, the Peterans have been master abjurers for ages, so I expect Protection from Normal Missiles is in every apprentice's spellbook.

I copied some of the discussion on the Peteran worship to the Heresy section with the intention of removing it here soon. -Msallen 22:26, 9 November 2009 (EST)

Right on. -gm

Is this still a stub? -gm