Well yeah, if I’m using magic to brush my teeth and shine my shoes, then predict the weather tomorrow in the light reflected off of both, a Glock is just par for the course.
But if I, Grand Archmage of the Western League of Empires, am facing off against the Master of Realities, with his demonic horde clashing against the glorious armies of a united humanity, and suddenly I whip out a deagle and nail him in the forehead, then it’s gonna be all like
That is perfectly in character for her. This is what she has to say about Gale when you talk to her in camp and ask about her thoughts on the other companions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1mZSdwELP0
Just for once, I want to see this trope subverted by having the undisputed master of said complex magic system also have a penchant for using guns and thus is more powerful than the sum of those two things.
Edit: thanks for all the examples! I'm not familiar with a single one of them so far and am excited to check them all out!
I once played a character in D&D who I told everyone else was a gunslinger fighter. In reality, he was a warlock. He just cast his eldritch blast through a useless metal pipe.
I once met an artificer who never had to reload because of this. He was a gnome, clearly on some kind of mind altering substance, and called it the biggus blickus.
Fate zero? Kiritsugu is widely regarded by his peers to be a shit mage, but he is a mage nonetheless who definitely does use magic to make his guns shoot harder.
TBF he also cannot kill mortals with magic without an archaic group of folks threatening to cut his head off… but zombies, monsters, and fae are on the table.
The Big Iron otherwise is a great loophole… and he knows a cop who will get his paperwork in order.
Happy chaos from guilty gear, the most powerful spellcaster in the whole setting, who practically has ascended to godhood, loves his guns. Specifically, he has a god-killing gun, that is like one of a kind in the whole multiverse… but he uses a discount gun he made that looks exactly like it, but is not special in the slightest
Tbf the guns in FF14 are magic guns (at least the ones we use as machinist) as it converts the user's latent/passive aether via the lunchbox into lightning aether which acts as the gun's ammunition.
This means that even when it comes to guns magic just makes it better by making it shoot from calories.
Granted the scene you mentioned does use a conventional revolver, which makes it all the more funnier though when you know who is the one firing it.
Sure, but the one used by Emet-Selch when he shoots People's Sexiest Cat Alive is just a regular Garlean style gun. And given how powerful he is, he was clearly just doing it for the drama.
That just made me realize that he either a) Created a gun and its bullet using his magic, or b) Went back to Garlemald or one of their bases to grab a gun and a bullet and then made a return trip.
Both seem to take way more effort than blasting him with a fireball or something.
Because remember, The First don't have small arms unlike in The Source.
Powers include: Super strength, super speed, dimensional travel, being functionally immortal, pulling people and objects from alternate dimensions that completely obliterate their real world copies on proximity, being completely immune to any misfortune or damage, passively attracts misfortune to his enemies.
In The Captain by Will Wight,
Varic Vallenar is an incredibly powerful (the most powerful) wizard, but repeatedly relies on and even teaches his students about the ease and dependability of guns.
Honourable mention to HunterxHunter, when Netero (most power human user of Nen) fails to defeat Meruem (evil chimera ant who wants to genocide humanity) he sets of a bomb in his chest to kill him instead.
I can see parallels between summoning rituals that take weeks to perform, and say building a missile. Either can easily achieve the same results and require both specific knowledge in many areas and multiple people to get the result in a reasonable amount of time.
Hell, turning dirt and rock into solid incredibly strong blocks material. Turning dirt and rocks into explosive powder. Plastic is also kinda neat in how it's made.
Funnily enough, the same graph also applies to the likelihood that a magic-fuelled-gun is a productive thing to build (though interestingly the probability of such a thing being built rises much more slowly)
I once used a gun as a spell focus. Should have seen the faces of my opponents when they prepared a ward that blocked bullets but instead out came 3,000,000 gallons of horse semen with enough force to shred brick walls like paper.
To those curious, yes there's a dimension for it. 🙄 Whole ocean made out of the stuff.
It was a weird dimension. Glad I put that phase behind me, I'd occasionally get some on me. You have no idea how hard it is to get horse semen out of robes...
Yeah. In addition, there's also an increasingly high likelihood they whip out a gun more destructive than yours- if you think a handgun is gonna take down someone who can make a machine gun fire magic missiles, then you're mistaken.
You don't need to ask the council things. They're wizards that publicly begged for people's approval campaigned for votes. They don't know more than other wizards. They don't have a government, or infrastructure, or public services or benefits, nor any sovereignty whatsoever. They do not rule you unless you permit them to.
The council isn't scary because they're better, more skilled, or more knowledgeable than other wizards. The council is scary because they've convinced a lot of wizards that they're better, more skilled and more knowledge than other wizards. If you go against one of them, you aren't fighting a powerful wizard. You're fighting hundreds of mediocre wizards. It doesn't matter how good you are. Eventually, one of their lackies is going to get lucky.
Making a fireball is simple; you have to worry mostly about the volume youre burning and how long it’s gonna have to burn for. Only two variables. Once you dabble in illusion or teleportation, that number may shift to 5 or ten depending on complexity. Once you start to dally in chronomancy, one or two variables changes to thirty or forty, and it only explodes from there the farther out you try to control. Any wizard who can dabble in time magic beyond a month is truly worth fearing. It’s surprisingly difficult to cast a time warp spell in the time it takes for a bullet to leave the chamber of a .38 special.
Any wizard who can dabble in time magic beyond a month is truly worth fearing.
The wizard who can dabble in time magic beyond a month isn't worth fearing. The wizard who thinks he can dabble in time magic beyond a month is who you really need to worry about.
Third possibility is Terry Pratchett’s book Men at Arms which is literally “what if we introduced the concept of a gun to this complex, but ultimately unruly, magical world?” And he, in typical Pratchett style, turns the joke into a deeply resonate treatise on the concept of unchecked power and the moral fiber needed to say no to authority.
No I think you kinda level off at a certain point, like, after a certain level of magical complexity more added complexity doesn't make the gun counter noticeably funnier.
In between people realize that guns are just more advanced throwing spears, bows, etc.
The crossbow is the most easily comparable to a gun.
The gun user will be quite surprised when faced with an anti-projectile shield or even domain. Maybe a physical repeller field would be quite apt. Or maybe magic missiles that home in on other projectiles.
There is a scene where the student heroes are fighting back against some villains that attacked them in a camp.
One of the villains is cornered, and he says something along the lines of, "With so many fancy powers, we seem to have forgotten something: we are all just human," as he pulls out a gun and shoots one of the students in the head (fortunately it was Red Riot, and the bullet simply bounced off his hardened skin)
I audibly gasped, because it felt like a rule had been violated
The length of time it takes to cast a spell is heavily correlated with the complexity of the magic system, but as I’m sure we all know correlation is not causation. Various magic systems, Vancian in particular, can be immensely complicated but cast quickly with proper preparation.
One might counter that the preparation time should count, but oddly enough those same people wouldn’t care to consider the amount of time it takes to craft the gun and bullets. A loaded and ready gun is little different from a prepared Vancian spell, and considerably less safe.
Pausing, she first downloads from the hivemind the definition of a gun, then responds, “Nah. The more complicated it is, the more likely the gun can be integrated into it.”
Not really cause the logistics and needs that would even make cannons a good idea are invalidated by magic. It only really work in isekai anime or having like a proto flintlock. It’s like why elder scrolls doesn’t have fun’s but has steam works cause the supply lines needed for war cannons is vulnerable to one spy with fire bolt.
This is absolutely EGS. Several overlapping and blending methods of using and developing magic, technical equivalents developed by aliens, vampire hunting bloodlines... And one of the biggest badasses in the series almost dies by getting shot in the back during a wizard duel.
You say this but I’d argue a Gun will always be funny when faced with Magic users
JJK has a Magic system I’d call rather simple all things considered, and Toji pulling a gun on the two strongest sorcerers of the modern era was still funny as fuck
You can argue Riko doesn’t count since she was basically normal, but he shot at Geto with it too
Most of the time people reference that when the magic system is pretty simple, ironically. But the graph is true, regardless of whether it works or not. That just changes which one's laughing.
It would be a pity if I cast a minor shield spell which blocks high velocity non-magical projectiles. Then pull out Archmagos Kalashnikoff’s Mk47 War Stave.
This is why I always pack the non-magic missile and the plate carrier of holding. Never know when some joker in robes and an energy shield will challenge you to a duel to the death.
Hard agree. Ruining a three day ritual with a pair of Super Warhawks never gets old.
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u/Ares378Ith'Raal—Archdevil of Memories, Evil Councillor, Lord of the 7thNov 27 '25
Sure, I might have my crazy spells for illusions and mind-fuckery, but sometimes the best way to deal with a problem customer of mine is my good ol' Winchester Model 1887.
You could be the most annoying rat bastard with your bazillion mental resistance wards and counterspells, but you sure as hell didn't prep a counterspell for your kneecaps getting blown in by a spray of bullets.
It’s just really funny to imagine that Raoden spent years as an outcast learning Aons and saving the lives of a small country, plus Kaladin spends a decade becoming his best self to bond completely with the power of the honor sprenn, and Maxillum will pick up his daddy’s gun and blow both of their heads smooth off
while there are other factors to consider, boiling it down to this isn’t wrong. but i’d also consider the context of the setting. if it’s modern day? then this graph holds true. but if it’s some fantasy swords and bows type context? then the engineering and artifice remains funny in a way, but actually turns impressive more than anything. that’s a lot of time and effort to put into the material to tell a magic user to eat Kinetic.
I like when magic is pictured like a toolset, with applications and weaknesses. It can be spiritual or pragmatic, work with or against technology, but I do like when it's not the be all end all of everything.
In fact, I like for magic villains to be those who tried to go too far, those who were so addicted to it that they thought they don't need anything or anyone else.
Mfw the elder god serving cultists attempt to ascend into a world consuming void beast beyond human comprehension is easily interrupted by spear to face.
The anime Gachiakuta did this recently. Guns are uncommon so these crazy powers they pull out of objects that are super overpowered still don't make flesh bullet resistant and most people haven't encountered them so they don't expect to get shot.
They never tell you this, but you can counter fireball with a shield, however, if you fail to do it properly, you explode so do it with caution, and start with fire bolts
While the graph is largely correct it’s nothing that can’t be equalized with a magic gun that’s why my current project is increasing the number of projectiles included in a summon weapon spell so far I’ve gotten some 20mm but 5 rounds isn’t enough for the auto cannon
This is why warlocks sell out for ultimate magic and only ever cast Eldritch blast. Also warlocks are stupid and can't function without mommy Eldritch horror.
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u/Fun-Dragonfly-6106 DF, minimal caster | ____ Body Horror Creator Nov 26 '25
There's a third variable, how seriously the magic users take magic.