[MH] versus [Reign of Steel]

[Anders]

How do you think this crossover would go? Drop a gang of monster hunters into the Reign of Steel world and see what happens. Would they be able to handle the titans of steel and silicon or would they face a terrible fate?

[awesomenessofme1]

There are some ludicrously strong robots in Reign of Steel. The Juggernaut (which I think is the most powerful) has DR800 and 200 HP. They'd definitely be able to have a massively disproportionate impact, but one team of Monster Hunters isn't going to be able to turn the tide on their own.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

There are some ludicrously strong robots in Reign of Steel. The Juggernaut (which I think is the most powerful) has DR800 and 200 HP. They'd definitely be able to have a massively disproportionate impact, but one team of Monster Hunters isn't going to be able to turn the tide on their own.

The Monster Hunters have magic, though. The robots will have no defense against that.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Anders

The Monster Hunters have magic, though. The robots will have no defense against that.

No specific defense against it. I'm not familiar with the system of magic that MH uses, but I'm not sure it's powerful enough to level the playing field here.

EDIT: And that's assuming that RoS even has mana. Which is far from a guarantee.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Anders

The Monster Hunters have magic, though. The robots will have no defense against that.

Zone Brisbane?

Also, the Monster Hunters characters will need to understand the situation before they can operate effectively.

[ericthered]

Where you drop them Matters a lot. Mexico city is a lot more lethal than Washington or London.

The set of hunters you drop also has a big effect. Witches and Techies will do better than slueths and warriors. Inhumans are mixed, but lycanthropes and ghosts can have a very free hand.

You'll want to decide early on if AI is effected by the path of matter, or the path of mind. Or neither. If Ai is a blind spot for magic (or an unreasearched path), the Witch will have a lot more problems

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Where you drop them Matters a lot. Mexico city is a lot more lethal than Washington or London.

The set of hunters you drop also has a big effect. Witches and Techies will do better than slueths and warriors. Inhumans are mixed, but lycanthropes and ghosts can have a very free hand.

You'll want to decide early on if AI is effected by the path of matter, or the path of mind. Or neither. If Ai is a blind spot for magic (or an unreasearched path), the Witch will have a lot more problems

To expand on your assessments:

Commandos would be able to tear through lesser robots as long as they still had ammo, but unless they could get their hands on heavy weapons, the big ones would still be a brick wall.

Crusaders would be pretty "meh", depending on how effective their abilities are against robots.

Experiments would be pretty middle-of-the-road, but probably about on par with warriors.

Psis could be very effective if built properly, probably on par with witches.

Sages wouldn't be much use unless they were specifically built to be anti-robot, which doesn't fit well with the prompt.

[RogerBW]

Canonically, IW Lost Worlds says that Steel has no mana. Of course, Monster Hunters magic doesn't mention mana level explicitly because it's a reduced-complexity version of GURPS, but I think it's reasonable to say that magical powers won't work.

The full RPM book maps No Mana to Irrevocably Desecrated, unable to produce any ambient energy.

My own feeling is that, if you introduced psionics or mind-affecting magic, the AIs themselves would have actual minds/souls/whatever magic acts on, of a profoundly alien sort that would make them harder to affect than willpower alone would indicate. The AUs are smart machines, but with possible rampancy-related exceptions they don't have distinct minds.

Many MH characters would make very effective resistance fighters… if they met the resistance before they met the robots.