Is fire magic a war crime?

Is fire magic a war crime?

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In a setting with a modern sense of morality, probably

Only if you get caught.

It's fine if you're killing monsters

Depends on how widespread its usage is and if the kingdoms get together to start defining war crimes.

I mean yeah, but it's also the coolest magic

Everything is allowed in war.

You can't break a man the way you break a dog or a horse. The harder you beat a man, the taller he stands. To break a man's will, to break his spirit, you have to break his mind. Men have this idea that we can fight with dignity, that there's a proper way to kill someone. It's absurd. It's anesthetic. We need it to endure the bloody horror of murder. You must destroy that idea. Show them what a messy, terrible thing it is to kill a man, and then show them that you relish in it. Shoot to wound, then execute the wounded. Burn them. Take them in close combat. Destroy their preconceptions of what a man is and you become their personal monster. When they fear you, you become stronger, you become better. But let's never forget: it's a display, it's a posture, like a lion's roar or a gorilla thumping at its chest. If you lose yourself in the display, if you succumb to the horror, then you become the monster. You become reduced; not more than a man, but less—and it can be fatal.

In war, the only crime is losing.

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Depends, how long does it take to go out, and what can it be put out by?

Most "warcrime" weapons get that distinction not from being too lethal, but from not being lethal enough - they cause unnecessary suffering.
Otherwise, they make an area inhospitable for absurd lengths of time (see areas of France still poisoned by WWI) or lack controllablity.
Or make treating the wounded a real issue.

Other restrictions usually apply to WHERE you use certain weapons, so burning down the town or jungle is a no-go, but bunkers and fortifications are okay

It certainly is one of the more cruel elements to use. Comparing things off the old D&D plane cosmology:

Fire: Extremely painful, likely to leave you alive with crippling injuries. Burns are some of the worst injuries to heal

Earth: If it's about crushing force then it's quick and relatively painless. If it follows D&D's connection with acid it's up there with fire for some of the worst.

Water: Most commonly used as ice. Hypothermia is a relatively painless way to go as the mind is shutting down and deceived before the end. However I've heard drowning in water (salt water specifically) is very painful before consciousness is lost.

Air: Electricity is probably the quickest and most moral killer.

Demi and pseudoplanes:

Positive energy: Overhealing results in unchecked growth and cancers until death. Way low on the moral scale.

Negative Energy: Straight energy damage that saps life seems rather quick if instant death is achieved. However necromancy has a lot of longer and fucked up uses of it as far as pain is concerned. More so than the others this one comes down to how you use it.

Mineral: Crushing and slicing. Equivalent to normal or siege warfare.

Lightning: Pretty much the same as air. The most moral especially as there aren't the alternate ways to kill like there are in the plane of air overall.

Dust: Scouring and flensing winds. Pretty painful.

Vacuum: Tie with Lighting for most moral. Almost immediate unconsciousness as compared to traditional asphyxia.

Salt: The scouring of dust with additional desiccation effects. Less moral than dust but probably more moral than fire and positive.

Ash: Heat and painful asphyxia. Pretty low on the scale

Radiance: Burns and blinding. High chance of leaving behind many blind survivors. Maiming for life put this as pretty immoral.

(Cont)

Steam: Using real life physics it is more energetic than fire and causes for worse burns than fire. The only thing that slightly redeems it is it won't light towns on fire creating collateral damage. Also the worse burns have a higher chance of killing immediately. Barely more moral than fire.

Ice: Used as stabbing and crushing implements is the less moral way. Used as hypothermia as mentioned earlier puts this as one of the more moral options. However concerns about the quickness of killing could come up.

Smoke: Same as ash.

Ooze: All the problems of drowning and acid with none of the alternatives earth has. Low.

Magma: More likely to instantly kill than fire so more moral. However can stick to flesh or trap people inside it like ooze. Slightly better than fire but still not ideal.

Committing war crimes with fire magic is a war crime. Fire magic on its own is just expedited manipulation of fire.

>war crimes
Nice meme.

If you wield it for destruction.
If you use for good purposes, like burning zombies, cooking, smithing, keeping people warm by opening a sauna, etc, then it's overlooked.

Funny that you mention it. Arson was considered one of the worst crimes in medieval and early modern society because of how flammable the housing was at the time, the difficulty combating a fire or keeping it from spreading to other houses, and how it would totally ruin your family. The punishment for arson was that they would burn you at the stake, just like heretics. Except heretics were more likely to be garroted or strangled to death before being consigned to the flames.

Yes, in my setting its considered just as bad as necromancy and illusion magic.

>war crime

Depends on the law

Normal human morality of "I don't want this to happen to me or my friends or family."

>Normal human morality of "I don't want this to happen to me or my friends or family."

All war is banned forever

Yes

I liked Far Cry 2 as well.

Even in a modern world people don't give a shit about morals and war crimes when it comes to actual all-out war. Why would people from middle ages care? Would they even have a concept of "war crimes"? Maybe there are also no racists and feminists exist? Stop using modern morality for fantasy.

Well war is often fought under the pretense of protecting yourself and your family.

And its not like people who start wars have any thoughts of the dangers within.

Are flamethrowers a warcrime?

Did we just get a sequence of three dubs-posts in a row forming an argument for pacifism?

Is war magic a fire crime?
Is crime magic a war fire?
Is fire crime a war magic?
is fire war a crime magic?

Probably

Yes, Fire are mandated to be ignited only by natural means, fuel, heat, oxygen, unless especial circumstances arises.
No, Crime magic is totally applicable outside of wartime uses
Yes, Fire Crime is a high level spell sanctified only to be used by a cabal of at least 2 wizards
No, fire war is outside the recognized means of crime magic.

Please divert all other questions to the Bureau of Inquiry office.

Flame throwers aren't a warcrime, and were stopped being used for other reasons, as such, most flame magic probably isn't a warcrime

Depends on the setting, up to the Vietnam war people hav no issue burning infantry.

or during Vietnam either.

The US technique for clearing VC out of tunnels was the humane and efficient drowning. When the media found out, public outcry was that it was cruel and unusual. So we switched to flamethrowers, then to just conventional combat. Bleeding heart liberals cost US lives and ultimately lost the war itself.

>burning down the town or jungle is a no-go

>Extremely painful, likely to leave you alive with crippling injuries

that entirely depends on how hot the flames are.

if your lfames can reach thousands of degrees celsius then theere is no risk of surviving

youtube.com/watch?v=t9eybY9qFfY

>it ain't me starts playing

>humane and efficient drowning
Drowning is among the most painful deaths there are.

The Vietnamese caused the US to lose the war, by beating them soundly with a proper guerrilla strategy you blithering revisionist. And then they turned right around and beat the Chinese too, who had no such bleeding heart qualms.

Compared to everything else magic can do to people fire seems pretty plain overall, in worlds with daemon possession and life leaching and trapping souls in various kinds of hell objects for eternity. Fire is pretty mundane.

Is it so hard to get the name of the song, Fortunate Son, correct in your memes guys?

>he doesn't know about the Tet offensive

The USA raped the VC in every way (sometimes literally, see the Phoenix program). They won thanks to American media (cite: Biu Tin said this explicitly) - a good strategy, but "our greatest strength is your only weakness" isn't exactly high praise.

>Biu Tin
Bui Tin, and who gives a shit? There are mountains of bs revisionist docs trying to save face in nam for the hawks who wanted it to be their just war. The US was never going to win Vietnam without annihilating the entire country, which was very much not in anyone's interests.

War is an extension of politics by other means, Clausewitz bitch. If you suck at the home game you suck at war. In fact, not only did the VC beat the US soundly in Vietnam they basically incapacitated and pacified US imperial war interests until the fall of the soviet union. That's a pretty sick fucking burn, beating a superpower so badly they don't get to play war anymore.

It ain't meme

It's a meme, ya dip

>Air: Electricity is probably the quickest and most moral killer
You're full of shit. Assuming it doesn't kill you instantly, the burns and nerve damage caused by electricity are extremely agonizing. The rest of your post is mostly wrong as well.

Probably.

Once militaries hit a certain level of organization Fire magic becomes absolutely devastating.

>punishment raids against civilian settlements with small squads of mages

>massed firebombing off enemy fortifications to grill the enemies alive

>strategically destroying harvests to cause starvations

No. Weapon cannot itself be a war crime.

Not magic that tampers with Mortality is the "War Crime" Magic.

Napalm however is banned against civilian targets.

So I guess it just depends on how much fire magic you use and against whom.

Checked

Depends on the setting. The concept of war crimes is barely 70 years old and arose from WW2's horrific meat grinder battles, creative and horrid weapons, and nightmarish treatment of occupied citizens.

I'm pretty sure it was Gas attacks in WW1 that sparked it