How are people going to deal with firearms? Thread mostly aimed at the melee people

[Hammersmith]

As will be revealed in some stuff in Hammer's journal thread, he knows a little about guns.

 

He knows how to "cheat" people using them and considers pretty much anything as fair play against someone throwing a lead ball at super-sonic speeds at a fleshy target.

 

So, of course, it's a lethal kind of "Cheat"

[Zyrusticae]

Well, my answer on this topic remains mostly unchanged:

 

1. Armor made out of exotic materials and charged with aether provided by materia and magic. Real-world armor need not apply.

 

2. Final Fantasy-style supernatural toughness, also fueled by aether. I mean, if you can take a Fire III to the face and survive, I don't see how a bullet or a bunch of shotgun pellets would be any different.

 

3. Final Fantasy-style 'Move Like Cloud' agility, also fueled by aether. Aether aether aether aether aether aether aether. Seriously tho, just dodge them bullets, what are you, a pleb?

 

4. Joestar Family Secret Technique: RUN AWAAAAAYYY!! If none of the above apply to you, who says you need to stick around to get your face blown off? Nothing beats a hasty retreat - save for an equally or more hasty chase, anyway. Just make sure you put a few obstacles between you and the source of those terrifyingly nasty flying shells.

 

5. Diplomacy. Wait, why's this gunman wanna gun someone as cute as you down, anyway? Surely we can all work this out? There's no need for violence.

 

And them's muh 2c.

[Hyrist]

Too early to tell. Depends entirely on the substence of the 'bullets'.

 

If the bullets themselves are just charges of aether without a solid object to be propelled, than it can be defended in most ways a spell can.

 

But remember we're a Japanese RPG, so parrying bullets is quite feasible in most RP situations. Not to mention bullets shot from Heirsbane were punched, absorbed and redirected in canon cutscenes. So this isn't something beyond defensible like it is in real life.

[Mahorela]

As stated a few times in the thread, plate armor is still among the most efficient armors to date and its decline had nothing to do with the rise of firearms at the time. Even lowly (By fantasy standards) steel plate could deal with firearms and with the crazy materials we have at our disposal, such as mythril, Wootz, and Allagan crap, it's pretty safe to say that anyone who wears plate is not going to be easy pickings. A skilled fighter in a well fitted suit of armor is pretty darn hard to kill, firearms or not. The main issue is well... Cost, basically.

 

But this is a world where everyone who is an adventurer can afford fitted armor of their choosing so ultimately anyone who wants to walk around in heavy plate is only going to be taken down by agile exploitation of their armor's natural weakpoints, such as joints, and magic. No one around here is going to have a 4 foot long 50 caliber steel penetrating sniper rifle and people who do I'm probably not going to associate with.

 

Of course this is all moot since my character's armor is like.. Small amounts of plate with mainly leather and fur. Tasa will not have fun digging bullets out of her hide.

[Hammersmith]

Yeah.  One of the bigger points of plate was that it was MUCH EASIER to raise an army of rifle-users than it was to get an entire army of plate users.  Then you ran into mobility and the like and it meant the rifle users had more immediate lethality that was easier to train than a longbow. (The english did so well with theirs because every male, supposedly, was at some point required to train with it every day after church, punishable by...something...if you missed)

 

Guns arn't "worse" than an archer really, since in RP you're not going to be mustering entire platoons of them onto the field.

[Aduu Avagnar]

Yeah.  One of the bigger points of plate was that it was MUCH EASIER to raise an army of rifle-users than it was to get an entire army of plate users.  Then you ran into mobility and the like and it meant the rifle users had more immediate lethality that was easier to train than a longbow. (The english did so well with theirs because every male, supposedly, was at some point required to train with it every day after church, punishable by...something...if you missed)

 

Guns arn't "worse" than an archer really, since in RP you're not going to be mustering entire platoons of them onto the field.

plate armour, when correctly fitted, didn't present much in the way of a hinderance to mobility. It was pretty much a second skin or extension of the body, with greater range of movement than the person inside.

 

However, yes, it is a hell of a lot easier, and cheaper to equip an army with musket/arquebus/longbow etc.

 

Also, our longbowmen, (as featured in Agincourt and other such fights) were predominantly Welsh.

[Hammersmith]

Yeah.  One of the bigger points of plate was that it was MUCH EASIER to raise an army of rifle-users than it was to get an entire army of plate users.  Then you ran into mobility and the like and it meant the rifle users had more immediate lethality that was easier to train than a longbow. (The english did so well with theirs because every male, supposedly, was at some point required to train with it every day after church, punishable by...something...if you missed)

 

Guns arn't "worse" than an archer really, since in RP you're not going to be mustering entire platoons of them onto the field.

plate armour, when correctly fitted, didn't present much in the way of a hinderance to mobility. It was pretty much a second skin or extension of the body, with greater range of movement than the person inside.

 

However, yes, it is a hell of a lot easier, and cheaper to equip an army with musket/arquebus/longbow etc.

 

Also, our longbowmen, (as featured in Agincourt and other such fights) were predominantly Welsh.

 

You're right, though only if we're not talking about jousting plate or Full plate .  Well fitted infantry plate (not full plate) weighed anywhere from 10-25 pounds for a set (Jousting plate was over 50, but was MUCH heavier).  It also wasn't full body and it sure as hell wasn't a second skin.  Mind you it stayed in use for a verrrrry long time because, well, steel stops a lot of stuff from killing you.

 

Hell, they were still using plate curiasses in WWI, 5lb steel breastplates, and they were effective, as long as you didn't get hit in a limb or a head.

 

If we're talking about regular infantry plate? Yeah.  Mobility wise you're still going to have guys running around in 10-25 lbs more weight than a similarly fitted guy, at range, carrying 1o-25 lbs less kit than you, which means they can proooobably run, all things being even, quite a bit longer and further than you can.  It's not perfect, but it's mobility.  I know we ignore RL mechanics in FF but from a pure RL perspective, that does weight a guy down and affect what maneuvers a group can manage over the course of a battle.  Fresh troops in a sprint probably wouldn't have cared much or seen much effect though, to that degree.  Dudes in plate charging a line of arquebusses were going to ruin someone's gun-toting day if they didn't have support, for sure.

 

tldr; You're wrong about Full and Jousting plate, the plate we 'traditionally' think of as full, massive armor sets.  You're right about lesser, more mass produced versions of plate maille, which were very much mass produced sets of curiasses, not full body plate armor sets (but would still have been a bitch for bullets to fuck with)

[Raelas]

I have to admit, I didn't know almost any of what I just learned about armour in the last 5 or so replies. Pretty fascinating stuff actually!

 

But back on topic, well, further back on topic, I guess! In this universe we inhabit... I think a lot of us are Aetherically inclined when it comes to combat so on the issue of armour? I consider it a non-issue simply because in this game world Aether seems to trump all.

 

So I echo my previous post; If you're capable enough it doesn't matter one way or another!

 

That said, not everyone is, of course. So some beefy armour is going to be nice either way.

 

Of course... if we combine armour AND aether?! That'd be something... until a talented -insert class / job / master race (Monk)- comes along and punches holes through your good time, your logic and your armour!

 

So yeah... deal with them as ingeniously as you can! Be warned, though. Prophecy speaks of an aetherically inclined Machinist, talented to the gills and all around a bad ass will appear before us...

 

Then we're really screwed. ;w;

[Aduu Avagnar]

Yeah.  One of the bigger points of plate was that it was MUCH EASIER to raise an army of rifle-users than it was to get an entire army of plate users.  Then you ran into mobility and the like and it meant the rifle users had more immediate lethality that was easier to train than a longbow. (The english did so well with theirs because every male, supposedly, was at some point required to train with it every day after church, punishable by...something...if you missed)

 

Guns arn't "worse" than an archer really, since in RP you're not going to be mustering entire platoons of them onto the field.

plate armour, when correctly fitted, didn't present much in the way of a hinderance to mobility. It was pretty much a second skin or extension of the body, with greater range of movement than the person inside.

 

However, yes, it is a hell of a lot easier, and cheaper to equip an army with musket/arquebus/longbow etc.

 

Also, our longbowmen, (as featured in Agincourt and other such fights) were predominantly Welsh.

 

You're right, though only if we're not talking about jousting plate or Full plate .  Well fitted infantry plate (not full plate) weighed anywhere from 10-25 pounds for a set (Jousting plate was over 50, but was MUCH heavier).  It also wasn't full body and it sure as hell wasn't a second skin.  Mind you it stayed in use for a verrrrry long time because, well, steel stops a lot of stuff from killing you.

 

Hell, they were still using plate curiasses in WWI, 5lb steel breastplates, and they were effective, as long as you didn't get hit in a limb or a head.

 

If we're talking about regular infantry plate? Yeah.  Mobility wise you're still going to have guys running around in 10-25 lbs more weight than a similarly fitted guy, at range, carrying 1o-25 lbs less kit than you, which means they can proooobably run, all things being even, quite a bit longer and further than you can.  It's not perfect, but it's mobility.  I know we ignore RL mechanics in FF but from a pure RL perspective, that does weight a guy down and affect what maneuvers a group can manage over the course of a battle.  Fresh troops in a sprint probably wouldn't have cared much or seen much effect though, to that degree.  Dudes in plate charging a line of arquebusses were going to ruin someone's gun-toting day if they didn't have support, for sure.

 

tldr; You're wrong about Full and Jousting plate, the plate we 'traditionally' think of as full, massive armor sets.  You're right about lesser, more mass produced versions of plate maille, which were very much mass produced sets of curiasses, not full body plate armor sets (but would still have been a bitch for bullets to fuck with)

A well fitted suit of plate, that is, full plate. Weighed roughly 15-25kg. The mobility factor wasn't an issue, sure its an extra 25lbs, but due to the way it is distributed over the body, the impact was only an issue on elongated fights. You can run, jump, sprint and climb in it.

 

Which bit was I wrong about?

[Altitis Acquired]

This has been a very informative thread.

Since it is a fantasy world, I've always taken the whole "guns and bullets" thing rather light-heartedly. I can imagine normal civilians would have trouble surviving a bullet, but if yur character wears some good armour or have some awesome skills or magic, avoiding being hit by a bullet shouldn't be that much of a problem.

 

I mean, if a real-life samurai was/is able to avoid a bullet and cut it in half with his katana, I don't see why something like that can't happen in a fantasy setting.

[Hammersmith]

Yeah.  One of the bigger points of plate was that it was MUCH EASIER to raise an army of rifle-users than it was to get an entire army of plate users.  Then you ran into mobility and the like and it meant the rifle users had more immediate lethality that was easier to train than a longbow. (The english did so well with theirs because every male, supposedly, was at some point required to train with it every day after church, punishable by...something...if you missed)

 

Guns arn't "worse" than an archer really, since in RP you're not going to be mustering entire platoons of them onto the field.

plate armour, when correctly fitted, didn't present much in the way of a hinderance to mobility. It was pretty much a second skin or extension of the body, with greater range of movement than the person inside.

 

However, yes, it is a hell of a lot easier, and cheaper to equip an army with musket/arquebus/longbow etc.

 

Also, our longbowmen, (as featured in Agincourt and other such fights) were predominantly Welsh.

 

You're right, though only if we're not talking about jousting plate or Full plate .  Well fitted infantry plate (not full plate) weighed anywhere from 10-25 pounds for a set (Jousting plate was over 50, but was MUCH heavier).  It also wasn't full body and it sure as hell wasn't a second skin.  Mind you it stayed in use for a verrrrry long time because, well, steel stops a lot of stuff from killing you.

 

Hell, they were still using plate curiasses in WWI, 5lb steel breastplates, and they were effective, as long as you didn't get hit in a limb or a head.

 

If we're talking about regular infantry plate? Yeah.  Mobility wise you're still going to have guys running around in 10-25 lbs more weight than a similarly fitted guy, at range, carrying 1o-25 lbs less kit than you, which means they can proooobably run, all things being even, quite a bit longer and further than you can.  It's not perfect, but it's mobility.  I know we ignore RL mechanics in FF but from a pure RL perspective, that does weight a guy down and affect what maneuvers a group can manage over the course of a battle.  Fresh troops in a sprint probably wouldn't have cared much or seen much effect though, to that degree.  Dudes in plate charging a line of arquebusses were going to ruin someone's gun-toting day if they didn't have support, for sure.

 

tldr; You're wrong about Full and Jousting plate, the plate we 'traditionally' think of as full, massive armor sets.  You're right about lesser, more mass produced versions of plate maille, which were very much mass produced sets of curiasses, not full body plate armor sets (but would still have been a bitch for bullets to fuck with)

A well fitted suit of plate, that is, full plate. Weighed roughly 15-25kg. The mobility factor wasn't an issue, sure its an extra 25lbs, but due to the way it is distributed over the body, the impact was only an issue on elongated fights. You can run, jump, sprint and climb in it.

 

Which bit was I wrong about?

 

What you're calling full plate I call plate, so it's splitting hairs.  We're both right since we agree on the same points!

[Aduu Avagnar]

Yeah.  One of the bigger points of plate was that it was MUCH EASIER to raise an army of rifle-users than it was to get an entire army of plate users.  Then you ran into mobility and the like and it meant the rifle users had more immediate lethality that was easier to train than a longbow. (The english did so well with theirs because every male, supposedly, was at some point required to train with it every day after church, punishable by...something...if you missed)

 

Guns arn't "worse" than an archer really, since in RP you're not going to be mustering entire platoons of them onto the field.

plate armour, when correctly fitted, didn't present much in the way of a hinderance to mobility. It was pretty much a second skin or extension of the body, with greater range of movement than the person inside.

 

However, yes, it is a hell of a lot easier, and cheaper to equip an army with musket/arquebus/longbow etc.

 

Also, our longbowmen, (as featured in Agincourt and other such fights) were predominantly Welsh.

 

You're right, though only if we're not talking about jousting plate or Full plate .  Well fitted infantry plate (not full plate) weighed anywhere from 10-25 pounds for a set (Jousting plate was over 50, but was MUCH heavier).  It also wasn't full body and it sure as hell wasn't a second skin.  Mind you it stayed in use for a verrrrry long time because, well, steel stops a lot of stuff from killing you.

 

Hell, they were still using plate curiasses in WWI, 5lb steel breastplates, and they were effective, as long as you didn't get hit in a limb or a head.

 

If we're talking about regular infantry plate? Yeah.  Mobility wise you're still going to have guys running around in 10-25 lbs more weight than a similarly fitted guy, at range, carrying 1o-25 lbs less kit than you, which means they can proooobably run, all things being even, quite a bit longer and further than you can.  It's not perfect, but it's mobility.  I know we ignore RL mechanics in FF but from a pure RL perspective, that does weight a guy down and affect what maneuvers a group can manage over the course of a battle.  Fresh troops in a sprint probably wouldn't have cared much or seen much effect though, to that degree.  Dudes in plate charging a line of arquebusses were going to ruin someone's gun-toting day if they didn't have support, for sure.

 

tldr; You're wrong about Full and Jousting plate, the plate we 'traditionally' think of as full, massive armor sets.  You're right about lesser, more mass produced versions of plate maille, which were very much mass produced sets of curiasses, not full body plate armor sets (but would still have been a bitch for bullets to fuck with)

A well fitted suit of plate, that is, full plate. Weighed roughly 15-25kg. The mobility factor wasn't an issue, sure its an extra 25lbs, but due to the way it is distributed over the body, the impact was only an issue on elongated fights. You can run, jump, sprint and climb in it.

 

Which bit was I wrong about?

 

What you're calling full plate I call plate, so it's splitting hairs.  We're both right since we agree on the same points!

a full plate harness, as in full body covering from helmet to sabatons

[Proud Dahlia]

(The english did so well with theirs because every male, supposedly, was at some point required to train with it every day after church, punishable by...something...if you missed)

 

Guns arn't "worse" than an archer really, since in RP you're not going to be mustering entire platoons of them onto the field.

 

Interesting to note unrelatedly, but the law that required every English citizen to own and train with a bow is still on the books to this day. (Obviously not enforced.)

 

Anyway, I don't see guns as that big a gamechanger.  As noted, most the difference from other projectile weapons are only notable on a large scale. As awesome as a mass battle RP would be, simply duels in my experience can be a headache enough to manage, so I don't see anything of the sort happening ever.

 

What one may want to be more concerned about is the accessibility of personal handheld explosives (i.e. grenades).  It would be an absolute gamechanger.

 

Would be, if not for one thing: Magic exists. Anything firearms and gunpowder can do, magic has been doing already. Arcanists can warp a knight's body with aether no matter how much armor he wears, and grenades don't hold a torch to the destructive firepower of a thaumaturge. In small scale fights, I feel magic would trump technology.

 

But I imagine mages are even costlier and riskier to field than armored fighters in largescale battle, but any average joe can be trained to light a fuse and use a gun, so that makes gunpowder win out again. Moreover, it gives the common man the ability to effectively fight large-scale threats such as dragons, previously the realm of specially trained hunters and adventurers. (i.e. us)

 

I don't see the presence of guns and explosives being a gamechanger for the RP environment unless your character is a naval or military officer. In which case, you may want to look into powder-based siege weapons such as cannons if you've not already and see about training your ranged infantry in firearms.  On a military and even economical level, the presence of these weapons will change the world greatly. However, on the personal scale, firearms and explosives don't really add too much that isn't alredy there.

[Chris Ganale]

I think an interesting--and almost certainly inflammatory--point to consider is the exact opposite end of the spectrum: will it go to the extreme that people trivialize guns to the point that a toddler with a brick is considered a greater threat? I've already seen indications by browsing this thread that some people are implying exactly that.

[TheLastCandle]

That hasn't been my takeaway from the thread. I see people treating them as being about as dangerous as a Thaumaturge throwing fire and calling down lightning. The only thing making them potentially more dangerous than your token renegade mage is accessibility - which may or may not be an issue, depending on the lore behind the specific firearms machinists will be using.

[Aaron]

I expect a lot of western throwdowns at noon to be happening come HW

 

Bonus if wearing chaps and a tricorne

[Proud Dahlia]

That hasn't been my takeaway from the thread. I see people treating them as being about as dangerous as a Thaumaturge throwing fire and calling down lightning. The only thing making them potentially more dangerous than your token renegade mage is accessibility - which may or may not be an issue, depending on the lore behind the specific firearms machinists will be using.

 

 

Well, what we know so far is that machinists will be trained at Skysteel manufactuory, an Ishgardian weapons producer inspired (either loosely or directly, we've yet to see) by the work of Cid Garlond to create new weapons for the war against the Dravanians. Already we're beginning to see Ishgardians use powder-based siege and artillery heavily.

 

Considering their goal is waging war more efficiently, I feel it's safe to assume reproducibility and accessibility are major factors in design. What would be the point if they're developing esoteric things only highly trained specialists can use? Given that cannons are already becoming very commonplace, personal firearms will probably become relatively available soon.

 

That said, I think much of a machinist's personal arsenal (such as their turrets and special barrels/ammo) will be the realm of the highly experimental and prone to backfire and failure. It is prototype and not ready for public use. It may have flaws only one who built it could compensate for or perhaps it's prone to breakdown and needs constant maintenance. They're things only a trained individual can make effective at this point in time, for whatever reason.

 

It depends, but I do see common firearms and explosives becoming more available,  because the cutting edge (see above) is already working on trying to advance that technology beyond its current capacity. Personally, I'm very interested in seeing how this industrial shift influences the very rigidly feudal Ishgardian society.

[Chris Ganale]

I didn't say anyone was going to trivialize guns, I said there are implications that some people are thinking it, and it is of course very difficult to tell joke from serious reply on the internet. I'm also aware of some people with IC attitudes such that they would never consider technology of any kind to be any sort of threat to them.

 

And to nitpick a bit, comparison of guns to THMs doesn't really hold water when a significant chunk of this thread has been "a mage will still wreck a fully-armored fighter but any plate better than steel will stop a bullet".

[Hammersmith]

That hasn't been my takeaway from the thread. I see people treating them as being about as dangerous as a Thaumaturge throwing fire and calling down lightning. The only thing making them potentially more dangerous than your token renegade mage is accessibility - which may or may not be an issue, depending on the lore behind the specific firearms machinists will be using.

 

 

Well, what we know so far is that machinists will be trained at Skysteel manufactuory, an Ishgardian weapons producer inspired (either loosely or directly, we've yet to see) by the work of Cid Garlond to create new weapons for the war against the Dravanians. Already we're beginning to see Ishgardians use powder-based siege and artillery heavily.

 

Considering their goal is waging war more efficiently, I feel it's safe to assume reproducibility and accessibility are major factors in design. What would be the point if they're developing esoteric things only highly trained specialists can use? Given that cannons are already becoming very commonplace, personal firearms will probably become relatively available soon.

 

That said, I think much of a machinist's personal arsenal (such as their turrets and special barrels/ammo) will be the realm of the highly experimental and prone to backfire and failure. It is prototype and not ready for public use. It may have flaws only one who built it could compensate for or perhaps it's prone to breakdown and needs constant maintenance. They're things only a trained individual can make effective at this point in time, for whatever reason.

 

It depends, but I do see common firearms and explosives becoming more available,  because the cutting edge (see above) is already working on trying to advance that technology beyond its current capacity. Personally, I'm very interested in seeing how this industrial shift influences the very rigidly feudal Ishgardian society.

 

Let's be clear: The Ishgardian instances in game have multiple encounters involving cannons, even before Cid got involved.  They've had black powder and explosive access for a while.  I'm willing to bet Cid and Friends just open it up to the public, or makes production easier  instead of keeping it in the range of military secrets and/or hard to produce/expensive weaponry and the like.  

 

Whatever opens up Ishgard proper will probably also add to the need to allow these weapons more into the public eye, if not hands.

[TheLastCandle]

Mages can be silenced, or crippled. If they can remove the verbal or the somatic component of a spellcaster, a wily warrior won't "get wrecked" by a mage. Elemental materia is yet another factor. Many melee classes possess aetheric abilities - the Paladin's Hallowed Ground comes to mind, among others.

 

Gunners similarly might have to work harder to penetrate, say, a warrior's cobalt armor or a mage's stoneskin. But then again, both mages and gunners retain the advantage of range against a warrior.

 

Firing a gun is faster than casting a spell. However, a truly clever mage might Swiftcast a fire spell to overheat a gun.

 

Everyone has strengths. Everyone has weaknesses. All is well with the world.

[Chris Ganale]

And that's all fair. Finding and exploiting weaknesses is amusing.

 

I simply don't want to have somebody move to engage Garon, Ghost, or Yuuna, find out that they use firearms, and then treat them as pushover jokes because of their choice of weapon.

[Raelas]

And that's all fair. Finding and exploiting weaknesses is amusing.

 

I simply don't want to have somebody move to engage Garon, Ghost, or Yuuna, find out that they use firearms, and then treat them as pushover jokes because of their choice of weapon.

 

You should let them think exactly that... until you blow off a chunk of their face.

 

In fact, letting them believe they're stronger and feeding that overconfidence will work hand in hand with finding and exploiting weaknesses.

 

No matter what they think of your weapon choice, a carefully crafted emote will back them in to a situation of no return everytime. I love when I get to do that!

[Proud Dahlia]

And that's all fair. Finding and exploiting weaknesses is amusing.

 

I simply don't want to have somebody move to engage Garon, Ghost, or Yuuna, find out that they use firearms, and then treat them as pushover jokes because of their choice of weapon.

 

I understand your wariness, but that can apply to pretty much anything. Bad roleplayers will godmode no matter what weapon you're using. This is why I tend to not do combat RP with people I don't feel I can trust.

[SunTzu7]

How will I deal with firearms? By setting their arms. On FIRE! Haha, sociopathic tendencies. And terrible puns.

 

But lets be fair, we already had archers in the setting, and Longbows historically have been enough in many cases to punch straight through some kinds of armour. 

 

I imagine we live in a world where the bog standard human is a bit more resilient than our happy little species. So while a bullet anywhere in real life is going to require a fair bit of hospital time if it doesn't kill you dead, I don't think it's going to be that simple in Eorzea. Conversely however, you shouldn't be able to just 'shrug it off' and keep going. It's still a bullet. Possibly in your face.

[Mordred Lyloche]

I always find it kind of campy that people immediately run to the, "Who's stronger?!" ideal. But since we do need to do that, let's take a look back through memory lane of Final Fantasy in general.

 

Final Fantasy has a very common theme of magic vs. technology, with one of the two seemingly being bad or just forgotten/shunned. So it's not uncommon in the setting to see people with swords and magic fighting against people with rifles and sniper rifles.

 

Taking a look at our shining boys from FFVII we get a very clear image of people dealing with getting shot and still running around fighting. In the most extreme of cases, we've got Zack Fair who took several shots throughout his entire body - of course he was a super powered freak, but it's the most extreme case.

 

It's also not uncommon for the laws that govern our reality to hold no part in the worlds of Final Fantasy. Armoring that defies our knowledge of physics and the forces that matter in reality often don't matter at all to Final Fantasy. Again, looking at FFVII - specifically Advent Children - we get to see the classic party all helping out Cloud, jumping up and throwing him higher in the air. There's also plenty of examples from FFXIII and even as far back as FFIV with the death defying party that fought against Baron and its technological might.

 

It's commonplace within the worlds of Final Fantasy for the sword-toting folk to need to be able to stand against those who utilize guns. Whether they're just able to take and shrug off several shots in general or the fact that their armor is made with the weapons specifically in mind is up in the air, but it's no question that throughout the stories this is a thing.

 

But getting more onto the topic of the MCH class in general, I think we really need to take a look at the availability of the technology in question and why they're receiving it. As far as we know, Cid's Workshop came up with quite a few goodies to help defending against the Dravanians. I think it's safe to assume that the majority of MCH - those actually utilizing what the class entails - are not going to be running around swinging their guns around and acting like bandits when they quite obviously have bigger fish to fry.

 

Following the example of Cid Garlond, who has demonstrated the potency of magitek, the Skysteel Manufactory works tirelessly on the development of advanced armaments. As new and devastating weapons are brought to the fray, a new class of champion arises to wield them ― the machinist.

 

There's also the fantastic point of how people are capable of standing against the might of the Garlean Empire. Considering there was a rather sizable force here in Eorzea and we're all running around using all manner of "inferior" weaponry compared to their tech and even their mech suits, we were capable of standing against them without. Sure, the Warrior of Light + allies managed to commandeer one of them, but I'm referring to the basic, rank and file soldier that was fighting while the Warrior of Light was doing his heroism. If the basic rank and file soldier stood something of a chance, which they clearly did when looking at the Battle at Cartenau and then throughout all the other battles to come, then there's got to be some manner of defense implied against guns, otherwise it'd just be instant auto-kill shots.