That still leaves him the option of taking down the other Master from ambush and/or winning the fight before the Master can use a command seal.

Yeah, a command seal can instant-summon a Servant, but Masters are always shown as being very reluctant to use them unless they have to. Command seals are a very limited resource after all. Unless Harry starts the fight with an overwhelming tactical advantage, most of the other masters would at least try to take him on before using a command spell, especially if he's up against one of the more arrogant/crazy Masters who wouldn't want to admit that Harry would win a straight-up fight. If the other master tries fighting, there's a possibility that Harry will end the fight before the other Master can call for help.

That aside, I agree that Harry being badly outclassed by the Servants would make for some difficulty when it comes to writing the actual story, especially since the smarter, most dangerous Masters wouldn't fall for trying to beat Harry in a straight magic duel. It doesn't help that Harry would be very, very bad at sitting on the sidelines and letting his Servant do all the fighting, especially if it's Saber or any other female.

No denying it would be tricky, but a good enough writer could probably pull it off.

 

Not really. Remember, Harry, whether from the past or future, has his own restrictions.

The Laws of Magic.

Namely, he cannot kill any of the other Masters, at least not with magic. Which, honestly, means he has to hold back a lot, cause humans are squishy. I don't think Harry as a Master would have the control for something that would knock out but not kill a human being, because F/SN went down early in the books, chronologically. Furthermore, if he hurts but doesn't knock out the Master, he's gonna have to deal with their Servant.

Really, in this situation, he has to rely on his gun if he wants to kill anyone, and we've seen Nasu mages block bullets. If a bullet gets through anyway and hurts them, he'll die to the Servant. Hell, he'll probably die even if he kills the Master, because a lot of the Servants have shown the ability to stick around for a short time, even without IA.

The only way he can do this if he successfully snips them without the Master or Servant reacting and that...would only work sometimes, though not against Saber, Berserker, Lancer, and Archer, who are able to smack stuff like that down.

But even if it could work on all of them and Harry could find the motivation to kill six magi, some of whom haven't broken any real laws, magical or otherwise...I don't really see how 'Harry sneaks around and shots six people in the head' would make for an interesting story.

Also, most of the Master's we saw either had their Servant hovering around them at all times or had them nearby, unless they were hiding in a safe place. I mean, did we see anyone that preferred to fight instead of making their Servant do it? Besides Shirou (and arguably Kayneth, I guess). If Harry tried to attack, they'd probably just make their Servant kill him. Which arrogant/crazy Masters are you talking about?

Shirou might fight him, but he could probably take Harry in a fight pretty easily, depending on which point of which route it was. Rin might fight too, but might also win (and works with Shirou/has Archer nearby, besides). Harry probably wouldn't be willing to kill either of them, besides.

Shinji was a coward and would summon Rider. Caster's Master was practical and boosted by Caster, who was always nearby. Kotomine is himself. Zouken isn't a frontline fighter. Ilya's SOP is to make Berserker do everything. Etc.

 

There's one thing you're forgetting though Ryuugi. Dresden has a Servant of his own. On his own, Dresden wouldn't stand a chance, and that's one of the reasons he, as a Servant, wouldn't be terribly useful. As a Master though, Dresden would very likely be one of the best in the War, depending on where in the books you take him from. He can at least match the feats of any of the human competitors save maybe Zouken's shenanigans and UBW. At absolute minimum, Dresden can match Rin in capability, and she was a Master without a whole lot of issues.

You could make a very good piece out of Dresden working with his Servant to win the war. Dresden himself wouldn't be doing much fighting, but why does he need to? Not every work needs the main character to run around fighting everything. I'd honestly be fairly interested in seeing Dresden forced into a support role and how he deals with it.

Mondo bonus points if he gets paired with Iskander.

 

Stories don't have to be about the protagonist fighting, no. But they generally have to be about the protagonist doing something. While, yes, standing the the sidelines cheering is a perfectly acceptable and logical role for a Master, it's not a very interesting one. There's only so much enjoyment that can be derived from an 20 to 30 year old man acting like a cheerleader and it's not a whole lot.

Harry's as good a fighter as any of the magi involved, but that doesn't really matter a whole lot in the Holy War, because if, say, his Servant distracts the enemy Servant while he goes for the Master, the enemy Master can just use a Command Seal to teleport his Servant to his side and kill Harry/force him to use a Command Seal, which he only has three of and has to keep at least one to remain a Master. For that reason, engaging enemy Master's directly, especially cowards/practical opponents like...well, everyone in the war, is a bad idea, cause he'd run out of seals in minutes.

Which leaves him with...what? Magical items can't be made quickly. He could make some potions, I guess, but those won't do all that much against a Servant, though it might make things a bit more difficult. And he could do...well, what else?

Maybe some Thaumaturgy, if he somehow got parts of his opponents, I suppose.

But all this falls into the same hole, which is why it's rare in the books. It's boring. Sure, Harry could stand over a pot stirring for the entire war, or hide, or, if he manages to do it before someone tracks him down, stay inside a circle in a safe place and use some Thaumaturgy. In the right circumstances, he could even have actual fights with the Masters who are much, much weaker then him (or else, way stronger, ala Shirou) while his Servant has an epic battle of awesomeness in the background, distracting the enemy Servant.

But at that point, I'd probably lose interest, at least in Dresden. There's no point in this crossover if Harry does nothing of interest. Having Alexander is sort of an okay idea; Alex is awesome. He could probably care a whole story. But at that point, I'd be watching for Alex, not Harry, so there'd be no point to Harry at all if he's not doing anything exciting.

And that's why Harry usually gets in fights, instead of pwning with Thaumaturgy or making potions. It's not exciting and we'd all get bored.

 

I think you're underselling just what's involved in providing combat support in a fight like that. Dresden would be doing all sorts of things, and very, very little of it would be "cheerleading". Most of his strengths would lie in information gathering and misdirection. His self-admitted best skill (at least earlier in the series) is his tracking spells. Combine that with his contacts among the Little Folk and he should know literally everything that's going on in the war. Given enough time to prepare, he may even be able to pull out something similar to Little Chicago, though most situations I can think of would preclude that.

On top of that, his thaumaturgical abilities would mean he could leave traces of his "essence", for lack of a better term, all over the place. Meaning no one would be able to find him by magical means, meaning any battle he and/or his servant fought would be on his own terms.

There's a lot he can contribute without actively fighting, and even then he may well be able to serve as artillery in some situations. Direct magic won't work, but he could, for example, lift a rock and drop it on them or something. I imagine his gravity spell could be put to great effect against a Servant, though that's debatable.

 

The thing is, very few of Dresden's spells actually use magic to act directly on the human (or target) body. That tends to be pretty dark magic - usually either mind magic or thaumaturgical rituals.

Evocations cause physical effects which then affect the opponent, so they shouldn't be immune to them. Fire, wind, kinetic force, increased gravity - all of these are caused by magic, but they aren't magical in and of themselves. I don't know how F/SN resistance works, never having played/watched it, but based on the previous discussion they shouldn't be entirely immune to them.

 

Actually, Agayek mentioning Harry's investigation skills brings one big thing he could do to mind. Finding out the identities of the other Servants (and Masters) has always been a big deal in the Grail War, and information gathering is something Harry is really good at.

If Harry is halfway competent, he and his Servant will be the best-informed team in the Grail War. Knowing the strengths/weaknesses of all the other Servants and being able to keep track of them all would be a pretty huge tactical advantage.

 

To be entirely fair, Magic Resistance in FSN should negate force spells entirely. The force itself is created from magic and there is no real physical transfer of momentum, simply force being projected by magic onto the target.

Fire, gravity-crush-o'-doom and wind should all be somewhat effective, though likely to a much lesser extent than usual.

That said, as Ryuugi rightly pointed out, Dresden would not stand much of a chance against any of the Servants in direct combat. If nothing else, they move far too fast for him to react, let alone properly defend himself. I could see him fighting a successful retreating action or something if he had a pre-set plan and maybe some backup, but that's about it.

Pretty much exactly this. An army of spies that cannot be detected, nor really guarded against unless explicitly targeted (and which most completely ignore), combined with his tracking spells and the concepts used in Little Chicago means Dresden should know who everyone is, (probably) what their plan is, and where they are at all times.

The only thing Dresden can't feasibly find out in short order would be the identities of some of the servants. GARcher and Arturia would likely throw him off a bit, due to being either A) from the future or B) counter to the normal legend, but everyone else he should be able to ID quickly and help his servant come up with strategies to handle them.

 

No. That's not how MR in F/SN works. It doesn't just negate spells that affect them, it negates stuff that targets them, period. In fact, that's how every example in canon was. The Lightning Bolts Caster created which fizzled out, the explosions and ice spears Rin made, etc, as well as magical abilities that affect the mind like Mystic Face.

MR works on any magic that would affect servants in any way and makes them fizzle out. MR would be pretty useless if it didn't work on spells like that.

Hell, it doesn't even require the spell touch them; Caster's spells got shut down just by going near Saber.

And? I mean, yeah, he could probably do that, but...so what?

He could figure out where everyone was, but it wouldn't really change the fact that he would have no actual ability to affect anything in this situation. I mean, not knowing where your opponents are has never really been the problem of the Holy War (unless you're dealing with Assassin, which this wouldn't help him with).

Also, doing this would require he had a link to the people he was tracking--and it would only work on the Master's, since it's a spell.

So, yeah.

Not really. Tracking people in F/SN doesn't work like that. Well, it could work like that, if the Masters wanted to track that way, but usually, they just send out their Familiars.

In addition, Servants can sense each other at fairly long distanced. Saber said she had a pathetic range, but could detect an enemy Servant at 200 meters. So that's one way to find him.

That rock better be the size of a house and moving at high speeds. Remember, these are guys that tore up an entire street do to just fighting on it and have destroyed multiple houses as a side effect of the force of their attacks.

Besides which, magic cancels out just by being nearby Servants with MR. Caster's spells fizzled out just by getting near Saber.

And no, the Gravity spell would be shut down too, because it would be trying to affect them.

True, again, but there are two problems.

The major one, from a story perspective, is that that would be boring. IC, Harry might not know who these Servants are, be we do, and there's only so much entertainment that can be derived from a mystery that you already know the answer too.

Harry: Who is that blue Servant with that read spear!? I have to figure this out!

Us: 's just Lancer.

Harry: What!? An Eight Servant? Who's that arrogant golden mofo!?

Us: Oh, it's just Gil.

It's hard to do an interesting mystery in the Holy Grail War, cause we've kind of already heard this story. The only way around that is to make some/all the Servants OCs which...has plenty of problems, all it's own.

However, there's an in character problem, too. Namely, well, what does it matter if Harry learns the identities of the other Servants?

I mean, that was always made out to be a big deal, but think about it for real. What does it matter?

Saber:

Harry: Ah ha! She (still can't believe that) is King Arthur! Don't worry, I know this one. She has Amorrachius; it's dangerous, but it's a short range weapon--

Saber: *Excaliblast*

Harry: ...

*Dials a number*

Harry: Michael, having you been holding out on me?

Rider:

Harry: Okay, she's Medusa. Her main weapon is probably her eyes, but if we avoid looking--Oh, shit, no, her eyes work just by looking at us!

...

*Suddenly, a flying horse*

Harry: WTF

Lancer:

Harry: I know who he is. His spear is his NP, but we just have to avoid it; it works by spreading barbs through your body once it stabs you--

Lancer: *bends causality*

Harry: Okay, yeah; I'm 99.9% sure that's not how it worked in your legends.

Lancer: If it makes you feel better, it also spreads barbs throughout your body.

Harry: It doesn't, but thanks.

Berserker:

Harry: Okay, he's, uh, Hercules. Uh...um...oh, snap?

Gilgamesh:

Harry: I've figured it out! He's Gilgamesh and--

Gil: *Flies onto the scene in his Ancient Babylonian Jet, firing it's Ancient Babylonian Machineguns, throwing out every legendary weapon around, before binding it with Enkidu and nuking it with Ea*

Harry: What is this I don't even

No offense, but knowing the legends and identities of the Servants involved really isn't going to help you in the Holy Grail War.

Actually, no. Well, I could be forgetting something. But...were there any Servants that had weaknesses that were revealed by knowing their identities?

Like, at all?

Again, knowing the identities of the Servants really won't help you, unless you can make logic jumps like:

Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot = The Gordian Knot bound an ox-cart = the Oxen of the cart were going to be sacrificed to Zeus = Alexander the Great has a giant chariot pulled by flying bulls that shoot lightning out of their asses.

 

For once, I agree with Ryuugi Shi on something. There are crossovers that work well, there are ones you have to work at to make them look good, and then there are ones where something about the two just doesn't mesh at all. I mean, if you stuck Mab in the Holy Grail War she'd probably stand a chance, given that she has her choice of pretty much every nightmare ever had by mortal kind for Servants and he own quite frankly god-like powers for defending herself. Harry, though? He wouldn't stand a chance.

Hell, even though Harry has a gift for finding things out, he still can't compare to someone like Rashid, who looks into the future for information, or Mab, who can theoretically spy on anywhere her domain extends to (the cold and/or dark).

That said, there could be a little wiggle room for thaumaturgy to work if having a piece of a Magic Resistant Servant to use as a link would allow the magic past their defences, as it does for everything in the Dresdenverse. Or if one of them gave out his Name.

 

Here's the thing though, Dresden isn't supposed to be able to actually fight the Servants. It would be far more interesting to have Dresden acting in a support role. As I said, Ryuugi is underselling what is actually involved in doing such a thing.

Information is power. The identities of each individual serpent helps a great deal, assuming he has one of those cheat books Shirou gets, but even without he can find all sorts of weaknesses in the Servants he and his Servant can then plan around. For example, he could find out that Saber's summoning was imperfect and she is (relatively) easily exhausted. Or that Gilgamesh sustains his existence by draining the kids in the Church, so he could burn the place down and then no more prana battery. There is almost nothing that Dresden should not know about the other participants in the Holy Grail War. It's made to be a big deal to have familiars out everywhere, but Dresden has hundreds of familiar-equivalents that report directly to him and cannot be detected unless they choose to be. Anything any of the Servants or Masters reveal about their personalities, skills, weaknesses and desires should be almost instantly known by Dresden, and that information is more precious than gold in a battle like the HGW.

Ryuugi's right, insofar as knowing the specific legend wouldn't be terribly helpful, but that's not the main gist of what I was getting at. Information is power, in any war, and Dresden is probably the best equipped out of any of the other Masters I've seen in that regard.

Plus, just the personal conflict and character building inherent in forcing Dresden onto the sidelines would be fairly interesting to read IMO. Dresden has a lot of qualities, but patience isn't one of them. You could feasibly make quite a few more interesting scenes using that.

 

Have to agree with Agayek that you could probably do something interesting character-wise with Harry being stuck in a largely supporting role. Having to deal with the fact that he can't just wade in and mix it up, and has to let his Servant do most of the fighting could push his character in a new direction.

Heck, I've been putting him through a similar dilemma in Soul's Light, since Evangelion/Angel battles are similarly out of his league. It's pushed his character in an interesting direction. Then again, not being able to fight very often is less of an issue in a crossover with a series where the fighting takes a backseat to conspiracy plotting and psychological drama.

 

The cheat sheet thing only works if he actually sees a Servant and it only applies to NPs if he's around for their activation.

And again, so what?

Um, not quite. While she does run out of energy quickly, keep in mind that she only got really low on energy after using Excalibur.

Trying to exhaust her generally means risking an Excaliblast to the face. Horrible strategy is horrible.

Furthermore, any weaknesses Saber has are completely erased by Shirou, who would curb stomp the shit out of Harry if he had UBW, and also gives Saber access to Avalon, which completely removes all of her weaknesses, as well as giving her access to additional prana; enough for several additional Excaliblasts.

Saber has weaknesses, but they're so minor compared to her strengths (and are, in fact, removed entirely by said strengths) that it doesn't matter.

Again, no. Gil powers himself on souls, which all Servants are capable of doing. He eats the kids in the church because they're convenient; if they disappear, he can just eat someone else.

Not in Japan, he sure as hell doesn't. He could probably convince the locals to help him if needed...but they won't be useful to him.

Why? Well just think about it. Where do the Master's operate in this War?

Rin's in her family house, so Dresden's helpers run into his Threshold and Wards.

Shirou's in his house, so Threshold and Wards.

Kotomine's in his Church, so Holy Ground and Wards.

The Matou's are in their house, so Threshold and Wards.

Caster's in the Temple, so Holy Ground and Epic Level Wards.

Ilya's perhaps the least defended, but getting to her still requires piercing the wards around the Castle her family has used for hundreds of years. And if Harry's pathetically weak helpers miraculously do that he'll learn...that he has to fight Hercules. Yay.

You're really, really over-exaggerating Harry's information network. The Little Folk are kick ass, but they have limits, some of which are a Threshold, Wards, and Holy Ground. Especially Wards--Nasuverse magi have to defend against all kinds of small creatures and keep them out.

The usefulness of information is dependent on your ability to actually use that information. In this case, he'll know where all the Master's are a bit earlier in the war...but everyone found out about each other in a few days anyway, so...

You keep saying how Dresden's 'vast' information network would give him a massive advantage, but how exactly?

And what would he even find out? Seriously, there's really not that much important information that he would be able to access, given the situation.

Hell, the only really important pieces of information, period, are what? The stuff happening behind the wards of the Fuyuki Church, on Holy Ground and the stuff behind the Threshold and Wards of the Matou House?

Besides that, the only things he can really learn are the identities of the Servants which...just isn't helpful.

Remember, in the Fourth War, Kotomine and the Assassin's did exactly what you're describing. They found out all that stuff, only better, because they weren't bothered by Wards, Thresholds, and Holy Ground. They quickly learnt the identity of everyone in the War.

And it honestly wasn't very useful.

 

Well, one way could be to not make Dresden go to that city for the holy grail war but to make the holy grail war come to Chicago. And by that, I mean, use the same servants (Fate Zero or Fate Stay Night) but have different, Dresden Verse Masters.

Sounds terrible, I know, but it could work if done right, I think. Even more if, next to the Holy Grail War business, the masters try to get their own plans to work.

 

Beginning to think Dresden would make a better Servant - remember you don't have to draw a Servant from the past; Archer's from the future. Future-Dresden would probably make a decent Caster.

Though he'd probably put himself at a severe disadvantage right off the bat; I can't see him being okay with eating people's souls for a temporary power-up, unlike a few other Servants.

 

Basically it would be the Darkhollow ritual again, but with more participants and more magical support.

 

Could even be the two simultaneously. Cowl could be attempting both, maybe. Didn't give it much thought until know.

Having future Dresden as a servant still leads to the problem that a lot of the other servants are immune to most of his stuff. On the other hand, casters are mainly supposed to attack masters anyway, so, having Dresden struggle with his morale code and a masters orders could be interesting.

If it were the Fate Stay Night crossover, I would think it would make the best story for Dresden to replace Rider as Sakura's servant and have him deal with Shinji and Sakura's dilemma.

Don't really see him in Fate Zero though. Whom would he replace? If he were to replace Caster, Dresden would immediately lay waste to the psycho master and fade shortly after. Although, one could branch of from there, kind of make a time travel fic too, if all plays in the same universe.

 

Instead of Dresden, what about focusing on Morgan, the Blackstaff or the Gatekeeper? Cause, you know, could be that summoning a Servant is close enough to knocking on the Outer Gates that they get interested...takes care of timeline problems and the protagonist having enough power as a Master to influence things, too.

 

More to the point, literally everyone he'd have to fight in the War is immune to everything he can do.

The problem with moving it to Chicago is the same with having it in Japan.

Namely, Harry becomes largely unimportant. Sure, you could force him into a supporting role that he's really not good at, but that's the same thing in the end; no one's going to care about Harry if he just spends the war watching from a distance, brewing potions, or sitting in a circle.

Several people have suggested it might be interesting to have Harry in a situation he's not used to, stuck as a supporting role and not able to get involved with anything that's happening--but no, it wouldn't. Not for a real fic, at least. Everyone's going to be bored as fuck of Harry in three or four chapters if he does essentially nothing.

I mean, think about what's been suggested. Have the little folk walk around? That's basically Harry sitting at home doing nothing until someone stops bye and tells him stuff. Yawn.

That leaves him with Tracking Spells that probably won't work on the Necromancers? So basically nothing?

Seriously, I'm having a hard time seeing how this would be fun--or at least why it would be fun because of Harry. Can anyone explain why people would find the story of Harry staying home and talking to the faeries exciting?

At that point, I'd rather it just be about the Servants in Chicago instead. Characters that don't do anything (or anything important, at least) are not interesting.

You misremember. Assassins attack Masters. Casters are just the class that sucks. They can't hide their presence, so they can be immediately detected by other Servants from hundreds of yards away, leading to fights with people who are immune to magic and better then him at...literally everything else.

That's really what this is about. Harry as a Servant doesn't work, because he'd have to fight a war against a half-dozen people stronger, faster, and all around better then him at everything but magic, who are immune to magic, and who can detect his presence effortlessly.

Again, the problem with trying to make this story is not power or anything like that.

It's the fact that DF mages are basically unable to do anything in this fight. They're fighting people that are immune to magic, ala Papa Raith, who stopped Eb cold, even when he tried to kill him.

Whether they're strong or weak, it's kind of cruel to make them fight people that are immune to all their powers, immune to non-magical things, and stronger, faster, and all around better then them in a fight.

Also, why would it by breaking the 7th Law? If anything, it might come close to breaking the 5th, but even then, Servant /= the actual Heroes. They're basically ghosts; copies of the record set in the Throne.

Also, how would you explain the Mage's Association, the Church, and Zelretch.

 

But I thought Assassin and Caster were similar in that both are not suited for direct servant vs servant combat? Assassin's just have a different approach of doing it.