This sounds so familiar...

Right; this is three-quarters of the plot of Dead Beat.
Yeah, the necromancers were wizards, but they are leaps and bounds ahead of Harry in skill, summon up the dead to fight, turn an entire city into their battleground...

Besides which, this is fanfiction. People re-write the rules to fit the circumstances all the time. That's kind of how crossovers work.

I get that you don't like the idea as is, but let's think positive; what sorts of changes would be required to make this work? If it goes beyond reason and renders one or both of the universes unrecognizable, then I will bow down to it never working. But if minor changes could make it work, without destroying some fundamental tenet of either universe, then I say let it happen.

I challenge you, Ryuugi Shi, to name the minimum amount of change required to let us have our fun, and still be true to the worlds we love. If you declare it impossible, I'll say nothing more.

 

It's not all about power levels, Datakim. I don't think you could just write wizards off, specially if they had time to prepare. When in doubt, they could always try something along the lines of Morgan's fall back method--sucker punch them with a nuclear blast.

 

Why would Harry be stuck in his home doing absolutely nothing? That's not what most of the other Masters do. Just because he can't take a Servant in a one-on-one fight doesn't mean he has to spend the entire war sitting at home doing nothing. You've already conceded that he measures up well against the other Masters, so he could presumably have as active of a role as any of them take. By your logic, all the Masters would be useless, boring characters who couldn't do anything. F/SN and F/Z seem to prove rather decisively that this isn't the case.

You're also assuming that Harry in a supporting role would be done in the most idiotic and mind-numbingly boring manner possible. As a general rule, authors don't write that way.

 

Most everything I've got to say on it has been mentioned already. Dresden has just as much (and I would argue probably more) options for maneuver as the other Masters. There's a lot more going on in the HGW than just direct combat. It's the focus of the material, true, but that doesn't mean that's solely what happens.

Edit: Honestly, knowing Dresden's personality and temperament, I would fully expect him to act in much the same role as Kiritsugu in Fate/Zero.

 

No. It's true that both are unsuited to fight other Servants, only Assassin is suited to fight other Masters, because it has the ability of Presence Concealment, keeping it from being noticed.

Casters could fight Masters fine, if they got them alone, but they can't approach unnoticed, so that's not really an option. What would happen is they'd get noticed, the Master would call his Servant, and they'd die.

This is the reason Casters are regarded as the weakest class. They can't fight other Servants and they can't put themselves in a position where they can fight Masters.

And remember how that went? Harry lost to all the guys he tried to fight against. The Necromancers went down in the end because all three were taken by surprise. One was shot in the head, one was stabbed with a sword, and Cowl took the Darkhallow to the face.

So couldn't Harry just do that here?

No.

Because Servants, in addition to often having large resistance to magic, cannot be effected by non-magical weaponry. Being shot in the head wouldn't hurt them. Being stabbed wouldn't either.

Which leaves Harry with...nothing.

Hell, even if they weren't, though, Servants have bullshit speed and skill and have, at times, parried machine gun fire. Magically supercharged machine gun fire, operating high above what normal guns could ever do.

Yeah.

Hey, I gave serious thought to writing the idea.

It just didn't work. Not without forcing Harry and a lot of other characters to the sidelines, which I didn't want to do.

Lemme think about it. I'm not sure...off the top of my head, Arturia could wake up; she's canonically still alive on Avalon, waiting to wake up. In that case, she'd be physical, so at least she could be affected by mortal weaponry (rather then seven effectively invulnerable monsters running around)...she might still have Avalon, though...

Even if she didn't, it would probably still need to be pretty high level story. Excalibur and Avalon are canonically gifts from the Faeries; Mab and Titania getting involved might be a good place to start.

Dunno. Like I said, I'd need to think.

Can't do that. Did I mention that Servants are completely immune to anything non-magical? Nukes don't affect them. I even have a Word of God if you want it.

That's the reason Servants are some of the strongest beings in the Nasuverse. It's not (just) their offensive power--it's just that there's barely anything that can affect them, period.

They're basically ghosts, except they've also surpassed the weaknesses of Ghosts. That's also canon.

Notice how Shirou always did stuff. There was a reason for that.

More to the point, whenever anything happened, pretty much all of the Masters did STFU and go away. When they did get involved, it was usually to mess things up. Boring? Maybe not. Useless? Kind of. Exceptions being Shirou and sometimes Rin.

Again, the problem with engaging an enemy master is that if they're actually in danger, they'll call their Servant and Harry will die. Harry doesn't have to stay home; he could walk around with his Servant or whatever.

But he still wouldn't be able to do anything important. Especially in the Darkhallow idea, cause he wouldn't be able to fight the Masters, even if they couldn't summon their Servants.

He can't gather information well and the places he'd have to go to try would get him a sword to the face if he actually went there.

So basically, any time anything important happens, Harry would stop being useful at all. And without any ability to get involve, what's left to him?

Okay.

So how does Harry act in this story? You keep saying there's plenty of stuff he could do. Like what?

And I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what exactly he could/would do.

 

I added an edit to my previous post a few minutes ago you seem to have missed.

Kiritsugu in F/0 suffers from all of the same disadvantages you list here. Would you say he was useless and/or boring to watch?

 

I find that extremely unlikely. Or, at least, he wouldn't do it effectively. Kiritsugu is like Kincaid; he's a professional. He's an expert in breaking through wards and spells and he's ruthless and he's experienced at killing mages. More to the point, he's backed up by a ton of tech that Harry simply can't use.

He blows up buildings with explosives (which he had such a huge amount of knowledge and skill with that he could blow up entire buildings with a few well placed ones). He uses sniper rifles to kill from long distances, with scopes and sensors specifically for use against magic users. He uses cameras with familiars, controls minds, and a bunch of other shit to deal with his opponents, as well as the ability to control time and a special gun that was one of the main reasons he was able to compete.

Harry can't do that stuff. He doesn't have access to the tech, doesn't have the knowledge to use it, and couldn't even if he did.

And also, even with all that stuff?

I'd still say he was boring and useless. Well, no; that's a harsh way of saying it. But what did he do in the end, really?

He killed Kayneth, because Kayneth was an arrogant dumbass who wanted to prove something to his girl instead of just summoning his Servant and lost stupidly as a result, resulting in Lancer's death in a way that really wasn't necessary, given Saber had the complete advantage and could have beaten him in a fight easily enough by then.

He snipped Caster's Master, accomplishing nothing.

He fought Kotomine, who, again, didn't just kill him via Servant because he was obsessed with him.

His only real important action was making Saber blow up the Grail...which again, didn't accomplish much. It came back in ten years, Kotomine survived, Gil survived, etc., and Shirou had to finish the job.

Did I think he was boring? Meh; I guess not. I thought he was okay.

But he wasn't why I was reading F/Z. He and his conflict with Kotomine was the reasonably cool icing on the awesome cake that was the rest of the story.

 

I think there's one other thing Harry could do that the other Masters wouldn't have: Call in back up.

Harry could ask Sanya (and, depending on the timeframe, Michael) to help him out with those magical Swords of theirs. Or the Wardens, and their magical swords. Now, I get that in both cases, the primary power of those weapons is to 'level the playing field' - remove magical barriers and protections, primarily. But they are still a level above typical mortal weapons.

 

That still wouldn't get Harry off the sidelines, though.

More to the point, it pretty unlikely Harry would do that. The Warden's swords wouldn't level the playing field, at all, because even if you have weapons the Servants can't completely ignore, it doesn't change anything if you don't have what it takes to back that up.

If the Warden Swords affected the Servants at all (which is unclear, since Jim said they're nonmagical), the fact remains that the Servants are infinitely more skilled with weapons and way, way faster and stronger.

The best example is Shirou when he fought Archer. He fought Archer while his body was being healed by Avalon and hardened by UBW's made out of swords thing, and you know what happened? The bones in his arms shattered. As did the bones in his legs and throughout his body. Muscles tore and he received enormous amounts of internal damage. He survived largely due to Avalon--and Archer never hit him. He blocked every attack, thanks to UBW; this was an unfortunate side-effect of the forces involved.

Wardens, who don't have the speed and skill to match Servants, are going to do way, way worse. See the Dragon Tooth Warriors. The Shadow Monsters. The Horrors Caster summoned.

All creatures that bare much stronger then humans.

All butchered by the hundreds.

Sadly, this is even true of the Knights. As proven in GP and DM, the swords may be unbreakable, but the Knights aren't, nor are they immune to the forces involved. Nicodemus killed a 150+ with pure skill and outmatched two at once fairly easily.

If they tried to parry a blow, there arms would break. And their legs, etc.

 

One question there is why can't Dresden then carry one of the swords? One could make a credible argument that the Swords could very well mitigate Servant magic resistance.

Also, I stand by my statement that Dresden acting in a similar capacity to Fate/Zero Kiritsugu would be interesting to see.

 

I think you misunderstood him. In the RPG (which is sometimes right about things and sometimes not), all forms of Supernatural Toughness and Recovery, as well as Physical Immunity, have a Catch; something which pierces it.

The Swords level the playing field by always being considered to satisfy the Catch. They don't make anything else satisfy it, however; not only in the RPG but in the Books. We've seen Harry cast spells while he carried the Swords and while other people carried the Swords and his opponents were just as durable.

Well, sure, but he can't really do stuff like that without the knowledge, training, skill, and equipment he'd need, ala Kincaid.

 

I think a lot of what Kiritsugu does in the show can be replicated using magic by Dresden as he is circa Small Favor.

That's not terribly relevant though, simply because a lot of what Kiritsugu does would be abhorrent to Dresden. I was not referring to any singular act that Dresden could/would replicate or whatever. What I mean is that Dresden fills a similar role, insofar as he would act as mission support and as a counter to the other Masters. He would rarely act directly against the Servants.

WRT the Swords though, that's correct. What I was going for is that you could tweak the rules a bit for the sake of the crossover and allow the Swords to affect MR.

 

Guys, the solution to all of your problems regarding Servant MR+Speed is simple:

Warden Sword + Lasciel + a few hundred years of training.

He could be on par with Nicodemus (who is said to have inhuman speed), and Denarians in general are very durable.

 

Not sure if want. The only way I could see Denarian!Dresden being at all palatable is to be a Servant with canon Dresden as a Master, with the whole thing serving as a GARcher/Shirou parallel, and I'm just not interested in that.

 

The only way Denerians are going to be interesting in this scenario is when either a master or better, a servant picks up a coin.

Ilya and Meciel, anyone?

 

About the swords, their main power is making a battle even by removing all supernatural power from their opponents, what will this do to the speed and power of any Servant that opposes Dresden?

 

Uh, no they don't. They've never done that to anyone nor been said to do that.

I think you're thinking of the RPG, in which they are considered to satisfy all Catches. That would allow them to injure Servants normally for swords of their size and shape.

That is not, nor has it ever been, the main with fighting Servants in melee combat.

 

Page 398 of Small Favour: "I was no Knight, but the sword did for me what it had always done for them - it levelled the playing field, stripping away all the supernatural trappings and leaving only a struggle of mind versus mind and will versus will, one man against another."

Sure sounds like those who oppose the swords temporarily lose all supernatural power.

 

Only, we know that's not true, because of literally every fight we've seen involving the swords.

Agatha kept her powers and threw Michael like a ragdoll, the Nightmare was ripping gravestones out of the ground, the Denarians used their magic, speed, and strength, etc.

 

We have seen the Swords negate supernatural powers though, at the end of Small Favor. Nicodemus' shadow thing couldn't stop Dresden when he was choking Nicky out, purely because of Fidelacchius.

That's not to say it strips powers from people, but it does seem to grant the bearers at least some level of protection against external magic/powers. It's more like innate magic resistance is granted to the bearer than anything else.