ok so here is the deal you have 2 armies. one a modern army from our reality. the other a full out D&D army of whateve ryou prefer for your own vs mode. granted the alliances and such would work in D&D. both armies are meeting on a neutral planet earth like same physics ect. each army will only be equipted with what they would ave in the feild. so no nuclar missile silos or anything like that. when a tank runs out of gas its good for cover when they run out of ammo they gotta go hand to hand or get medevial. ok so have at it who do you think would win and what are your reasons
Nukes have dozens of way of being delivered. If the human modern army is able to use planes, ships or subs then there should be enough nuclear payload to blow up this neutral planet several times. Even without nukes there are other similar type bombs and weaponry that is just as deadly if not deadlier (but in a bit of a different way). In short a nuclear warhead could be placed on a simple mobile platform of some kind and used. Same with our other weapons of mass destruction. I do see it though that a modern army as being able to bring and use nukes in the field. Question though is are the other guys able to stop it?
Possibly. It all depends on the power of the wizards and such of the D&D realms. What power level are they? Could they blast it out of the air before it is armed? Could they teleport it to a different local or dimension? Could they make a force field that would protect their troops from the blast and radiation?
How big is each army compared to each other? What magic lvl is the standard gear of the D&D forces? Could their magical gear stop bullets and such? What kind of creatures do they have in their army?
1 3E wraith > that an entire non magical planet.
Not if we have the Ghostbusters on our side...
In 3.5 you can get a character who has enough strength to throw the planet itself(he would need a Cape of Flying for leverage and Ioun stones in order to survive). Or for a more sutble approach there is always locate city bombs (and the accompanying True Resurrections of course). For a war of attrition two necromancers should be plenty to make at least half of the opposing army into walking necrosplosions(which would heal the undead and hurt the living). If you decide onmore guerilla tactics try beating teleporting and turning invisble. If you are hiding instead, divinations should help considerably.
All of this ignores the adaptablity and ingenuity of people in the DnD. Tell me how long do you think would be before modern people would devise tactics to combat magic, in that same time DnD people will be stealing as many as your Assault Rifles and Pistols as they can(and all of your explosives).
There is one thing that could save the modern day forces however. That would be bribes to dragons. Dragons who could be betrayed and killed after the battle is over(careful dragons are notorious schemers).
Now with 4e D&D they might not have a lot of the fire power of the modern world but I think they could hold their own. They're main advantage I think would be that they're casters don't run out of spells and resting for a few minutes gets them back their encounter powers. A 4e army might not have the explosive initial power of a 3e army but they overall seem to be a bit more balanced. They could last longer. I would say that a 4e army would be better at guerrilla warfare than 3e army just simply for the fact that the 4e casters can basically use their powers all day long. Remember encounter powers are also like an every 5 minutes power. Find a platoon of marines. Silently teleport in. Kill them. rest a few minutes and you're ready to do it again.
In 3.5 you can get a character who has enough strength to throw the planet itself(he would need a Cape of Flying for leverage and Ioun stones in order to survive).
I assume the cape would be red with a big yellow S on the back?
Now if it was a different situation, where metaphysics worked, then the "magical" army would not only wipe the opposing army, but they would also use many of the "real" troops as undead.
Assuming you meant this is an "earth-like" world with "earth-like" physics: The real world would win; if it's "earth-like" physics then there would be no meta-physics, which means no spellcasting, no inter-dimensional travel (maybe, there could be real-world physics involved there), no magical creatures, no magical potions, no magical anything. If there was a real world equivalent, it could adapt (such as dragons: there's some theories), but they would be far and few between. It would very much be swords, arrows, and catapults vs mobile and mechanized infantry, tanks, artillery and computers. The "magical" army would be crush.
Yes this is true as of how the OP stated the centario but then again I just assumed it was bad wording.
Now if it was a different situation, where metaphysics worked, then the "magical" army would not only wipe the opposing army, but they would also use many of the "real" troops as undead.
I would kinda need to agree here but mainly because there has been put a cap on the tech side but not on the magic side. Basically the tech side can't use weapons in which they could destroy the whole world (yeah I know I did state how they could within the bounds of the cenario but I think what was intended was no nukes period) but the magic side was not limited in their powers to destroy the whole world. At this point it basically is a question of "who would win, a lvl 10 PC or a lvl 20 PC?"
I would have to say overall that the question was worded poorly. I would have to stand by my earlier assessment though that if the tech side could hold out against the initial onslaught of a 3e like assault then they would likely have a chance. The simple fact be that 3e magic only allows for so many spells be cast per day. So only so many meteor swarms. Only so many raised undead. Only so many of this or that. It would only take a few minutes for them to be used up. Also we must remember that even though an army of undead can be strong most necros spend centuries amassing their undead armies and don't just gain them in one afternoon.
Of course as I said. It is unfair to compare when a tech nuke can't be used by the spell equivalent has not been restricted the same way. It would be nice to get a clarification from the OP.
Also we must remember that even though an army of undead can be strong most necros spend centuries amassing their undead armies and don't just gain them in one afternoon.
Fell animate locate city bomb
Also we must remember that even though an army of undead can be strong most necros spend centuries amassing their undead armies and don't just gain them in one afternoon.
Fell animate locate city bomb
And I think that would only work if all the tech army was in a city. If not then well you ain't killing them. Also that is one of those spell nuke type things. Could work if there is a small force on each side. If the armies are huge though you'll need many high lvl casters with those spells memorized in order to pull it off and kill the whole tech army.
Now the OP might have been thinking that both sides should be limited in such strong weapons/spells of war of in which case, if this is what the OP intended, then your suggestion pk is right out the window.
Seriously; is this even a question?
Now if we look at a standard tech army it would be able to keep a suppressive fire on the ranks of the D&D army from a mile or so away with little problem (though assuming that they've been able to put satellites in orbit around this planet). On top of that they'd likely end up being very very spread out, or at least enough that strongerst combos from the wizards would do basicaly almost no overall damage to the tech side. The tech side would be able to hit the magic army, whom is likely in formation, with tanks, ground to air missiles, air to ground, machine gun fire, snipper fire and what have you. Most of this would even be from out of site of the D&D forces.
This would be an assessment of standard vs standard. Now if we wanted to go the Over Powered route then both sides get what they want/need. I don't know of anything in D&D that stops all forms of radiation but the nuclear fallout from the tech side being able to blow up the planet about a few dozen times over should be enough to win the fight. Or at least suicide it.
*HA! 18 more years and we'll have a platoon of half-elves on our side! And half-devas. And half-dragons. And half-orcs. And half-dwarves. And half-...
I don't know of anything in D&D that stops all forms of radiation but the nuclear fallout from the tech side being able to blow up the planet about a few dozen times over should be enough to win the fight. Or at least suicide it.
I'm going to interpret this as the real world having a higher body count than the D&D world.
I don't know of anything in D&D that stops all forms of radiation but the nuclear fallout from the tech side being able to blow up the planet about a few dozen times over should be enough to win the fight. Or at least suicide it.
Actually Rope Trick should fine for avoiding blasts to begin with, if not then there are still all of the other dimensional travel spells and powers.
Also I have been operating under the assumption that it's around 20 DnD PC style characters vs about 20,000 modern day troops with neither side having info about the other.
Otherwise I would say it's all attrition(with the DnD army just needing the enemy to use up all of their ammo) and that a force of Clerics(or Druids) with reserve feats could be very devastating(especially if they Animate Dead). If the DnD Army is built well it be would impossible kill by modern day troops.
Actually Rope Trick should fine for avoiding blasts to begin with, if not then there are still all of the other dimensional travel spells and powers.
And would only be useful if the casters had those spells on a scroll or memorized. Even though it is a useful spell I've know few casters to use it. Unless it was for like a rest in a hostile territory. Even still the fallout from such a blast would be enough to kill the D&D forces. If not right away then likely after a short period of time. Of course many here would just say they'd get some sort of epic lvl curing and that's the end of that.
Also I have been operating under the assumption that it's around 20 DnD PC style characters vs about 20,000 modern day troops with neither side having info about the other.
Otherwise I would say it's all attrition(with the DnD army just needing the enemy to use up all of their ammo) and that a force of Clerics(or Druids) with reserve feats could be very devastating(especially if they Animate Dead). If the DnD Army is built well it be would impossible kill by modern day troops.
The OP did state army and niether one of those forces, 20 or 20,000 is much of an army. Well 20,000 might be by D&D standards but not by modern standards.
Sure the D&D side would only need the other side to use up all their ammo before unloading but the same could be said the other way around. All it would take is for the tech side to get the casters to use up most of their spells and then they're toast.
Now if we go off of the assumption that the casters wont be prepped for the tech side for they don't know squat of what they have then half the stuff, if not more, the tech side has the D&D side wouldn't be prepped for it. That's just pretty much plain and simple suckatude of life fact. You just can't be perfectly prepared for all things.
The only way I'd see the D&D side of thing to be impossible to kill is if you use like lvl 20 monsters and PCs against a way less strong as that army. Of Course they'd win. They'd win against the equivalant D&D force. no brainer but that's just stacking things against them.
Now a big problem I see with the question the OP stated was "ok so here is the deal you have 2 armies. one a modern army from our reality. the other a full out D&D army of whateve ryou prefer for your own vs mode." For our own vs mode? He's asking us who we think would win but pretty much based on how we'd like to biasly set it up. For the most part a lot of the responses i've seen that have been pro D&D have been of the tone that this lvl 20 power would pwn the tech side. As I'm seeing it the few things that have been limited are the tech's side equivalent for the lvl 20 powers. Sorta unfair IMO to go all out for what you think D&D forces can do. Sure if you get a but ton of OPed lvl 20 D&D troops they'd win but I doubt they'd follow the heading of each army will only be equipted with what they would ave in the feild simply because a standard D&D ain't made up of a bunch of OPed high lvl characters the last I check. Last i checked a standard army was low lvl low powered humanoids of standard equipment. One of the keys here I think is armies. Not OPed adventuring party that are game breakingly designed.
I think that if yer going to try and compare them we'd need to look at them a bit more objectively rather than just saying a bunch of OPed wizards destroy everything. Ya know, a bunch of nukes destroy everything too. And well it looks like the OP wanted to keep that sort of power out of the scenario. So could ya guys see about coming up with something of maybe a bit lower lvl, a bit better level ratio of troops, a bit more creative, and a little less bias? Of course I don't think i should be expecting more out of you gusy than just wizo drops nukes spell, wizo wins.
I need to stop getting all like worked up with people not putting any thought into stuff.
A wizard in 3e is only strong until their stronger spells are used up. Once they are gone they must rely on items. When items are gone they're screwed if they can't get their full rest.
That's why he attacks as an astral projection from his private demiplane. if the astral projection is slain or runs out of spells, he just ends the spell, has a nice breakfast and does it again next morning.
Assuming you meant this is an "earth-like" world with "earth-like" physics: The real world would win; if it's "earth-like" physics then there would be no meta-physics, which means no spellcasting, no inter-dimensional travel (maybe, there could be real-world physics involved there), no magical creatures, no magical potions, no magical anything.
Actually earth has magic in the D&D multiverse, we just don't know how to use it. Several famous D&D characters have made visits to earth, some even maintain permanent portals to earth in well hidden places. There's also an old Dragon Magazine adventure where the party is sent to retrieve the Mace of St. Cuthbert -> from a museum in London
Actually earth has magic in the D&D multiverse,
It's real world vs D&D, not D&D Earth vs D&D.
There are live, active nukes all over the world right now. In action. MAD may not still be a buzzword, but it's still a practice. Additionally, the military brings a crapton of fuel along precisely because of the immense need for it. You don't fill up at a BP when your Abrams runs out of gas. Eventually the fuel would run out, of course. But not after a couple of days.
Agree and agree. We have nukes that are always on standby to be launched by air or see and that are easily portable. The military also usually bring enough fuel to last them a while.
The big thing though is that if they are just plopped there with nothing but their gear then they tech side would be screwed. Why? simple. No communication, which makes up the entire backbone of the modern military. With no radio towers or satellites that can be used to relay signals no information can be transferred. In essence the tech side is going in at about less than 50% strength by scenario design. Why did I pick that percentage? Well because effectively the whole military is blind while the D&D side can still use magics to get instantaneous communications. Now if there are no pre built air fields or bases then that is another huge blow to the tech forces. So for at least the first few days there are no air fields so basically planes can't be used. If we also assume most of this happens quite inland then ships will be of no use but that depends. Many of our ships now a days can fire quite a bit inland. We could of course use planes from aircraft carriers but without any communication there would be no idea of when they needed to be used or where to strike. So useless.
I must say that by design of the scenario it has been made a basic auto win for the D&D army by basically setting it so that the tech side is going in extremely crippled.
Now if it was on earth with all of the modern tech army having their stuff in place I'd have to say that America would pwn D&D. I mean the UN coalition force would pwn. Of course it would be 98% America and 2% allies so it's mainly just the Americans. Screw it. We don't need that couple of percent. We're America. We blow stuff up. America FTW!
But who really needs nukes when you got all the other military goodies and fun-fun?
I mean really... logic and reason have nothing to do with a D&D army. I mean really... whenever there's an army in D&D it might as well be labeled "plot device", at which point it follows the whims of the plot, not what would logically happen.
Correction. We wouldn't be so inclined to use them on our own soil. ;)
But who really needs nukes when you got all the other military goodies and fun-fun?
That's true. We gots us lotsa toys for killin'.
The SeeBees or Army Corps of Engineers can build a working airstrip long enough to run up a 787 in a day on the high side. Adding a comm tower, maybe an additional couple of hours. I myself can set up a working commshack in a couple of hours with minimal assistance. They make both in modules now. The technology for that was created in the 1940s, and used in the Pacific Islands during WWII. Cheap-o nukes aren't that hard to manufacture either. The tech involved is very well-known.
Not to mention the likelihood of sea superiority in the form of aircraft carriers and associated battlegroup. One submarine can carry a sufficient number of missiles to launch a full complement of nukes, or be retrofitted to deliver sattelite payloads.
Militarising a planet isn't as hard as it sounds. Every piece of technology we have that's deployable makes the next entirely likely.
I expect that with enough materiel and time, in a matter of a week, we modernites can deploy enough raw technology to turn Toril into a glowing, glassy cinder in mere hours, regardless of the number of boots on the ground. No modern army deploys for any length of time without enough fuel and ammo on hand to run it at least three months. Nor without sea and air cover.
In a one-on one with a mounted squad if gryphon riders, advantage goes to the riders over fighters. The gryphons are too slow.
However, the anti-aircraft weapons on the ground would mop the floor with them. Wizards will have a hard time focusing Fireballs on a bomber travelling at any speed, OTOH. Advantage air power. If the fighters can get a clean shot with their longer-range weapons, that's the end of that.
Most of the fighting would come down to how much range can be covered by each side. A single modern infantryman is worth a hundred of his sword-swinging Fantasy brethren.
Even without nukes, a pair of Boomers loaded with Sats rather than nukes can establish a GPS, and after that, the DnDers are pretty much done. At any rate, moving a modern army to a neutral planet means they would have to be delivered spaceside, and they'd deploy sats on the way down. Crazy, not stupid.
Advantage, Modern Warfare.
-Sarena
At any rate, moving a modern army to a neutral planet means they would have to be delivered spaceside, and they'd deploy sats on the way down. Crazy, not stupid.
True true but my assumptions were that everyone was just sort of magically magicked there. Which would mean us not putting satellites up. But that's probably because our modern military doesn't do interplanetary travel.....
Ok. Lets just some this up with America wins. Ok scenario over. ;)
Goddamn, I like your style.
Agreed.
Goddamn, I like your style.
Ditto.
Our military lacks the skills to survive an all-out battle such as this. Their skills are limited to aprehend, rescue, and secure, subsiquently useless in the battle youre implying.
Our military lacks the skills to survive an all-out battle such as this. Their skills are limited to aprehend, rescue, and secure, subsiquently useless in the battle youre implying.
There skills are limited to that if politics are involved. If politics are taken out then it's all cool for them to go rambo on some dragons.
OK, that would be awesome to see some marines filling a dragon with lead.
Our military lacks the skills to survive an all-out battle such as this. Their skills are limited to aprehend, rescue, and secure, subsiquently useless in the battle youre implying.
Wha?
Just because the dog is on a leash does not mean the dog can't bite.
I think you win the thread EE.
Wouldn't the modern army be better adapted to railroading?
*takes a look at politics for a moment*
Nope. Seems like they get stuck with it the same as everyone else.
Wouldn't the modern army be better adapted to railroading?
Given time and proper materials, yes.
Our military lacks the skills to survive an all-out battle such as this. Their skills are limited to aprehend, rescue, and secure, subsiquently useless in the battle youre implying.
There skills are limited to that if politics are involved. If politics are taken out then it's all cool for them to go rambo on some dragons.
OK, that would be awesome to see some marines filling a dragon with lead.
Point here. If our people were separated from their leash in a battle for their lives, all bets are off. Me, I want to see Puff used for a pencil.
-Sarena
Wouldn't the modern army be better adapted to railroading?
Given time and proper materials, yes.
Would this "time and proper materials" be used in a Guy Fawkes kinda way?
As far as arrival method, I assumed that each side would use it's preferred power source to get to the field of war. Cities would make things easier for us, but even the tactics we developed in WWII would be more than sufficient to stuff the Fantasy kids in whatever hole is at hand. Fantasy tactics consist primarily of line 'em up and go to town. We use smaller units to hammer the opry few individuals. position on the ground. Add to that superior mobility, and we can mop up a ground force rather quickly. A trained Special Ops team, and mages turn into chunky salsa in seconds.
Mages and speed of healing are the biggest advantage of the D&D army, and that's still centered on a very few individuals.
Also note, the meanest mudfoot on the Modern side is far better trained, disiplined, and equipped than the rabble that makes up most fantasy armies. Kill a Modern officer, next guy moves up, and everyone carries on. Kill a D&D officer, and you have chaos. One of the big reasons the Birts had such issues with our guerrillas during the Revolution. 'Uncivilized' behavior yielded some rather ugly results.
-Sarena
-Sarena
I thought US Marines were already being trained for such a scenario.
Well that's them being trained to battle Balrogs with swords and not dragons with guns. That right there is a whole nother animal. But yeah I'm sure a dragon isn't too much different.
Just like any other armored target. Additionally, the reason plate armor fell by the wayside was the firearm. A lead round sent downrange with any level of accuracy by a barely-trained person with a musket could punch holes in armor and man alike. If the round was moving at the right speed range when it exited, it's bounce around the inside of the armor really well.
The rounds we use in our field weapons today are designed to do exactly that. Inside the armor... Chunky salsa.
-Sarena
DnD still wins.
Against jets, divination and Wall of Force(can you say metal soup).
Against nukes, Fire immunity or dimensional travel(you simply can't kill what you can't reach)
Against guns, bows and spells(Cragtop Archers can fire over a mile with no trouble).
Against ground mobilty, symbols and other trap spells.
Against everything else, Prismatic Sphere and other spells of the sort.
Now say the DnD forces wanted to infiltrate the modern forces a Simulacrum spell works perfectly. That could mean the DnD forces have an incredible amount of intel on the opposing forces.
Perhaps the DnD forces want to keep one of the tanks(as cover), a Goliath Warhulk could carry it easily(can you tell me how many bullets it takes to penetrate a tank's armor).
And don't forget the the Dark Creature Whisper Gnomes(the modifers for thier hide and move silently at level1 are 20+) with Rings of Darkhidden they could be invisible to infrared(depends on the setting). They could steal a lot of guns, ammo, and explosives.
DnD still wins.
Against jets, divination and Wall of Force(can you say metal soup).
Against nukes, Fire immunity or dimensional travel(you simply can't kill what you can't reach)
Against guns, bows and spells(Cragtop Archers can fire over a mile with no trouble).
Against ground mobilty, symbols and other trap spells.
Against everything else, Prismatic Sphere and other spells of the sort.
Now say the DnD forces wanted to infiltrate the modern forces a Simulacrum spell works perfectly. That could mean the DnD forces have an incredible amount of intel on the opposing forces.
Perhaps the DnD forces want to keep one of the tanks(as cover), a Goliath Warhulk could carry it easily(can you tell me how many bullets it takes to penetrate a tank's armor).
And don't forget the the Dark Creature Whisper Gnomes(the modifers for thier hide and move silently at level1 are 20+) with Rings of Darkhidden they could be invisible to infrared(depends on the setting). They could steal a lot of guns, ammo, and explosives.
i agree ppl are really underestimating the D&D forces. lets also not forget things liek psionics mind flayers ect. take control fo a few of the right comanders on the other side and you have them screwed. and what defenses does a modern army have against well places illusions? or sleep spells? not to mention druids and wizards can literally control weather. and as an answer to guns make wands that anyone could use you point and say the trigger and boom. and gods forbid you have soem high ranking cleric on the D&D side that could summon angels and other celestials or demons for the evil ones.
No bowman will ever achieve the range and accuracy of a competant rifleman with his chosen weapon. Size and speed of the projectile will see to that. With spells, my people can still shoot your mages down long before you get within the hundred feet away you need to be for Fireball at extreme range. I already addressed that.
As for the Simulacrum, that's an Artificer Power now, and not a general spell as it was in 3.x. As an Artificer Power, it can only duplicate the Artificer, so no infiltration. A Changeling or three might be able to get in, but the chances they'd get out via the front door are vanishingly small...
Especially since they have no idea how the pretty toys work. If I wanted to maintain the integrity of my forces, all I'd need is a sensitive geiger counter. The D&D kids will stick out like a sore thumb.
Not for the presence of radiation, but the lack of it. We're constantly being irradiated from a thousand different sources. Ionizing radiation or not, it still builds up(non-ionizing radiation doesn't break DNA chains). The D&D kids would appear as a dead spot, there, but not there.
As far as anyone stealing anything, especially explosives, they'd have to know what they were looking at, and most DM's keep telling me gunpowder and the like wouldn't work in their worlds. Usually, this equates to not knowing that a ten-kilo block of C4 will make half a villiage Go Away. Nor which rounds fit in which weapons.
Or even that the rounds were important.
-Sarena
Not buying. Nukes don't usually kill many in the initial event. It's the shockwave it produces that does most of the damage. Immunity to fire will save you for the first .0001 seconds. After that you're still dead. For a divination spell to work, you need to ask the right question.
No bowman will ever achieve the range and accuracy of a competant rifleman with his chosen weapon. Size and speed of the projectile will see to that. With spells, my people can still shoot your mages down long before you get within the hundred feet away you need to be for Fireball at extreme range. I already addressed that.
As for the Simulacrum, that's an Artificer Power now, and not a general spell as it was in 3.x. As an Artificer Power, it can only duplicate the Artificer, so no infiltration. A Changeling or three might be able to get in, but the chances they'd get out via the front door are vanishingly small...
Especially since they have no idea how the pretty toys work. If I wanted to maintain the integrity of my forces, all I'd need is a sensitive geiger counter. The D&D kids will stick out like a sore thumb.
Not for the presence of radiation, but the lack of it. We're constantly being irradiated from a thousand different sources. Ionizing radiation or not, it still builds up(non-ionizing radiation doesn't break DNA chains). The D&D kids would appear as a dead spot, there, but not there.
As far as anyone stealing anything, especially explosives, they'd have to know what they were looking at, and most DM's keep telling me gunpowder and the like wouldn't work in their worlds. Usually, this equates to not knowing that a ten-kilo block of C4 will make half a villiage Go Away. Nor which rounds fit in which weapons.
Or even that the rounds were important.
-Sarena
And all of that will mean nothing if the GM wants the heroes to win.
DnD still wins.
I guess first I think it interesting that for the D&D side it is always assumed they'll have the best possible stuff you could imagine when an army just consists of average stuff. Now to counter this.
Response to the first bit
The wall is very small, very short range and last a very while. In order to be effective a wizard would have to be specialized in such just to be able to make it last all day long, make it have a larger AoE or longer range. Using meta magic to make the wall more effective means the spells take up spell slots of higher lvl spells. To be effective this means they must specialize in it and all their higher lvl spells slots are used up for wall of force. Can be made permanent but again takes up more spell slots. End result. Wizard can make a very small permanent wall of force which protects few and makes the protected forces immobile.
Nukes are not fire. Fire immunity would not protect against it. A nuke puts out high energy particles followed by a shockwave. Both with basically destroy everything near it regardless. As far as dimensional travel goes. Yes you could use that, but how long do you expect to stay way? If you come back to that spot you'll start being effected by radiation as well as likely being hit by something as soon as you pop back into the dimension. If you pop in somewhere else then sure you would be fine. Also it could be used to leave for long enough to rest, but overall I see a few problems with this. The quick dimensional spells that would be most workable are mainly all personal. This means that out of an army of like 100,000 troops about a dozen wizards would be able to escape. That is of course if we assumed they had the spells memorized and if they knew ahead of time what that object in the sky, that they likely don't notice (probably can't see), is. The nuke would come in likely by gliding and would detonate above ground for maximum effect. Likely before it is noticed because by the naked eye you likely ain't going to see it until it is too late. Once it is cablooie everything in a few miles is toast. No time to react. Unless the wizards knew about it ahead of time and dimensioned out ahead of time they're dead. Now if they can they likely don't have the time, or spells memorized, to make a huge gate to save the army.
I do believe that many guns now a day have equal if not greater distances than that. Plus a lot of artillery can fire much further than that with no problem. Also, all these guns pretty much hit the target. The archers and spells can go the distance but are a bit less accurate and I don't believe can be fired from a hidden locations that the tech guns and artillery can be.
My guess would be that a few wizards and clerics would lay them down ahead of time then the following day would memorize different spells. Requires preplanning, time, and usually need the army to go through that spot to be effective. So in a since you have to knowingly station yourself somewhere. I assume that once tech side figures out what they are they'd just handle them the same way they handle land mines since they're just magical versions of them. Shouldn't be too much of a problem to get through but would slow down forces as well as kills some marines. However. In order for it to work the tech side would have to walk through trapped areas. Which means they'd need a reason to do so. Best way to do such is for enemy position to be known and act as a lure. The mistake about such would be that tech side would be able to hit D&D forces with artillery, missiles, planes and such. If places more sporadically it could still be useful but at a certain point the D&D side will lose track of where they're own traps are and it would slow them down looking for them.
Against jets, divination and Wall of Force(can you say metal soup)
The wall is very small, very short range and last a very while. In order to be effective a wizard would have to be specialized in such just to be able to make it last all day long, make it have a larger AoE or longer range. Using meta magic to make the wall more effective means the spells take up spell slots of higher lvl spells. To be effective this means they must specialize in it and all their higher lvl spells slots are used up for wall of force. Can be made permanent but again takes up more spell slots. End result. Wizard can make a very small permanent wall of force which protects few and makes the protected forces immobile.
Most divination spells take a long time to cast of which would not be of much use on a battle field. Not of use for there would not be enough time for them to cast it as well as too hectic for them to cast such slow casting spells. A wall of force could protect them but then if done so that means you've used basically two extremely high lvl wizards for divining and protecting the diviner whom may not be able to get info quick enough. All in all likely two of the strongest casters in the army focusing purely on non combative roles.
Overall I think this would be a loss for the D&D side. Protecting few troops from asault and losing mobility for protecting the best few troops. As well as wasting the few best casters one would likely have in a standard D&D army.
Against nukes, Fire immunity or dimensional travel(you simply can't kill what you can't reach)
Nukes are not fire. Fire immunity would not protect against it. A nuke puts out high energy particles followed by a shockwave. Both with basically destroy everything near it regardless. As far as dimensional travel goes. Yes you could use that, but how long do you expect to stay way? If you come back to that spot you'll start being effected by radiation as well as likely being hit by something as soon as you pop back into the dimension. If you pop in somewhere else then sure you would be fine. Also it could be used to leave for long enough to rest, but overall I see a few problems with this. The quick dimensional spells that would be most workable are mainly all personal. This means that out of an army of like 100,000 troops about a dozen wizards would be able to escape. That is of course if we assumed they had the spells memorized and if they knew ahead of time what that object in the sky, that they likely don't notice (probably can't see), is. The nuke would come in likely by gliding and would detonate above ground for maximum effect. Likely before it is noticed because by the naked eye you likely ain't going to see it until it is too late. Once it is cablooie everything in a few miles is toast. No time to react. Unless the wizards knew about it ahead of time and dimensioned out ahead of time they're dead. Now if they can they likely don't have the time, or spells memorized, to make a huge gate to save the army.
In all giving the D&D forces the benefit of the doubt this is sort of a loss. A legion could be wiped out and the only survivors would be the few wizards that can dimension out of there and maybe a couple of people that are near them if they are high in lvl. This means that a lot of powerful casters that didn't have the spell memorized or that were busy are now gone. Army now reduced to almost nill. Maybe a strong nill, but still almost nil.
Against guns, bows and spells(Cragtop Archers can fire over a mile with no trouble).
I do believe that many guns now a day have equal if not greater distances than that. Plus a lot of artillery can fire much further than that with no problem. Also, all these guns pretty much hit the target. The archers and spells can go the distance but are a bit less accurate and I don't believe can be fired from a hidden locations that the tech guns and artillery can be.
Loss for D&D forces
Against ground mobility, symbols and other trap spells.
My guess would be that a few wizards and clerics would lay them down ahead of time then the following day would memorize different spells. Requires preplanning, time, and usually need the army to go through that spot to be effective. So in a since you have to knowingly station yourself somewhere. I assume that once tech side figures out what they are they'd just handle them the same way they handle land mines since they're just magical versions of them. Shouldn't be too much of a problem to get through but would slow down forces as well as kills some marines. However. In order for it to work the tech side would have to walk through trapped areas. Which means they'd need a reason to do so. Best way to do such is for enemy position to be known and act as a lure. The mistake about such would be that tech side would be able to hit D&D forces with artillery, missiles, planes and such. If places more sporadically it could still be useful but at a certain point the D&D side will lose track of where they're own traps are and it would slow them down looking for them.
More trouble than it's worth. To be most effective it makes them too much of a target. Opens them up to many other forms of attack as well. Without away position to lure enemy into trap the effort would be waisted time and effort.
I'll call this one a loss. Mainly a logistics loss. If the war was expected to be a war of attrition then maybe it would be useful but for a quick fight it would be a bad way to mange one's resources.
Against everything else, Prismatic Sphere and other spells of the sort.
Probably one of the best suggestions that you've had. However many of the prismatic spells, especially the really strong effective ones, are high in lvl. A D&D force would have few high lvl casters. If a force was to focus on wall of force and divination there would be little to no room for these kinds of spells. However if the other stuff was abandoned then they could have some very strong offensive spells as well as a higher number of them. Now a problem though with man of the prismatic spells I'm looking at in the phb is that they're quite short ranged. Which means that most other spells would have to be used for getting to the tech forces alive. Effective it done but likely not the best way it can be approached. Even if so they'd likely only be able to kill about a platoon of troops or so or kill a few tanks. Using such high lvl spells, as well as many lower lvl ones to assist, to kill an extremely small portion of a tech force seems a bit wasteful.
Effective (sort of) if pulled off but overall I think more trouble than it's worth. Has to put strong caster and asset to army in harms way to be effective at all. Likely to cause death of high lvl casters. I'll say a loss for D&D forces. After a few platoons or units the high lvl wizard will be killed at which point the D&D force has lost a huge portion of it's potential power.
Hit points. Real world soldiers won't have them. So one magic missile (which can do damage comparable to a knife wound) could fell a soldier, possibly. But cracking open d20 Modern... most rifles do between 2d8 and 2d10, with a few 2d6s and one 2d12 (a sniper rifle).
So yeah... that sniper might be able to hit the goliath dragging a tank along, but he ain't goin' down in one hit. And for the most part the grunts of the D&D army, depending on their level, will be able to take (to a modern soldier) quite a few direct hits before dropping.
Fourth characters have more HP, but fewer powers at their beck and call (and no Simulacrum except for the Artificer). 3rd, otoh, has no Goliath from my understanding. If we're going to do this, let's stick to a single ruleset, please?
Either way, advantage is to the long-distance weapons of the modern Military.
-Sarena
Well D&D has nuke like powers but it is a bit more difficult to manufacture a lvl 20+ wizard than it is a nuke.
Now if your scenario had cities and the military was stationed there or had their own personal base then a couple of powerful wizards could do that locate city destruction thingy. But well things aren't quite set up that way.
Well I am sorta enjoying this thread. It of course just comes down to how awesome the US military is. We're #1! We're #1!
We're #1! We're #1!
Yay!
@AT: I would have expected this from a thread of this nature. We'll all pick something and just go with it.
-Sarena
No bowman will ever achieve the range and accuracy of a competant rifleman with his chosen weapon. Size and speed of the projectile will see to that.
It would likely depend on the build. Remember in D&D even a martial character can bend physics over their knee and give it a spanking.
With spells, my people can still shoot your mages down long before you get within the hundred feet away you need to be for Fireball at extreme range. I already addressed that.
Scry & die tactics would overcome this.
Finding a way to give the incorporeal subtype would provide huge advantages as well. This and the ability to multiply is way a wraith can wipe a planet that lacks the both defensive and offensive capabilities against it.
And of course a transdimensional spell launched form the ethereal plane would be another option.
DnD still wins.
Nope. Here's why:
Against jets, divination and Wall of Force(can you say metal soup).
WoF has a limited size/height. A jet can operate and attack effectively from well outside of said range. Artillery can be fired in a way to render the walls useless as well.
Against nukes, Fire immunity or dimensional travel(you simply can't kill what you can't reach)
Fire Immunity solves one problem, yes. It does not, however, solve the problem of the immense forces involved that literally disintigrate your body. Sorry, no Fort save for this.
Dimensional Travel? Go ahead. I can't kill what I can't reach, no, but you're off my battlefield still, ain'tcha? And when you come back, you come back to a nuclear wasteland. Cya!
It also appears that every Pro D&D guy is assuming that everyone on D&D's side is some Epic Level Wizard, Ranger, Cleric or Druid. Sorry guys, them things is rare as hell. The majority of the D&D forces would be utterly annihiliated by a nuclear strike. That leaves the entire military force to combat those few that survived - with all of their remaining resources (minus one MRV, of course;) ).
Against guns, bows and spells(Cragtop Archers can fire over a mile with no trouble).
Artillery, cruise missiles, ship guns, rockets, nukes, AtG missiles, smart bombs, etc, etc, etc all have an effective range of much more than one mile and do a hell of a lot more damage than an arrow. And, unless you're assuming all of the archers on the D&D side are of this specific type, so what? You've got a few guys that can shoot arrows real far. Whoopty-do. And, if you are suggesting that every archer is this type, we'll make a ton of our grunts snipers then. Longest recorded kill on a moving target? Over one mile. Longest on a stationary target? About a mile and a half. Yeah.
Against ground mobilty, symbols and other trap spells.
Take away the ground, we still have the sea, air and space. And how many Symbols, traps and the like are you planning on making? This ain't no dungeon crawl or some inn room in need of security, this is a war - an entire battlefield.
Though it does bring up a good point. Think those lvl 1s will be ok walkin' through a mine field?
Against everything else, Prismatic Sphere and other spells of the sort.
So one high level wizard is safe for a tiny amount of time. Yay.
Now say the DnD forces wanted to infiltrate the modern forces a Simulacrum spell works perfectly. That could mean the DnD forces have an incredible amount of intel on the opposing forces.
Incorrect. Simulacrum makes a copy of the caster - not some random, high ranking enemy. And what are they gonna do with this intel they miracled themselves in to? Suddenly the D&D troops know what a Humvee is? How far 7 clicks is? Nope.
Perhaps the DnD forces want to keep one of the tanks(as cover), a Goliath Warhulk could carry it easily(can you tell me how many bullets it takes to penetrate a tank's armor).
An Abrams tank weighs in at nearly 68 tons. Tons, man. That's 136,000 lbs. You show me the strength chart that goes that high for a light load and I'll start worryin' about this scenario right away.
That's not even considering the impossibility of arrows, swords and the like doing anything at all to an Abrams. Sorry charlie, your weapons don't have the punch to take one out.
And don't forget the the Dark Creature Whisper Gnomes(the modifers for thier hide and move silently at level1 are 20+) with Rings of Darkhidden they could be invisible to infrared(depends on the setting). They could steal a lot of guns, ammo, and explosives.
They don't know what anything is to steal it. And we've other means of tracking enemies than infra-red. And, again, this assumes some giant number of specially equipped and built D&D things. That ain't how a D&D world works. You can't see the special and assume it's the norm. It ain't. When we're talking about the military, we're talking about it as-is. That's how the D&D army needs to be used here, too.
One player was playing as Nazis and was told Soviets had some secret weaponry in the castle.
The other side waere wizards commanding orc and goblin party, trying to defend their castle from an unknown enemy.
I think in the end both sides won.
actually all the D&D forces would have to do to defeat the modern armies is just go hide in some caves and use hit and run tactics. then all your jets and long range missles are useless if you dont know where to shoot them. and again everyone assumes that a D&D army would be so stupid as to camp out in a big feild build giant bon fires wave their banners in the air and say here we are come kill us now.
Well that is how that style of army traditionally fights. ;)
Well just so that you know we do have bunker busters. Missiles and munitions that are specifically designed in taking out underground bunkers and could be used to take out caves as well. Yes it would be harder to find them if they were hiding in caves but then again if they were found the cave would go bye-bye
Also it would not be feasable to hide a huge force in several caves. too hard to keep them all fed and stuff. If that was done likely they'd go without so many grunts and just stick with the few specialists (PCs). Would probably make them a bit more effective overall but i doubt them losing some dead weight would benefit them all that much.
actually all the D&D forces would have to do to defeat the modern armies is just go hide in some caves and use hit and run tactics. then all your jets and long range missles are useless if you dont know where to shoot them. and again everyone assumes that a D&D army would be so stupid as to camp out in a big feild build giant bon fires wave their banners in the air and say here we are come kill us now.
Caves? For serious? You may have a point, though. Them caves worked wonders for the Japanese during WWII. Oh, wait ...
For a more modern example of handling silly things like caves, I bring you the thermobaric bunker buster. They're real, plentiful and deadly. And, before you start, fire immunity would do nothing to stop them, either. They use pressure (after fire) and, if that don't getcha, you'll likely suffocate as they deplete the cave of oxygen. Yummy stuff, them.
Next ...
In a conventional war most modern armies would obliterate a quasi-medieval D&D force in a matter of hours. However, as both Vietnam and the current multi-directional Disaster in the Desert have demonstrated, a much smaller and poorly-armed guerilla force cannot be fought conventionally nor easily destroyed. Put some magic in their hands, throw in some monsters, and sprinkle with some with PC-leveled individuals and a D&D army could rip the entire US military apart given enough time. Couple that with the fact that every downed modern soldier potentially puts a new kit of modern gear into the hands of a D&D soldier and the odds become increasingly stacked in their favour.
The real question is "Is this a straight-up fight, sir, or another bug-hunt?"
In a conventional war most modern armies would obliterate a quasi-medieval D&D force in a matter of hours. However, as both Vietnam and the current multi-directional Disaster in the Desert have demonstrated, a much smaller and poorly-armed guerilla force cannot be fought conventionally nor easily destroyed. Put some magic in their hands, throw in some monsters, and sprinkle with some with PC-leveled individuals and a D&D army could rip the entire US military apart given enough time. Couple that with the fact that every downed modern soldier potentially puts a new kit of modern gear into the hands of a D&D soldier and the odds become increasingly stacked in their favour.
Two problems:
One, Vietnam and the current conflicts suffer from politics over force. Instead of actually fighting a war as a war, our troops are incredibly limited. In Vietnam, they were not permitted to go where the enemy actually was. In Iraq, there's an over-worry about collateral damage and the like. We also didn't bother to fight properly as winning a war was never the goal. In Iraq, we literally skipped taking cities in order to get to the capital faster. This, of course, left places for the enemy to hide. Take, in contrast, WWII where we literall crawled across the counrty taking every hamlet along the way. We can still do that. We, for political and social (soccer mom) reasons choose not to. Left out of the stranglehold of politicians looking for another term and the realm of public opinion, our military would have no trouble destroying any enemy.
To back this up a bit, neither the Vietnamese nor the Iraqi/Iranian/Afghani insurgents have been able to 'rip apart' the American military machine. And that's with us fighting with one hand tied behind our back. In Vietnam especially, we were battered but not near collapse. And that was a proxy war fought against not only Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and China, but also the USSR (as payback for us handing it to them in Afghanistan). The American military has been fighting the enemies' fight ever since WWII. Were we not forced (by politics and popular opinion) to do so, this wouldn't even be a question. The dog is leashed. In the scenario presented, it wouldn't be. So stuff like a nuclear strike would be in the game. And that's not something an insurgent can handle. Cuz when everywhere you hide is annihilated with one strike, you're dead. Or, at the very least, out of places to hide.
Two, and this'n'll be brief, you mention the dead military personnell arming the enemy. And how is some peasant going to figure out how to use anything beyond a firearm? And how would they use it effectively? They won't. And, when they're out of bullets, they're back to pitchforks. The 'damage' would be minimal.
The real question is "Is this a straight-up fight, sir, or another bug-hunt?"
More straight up fight - given the scenario.
In a conventional war most modern armies would obliterate a quasi-medieval D&D force in a matter of hours. However, as both Vietnam and the current multi-directional Disaster in the Desert have demonstrated, a much smaller and poorly-armed guerilla force cannot be fought conventionally nor easily destroyed. Put some magic in their hands, throw in some monsters, and sprinkle with some with PC-leveled individuals and a D&D army could rip the entire US military apart given enough time. Couple that with the fact that every downed modern soldier potentially puts a new kit of modern gear into the hands of a D&D soldier and the odds become increasingly stacked in their favour.
The scenario doesn't allow (though it does not specifically disallow) innocents. In that, the analogy to VN, et. al. falls flat. The biggest issue with the latter is the restraint needed. (to a silly degree in some cases). For this - I (at least) would assume that it's left v right, with no middle ground (not a bug-hunt)
actually all the D&D forces would have to do to defeat the modern armies is just go hide in some caves and use hit and run tactics. then all your jets and long range missles are useless if you dont know where to shoot them. and again everyone assumes that a D&D army would be so stupid as to camp out in a big feild build giant bon fires wave their banners in the air and say here we are come kill us now.
We know hit-and-run tactics, especially after all the carp we had to deal with in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Caves? Even less of a problem, assuming we don't need to live in the caves in question afterwards. All we need to know is roughly where they are, and build several Fuel-Air Explosives. Easiest thing in the world to make, and while nearly as destructive as a nuke, there's no radiation.
In fact, it'll operate in very nearly the same way. Although in this case, the shockwave will move faster than the fireball, and you're dead before fire immunity can even come into play.
-Sarena
We know hit-and-run tactics, especially after all the carp we had to deal with in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Caves? Even less of a problem, assuming we don't need to live in the caves in question afterwards. All we need to know is roughly where they are, and build several Fuel-Air Explosives. Easiest thing in the world to make, and while nearly as destructive as a nuke, there's no radiation.
In fact, it'll operate in very nearly the same way. Although in this case, the shockwave will move faster than the fireball, and you're dead before fire immunity can even come into play.
-Sarena
Yep. I loves me some thermobaric bunker busters.
Now I'm not saying that it wouldn't be effective but rather that the few examples that have been used show extra because of things like politics and humanity reasons. If the us military was not to care about blowing up half of Laos or have no repercussions for killing civilians then this kind of warfare would likely be much less effective. Seeing as how in this scenario there is no worry of starting a war on another front, getting political international flack, or killing civilians. Without these things in the scenario the military can go all out.
Sure the D&D side could use guerrilla warfare to increase their odds but comparing them to Vietnam or our current desert conflicts only goes so far. Well with the desert stuff the troops are often fighting in cities and around civilians of which I understand there are none in this scenario. In Vietnam the US military couldn't blow up or storm the HoChiMinh Trail for it goes through Laos and not Vietnam. The enemies major supply line was politically out of the reach of the US forces and Vietnamese military leaders have admitted that they would not have been able to continue the war for long if America went into Laos dealt with the Vietnamese supply line.
Now I'm not saying that it wouldn't be effective but rather that the few examples that have been used show extra because of things like politics and humanity reasons. If the us military was not to care about blowing up half of Laos or have no repercussions for killing civilians then this kind of warfare would likely be much less effective. Seeing as how in this scenario there is no worry of starting a war on another front, getting political international flack, or killing civilians. Without these things in the scenario the military can go all out.
All true. Death would then promptly ensue. The problem here is that the usual reasons for a war have alos been removed. In this scenario, where all one side needs to do is smash the other, the modern military wins every time. Add in civilians, towns, and etc, and the D&D forces could theoretically use guerilla tactics to significant effect.
The purpose of war is to forward political and diplomatic agendas. Far from being an 'obliterate everything' sort of process(which as we've described can readily be done), most warfare is focused violence, as personal as a punch in the nose, except on a larger scale. It's the stick that goes with the carrot of diplomacy.
Just ask Saddam Hussein. He pushed and pushed and pushed, and got flattened.
The first time, not the second.
He was told not to invade Kuwait, and did anyway. We went in, and it rained bombs for forty days and forty nights. After that, we went and spanked him in a large way.
-Sarena
To back this up a bit, neither the Vietnamese nor the Iraqi/Iranian/Afghani insurgents have been able to 'rip apart' the American military machine.
I never claimed they did or could. To the best of my knoweldge they lack both the magical resources and PC-levelled individuals that would, as I stated, be required for such an outcome.
Orcus farts. Everybody dies.
Winner: Me
I never claimed they did or could. To the best of my knoweldge they lack both the magical resources and PC-levelled individuals that would, as I stated, be required for such an outcome.
And then they're still fighting an unrestrained military which, I still feel, would wipe the floor with them all too easily. We're adding magic, but we're also removing the leash. It won't be 'Vietnam with spells and PCs' cuz it won't be Vietnam.
Also, do we have the stats for a D&Dified nuke? ;)
Have we calculated any experience gained by the D&D forces. Such as during day one they might take some losses but those that survived did live through a full day of fighting. Probably killed a few marines during the day so they gained some xp. Basically every day the whole thing drags on the more lvls the D&D survivors would be gaining. So by the end of a week a lvl 1 fighter could have gone to about lvl 5 or more. So like they do have that advantage. The high in lvl they get the more hp they have and the more powers they get.
Also, do we have the stats for a D&Dified nuke? ;)
Damn, that leveling thing is even more reason for immediate nuke-age. For serious. We do have the stats for a D&Dified nuke, too: Rocks fall, everyone (on the bad guy side) dies. ;)
-Sarena
We can't determine level or experience for anyone on either side. We don't know what edition we're working in. Third of Fourth, AT?
I think that those that are favoring the D&D side are more or the 3e side for 3e mechanics tend to be more over powered.
Me myself would probably say 4e would be best if we're taking into account lvling being a big factor. Mainly because in 3e higher lvl characters are often defined by their items. I doubt that they'd be getting lewt drops that include +5 vorpal swords or +6 belts of ogre's strength. Without those high lvl 3e characters can be quite quite weak. heck a fighter in 3e has almost no abilities beyond their gear.
Now with 4e as they would lvl up they'd gain new powers and feats that they can use effectively with standard nonmagical equipment. In 4e characters tend to be more defined by their own abilities and less by their gear so if lvling is to be a big factor and quite beneficial then I'd favor the D&D force as being 4e so as to give them a chance. They'd just become more powerful overall, no matter their class, as they lvl.
The 4e doods are pretty dependant upon gear, too. That's why every item has a level next to it in the PHB/AV etc. You are expected to have them because the game is designed so that they are needed. That's all good, of course, and the 4e doods are certainly less reliant upon gear. Just thought I'd point it out. Oh, and a high lvl 3e (not .5 - though they're bad, too) Wizzie is hella scary.
Well yeah what i was trying to get at is that in 4e a paragon character can still get by with a +1 weapon instead of a +3 weapon. The dude would have a 10% less chance to hit but could still hit. Now a similar lvl gap with 3e the difference would also be a +2 to attack from the items but also likely a +4 strength from a belt of ogre's strength which adds up to their chance to hit being 20% lower than what it should or could be. So the not having fancy gear is more damaging to 3e than 4e. but i think we're sorta on the same opinion there.
the straight 3e, and not 3.5, had some really screwy things. Like a high lvl monk could kill the whole modern army in one round. They could jump really really far and you could get it so that you could jump after a kill or whatnot and get a another attack. So just kill one grunt and keep jumpin' and killin'. As long as you have a target you can see you can continue it. In six secons a lvl 20 monk could kill and destroy everything in sight. but that's before they were nerfed. And really if we were to go with 3.0 I'd probably go with the highest lvl D&D person be one of them optimized monks. They dude would probably be able to punch through tank armor as well.... scary stuff.
Well yeah what i was trying to get at is that in 4e a paragon character can still get by with a +1 weapon instead of a +3 weapon. The dude would have a 10% less chance to hit but could still hit. Now a similar lvl gap with 3e the difference would also be a +2 to attack from the items but also likely a +4 strength from a belt of ogre's strength which adds up to their chance to hit being 20% lower than what it should or could be. So the not having fancy gear is more damaging to 3e than 4e. but i think we're sorta on the same opinion there.
Totally on the same page. Gear is still important in 4e (and I like that - loot is part of the fun) but nowhere near as important as it was in 3.5.
the straight 3e, and not 3.5, had some really screwy things. Like a high lvl monk could kill the whole modern army in one round. They could jump really really far and you could get it so that you could jump after a kill or whatnot and get a another attack. So just kill one grunt and keep jumpin' and killin'. As long as you have a target you can see you can continue it. In six secons a lvl 20 monk could kill and destroy everything in sight. but that's before they were nerfed. And really if we were to go with 3.0 I'd probably go with the highest lvl D&D person be one of them optimized monks. They dude would probably be able to punch through tank armor as well.... scary stuff.
Dood, Haste and then two standard actions. That means two spells. Haste and then Time Stop (or whatever it was called) twice. Or just Haste, Meteor Swarm, Meteor Swarm. Or, for more fun, cast two Weirds - in the same round. Yeah, 3e had some uberborkenation goin' on.
Caves? For serious? You may have a point, though. Them caves worked wonders for the Japanese during WWII. Oh, wait ...
And how easily we're currently defeating these caves over in Afg.. damn
As has been said: it depends on the edition. 4e is absolutely screwed. 3e it take a single epic level wizard with too much free time and nothing better to do to destroy the whole world city by city in his incorporeal from (immune to any non-magic damage source (no radiation, no shockwave, no heat, no bullets, no whatever unless it's at least +1), and that's only the astral projection of his real body lying safe and sound in his own private demiplane)
And how easily we're currently defeating these caves over in Afg.. damn
And here again we come to the part where I patiently explain that the scenarios are totally different. The military is handcuffed in Afg. It would not be in the scenario presented. Game over, cave boy. Game over.
In WWII, the Japanese hid in caves and were rooted out and annihilated almost to a man. Those were the days before nukes and thermobaric bunker busters, too. The Afghanis aren't hiding in super caves, you know. It's policy that protects them, not geography. Well, to be honest about it, in some cases the geography dictates the policy. ;)
Also, priests can get rid of ghosts, poltergeists, and demons. They do it and stuff (if you're religious and believe in that stuff) so the military, likely having a few pastors about, could handle such.
Well just so that you know we do have bunker busters. Missiles and munitions that are specifically designed in taking out underground bunkers and could be used to take out caves as well. Yes it would be harder to find them if they were hiding in caves but then again if they were found the cave would go bye-bye
ok if thats the case then why do we still have so many troops in the middle east? i mean if its THAT easy then why didnt we do that oh i dunno 8 years ago?
ok if thats the case then why do we still have so many troops in the middle east? i mean if its THAT easy then why didnt we do that oh i dunno 8 years ago?
You know, I'm getting tired of repeating this. We're simply not allowed to deal with them as we are able to. No nukes, no MOABS, limited thermobaric use, can't hit targets in countries we are not currently fighting, etc, etc. The Taliban ain't some sort of cave genius organization. They just use policy against us. Take that policy away and you've got yourself some flattened caves and some dead insurgents. It's that simple. Again, look at WWII and the Japanese and what we were able to do to them without such modern tools. Jeebus, guys. It really isn't all that complicated and I've explained it like three friggin' times now. The American military does not suck because you fail to entirely grasp the situation. Gawd.
Well just so that you know we do have bunker busters. Missiles and munitions that are specifically designed in taking out underground bunkers and could be used to take out caves as well. Yes it would be harder to find them if they were hiding in caves but then again if they were found the cave would go bye-bye
ok if thats the case then why do we still have so many troops in the middle east? i mean if its THAT easy then why didnt we do that oh i dunno 8 years ago?
The American public. One civilian dies, and people here want our servicemembers standing trial.
-Sarena
ok if thats the case then why do we still have so many troops in the middle east? i mean if its THAT easy then why didnt we do that oh i dunno 8 years ago?
You know, I'm getting tired of repeating this. We're simply not allowed to deal with them as we are able to. No nukes, no MOABS, limited thermobaric use, can't hit targets in countries we are not currently fighting, etc, etc. The Taliban ain't some sort of cave genius organization. They just use policy against us. Take that policy away and you've got yourself some flattened caves and some dead insurgents. It's that simple. Again, look at WWII and the Japanese and what we were able to do to them without such modern tools. Jeebus, guys. It really isn't all that complicated and I've explained it like three friggin' times now. The American military does not suck because you fail to entirely grasp the situation. Gawd.
Same thing I've been telling them. They're Not Getting It.
Well just so that you know we do have bunker busters. Missiles and munitions that are specifically designed in taking out underground bunkers and could be used to take out caves as well. Yes it would be harder to find them if they were hiding in caves but then again if they were found the cave would go bye-bye
ok if thats the case then why do we still have so many troops in the middle east? i mean if its THAT easy then why didnt we do that oh i dunno 8 years ago?
For several reasons. Part of why there are there is to help the local government keep things stable and to help them get off the ground. The other reason is to fight insurgent forces that are going to US controlled areas to fight.
Now if you want to talk about places in Pakistan then it's simple. Terrorists have retreated into the caves and mountains on the Pakistani boarder. A boarder that our troops are not suppose to cross but they do kinda cross it. Now the army can't just march over the boarder into Pakistan to kill terrorists. So in part terrorists have retreated and are hiding in places that our military can't legally go for marching into, say Pakistan, can be interpreted by them as an act of war.
As for Iraq. There are tons of civilians. Such have been used but because of civilians getting caught in the crossfire the military has gotten a lot of flack. The military has to be careful to fight while not injuring civilians which can be hard when the terrorists look just like them.
We have been using these a lot but people usually never hear about it unless for instance a civilian dies from it and the press reports about it.
Now if ya bother to read through several of the responses here, of which one is from former military, there are no civilians on or near the battlefield in this scenario. So the modern military in this scenario doesn't have to be overly cautious about firing a missile or firing a weapon. In the middle east the military has a leash. In this scenario there would be leash on them except for any that the top brass wished to put upon themselves.
Now it seems that you're last response had some political snarkiness in it. If that is true then it would be best to remove it from your responses less you wish this thread to become a political thread and thus be shut for violating forum rules.
ok if thats the case then why do we still have so many troops in the middle east? i mean if its THAT easy then why didnt we do that oh i dunno 8 years ago?
Cos there was vast profit to be made by not ending it.
and as for hidding a large forc in cave si dont knwo wher eyou live but i have many caves even just in the area where i live wher eyou could easily put several thousand people. and caves that big tend to go deep underground so your thermo immagers arent going to see ppl hidding a mile or so underground. but we will just bomb ever square inch of the planet and that will take care of it right? i mean that seems to be what i keep hearing over and over
ok if thats the case then why do we still have so many troops in the middle east? i mean if its THAT easy then why didnt we do that oh i dunno 8 years ago?
Cos there was vast profit to be made by not ending it.
i so second that
Are you talking about the spells that turn metal to like wood or liquid that usually require for the wizard to be at touch range? Sure it could work on a tank but then again they'd have to get through all the infantry men surrounding the tank or the machine gunner on it. Sure they could take out a few tanks but after a while they're luck would run out and would likely die. Or at least only have enough spells in their arsenal to pull off the whole thing a couple of times in a day. So in essence we're talking a mid lvl wizard and like a couple dozen marines and a couple tanks. Mid and high lvl characters tend to be in a somewhat short supply in the D&D world.
Yes you could hide a lot of people in a cave. Now if you're afraid of coming out because you might be spotted by the enemy then how are you going to feed a few thousand people for a week? A month? A year? You can't if you can't get to a food supply or a water supply for that matter. It is good for temporary shelter but can't house a large population without some sort of supplies.
Three minutes without air.
Three days without water.
Three weeks without food.
Siege tactics depend on these things. Sure, you can store a few weeks of food in a cave, but eventually you're going to need more. Water is harder to store than food in a lot of ways. An army marches on it's stomach, and food riots will happen in days if you have a pile of untrained armed civvies in close quarters and tight rations.
The average soldier is trained and disciplined to keep working in those terms.
The way I see it, the only chance for the D&D army to pull off a win would be as the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor. An Alpha Strike with complete strategic surprise. If the Moderns had even a whiff of things coming, there's no chance. If they're arriving spaceside and don't need to hold territory, a nuke from orbit is the only way to be sure. Or an FAE. Only time there's a need to take it to the ground is if we actually need the real estate, or are merely trying to bloody someone's nose and learn 'ems a lesson in naked aggression.
You placed no substantial limits on materiel, and therefore we are permitted to assume that a combat-ready army would be sent. That includes air and sea support.
-Sarena
I am curious though how a modern army would deal with the GM being against them.
Well obviously getting really upset and stuff that the DM has to bend things around so that things are harder for them. Probably throw something across the room. Grab their stuff and storm out of the room cursing. But that's just assuming that the DM is being openly unfair. If they ain't then the modern army might try calmly bringing this matter up with the DM after the gaming session. It might lead to the modern army not coming over again for game but heck. Ya can't always have your cake and eat it too.
Many of you have said our military would be incredible if left to "break their chains." One major problem with this. Militants are merely civilians trained for battle within these "chains." Panic would ensue among them in such an event.
Nah. The high command would have fun for a bit getting to act without immediate oversight, but anyone more then two steps from the top would never see things as anything other then business-as-usual.
Many of you have said our military would be incredible if left to "break their chains." One major problem with this. Militants are merely civilians trained for battle within these "chains." Panic would ensue among them in such an event.
I'm not sure I quite understand what you are saying here. Could you please clarify it a bit? Ya know maybe rephrase it a bit or something.
ok sorry for the late reply i have been working for a week straight and didnt have time to get on here. as for nukes and such. as far as i know most armies do not go tromping around carring an assrotment of nukes with them at all times. its just to dangerous. and again they have what they would on the move for everyone saying use massive air stirkes and such.
During the Cold War we kept a nice stock of backpack nukes and nuclear artillery rounds, as well as a nuclear supercaliber gun. The Soviets developed (but never put into full production) a nuclear mortar. That's without getting into bombs, medium ranged missiles, ICBMs, etc.
The OP never really defined what army. The US Army looks very different now than in the Cold War. Even when you pick a time period, who's going? Light infantry? Armor? Aviation? SF? Is it just "Army" or does the rest of the military get to play? Even "what you'd have on the move" is very ambiguous. You don't send troops out without logistical support. It's not like joe snuffy infantry is really expected to engage in a prolonged conflict with only what he's got on his back.
And what is a typical D&D army? Why do we get to assume that the D&D army will have dragons, golems, and wizards with astral fortresses, but people cry foul if the modern army uses nukes or airstrikes?
Many of you have said our military would be incredible if left to "break their chains." One major problem with this. Militants are merely civilians trained for battle within these "chains." Panic would ensue among them in such an event.
Depends on the military. One large difference between countries like the US and a lot of other, particularly less developed, countries is the amount of initiative expected in lower levels of leadership. In the US, leaders at all levels are expected to be able to act and make things happen without direction if needed. In some countries, commissioned officers are the only ones really allowed to make any decisions, and without them everyone else is lost.
Also, do we have the stats for a D&Dified nuke? ;)
This isn't my work , but all but the affecting objects statement seems to work out.
'Locate City' as a tactical nuke
For this tactic, you just need to be a Human Sorcerer 6 with the Metamagic Specialist variant in exchange for your familiar. Take two flaws so that you can take Arcane Thesis (Locate City), Born of Three Thunders, Energy Substitution (electricity), Explosive Spell, Flash Frost, and Snowcasting your feats. Make sure you have Locate City on your spell list, and pack along several scrolls of Lesser Globe of Invulnerability.
Cast Lesser Globe of Invulnerability from a scroll so you'll be immune to the havoc you'll be causing. Now grab some ice from a freezer as a move action and spend the entire next round casting Locate City, spontaneously applying Flash Frost, Energy Substitution (electricity), Born of Three Thunders, and Explosive Spell in that order. That'll use up a 3rd-level spell slot due to Arcane Thesis, but you should have four 3rd-level spell slots assuming you have 18 Charisma. Because of Snowcasting, the Locate City spell gets the [cold] subtype. Flash Frost makes it deal 2 cold damage to everyone in the area. Energy Substitution (electricity) changes the spell's subtype to [electricity] and turns the damage into 2 electricity damage. Born of Three Thunders then makes that 1 electricity damage and 1 sonic damage, and forces a Fortitude save against being stunned as well as a Reflex save against being knocked prone. Explosive Spell only affects spells that force a Reflex save, so we've got that covered.
Locate City affects a 10-mile/level radius, centered on you. At caster level 8th, thanks to Arcane Thesis, that's an 80-mile radius, or a 422,400-foot radius. Anyone who fails both the Fortitude save and the Reflex save, which should each be DC 15 assuming you have 18 Charisma, will be pushed to the nearest edge of the area, taking 1d6 damage for every 10 feet moved. If someone was right in front of the caster and failed both saves, he'd be hurled the full 80 miles and take 42,240d6 damage (average 147,840 damage). That's going to be a very forceful and painful trip indeed. Once you cast it, all structures in a 80-mile radius will be utterly destroyed, and approximately a third the population will fail their saves and violently get killed. Now that I think about it, the ground would take damage and auto-fail its saves as well, so you'd end up with a crater 80 miles deep. Then after a round of being dazed from Born of Three Thunders, you cast it again and again and again, putting up a Lesser Globe of Invulnerability as needed.
That is what you can do at 6th-level. Now we'll need to go Incantatrix for the next 10 levels, but unfortunately, we don't happen to have Iron Will. However, the retraining rules from the Player's Handbook II lets us switch out a feat of our choice for another feat before leveling up, so we're free to switch out Born of Three Thunders for Iron Will right before we take Incantatrix. We'll get BoTT right back since Incantatrix gives you a bonus metamagic feat at 1st-level. Right before hitting Incantatrix 4, we'll switch out Energy Substitution for a non-metamagic feat, and then get the former right back as a bonus feat. Before hitting Incantatrix 7, we'll do the same by switching out Explosive Spell for another non-metamagic feat of our choice, and then get Explosive Spell back as a bonus feat. Once we reach Incantatrix 9, we'll simply take Heighten Spell as our bonus metamagic feat.
As a Human Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 10/Stormcaster 1/Archmage 3, this is what your feat list should look like: Arcane Thesis (Locate City), Born of Three Thunders, Draconic Heritage (any electric), Draconic Power, Energy Substitution (electricity), Explosive Spell, Flash Frost, Greater Spell Focus (divination), Heighten Spell, Iron Will, Skill Focus (spellcraft), Snowcasting, Spell Focus (divination), Spell Focus (any).
A Snowcasted, Flash Frost, Energy Substituted (electricity), Born of Three Thunders, Explosive, Heightened to 9th-level Locate City with Arcane Thesis and Improved Metamagic will take up but a 6th-level spell slot. Fill out your lower level slots with less metamagic'd Locate City spells. Assuming you took Spell Power as your High Arcana three times, you should have a caster level of 28th (20 base + 3 Spell Power + 2 Storm Spell Power + 2 Arcane Thesis + 1 Draconic Power), so your devastating spell will now cover a 280-mile radius. Assuming you have 34 Charisma (18 base + 5 stat boosts + 5 stat tomes + 6 Cloak of Charisma), the Fortitude and Reflex save DCs should each be 34 (10 + 9 spell level + 12 Charisma bonus + 1 Spell Focus + 1 Greater Spell Focus + 1 Draconic Power).
1d6 damage per 10 feet moved. If you eat the full 280 miles, that's 147,840d6 (average 517,440 damage). We'll take the average for the purpose of calculations. If you somehow have regeneration 1, you'd fully heal the damage in 862.4 hours or 35.93 days. The tarrasque, with regeneration 40, would heal it in just 21.56 hours.
Arcane Thesis, Flash Frost: Player's Handbook II
Born of Three Thunders, Explosive Spell: Complete Arcane
Snowcasting: Frostburn
Stormcaster: Stormwrack
Draconic Heritage, Draconic Power: Races of the Dragon
Locate City: Races of Destiny
Incantatrix: Player's Guide to Faerun
This isn't my work , but all but the affecting objects statement seems to work out.
Nice optimization there... Definitely something I wouldn't let into my campaign. Wait... I hated the Flaws system they implemented for 3E. it was already too easy to cripple a PC without that. Mind, the only time I ever saw it used was in preparation for utter munchkinism.
Unfortunately, we haven't recieved an Edition from the OP yet, so that may or may not work. Has anyone seen 3E stats for the Goliath anywhere?
-Sarena
Many of you have said our military would be incredible if left to "break their chains." One major problem with this. Militants are merely civilians trained for battle within these "chains." Panic would ensue among them in such an event.
Why would they panic when finally permitted to carry out their job as they have been trained for it? They aren't all of a sudden going to break down and cry when they're permitted to engage any enemy anywhere. That's what they want. If you look at Vietnam and the current conflicts, you'd see that the largest sense of frustration comes from not being able to engage when/where they'd like to. Toss off the chains and you remove that frustration. Good lord, when you're being trained on the job, do you suddenly lose your ability to function the day your trainer lets you go? I sure as hell hope not.
Has anyone seen 3E stats for the Goliath anywhere?
-Sarena
Not in a long time, but I'm pretty damn certain that 136,000 lbs is a bit over their light load capability.
Also, do we have the stats for a D&Dified nuke? ;)
This isn't my work , but all but the affecting objects statement seems to work out.'Locate City' as a tactical nukeFor this tactic, you just need to be a Human Sorcerer 6 with the Metamagic Specialist variant in exchange for your familiar. Take two flaws so that you can take Arcane Thesis (Locate City), Born of Three Thunders, Energy Substitution (electricity), Explosive Spell, Flash Frost, and Snowcasting your feats. Make sure you have Locate City on your spell list, and pack along several scrolls of Lesser Globe of Invulnerability.Cast Lesser Globe of Invulnerability from a scroll so you'll be immune to the havoc you'll be causing. Now grab some ice from a freezer as a move action and spend the entire next round casting Locate City, spontaneously applying Flash Frost, Energy Substitution (electricity), Born of Three Thunders, and Explosive Spell in that order. That'll use up a 3rd-level spell slot due to Arcane Thesis, but you should have four 3rd-level spell slots assuming you have 18 Charisma. Because of Snowcasting, the Locate City spell gets the [cold] subtype. Flash Frost makes it deal 2 cold damage to everyone in the area. Energy Substitution (electricity) changes the spell's subtype to [electricity] and turns the damage into 2 electricity damage. Born of Three Thunders then makes that 1 electricity damage and 1 sonic damage, and forces a Fortitude save against being stunned as well as a Reflex save against being knocked prone. Explosive Spell only affects spells that force a Reflex save, so we've got that covered.
Locate City affects a 10-mile/level radius, centered on you. At caster level 8th, thanks to Arcane Thesis, that's an 80-mile radius, or a 422,400-foot radius. Anyone who fails both the Fortitude save and the Reflex save, which should each be DC 15 assuming you have 18 Charisma, will be pushed to the nearest edge of the area, taking 1d6 damage for every 10 feet moved. If someone was right in front of the caster and failed both saves, he'd be hurled the full 80 miles and take 42,240d6 damage (average 147,840 damage). That's going to be a very forceful and painful trip indeed. Once you cast it, all structures in a 80-mile radius will be utterly destroyed, and approximately a third the population will fail their saves and violently get killed. Now that I think about it, the ground would take damage and auto-fail its saves as well, so you'd end up with a crater 80 miles deep. Then after a round of being dazed from Born of Three Thunders, you cast it again and again and again, putting up a Lesser Globe of Invulnerability as needed.
That is what you can do at 6th-level. Now we'll need to go Incantatrix for the next 10 levels, but unfortunately, we don't happen to have Iron Will. However, the retraining rules from the Player's Handbook II lets us switch out a feat of our choice for another feat before leveling up, so we're free to switch out Born of Three Thunders for Iron Will right before we take Incantatrix. We'll get BoTT right back since Incantatrix gives you a bonus metamagic feat at 1st-level. Right before hitting Incantatrix 4, we'll switch out Energy Substitution for a non-metamagic feat, and then get the former right back as a bonus feat. Before hitting Incantatrix 7, we'll do the same by switching out Explosive Spell for another non-metamagic feat of our choice, and then get Explosive Spell back as a bonus feat. Once we reach Incantatrix 9, we'll simply take Heighten Spell as our bonus metamagic feat.
As a Human Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 10/Stormcaster 1/Archmage 3, this is what your feat list should look like: Arcane Thesis (Locate City), Born of Three Thunders, Draconic Heritage (any electric), Draconic Power, Energy Substitution (electricity), Explosive Spell, Flash Frost, Greater Spell Focus (divination), Heighten Spell, Iron Will, Skill Focus (spellcraft), Snowcasting, Spell Focus (divination), Spell Focus (any).
A Snowcasted, Flash Frost, Energy Substituted (electricity), Born of Three Thunders, Explosive, Heightened to 9th-level Locate City with Arcane Thesis and Improved Metamagic will take up but a 6th-level spell slot. Fill out your lower level slots with less metamagic'd Locate City spells. Assuming you took Spell Power as your High Arcana three times, you should have a caster level of 28th (20 base + 3 Spell Power + 2 Storm Spell Power + 2 Arcane Thesis + 1 Draconic Power), so your devastating spell will now cover a 280-mile radius. Assuming you have 34 Charisma (18 base + 5 stat boosts + 5 stat tomes + 6 Cloak of Charisma), the Fortitude and Reflex save DCs should each be 34 (10 + 9 spell level + 12 Charisma bonus + 1 Spell Focus + 1 Greater Spell Focus + 1 Draconic Power).
1d6 damage per 10 feet moved. If you eat the full 280 miles, that's 147,840d6 (average 517,440 damage). We'll take the average for the purpose of calculations. If you somehow have regeneration 1, you'd fully heal the damage in 862.4 hours or 35.93 days. The tarrasque, with regeneration 40, would heal it in just 21.56 hours.
Arcane Thesis, Flash Frost: Player's Handbook II
Born of Three Thunders, Explosive Spell: Complete Arcane
Snowcasting: Frostburn
Stormcaster: Stormwrack
Draconic Heritage, Draconic Power: Races of the Dragon
Locate City: Races of Destiny
Incantatrix: Player's Guide to Faerun
Basically, you send something big and heavy up into space, and let it reenter the atmosphere and strike a target. If the object is big enough and heavy enough, it's better than a nuke without the radiation.
We have it in our technology today to use Kinetic Harpoons, however we choose not to.
Much like most of the Awesomely Destructive weapons in our arsenals.
The D&D army would be trounced start to finish as it would be little more than a Medieval European force with some "modern" bits thrown in. They are still using swords, and bows.
not F18s, F16s, F35s, F117s, Thermobaric bombs, bunker busters, Artillery, Tanks, Machine Guns with Tungsten rounds, grenades, chemical warfare, biological warfare, nuclear weapons, Kinetic Harpoons, modern Logistics Capability, (Ie feeding the troops etc), nor does it possess the mobility of a modern force, or the Intelligence Gathering capabilities that our forces currently possess.
They are owned on every level start to finish. Magic users, are pretty rare on the D&D battlefield as it is. PC characters are NOT the norm, hell they aren't even Special Forces common. If you want a good idea of what it would be like, just crack open the MM and look at the Human monster manual entry.
Our present weaponry is much more common than Magic Users is in the D&D universe. To give you an idea of just how many nuclear weapons we have. The dismantlement treaty, really hasn't gotten around to the missiles yet. Because of all the Nuclear bullets, Nuclear Anti Aircraft Rockets, Nuclear Air to Air Missiles, back pack nukes etc. Hell IIRC we even had nuclear LAND MINES.
Each soldier, is effectively a Caster. And that's not even counting the steps above what the common soldier lugs around. and that's being Generous and assuming that it's a 3.5 based extraoridinarily high leveled, and caster heavy army going against us.
The other thing of course to is it's assuming that some how that the military wouldn't learn magic of it's own, once presented with the fact that Magic does exist.
For as little extra use it would give us. *mostly medical... offensively it's got nothing for us*
Anyone thinking a D&D force would even stand a chance because the cave crickets aren't dead yet, needs to realize just how limited we force ourselves to be.
Dwarven women (D&D) FTW!
D&D FTW!
One has got to love their catgirls.
One has got to love their catgirls.
I prefer Gerbil Girls, thankyouverymuch.
One has got to love their catgirls.
I prefer Gerbil Girls, thankyouverymuch.
I can help you there :P
-Sarena
I can help you there :P
-Sarena
Wait. Who and how?
So ... uhh ... D&D also has hell horsies. That's a tick on the positive for sures. Thing is, which side gets it? Hell horsies are traditionally PC enemies so I think that they'll defect and join the military side to kill the pesky PCs. D&D FTL!
So ... uhh ... D&D also has hell horsies. That's a tick on the positive for sures. Thing is, which side gets it? Hell horsies are traditionally PC enemies so I think that they'll defect and join the military side to kill the pesky PCs. D&D FTL!
Although I'm sure they'd be able to do some high lvl magic to mind control or bind them to their side. And with hell horsies and gerbilgirls they'd sure be able to rake in a lot of money for sure. ;) With enough finances they'd sure be able to bring a lot of magical goodness in items to the battle field. Having lots of magical items could be a tipping feature of the fight.
Hell horsies and gerbilgirls (D&D) FTW!
Although I'm sure they'd be able to do some high lvl magic to mind control or bind them to their side. And with hell horsies and gerbilgirls they'd sure be able to rake in a lot of money for sure. ;) With enough finances they'd sure be able to bring a lot of magical goodness in items to the battle field. Having lots of magical items could be a tipping feature of the fight.
Hell horsies and gerbilgirls (D&D) FTW!
That's true, since the D&D army we're always presented with is composed entirely of Epic Spellcasters and Epic specialists, they'd have no trouble gettin' this done. Yep.
Hell horsies and gerbilgirls FTP (For The Porn)!
Even better yet. If they get some of that good stuff they can sell it to the troops on the modern side and stuff cuz who wouldn't want to see some gerbilgirls on hell horsie action. That's right, they'd probably be able to hurt the modern army financially in a prolonged war.
Hell horsies and gerbilgirls FTP
Hell horsies an' gerbilgirls an' halfling directors FTP!
I can help you there :P
-Sarena
Wait. Who and how?
So ... uhh ... D&D also has hell horsies. That's a tick on the positive for sures. Thing is, which side gets it? Hell horsies are traditionally PC enemies so I think that they'll defect and join the military side to kill the pesky PCs. D&D FTL!
Go look at the Experiment thread, Z_B. I just updated the thread for Physical Qualities. Hell Horsies and HellGoggies to boot. They'd most definitely wander over to the other side for thge better food and the chance to eat PCs.
-Sarena
Hell horsies and gerbil girls and halfling porn directors and eaten PCs FTP!
More OT...
I think we're thinking about this wrong. The modern army would probably let loose with all the big guns and wipe out most of the D&D army. No real questions there. But barring nukes (which are on the "not permitted" list, presumably the modern army plans to conquer and use the land afterwards or something) they can't really guarantee complete destruction...
So of course there's going to be between four and six plucky survivors, who will rapidly gain in power and skill and somehow evade capture and death until the final confrontation where-in they try to destroy the army mano-a-mano by going after high command. If the army is lucky there will be a heroic sacrifice involve don the D&D peeps part.
Because in D&D you have, in addition to the laws of physics, laws of nature, and laws of magic, the laws of narrative necessity. And hey, if there's a third son whose two older brothers were already killed in the war, those modern army people are screwed.
But barring nukes (which are on the "not permitted" list, presumably the modern army plans to conquer and use the land afterwards or something) they can't really guarantee complete destruction...
I don't think nukes where entirely removed from the scenario but rather only nuclear silos which probably now a days make up around 1% or less of our nuclear armament. Now the OP probably meant for no nukes to be involved in the scenario but if that is true then I'd have to suggest that all OPed city destroying D&D combos need be kept out of the game as well. Now as mentioned before, we do have weapons that are stronger than nukes that we can deploy. We moderns also have many more other less strong weapons that would work just as fine.
So of course there's going to be between four and six plucky survivors, who will rapidly gain in power and skill and somehow evade capture and death until the final confrontation where-in they try to destroy the army mano-a-mano by going after high command. If the army is lucky there will be a heroic sacrifice involve don the D&D peeps part.
Because in D&D you have, in addition to the laws of physics, laws of nature, and laws of magic, the laws of narrative necessity. And hey, if there's a third son whose two older brothers were already killed in the war, those modern army people are screwed.
True, but I think you're also forgetting about those uneventful TPKs that pop up from time to time. ;)
... you lot are weird.
Wait a minute - you're just figuring this out, NOW?
But barring nukes (which are on the "not permitted" list, presumably the modern army plans to conquer and use the land afterwards or something) they can't really guarantee complete destruction...
I don't think nukes where entirely removed from the scenario but rather only nuclear silos which probably now a days make up around 1% or less of our nuclear armament. Now the OP probably meant for no nukes to be involved in the scenario but if that is true then I'd have to suggest that all OPed city destroying D&D combos need be kept out of the game as well. Now as mentioned before, we do have weapons that are stronger than nukes that we can deploy. We moderns also have many more other less strong weapons that would work just as fine.
Eh, point is, survivors will probably happen.
True, but I think you're also forgetting about those uneventful TPKs that pop up from time to time. ;)
Where-upon it would be discovered that it just so happens another group of 4-6 unlikely survivors had been around all this time and continue the mission, no?
... you lot are weird.
This is news to you exactly how?
-Sarena
This is news to you exactly how?
-Sarena
It's not news to him. He just likes to say it as often as possible. It's what makes him One of Us. You know, part of this weird, weird lot.
... you lot are weird.
This is news to you exactly how?
How isn't it news?
How isn't it news?
Hell news?
Hell news?
With a Hell Channel 4 News Team (C4NT)?
-Sarena
Hell news?
With a Hell Channel 4 News Team (C4NT)?
And maybe they ride hell horsies to the scene of the hell news and have an anchor gerbilgirl?
DnD still wins.I guess first I think it interesting that for the D&D side it is always assumed they'll have the best possible stuff you could imagine when an army just consists of average stuff. Now to counter this.
Response to the first bitAgainst jets, divination and Wall of Force(can you say metal soup)
The wall is very small, very short range and last a very while. In order to be effective a wizard would have to be specialized in such just to be able to make it last all day long, make it have a larger AoE or longer range. Using meta magic to make the wall more effective means the spells take up spell slots of higher lvl spells. To be effective this means they must specialize in it and all their higher lvl spells slots are used up for wall of force. Can be made permanent but again takes up more spell slots. End result. Wizard can make a very small permanent wall of force which protects few and makes the protected forces immobile.Most divination spells take a long time to cast of which would not be of much use on a battle field. Not of use for there would not be enough time for them to cast it as well as too hectic for them to cast such slow casting spells. A wall of force could protect them but then if done so that means you've used basically two extremely high lvl wizards for divining and protecting the diviner whom may not be able to get info quick enough. All in all likely two of the strongest casters in the army focusing purely on non combative roles.
Overall I think this would be a loss for the D&D side. Protecting few troops from asault and losing mobility for protecting the best few troops. As well as wasting the few best casters one would likely have in a standard D&D army.
I will give you this one as I thought myself that it was a little expensive on resources.
Against nukes, Fire immunity or dimensional travel(you simply can't kill what you can't reach)
Nukes are not fire. Fire immunity would not protect against it. A nuke puts out high energy particles followed by a shockwave. Both with basically destroy everything near it regardless. As far as dimensional travel goes. Yes you could use that, but how long do you expect to stay way? If you come back to that spot you'll start being effected by radiation as well as likely being hit by something as soon as you pop back into the dimension. If you pop in somewhere else then sure you would be fine. Also it could be used to leave for long enough to rest, but overall I see a few problems with this. The quick dimensional spells that would be most workable are mainly all personal. This means that out of an army of like 100,000 troops about a dozen wizards would be able to escape. That is of course if we assumed they had the spells memorized and if they knew ahead of time what that object in the sky, that they likely don't notice (probably can't see), is. The nuke would come in likely by gliding and would detonate above ground for maximum effect. Likely before it is noticed because by the naked eye you likely ain't going to see it until it is too late. Once it is cablooie everything in a few miles is toast. No time to react. Unless the wizards knew about it ahead of time and dimensioned out ahead of time they're dead. Now if they can they likely don't have the time, or spells memorized, to make a huge gate to save the army.In all giving the D&D forces the benefit of the doubt this is sort of a loss. A legion could be wiped out and the only survivors would be the few wizards that can dimension out of there and maybe a couple of people that are near them if they are high in lvl. This means that a lot of powerful casters that didn't have the spell memorized or that were busy are now gone. Army now reduced to almost nill. Maybe a strong nill, but still almost nil.
The thing is that a Wizard or Sorcceror alone can can use Transdimensional Spell(a metamagic feat) with magic missile from the ethereal plane, from which you can see the material plane and anything on the material plane is insubtantial, but with the Transdimensional Spell you can kill people on the material plane with immpunity.
Against guns, bows and spells(Cragtop Archers can fire over a mile with no trouble).
I do believe that many guns now a day have equal if not greater distances than that. Plus a lot of artillery can fire much further than that with no problem. Also, all these guns pretty much hit the target. The archers and spells can go the distance but are a bit less accurate and I don't believe can be fired from a hidden locations that the tech guns and artillery can be.Loss for D&D forces
Actually if the modern forces have scopes you are probably right but scopes are expensive. My point was that it would not be as easy as you make it out to be.
Against ground mobility, symbols and other trap spells.
My guess would be that a few wizards and clerics would lay them down ahead of time then the following day would memorize different spells. Requires preplanning, time, and usually need the army to go through that spot to be effective. So in a since you have to knowingly station yourself somewhere. I assume that once tech side figures out what they are they'd just handle them the same way they handle land mines since they're just magical versions of them. Shouldn't be too much of a problem to get through but would slow down forces as well as kills some marines. However. In order for it to work the tech side would have to walk through trapped areas. Which means they'd need a reason to do so. Best way to do such is for enemy position to be known and act as a lure. The mistake about such would be that tech side would be able to hit D&D forces with artillery, missiles, planes and such. If places more sporadically it could still be useful but at a certain point the D&D side will lose track of where they're own traps are and it would slow them down looking for them.More trouble than it's worth. To be most effective it makes them too much of a target. Opens them up to many other forms of attack as well. Without away position to lure enemy into trap the effort would be waisted time and effort.
I'll call this one a loss. Mainly a logistics loss. If the war was expected to be a war of attrition then maybe it would be useful but for a quick fight it would be a bad way to mange one's resources.
The idea here was just to slow you down or prevent vehicles from running over troops.
Against everything else, Prismatic Sphere and other spells of the sort.Probably one of the best suggestions that you've had. However many of the prismatic spells, especially the really strong effective ones, are high in lvl. A D&D force would have few high lvl casters. If a force was to focus on wall of force and divination there would be little to no room for these kinds of spells. However if the other stuff was abandoned then they could have some very strong offensive spells as well as a higher number of them. Now a problem though with man of the prismatic spells I'm looking at in the phb is that they're quite short ranged. Which means that most other spells would have to be used for getting to the tech forces alive. Effective it done but likely not the best way it can be approached. Even if so they'd likely only be able to kill about a platoon of troops or so or kill a few tanks. Using such high lvl spells, as well as many lower lvl ones to assist, to kill an extremely small portion of a tech force seems a bit wasteful.
Effective (sort of) if pulled off but overall I think more trouble than it's worth. Has to put strong caster and asset to army in harms way to be effective at all. Likely to cause death of high lvl casters. I'll say a loss for D&D forces. After a few platoons or units the high lvl wizard will be killed at which point the D&D force has lost a huge portion of it's potential power.
Have you never heard of Contigency(the spell or the feat), they could be teleported out before they died. A Contingency Teleport could be prepared years ahead. Even a simple lich could keep coming back to kill more of the enemy forces.
-Sarena
Show
We are using the real world and earth like physics. As far as we know with real wold physics there is no ethereal plane so as far as we know that wouldn't work.
Sure, but so are tanks and the military has tons of those.
Then state it in your plan. If not then it might not be there. Of course all of this does require a high lvl caster. The contingency would need to be triggered and well it's possible that a missile that kills the wizard might not set off the trigger that will allow for the wizard to get out alive. But yes it could work.
We must assume that our world probably doesn't have things like other planes in it so such spells could not be considered to work for a snatch&grab or for skulking near the Simulacrum in order to command them. Now a big problem with this is that it takes time. A war with a modern military would likely be over before it comes to fruition. Also it is a higher lvl spell and so will take one of the more poweful wizards of the force out of the fight for a day or two. Bad for the D&D side. by then they'd likely have nothing left.
I can not find any write up for the a goliath warhulk but I can for a goliath (kind of) from 3e, so I'll go off of goliath stats. They have no chance in hell of picking up a tank unless they can pick up several grown elephants with no problem. Also, where is these new things coming from? Flight? If you want the army to fly then state from the start that everyone in the D&D force has an item that allows for them to fly so that they can attack plains and helicopters. Even so, a helicopter has enough firepower to take out a tank and living things hiding behind them. And unless the item allows for somewhat good flight the helicopter should be able to stay away from the thing with these flight items.
First I had no clue that Dark Creature was a template and now that you give some info on it the template does seem OPed and probably never should have been made.
IIRC darkvision was infrared in 2e but was changed in 3e (and from what I understand in all settings).
Which brings me to another question. which edition of D&D are you D&D supporters using? I think many are assuming 3e (because it's the most OPed and broken of the editions
) but there have now been references to 2e and 4e.
Well what she is stating is that many of the weaponry of modern days has a further effective range than many, if not most, of the long range spells of D&D. Advantage modern army.
yeah I know but if it's going to use a spell called 'locate city' then there better well be a city. ;)
As a dm there would be a few things with that that I'd not let work. Such as giving the locate city spell the cold keyword/type and stuff. Reason for is because giving energy types to spells is for damage purposes where locate city is (as I understand it for I don't have the book it is in) not a damage spell. So as intended something meant to change spell type to effect damage type would not go about changing type of the div spell or at least not allow it to do damage no matter what the rules as RAW are. Sure the combo doesn't have locate city do damage directly to things it does require those in its effect to makes saves of which they get dealt damage because of it and stuff. Also there are ways that the wizard can live through it. And yeah I know a wizard of moderate lvl can pull this off.
But all in all. If those supporting the D&D side are going to jump to OPed munchkin combos that no DM would let into their game in order to have a winning chance in this scenario then I see no reason so as to push to ban things like nuclear weapons and other high damage and large area of effect weapons that the modern army has. As of the OP if nukes are intended to be kept out of the fight period then I'd have to argue that OPed combos of the D&D side need to be taken out of the whole scenario as well so by set up this combo should not be of concern. It becomes a non factor. Of which also can be come to mean though is that the number of high lvl high power PCs/monsters are not present as well as most optimized builds. If one side is gimped in a manner then it only reasons that the other one is gimped in a similar fashion.
The thing is that a Wizard or Sorcceror alone can can use Transdimensional Spell(a metamagic feat) with magic missile from the ethereal plane, from which you can see the material plane and anything on the material plane is insubtantial, but with the Transdimensional Spell you can kill people on the material plane with immpunity.
We are using the real world and earth like physics. As far as we know with real wold physics there is no ethereal plane so as far as we know that wouldn't work.
Actually if the modern forces have scopes you are probably right but scopes are expensive. My point was that it would not be as easy as you make it out to be.
Sure, but so are tanks and the military has tons of those.
Have you never heard of Contigency(the spell or the feat), they could be teleported out before they died. A Contingency Teleport could be prepared years ahead. Even a simple lich could keep coming back to kill more of the enemy forces.
Then state it in your plan. If not then it might not be there. Of course all of this does require a high lvl caster. The contingency would need to be triggered and well it's possible that a missile that kills the wizard might not set off the trigger that will allow for the wizard to get out alive. But yes it could work.
Not worth it? I'm not sure how that's true but let's check. It requires a soldier to captured, this is accomplished easily by using the ethereal plane(or invisibility) to get close enough to grab a soldier then casting a Plane Shift spell(I beleive that one works on unwilling targets you are in contact with). The lab is easy to come by the expensive materials might not be I will give you that(though if the caster learned that spell they probably have some with them at all times). It will take them out of the fight for at least 1 day. And the payoff could mean that the DnD army knows what will hurt most to the modern army(communication is dependent upon towers, how to use the field kits, basic training in firearms, how to set off modern explosives, and others). So I would say it is definitely worth it.
We must assume that our world probably doesn't have things like other planes in it so such spells could not be considered to work for a snatch&grab or for skulking near the Simulacrum in order to command them. Now a big problem with this is that it takes time. A war with a modern military would likely be over before it comes to fruition. Also it is a higher lvl spell and so will take one of the more poweful wizards of the force out of the fight for a day or two. Bad for the D&D side. by then they'd likely have nothing left.
Only one is impressive but talking about standard firearms(carbines, asault rifles, pistols, and other standard issue weapons). Also said goliath could throw the tank as a projectile at helicopters or basic soldiers. Or with a item to allow flight he could just grab the helicopter itself and drag it into the ground. If it is a sniper couldn't he just fly above the firing arc(assuming a prone position for the sniper)?
I can not find any write up for the a goliath warhulk but I can for a goliath (kind of) from 3e, so I'll go off of goliath stats. They have no chance in hell of picking up a tank unless they can pick up several grown elephants with no problem. Also, where is these new things coming from? Flight? If you want the army to fly then state from the start that everyone in the D&D force has an item that allows for them to fly so that they can attack plains and helicopters. Even so, a helicopter has enough firepower to take out a tank and living things hiding behind them. And unless the item allows for somewhat good flight the helicopter should be able to stay away from the thing with these flight items.
First you forgot the Dark Creature Template it adds Hide in Plain Sight, and +8 to hide and +6 to Move Silently(amongst some others). The ring is actually pretty cheap(1000 or 2000 I forget which). As for the infrared in one of the settings darkvision is the ability to see heat(I might be mixing in a novel by accident I'm AFB right now).
First I had no clue that Dark Creature was a template and now that you give some info on it the template does seem OPed and probably never should have been made.
IIRC darkvision was infrared in 2e but was changed in 3e (and from what I understand in all settings).
Which brings me to another question. which edition of D&D are you D&D supporters using? I think many are assuming 3e (because it's the most OPed and broken of the editions
) but there have now been references to 2e and 4e. Either way, advantage is to the long-distance weapons of the modern Military.In 4E I agree.
Well what she is stating is that many of the weaponry of modern days has a further effective range than many, if not most, of the long range spells of D&D. Advantage modern army.
The locate city bomb does not require a city to function, but it does kill the caster in the process.
yeah I know but if it's going to use a spell called 'locate city' then there better well be a city. ;)
As a dm there would be a few things with that that I'd not let work. Such as giving the locate city spell the cold keyword/type and stuff. Reason for is because giving energy types to spells is for damage purposes where locate city is (as I understand it for I don't have the book it is in) not a damage spell. So as intended something meant to change spell type to effect damage type would not go about changing type of the div spell or at least not allow it to do damage no matter what the rules as RAW are. Sure the combo doesn't have locate city do damage directly to things it does require those in its effect to makes saves of which they get dealt damage because of it and stuff. Also there are ways that the wizard can live through it. And yeah I know a wizard of moderate lvl can pull this off.
But all in all. If those supporting the D&D side are going to jump to OPed munchkin combos that no DM would let into their game in order to have a winning chance in this scenario then I see no reason so as to push to ban things like nuclear weapons and other high damage and large area of effect weapons that the modern army has. As of the OP if nukes are intended to be kept out of the fight period then I'd have to argue that OPed combos of the D&D side need to be taken out of the whole scenario as well so by set up this combo should not be of concern. It becomes a non factor. Of which also can be come to mean though is that the number of high lvl high power PCs/monsters are not present as well as most optimized builds. If one side is gimped in a manner then it only reasons that the other one is gimped in a similar fashion.
For D&D (3.5): High level human lich necromancer/archmage with a really well-concealed phylactery. Eventually, modern army gets destroyed. Otherwise, modern army wins.
1) The standard D&D army isn't made up of a lich or has them in them. 2) Liches are destroyed at an alarmingly high rate by adventurers 3) Many fine military men and women play D&D and so would likely know how to go about trying to defeat the lich.
I must say though that this might be a good idea. A bad thingy though is that, IIRC, a lich reforms near their phylactery and so after a while it would likely get found or whatnot. But good idea with using an immortal high lvl character. Now i have this thought in my head of the us military fighting against vecna.
For D&D (3.5): High level human lich necromancer/archmage with a really well-concealed phylactery. Eventually, modern army gets destroyed. Otherwise, modern army wins.
1) The standard D&D army isn't made up of a lich or has them in them. 2) Liches are destroyed at an alarmingly high rate by adventurers 3) Many fine military men and women play D&D and so would likely know how to go about trying to defeat the lich.
I must say though that this might be a good idea. A bad thingy though is that, IIRC, a lich reforms near their phylactery and so after a while it would likely get found or whatnot. But good idea with using an immortal high lvl character. Now i have this thought in my head of the us military fighting against vecna.
Right. Thus, it can be hidden deep in the Underdark (guarded by iron golems, which any soldier who survives the horrors of the Underdark long enough to actually get to them will probably be incapable of destroying), where after its inevitable destruction the lich will reform, scry, teleport, kill, and animate the dead as ghouls, since ghouls can propagate their own kind. The ghouls would be destroyed quickly, of course, but they can be replaced by the next lightning raid.
And a modern military fighting Vecna would be completely awesome.
Right. Thus, it can be hidden deep in the Underdark (guarded by iron golems, which any soldier who survives the horrors of the Underdark long enough to actually get to them will probably be incapable of destroying), where after its inevitable destruction the lich will reform, scry, teleport, kill, and animate the dead as ghouls, since ghouls can propagate their own kind. The ghouls would be destroyed quickly, of course, but they can be replaced by the next lightning raid.
And a modern military fighting Vecna would be completely awesome.
Thus the big problem. On an earth like planet with earth like physics there would be no underdark, for there is no underdark on earth.
-Sarena
RE: Golems: Again, a good point. Underwater hiding place it is!
... Good point. I'd been wondering why everyone had been disregarding the potential tactical benefits of a world-spanning warren of tunnels. Back to the drawing board... Maybe the lava tubes of an extinct volcano, with iron golem guardians? The bottom of an ocean?
In theory that could work however if you get deep enough as to where the military would not be able to reach it is likely the pressure at those depths might also be able to crush the iron golems or phylactery or at least damage them to some extent. But yeah that might be workable.
So yeah... reasonably well prepared lich is unkillable by modern army. Then again, so are all sorts of monsters. But really, what's the chances that a D&D army is going to have that many monsters on their side? No... even if they have a couple, it still ends up being the same as the 4-6 plucky survivors, where you have the abomination playing the part of one of the 4-6 plucky survivors. Hrm... now I think one of our six is a plucky genius girl who got liched when she was (just barely) 18, and has used vanity spells to keep that "fresh" appearance.
Meh. Lich just needs to put their phylactery in a reasonably well-hidden place and keep it in a Force Chest. At that point, without magic, the modern army can't destroy it even if the hide it, and if the lich always teleports away from there and never goes back, then finding it would be very difficult.
In that case we moderns can just get that phylactry and toss it into space in a trajectory to go into the sun. We could reason that tht wouldn't break the force chest but once the lich is killed it will respawn in the sun and die instantly. victory moderns. Of course that would be a pain in the ass to pull off.....
Meh. Lich just needs to put their phylactery in a reasonably well-hidden place and keep it in a Force Chest. At that point, without magic, the modern army can't destroy it even if the hide it, and if the lich always teleports away from there and never goes back, then finding it would be very difficult.
In that case we moderns can just get that phylactry and toss it into space in a trajectory to go into the sun. We could reason that tht wouldn't break the force chest but once the lich is killed it will respawn in the sun and die instantly. victory moderns. Of course that would be a pain in the ass to pull off.....
Hrm... actually, I think "hiding things" goes to D&D. You can make something practically impossible to find so easily with magic. Heck, with disintegrate, greater teleport and stone shape the lich could put the phlactery on the friggin' moon with no reason for it's enemies to ever suspect it to be hidden there, undetectable to casual observation, and no reason for a modern military to stumble across it.
Even without going to such drastic measures, put it in the deepest part of a cave system, stone shape the chamber it's in shut, throw on an illusion to make it convincing and bam, modern army won't find it and the chances of them happening on it accidentally are pretty darn slim. The tech just doesn't exist to find something that small in such a wide area and when only one person has the secret it can't be found...
So yeah. I think I'm going to have to side with D&D forces on this one. They can hide things better. And at least in the case of a lich's phylactery, they can hide it so well that the only way it would be found is by narrative causality, which means it won't be found till the end of the campaign, thus giving the lich character a reason to fear death on the final assault.
ShowThe thing is that a Wizard or Sorcceror alone can can use Transdimensional Spell(a metamagic feat) with magic missile from the ethereal plane, from which you can see the material plane and anything on the material plane is insubtantial, but with the Transdimensional Spell you can kill people on the material plane with immpunity.
We are using the real world and earth like physics. As far as we know with real wold physics there is no ethereal plane so as far as we know that wouldn't work.Actually if the modern forces have scopes you are probably right but scopes are expensive. My point was that it would not be as easy as you make it out to be.
Sure, but so are tanks and the military has tons of those.
To remove the Planes is to take away the defualt basis of most magic("Do you think that the plane of fire misses the the fire taken from it when a wizards casts Fireball" that was said in either the Planar Handbook or the Planar Manual).Have you never heard of Contigency(the spell or the feat), they could be teleported out before they died. A Contingency Teleport could be prepared years ahead. Even a simple lich could keep coming back to kill more of the enemy forces.
Then state it in your plan. If not then it might not be there. Of course all of this does require a high lvl caster. The contingency would need to be triggered and well it's possible that a missile that kills the wizard might not set off the trigger that will allow for the wizard to get out alive. But yes it could work.Not worth it? I'm not sure how that's true but let's check. It requires a soldier to captured, this is accomplished easily by using the ethereal plane(or invisibility) to get close enough to grab a soldier then casting a Plane Shift spell(I beleive that one works on unwilling targets you are in contact with). The lab is easy to come by the expensive materials might not be I will give you that(though if the caster learned that spell they probably have some with them at all times). It will take them out of the fight for at least 1 day. And the payoff could mean that the DnD army knows what will hurt most to the modern army(communication is dependent upon towers, how to use the field kits, basic training in firearms, how to set off modern explosives, and others). So I would say it is definitely worth it.
We must assume that our world probably doesn't have things like other planes in it so such spells could not be considered to work for a snatch&grab or for skulking near the Simulacrum in order to command them. Now a big problem with this is that it takes time. A war with a modern military would likely be over before it comes to fruition. Also it is a higher lvl spell and so will take one of the more poweful wizards of the force out of the fight for a day or two. Bad for the D&D side. by then they'd likely have nothing left.
First off a Simulacrum does not need to be concentrated on, actually a Simulacrum should probably be treated closer to an intelligent golem. Also the Ethereal plane is not neccessary for this particular plan, invisiblity works just fine.Only one is impressive but talking about standard firearms(carbines, asault rifles, pistols, and other standard issue weapons). Also said goliath could throw the tank as a projectile at helicopters or basic soldiers. Or with a item to allow flight he could just grab the helicopter itself and drag it into the ground. If it is a sniper couldn't he just fly above the firing arc(assuming a prone position for the sniper)?
I can not find any write up for the a goliath warhulk but I can for a goliath (kind of) from 3e, so I'll go off of goliath stats. They have no chance in hell of picking up a tank unless they can pick up several grown elephants with no problem. Also, where is these new things coming from? Flight? If you want the army to fly then state from the start that everyone in the D&D force has an item that allows for them to fly so that they can attack plains and helicopters. Even so, a helicopter has enough firepower to take out a tank and living things hiding behind them. And unless the item allows for somewhat good flight the helicopter should be able to stay away from the thing with these flight items.
Warhulk(Miniatures Handbook) is a ten level Prestige Class that advances Strength by 2 instead of BAB. Looking back at it I did forget to mention it would be a racial subsistution barbarian, so it would become large when raging(increasing weight limits and strength even futher). I apologize for my oversight. As for the flight I mentioned earlier in the disscusion that a Goliath Racial Barbarian Warhulk could throw the planet itself(with leverage and a optimized build that involves a lot of magic items). But I have been veering away from anything that cheesey.
First you forgot the Dark Creature Template it adds Hide in Plain Sight, and +8 to hide and +6 to Move Silently(amongst some others). The ring is actually pretty cheap(1000 or 2000 I forget which). As for the infrared in one of the settings darkvision is the ability to see heat(I might be mixing in a novel by accident I'm AFB right now).
First I had no clue that Dark Creature was a template and now that you give some info on it the template does seem OPed and probably never should have been made.
IIRC darkvision was infrared in 2e but was changed in 3e (and from what I understand in all settings).
The Dark Creature template can be apllied with a collar(it takes up the necklace slot). It's called the Colar of Umbral Metamorphosis. As for the Darkvision I will confirm it for myself later but for now I will take your word and say, I stand corrected.
Which brings me to another question. which edition of D&D are you D&D supporters using? I think many are assuming 3e (because it's the most OPed and broken of the editionsEither way, advantage is to the long-distance weapons of the modern Military.In 4E I agree.
Well what she is stating is that many of the weaponry of modern days has a further effective range than many, if not most, of the long range spells of D&D. Advantage modern army.
I meant that in 4E there are fewer methods to deal with multiple foes(above minion level anyways).The locate city bomb does not require a city to function, but it does kill the caster in the process.
yeah I know but if it's going to use a spell called 'locate city' then there better well be a city. ;)
As a dm there would be a few things with that that I'd not let work. Such as giving the locate city spell the cold keyword/type and stuff. Reason for is because giving energy types to spells is for damage purposes where locate city is (as I understand it for I don't have the book it is in) not a damage spell. So as intended something meant to change spell type to effect damage type would not go about changing type of the div spell or at least not allow it to do damage no matter what the rules as RAW are. Sure the combo doesn't have locate city do damage directly to things it does require those in its effect to makes saves of which they get dealt damage because of it and stuff. Also there are ways that the wizard can live through it. And yeah I know a wizard of moderate lvl can pull this off.
But all in all. If those supporting the D&D side are going to jump to OPed munchkin combos that no DM would let into their game in order to have a winning chance in this scenario then I see no reason so as to push to ban things like nuclear weapons and other high damage and large area of effect weapons that the modern army has. As of the OP if nukes are intended to be kept out of the fight period then I'd have to argue that OPed combos of the D&D side need to be taken out of the whole scenario as well so by set up this combo should not be of concern. It becomes a non factor. Of which also can be come to mean though is that the number of high lvl high power PCs/monsters are not present as well as most optimized builds. If one side is gimped in a manner then it only reasons that the other one is gimped in a similar fashion.
I will use your own logic against you. You see the reason I have been using members of the army is because the modern day military is optimized, in fact the only restraint they have is poltics(which as so many have pointed out is not a factor in this scenario). So what you have said so adds up to taking away the most powerful aplications of force DnD(magic is mostly based on the fact that there are various planes of existence), while taking away restrictions from the modern forces. My assumption has been simple the DnD forces bring their best to bear(barring cheesey unfairness) and nothing else.
-The Simulacrum spell states that at all times the simulacrum remains under your absolute command. no special telepathic link exists, so command must be exercised in some other manner. The spell never states that the simulacrum is intelligent or that it thinks on its own. All it says is that it's an illusory duplicate and that the wizard has command over it and must find some way to command it other than telepathy. So from what the spell seems to indicate is that it might be able to some basic thinking for itself but overall the wizard has to command it. And to tell ya the truth in my eyes it might look like John Smith but there is not guarantee it will act like John Smith, and the spell doesn't seem to do much to indicate that (or at least not much to me).
-OK so the warhulk is from the the miniatures book, probably OPed, you suggestion is that it be extremely high lvl with a whole slew of magic items. If so then for the goliath would probably be the armies highest lvl person. And from what it seems the prestige class basically turns the character into superman or something and even more so with the aid of a few items. I think this is another one of those things on the D&D side of we'll find the most rare and OPed munchkined build and that will win the fight. Of course no matter how easy it is for the goliath to pick up a tank or a mountain the str would likely not do a darn thing to protect them from bullets and missiles.
-In 4e there are plenty of ways and powers that allow for the dealing with multiple foes. Heck my goliath barbarian that only has melee attacks (yeah no close or area attacks) can and often does kill 2 or 3 non minions in a round with little difficulty. This is just one example and it's wth a character that is not designed for doing such. My guess is that you've only looked at the phb1 and likely not at a lot of the power for even that has a lot of close and area attacks of which each class has at least one. So I would have to say that your statement if false.
-You might see the modern day military as optimized but I see that the way it's been represented it is of it's average power or potential or at least based on their standard operating procedures and such. If you want we could go with an army other than america. The germans, french, brits and so on and so forth all have equipment that rivals the us in one area or another and this equipment is a standard for their military. It is the average. Optimized is more of something being rare as well as powerful. Such as munchkined characters. The military isn't optimized but rather the average power lvl is high. It is not our fault that in many core books an average D&D army is described as having little to now magic, probably only less than a dozen people over lvl 6ish and almost the whole army being of about lvl 2. See in a D&D world few of the military would be trained to be emperor guard quality where as in modern times the whole military is trained to that quality as well as having great items that fit their quality of training. But this is do to a difference of outlook in warfare. In modern days fewer well trained soldiers can do more damage more effectively than more less trained soldiers can do less effectively. Often in ancient/D&D type setting the idea of warfare was partly based on formation as well as numbers. The nuke of the battle field was often heavy cavalry which were also knights, lords, imperial guard or what have you. Of course they might have 20 times more infantry than they had cavalry and most of the cavalry might not be heavy horsemen. The top quality troops were little in number. Why? Because sometimes they were not needed to win. Sometimes one could win because they had tons of bowmen. Or because they have 3 to 4 times the amount of infantry the enemy has and could surround them. So in essence often in a more medieval or ancient setting a military did not always need quality to win for such could often be won with numbers and basic coordination from top brass. Now an ancient army that did win based off of skill and often was outnumbered was the romans. But really the reason why is because their army is actually quite like that of modern armies. All their troops are trained to basically have the skill of an elite guard or at least to be great killing machines. however in a D&D setting the standard army is not a roman style army but more of a rag tag group of people on the battle field whom have little skill. .
Take a look at my post above yours, df. I doubt the Goliath thing would work out. ;)
I doubted it as well but didn't feel like looking up weights or doing calculations. I also doubted it would be able to pick up the planet but still I decided to roll with what he wrote.
I doubted it as well but didn't feel like looking up weights or doing calculations. I also doubted it would be able to pick up the planet but still I decided to roll with what he wrote.
Yeah, I was just bored.
And I kept seeing it being brought up over and over again with nothing backing it up. It was just assumed it could lift the thing. I asked for something showing it was possible and that was ignored so I finally made my way over to the SRD. They're rough estimates, but they're pretty close - especially the Heavy load one. Those numbers are insane and I can honestly say that in nearly 20 years of playing D&D including 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5 and 4e, I've never seen anything eevn approaching those for strength scores. Ever. And I played back as a powergaming pre-teen/teen, too. Really, if you're gonna say that thing is on your team, why not include Pun-Pun?
DF: Let me put this very clearly, I've been assuming a higher than normal(as in single human kingdom) standard. I have been assuming a higher standard for the DnD army then what is usually described, to put them more closely matched with the modern. You see the common DnD army isn't even a character class they are NPC classes, heck the common DnD army is mostly consripts(peasants givens swords and armor) who usually play dead after getting hit once. Half of such an army could be taken out by a single very well equipped Fighter(Moutain Plate or Mechanus Full Plate and a Tower Shield), in fact an army of conscripts could be routed by just the one Fighter. So to put it as simple as possible, I have been assuming the DnD forces were competent.
Edit: Z_B: The strength score would be in the low 40's before items. Then include the multiplier.
Z_B: Did you include the multiplier for size?
Edit: Z_B: The strength score would be in the low 40's before items. Then include the multiplier.
My calculations are correct. I did, however, forget the multiplier. And low 40s? So that's a common score? Plus how many 'common' magic items does this require? Is this a Christmas tree or a character? How many Tomes is he gonna read? In other words, this is one OP dood that would likely be the one and only - if there at all.
EDIT: For a Heavy load, a Large character would need roughly a 59 Str or a 49 depending upon which way you use the x2. It's x4 for every 10 and x2 for Large.
Z_B: Did you include the multiplier for size?
Edit: Z_B: The strength score would be in the low 40's before items. Then include the multiplier.
My calculations are correct. I did, however, forget the multiplier. And low 40s? So that's a common score? Plus how many 'common' magic items does this require? Is this a Christmas tree or a character? How many Tomes is he gonna read? In other words, this is one OP dood that would likely be the one and only - if there at all.
No Tomes at all, in fact no items at all yet. That is why once it is munckined it could throw the planet(but that is not something I would do save as a God of strength).
No Tomes at all, in fact no items at all yet. That is why once it is munckined it could throw the planet(but that is not something I would do save as a God of strength).
So what you're saying is that this 40 Str+ monster isn't munchkinned as-is? Ohhhhh-Kaaaaay.
I am curious - and I know it's got nothing to do with the current thread - but how in gods name can you get a Str score high enough to throw a planet? I'm not even sure how you'd legitimately get it into the 40s without items.
Death, I also have to agree that the current army isn't optimized. If you are going to optimize the D&D army, then you should optimize the modern army too. Also, if you build either army specifically with defeating the other in mind, then that army will win. Finally, its almost impossible to decide once you bring other planes and magic into the mix because if those planes existed, technology would likely be able to interact with them in some form, but who knows how (are outsiders affected by radiation? Does radiation or EMPs extend into the Ethereal Plane? What about directed energy weapons? Do shaped charges bypass a golem's DR?)
Force spells, so force damage, should be able to effect the ethral plane. So it should reason that most explosives operate based on the force of the explosion causing most of the damage. So most bombs creating damage via force whether it be a small tactical missile or a bigger bomb the end result is tons of force damage. So if we do include other planes of existance I don't see why for instance the force caused by bombs couldn't hit things in the ethral plane.
Now to convert that to pounds we need to multiply it by 2.2046 to get
13,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds. 13 x 1025 pounds.
Now to convert to tons we need to multiply by 0.0005 tons wich gives us
6,585,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. Or in other words 6.585 x 1021 tons.
I doubt the guy could even come close to lifting that.
No Tomes at all, in fact no items at all yet. That is why once it is munckined it could throw the planet(but that is not something I would do save as a God of strength).
So what you're saying is that this 40 Str+ monster isn't munchkinned as-is? Ohhhhh-Kaaaaay.
I am curious - and I know it's got nothing to do with the current thread - but how in gods name can you get a Str score high enough to throw a planet? I'm not even sure how you'd legitimately get it into the 40s without items.
Goliath Barbarian racial subsistution 1st level(for Mountain Rage) then you advance the Barb class(to get more rage/day mostly) pick up Power attack and Cleave to qualify for the Warhulk Class which gives +2 strength(but no BAB) every level for 10 levels. So you get +4 rage, +4 racial, roll or point buy 16, plus 20 points from the PrC=44 strength.
The other stuff was so munchkin I didn't bother trying to remeber it but it invovled a lot of magic items(to make you even bigger and up your strength even more till the score plus multipliers is great enough to pick up the planet).
) that is suppose to mimic the hulk. And what setting you assuming to use because they don't mesh with each other. So far there have been references to FR, Eberron (it think), Grey Hawk, and standard D&D. Are we going to start grabbing spells, races and items out of darksun and ravenloft as well?
And the simple of it is that if you're going to optimize the D&D army then i think it is only fair that the modern army gets to be equaly optimized so as to be fair. ;)
Goliath Barbarian racial subsistution 1st level(for Mountain Rage) then you advance the Barb class(to get more rage/day mostly) pick up Power attack and Cleave to qualify for the Warhulk Class which gives +2 strength(but no BAB) every level for 10 levels. So you get +4 rage, +4 racial, roll or point buy 16, plus 20 points from the PrC=44 strength.
The other stuff was so munchkin I didn't bother trying to remeber it but it invovled a lot of magic items(to make you even bigger and up your strength even more till the score plus multipliers is great enough to pick up the planet).
Wait. Are you honestly saying that this isn't munchkin by itself? Is that what you're saying? +2 Str instead of BAB gives you +1 At/level (BAB!) and +1 Dmg/level. So it's better than BAB. I guess you take a tiny hit on how many points you can sac to PA, but ****, man! This whole thing is the definition of munchkin. Wow.
And just to clarify a bit. The earth weighs equal to 9.559 x 1020 Abram tanks.
Hey now. The fight could be taking place on a planet much, much smaller than Earth. Like the size of a ship or something.
Holy crap, man. That has to be the most OP thing I've seen in a long time. And he suggested multiple versions of this munchkin devilry prowling the battlefield. Jeebus. I wouldn't play in that game. ;)
Wait. Are you honestly saying that this isn't munchkin by itself? Is that what you're saying? +2 Str instead of BAB gives you +1 At/level (BAB!) and +1 Dmg/level. So it's better than BAB. I guess you take a tiny hit on how many points you can sac to PA, but ****, man! This whole thing is the definition of munchkin. Wow.
Yep I agree. The whole prestige class as a whole is broken. By basic following of the rules your character will have a 44 str so something like a +17 to damage or like 25 extra damage with each attack if using a two-handed weapon of which a barbarian would likely be using. So in essence it has the to hit of a fighter but does 1d12+25 damage (before magic stuff) instead of the more normal 1d12+14 (after magic stuff). And for a crit it's like 3 times that. So yeah it is easily doing twice as much damage as all other melee combatants are doing and without any magical items. Give it some magical items and that damage will go up by at least 10. Who ever thought this prestige class was a good idea was an idiot.
Yeah, that thing never would have made it into any game I played in. We didn't limit much, mind, but we were sane.
Now my question is whether or not that was official 3e material or something that one of the staff got published as 3e stuff because there was tons of 3e stuff that was published without going through the proper processes. If it is official stuff then it's a shame that WotC released stuff as blatantly broken as that.
DF:
Yeah I found it as absurd as you. But I didn't make that up, I just suggested the version I posted for a Hulk themed character(mine fit perfectly) on the Charop Boards they came up with a monster that can throw planets. Z_B: It also reduces the number of attacks you can make and it was 3.5. But it is a little powerful for some, please remember that it is restricted to large characters(moutain rage makes you large), and you don't get any of the benefits if you are not large, for a Warhulk without some item to make him larger(it is hard to come by one that works for Monstrous Humanoids) he is limited to class features only when raging.
Edited to include the comparisons.
Did the actually assume it could throw a planet or did they calculate it. Z_B could you maybe calc what strength would be needed to pick up the earth?
I think you missed the bit about how nothing from the class works if you are not raging. That includes the Strength bonus.
I think you missed the bit about how nothing from the class works if you are not raging. That includes the Strength bonus.
So are you basically saying that they don't have rages or something? Does the rage not get any better as time goes on or anything?
Even if you have like 4 to 5 rages that's probably going to be enough between each rage anyways. When you need to rage the rest of the group can literally do nothing and thus save themselves for a different fight in which the rager would need not do anything. Even without a rage he's still hitting pretty damn well ain't he or is he just like an 18 str when not raging?
OK so a colossal mod is x16 correct? And a load is x4 for each 10 points over 29 correct?
If that is correct then if we assume he can get up to colossal size (the most powerful size or whatever) then we can reduce the wheat by x16. Now 4 goes into the ramaining weight about 2x 1025 or 2x 1024 +10 modifiers are needed in order to life the planet. This is of course assuming that i even did the math halfway correct. I don't think the guy gets anywhere close to that.
I think you missed the bit about how nothing from the class works if you are not raging. That includes the Strength bonus.
So are you basically saying that they don't have rages or something? Does the rage not get any better as time goes on or anything?
Even if you have like 4 to 5 rages that's probably going to be enough between each rage anyways. When you need to rage the rest of the group can literally do nothing and thus save themselves for a different fight in which the rager would need not do anything. Even without a rage he's still hitting pretty damn well ain't he or is he just like an 18 str when not raging?
OK so a colossal mod is x16 correct? And a load is x4 for each 10 points over 29 correct?
If that is correct then if we assume he can get up to colossal size (the most powerful size or whatever) then we can reduce the wheat by x16. Now 4 goes into the ramaining weight about 2x 1025 or 2x 1024 +10 modifiers are needed in order to life the planet. This is of course assuming that i even did the math halfway correct. I don't think the guy gets anywhere close to that.
First off his strength is 20 when not raging and rages only get better twice in the whole barbarian progession. I don't play Barbarians much so I don't remember how many rages they get at 5th level.
Second I didn't bother to remember to how they pumped his str I but I remember one unintended side-effect gave the thing, multiple arms, a few tentacles and other appendages(that was when I stopped bothering to remember). Please drop the planet throwing Warhulk or crawl though the CharOP boards to find it yourself.
Second I didn't bother to remember to how they pumped his str I but I remember one unintended side-effect gave the thing, multiple arms, a few tentacles and other appendages(that was when I stopped bothering to remember). Please drop the planet throwing Warhulk or crawl though the CharOP boards to find it yourself.
I'm finding it rather entertaining myself. Carry on, boys!
-Sarena
Now I have found it and here it is. War Hulking Hurler
Now it gets up to 52 str or 56 while raging. The whole point of it is that it can pick up an item that weighs several tons such as around 117,504 lbs where an abram weighs about 136,000 lbs. Not enough to pick up an Abram. However if it is munchkined then it can get up to carrying 2,863,104 lbs. This would do thousands of d6 worth of damage. Now I did read as well, on a different page, that if an item is used to shrink items a huge item can be shrunk to something like 1/4,000 or some large number like that. So something huge like a mountain for instance can be shrunk so that it is within the weight limit of the hurler. At this point a wizard readies an action to end the shrink and the hurler throws the item. Before the item hits, so while in mid air, the item goes back to full size thus doing something like 5K or 10K times more damage.
Now if the character playes into lvls above 20 then they could end up qualifying for a feet that allows for them to basically target anything they can see. So they could hit something with a mountain, or some such, that is on the horizon.
The hurler would only have 1 rage but the rage wouldn't really be needed to get the insane damage or str. While also trying to track down the war hulk hurler build I also came across other builds that got potentially higher str without items and without the hulk hurler build. I think I saw one around a 70 str.
It also appears that the the class is meant for monsters and the build seems, or the few I found, run off the assumption that you'll be something monstrous humanoid to get extra str bonus or 4 legs/size to get an extra carrying capacity. So basically require that you play a monster. So the main counter to the build is the DM not letting the player play a monster or a class designed for lvling up monsters and not pcs.
(Note: The rage I think is not needed for the actual picking up and throwing and really doesn't boost it by much. I think 1 lvl barb was only needed so as to qualify for the prestige class or whatnot.)
And the simple of it is that if you're going to optimize the D&D army then i think it is only fair that the modern army gets to be equaly optimized so as to be fair. ;)
Maybe, but only if you manage to optimize the D&D army to the point where it's an unfair fight in favor of D&D. I mean really, they've got to be pretty tricked out for it to be a fair fight.
It is only fair that if one side gets to be optimized with certain equipment combinations, spell combinations, build combinations or having tons of high powered magic users then a similar thing should be allows for the other side. So tech that is being pioneered in the modern would could be seen as being fully developed and fully applied to military applications. As well as modern troops and units have the best equipment for the job rather than just the average. That is only fair. Of course if D&D side is allows to be optimized they could and will win. But that's with one side fighting on god mode but the other not. That is unfair.
So it's basically agreed, then, that the Hurler was something that no army would even have one of, let alone a significant number? Cuz that's all I was tryin' to say with all of my useless babblin'.
Yep
But it is interesting that with spells and items for increasing str, with grafts and stuff to add on arms or strong arms and with templates you can put the strength up high as well as size. Now do that shrink thing with an object and you hurl something huge to do like 1 mil d6 + str mod damage. Crazy broken. Now you could reason that the object is so big that it is an auto hit. yeah, crazy broken yet apparently within the rules. Of course with most overly broken things it requires the use of more than 3 books. Which is why every 3e game I've been in everyone was restricted to the core 3 and one supplement book. So we had to choose carefully.
). When I DMd, though, I used all the books the players did. It made game prep a friggin' nightmare (I prefer humanoid enemies to monsters - makes it more personal) but the fights were always a challenge. Kobolds ain't a cakewalk when their leader is an equal level Warblade. ;) I did get carried away once and made some powergamed ninjas that killed everybody. But that's mostly cuz they were two players down and still wanted to fight a full strength enemy. I told them that they could wait 'till everyone was there or I could tone it down but they wanted it straight up. Brave, brave fools. It was the last fight of the arc and it was a bastard - complete with a burning church for a background and falling, flaming objects. Some of my better work. They'd have probably won if everyone was there, but the Ninjas were a little too tough anyway. Yeah, I made Ninjas of lower level than the party good. I was a mean, mean DM. -Sarena
-Sarena
Yeah, but them Ninjas were still over the top. I should have had just one of 'em instead of two. And they were already hidden in the place before the PCs got there. It was an ambush, of course, but still. And they were Rogue/Ninja/Assassins with swords that added SA damage dice. All kinds of bad.
I did a ninja thing with a goblin encounter once. That ninja disappearing thing was strong.
The modern army on average has great training and it is common that they have access to good equipment. In a standard D&D army it is standard that they have subpar training and meh equipment.
Right. And that's not a fair fight.
It's like taking a 90 pound weakling out of his freshman algebra class and throwing him into the ring with Muhammed Ali and saying "they're playing by the same rules, it's fair!"
Pretty much the sum and totallity of my point here.
For the final encounter of the Arc, sounds like a nice little challenge. ;)
-Sarena
Heh. Yeah, it ended up just being a cluster. I made sure that the DC for the Death Attacks was pretty much as low as it could be and targeted the players with the best Fort - I wanted them scared and injured, not dead. Turns out neither one could roll over a 4. That chopped their party in half. It wasn't long after that. Before, they were making a damn good show of themselves. It's a shame.
One player missed the entire session - sick or something, can't recall. So the group decides to play on. They were only down one guy, right? Well, right after we start one of the guys that voted to play on decides his character would take a different route than the rest of the group. Nice, no? So then they were down 2. That really pissed me off. Oh well, live and learn. Not that I learned anything. I still like tough bad guys.
I did a ninja thing with a goblin encounter once. That ninja disappearing thing was strong.
I was a real bastard about it. They started hidden, waited three rounds and then Death Attacked. Another member of the enemy group was a same level as the party Beguiler that used the Beguiler learning crap to pick up Glitterdust. Yeah. All sorts of you can't see the Ninjas goodness. Man, it was brutal.
The modern army on average has great training and it is common that they have access to good equipment. In a standard D&D army it is standard that they have subpar training and meh equipment.
Right. And that's not a fair fight.
It's like taking a 90 pound weakling out of his freshman algebra class and throwing him into the ring with Muhammed Ali and saying "they're playing by the same rules, it's fair!"
Pretty much the sum and totality of my point here.
But to make it 'fair' as you are suggesting then brakes the proposed scenario in the OP of standard vs standard. It now becomes standard vs high powered.
It was the OP who asked who would win between Muhammed Ali and a high school freshman algebra student. We're only playing by the OP's rules.
It was not a question of who would win if they were equally powered (which would be a stupid question because if they were then it would be a stale mate) but rather who would win if they faught as they are right now on average.
1) This is the way the scenario was set up.
2) As being set up as average vs average it is only fair that one side fights on god mode of the other one is able to fight on god mode.
so we had this on anothe rsite im on and i thought what the smegg i'll post it here.
ok so here is the deal you have 2 armies. one a modern army from our reality. the other a full out D&D army of whateve ryou prefer for your own vs mode. granted the alliances and such would work in D&D. both armies are meeting on a neutral planet earth like same physics ect. each army will only be equipted with what they would ave in the feild. so no nuclar missile silos or anything like that. when a tank runs out of gas its good for cover when they run out of ammo they gotta go hand to hand or get medevial. ok so have at it who do you think would win and what are your reasons
I bolded something you should note.
The modern army on average has great training and it is common that they have access to good equipment. In a standard D&D army it is standard that they have subpar training and meh equipment.
Right. And that's not a fair fight.
It's like taking a 90 pound weakling out of his freshman algebra class and throwing him into the ring with Muhammed Ali and saying "they're playing by the same rules, it's fair!"
Pretty much the sum and totality of my point here.
But to make it 'fair' as you are suggesting then brakes the proposed scenario in the OP of standard vs standard. It now becomes standard vs high powered.
It was the OP who asked who would win between Muhammed Ali and a high school freshman algebra student. We're only playing by the OP's rules.
Yep. So ya just need to accept it's an unfair fight and stop quibbling about how it's unfair.
so we had this on anothe rsite im on and i thought what the smegg i'll post it here.
ok so here is the deal you have 2 armies. one a modern army from our reality. the other a full out D&D army of whateve ryou prefer for your own vs mode. granted the alliances and such would work in D&D. both armies are meeting on a neutral planet earth like same physics ect. each army will only be equipted with what they would ave in the feild. so no nuclar missile silos or anything like that. when a tank runs out of gas its good for cover when they run out of ammo they gotta go hand to hand or get medevial. ok so have at it who do you think would win and what are your reasons
I bolded something you should note.
And do you see full out as meaning as OPed and unreasonable as possible?
There is also the questing of our own vs mode. With that it can be fixed as we wish it to be so that the out come is the way we want it so for every poster there is a different scenario and a different outcome and they're all OK.
So if full out is to mean fully prepared then it as is stated. If it is full out as in as high powered as possible then it should be made into every D&D army that's ever been talked about in D&D history including all D&D gods, because they have intervened in wars and battles before, and put them up against a modern military, of which the OP seems to want them to be handicapped in the first place.
Is this your definition of fair then sure. We have a several pantheons of gods, primordials, princes of the nine hells, demon princes, elder evils and all of their millions of mooks of lvls 1-demigod fighting against a modern military that has one hand tied behind their back. hmmmm I wonder who will win. Well obviously if we wish to interpret it that way then yes the D&D has won 100% of the time by default. And yeah all of those high powered D&D npc's or whatever are OK to use for they have faught in a battle or war somewhere so they would make up part of this full out army. So by design, if this is the way it is interpreted, the D&D forces are an auto win and the question was very poorly made and really there was no point in making it.
Yep. So ya just need to accept it's an unfair fight and stop quibbling about how it's unfair.
Well yeah with the new interpretation of the whole thing it is unfair. Once side is able to use hundreds of gods while the other has limits to their powers. I agree, it's completely unfair now.
full out D&D army of whateve ryou prefer
I bolded something you should note.
Ah. So why don't we just say Pun-Pun and be done with this bullplop? I can't understand asking a question like this. One side was set up to not have any chance at all. My D&D army? Talos, Tahkisis, Bane, Cyric, Bhaal and, just for kicks, Mask. Who wins?
That's the problem. It can mean too many things. For example, your Hurler certainly qualifies by the OP, but it's not something I'd ever consider. I may say gods are fair game, but that may be over the line for you. So it's more pointless than I had originally figured - and that was some damned pointless stuff. Crap like this is easier if you have defined lines. For one side, we do. For the other, it's totally open. So there's no question here. It's just an excuse to talk about OP D&D crap bashin' on the modern military.
That said, I'm all for pointless blathering about killin' stuff. For reals, yo.
It could be argued that this was not of the intent of the OP but it does however fit the wording of the OP and so is how things would go down unless the OP wishes to clarify at all.
-Sarena
We shall makes them goes *boom* from orbit. Gawds are the D&D equivalent of nukes, and theyr'e unpredictable and mercurial. Nukes work every time, presuming correct construction.
Does the us military have star ships that they aren't telling anybody about? ;)
No the locate city bomb is the equivalent of nukes. Which is the only reason I ever includede it in this thread.
-Sarena