PDA

View Full Version : High level vs high numbers



Pages : [1] 2

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 08:16 AM
We all know that a party of high-level adventurers - or even one high-level wizard - can cut down mooks like nobody's business. Area of effect spells will waste an army. But how does that change if we use a modern day army? That Widened Firestorm that would have taken out fifty footsoldiers suddenly doesn't do as much when you have a battalion of tanks rolling towards you.

High level party vs modern day army - who wins?

Greenish
2010-05-03, 08:21 AM
Modern day army doesn't have magic, ergo, the high level party wins.

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 08:23 AM
Way to miss the point.
Modern day army doesn't have magic. Modern day army does have tanks, missiles, sniper rifles, assorted explosives, planes, etc. In other words, mundane ways to cover a lot of the weaknesses that magic exploits. I think this would level the playing field rather a lot.

Greenish
2010-05-03, 08:28 AM
Way to miss the point.
Modern day army doesn't have magic. Modern day army does have tanks, missiles, sniper rifles, assorted explosives, planes, etc. In other words, mundane ways to cover a lot of the weaknesses that magic exploits. I think this would level the playing field rather a lot.Invisibility. Gate. Wish. Miracle. Resurrection. Polymorph Any Object. Time Stop. Apocalypse from the Sky.

How, exactly am I missing the point? By not agreeing with you?

[Edit]: Plane shift into a plane with faster time trait, wait for the country behind the army to crumble, return. You can arguably get Exp for bypassing an encounter instead of slaughtering everything.

SaintRidley
2010-05-03, 08:30 AM
Transmute Rock to Lava

Illusions

Zombies

Summon Elemental Monolith

Scorching Ray

Disintegrate


Hulking Hurler


You just don't compete with magic. In your tank? They blow up the tank, boil you in the tank, remove the tank from around you, etc. Or they send the Hulking Hurler to pick one of your tanks up and chuck it at you.

Runestar
2010-05-03, 08:32 AM
Depends on how you expect magic to interact with modern day weapons. For instance, would wind-wall protect you from sniper bullets? Would an obscenely high AC still be effective against tank blasts and other artillery? They would be able to target you from miles away.

Granted, the solders likely still have very little hp...

Coplantor
2010-05-03, 08:37 AM
The stats for this kind of stuff already exist on d20 modern. So, compare a d20 modern tank to a high level wizard.

Aharon
2010-05-03, 08:37 AM
Well, I agree with Greenish. I don't think a modern army could cope with the abilities of a high level caster. He has control over time and space, for god's sake. Even an unimaginative one could use spells that are very potent weapons of mass destruction: The typical example is Apocalypse from the sky. A normal one would probably suffice, but think of what a maximized (rod) sudden empowered one could do. A 200 mile radius is pretty big.

As a comparison, a 20MT nuclear bomb destroys everything in a 6,4 km radius.

Greenish
2010-05-03, 08:38 AM
Would an obscenely high AC still be effective against tank blasts and other artillery?(Ring of) Evasion could arguably save you from most everything but missiles and bullets. Bullets would tickle you at best, especially as you could use pretty much any sort of DR.

Improved Invisibility foils most any of forms of detection.

Yuki Akuma
2010-05-03, 08:56 AM
The power of really thick armour and explosions versus the power to disintegrate all non-living material and the ability to simply not be there when the explosions go off?

...

Why do you even think this is a contest? Magic wins. It's magic.

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 09:01 AM
Well, I agree with Greenish. I don't think a modern army could cope with the abilities of a high level caster. He has control over time and space, for god's sake. Even an unimaginative one could use spells that are very potent weapons of mass destruction: The typical example is Apocalypse from the sky. A normal one would probably suffice, but think of what a maximized (rod) sudden empowered one could do. A 200 mile radius is pretty big.

As a comparison, a 20MT nuclear bomb destroys everything in a 6,4 km radius.

You mean Apocalypse from the Sky, the spell that uses an artifact as a material component, does horrible horrible ability damage to the caster, takes a day to cast, and is [vile]? How many wizards are going to be casting that?
I think that 9th level spells - especially 9th level spells as cast by the CO community's favoured Schrodinger Wizard, will utterly trash more or less anything. A lot of 9th level spells are win buttons. But most wizards in real games aren't actually played as Tippyverse wizards. Would the army be able to take a wizard if he only had 8th level spells? 7th level? The wizard will eventually run out of spell slots as well, and most wizards don't actually have a x100 time demiplane to run to. Sure you can use extradimensional spaces. The army is perfectly able to put landmines around the entrance. Unless you're willing to cast overland flight and superior invisibility on your entire party, that'll get you when you come out.

As for the hulking hurler, yes it can throw a mountain. So? It's not any harder to kill than anything else. All offense, no defense won't last very long.

If you know your enemy is using illusions, you can mitigate a lot of their effect, even if you can't see through them. Good discipline and tactics will reduce their impact vastly.

A sniper bullet through the head from a mile away is going to take down pretty much anything humanish, and most things that aren't. And yes, I know, protection from arrows and wind wall. They're not 24 hours buffs, and you don't have infinite spellslots.

Environmental suits would protect a lot from energy damage.

The elemental monoliths would wreak a lot of havoc, but all except the air one could be defeated by calling in an airstrike. Plus, 9th level spell and I think we've agreed that 9th levels are just win buttons.

I think that the army would take heavy, heavy losses, but I'm pretty sure that if the caster doesn't have 9th level spells they will eventually win.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 09:03 AM
Yea, the wizard wins, but it would be a pretty cool campaign... You are all suddenly transported to the modern world! And all the major governments are out to get you! (and they have mages too, you just don't know it yet!)

Myou
2010-05-03, 09:06 AM
Yea, the wizard wins, but it would be a pretty cool campaign... You are all suddenly transported to the modern world! And all the major governments are out to get you! (and they have mages too, you just don't know it yet!)

They don't need to have mages, just give them experimental future tech! :smallbiggrin:

Aharon
2010-05-03, 09:13 AM
Well, than you should have said that 9th level spell slots are out. Post a ban list of things the character doesn't have access to, and then we will see if he can still deal with your army.

Take the 7th level spell Control Weather, for example, or Control Winds. You can create Tornados with those spells...

Or Biological Warfare. Pestilence (Drd 7, BoVD) creates a contagious disease, that spreads to anyone who touches the carrier, and anyone who gets it becomes a carrier himself. Be improved invisible (okay, you need a buff from another party member). Cast a rod-chained pestilence (assuming the highest you have are 7th level spell slots). Congrats. (Caster Level) People are now carriers. Rinse and repeat. Greetings pandemic :

But in a world without magic, such crude methods aren't even your best way to deal with things. Nothing and nobody is defended against scry and control. What do you think is Obama's will save? Or Putin's? They wouldn't give the order to attack you, because whoever is in charge will be your friend. We're talking commoners and experts here, of 1st to 5th level maybe.

If teleport, rope trick, charm person and scrying are in, the wizard will rule.

Greenish
2010-05-03, 09:16 AM
The wizard will eventually run out of spell slots as wellRope Trick. Teleport. Disguise Self.

Sure you can use extradimensional spaces. The army is perfectly able to put landmines around the entrance.If they know where you are and who you are.
Unless you're willing to cast overland flight and superior invisibility on your entire party, that'll get you when you come out.Evasion >>> mines. Rings of evasion aren't that expensive. You could just teleport somewhere else.

As for the hulking hurler, yes it can throw a mountain. So? It's not any harder to kill than anything else. All offense, no defense won't last very long.A few cleric buffs, say, or PaO, and well, not many things short of nuke would get you. Why you're fighting on featureless plain, instead of, say, a city, I'll never know.

If you know your enemy is using illusions, you can mitigate a lot of their effect, even if you can't see through them. Good discipline and tactics will reduce their impact vastly.

A sniper bullet through the head from a mile away is going to take down pretty much anything humanish, and most things that aren't.High level PCs are superhumans. The bullets will only hit them on nat 20, and even if they crit (a headshot), it won't do much.

And yes, I know, protection from arrows and wind wall. They're not 24 hours buffs, and you don't have infinite spellslots.In practise, you have as many spell slots as you wish, since the army can't stop you from retreating to rest once you're running low.

The elemental monoliths would wreak a lot of havoc, but all except the air one could be defeated by calling in an airstrike. Plus, 9th level spell and I think we've agreed that 9th levels are just win buttons.You don't even need 9th level spells to screw completely non-magical opponents.

I think that the army would take heavy, heavy losses, but I'm pretty sure that if the caster doesn't have 9th level spells they will eventually win.If the party was silly enough to fight to death against a very large military, they could be ground down (maybe). They just hold all the aces: they can look like anyone (think about Disguise self and optimized forgery check), go pretty much anywhere, divine what their enemies are doing…

They could kill all the leaders of an army with scry -> teleport -> slaughter -> teleport away at their leisure...

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 09:16 AM
The question is,largely, how high level can a party be, assuming normal optimisation, for a modern day army to still be able to deal with them? So far, we've established that 9th level spells can't be dealt with without magic. Can 8th? Where's the tipping point?

Emmerask
2010-05-03, 09:17 AM
Well it certainly depends on how you interpret a lot of modern stuff to d&d for example does wind wall stop bullets etc. Then level of optimization would be an issue and what the army is allowed to use etc.

-Normal group not so much optimized the army will blow them away
-medium optimization and the army is allowed to use a liberal amounts of a-bombs? army will most likely kill them or at least make them retreat to another plane
-optimized group, will be immune to everything the army can do and will simply destroy them ^^

PId6
2010-05-03, 09:19 AM
Assuming a group of 15th level wizards (thus avoiding 9th level spells), let's see what might happen:

Wizards can cast Superior Invisibility, meaning they're immune to all detection period. Wizards can Teleport and Fly, so just randomly nuking places likely won't get the modern army anywhere. And if all else fails, Plane Shift or Greater Teleport lets them evade the encounter entirely. Offensively, the wizards can scry the modern army/government's leaders and invisibly teleport there and dominate them one by one. Played right, the modern armies should have no real way of even finding the wizards, much less killing them.

Scry + Greater Teleport + Superior Invisibility means that as long as the wizards can find a single safe spot to rest + recover spells (read: Magnificent Mansion), they can just make tactical assaults on wherever they want and rest up/hide as long as they need to.

At lower levels, it may be more difficult, but wizards can do this as early as 9th level (Teleport, Greater Invisibility, Scry, Dominate Person, Rope Trick...) with a bit more risk (detection devices, off-target Teleports, etc). Other casting classes have more difficulty due to smaller spell lists, but ultimately technology just can't compete with magic.

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 09:19 AM
Well, than you should have said that 9th level spell slots are out. Post a ban list of things the character doesn't have access to, and then we will see if he can still deal with your army.

Take the 7th level spell Control Weather, for example, or Control Winds. You can create Tornados with those spells...

But in a world without magic, such crude methods aren't even your best way to deal with things. Nothing and nobody is defended against scry and control. What do you think is Obama's will save? Or Putin's? They wouldn't give the order to attack you, because whoever is in charge will be your friend. We're talking commoners and experts here, of 1st to 5th level maybe.

If teleport, rope trick, charm person and scrying are in, the wizard will rule.

Again, if the mortals are aware that you can co-opt them, there are ways to mitigate the damage. Safeguards and ways to verify whether that order you were just given came from someone in control of their own senses.

Godskook
2010-05-03, 09:20 AM
Why do you even think this is a contest? Magic wins. It's magic.

+1


The army is perfectly able to put landmines around the entrance.

But they are not perfectly able to find it. Greater Teleport, Dim-Door, Burrow Speed(from Alter Self), or a couple other options allow our wizard to pretty much be where no one knows where he's at when he casts rope trick.


Unless you're willing to cast overland flight and superior invisibility on your entire party, that'll get you when you come out.

No, it won't, cause they won't find the entrance.

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 09:21 AM
Hmm....I suppose radar would be like Blindsight/sense, so no invisibility, I guess?

Actually, magic+modern tech would be awesome.

Admantine tanks. That can fly. And are invisible.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 09:24 AM
You mean Apocalypse from the Sky, the spell that uses an artifact as a material component, does horrible horrible ability damage to the caster, takes a day to cast, and is [vile]? How many wizards are going to be casting that?
Shadowcraft mages would.


I think that 9th level spells - especially 9th level spells as cast by the CO community's favoured Schrodinger Wizard, will utterly trash more or less anything. A lot of 9th level spells are win buttons. But most wizards in real games aren't actually played as Tippyverse wizards. Would the army be able to take a wizard if he only had 8th level spells? 7th level? The wizard will eventually run out of spell slots as well, and most wizards don't actually have a x100 time demiplane to run to. Sure you can use extradimensional spaces. The army is perfectly able to put landmines around the entrance. Unless you're willing to cast overland flight and superior invisibility on your entire party, that'll get you when you come out.
You know, there is a reason that the wizard is often portrayed as always having the right spell, it's because smart wizards DO almost always have the right spell for the job, since they have so many. And just a few persisted spell will make the wizzy completely immune to mundane attacks, even without his contingencies. How do the mundanes find the wizard's rope trick again?


As for the hulking hurler, yes it can throw a mountain. So? It's not any harder to kill than anything else. All offense, no defense won't last very long.

By the rules (for d20 modern) Your sniper rifle does 2d12 damage and has a range of 120 ft. Not even enough to kill a wizard.


If you know your enemy is using illusions, you can mitigate a lot of their effect, even if you can't see through them. Good discipline and tactics will reduce their impact vastly.
How does this work exactly? Because every once in a while the enemy uses illusions, the soldiers always treat them as illusions? And it doesn't matter how well trained the soldiers are, they still need to pass that will save to ignore it.


A sniper bullet through the head from a mile away is going to take down pretty much anything humanish, and most things that aren't. And yes, I know, protection from arrows and wind wall. They're not 24 hours buffs, and you don't have infinite spellslots.
Are you kidding me? A 20th level barbarian can practically weather a nuclear bomb. D&D characters are superhuman. As before, persisted improved invisibility means you won't even know they're there. And why does the army always know where the wizard is and not the other way around? The wizard is the one who can see the future.


The elemental monoliths would wreak a lot of havoc, but all except the air one could be defeated by calling in an airstrike. Plus, 9th level spell and I think we've agreed that 9th levels are just win buttons.
Alright, even without 9th a wizard could still totally destroy any army without magic of their own.



I think that the army would take heavy, heavy losses, but I'm pretty sure that if the caster doesn't have 9th level spells they will eventually win.

Teleport. Rope trick. Yay!!! No more empty spell slots!

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 09:28 AM
Teleport. Rope trick. Yay!!! No more empty spell slots!

I hope you mean Greater Teleport. Otherwise you could accidentally end up in the ocean, or a volcano, or something. Or Area 51.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 09:29 AM
I'd say as soon as they get 5th level spells they win, teleport, alter self, dominate person, scry, suggestion, improved Invis, Contact Other Plane, etc.... they're all game breakers in their own way.

4th level slots make it harder but still doable with cunning and patience and stategy.

so really from 7th level so long as the mage isn't an idiot. From 9th even if they are.

Emmerask
2010-05-03, 09:30 AM
By the rules (for d20 modern) Your sniper rifle does 2d12 damage and has a range of 120 ft. Not even enough to kill a wizard.


d20 modern is not really a good indicator of realism though and I don´t think the op meant a d20 modern army vs a d&d group, but real army against a d&d group.
So the d20 rules are pretty meaningless :smallwink:

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 09:33 AM
So where's the tipping point then? At what level does the wizard start to just win?
The thing about the wizard is that he really shouldn't have the right spell for every situation. Yes, he knows them all. He has to choose what to prepare in advance, though, and much as the CO boards like to pretend, there is no spell that actually lets you see the future.

As for the sniper rifle, those stats are ridiculous. 120ft range? The longest range confirmed kill by a military sniper is 2430 metres. That's 7972 ft. They're trained to engage from 1000m away.

Emmerask
2010-05-03, 09:35 AM
The bullets will only hit them on nat 20, and even if they crit (a headshot), it won't do much.

Well you can make well above 100 attacks in 5 secs with a fixed modern gun so that is not that bad a chance for ~5 hits :smallwink:

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 09:38 AM
Well you can make well above 100 attacks in 5 secs with a fixed modern gun so that is not that bad a chance for ~5 hits :smallwink:
Yes, but not with a sniper rifle.

Emmerask
2010-05-03, 09:40 AM
that would be the most awesome sniper ever prop chuck norris :smallcool:
yes not with a sniper thats true but a mounted gun on a helicopter has a decent range too or somesuch other weapon :smallbiggrin:

Greenish
2010-05-03, 09:42 AM
Hmm....I suppose radar would be like Blindsight/sense, so no invisibility, I guess?Superior Invisibility. Alternatively, Darkstalker and good hide checks.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 09:43 AM
Protection from Arrows vs sniper bullets. Intriguing...

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 09:43 AM
The question is,largely, how high level can a party be, assuming normal optimisation, for a modern day army to still be able to deal with them? So far, we've established that 9th level spells can't be dealt with without magic. Can 8th? Where's the tipping point?

Charm Person is 1st level.

The Big Dice
2010-05-03, 09:44 AM
There's a few things that swing possibility back towards the modern day force. Things like night vision goggles. They outrange any equivalent Darkvision by quite a margin. Night battles are something used to shock and awe conventional forces, what is it going to do to someone who has no idea of the effects of modern weapons?

Shock and awe tactics would work very well against a fantasy wizard. He's got no experience or even understanding of things like flashbang grenades or modern CQB tactics. Thunderstones don't even come close.

And then there's modern communications. When every squaddie on the ground has a radio, they can coordinate a lot faster than the fantasy group.

Does Invisibility beat the thermal imaging cameras on an Apache gunship? Would Evasion from whatever source be any use against being sprayed by said Apache's chain guns?

Ultimately, I'd say it boils down to, a wizard is just one person. Even with magic, he's still vulnerable, even more so against things he has no understanding of. Sure, he could well have Contingencies based around "If anyone attacks me," but how will that help him when a forward observer calls in an artillery strike on his position? At that point, he's not being attacked directly, after all.

And the wiard has to rest for 8 hours then take an hour to replenish his spells. At that point he's bait for any grunt with a LAW and night vision goggles.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 09:44 AM
that would be the most awesome sniper ever prop chuck norris :smallcool:
yes not with a sniper thats true but a mounted gun on a helicopter has a decent range too or somesuch other weapon :smallbiggrin:
Teleport into the Helicopter, Fireburst, teleport to the next helicopter, fireburst, teleport to the next helicopter...

The Big Dice, you assume that the Wizard is engaging the army without doing some recon beforehand, and then resting in an open spot like some kind of idiot. Instead of, say, Scrying and then using a Rope Trick after Teleporting to the other side of the world.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 09:45 AM
So where's the tipping point then? At what level does the wizard start to just win?
The thing about the wizard is that he really shouldn't have the right spell for every situation. Yes, he knows them all. He has to choose what to prepare in advance, though, and much as the CO boards like to pretend, there is no spell that actually lets you see the future.

As for the sniper rifle, those stats are ridiculous. 120ft range? The longest range confirmed kill by a military sniper is 2430 metres. That's 7972 ft. They're trained to engage from 1000m away.

I'd say about 7th level spells is when the wizard just will not lose if played smartly. A very well played wizard could probably do it with 5th level spells if he was super careful. Yeah, I know there pretty terrible, but they're the only pre-made stats available. I'm looking forward to GMing this scenario in GURPS though. :smallwink:


I hope you mean Greater Teleport. Otherwise you could accidentally end up in the ocean, or a volcano, or something. Or Area 51.

:smallconfused: I'm just retreating. Teleport cannot mishap when I am familiar w/ the location.

PId6
2010-05-03, 09:46 AM
The thing about the wizard is that he really shouldn't have the right spell for every situation. Yes, he knows them all. He has to choose what to prepare in advance, though, and much as the CO boards like to pretend, there is no spell that actually lets you see the future.
He doesn't need the right spell for every situation; Rope Trick/Magnificent Mansion + (Greater) Teleport + Scry + Dominate Person + Superior/Greater Invisibility is enough for him to choose the "battlefield" and get in/out before he's even noticed. Contact Other Plane just shores up any weaknesses in this plan.


So where's the tipping point then? At what level does the wizard start to just win?
Well, at 9th level when the big players come in (Teleport, Overland Flight, Dominate Person, Contact Other Plane, etc), wizards will assuredly win. Below that, their mobility is severely limited, but even as low as 5th level, they have Extended Rope Trick, Disguise Self, Invisibility, and Fly, so they'll likely never get caught even if their offensive capabilities are much weaker.


As for the sniper rifle, those stats are ridiculous. 120ft range? The longest range confirmed kill by a military sniper is 2430 metres. That's 7972 ft. They're trained to engage from 1000m away.
How far away do they hit invisible targets?

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 09:47 AM
Also, don't fight the army. Fight the people. Teleport/Greater Teleport (or use Greater Invisibility and walk into) a major city, cloudkill in several directions, retreat. They'll send you a diplomat in 2 weeks, tops. If you're being nice about it.

Emmerask
2010-05-03, 09:48 AM
Teleport into the Helicopter, Fireburst, teleport to the next helicopter, fireburst, teleport to the next helicopter...

The Big Dice, you assume that the Wizard is engaging the army without doing some recon beforehand, and then resting in an open spot like some kind of idiot. Instead of, say, Scrying and then using a Rope Trick after Teleporting to the other side of the world.

Oh but d&d chars are only able to look about 200m (most likely less don´t want to calculate now^^) far after that the spotchecks are just doable with extreme optimization ^^

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 09:50 AM
There's a few things that swing possibility back towards the modern day force. Things like night vision goggles. They outrange any equivalent Darkvision by quite a margin. Night battles are something used to shock and awe conventional forces, what is it going to do to someone who has no idea of the effects of modern weapons?

Any wizard who doesn't fight on their own terms is doing it wrong.


Shock and awe tactics would work very well against a fantasy wizard. He's got no experience or even understanding of things like flashbang grenades or modern CQB tactics. Thunderstones don't even come close.

And then there's modern communications. When every squaddie on the ground has a radio, they can coordinate a lot faster than the fantasy group.

All of those are basically mundane substitutes for spells, except for the tactics (and again, if those are an issue, the wizard is doing it wrong).


Does Invisibility beat the thermal imaging cameras on an Apache gunship? Would Evasion from whatever source be any use against being sprayed by said Apache's chain guns?

Yet again, why is the wizard in a position to be attacked by the gunship in the first place? With no divinations on the mundane side, the wizard should always have the upper hand.


Ultimately, I'd say it boils down to, a wizard is just one person. Even with magic, he's still vulnerable, even more so against things he has no understanding of. Sure, he could well have Contingencies based around "If anyone attacks me," but how will that help him when a forward observer calls in an artillery strike on his position? At that point, he's not being attacked directly, after all.

Superhuman intelligence. A real wizard could probably make a better contingency than that to cover all possible issues.


And the wiard has to rest for 8 hours then take an hour to replenish his spells. At that point he's bait for any grunt with a LAW and night vision goggles.

Teleport, Rope Trick, etc. This is a non-issue.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 09:53 AM
Also, how do guns relate to HP damage? Can your single grunt with a machine gun and night goggles do more damage than the unit of skeletons that snuck up on the sleeping party and shot them with bows? This isn't even looking at things like DR etc.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 09:53 AM
Oh but d&d chars are only able to look about 200m far after that the spotchecks are just doable with extreme optimization ^^
So the army isn't subject to the absurd skill system, but the Wizard is? That's awfully convenient, and still doesn't matter because of the myriad ways to scry. The Wizard isn't going to be engaging the army on a battlefield, because that's stupid. He's going to be within or above the ranks, invisible, and possibly flinging summons every which way. He may be impressed by flashbangs, but the soldiers have never seen giant scorpions, either.

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 09:55 AM
:smallconfused: I'm just retreating. Teleport cannot mishap when I am familiar w/ the location.

Yes it can. Only a 3% chance, and that's if it's 'a place where you have been very often and where you feel at home'.


Also, don't fight the army. Fight the people. Teleport/Greater Teleport (or use Greater Invisibility and walk into) a major city, cloudkill in several directions, retreat. They'll send you a diplomat in 2 weeks, tops. If you're being nice about it.

Go one better. Greater Teleport to whichever world leader you like, then Mindrape (or similar).

Emmerask
2010-05-03, 09:57 AM
So the army isn't subject to the absurd skill system, but the Wizard is? That's awfully convenient, and still doesn't matter because of the myriad ways to scry.

Yep it is convenient but it is a clash of systems rl system vs d&d in the end ^^
The Wizard does not share the awesome magic system either :smallsmile:

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 09:58 AM
Now what if the modern world had WoD mages (old or new, your choice)?

Greenish
2010-05-03, 09:59 AM
There's a few things that swing possibility back towards the modern day force. Things like night vision goggles. They outrange any equivalent Darkvision by quite a margin. Night battles are something used to shock and awe conventional forces, what is it going to do to someone who has no idea of the effects of modern weapons?Sleep in Rope Trick, use divinations on the morning to see if you're in danger.

Shock and awe tactics would work very well against a fantasy wizard. He's got no experience or even understanding of things like flashbang grenades or modern CQB tactics. Thunderstones don't even come close.The party is probably used to dragons, beholders and other casters at this point. A few flashbangs probably won't raise any eyebrows.

And then there's modern communications. When every squaddie on the ground has a radio, they can coordinate a lot faster than the fantasy group.Mindlink: direct telepathic connection between the PCs. Not to mention that the party is likely to stay within shouting distance of each other when working as a team.

Does Invisibility beat the thermal imaging cameras on an Apache gunship?Superior Invisibility does, as will darkstalker + hide. Not to mention that they could be able to hear the chopper from quite far away with their turbo-listen (much higher than any living person).
Would Evasion from whatever source be any use against being sprayed by said Apache's chain guns?DR/anything (except piercing), decent AC, miss changes. Not to mention enough HP to just take the hits without slowing down. Or healing.

Ultimately, I'd say it boils down to, a wizard is just one person.Yeah, and a party of characters is several people. And army is just a lot more people.
Even with magic, he's still vulnerable, even more so against things he has no understanding of. Sure, he could well have Contingencies based around "If anyone attacks me," but how will that help him when a forward observer calls in an artillery strike on his position? At that point, he's not being attacked directly, after all.So we assume the army gets a jump on the characters and picks them down one by one while they have no clue of what's going on?

And the wiard has to rest for 8 hours then take an hour to replenish his spells. At that point he's bait for any grunt with a LAW and night vision goggles.Yeah, any grunt who can scry where he is and teleport after him, with means of entering Rope Trick or Magnificent Mansion.


Also, you seem to have dropped the rest of the party from your considerations, and just thought of a lone wizard. That's not the scenario here.

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 09:59 AM
Now what if the modern world had WoD mages (old or new, your choice)?

Dunno. Haven't played it, or seen the magic system.

Johel
2010-05-03, 10:00 AM
Little Protections That Help

Resilient Sphere
Mage Armor
Alter Self
Reduce Person
Shield
Haste
Mirror Image
Blink
Time Stop

Make these Extended if possible.

Always Active And Handy :

Overland Flight
Permanency + Symbol of Insanity
Permanency + Symbol of Persuasion
Moment of Prescience


To Make Tactical Strikes :

Discern Location
Greater Scrying
Greater Teleport


To Spread Undead plague :

Enervation
Create Greater Undead


To Sue For Peace
Dominate Monster (just in case the bastard IS strong-willed)

Now, the mighty army is dispersed, searching for you all over the globe.
If they locate you, they need hours to send troops on the spot.
Chances are you won't be there by then.

If they catch you and you're out of Greater Teleport, they'll face a Diminutive-sized Grig who blinks out of existence 50% of the time, has some kind of forcefield protecting him, moves damn fast and looks reeeeeally nice when he does a low-altitude fly above them. Then, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, people start shooting each other while cackling madly.

If they send a missile at you, it won't matter. Either you somehow see it coming, cast Resilient Sphere and shrug the impact of. Or your daily Moment of Prescience should allow you to dodge the thing, whether or not you are caught unaware.

If you are really in a bad mood, start creating Shadows and let the undead apocalypse spread as rifles prove useless again uncorporal monsters.

Given that the US have had trouble to locate a single individual for now a good 10 years, I bet you can safely hide, teleport when things get hot, hide again, scry and strike back as you wish.

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 10:02 AM
Sleep in Rope Trick, use divinations on the morning to see if you're in danger.
The party is probably used to dragons, beholders and other casters at this point. A few flashbangs probably won't raise any eyebrows.
Mindlink: direct telepathic connection between the PCs. Not to mention that the party is likely to stay within shouting distance of each other when working as a team.
Superior Invisibility does, as will darkstalker + hide. Not to mention that they could be able to hear the chopper from quite far away with their turbo-listen (much higher than any living person).DR/anything (except piercing), decent AC, miss changes. Not to mention enough HP to just take the hits without slowing down. Or healing.
Yeah, and a party of characters is several people. And army is just a lot more people.So we assume the army gets a jump on the characters and picks them down one by one while they have no clue of what's going on?
Yeah, any grunt who can scry where he is and teleport after him, with means of entering Rope Trick or Magnificent Mansion.


Also, you seem to have dropped the rest of the party from your considerations, and just thought of a lone wizard. That's not the scenario here.

Most people seem to have. Which in some ways, favours the wizard, as it's easier for him to protect himself than to protect a whole party. It seems most people other than the wizard are screwed, though a cleric would put up a very good fight, and a druid would come close.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 10:02 AM
So where's the tipping point then? At what level does the wizard start to just win?
The thing about the wizard is that he really shouldn't have the right spell for every situation. Yes, he knows them all. He has to choose what to prepare in advance, though, and much as the CO boards like to pretend, there is no spell that actually lets you see the future.


Really? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/foresight.htm) Are (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/momentOfPrescience.htm) you (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/contactOtherPlane.htm) sure (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commune.htm) about (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/divination.htm) that (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/augury.htm)?

Granted, Foresight is level 9, and MoP is reactive only. Commune, Divination, and Augury can only be accessed with Limited Wish, though 300XP is trivial considering the amount of XP a wizard would earn from, say, wiping out an aircraft carrier group. But Contact Other Plane, alone, can be a gamebreaker, because while the wizard doesn't know everything, he can talk to entities that do know everything, and stack his check/Int score so that the answers he gets are extremely reliable.

The wizard doesn't always have the perfect spell selection when he's attacked...but unless the enemy can catch him completely by surprise and one-shot him, he'll get away. And come back with the perfect spell selection, on his terms and at his timing. You can't really beat that except with more magic.

You want to know what the cutoff is though for absolute invincibility, so let's see:

Superior Invisibility, level 8, would hide him from visual senses, radar/blindsight, thermal imaging, and pretty much anything else. Now it's a guessing game of saturation bombardment and nuclear weaponry...how much of the Earth's habitable living surface are world governments willing to sacrifice to ensure they hit him, even assuming he doesn't just go chill on the Moon or something?

This also gives him Moment of Prescience, Contact Other Plane, Greater Celerity, Greater Teleport, and all manner of offensive magic, so I'd say level 15 is where there is no hope whatsoever.
---------------

At level 9, he still has Teleport and Rope Trick. Whenever he wants, he can abandon a battle without any way to stop him, and go anywhere in the world with no way to track him or detect him for total safety. He can still fly, and still go invisible, though he'll show up on thermal imaging. He's a really small point source though, and probably won't be a very strong radar return either, being all made of squishy flesh. So saturation is still really the only option, though now it potentially involves saturation of heat-seeking missiles too...unless he just Teleports away and lets them waste ammo over and over.


Below level 9, he's limited to his land/fly speed plus Dimension Door, so it's technically possible, if unlikely, for an army to beat him.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 10:04 AM
Note that a necropolitan Wizard probably won't show up on thermal imaging because he's not alive. Same for a Warforged.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 10:06 AM
There's a few things that swing possibility back towards the modern day force. Things like night vision goggles. They outrange any equivalent Darkvision by quite a margin. Night battles are something used to shock and awe conventional forces, what is it going to do to someone who has no idea of the effects of modern weapons?[\QUOTE]
What about all the soldiers who are scared ****less after the wizard summons demons, and then transforms into a dragon?
[QUOTE]
Shock and awe tactics would work very well against a fantasy wizard. He's got no experience or even understanding of things like flashbang grenades or modern CQB tactics. Thunderstones don't even come close.
Oh noes! I am clearly being attacked! Dimm door 1km into the air!


And then there's modern communications. When every squaddie on the ground has a radio, they can coordinate a lot faster than the fantasy group.
What about when the wizard does something they have no idea of, and TELEPORTS into the president's bedroom?


Does Invisibility beat the thermal imaging cameras on an Apache gunship? Would Evasion from whatever source be any use against being sprayed by said Apache's chain guns?
Indeed, thermal imaging can ruin a wizard's invisibility, but I think the real question is when would a wizard ever actually face an apache gunship? Why does he not simply hold the citizens of the world hostage from his undergound lair?


Ultimately, I'd say it boils down to, a wizard is just one person. Even with magic, he's still vulnerable, even more so against things he has no understanding of. Sure, he could well have Contingencies based around "If anyone attacks me," but how will that help him when a forward observer calls in an artillery strike on his position? At that point, he's not being attacked directly, after all.
If the army did somehow manage to locate the wizard for long enough to airstrike him, (I'm not sure how that would happen) this could be a problem, if the wizard didn't have immediate action spells and divinations, and contingent resurrections. Assuming of course the he is not immune to the blast.



And the wiard has to rest for 8 hours then take an hour to replenish his spells. At that point he's bait for any grunt with a LAW and night vision goggles.
As has been said so many times before, rope trick is the answer.

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 10:07 AM
Really? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/foresight.htm) Are (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/momentOfPrescience.htm) you (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/contactOtherPlane.htm) sure (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commune.htm) about (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/divination.htm) that (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/augury.htm)?


Yep. Read the descriptions. Moment of Prescience and Foresight give you Spider Sense. The rest let you ask specific questions and receive vague and occasionally unhelpful answers. Nothing there lets you see the future.

ghashxx
2010-05-03, 10:10 AM
I'm going to have to join the minority here: current army wins. This is largely based on having a difference of opinion on some of the most basic qualities about a modern army, like how much damage guns do and the "level" of our armies.

I consider guns to be a ranged touch attack, with even a 1st level fighter being able to fire three times in one round with an assault rifle at 100yards (so 300 feet) and the gun would be dealing at least 5d6 damage for a basic gun, with machine guns being a lot more than that. Magical armor enhancements would apply to the touch AC, but normal armor bonuses would be null and void (deflection etc still count). Wind wall doesn't work as the bullets are moving way too fast, except maybe give a slight bonus to the touch AC.

A private in the army would be 1st level, a marine would be 2nd, and SEALS, Delta Force, SAS etc would be at least 5th level with prestige class to 10th level...at the very least. Their saving throws would be in accordance. World leaders on the other hand should have corollary levels in a NPC class, and as a result of being politicians should probably have a wicked high will save, though fort and reflex saves should be a lot smaller.

Technology, when it reaches a certain point, is indistinguishable from magic. With that basic idea in mind, I have to go with technology because in our armies so many people have access to it all at the same time that I don't see it being possible to fight that. Yes, wizards have a lot of power. But just try to stat them out the way you guys are trying to say he can work. Teleport and explode this, then teleport again and explode that, then teleport again... A wizard would have to have not only absolutely perfect understanding of everything that is going on, but also have the time to pick the right spells.

And rope trick? Not all that useful unless you have no bags of holding etc. And really, what wizard has the strength to carry everything without bags of holding?

Greenish
2010-05-03, 10:11 AM
Most people seem to have. Which in some ways, favours the wizard, as it's easier for him to protect himself than to protect a whole party. It seems most people other than the wizard are screwed, though a cleric would put up a very good fight, and a druid would come close.Bah, play it smart. A warblade (for example) with Hat of Disguise. Just blend in in a city and kill all military units moving in small enough concentrations. A high level warblade can probably take a few tanks and a bunch of riflemen at once without breaking sweat.


Or just optimize Diplomacy and become the President of the World.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 10:11 AM
Given that the US have had trouble to locate a single individual for now a good 10 years, I bet you can safely hide, teleport when things get hot, hide again, scry and strike back as you wish.

+1. If we have so much trouble finding a few normal people hiding in the desert, what chance do we have against someone with superhuman intelligence and magic?

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 10:12 AM
Why is this wizard even fighting this army? Either they've put a price on his head, in which case him and Osama share a cave for a while, or they're attacking a country he wants to protect. In which case, their nukes have him by the groin.

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 10:12 AM
Or just optimize Diplomacy and become the President of the World.

Also see the entire Enchantment school. Against people with no magic, it really works well.

Yukitsu
2010-05-03, 10:13 AM
A sufficiently prepared wizard can abuse fabricate and major creation to spark a nuklear holocaust, and survive it. I believe that would be a win for the wizard.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 10:15 AM
And rope trick? Not all that useful unless you have no bags of holding etc. And really, what wizard has the strength to carry everything without bags of holding?
That's highly contestable, but the Wizard can just leave his junk outside. You know, after he teleports to Everest, or the Moon. Who's going to steal it, space pirates?

You're still assuming that the Wizard is facing the army in the open without preparation. As said many times, this is a super-intelligent being that can teleport, call in mythical allies, control minds and reduce targets to ash. Even your souped up 10th level guys, even assuming that Will is their good save, will fail about 70% of the time against a level-appropriate Wizard, to say nothing of a high-level one.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 10:16 AM
Guns doing 5d6 damage? Why? I can do as much damage with an arrow as a bullet. d8 per bullet, tops. And if the modern army isn't suffering from the skill system, they don't get multiple attacks from high BAB either. Plus, that's all null and void due to protection from arrows. DR 10 against d8 bullets. Maybe some enormous calibre shells, sniper rifles and magic guns would penetrate that, but even then, your wizard now knows you're there and can vanish.

Ed: Look at the title. We're dealing with high level casters here. So, Craft Contingency + Contingencies for each time a missile targets a major centre in your favourite country. Surrounds missile with Resilient Sphere or similar.

Hand_of_Vecna
2010-05-03, 10:17 AM
Before I get really deep into this; how do things work?

In real life a bullet from a trained marksman kills. It doesn't widdle away a few HP it kills you or at least has a damned good chance. So are things interacting the way they should or the way d20 modern says they do. What level are normal people? Do major goverments have dozens of spec ops team consisting of level tens that have different mixes of base classes depending on their background and speciality and 4/5 levels of soldier?

Alternatively if things work like they should with things like sniper bullets being a serious threat rather than an annoyance then the party's huge skill checks will be able to do alot of damage.

I'll default to 5th level spells being the cut off for a win though. It will be a good while before the modern army develops a strategy to deal with a teleporting foe. The rogue should have relatively little trouble stealing from the modern world so the party will have plenty of gemstones for things like keeping stoneskin up when they go on raids and raising a huge army of undead. Hey you know what would decimate the modern world shadows there's no magic sure we'd eventually figure out that we need to do energy damage but they'd be real nasty.

Hmm it takes create greater undead to make a shadow. What level summon undead does it take? We can summon one have it kill one guy then control the spawn.

I think that's the new basement either way minimum level to summon a shadow is the minimum level to win.

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 10:17 AM
Guns doing 5d6 damage? Why? I can do as much damage with an arrow as a bullet. d8 per bullet, tops. And if the modern army isn't suffering from the skill system, they don't get multiple attacks from high BAB either. Plus, that's all null and void due to protection from arrows. DR 10 against d8 bullets. Maybe some enormous calibre shells, sniper rifles and magic guns would penetrate that, but even then, your wizard now knows you're there and can vanish.

Artillery perhaps?

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 10:21 AM
The d20 hit/miss/crit trichotomy doesn't really work well with guns. It doesn't matter, though, because the wizard shouldn't be getting hit at all in the first place.

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 10:21 AM
I was thinking it works the way things should work, with sniper rifles being serious threats. No, soldiers don't get multiple attacks from high BAB, but automatic weapons take care of that quite nicely. I was also thinking the mundanes are 5th level max, and that's for the special forces.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 10:22 AM
Yep. Read the descriptions. Moment of Prescience and Foresight give you Spider Sense. The rest let you ask specific questions and receive vague and occasionally unhelpful answers. Nothing there lets you see the future.

a healthy int score and CoP turn the future into a game of twenty questions, which you CAN play since short of magic there is NO POSSIBILITY of being found. At all. Ever.

A mage of 9th+ will never be predicted, never be found, never be stopped and never be caught. He will be a form altering, mindganking, teleporting ghost that attacks with impunity and has access to all areas of the earth, all information there is and multiple contingency plans that will save his ass.

With Clerics you have the problem of planeshift and commune, it's more work than a mage but they'll win just as much in the long term.

To track down the druid you will need to kill every man, woman, child, dog, cat, squirrel, fish, cactus, etc..... they could be ANYTHING with enough levels and just about anything from very early on.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 10:23 AM
I'm going to have to join the minority here: current army wins. This is largely based on having a difference of opinion on some of the most basic qualities about a modern army, like how much damage guns do and the "level" of our armies.

I consider guns to be a ranged touch attack, with even a 1st level fighter being able to fire three times in one round with an assault rifle at 100yards (so 300 feet) and the gun would be dealing at least 5d6 damage for a basic gun, with machine guns being a lot more than that. Magical armor enhancements would apply to the touch AC, but normal armor bonuses would be null and void (deflection etc still count). Wind wall doesn't work as the bullets are moving way too fast, except maybe give a slight bonus to the touch AC.


If the wizard gets pinned down, you have a point. The problem is that with his mobility options, it is literally impossible for them to pin him down. He can always run away if outmatched, and they can't stop him or chase him.



A private in the army would be 1st level, a marine would be 2nd, and SEALS, Delta Force, SAS etc would be at least 5th level with prestige class to 10th level...at the very least. Their saving throws would be in accordance. World leaders on the other hand should have corollary levels in a NPC class, and as a result of being politicians should probably have a wicked high will save, though fort and reflex saves should be a lot smaller.


-The best olympic athletes in the world are 5th-6th level. Special Forces operatives aren't going to be much higher than that, and certainly not in bulk. 4th or 5th level fighters at best.



Technology, when it reaches a certain point, is indistinguishable from magic. With that basic idea in mind, I have to go with technology because in our armies so many people have access to it all at the same time that I don't see it being possible to fight that. Yes, wizards have a lot of power. But just try to stat them out the way you guys are trying to say he can work. Teleport and explode this, then teleport again and explode that, then teleport again... A wizard would have to have not only absolutely perfect understanding of everything that is going on, but also have the time to pick the right spells.


Clarke's Law doesn't hold here - technology, at a certain point, is indistinguishable from magic. Our technology is not at that point....we can duplicate blindsight, fireballs, and they're doing some interesting things with invisibility. Modern tech doesn't crack anything above 4th level spells or so. The thing is that the wizard has all the time he wants, since he is untouchable if he chooses to hole up until he's got the information he needs, and if he wants time to pick the right spells, he has it.




And rope trick? Not all that useful unless you have no bags of holding etc. And really, what wizard has the strength to carry everything without bags of holding?

Now you're getting into house rule territory, because Bags of Holding are perfectly safe in Rope Tricks. The only thing Bags of Holding, by RAW, interact poorly with is Portable Holes....and even if you houserule BoH to not go into Rope Tricks, it's still trivial. Go to the tallest mountain in the Andes, or the Himalayas, or the Rockies. Bury your bags of loot in the snow, then Rope Trick away...the odds of anyone finding, let alone disturbing, your stash is so infintesimally small it doesn't bear contemplating.

DaTedinator
2010-05-03, 10:23 AM
As for the sniper rifle, those stats are ridiculous. 120ft range? The longest range confirmed kill by a military sniper is 2430 metres. That's 7972 ft. They're trained to engage from 1000m away.

120 foot range increment. Meaning a default max range of 1,200 feet, and that's for untrained masses with no scope. Once you add in scopes, feats like Far Shot, and the like, it gets a lot closer to what you'd expect.

Greenish
2010-05-03, 10:26 AM
I consider guns to be a ranged touch attack, with even a 1st level fighter being able to fire three times in one round with an assault rifle at 100yards (so 300 feet) and the gun would be dealing at least 5d6 damage for a basic gun, with machine guns being a lot more than that.Obviously, a single bullet does more damage than being hit twice with a greatsword.

A private in the army would be 1st level, a marine would be 2nd, and SEALS, Delta Force, SAS etc would be at least 5th level with prestige class to 10th level...at the very least.The virtual "level" of real word people is questionable, but level 6+ are already superhuman in what they can achieve. (Hint: real humans aren't superhumans.)

as a result of being politicians should probably have a wicked high will save, though fort and reflex saves should be a lot smaller.Politicians having high wisdom? Remember, we're talking about the real world here. :smallcool:

Technology, when it reaches a certain point, is indistinguishable from magic.But we aren't even close to our technology matching D&D magic. Creating matter, faster than light travel, creating consciousness…
With that basic idea in mind, I have to go with technology because in our armies so many people have access to it all at the same time that I don't see it being possible to fight that.Not by standing on the featureless plain to fight the onrushing army to the death, no.
Yes, wizards have a lot of power. But just try to stat them out the way you guys are trying to say he can work. Teleport and explode this, then teleport again and explode that, then teleport again... A wizard would have to have not only absolutely perfect understanding of everything that is going on, but also have the time to pick the right spells.Time is not a problem: the wizard can't be found if he doesn't want to be found and is careful. They don't need perfect knowledge, but on the other hand they got plenty of tools to collect it (even if the Magnificent Mansion doesn't have cable).

And rope trick? Not all that useful unless you have no bags of holding etc. And really, what wizard has the strength to carry everything without bags of holding?Bags of Holding and Rope Trick have no interaction. Not that a wizard actually needs to carry that much stuff: spellbook, a few scrolls/wands/rods, gameboy advanced (for when he gets tired of messing with the fate of the world) and some focuses/material components. Then there's the interdimensional locker where you can ditch what you don't need at the moment.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 10:28 AM
In real life a bullet from a trained marksman kills. It doesn't widdle away a few HP it kills you or at least has a damned good chance. So are things interacting the way they should or the way d20 modern says they do. What level are normal people? Do major goverments have dozens of spec ops team consisting of level tens that have different mixes of base classes depending on their background and speciality and 4/5 levels of soldier?
In real life, people aren't high-level with piles of XP. If I'm a, say, 5th level Commoner (as an extremely high level example) I have an average of 12.5 HP. A critical hit (headshot) from a Sniper Rifle (2d12) is going to kill me. Even a regular shot has a good chance to. It works the way it's supposed to.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 10:28 AM
I'm going to have to join the minority here: current army wins. This is largely based on having a difference of opinion on some of the most basic qualities about a modern army, like how much damage guns do and the "level" of our armies.
Clearly.


I consider guns to be a ranged touch attack, with even a 1st level fighter being able to fire three times in one round with an assault rifle at 100yards (so 300 feet) and the gun would be dealing at least 5d6 damage for a basic gun, with machine guns being a lot more than that. Magical armor enhancements would apply to the touch AC, but normal armor bonuses would be null and void (deflection etc still count). Wind wall doesn't work as the bullets are moving way too fast, except maybe give a slight bonus to the touch AC.
Why ranged touch? That doesn't even make any sense. Why don't soldiers run around naked? And hit 80% of the time? And yes, wind wall would work by the rules. If you want to houserule it that's fine. This doesn't actually matter though, as the wizard will never be caught.


A private in the army would be 1st level, a marine would be 2nd, and SEALS, Delta Force, SAS etc would be at least 5th level with prestige class to 10th level...at the very least. Their saving throws would be in accordance. World leaders on the other hand should have corollary levels in a NPC class, and as a result of being politicians should probably have a wicked high will save, though fort and reflex saves should be a lot smaller.
5th level w/ prestige to 10th?!? What are you smoking? People of those levels are Superhuman. They would shoot themselves 4 times and not be hampered at all. (assuming d10 HD, and 16 CON at that level they have on average 89.5 HP, and 5d6 (gun by your opinion) only does 17 on average.)
Higher level still don't matter, as the wizard, by virtue of his magic items, still handily beats their saves.


Technology, when it reaches a certain point, is indistinguishable from magic. With that basic idea in mind, I have to go with technology because in our armies so many people have access to it all at the same time that I don't see it being possible to fight that.
yes it is, but our technology is nowhere near that advanced yet.


Yes, wizards have a lot of power. But just try to stat them out the way you guys are trying to say he can work. Teleport and explode this, then teleport again and explode that, then teleport again... A wizard would have to have not only absolutely perfect understanding of everything that is going on, but also have the time to pick the right spells.
Why does the wizard not understand things, and yet the army does? Shouldn't they be super freaked out by magic, and not know it's capabilities at all?



And rope trick? Not all that useful unless you have no bags of holding etc. And really, what wizard has the strength to carry everything without bags of holding?
Ah, that old thing. 1, what does a wizard need to carry? Not much. And he is not human if he is smart. 2, It says nothing about how dangerous it is. Does it implode? does it make his skin itch? Does it stop working? We don't know, and it says nothing about that danger mechanically, so anything else is a houserule.

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 10:30 AM
Politicians having high wisdom? Remember, we're talking about the real world here. :smallcool:


Well, they all obviously have Force of Personality :smallsmile:.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 10:31 AM
And we haven't even touched on the wizard's offensive abilities yet, in which he is almost as scary.

Explosive Runes: The ultimate literal 'letter bomb'. Once he figures out how the postal system works, he can assassinate anyone he can get the mailing address of who doesn't let other people open their mail.

Cloudkill: Chemical warfare, wiping out large portions of cities or troops in bases/barracks.

Summon Undead: Hello, incorporeal shadow apocalypse.

Charm/Dominate: Everyone is his friend. Everyone.

Fireball: It's a bomb. That's weightless, and untrackable, and strikes its target instantaneously. And he can carry a lot of them.

Summon Monster: An infinite supply of disposable minions who are still more than capable of killing people and causing havoc.

Indon
2010-05-03, 10:34 AM
Depends on what set of physics we're using.

If we're trying to make D&D characters (not their magic, but their nonmagical interactions with reality) make sense in our reality, they're at a disadvantage, because a lot of the magic cheese works not because it'd necessarily function in reality, but because it does well in the D20 system specifically. (The HP discussion is a good example of this - high HP more or less violates physics)

If we're trying to take real military forces and transplant them into D20, they're at a disadvantage, because the D20 ruleset does not effectively model the breadth of tactics and technology in modern warfare. (How do you stat out the Active Denial System?)

If you let the D20 characters use their ruleset while the real military forces get to use reality, then the real forces are still at an advantage - because reality is better, in terms of action diversity, than the D20 system is.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 10:36 AM
Even by 7th level, when the Wizard is still stuck with Dimension Door, he can Summon Monster 1d3 Fiendish Huge Monstrous Centipedes. That should have enough shock value in and of itself. He can also summon a Yeth Hound which can panic people in a 300ft radius. And flies. How well do you think the army is going to react when half of it has dropped its weapons and is routing?

ghashxx
2010-05-03, 10:37 AM
Guns doing 5d6 damage? Why? I can do as much damage with an arrow as a bullet. d8 per bullet, tops. And if the modern army isn't suffering from the skill system, they don't get multiple attacks from high BAB either. Plus, that's all null and void due to protection from arrows. DR 10 against d8 bullets. Maybe some enormous calibre shells, sniper rifles and magic guns would penetrate that, but even then, your wizard now knows you're there and can vanish.

Ed: Look at the title. We're dealing with high level casters here. So, Craft Contingency + Contingencies for each time a missile targets a major centre in your favourite country. Surrounds missile with Resilient Sphere or similar.

Like I said, we're coming from majorly different ideas about the effectiveness of modern tech. I don't feel windwall would do anything against bullets moving that fast due to how thin of a "wall" it is. Also, I feel like hand guns are about the strength of an arrow, while anything larger is much much more powerful. Shoot a man in the leg with an arrow and I'm fairly certain it generally won't slice through the bone, while a bullet from an assault rifle (5.56 let's say) will shatter it.

So it's a thing about how effective we feel like things are. I know that I can't get more than two shots off, at about 40', with an bow in 6 seconds. But give me a rifle and without much practice at all I can get in about 3 shots at 30 yards. So if a person can do that with more practice in a bow than a gun, then with training that would get ugly. Three round bursts, three times in 6 seconds, by multiple people = really really ugly.

And still, it's not like the entire party is compose of nothing but wizards...or at least let's hope not everyone is playing wizards. That would be boring.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 10:37 AM
Ranged touch is obvious - bullets tend to punch through armour. But I think that should really depend on hardness. Some tests have shown plate is reasonably effective at stopping bullets, and if that same plate is adamantine, you'll be a tank. Except against the occasional lucky/brilliant shot in a tiny crack in your armour (read: natural 20). That's not even thinking about how Mage's Armour (force) or Shield (also force) would work. And just cast disguise self, get a fake passport (illusion/forgery), get on a PLANE and who even needs teleport. Hell, you can then drop a necklace of fireballs over a city and teleport out, leaving the plane to crash. Terrorists manage just fine. Why shouldn't a wizard?
Not to mention other underhand tactics. Sell magic items (necklace of fireballs, +1 daggers etc) to gangs and the country has to deal with rapidly mounting armed crime. Do-it-yourself minions, without a single charm spell in sight.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 10:39 AM
Why don't we say that any wizard that is fired on is instantly killed? It doesn't change the outcome.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 10:39 AM
So it's a thing about how effective we feel like things are. I know that I can't get more than two shots off, at about 40', with an bow in 6 seconds. But give me a rifle and without much practice at all I can get in about 3 shots at 30 yards. So if a person can do that with more practice in a bow than a gun, then with training that would get ugly. Three round bursts, three times in 6 seconds, by multiple people = really really ugly.
And you're shooting at a stationary, unreactive target. Not an flying invisible enemy that's dropping monsters on your head. It really doesn't matter how powerful weapons are, because they're never going to come into play.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 10:41 AM
Like I said, we're coming from majorly different ideas about the effectiveness of modern tech. I don't feel windwall would do anything against bullets moving that fast due to how thin of a "wall" it is. Also, I feel like hand guns are about the strength of an arrow, while anything larger is much much more powerful. Shoot a man in the leg with an arrow and I'm fairly certain it generally won't slice through the bone, while a bullet from an assault rifle (5.56 let's say) will shatter it.

So it's a thing about how effective we feel like things are. I know that I can't get more than two shots off, at about 40', with an bow in 6 seconds. But give me a rifle and without much practice at all I can get in about 3 shots at 30 yards. So if a person can do that with more practice in a bow than a gun, then with training that would get ugly. Three round bursts, three times in 6 seconds, by multiple people = really really ugly.

And still, it's not like the entire party is compose of nothing but wizards...or at least let's hope not everyone is playing wizards. That would be boring.

I accept bullet volume. That's easy. Still doesn't get past DR though. And an assault rifle bullet might shatter a shin bone, but so will a longsword (d8 damage). The problem is, real life to DnD doesn't convert well. If you put it in terms of how much each bullet does, most of them will likely be lower than d10. Snipers, d12, crit range 18-20 (most good snipers having improved crit) and x3 damage. Now you're talking. But you still have to find your target.

ghashxx
2010-05-03, 10:47 AM
Clearly.

Why ranged touch? That doesn't even make any sense. Why don't soldiers run around naked? And hit 80% of the time? And yes, wind wall would work by the rules. If you want to houserule it that's fine. This doesn't actually matter though, as the wizard will never be caught.

5th level w/ prestige to 10th?!? What are you smoking? People of those levels are Superhuman. They would shoot themselves 4 times and not be hampered at all. (assuming d10 HD, and 16 CON at that level they have on average 89.5 HP, and 5d6 (gun by your opinion) only does 17 on average.)
Higher level still don't matter, as the wizard, by virtue of his magic items, still handily beats their saves.


yes it is, but our technology is nowhere near that advanced yet.

Why does the wizard not understand things, and yet the army does? Shouldn't they be super freaked out by magic, and not know it's capabilities at all?


Ah, that old thing. 1, what does a wizard need to carry? Not much. And he is not human if he is smart. 2, It says nothing about how dangerous it is. Does it implode? does it make his skin itch? Does it stop working? We don't know, and it says nothing about that danger mechanically, so anything else is a houserule.

I'll try to address this quick like instead of being all verbose.
Touch attack because old school armor doesn't work against guns. Kevlar works against guns, but not knives, shrapnel, or swords for that matter, so this one would work both ways
Once again, wind wall is in reference to the world of Magic, and I feel like once guns come into the mix that practically half of what you're doing turns into house ruling anyways.
10th level special ops guys. The whole HP thing is all out of wack in the first place, so unless you're assuming all people in our world have 1d8 hp for their entire lives then there needs to be some baseline to judge this stuff...which gets into what the heck hp even is in the first place.
And extradimensional space getting into another extradimensional space = big boom everything dies. Like putting a bag of holding into a bag of holding.

But like I said, I disagree because I see the world through a D&D lens differently than everyone else, but just want to make it clear as to why I think that way. Not saying I'm right and you're wrong, just why I see it the way I do. If you agree then great, if you don't then great.

Last Laugh
2010-05-03, 10:48 AM
The thing about the wizard is that he really shouldn't have the right spell for every situation. Yes, he knows them all. He has to choose what to prepare in advance, though, and much as the CO boards like to pretend, there is no spell that actually lets you see the future.

Why wouldn't the wizard be perfectly prepared to fight an army?

Without magical transportation an army cannot teleport to the wizard, there is no way that they could 'sneak up' on the wizard.
The wizard would know the location of the army weeks in advance.
The wizard doesn't even have to use magic to be flashy. How much money does a 7th level wizard have? As much as it wants. A wizard can offer new and previously impossible services to a mundane world.

A 7th level wizard can force people into bondage (or can simply hire them).
Imagine the spec ops the wizard could train? (summon monster does not RAW give exp, but logically it should)
Mass mage armor, Greater Resistance, Mass Enlarge Person.
Hell, you don't even need a hulking hurler to throw mountains, Shrink Item+Giant's Wrath.
Wall of Chaos prevents the advance of all lawful creatures (And soldiers are nearly always lawful I bet) for 70 minutes. Windwall deflects everything short of missiles, the presence of the army gives you immunity to explosives though.

I'd say that a 7th level wizard would probably be able to take over this world in several months at the most.

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 10:51 AM
And extradimensional space getting into another extradimensional space = big boom everything dies. Like putting a bag of holding into a bag of holding.


I'm pretty sure that only applies to bag of holding+portable hole.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 10:53 AM
I'll try to address this quick like instead of being all verbose.
Touch attack because old school armor doesn't work against guns. Kevlar works against guns, but not knives, shrapnel, or swords for that matter, so this one would work both ways
Once again, wind wall is in reference to the world of Magic, and I feel like once guns come into the mix that practically half of what you're doing turns into house ruling anyways.
10th level special ops guys. The whole HP thing is all out of wack in the first place, so unless you're assuming all people in our world have 1d8 hp for their entire lives then there needs to be some baseline to judge this stuff...which gets into what the heck hp even is in the first place.
And extradimensional space getting into another extradimensional space = big boom everything dies. Like putting a bag of holding into a bag of holding.

But like I said, I disagree because I see the world through a D&D lens differently than everyone else, but just want to make it clear as to why I think that way. Not saying I'm right and you're wrong, just why I see it the way I do. If you agree then great, if you don't then great.

I agree with you about touch attacks in terms of a simple rule mechanic. It's not really that accurate though. I mean, metal armour should give some DR against bullets, because it slows them down. There was one guy (admittedly about a hundred years ago) who fought off a whole load of cops in Australia by wearing a metal pot helmet and something like frying pans or baking trays as body armor. Now, that was against old handguns, but it wasn't carefully forged steel plate either. (Btw, they just show him in the knees and carried him off XD)

ghashxx
2010-05-03, 10:57 AM
One thing, then a new idea. I'd say that out tech has been indistinguishable from magic for a long time. Try explaining a musket to a D&D person. As far as they'd be concerned it's a magical boom stick. Or how about a tape player. Now try explaining a taser or assault rifle with red dot sight or even a simple scope...or how about an iPod.

Now for the new idea. So wizards come in, totally wreak havoc all over with lots of trouble by out armies to find (definitely a problem), but what about other wizards? After all, since we have divisions between governments etc, isn't the incorporation of other rival wizards a practical concern?

Then again that's taking away from high level D&D versus modern army, and instead makes it everybody versus everybody. Though with the assumption the mages are invading, then they're probably evil, so inevitably (by story books anyways :smalltongue:) there'd be some conflict there. But then this thread would turn into wizard versus wizard...but it is something to keep in the back of the mind for this thread.

Mr.Bookworm
2010-05-03, 11:05 AM
I think to deal with this problem, there needs to be several assumptions as in any versus thread. These are my personal assumptions, but I'm sure someone will disagree.

1. The wizard is transported from standard D&D-land to modern Earth, and is thus a major fish out of water. He can figure stuff out, but it'll take a bit.

2. He's a straight-classed unoptimized 17th level Human generalist Wizard (w/ a stat array of 8/12/14/24/13/10, using the elite array plus a Tome of Clear Thought +5) with a fairly standard set of spells. In the process of being transported from standard D&D land, he becomes a "normal" human, with the same basic effects his stats would carry in RL. He's not going to be able to shrug off a rifle round to the face with his 17d4 HD, he'll go down just like any other human. Obviously, he's still incredibly brilliant and able to alter reality with a thought.

3. His skills get downgraded into their RL equivalents. If he has 20 ranks in Diplomacy, he's an incredibly brilliant speaker and demagouge, but he can't effectively Mindrape someone just by talking to them.

4. When he gets to Earth, he has a non-magic set of clothes on his back and his spellbook. No other items.

5. Certain technological tricks can cancel out certain magical effects, or at least reduce their effects. Wind Wall will certainly hamper a sniper, but it won't make them useless. Invisibility (at least in it's lesser forms), can be cancelled out with infrared, and so on.

6. No cheese. Yes, we know a sufficiently optimized Wizard can kill everything ever. We also know a nuke beats a rock in fight. So what?

That all look reasonable enough?

Johel
2010-05-03, 11:11 AM
I'm going to have to join the minority here: current army wins. This is largely based on having a difference of opinion on some of the most basic qualities about a modern army, like how much damage guns do and the "level" of our armies.

I consider guns to be a ranged touch attack, with even a 1st level fighter being able to fire three times in one round with an assault rifle at 100yards (so 300 feet) and the gun would be dealing at least 5d6 damage for a basic gun, with machine guns being a lot more than that. Magical armor enhancements would apply to the touch AC, but normal armor bonuses would be null and void (deflection etc still count). Wind wall doesn't work as the bullets are moving way too fast, except maybe give a slight bonus to the touch AC.

A private in the army would be 1st level, a marine would be 2nd, and SEALS, Delta Force, SAS etc would be at least 5th level with prestige class to 10th level...at the very least. Their saving throws would be in accordance. World leaders on the other hand should have corollary levels in a NPC class, and as a result of being politicians should probably have a wicked high will save, though fort and reflex saves should be a lot smaller.

Technology, when it reaches a certain point, is indistinguishable from magic. With that basic idea in mind, I have to go with technology because in our armies so many people have access to it all at the same time that I don't see it being possible to fight that. Yes, wizards have a lot of power. But just try to stat them out the way you guys are trying to say he can work. Teleport and explode this, then teleport again and explode that, then teleport again... A wizard would have to have not only absolutely perfect understanding of everything that is going on, but also have the time to pick the right spells.

And rope trick? Not all that useful unless you have no bags of holding etc. And really, what wizard has the strength to carry everything without bags of holding?

@Guns :
You need to see your target to shoot it.
This means you have to find it first.
A smart high-level wizard can live anywhere. A isolated taliban-like cave is the must because you can't bomb it efficiently but he can as well settle for a basement in NYC.

If he is on the offensive, you have to know the wizard is there before you can shoot him down. Since you won't wear those thermal vision googles all the time, he gets you before you gets him. He can simply kill one of your buddies, Alter Self to look like him and then pick people one by one.

If you are on the offensive, unless you are ready to shoot every single living being on sight, he gets you...or teleport away with his books.

@Marines :
And of course, they would have the HPs that go with the class level, hu ?
I know nobody who can still stand up after a 120 feet fall and start running like nothing happened. Yet, that's what you imply for SEALs.
If soldiers, who are trained for hardship, don't make it, I don't think any politician can survive that kind of fall on a regular basis without being crippled. For sanity's sake, let's assume none but a few people get above 2nd level.

@Pick the right spell
Well, our Wizard barely needs a week to figure out what's going out.
As said before, if you can't find a normal dude in 10 years, good luck finding a dude in a week if said dude can use magic to remain incognito...or simply vanish on the other side of the planet.

@Mages are weakling :
Mages have Invisible Servants.
And they don't need to carry all their stuff : they just make sure you never find where the hell they hide it.

urbanpirate
2010-05-03, 11:13 AM
any wizard who knew he would be forced into combat against a massive force could easily win with control of the weather and a few nasty summon spells.

consider tornadoes and hurricanes
any aircraft foolish enough to fly into them crash . (missiles would do no better).
boats sink , even aircraft carriers would have little chance of surviving and would be crippled and drifting if they did not break to bits.

those surviving the crashed planes and sunken ships are pelted with rain and trying not to be picked up in the wind and hurled into nearby buildings as the structures themselves are shredded by wind and debris turned missiles.


add in the occasional elemental and an earthquake or two and nearly everone is dead or crippled, everything nearby is destroyed and that is just the first day.
just for extra fun he could leave some symbol spells and a few contingencies around to ensure any search and rescue effort turns into an epic cluster formation

as long as the wizard is smart enough to hit, run and hide or fake his own death he covered in win

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 11:14 AM
One thing, then a new idea. I'd say that out tech has been indistinguishable from magic for a long time. Try explaining a musket to a D&D person. As far as they'd be concerned it's a magical boom stick. Or how about a tape player. Now try explaining a taser or assault rifle with red dot sight or even a simple scope...or how about an iPod.


-A magic stick you can hurt people by pointing it at them. Impressive, I can do the same thing with my fingers *Scorching Ray*.
-Tape Player: an item of Magic Mouth that can be reused, and works in an antimagic zone. A nifty little trinket.
-Taser: Large amounts of electricity that stuns a person? Sure, I can do that. *Shocking Grasp* *Hold Person*.
-Assault Rifle - it's that magic hurting stick again, but you can hit things from further away, and do more damage. *Enlarged Split Scorching Ray*
-iPod: An infinite-use item with Magic Mouth and Programmed Image that doesn't expend itself on use. Very neat, it'd take a lot of XP to imitate one.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 11:14 AM
Depends. The campaign I'm running atm looks like the Classical World with a DnD set of universal laws slapped onto it. Let's say this wizard is the 17th level one you described, and has been frozen in an extremely cheesy block of ice for 2000 years. Global warming melts the ice and he finds himself in a changed world. Here, his high HD make him almost invincible. But in the real world, he's as susceptible to a bullet in the face as anyone. Someone might mug him and kill him on his first day, cos he doesn't know what a gun is. His big challenge would be surviving the culture shock.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 11:20 AM
Depends. The campaign I'm running atm looks like the Classical World with a DnD set of universal laws slapped onto it. Let's say this wizard is the 17th level one you described, and has been frozen in an extremely cheesy block of ice for 2000 years. Global warming melts the ice and he finds himself in a changed world. Here, his high HD make him almost invincible. But in the real world, he's as susceptible to a bullet in the face as anyone. Someone might mug him and kill him on his first day, cos he doesn't know what a gun is. His big challenge would be surviving the culture shock.

He's an (almost) EPIC ADVENTURER. If he can make it in the 9 hells, I'm sure he can adapt to our modern day society. Sure a lot of things are different, but it's the same when you get planeshifted somewhere.

2xMachina
2010-05-03, 11:25 AM
BSB 10 Master Thrower. *touch AC attack on everything* Army? What army?

Dragon Mag: War magic. Mass version of spells for army fighting.

Ooh, Anti-matter/Atomic bombs. True Creation!

Also, disguise/alter self. Do you really know if your random hobo is a wizard?

"Hello, Mr. President. *charm* Nice to meet you." when they make a public appearance

"Oh ****, they found me" D.Door + Teleport (still begs the question, WTH are you doing that they can find you/that you're worried about them finding you)

Shapechange: Solar. "I prefer to take human form, but I'm an Angel." *bluff check with glibness* Heck, you can get Divine Ranks for getting them to worship you.

EDIT: Also, the Internet. "Wow, so many tips on how to destroy the world with my D&D magic. Not that I need it. I've got more Int than all of them."

FatR
2010-05-03, 11:27 AM
We all know that a party of high-level adventurers - or even one high-level wizard - can cut down mooks like nobody's business. Area of effect spells will waste an army. But how does that change if we use a modern day army? That Widened Firestorm that would have taken out fifty footsoldiers suddenly doesn't do as much when you have a battalion of tanks rolling towards you.

High level party vs modern day army - who wins?
If we take stats from d20 Modern? You don't even need high-level wizards. They are horrible overkill. Competently build high-level warrior-types will wipe the floor with a modern army without even really trying, thanks to having exorbitant AC, miss chances and other things that make people invulnerable to mooks in DnD. And making everyone they as much as graze explode into fine red mist. Nuking their location will be the only way to stop them.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 11:29 AM
Depends. The campaign I'm running atm looks like the Classical World with a DnD set of universal laws slapped onto it. Let's say this wizard is the 17th level one you described, and has been frozen in an extremely cheesy block of ice for 2000 years. Global warming melts the ice and he finds himself in a changed world. Here, his high HD make him almost invincible. But in the real world, he's as susceptible to a bullet in the face as anyone. Someone might mug him and kill him on his first day, cos he doesn't know what a gun is. His big challenge would be surviving the culture shock.

He's also a Suuuuuper Genius. Sure, he doesn't know what a gun is. However, it doesn't take a Mensa member (which he vastly outclasses) to know that the scruffy guy who wants his 'wallet' (whatever that is) thinks waving a black metal thing at him will be enough to persuade him. Ergo, the black metal thing is dangerous, and the scruffy guy should be terminated with extreme prejudice ASAP. If he wins initiative (very likely), the biggest danger he's in from a gun is accidentally shooting himself while playing with it afterwards.

lsfreak
2010-05-03, 11:33 AM
An important question is, is the wizard capable of speaking a relatively common Earth language?

If so, he's fine. With Charm Person, possibly combined with Disguise Self, he can learn everything there is to know about modern Earth culture without so much as raising an eyebrow, and take as long as he wants. He simply has to be a bit careful about it.

Another important question is, why is he fighting the army? Is it suddenly, inexplicably he's at the #1 most-wanted list for every country and political organization? Or is it simply he chooses to try and take it on? Either way, Disguise Self, Suggestion, Charm Person, Alter Self, and Invisibility will make it damn hard for anyone to actually find him, even if he stays mostly in public places.

I'm going to say that, by 3rd level, 5th at the latest, the wizard wins. Because it will never come to open conflict between the wizard and the army. The wizard can too easily get himself into positions of power, possibly and probably behind conflicting movements. The revealed terrorist plot that was discovered and only one of the 20 car bombs went off? He's a hero to the people who he tipped off about the plot, but he's also a hero to the the separatist movement he organized in order that planted to bombs, and the one that just so happened to go off is the one that also assassinated the guy in the way of the wizard becoming the primary influence behind a a certain business or government that he influence over.

Doug Lampert
2010-05-03, 11:33 AM
I agree with you about touch attacks in terms of a simple rule mechanic. It's not really that accurate though. I mean, metal armour should give some DR against bullets, because it slows them down. There was one guy (admittedly about a hundred years ago) who fought off a whole load of cops in Australia by wearing a metal pot helmet and something like frying pans or baking trays as body armor. Now, that was against old handguns, but it wasn't carefully forged steel plate either. (Btw, they just show him in the knees and carried him off XD)

That's Ned Kelly and his gang. Improvised bits of metal and it stops these "touch attack" bullets quite effectively. All four gang members were only seriously wounded when shot where unarmored, and the armor stopped MANY bullets.

So does a car door as often as not, or window glass from a car windshield.

Bullet wounds from single shots are rarely fatal, and most are hitting level 1 commoners (aka 2 HP). High damage for bullets is ABSURD, they just don't do that. A battleaxe leaves a far nastier wound than most guns.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 11:35 AM
This is a point. As for the 9 hells, sure, it's different, but all those ranks in knowledge (planes) means he knows what he's expecting. Also, if we're moving this wizard into the real world, does he get the (quite probable) social disorders typically associated with IQs off around 200? Cos if Int 10 is normal, it follows it's basically an IQ of 100. So Int 24? IQ of 240. Super genius, but does he have to touch all the door frames before he can leave a building?

Johel
2010-05-03, 11:36 AM
He's also a Suuuuuper Genius. Sure, he doesn't know what a gun is. However, it doesn't take a Mensa member (which he vastly outclasses) to know that the scruffy guy who wants his 'wallet' (whatever that is) thinks waving a black metal thing at him will be enough to persuade him. Ergo, the black metal thing is dangerous, and the scruffy guy should be terminated with extreme prejudice ASAP. If he wins initiative (very likely), the biggest danger he's in from a gun is accidentally shooting himself while playing with it afterwards.

And being the meticulous arcane researcher that he is, he won't "play" with the gun. He'll examine it quietly in his lab, slowy tearing it apart to know how it works... then come up with ways to improve it... with magic !! :smalltongue:

Magic bow ? Ah !! Fear the power of magic handgun !!
Handgun +1 (Seeking).

2xMachina
2010-05-03, 11:40 AM
An important question is, is the wizard capable of speaking a relatively common Earth language?


Permanent Tongues.

Don't care if you speak Sanskrit*, the Wizard understands.

*nothing against it. Just that it's probably the most obscure language around.

lsfreak
2010-05-03, 11:44 AM
Permanent Tongues.

Don't care if you speak Sanskrit*, the Wizard understands.

*nothing against it. Just that it's probably the most obscure language around.

The big thing was that I was trying to see the lowest level possible to get a wizard to win. It's harder if the wizard has to rely on tongues, compared with starting out knowing at least one Earth language, though certainly possible. And Tongues would probably be a good thing to have, anyway, but more problematic if he's reliant on it at low levels.

ghashxx
2010-05-03, 11:46 AM
-A magic stick you can hurt people by pointing it at them. Impressive, I can do the same thing with my fingers *Scorching Ray*.
-Tape Player: an item of Magic Mouth that can be reused, and works in an antimagic zone. A nifty little trinket.
-Taser: Large amounts of electricity that stuns a person? Sure, I can do that. *Shocking Grasp* *Hold Person*.
-Assault Rifle - it's that magic hurting stick again, but you can hit things from further away, and do more damage. *Enlarged Split Scorching Ray*
-iPod: An infinite-use item with Magic Mouth and Programmed Image that doesn't expend itself on use. Very neat, it'd take a lot of XP to imitate one.

Just for kicks and giggles I have to point this out before I get back to work. By using magic to explain the technology, you just proved that our tech, even old tech, is indistinguishable from magic.

Thalnawr
2010-05-03, 11:48 AM
The big thing was that I was trying to see the lowest level possible to get a wizard to win. It's harder if the wizard has to rely on tongues, compared with starting out knowing at least one Earth language, though certainly possible. And Tongues would probably be a good thing to have, anyway, but more problematic if he's reliant on it at low levels.
Comprehend Languages (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/comprehendLanguages.htm) is a first level wizard spell, so he'd at least understand any language he wants to.

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 11:48 AM
And being the meticulous arcane researcher that he is, he won't "play" with the gun. He'll examine it quietly in his lab, slowy tearing it apart to know how it works... then come up with ways to improve it... with magic !! :smalltongue:

Magic bow ? Ah !! Fear the power of magic handgun !!
Handgun +1 (Seeking).

How about Brilliant Energy bullets? The ultimate armour-piercers.

Doug Lampert
2010-05-03, 11:48 AM
This is a point. As for the 9 hells, sure, it's different, but all those ranks in knowledge (planes) means he knows what he's expecting. Also, if we're moving this wizard into the real world, does he get the (quite probable) social disorders typically associated with IQs off around 200? Cos if Int 10 is normal, it follows it's basically an IQ of 100. So Int 24? IQ of 240. Super genius, but does he have to touch all the door frames before he can leave a building?

IQ<>Int*10. 3d6 has almost exactly double the variance it should if that were the case.

IQ~= Int*5 + 50 works pretty well for the bulk of the population.

That would give Int 24 = IQ 170, high but hardly superhuman. But IQ tests are crap on the extreme edge cases, they really are. And if we're assuming things "should" be a normal distribution then the tails of the distribution are shaped wrong on both IQ tests AND on 3d6, and they're shaped wrong in different ways that aren't easily comparable.

So you really can't convert Int 24 to IQ and get anything meaningful, not even to the (very) limited extent that either IQ or Int scores are meaningful in the first place.

DougL

ZeroNumerous
2010-05-03, 11:51 AM
Just for kicks and giggles I have to point this out before I get back to work. By using magic to explain the technology, you just proved that our tech, even old tech, is indistinguishable from magic.

Note: The magic he used are level 1 and level 2 spells. We have nothing the even comes close to replicating Gate, for example.

As for wizard v army: The entire question is rendered moot via True Creation and Eschew Material Components.

Last Laugh
2010-05-03, 11:52 AM
BSB 10 Master Thrower. *touch AC attack on everything* Army? What army?


Does the blood storm blades ability to treat all ranged attacks as melee attacks extend to great cleave? I have a silly picture in my head now.

Or better yet Supreme Cleave? (10ft steps every kill if you use Press the Advantage. After a while you will be catching enemies flat-footed because they weren't in the initial combat..

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 11:52 AM
IQ<>Int*10. 3d6 has almost exactly double the variance it should if that were the case.

IQ~= Int*5 + 50 works pretty well for the bulk of the population.

That would give Int 24 = IQ 170, high but hardly superhuman. But IQ tests are crap on the extreme edge cases, they really are. And if we're assuming things "should" be a normal distribution then the tails of the distribution are shaped wrong on both IQ tests AND on 3d6, and they're shaped wrong in different ways that aren't easily comparable.

So you really can't convert Int 24 to IQ and get anything meaningful, not even to the (very) limited extent that either IQ or Int scores are meaningful in the first place.

DougL

Indeed, but an IQ of 36 (easy w/ items) is 230, which IS super-genius.

Indon
2010-05-03, 11:54 AM
That's Ned Kelly and his gang. Improvised bits of metal and it stops these "touch attack" bullets quite effectively. All four gang members were only seriously wounded when shot where unarmored, and the armor stopped MANY bullets.

So does a car door as often as not, or window glass from a car windshield.

Bullet wounds from single shots are rarely fatal, and most are hitting level 1 commoners (aka 2 HP). High damage for bullets is ABSURD, they just don't do that. A battleaxe leaves a far nastier wound than most guns.

And in fact, modern bullets are designed to seriously wound, but rarely to kill - that is to say, they drop most people to the 0 to -9 range, but rarely gib them.

The thing is that the HP system itself is not realistic. A high-level adventurer simply can not be that physically durable in reality - which brings us back to the physics point I made earlier.

cenghiz
2010-05-03, 11:55 AM
Forgive me, I haven't read all the responses. But one thing bugs me. Why would the wizard attack?

A wizard needs to lose folks pursuing him for -tops- five minutes. Then a pet dog gets disintegrated and wizard becomes the dog. Done. Wizard has all the time to plan, learn about computers, learn about guns, learn about army tactics.

Top sekrit? Why? A little girl smiles at you on your way back from your low-level government job, then in moments you feel persuaded to tell the little girl what little secrets you have in addition to one-higher tier of information source. The next day the wizard learns more by having a chatter with another government person after shapechanging into a fly and following him into the WC. In a couple weeks, the wizard knows it all.

Then he claims the identity of a lonely person who looks close enough to him - or not, polymorph any object? - and suddenly starts earning great amounts in stock market - no need to divinations. We're speaking about inhuman intelligence. It took a single day of mine to learn Capitalism+ with its stock market. Real stock market predictions should become natural to a wizard in a week.

A ghoul apocalypse starts at the other end of the globe and the wizard shakes his head with a frown, watching the news at the bar with his friends. Then he decides to move to Africa and have some holiday right before USA and Soviets decide to nuke each other. Why? Unknown. The leaders and the militia members have suddenly gone crazy. By the way, another undead apocalypse starts in Egypt.. strange.

How long does it take for the wizard to turn the world into a smoldering heap of ash? And why, why in the name of Kord he needs to face an apache helly?

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 12:03 PM
But why reduce it to a pile of smoking ash? What sort of wizard is this? What's his motivation? If he's neutral good, he'll probably keep turning up in war zones and casting mass hold person, then take all their weapons and teleport the "bad guys" to prison or somesuch. Or just fry them, if he's having a bad day.

Johel
2010-05-03, 12:05 PM
Forgive me, I haven't read all the responses. But one thing bugs me. Why would the wizard attack?

A wizard needs to lose folks pursuing him for -tops- five minutes. Then a pet dog gets disintegrated and wizard becomes the dog. Done. Wizard has all the time to plan, learn about computers, learn about guns, learn about army tactics.

Top sekrit? Why? A little girl smiles at you on your way back from your low-level government job, then in moments you feel persuaded to tell the little girl what little secrets you have in addition to one-higher tier of information source. The next day the wizard learns more by having a chatter with another government person after shapechanging into a fly and following him into the WC. In a couple weeks, the wizard knows it all.

Then he claims the identity of a lonely person who looks close enough to him - or not, polymorph any object? - and suddenly starts earning great amounts in stock market - no need to divinations. We're speaking about inhuman intelligence. It took a single day of mine to learn Capitalism+ with its stock market. Real stock market predictions should become natural to a wizard in a week.

A ghoul apocalypse starts at the other end of the globe and the wizard shakes his head with a frown, watching the news at the bar with his friends. Then he decides to move to Africa and have some holiday right before USA and Soviets decide to nuke each other. Why? Unknown. The leaders and the militia members have suddenly gone crazy. By the way, another undead apocalypse starts in Egypt.. strange.

How long does it take for the wizard to turn the world into a smoldering heap of ash? And why, why in the name of Kord he needs to face an apache helly?

Forget about stock market.
It requiers more Sense Motive than actual Intelligence.
There's no big equation or even fixed logic. It depends of other people. And while a high Intelligence sure help to understand the basis of Capitalism, it will get you nowhere to predict the speculations.

A Wizard could probably make more money (if he needs any) with Permanency and Wall of Fire. Free energy !!! Woooooooo !!


But why reduce it to a pile of smoking ash? What sort of wizard is this? What's his motivation? If he's neutral good, he'll probably keep turning up in war zones and casting mass hold person, then take all their weapons and teleport the "bad guys" to prison or somesuch. Or just fry them, if he's having a bad day.

He would sure enjoy watching GUNDAM 00, then.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 12:08 PM
Just for kicks and giggles I have to point this out before I get back to work. By using magic to explain the technology, you just proved that our tech, even old tech, is indistinguishable from magic.

Not really. It proved that someone versed in magic, when presented with technology, naturally translates the capabilities of that technology into magical terms, since it's what he understands.

Magic can duplicate technology, as I demonstrated with spells all 3rd level or under (except for Programmed Image, which was an indulgence). Technology cannot duplicate magic, especially the level of magic a high-end wizard can throw around.

I'll turn it around now - show me modern technology that can do the following, with availability such that the average civilian can buy it*:
-Instantaneously and effortlessly move nine humans from the North Pole to the South Pole.
-Allow a human to fly in three dimensions and hover without sound or fuel.
-Grant complete concealement from vision in broad daylight with no cover without hampering or impeding the wearer's vision in any way (you might get this one).
-Communicate and have conversations with animals other than primates and certain parrots.
-Restore life and sentience to someone who has been medically dead for a week.
-Create pounds of rare elements on a kitchen table, instead of individual atoms inside a particle collider.
-Double or quadruple a person's physical size without any ill effects.
-Physically transform into a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

*Nah, if you can do this stuff with experimental military tech, and prove it exists, go ahead.

Indon
2010-05-03, 12:13 PM
Then he claims the identity of a lonely person who looks close enough to him - or not, polymorph any object? - and suddenly starts earning great amounts in stock market - no need to divinations. We're speaking about inhuman intelligence. It took a single day of mine to learn Capitalism+ with its stock market. Real stock market predictions should become natural to a wizard in a week.
Another physics example. If the Wizard is under D20 rules, he's running Profession (Stock Trading) checks, which are Wisdom based and don't pull in very much cash.

If the Wizard is under real life rules except for where his magic specifies otherwise, sure, he might be smart enough to make cash at the stock market, but he could've also died easily months ago when someone decided to smash a fly.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 12:14 PM
Just for kicks and giggles I have to point this out before I get back to work. By using magic to explain the technology, you just proved that our tech, even old tech, is indistinguishable from magic.

now can we have a technological replacement for teleport, plane shift, contact other plane, scrying, alter self or summon monster X?

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 12:16 PM
Another physics example. If the Wizard is under D20 rules, he's running Profession (Stock Trading) checks, which are Wisdom based and don't pull in very much cash.

If the Wizard is under real life rules except for where his magic specifies otherwise, sure, he might be smart enough to make cash at the stock market, but he could've also died easily months ago when someone decided to smash a fly.
He's still got his old Wizard HP. The fly looks at your 1d3 unarmed damage with scorn.

Indon
2010-05-03, 12:18 PM
He's still got his old Wizard HP. The fly looks at your 1d3 unarmed damage with scorn.

HP doesn't exist in reality. In reality, squishing kills flies.

Similarly, making a lot of GP in a week doesn't exist in D20. In D20, you make Profession checks.

Now, is our Wizard abiding by real world physics, or the physics of a D20 ruleset?

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 12:20 PM
HP doesn't exist in reality. In reality, squishing kills flies.

Similarly, making a lot of GP in a week doesn't exist in D20. In D20, you make Profession checks.

Now, is our Wizard abiding by real world physics, or the physics of a D20 ruleset?

Clone, Contingency, ghost formed fly or miss chance all give the mage a solid chance

ZeroNumerous
2010-05-03, 12:22 PM
..., but he could've also died easily months ago when someone decided to smash a fly.

Unless the wizard cast Stoneskin as one of his (many) daily buffs. Ya, see, physics only works when you lack some method of telling physics to sit down and shut up. Wizards have such a method. We call it Magic.

EDIT:


HP doesn't exist in reality. In reality, squishing kills flies.

Similarly, making a lot of GP in a week doesn't exist in D20. In D20, you make Profession checks.

Now, is our Wizard abiding by real world physics, or the physics of a D20 ruleset?

Magic makes your question irrelevant. If a wizard needs money, he True Creates some. If he's entering any remotely dangerous situation, he just uses Astral Projection + Plane Shift before hand.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 12:23 PM
The Wizard doesn't need to do the fly thing, he can Dominate someone and perceive through them, or send in his Familiar under Invisibility, or any number of other things. He can make money in other ways, too, the simplest of which is abusing Minor Creation or Wall of Iron. Magic is very versatile.

Johel
2010-05-03, 12:25 PM
Not really. It proved that someone versed in magic, when presented with technology, naturally translates the capabilities of that technology into magical terms, since it's what he understands.

Magic can duplicate technology, as I demonstrated with spells all 3rd level or under (except for Programmed Image, which was an indulgence). Technology cannot duplicate magic, especially the level of magic a high-end wizard can throw around.

I'll turn it around now - show me modern technology that can do the following, with availability such that the average civilian can buy it*:
-Instantaneously and effortlessly move nine humans from the North Pole to the South Pole.
-Allow a human to fly in three dimensions and hover without sound or fuel.
-Grant complete concealement from vision in broad daylight with no cover without hampering or impeding the wearer's vision in any way (you might get this one).
-Communicate and have conversations with animals other than primates and certain parrots.
-Restore life and sentience to someone who has been medically dead for a week.
-Create pounds of rare elements on a kitchen table, instead of individual atoms inside a particle collider.

*Nah, if you can do this stuff with experimental military tech, and prove it exists, go ahead.

In fact, once we got spells of 5th level, the mass-energy law is broken.
A permanent Wall of Fire means unlimited amount of energy with no matter consumed, except maybe oxygen.
Wall of Iron means we can convert barely 500 grams of gold into several tons of iron, with little to no energy.
Wall of Stone means we can CREATE matter out of thin air.

Indon
2010-05-03, 12:25 PM
The Wizard doesn't need to do the fly thing, he can Dominate someone and perceive through them, or send in his Familiar under Invisibility, or any number of other things. He can make money in other ways, too, the simplest of which is abusing Minor Creation or Wall of Iron. Magic is very versatile.

In reality, Wall of Iron abuse would draw attention, and cause the price of iron to plummet.

Doug Lampert
2010-05-03, 12:26 PM
Indeed, but an IQ of 36 (easy w/ items) is 230, which IS super-genius.

Except that as I more or less said when giving the conversion formula, there's no reason to expect it to be even approximately correct for values of Int less than 4 or more than 17. 3d6 doen't give the right distribution at the edges and neither do actual IQ scores.

Really really smart will do. And it's all he needs.

The real world has nothing he'll find all that impressive except the shear scale with which it's all applied. And we've got no meaningful defenses or counters against magic.

ZeroNumerous
2010-05-03, 12:29 PM
In fact, once we got spells of 5th level, the mass-energy law is broken.
A permanent Wall of Fire means unlimited amount of energy with no matter consumed, except maybe oxygen.
Wall of Iron means we can convert barely 500 grams of gold into several tons of iron, with little to no energy.
Wall of Stone means we can CREATE matter out of thin air.

That's not even as bad as Mage's Faithful Hound. You create Pure Energy that is solid and sapient.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 12:29 PM
In reality, Wall of Iron abuse would draw attention, and cause the price of iron to plummet.
And the problem with that is? The Wizard doesn't need to do the Wall of Iron thing forever. Make a few hundred thousand dollars and then stop, you've got enough for living. Or if he keeps going, what concern is that of his that iron is cheap? It costs him nothing to produce it, really. What will happen is that the other iron suppliers will go out of business because they can't compete. The wizard will monopolize iron production, and then gets to set the price. Or he can just buy them out with his easily-acquired wealth.

PhoenixRivers
2010-05-03, 12:29 PM
1) Cast Ghostform, see if they can hit incorporeal.

OR:

1) Shapechange into a troll
2) Veil of undeath
3) Energy immunity (fire)
4) Energy immunity (cold)

There's not a piece of ordinance in existence that can penetrate that.

Superglucose
2010-05-03, 12:32 PM
I've heard it said that part of the damage of a nuclear blast could be considered to be "force" damage.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 12:34 PM
In reality, Wall of Iron abuse would draw attention, and cause the price of iron to plummet.

Which only matters to those who aren't able to make a profit supplying it at that price, which the mage with no outlay or staff can do just fine. Which puts all other suppliers out of business in short order. Which leaves the mage with a monopoly on an essential comodity. Repeat in as many sectors of the economy as you feel like for five years before retiring with more money than God.

ZeroNumerous
2010-05-03, 12:34 PM
I've heard it said that part of the damage of a nuclear blast could be considered to be "force" damage.

At that point the wizard has basically won. No nation would nuke it's own soil without serious proof of a very real and dangerous threat. By the time that gets back to someone with the power to push the button that wizard will be long gone.

PhoenixRivers
2010-05-03, 12:37 PM
I've heard it said that part of the damage of a nuclear blast could be considered to be "force" damage.

Doesn't matter.

Shapechange into Troll. Troll has Regeneration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#regeneration). If it's not fire, and it's not acid, it's nonlethal.

Energy Immunity (Acid)
Energy Immunity (Fire)

If it is fire or acid, it doesn't hurt.

Veil of Undeath: Among other things, immunity to nonlethal damage.

So: Immune to fire and acid. Immune to nonlethal. All damage is either fire, acid, or nonlethal.

Immune to all damage.

Doug Lampert
2010-05-03, 12:38 PM
And in fact, modern bullets are designed to seriously wound, but rarely to kill - that is to say, they drop most people to the 0 to -9 range, but rarely gib them.

The thing is that the HP system itself is not realistic. A high-level adventurer simply can not be that physically durable in reality - which brings us back to the physics point I made earlier.

If you're applying "real" physics then bat guano plus chanting does nothing and none of the magic works. So we're not using "real physics" for the wizard.

But in any case, IMAO if you're modeling HP as massive toughness then you're doing it wrong.

Someone with 100 HP doesn't absorb a bullet to the head and barely blink, his head "just happens" to move at the wrong time or be at the wrong angle and the bullet deflects off his scull.

He does survive dropping out of an airplane without a chute, but what the heck, so have at least four people in the REAL WORLD, and if any of them them were superhuman they've hidden it well. Or possibly the only REAL level 20 people in our world are a couple of airline stewardesses and of WW-II ball turret gunners.

Part of HP is getting lucky, including luckier than a d20 roll or two can represent or than is possible on 20d6 falling damage. It happens in the real world by random chance and fortuitus placement of tree limbs. It happens in D&D land because you're high level. But in both worlds it happens that people survive "impossible" falls, and then get up, and walk away from them.

HP are divine favor, rolling with the punch, getting lucky, "barely a scratch", and, oh, yeah, they're also toughing it out. That last one mostly means they mostly don't go into shock (the main disabling mechanism or real bullets in the real world).

The single most broken part of HP is the assumption by people who don't like them that every hit is a solid shot to the head. Crap. HP have plenty of problems, but ability to survive X for ANY particular value of X isn't it.

DougL

Johel
2010-05-03, 12:38 PM
In reality, Wall of Iron abuse would draw attention, and cause the price of iron to plummet.

Given the annual world production of Iron, I doubt it.
Highly.
According to this Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_iron_production), in 2006, humans produced 1.8 billion tons of iron.

Wall of Iron, CL 12
A surface of 300 square feet, 4 inches thick
According to this website (http://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/Household-Companion/Practical-Mechanics/Rules-for-Obtaining-Approximate-Weight-of-Iron.html), a square foot of iron, 1 inch thick= 40 lbs
This means a square foot, 4 inches thick= 160 lbs
This means our Wall of Iron weights about 160 lbs x 300 = 48.000 lbs

Say we cast 4 spells a day and reach a daily production of 100 tons.
An annual output of 36.500 tons wouldn't even factor in the world production.

Ossian
2010-05-03, 12:38 PM
I think the OP should narrow it down to a more specific situation. Is it a direct attack? Are they starting at the opposite ends of the territory and they are fighting for it? A wizard is still just a meatbag, able to stop time though he may be. He has to see things coming at him and as soon as his location is know, if he represents a threat serious enough, stuff like air strikes can happen. Eight F-16 fly to his location at >Mach 1, and when they are miles away (a distance covered in a span of seconds, at that speed) they unleash hell to flatten several blocks, and from a disatnce which is off range for most spells.

Satellite cameras with infrared vision? A shot from the bush with a sniper gun with 12,7mm depleted uranium rounds? (they pierce a tank several hundred meters away).

A 105mm round from an AC130 gunship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAscuD4loh8)? (why one gunship, why not several).

Strafing runs with 30mm gatlings? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iz5MwPsfyo&feature=related)

ABrahams battle tanks, Paladins, Apache choppers....nothing that a Wiz can`t take out, sure, but you just don´t see them coming. The fire too big rounds from too far (and too accurately) for a footed demigod in a tunic to counter.

I give this to the modern army.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 12:41 PM
I think the OP should narrow it down to a more specific situation. Is it a direct attack? Are they starting at the opposite ends of the territory and they are fighting for it? A wizard is still just a meatbag, able to stop time though he may be. He has to see things coming at him and as soon as his location is know, if he represents a threat serious enough, stuff like air strikes can happen. Eight F-16 fly to his location at >Mach 1, and when they are miles away (a distance covered in a span of seconds, at that speed) they unleash hell to flatten several blocks, and from a disatnce which is off range for most spells.

Satellite cameras with infrared vision? A shot from the bush with a sniper gun with 12,7mm depleted uranium rounds? (they pierce a tank several hundred meters away).

A 105mm round from an AC130 gunship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAscuD4loh8)? (why one gunship, why not several).

Strafing runs with 30mm gatlings? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iz5MwPsfyo&feature=related)

ABrahams battle tanks, Paladins, Apache choppers....nothing that a Wiz can`t take out, sure, but you just don´t see them coming. The fire too big rounds from too far (and too accurately) for a footed demigod in a tunic to counter.

I give this to the modern army.
This assumes that the Wizard is visible, standing still, and basically has his pants down. The Wizard has divinations to find out that troops are converging on his location. The army has nothing to forewarn them that demons are about to start falling out of the sky.

PhoenixRivers
2010-05-03, 12:42 PM
Alternately: Superior invisibility + Fly.
Mindrape Commander of enemy army.

Send tanks to training exercises wherein they drive off cliffs. The drivers wouldn't drive off cliffs, you say? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hallucinatoryTerrain.htm)

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 12:43 PM
This basically has the same problem as Wizard VS Fighter. The Fighter can deal a lot of damage, but he's never going to get a chance to use that ability.

PhoenixRivers
2010-05-03, 12:43 PM
I think the OP should narrow it down to a more specific situation. Is it a direct attack? Are they starting at the opposite ends of the territory and they are fighting for it? A wizard is still just a meatbag, able to stop time though he may be. He has to see things coming at him and as soon as his location is know, if he represents a threat serious enough, stuff like air strikes can happen. Eight F-16 fly to his location at >Mach 1, and when they are miles away (a distance covered in a span of seconds, at that speed) they unleash hell to flatten several blocks, and from a disatnce which is off range for most spells.

Satellite cameras with infrared vision? A shot from the bush with a sniper gun with 12,7mm depleted uranium rounds? (they pierce a tank several hundred meters away).

A 105mm round from an AC130 gunship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAscuD4loh8)? (why one gunship, why not several).

Strafing runs with 30mm gatlings? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iz5MwPsfyo&feature=related)

ABrahams battle tanks, Paladins, Apache choppers....nothing that a Wiz can`t take out, sure, but you just don´t see them coming. The fire too big rounds from too far (and too accurately) for a footed demigod in a tunic to counter.

I give this to the modern army.

Stormrage > Every piece of ordinance you listed.

As is at least 2-3 other methods I used.

I mean really, dominate and suggestion alone allow the high levels to be chameleons.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 12:45 PM
I think the OP should narrow it down to a more specific situation. Is it a direct attack? Are they starting at the opposite ends of the territory and they are fighting for it? A wizard is still just a meatbag, able to stop time though he may be. He has to see things coming at him and as soon as his location is know, if he represents a threat serious enough, stuff like air strikes can happen. Eight F-16 fly to his location at >Mach 1, and when they are miles away (a distance covered in a span of seconds, at that speed) they unleash hell to flatten several blocks, and from a disatnce which is off range for most spells.

Satellite cameras with infrared vision? A shot from the bush with a sniper gun with 12,7mm depleted uranium rounds? (they pierce a tank several hundred meters away).

A 105mm round from an AC130 gunship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAscuD4loh8)? (why one gunship, why not several).

Strafing runs with 30mm gatlings? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iz5MwPsfyo&feature=related)

ABrahams battle tanks, Paladins, Apache choppers....nothing that a Wiz can`t take out, sure, but you just don´t see them coming. The fire too big rounds from too far (and too accurately) for a footed demigod in a tunic to counter.

I give this to the modern army.

As I said earlier, let's just agree that any shot taken at the mage results in an instant kill. It just doesn't matter. At ALL.

The armies problem isn't tactical (impossible as that is), it's strategic.

Johel
2010-05-03, 12:46 PM
This assumes that the Wizard is visible, standing still, and basically has his pants down. The Wizard has divinations to find out that troops are converging on his location. The army has nothing to forewarn them that demons are about to start falling out of the sky.

Also, since when does a wizard get out ?
If I can teleport whenever I want and create a luxurious mansion out of a toy, I'm not going to step outside of my cave. I'd teleport the hell out of it and go straight where I want to go.

If someone can locate me during the 1 or 2 hours it takes me to do what I have to do outside, they are damn good, because this is a big world and there 6 billions people who, from space, look pretty much like me. Except for the hat.

But still, it's one thing to locate the wizard when he is outside. It's another to get your troops there in time before he... Oh !! Too late, he teleported... again.

J.Gellert
2010-05-03, 12:49 PM
1. Teleport in the president's/chancellor's/king's/prime minister's bedchamber.
2. Dominate person.

Why are we wasting Interwebz on this?

stenver
2010-05-03, 12:51 PM
Improved invisibility - infrared googles.

I figure, the army would call on the help of transformers to help them out. Then give them goggles. Transformers would sneak up on wizard while he is distracted by 1000 tanks. Then they would squash the wizard and hold their foot on the wizard until he has been suffocated. Also, the army would probably follow the transformers around with a camera to get their 3rd real life based movie on how they saved the world.

on a side note... i always wondered how have they got such a good shots of the transformers killing decepticons.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 12:52 PM
I just like the troll idea. You can't be hurt until your spells run out, and you can in the meantime tear everyone you meet to pieces. After 3-4 weeks of this, the enemy army will probably give up. Failing that, and assuming you won't mindrape for whatever reason, I restate my total war policy. Smash population centres, or airports, or weapons factories. Make their life/army grind to a halt. Eventually they'll sue for peace to avoid total economic and agricultural devastation (citation: WW1).

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 12:53 PM
Improved invisibility - infrared googles.

I figure, the army would call on the help of transformers to help them out. Then give them goggles. Transformers would sneak up on wizard while he is distracted by 1000 tanks. Then they would squash the wizard and hold their foot on the wizard until he has been suffocated. Also, the army would probably follow the transformers around with a camera to get their 3rd real life based movie on how they saved the world.

on a side note... i always wondered how have they got such a good shots of the transformers killing decepticons.

What. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlatWhat)

text

Light-Hero
2010-05-03, 12:55 PM
Could somebody make a couple of sheets/ideas/guidelines to some epic level wizards. Because this could be a cool campaign. The PCs being a super trained team of soldier, scientist, experts vs the grand Lord Badmorning breath.

I'll be a mash of independence day, lord of the rings, x-men etc with a lot and I mean a LOT of explosions!!

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 12:57 PM
I think the OP should narrow it down to a more specific situation. Is it a direct attack? Are they starting at the opposite ends of the territory and they are fighting for it? A wizard is still just a meatbag, able to stop time though he may be. He has to see things coming at him and as soon as his location is know, if he represents a threat serious enough, stuff like air strikes can happen. Eight F-16 fly to his location at >Mach 1, and when they are miles away (a distance covered in a span of seconds, at that speed) they unleash hell to flatten several blocks, and from a disatnce which is off range for most spells.

Satellite cameras with infrared vision? A shot from the bush with a sniper gun with 12,7mm depleted uranium rounds? (they pierce a tank several hundred meters away).

A 105mm round from an AC130 gunship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAscuD4loh8)? (why one gunship, why not several).

Strafing runs with 30mm gatlings? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iz5MwPsfyo&feature=related)

ABrahams battle tanks, Paladins, Apache choppers....nothing that a Wiz can`t take out, sure, but you just don´t see them coming. The fire too big rounds from too far (and too accurately) for a footed demigod in a tunic to counter.

I give this to the modern army.

All of which is completely irrelevant, because none of those weapons will ever be fired at the wizard in the first place.

jindra34
2010-05-03, 12:57 PM
I just like the troll idea. You can't be hurt until your spells run out, and you can in the meantime tear everyone you meet to pieces. After 3-4 weeks of this, the enemy army will probably give up. Failing that, and assuming you won't mindrape for whatever reason, I restate my total war policy. Smash population centres, or airports, or weapons factories. Make their life/army grind to a halt. Eventually they'll sue for peace to avoid total economic and agricultural devastation (citation: WW1).

I concur. The issue is not the army. The issue is the average folk. A 'nice' wizard won't go after the nation but probably will never give a good reason to be attacked. A not nice wizard of about 9-11 level will cause a zombie apocalypse every day, in different cities, thus forcing all the forces to keep marching stay active etc., until they fall over, then attack. Wizards win.

PhoenixRivers
2010-05-03, 01:08 PM
Let's go this route.

Wizard in MMM. Wizard becomes invisible, then Plane shifts to World. Somewhere in Iowa.

Wizard Uses his contingency for Dimension door, set to the abandoned warehouse he scryed earlier. Trigger: A time stop effect ends.

Teleport into city area, followed by a Rod Quickened Time Stop.

Throw out a rubber ball with symbol of insanity on it.
Drop Delay blast fireballs elsewhere.

Time stop ends, wizard appears in warehouse. Wizard Teleports to 2nd location, activates MMM, gets in.

Total exposure time in hot zone: 1 swift action.
Total exposure time in prescryed location: 1 round.

How could a wizard not do things like this forever.

And cleric? With the right domains, is doing pretty much the same thing with Earthquake.

absolmorph
2010-05-03, 01:08 PM
A wizard is attacked by a helicopter:
"Ooooh, they can use machines to fly. Aaaand they're shooting at me. Orb of Fire."
The pilot is now dead.

Also, people, keep in mind that the toughest people in real-life can be recreated with level 5 characters (assuming you find the right class for them).

Superglucose
2010-05-03, 01:11 PM
Doesn't matter.

Shapechange into Troll. Troll has Regeneration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#regeneration). If it's not fire, and it's not acid, it's nonlethal.

Energy Immunity (Acid)
Energy Immunity (Fire)

If it is fire or acid, it doesn't hurt.

Veil of Undeath: Among other things, immunity to nonlethal damage.

So: Immune to fire and acid. Immune to nonlethal. All damage is either fire, acid, or nonlethal.

Immune to all damage.

I was countering the ghostform :smalltongue:

randomhero00
2010-05-03, 01:15 PM
Magic always wins, that's why its magic and we have phrases such as "A wizard did it!" when something impossible happens.

The only way for it not to win is to put undue disadvantages on it, such as not being prepared or not being able to retreat (i.e. forcing them to duke it out on a featureless plane.)

But in this case it is even more obvious that the magic dudes would win, assuming a party of fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue. The rogue and fighter would have magic items that would put them far, far above any modern human, even without unrealistic DnD HPs and such. To say nothing of the wizard and cleric.

The rogue could easily figure out technology and explain the basics to his party (UMD) or the wizard could with his superhuman intelligence. Once they figure out technology they'd be able to counter anything an army could throw at them. Even if one member somehow died the cleric could still bring him back. They would have so many means of defeating an army it isn't even worth naming them.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 01:28 PM
Hell, a rogue can use a scroll of true resurrection. Not that hard.

PhoenixRivers
2010-05-03, 01:29 PM
I was countering the ghostform :smalltongue:

What about the contingency? Is there any mage above level 17 that doesn't have it?

Superglucose
2010-05-03, 01:31 PM
1) Cast Ghostform, see if they can hit incorporeal.
That's all I was responding to :smallwink:

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 01:31 PM
What about the contingency? Is there any mage above level 17 that doesn't have it?

Contigency would require a wizard of at least 11th level though, for 6th level spells. We've pretty much tossed out the OP premise of level 20 wizard at this point, because it's a foregone conclusion and no fun to argue about. Currently, it's a debate over what level the wizard has to guarantee victory, which so far is most commonly agreed to be level 9 for Teleport. Level 7 if all you want to do is exterminate humanity, and not just beat an army.

PhoenixRivers
2010-05-03, 01:37 PM
Contigency would require a wizard of at least 11th level though, for 6th level spells. We've pretty much tossed out the OP premise of level 20 wizard at this point, because it's a foregone conclusion and no fun to argue about. Currently, it's a debate over what level the wizard has to guarantee victory, which so far is most commonly agreed to be level 9 for Teleport. Level 7 if all you want to do is exterminate humanity, and not just beat an army.

Ah.

Depends on the wizard's gear loadout, but I believe I could do it at about level 5. Both the army and humanity.

Of course, it involves a candle of invocation.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 01:39 PM
Contigency would require a wizard of at least 11th level though, for 6th level spells. We've pretty much tossed out the OP premise of level 20 wizard at this point, because it's a foregone conclusion and no fun to argue about. Currently, it's a debate over what level the wizard has to guarantee victory, which so far is most commonly agreed to be level 9 for Teleport. Level 7 if all you want to do is exterminate humanity, and not just beat an army.

Level 1 gets you Charm Person. As long as the wizard manages to not get himself killed before he figures out what's going on, that's all he really needs.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 01:42 PM
See, I reckon I could just about do it with 2nd level spells, given long enough. You'd just collect XP picking off level appropriate enemies with scorching ray (kevlar doesn't stop laser beams) until you amassed enough power to be a serious threat. Alter self, expeditious retreat and invisibilty would mean that, if they didn't know who you were, you could spend ages leveling before coming out to fight.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 01:42 PM
Ah.

Depends on the wizard's gear loadout, but I believe I could do it at about level 5. Both the army and humanity.

Of course, it involves a candle of invocation.

If you have a Candle, a level 1 wizard can wipe out humanity. Using cheese takes the fun out of it again, and any tactic that includes the phrase 'Candle of Invocation' is, by default, cheese.

A level 1 wizard isn't going to be able to do anything more than survive and maybe live comfortably, though that is an accomplishment. Charm Person isn't Dominate, the target won't do anything they wouldn't do for a friend...and in 99% of cases, stuff like revealing the launch codes for your nuclear missile silo is not something you'd tell a friend, no matter how close you were.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 01:44 PM
Ah.

Depends on the wizard's gear loadout, but I believe I could do it at about level 5. Both the army and humanity.

Of course, it involves a candle of invocation.

With a candle a level 1 commoner with borked WBL can rule the cosmos as a rankX deity, that's not the question.

I reckon level 9 for moron mages (read sorcs and good mages), 7th for Wizards with no morals.

Iamyourking
2010-05-03, 01:47 PM
A while ago, I read some of that horrible Salvation War online series and decided to write about what would have happened if the Baatezu decided to conquer Earth. It's remarkably similar to the stuff that's already been said, except with even less need for subtlety.

Open with invisible imps and mind-affecting Erinyes doing recon and infiltration beforehand; just send Glasya's Elite to America, Britain, China, Russia, and India and you've got the biggest and best armies in the world tied up with superhumanly charismatic entities manipulating their leaders to their every whim. Plus there are 18 of them so the rest can be used to manipulate volatile areas and less powerful nations. Remember, normally one of them is enough to conquer a world by playing leaders against each other; all 18 would make it incredibly easy for them. This means it would be virtually impossible to keep anything secret due to the prevalence of creatures that can easily persuade people to say everything they know, on top of outright mind reading and an omnipresent network of invisible teleporting imps listening in.
When it comes to outright fighting, modern weaponry may be effective but they would be at a big disadvantage from the start. To begin with, there are manipulators controlling the minds of the politicians and generals in charge of these armies so they can't be used to their best effect. After that, there's the fact that between Abigor and Dagos, not to mention the thousands of mundane pit fiends who can claim millennia of command experience in the Blood War, any general in the world would find themselves outstripped manifold in tactical and strategic acumen. Also one must consider that the Lords of the Nine, the ones in charge of the whole operation, have Intelligence scores of 28, 48, 44, 31, 44, 37, 37, 53, and 56. Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are following infernal politics as usual, Bael, Dispater, and Mephistopheles can be counted on to work together and between them they've got the most field experience in Hell and the two smartest of the lower eight, who have worked together to bring down countless societies. Of course there's also the fact that they're all, with the exception of Bael, insanely powerful spellcasters with access to dozens of epic spells and in the case of Bael, Belial, Leviathan, and Lillith physically powerful enough to kill whole armies.
Now there's the fact that they've got everything they need behind the scenes, but all of that would be for naught if their troops get mowed down en masse. Luckily, that is most certainly not the case. The full force of the Dark Ministry is around 10 trillion devils, not counting Lemures of which there's 20 or 30 trillion. That's almost 10,000 devils for every human on earth and isn't even taking into account the devils that don't serve in the army. All of that isn't even necessary though when you take into account the fact that every last devil can teleport to anywhere on earth at will, thus negating the range advantage that humans have and making them virtually impossible to pin down. Bombs and missiles aren't going to do any good if their target can be thousands of miles away with the blink of an eye. Not only that, but all devils are immune to fire and heat so explosions aren't going to hurt them anyway, beyond some easily ignored shrapnel damage. Which brings me to my next point; unless the armies of the world start making their bullets out of silver it's going to be virtually impossible for automatic weapons to actually hurt their foes. A mass of bullets isn't going to do any good if each individual bullet can’t cause any harm. Heavier caliber guns could potentially cause some harm, but they don't have the rate of fire to deal with hundreds of barbazu and hamatulas teleporting right on top of them and tearing them apart. Armor and aircraft are potentially dangerous, but really it takes to deal with them is wands of Orb of Sound given to the officers; hiermagons shouldn't have much difficulty churning out hundreds of wands, especially when you only need a few shots to kill a vehicle. Of course, modern weapons can’t overcome their regeneration or follow back to Baator if they do go down; so the only thing that could actually be killed for good is Lemures. If you want to get the more powerful devils involved, the Lords have Wish at will and as such can create as many wands and other magic items as they need. Another possible solution is the sheer brute strength of the more powerful common devils, a Pit Fiend can lift 8.32 tons and as such shouldn't have much difficulty ripping apart tanks with its claws. Just to support it; a cornugon can lift 3.68 tons, a gelugon can lift 6.4 tons, and a malebranche can lift an astonishing 33.28 tons. I won't mention the sort of power the Lords can muster.
As for their magical abilities, take everything that’s already been said. Then have millions of casters with no morals and most of these spells at will doing it. Throw in a few casters that can do continent shattering epic spells without mitigating factors and you’ve got an easy answer.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 01:51 PM
Also, you get XP for letting your summoned celestial bee kill people with allergies XD

Ed: Also, the whole physics debate actually gives the wizard an enormous advantage. Take away HP and you take away the one thing stopping wizards being good blasters. I mean, even ray of cold sounds like it ought to be fatal, if aimed at your face.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 01:55 PM
Also, you get XP for letting your summoned celestial bee kill people with allergies XD

Ed: Also, the whole physics debate actually gives the wizard an enormous advantage. Take away HP and you take away the one thing stopping wizards being good blasters. I mean, even ray of cold sounds like it ought to be fatal, if aimed at your face.

I'm pretty sure that after being stung by a giant bee, celestial or otherwise, allergies are the least of your worries. :)

Math_Mage
2010-05-03, 01:55 PM
Level 1 gets you Charm Person. As long as the wizard manages to not get himself killed before he figures out what's going on, that's all he really needs.

Eh, there are problems at level 1. It only works for an hour--you don't have enough spell slots. You have to get the person alone, or everyone wonders why you're doing all this magicky stuff, and why it's working. A better cutoff would be Dominate Person (1/day and greater control), and that's the same level you get Teleport.

shadowkiller
2010-05-03, 01:58 PM
A wizard is attacked by a helicopter:
"Ooooh, they can use machines to fly. Aaaand they're shooting at me. Orb of Fire."
The pilot is now dead.

Also, people, keep in mind that the toughest people in real-life can be recreated with level 5 characters (assuming you find the right class for them).

You wouldn't even need that high of level of spell to take out an aircraft. Use a hypnotism or sleep spell to knock out the pilot for a few rounds which crashes the plane. Prestidigitation could screw with the controls enough to render an aircraft inoperable. Shatter would destroy the windscreen, engine parts or potentially the electronics.

Hand_of_Vecna
2010-05-03, 02:02 PM
Stock Market: rather than trying to develope a superhuman understanding of it just pick a few stocks and have the cleric cast augury there you go investing in this is good, bad or meh.

This is real life there are no HP: Well this makes the fighter so useless it's not funny, since this started as a question about a party I refuse to accept this.

Guns that are touch attacks or do ourrageous damage: Ummm no. Armor gives some protection against bullets. I suppose you could give guns a small bonus to hit against armored targets. Magical armor made of fantasy materials is going to be comparable to tank armor at least. As for damage whatever it is minimum damage shouldn't incapaticate a normal human. Ignoring the truly extraordinary, people can function at near full capacity after getting winged by a bullet so min damage needs to be 1-2 meaning no more than 2 dice with no bonus.

Contrived situations to kill the mage: This isn't a game your running. We're discussing what would in a hypothetical situation meaning we need to talk about probable things. You're not the DM and people arguing against you aren't your players.

Challenge to anyone arguing for the modern army: How do you deal with one summoned or created shadow coming into your camp at night.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 02:11 PM
Just so long as the PCs stay under 55mph

http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/file.php?2,file=15383,filename=apache.jpg

lsfreak
2010-05-03, 02:11 PM
Eh, there are problems at level 1. It only works for an hour--you don't have enough spell slots.

The thing is, in that hour, the wizard can do enough to get on friendly terms without magic. Charm person is just there to make sure that you can get that initial meeting with the person. After that, you just go about friendly business, with enough for them to treat you as a friend without compulsion. Especially if you've, say, detect thoughts, and can really make them believe you about wanting to help them with <problem you've detected.> Charm them, sit down and talk for an hour, and in doing so convince them you actually are their friend. No more magic needed.

Johel
2010-05-03, 02:13 PM
Eh, there are problems at level 1. It only works for an hour--you don't have enough spell slots. You have to get the person alone, or everyone wonders why you're doing all this magicky stuff, and why it's working. A better cutoff would be Dominate Person (1/day and greater control), and that's the same level you get Teleport.

7th level Wizard, using Charm Monster.
Duration : days.

But I agree with you : Teleport is necessary if we want to avoid counter-strike from our enemies. A 250.000 miles square area is a big place to hide, especially if you can change your appearance.

So, yeah, let's say a 9th level Wizard
Minimum list :

Teleport
Charm Monster
Enervation
Scry
Displacement
Blink
Alter Self
Shrink Item
Command Undead
Invisibility
Mage Armor
Shield


Teleport gives you an easy escape, should your cover be busted

Enervation and Command Undead creates you powerful undead servants that can themselves command others. The aim is not a Z-pocalypse, simply to get bodyguards.

Charm Monster get you the important people, the ones you need alive and working into human society.

Scrying can always be useful

Displacement, Blink, Invisibility, Mage Armor, Shield : if you are out of Teleport, this might get you the chance to run away while your minions get killed.

Alter Self : when you go out, assume the previous identity of one of the undeads, preferably a loner.

Shrink Item : your spellbook, in your pocket, everyday. You cannot afford to let it behind if you have to flee.

Math_Mage
2010-05-03, 02:16 PM
Shrink Item : your spellbook, in your pocket, everyday. You cannot afford to let it behind if you have to flee.

Eidetic Memory? :smalltongue:

Heliomance
2010-05-03, 02:23 PM
Okay, potential reason why the army's involved at all: The party, on getting to the modern world, went about adventuring as normal, killing, maiming, and looting. At first, the police got involved, when it was determined that actually, the police were no match for the party, they called in the army.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 02:27 PM
Okay, potential reason why the army's involved at all: The party, on getting to the modern world, went about adventuring as normal, killing, maiming, and looting. At first, the police got involved, when it was determined that actually, the police were no match for the party, they called in the army.

So..... the group which includes a guy with Int 240 who can divine information from the ether and is intimately familiar with alternate worlds/societies/modes of behaviour decided to be complete idiots AND not to take any preparations? If they know enough to go adventuring they know enough to not make incompetant mistakes.

The problem is your proposition makes no kind of sense, either they're new in which case the army has no knowledge of them and is screwed or they aren't knew and the army has no knowledge of how to find them, how to fight them, who they've mindganked or indeed, why they shouldn't be hailed as living GODS AMONG US!!!!!!

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 02:29 PM
Okay, potential reason why the army's involved at all: The party, on getting to the modern world, went about adventuring as normal, killing, maiming, and looting. At first, the police got involved, when it was determined that actually, the police were no match for the party, they called in the army.

Teleport to different continent. Continue pillaging to heart's content.

Johel
2010-05-03, 02:40 PM
Teleport to different continent. Continue pillaging to heart's content.

"-And now a special edition from the Indian Ocean, where the coalition has assembled in a last ditch effort to counter the four mysterious individuals known as the "Apocalypse Horsemen".
It's a marvelous sight : more than 10 aircraft carriers and their escort, sailing here, as do several other fleets around the world, all connected in real time as international efforts coordinate what will undoubtedly be the largest military operation ever attempted in the history of mankind.
We remind our viewers that this impressive deployment was necessary because, so far, the Horsemen seemed able to jump around the world faster than we could track them. But today, they will have nowhere to hide..."

Note that, if the group has Greater Teleport, all this will be for naught.
But if the group has only access to Teleport, then they are doomed. Final showdown will be great to watch, though...

Indon
2010-05-03, 02:44 PM
If you're applying "real" physics then bat guano plus chanting does nothing and none of the magic works. So we're not using "real physics" for the wizard.
Obviously, the exception would be for spells.

The alternative is to apply D20 mechanics consistently to at least the Wizard.


He does survive dropping out of an airplane without a chute, but what the heck, so have at least four people in the REAL WORLD, and if any of them them were superhuman they've hidden it well. Or possibly the only REAL level 20 people in our world are a couple of airline stewardesses and of WW-II ball turret gunners.
This supports my point. It's just about impossible for a level 1 NPC, which is supposedly what the vast majority of us are, to survive even a 200-foot fall - it deals a minimum of 20 damage. You'd not only need to be lucky, but you'd need to be exceptionally tough.

Ditto lightning bolts. Lightning bolts in 3.5 deal (1d10)d8. Real lightning doesn't actually do remotely that (http://www.harkphoto.com/light.html).

The HP system in and of itself isn't necessarily broken - but the fact that each and every thing that deals damage essentially uses a different scale for how much damage it does compared to reality makes it broken for use in reality.

And it's a smaller part of my overall point that I think we need to establish who in this scenario is using D20 physics for nonmagical things, and who is using reality.

Math_Mage
2010-05-03, 02:45 PM
Okay, potential reason why the army's involved at all: The party, on getting to the modern world, went about adventuring as normal, killing, maiming, and looting. At first, the police got involved, when it was determined that actually, the police were no match for the party, they called in the army.

A party that stupid doesn't deserve to live, although it might anyway.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 02:46 PM
So, basically, they only lose if they act really stupid.

Indon
2010-05-03, 02:47 PM
A party that stupid doesn't deserve to live, although it might anyway.

Another good question: Are our prospective characters D&D characters as they would exist in their D&D world, or as they would be played by players?

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 02:49 PM
Another good question: Are our prospective characters D&D characters as they would exist in their D&D world, or as they would be played by players?

I assumed OotS-style, where the characters exist in a rule governed by D&D rules, but were in control of themselves.

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 02:53 PM
"-And now a special edition from the Indian Ocean, where the coalition has assembled in a last ditch effort to counter the four mysterious individuals known as the "Apocalypse Horsemen".
It's a marvelous sight : more than 10 aircraft carriers and their escort, sailing here, as do several other fleets around the world, all connected in real time as international efforts coordinate what will undoubtedly be the largest military operation ever attempted in the history of mankind.
We remind our viewers that this impressive deployment was necessary because, so far, the Horsemen seemed able to jump around the world faster than we could track them. But today, they will have nowhere to hide..."

Note that, if the group has Greater Teleport, all this will be for naught.
But if the group has only access to Teleport, then they are doomed. Final showdown will be great to watch, though...


Teleport makes it slightly risky but not all that much, you might end up in some random tv studeo.... oh well, so slaughter the BBC rather than FOX news....
BZZT!

"OH GOD, OH GOD!
THEY'RE IN THE STUDEO EATING MELISSA'S FACE!!!!!"

Volthawk
2010-05-03, 02:54 PM
BZZT!

"OH GOD, OH GOD!
THEY'RE IN THE STUDEO EATING MELISSA'S FACE!!!!!"

Wait, the PCs are mind flayers?

mostlyharmful
2010-05-03, 02:55 PM
Wait, the PCs are mind flayers?

They can be if they want to be...:smallbiggrin:

Cogidubnus
2010-05-03, 02:55 PM
Wait, the PCs are mind flayers?

No. Polymorphed into bears/dire wolverines/25 HD gold dragons. Whatever.

Math_Mage
2010-05-03, 02:55 PM
Another good question: Are our prospective characters D&D characters as they would exist in their D&D world, or as they would be played by players?

Hey, with good RP, the difference is marginal.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 02:58 PM
"-And now a special edition from the Indian Ocean, where the coalition has assembled in a last ditch effort to counter the four mysterious individuals known as the "Apocalypse Horsemen".
It's a marvelous sight : more than 10 aircraft carriers and their escort, sailing here, as do several other fleets around the world, all connected in real time as international efforts coordinate what will undoubtedly be the largest military operation ever attempted in the history of mankind.
We remind our viewers that this impressive deployment was necessary because, so far, the Horsemen seemed able to jump around the world faster than we could track them. But today, they will have nowhere to hide..."

Note that, if the group has Greater Teleport, all this will be for naught.
But if the group has only access to Teleport, then they are doomed. Final showdown will be great to watch, though...
Unless the PCs wanted to teleport into an ocean, this will never, ever work: teleport has no mistake beyond "similar place". If the party wants to Teleport to an urban centre, or a mountaintop, or a country cottage, or a castle...they'll get to a similar enough place.

shadowkiller
2010-05-03, 02:59 PM
"-And now a special edition from the Indian Ocean, where the coalition has assembled in a last ditch effort to counter the four mysterious individuals known as the "Apocalypse Horsemen".
It's a marvelous sight : more than 10 aircraft carriers and their escort, sailing here, as do several other fleets around the world, all connected in real time as international efforts coordinate what will undoubtedly be the largest military operation ever attempted in the history of mankind.
We remind our viewers that this impressive deployment was necessary because, so far, the Horsemen seemed able to jump around the world faster than we could track them. But today, they will have nowhere to hide..."

Note that, if the group has Greater Teleport, all this will be for naught.
But if the group has only access to Teleport, then they are doomed. Final showdown will be great to watch, though...

Control water: A massive wave formed sinking the entire armada.

Johel
2010-05-03, 03:17 PM
Unless the PCs wanted to teleport into an ocean, this will never, ever work: teleport has no mistake beyond "similar place". If the party wants to Teleport to an urban centre, or a mountaintop, or a country cottage, or a castle...they'll get to a similar enough place.

You missed the point.

Knowing that they can teleport and that such teleport has limits (they've been pillaging the world for a while now and their pattern is well-known), a coalition of nations track them down by monitoring... well, just about anywhere in a 500 miles from their last known position.

Once they teleport, massive air and space researches are set in motion. Rewards are offered for informations and the fact is well-advertise. Ground troops are moved in by helicopters to confirm, air strikes are ready to be called down, a whole ****ing army is tracking our rampaging adventurers.

Might take a few missed attempted but eventually, they'll be located.

Of course that's assuming they don't have access to Greater Teleport. In which case the whole world would have to be monitored closely, not just some "small" area.

Alternatively, they can just hide but that would assume they are smart. And if they've been pillaging the world openly, I doubt they are.

Jayabalard
2010-05-03, 03:30 PM
Control water: A massive wave formed sinking the entire armada.2 feet per caster level, in a squarish shape 10 feet per caster level on a side isn't going to do anything to a modern ship. A Nimitz class aircraft carrier isn't even going to notice it.

edit: hmm, looked at the description wrong; still, it's not going to do much to a big ship.

Yukitsu
2010-05-03, 03:41 PM
I'd rather keep to land, if I were the wizard. Sea engagements don't really favour normal people without massive boats, and massive boats have some pretty hefty advantages when in water compared to say, tanks.

No, if I were the wizard, I'd keep to land in an enormous wind storm, while spamming earthquake every time something land based came by.

shadowkiller
2010-05-03, 03:49 PM
2 inches per caster level, in a squarish shape 10 feet per caster level on a side isn't going to do anything to a modern ship. A Nimitz class aircraft carrier isn't even going to notice it.

it's 2 feet per level which gives 30-40 feet for a high level caster, the draft of a Nimitz carrier is 37-41 feet max. If the wall of water is conjured on one side of the ship in the right spot you should be able to get it to tip over. The smaller escort ships could be tipped in this method as well.

Flickerdart
2010-05-03, 03:49 PM
Knowing that they can teleport and that such teleport has limits (they've been pillaging the world for a while now and their pattern is well-known), a coalition of nations track them down by monitoring... well, just about anywhere in a 500 miles from their last known position.
Assuming that they know that Teleport has a limited range (which they would not likely, as the party can chain Teleports) and that they can respond to their appearance within 6 seconds...when the party can appear anywhere in a several hundred mile radius?

The minimum CL is 9th to cast Teleport. That's a 900 mile radius circle where they can appear. It is absolutely impossible to monitor such an area and put down 4 well-protected targets that appear anywhere in it in a span of 6 seconds. Your tactic will not work.

Doug Lampert
2010-05-03, 03:58 PM
Obviously, the exception would be for spells.

That's NOT obvious when people are claiming that a wizard polymorphed to a fly can be squished by a swat. Polymorph EXPLICITELY and as PART OF THE SPELL retains your HP (aka resistance to being squished) regardless of form.

People are trying to claim physics whereever it's convienent even when dealing directly with spell effects.


The alternative is to apply D20 mechanics consistently to at least the Wizard.


This supports my point. It's just about impossible for a level 1 NPC, which is supposedly what the vast majority of us are, to survive even a 200-foot fall - it deals a minimum of 20 damage. You'd not only need to be lucky, but you'd need to be exceptionally tough.

Ditto lightning bolts. Lightning bolts in 3.5 deal (1d10)d8. Real lightning doesn't actually do remotely that (http://www.harkphoto.com/light.html).

The HP system in and of itself isn't necessarily broken - but the fact that each and every thing that deals damage essentially uses a different scale for how much damage it does compared to reality makes it broken for use in reality.

And it's a smaller part of my overall point that I think we need to establish who in this scenario is using D20 physics for nonmagical things, and who is using reality.

Yeap. I agree that HP are broken. But the ability to survive a hit by weapon X or fall Y isn't why. It's the statistical effect over time that makes it broken (that and healing).

But are HP an extraordinary ability in which case they need not follow physics? They're a class ability not listed as anything else, so I believe that makes them extraordinary.

Cleric HP can clearly represent divine favor for instance, and strangely few people who clearly and provably have divine favor in the real world have EVER been killed by a bullet to the head....

Or consider a fighter. If fighters don't get HP then they need something ELSE to represent the fact that they're superhumanly powerful and skilled combatants and their defense. Standard D&D gives no AC for level, so you're taking away their defense that D&D gives them without giving them the defense that physics would give them.

And their AC IS magic, and the HP also are largely magical given that it's fairly easy for many of them to come from con booster items and spells and clerical healing.

Broadly, you need to give ALL the class abilities, and that includes HP, or you need to ask "what does the real world give in place of this" and "how sure am I that this is really mundane".

Level 6+ is superhuman, I have no trouble with superhuman being superhuman. Physics doesn't apply and CAN'T apply. The class abilities and feats that make a D&D character don't work by physics for the most part.

Jayabalard
2010-05-03, 03:59 PM
it's 2 feet per level which gives 30-40 feet for a high level caster, the draft of a Nimitz carrier is 37-41 feet max. If the wall of water is conjured on one side of the ship in the right spot you should be able to get it to tip over. The smaller escort ships could be tipped in this method as well.I'm not convinced ; you're talking about a ship that's more than 1000 feet long, and 200 feet wide.

And really, this is all in the context of a mid level caster (current discussion), not a high level caster.

Togo
2010-05-03, 04:02 PM
Orbital satelite with a +60 spot check. Noone cares if you're invisible or not.
Cruise missle on your location. You don't get a chance to cast teleport at all, or even see it coming. Any short range movement won't help you. Boom.

The whole contest comes down to how you stat up the modern era. If you treat modern weaponry as orders of magnitude better than their fantasty equivalent, then yes, the wizard will probably lose. For example, stat up a point defence gun as a gun that fires lethal damage as an immediate action. So when the wizard tries anything to avoid it, he's already been shot.

Wizards are very scary, but they're simply not invulnerable.

Yukitsu
2010-05-03, 04:05 PM
Orbital satelite with a +60 spot check. Noone cares if you're invisible or not.
Cruise missle on your location. You don't get a chance to cast teleport at all, or even see it coming. Any short range movement won't help you. Boom.

The whole contest comes down to how you stat up the modern era. If you treat modern weaponry as orders of magnitude better than their fantasty equivalent, then yes, the wizard will probably lose. For example, stat up a point defence gun as a gun that fires lethal damage as an immediate action. So when the wizard tries anything to avoid it, he's already been shot.

Wizards are very scary, but they're simply not invulnerable.

Orbital satilites aren't actually great for picking out individuals that you don't already have a bead on, or when you can't moniter a specific location. Plus, satalites are usually optical lense devices as opposed to thermal, so invisibility would work. (orbital thermal devices are pointed into space, pointing it at earth mostly detects the atmosphere, not the people on the surface.)

Johel
2010-05-03, 04:06 PM
Assuming that they know that Teleport has a limited range (which they would not likely, as the party can chain Teleports) and that they can respond to their appearance within 6 seconds...when the party can appear anywhere in a several hundred mile radius?

The minimum CL is 9th to cast Teleport. That's a 900 mile radius circle where they can appear. It is absolutely impossible to monitor such an area and put down 4 well-protected targets that appear anywhere in it in a span of 6 seconds. Your tactic will not work.

Damn, I don't know why but I thought the Teleport spell had a fixed range of 500 miles. Don't know where I got that idea.

My bad.

The well-protected isn't the issue here (Air strikes against rampaging morons who pillage for fun ? Come on !!) but the area's size might be.

Emmerask
2010-05-03, 04:08 PM
it's 2 feet per level which gives 30-40 feet for a high level caster, the draft of a Nimitz carrier is 37-41 feet max. If the wall of water is conjured on one side of the ship in the right spot you should be able to get it to tip over. The smaller escort ships could be tipped in this method as well.

Waves don´t work that way :smallwink:

Math_Mage
2010-05-03, 04:09 PM
it's 2 feet per level which gives 30-40 feet for a high level caster, the draft of a Nimitz carrier is 37-41 feet max. If the wall of water is conjured on one side of the ship in the right spot you should be able to get it to tip over. The smaller escort ships could be tipped in this method as well.

A 10th-level caster can raise or lower 50 ft. by 200 ft. by 20 ft. of water (or 100 by 100 by 20). Converting a little, that's about 15 meters by 60 meters by 6 meters. One cubic meter of water weighs about a metric ton, so you can get a respectable 4500-ton displacement out of that.

A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier displaces 83,700 tons of water. Your dinky little wave will do exactly nothing.

Yukitsu
2010-05-03, 04:10 PM
What about casting earthquake on an underwater faultline? Not too sure about tectonic mechanics, so I don't know if they would help.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 04:11 PM
Orbital satilites aren't actually great for picking out individuals that you don't already have a bead on, or when you can't moniter a specific location. Plus, satalites are usually optical lense devices as opposed to thermal, so invisibility would work.

Nor can the average satellite look into extradimensional spaces (or, for that matter, underground caves). Nor can cruise missiles hit said locations.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 04:11 PM
Wizards are very scary, but they're simply not invulnerable.

In which case I still ask why the wizard is being attacked by these weapons in the first place. If he makes himself a target, he deserves to be shot.

Eldariel
2010-05-03, 04:23 PM
Orbital satelite with a +60 spot check. Noone cares if you're invisible or not.

Cruise missle on your location. You don't get a chance to cast teleport at all, or even see it coming. Any short range movement won't help you. Boom.

The whole contest comes down to how you stat up the modern era. If you treat modern weaponry as orders of magnitude better than their fantasty equivalent, then yes, the wizard will probably lose. For example, stat up a point defence gun as a gun that fires lethal damage as an immediate action. So when the wizard tries anything to avoid it, he's already been shot.

Wizards are very scary, but they're simply not invulnerable.

I hope you're kidding. There are pretty sick penalties for a satellite to locate a person especially if that person can look like whatever he wants and doesn't reflect light. And Wizard can just make himself invulnerable to damage if he so desires, though that won't be useful here. And again, you remember the whole terrorist hunt? That's what a normal human can do. Imagine if he could move anywhere in the world without needing to show up anywhere and not only appear as a different person, but become a different person. Yes, he'd be impossible for modern military to kill.

This is a non-contest beyond level 9. The Wizard can't be found and thus any amount of weaponry is useless against him. Really, do you have any idea how much warfare would change if we were capable of teleportation? Modern warfare is completely useless in such cases, and it's been repeatedly proven in history that modern warfare is incredibly powerless against individuals and guerrillas.

Jayabalard
2010-05-03, 04:31 PM
A 10th-level caster can raise or lower 50 ft. by 200 ft. by 20 ft. of water (or 100 by 100 by 20). Converting a little, that's about 15 meters by 60 meters by 6 meters. One cubic meter of water weighs about a metric ton, so you can get a respectable 4500-ton displacement out of that.

A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier displaces 83,700 tons of water. Your dinky little wave will do exactly nothing.hmm, wikipedia says it displaces 101300 tons, 103,000 fully loaded. But the point stands.

You're need to think of the horizontal dimensions in context to the size of the carrier... the carrier is larger than 1000 x 200; I can't see a 50x200 foot hole in the water, regardless of depth, doing to do anything.

Math_Mage
2010-05-03, 04:39 PM
hmm, wikipedia says it displaces 101300 tons, 103,000 fully loaded. But the point stands.

You're need to think of the horizontal dimensions in context to the size of the carrier... the carrier is larger than 1000 x 200; I can't see a 50x200 foot hole in the water, regardless of depth, doing to do anything.

Metric tons are bigger than regular ones. This site (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/cvn-68-specs.htm) gives 97,000 tons or 87,300 metric tons fully loaded (curse dyslexia!). So, not so different. Of course, if you could trade horizontal dimensions for vertical, you could push up one end of the Nimitz pretty far. Maybe you wouldn't tip it over, but you'd certainly mess with the deck pretty bad.

And yeah, mostly it was a chance for me to indulge in maths. :smallbiggrin:

J.Gellert
2010-05-03, 04:53 PM
It doesn't matter if you can sink it or not (you can, with proper spells). A single disease-related spell or conjured monster can kill everyone on board. A shadow, perhaps? It's immune to bullets, spawns more like it, and can fly through the walls when everyone else has to run across tiny corridors and other confined spaces...

Which, coincidentally, would make an interesting horror movie.

Johel
2010-05-03, 04:54 PM
Metric tons are bigger than regular ones. This site (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/cvn-68-specs.htm) gives 97,000 tons or 87,300 metric tons fully loaded (curse dyslexia!). So, not so different. Of course, if you could trade horizontal dimensions for vertical, you could push up one end of the Nimitz pretty far. Maybe you wouldn't tip it over, but you'd certainly mess with the deck pretty bad.

And yeah, mostly it was a chance for me to indulge in maths. :smallbiggrin:

And here i learn something again.
When I thought tons were common to both measure system, I discover that even there, difference exists.
Curse you, Imperial units !! :smallsigh:

shadowkiller
2010-05-03, 04:56 PM
Metric tons are bigger than regular ones. This site (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/cvn-68-specs.htm) gives 97,000 tons or 87,300 metric tons fully loaded (curse dyslexia!). So, not so different. Of course, if you could trade horizontal dimensions for vertical, you could push up one end of the Nimitz pretty far. Maybe you wouldn't tip it over, but you'd certainly mess with the deck pretty bad.

And yeah, mostly it was a chance for me to indulge in maths. :smallbiggrin:

That also leads to the question of how a column of magically raised water behaves with the hydrodynamics of a ship that size, something that I don't think the spell description adequately accounts for. Would it reduce the average displacement of the entire ship based on the mass of that water pushing up or would it cause one portion to raise up on top that column? If it wasn't magical I would say the former would occur but since it is a spell I am not sure.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 05:00 PM
It doesn't matter if you can sink it or not (you can, with proper spells). A single disease-related spell or conjured monster can kill everyone on board. A shadow, perhaps? It's immune to bullets, spawns more like it, and can fly through the walls when everyone else has to run across tiny corridors and other confined spaces...

Which, coincidentally, would make an interesting horror movie.

Would they cast Sigourney Weaver to star?

Math_Mage
2010-05-03, 05:05 PM
It doesn't matter if you can sink it or not (you can, with proper spells). A single disease-related spell or conjured monster can kill everyone on board. A shadow, perhaps? It's immune to bullets, spawns more like it, and can fly through the walls when everyone else has to run across tiny corridors and other confined spaces...

Which, coincidentally, would make an interesting horror movie.

Well, sure. We all know there's ways and ways for a wizard to take out an aircraft carrier. It's just that Control Water isn't one of them.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 05:16 PM
I rather like control weather as a wizard's nuke spell. Almost as effective as Apocalypse from the Sky, and spammable!
"Stop chasing me or I destroy another capital city every day."

The Cat Goddess
2010-05-03, 06:09 PM
Summoned monsters... daily... in random locations. Randomly intersperse with Illusions for maximum confusion.

For an Evil Wizard + Evil Cleric, it's even better since they're summoning Fiends.

Make sure you have Silent Spell (& Still Spell maybe?) & invisibility/illusions/alter self.

Animate Dead at random, just because that's such a common fear... D&D Zombies aren't contagious, but modern people believe they are thanks to movies!

Meanwhile, after careful study of society, the Cleric starts setting himself up as the Messiah! :smallbiggrin:

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 06:41 PM
I think an important element that has been missing from this conversation is initiative and crits. Sure high AC and such counts for a lot but you're talking thousands of people talking thousands of shots here that is alot of potential for critical hits.

So if you are playing with 20's is an instant kill then I'd say a high level party would get it's teeth blown in the first time the army gets to act. Even with out that you have to imagine these people are getting hit a lot. Even if they have DR guns in most RPGs do 2d6-3d8. Special ammunition can add to that. Meaning a part needs upwards of DR 20 to be totally safe. Sure it wouldn't count for much if they were fighting a normal party but this an army of thousands. Small amounts of damage add up- quick.

We don't know much about invisibility. Id say greater invisibility is pretty comprehensive but we have devised an incredible range of ways to see things. I'd say greater invisibility was designed in D&D by wizards in D&D. It would only block methods of detection which they thought to have it block. Some of our radar might see them. I don't know much about military tech but I'd bet we have something.

As far as Nukes go... I'd say even with evasion you have a hard time justifying getting away from one. I'd say the heat from a nuke would act like hellfire from Tyrants of the Nine and bypass resistance. Also the fort save for radioactivity especially at ground zero of a blast site would be truly absurd.

These are just suggestions obviously but I think you are being a little dismissive of modern arms and high numbers.

Cool thought experiment BTW.

lsfreak
2010-05-03, 06:46 PM
I think an important element that has been missing from this conversation is initiative and crits. Sure high AC and such counts for a lot but you're talking thousands of people talking thousands of shots here that is alot of potential for critical hits.

Again, in the context of a wizard, this is a non-issue. Weapons will never be drawn. Think how many months, years, or in some cases, decades, people have gone without being found. Now add to such a mundane person the ability to be anyone they want (including simply 'no one,' a fictional person). And the ability to be invisible. You have a 3rd-level wizard that no one can ever find.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-03, 06:49 PM
I think an important element that has been missing from this conversation is initiative and crits. Sure high AC and such counts for a lot but you're talking thousands of people talking thousands of shots here that is alot of potential for critical hits.

Why does this keep coming up? There will be zero people taking zero shots, because any halfway intelligent wizard won't be seen in the first place.


So if you are playing with 20's is an instant kill then I'd say a high level party would get it's teeth blown in the first time the army gets to act.

All weapons are vorpal? Dang. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using that rule.


As far as Nukes go... I'd say even with evasion you have a hard time justifying getting away from one. I'd say the heat from a nuke would act like hellfire from Tyrants of the Nine and bypass resistance. Also the fort save for radioactivity especially at ground zero of a blast site would be truly absurd.

Contingent teleport, and why do they know where you are to nuke you in the first place? Also, they're going to be pretty reluctant to do something like that, which you can use to your advantage.


These are just suggestions obviously but I think you are being a little dismissive of modern arms and high numbers.

And you are underestimating what someone with an Int score in the upper 20s is capable of doing.

Darkxarth
2010-05-03, 07:11 PM
All weapons are vorpal? Dang. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using that rule.

I am sure that Rowan was referring to the "3 natural 20s in a row equals instant kill."

ThunderCat
2010-05-03, 07:42 PM
I am sure that Rowan was referring to the "3 natural 20s in a row equals instant kill."
Still not relevant, unless the wizard is suddenly transported in front of a modern army who've been ordered to kill on sight, with no contingency on (or alternatively, with the contingency not working because it's set to teleport the wizard somewhere that's become unavailable).

If the wizard knows the army's out to get him, he'll use guerilla tactics. I hate to bring up something even remotely political in this thread, but as others have said, modern armies already have trouble locating normal people who hide in caves or among civilians.

Someone who can disappear in less than 6 seconds and reappear anywhere within a 1000 mile radius (heck, just one mile is enough to completely breach security in most places), take on the appearance of (and even turn into) anyone, scry from a distance, and become invisible to the naked eye, is a far bigger threat. The wizard wont show up somewhere to get shot at to begin with, he'll show up among civilians, or inside the general/admiral/president's bedroom (after having scryed to make sure there's no one else present).

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 07:46 PM
Again, in the context of a wizard, this is a non-issue. Weapons will never be drawn. Think how many months, years, or in some cases, decades, people have gone without being found. Now add to such a mundane person the ability to be anyone they want (including simply 'no one,' a fictional person). And the ability to be invisible. You have a 3rd-level wizard that no one can ever find.

Perhaps, but what I gathered from this discussion is that this fight is already happening. The army starts off knowing where these guys are. If you asked me if a high level wizard could level an unsuspecting civilization of non-magical dudes by sneaking around then I'd say totally. But the prompt was a fight.

Unless everyone is killed in the first round, which I frankly don't think is possible especially with D&D rules the army has it. If the fight starts with an informed army and the high level party in one place then I have to give it to the army. Even with high saves and evasion high level characters still get hit. Today our weapons kill in all sorts of ways. For your standard bomb you need to:


Make a save to avoid sonic damage from the shock of the initial blast.
Make a save against the actual explosion.
Make a save against the shrapnel in the explosion.
Some how avoid drowning in the soot and debris that is present for atleast three rounds after the explosion occurs.
Make a save (fort I guess) to avid having your lungs ripped out as all of the oxygen in the area disappears.
Cast spells with verbal and somatic components through the toxic smog and debris. I have no idea what physically not being able to breathe does to casting but I can't imagine it is helpful.
After all that you have to deal with the fact that onece you managed to leave the initial blast radius you only have more bombs to look forward to.
Also some of your equiptment got sundered.


That is a crazy amount of saves and it is very possible to roll a 1 and auto fail.

You're also assuming we never figure out a way to detect magic. If that goes down then within a short amount of time there would be satellites and drones equipped with magic detection equipment. Not to mention key locations guarded by magical detection equipment. In that scenario it is still likely that the wizard wins before he is caught but Invisibility is not as big of a hang up as you'd imagine.

I'll totally admit that a high level party could potentially take out an army. But I don't think it would be easy. Nor do I think it is given that they would win. It comes down to how much the army knows, where the fight starts, and which spells are cast in the first round.

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 07:54 PM
Still not relevant, unless the wizard is suddenly transported in front of a modern army who've been ordered to kill on sight, with no contingency on (or alternatively, with the contingency not working because it's set to teleport the wizard somewhere that's become unavailable).

If the wizard knows the army's out to get him, he'll use guerilla tactics. I hate to bring up something even remotely political in this thread, but as others have said, modern armies already have trouble locating normal people who hide in caves or among civilians.

Someone who can disappear in less than 6 seconds and reappear anywhere within a 1000 mile radius (heck, just one mile is enough to completely breach security in most places), take on the appearance of (and even turn into) anyone, scry from a distance, and become invisible to the naked eye, is a far bigger threat. The wizard wont show up somewhere to get shot at to begin with, he'll show up among civilians, or inside the general/admiral/president's bedroom (after having scryed to make sure there's no one else present).

The wizard could be just as out of his element as the army is. Sure if he knows he is going into a fight there are all sorts of preparations he could make. But I can't name the number of times I have been thrown in to fights without casting my buffs before hand. If the wizard gets to plan ahead then he has a better shot at winning. The same is true for the army.

To put it another way ask yourself who would win in a fight between a 20th level wizard and Batman. I could argue that Batman would win because he has been obsessively planning for a threat like a 20th level wizard probably for years. Perpetration is a huge part of this discussion. I think it sways which way the encounter would go.

ThunderCat
2010-05-03, 08:01 PM
Perhaps, but what I gathered from this discussion is that this fight is already happening. The army starts off knowing where these guys are. If you asked me if a high level wizard could level an unsuspecting civilization of non-magical dudes by sneaking around then I'd say totally. But the prompt was a fight.

Unless everyone is killed in the first round, which I frankly don't think is possible especially with D&D rules the army has it.But now we're setting up arbitrary rules that would never appear in a real conflict. As long as the wizard even has a first round, he can still teleport away, and the result will be the same. And if we're talking about a modern army and a group of high level adventurers who have, for some reason, decided to meet on an open battlefield and fight to the death, the adventuring party should be given time to prepare, in which case we're talking about energy immunities, polymorphs etc.


You're also assuming we never figure out a way to detect magic. If that goes down then within a short amount of time there would be satellites and drones equipped with magic detection equipment. Not to mention key locations guarded by magical detection equipment.And you're assuming that the army has forever. How come a wizard can't sit in a cave plotting world domination, but an army can wait as long as it takes for scientists to find a way to detect magic? And you're assuming the D&D characters never find a way to disguise magic in return, not to mention inventing anti-technology spells. In my experience, it's considerably easier for a wizard to research a new spell than for us to develop radical new technologies, because magic doesn't have to follow the same rules.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 08:23 PM
Perhaps, but what I gathered from this discussion is that this fight is already happening. The army starts off knowing where these guys are. If you asked me if a high level wizard could level an unsuspecting civilization of non-magical dudes by sneaking around then I'd say totally. But the prompt was a fight.
So in your fights, one person must stand in place naked, while the other guys take turns punching him?


Unless everyone is killed in the first round, which I frankly don't think is possible especially with D&D rules the army has it. If the fight starts with an informed army and the high level party in one place then I have to give it to the army. Even with high saves and evasion high level characters still get hit. Today our weapons kill in all sorts of ways. For your standard bomb you need to:
The wizard does not kill everyone, he just teleports to the generals, chain dominates them, and now has million of extra minions. Like I said before, why is the wizard not allowed to teleport away. And since this is a party, why are the party of wizards (and maybe a cleric) not allowed to cast any movement or generally good spells?



Make a save to avoid sonic damage from the shock of the initial blast.
Make a save against the actual explosion.
Make a save against the shrapnel in the explosion.
Some how avoid drowning in the soot and debris that is present for atleast three rounds after the explosion occurs.
Make a save (fort I guess) to avid having your lungs ripped out as all of the oxygen in the area disappears.
Cast spells with verbal and somatic components through the toxic smog and debris. I have no idea what physically not being able to breathe does to casting but I can't imagine it is helpful.
After all that you have to deal with the fact that onece you managed to leave the initial blast radius you only have more bombs to look forward to.
Also some of your equiptment got sundered.

1-3: Oh look at that, I'm immune to damage. Also you never would have been able to target me.
4-6: Hmm, this place is looking nasty. Good thing I'm an incorporeal creature, or I would have had to teleport out of there.
7: They have wizards that can scry as well? Damn, this will be harder than I thought.
8: Now you're just making **** up.



You're also assuming we never figure out a way to detect magic. If that goes down then within a short amount of time there would be satellites and drones equipped with magic detection equipment. Not to mention key locations guarded by magical detection equipment. In that scenario it is still likely that the wizard wins before he is caught but Invisibility is not as big of a hang up as you'd imagine.

You mean a scientist happens to somehow find a magic item, spends years(at the very least) discovering how it works, and then years producing something that will actually work in the field? Damn, I must only assume this is all under the wizard's guidance, as he'd have already taken over by the time that happens.


I'll totally admit that a high level party could potentially take out an army. But I don't think it would be easy. Nor do I think it is given that they would win. It comes down to how much the army knows, where the fight starts, and which spells are cast in the first round.
What you are missing is that one man (or small group) does not just stand there and take it when an entire planet is out to get him. (although a well-buffed wizard could - see fluffy)

Slayn82
2010-05-03, 08:35 PM
Well, while i would say that high level D&D characthers could probably defeat most modern armies without any doubt at the first moment - case in point: even not understanding very well modern weapons, a high level fighter could probably use a modern gun better than anyone who ever lived, or the majority of ficticious characthers, with that -4 penalty - i must say that some ingenuous tactics that adventurers usually employ would have serious drawbacks. So, i will metaforicaly play the Devil's advocate.

The mighty Wizard PaO into a fly and starts to spy. On the way, he enters a recently detetized room. The organochlorate poison, while negligible to a human being, is very letal to his current insect body, entering throught its respiratory pores, burning worse than napalm, and dealing high CON damage with high DC. A situation like the Trollbane and regeneration while PaO. (As a note, if someone exposed you to the comparative concentration of poison of a Raid can that one insect encounter right after aplication, you would be soaked in poison, and people in the same room would possibly get sick just from the vapors.)

The mighty Wizard uses invisibility, and teleports right behind the most powerful man in the world. He uses Dominate person and get him under his control. Unconspicuously, the secret service watches silently the event, throught hidden cameras and recorders. Faceless security oficers start report to the faceless competent authority, who contact different units, teams of psichologists, medicals, paranormal researchers, and all kind of inteligence specialists. Automatized computer networks silently process all the data input, and control the flux of informations and contact people in a need to know basis.

After a few days of cautious observation of the situation, if the president and the hostile force is considered menacing enought, on the right moment the president is intoxicated with a non lethal agent, allowing him to be taken out of picture while counter measures are put into action. Oficially, the president is anounced to go under a surgery, rest, or other plausible event.

Diferent traps are set into motion, trying to lure the atention of the hostile force, whose methods and objectives are still unknow. Discreetly, the intoxication of the president allows for all kinds of medical check-ups, seeking any unknow influencer, as parasites, chips, or chemical drugs. All clothing, personal and ambients are throughly checked for unknow electronic devices.

Minor faked information is given to him, with the objective of evaluating the degree of awareness or influence of the hostile force over the president, and maybe assess its motivations.

Once some kind of pattern is detected on the enemy actions, diferent kinds of traps, prepared by diferent units and groups with acess to varying degrees of information, are put into action. One person on the 30's int and pseudo-medieval notions cannot manage to compete for too long against a large network search patern for too long if he keeps interacting with the modern civilization. The only way is to play dead.

If the enemy is seeking some kind of item or object, their locations are put throught intense observation, and the smallest chips with audio surveilance and GPS systems are installed inside the lure. Special spy satelites are taken to watch whatever place the "loaded" items are carried. Alternatively, special radar invisible airplanes are sent, with equipmento to recover the audio signal on a range of 20 Km. Better yet, supersonic missiles could be employed against a target near the surface.
Targets buried under heavy rock would be significantly harder to pick up. But it would be still doable up to 50 meters.

Once the first data on the enemy combat capabilities is obtained, every act will carefully be studied by hundreds of specialists. Invisibility on D&D is a great spell, but most of its advantages can be countered by thermal vision, thanks to the retcon on Darkvision. Also, the area can be sprayed with chemicals to good effect.

On the topic of chemicals, if the party has neutralize poison and delay poison always up, they are good, otherwise there would be so many toxins that a really pissed and determined person could use over them that it would not even be funny. That, discounting the fact that massive overdosis could be employed. Lets take Arsenic, a weak D&D poison, with a humble DC 13 save and 1/1D8 Con damage. Now, lets compare it against Hidrogen Cianide, who by chemical warfare potential is a "mild" poison. I'll quote Wikipedia on this one.

Hydrogen Cyanide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cyanide)


A hydrogen cyanide concentration of 300 mg/m3 in air will kill a human within about 10 minutes. It is estimated that hydrogen cyanide at a concentration of 3500 ppm (about 3200 mg/m3) will kill a human in about 1 minute. The toxicity is caused by the cyanide ion, which halts cellular respiration by inhibiting an enzyme in mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase.

Under the name prussic acid, HCN has been used as a killing agent in whaling harpoons.

Whales have fortitude saves of +14, acording with srd. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/whale.htm)

Now, what is important to say is that hydrogen cyanide is a mild poison, in the sense that there are know substances way more hazardous than it to living beings. Tetrodotoxin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin), from the Fugu fish, comes to mind, but it still not the worst. Far from it.

On the non poison field, we have the fact that spellcasting requires concentration. Massed fire and explosives can reach extremely high and painful volume of sound easily. Continuous fire too would be a hazard to spell casting, while easily removing defensive buffs like protection from arrows. Wall of wind would probably inflict a -4 on bullet attack rolls. Unfortunately, on tactical combate range modern tactics are far superior to anything on D&D. Aimed sniper headshots on unsuspecting targets would not be unlike true strike or hunter's mercy spells on rolls.

Also, D20 Future has stats to a good 1 Megaton nuclear missile, who does a solid (16d8 )x10 points of energy damage, threat 19-20/x2. Thats a solid 720 damage on the poor smug guys, at Mach 25.4, if they reach that high level of threat. DC to reflex only for people more than 3 miles from the impact point.

Chew on that for now, Wizard.

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 08:39 PM
So in your fights, one person must stand in place naked, while the other guys take turns punching him?

What you are missing is that one man (or small group) does not just stand there and take it when an entire planet is out to get him. (although a well-buffed wizard could - see fluffy)

Well that's sort of how D&D works. Until you come up in the initiative you stand there and take it. If the wizard or party or what have you has adequate prep-time then they can cast hundreds of spells and be ready for everything. If they don't... well. The circumstances of the encounter and how much both sides of the fight know going in makes a huge difference.

Yes 20th level characters are horrifying god beasts. But if they are not prepared then they could lose. If the army doesn't know what magic is will they bomb these people right away? No. By the same token if the wizard has no idea he is being targeted by a bomb, sniper, or any other war machine then he has no clue he should teleport.

It comes down to the central questions in any D&D fight: What do you know about your opponent? What buffs do you have? How much damage can you put out? How much can you resist? Who wins initiative? What do you do with your actions?

lvl 1 sharnian
2010-05-03, 08:47 PM
I think the core issue is the assumption that the wizard knows all about Earth. Teleport's not much use when the most accurate distance is that tree over there. A wizard's never seen guns, artillery, or planes (ok maybe Eberron). Language barrier is quite significant as Common is not necessarily English/other languages. Radar will detect a wizard as long as he's not ethereal; there is no ethereal plane on Earth.

Slayn82
2010-05-03, 08:56 PM
Discovering things about earth would not be that much dificult. Idioms spell would allow him to speak fluently, and prying eyes spells and mass invisible servants would allow for a lot of quick reading. Then there is Dominate Person, that allows for telepathic contact with the subject, for a few usefull selected advisors. Priest divinations would be somewhat limited, since that relies on informations obtained from worshipers to work. Well, maybe rpg players count for that. Contact other Planes would work very well, probably.

Now, the gold for a wizard is necromancy. Steal the corpses of ex presidents of countries, companies, banks, military oficers and scientists, reanimate them as inteligent undead and obtain acess to critical, althought possibly outdated inteligence data.

cattoy
2010-05-03, 08:59 PM
Dungeons and Dragons is a bad physics model.

Thus, comparing D&D characters to real things is going to yield bad results.

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 09:15 PM
Discovering things about earth would not be that much dificult. Idioms spell would allow him to speak fluently, and prying eyes spells and mass invisible servants would allow for a lot of quick reading. Then there is Dominate Person, that allows for telepathic contact with the subject, for a few usefull selected advisors. Priest divinations would be somewhat limited, since that relies on informations obtained from worshipers to work. Well, maybe rpg players count for that. Contact other Planes would work very well, probably.

Now, the gold for a wizard is necromancy. Steal the corpses of ex presidents of countries, companies, banks, military oficers and scientists, reanimate them as inteligent undead and obtain acess to critical, althought possibly outdated inteligence data.

True but all of that doesn't happen within a matter of rounds. It takes a while.

If you do have a smart wizard who carefully plots out his... attack? I'm not clear on what the goal is when the wizard isn't fighting an army but instead showing up to anther dimension and hiding. He could win the fight before it even starts. I think my position is that a blunt approach wouldn't be successful and that knowledge and preparation would be key.

The other consideration is how much of that crap works here. Looking at the Planar Handbook a great deal of spells work only because of how the material plane in D&D interacts with the other planes. I'll give you that the nature of the experiment calls for a wizard to be able to cast here. But I'd say he might not be able to become half ethereal for instance because there is no ethereal plane interacting with our plane. Some spells wouldn't work because the dimensional makeup of our world isn't the same as the world the wizard is from.

Hell AC is a whole crazy bucket of "what the hell do we make of this" because the nature of modern projectiles totally negates the way AC works In D&D.

I don't want to say that a 20th level wizard wouldn't win I'm saying he could lose. And the fact that many people who have played 20th level wizards don't think they could lose makes that possibility all the more realistic.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 09:27 PM
I think the core issue is the assumption that the wizard knows all about Earth. Teleport's not much use when the most accurate distance is that tree over there.

In any situation other than "Wizard is Planeshifted in front of an entire army that's waiting to kill him with no buffs and no prep", he'll have at least some time to explore, even if that's just to set up a safe house or two.



A wizard's never seen guns, artillery, or planes (ok maybe Eberron).

30+ Int goes a long way towards deducing "It's big, made of metal, and coming my way, it's probably not friendly".



Language barrier is quite significant as Common is not necessarily English/other languages.

Tongues. Problem solved.



Radar will detect a wizard as long as he's not ethereal; there is no ethereal plane on Earth.

Says who? We can't travel to the Ethereal Plane, doesn't mean it isn't there. In fact, if you're treating our universe as an alternate Prime Material, there's still an Ethereal and an Astral.

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 09:31 PM
In any situation other than "Wizard is Planeshifted in front of an entire army that's waiting to kill him with no buffs and no prep", he'll have at least some time to explore, even if that's just to set up a safe house or two.


Actually I'd say he'd be blown up in the surprise round.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 09:40 PM
Well that's sort of how D&D works. Until you come up in the initiative you stand there and take it. If the wizard or party or what have you has adequate prep-time then they can cast hundreds of spells and be ready for everything. If they don't... well. The circumstances of the encounter and how much both sides of the fight know going in makes a huge difference.
That may be the case for puny mortals, but not for one who can shape the fabric of reality with his mind.


Yes 20th level characters are horrifying god beasts. But if they are not prepared then they could lose. If the army doesn't know what magic is will they bomb these people right away? No. By the same token if the wizard has no idea he is being targeted by a bomb, sniper, or any other war machine then he has no clue he should teleport.
It's called foresight, and being shapechanged into a dire turtle. Always knows what is coming, is never surprised, and always gets a surprise round. 9th level spells are big red buttons of "I WIN".



It comes down to the central questions in any D&D fight: What do you know about your opponent? What buffs do you have? How much damage can you put out? How much can you resist? Who wins initiative? What do you do with your actions?
I have scryed, divined, and contacted other planes to discover my opponent's plans. I have a set of buff that are appropriate to what I will be facing for the day, and on earth that means foresight, incorporeality, shapechanged dire turtle, superior invisibility, a truckload of contingencies (mostly teleportations, with a timestop thrown in there), and possibly others. I can do potential infinite damage if I wish, but most of the time, just so arbitrarily high that it won't matter. I am immune to all forms of damage that you can throw at me, and am unaffected by the environment and poisons. I always win initiative, and when I do I decide on the most prudent course of action for the situation. Timestop is a big one though.


Actually I'd say he'd be blown up in the surprise round.

Actually I'd say the wizard would win the surprise round (foresight + turtle), cast timestop, and proceed to rule the world.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 09:43 PM
Actually I'd say he'd be blown up in the surprise round.

Yesss....that's kinda what I said. In 'wizard gets dumped in front of army', he gets splatted. In any other circumstance that is not something so contrived, he'll be able to explore, or at least get away to explore. Moment of Prescience, Nerveskitter, Celerity, there's so many ways for a wizard to ensure he wins initiative that the entire army could roll natural 20's and he'd still go before all of them.

lsfreak
2010-05-03, 09:57 PM
Yesss....that's kinda what I said. In 'wizard gets dumped in front of army', he gets splatted.

I argue against that too. If both sides know what's about to happen, AND the army has the advantage of knowing exactly when and where he'll pop up, he's probably splattered. Without that advantage, unless he pops up in an open field within a few hundred meters of an infantry line, it's going to take precious seconds figuring out where he is to aim infantry rifles, to say nothing of the time it would take to aim a tank cannon, chin guns on a helicopter, or anything else. At which point, provided he's at least level 7, he escapes.

TheMadLinguist
2010-05-03, 09:59 PM
-Communicate and have conversations with animals other than primates and certain parrots.

BRB, talking to my friend's pet crow.

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 10:02 PM
Yesss....that's kinda what I said. In 'wizard gets dumped in front of army', he gets splatted. In any other circumstance that is not something so contrived, he'll be able to explore, or at least get away to explore. Moment of Prescience, Nerveskitter, Celerity, there's so many ways for a wizard to ensure he wins initiative that the entire army could roll natural 20's and he'd still go before all of them.

Sorry I misread what you said. I totally agree with your assessment. What I think needed to be a pert of the discussion is that the 20th level wizard, caster, whatever does not win by virtue of being 20th level. It matters what he does because an army of thousands with all of our ridiculous tech could kill him if he does not win in the first round. Most of the people who posted seemed to think that a victory for this wizard would be inevitable rather than simply very likely.

Another idea to consider: how might Aid Another effect the situation?

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 10:05 PM
Sorry I misread what you said. I totally agree with your assessment. What I think needed to be a pert of the discussion is that the 20th level wizard, caster, whatever does not win by virtue of being 20th level. It matters what he does because an army of thousands with all of our ridiculous tech could kill him if he does not win in the first round. Most of the people who posted seemed to think that a victory for this wizard would be inevitable rather than simply very likely.

Another idea to consider: how might Aid Another effect the situation?

Another idea to consider: read other posts. Namely mine. Even if the wizard is dumped in front of an army, he's not going to die.

The Anarresti
2010-05-03, 10:27 PM
One thing that I've noticed is that people are assuming that if you dominate one member of a chain of command you automatically dominate all those beneath him/her. The thing is, we are forgetting cultural differences between standard D&D world and RL. In D&D land (read: medieval europe) a soldier's loyalty was to the leader. He was raised from birth to be loyal to the king (duke, earl, tzar, etc.) He would be lacking in education, and would be taught to not think for himself, as the king/church/ancient writers already do all thinking.
Compare that with a modern day (read: contemporary America) officer. He would have at least one level each of expert and fighter: expert for being educated through collage, fighter for, well, fighting. He would be literate, trained in physics, mathematics (including calculus), history (including military history & tactics), along with many other subjects D&D scholars have never heard of. He would have been raised in a society that favors independence, in a military that cultivates individual excellence. His loyalty would be to the idea of his nation, not blind obedience to the leader.
For example, Caesar was able to order his men to march on Rome. Do you honestly think that a general could order his men to march on Washington (London, Paris, Reykjavik)?
Communications. These are probably more important to war than anything else. Yes yes, sending, telepathic bond and whatnot. But sending is only 25 words and takes 10 minutes to cast. A two-way radio is mass produced (literally everyone has one) and is usable 24 hours a day (with batteries being swapped out every week or so). Telepathinc bond is usable only on a handful of people at once, and it lasts for 3h 30min tops (20th level) all at once.
And people are bringing up time stop a whole lot, but it's actually pretty useless. It lasts 12s-30seconds in real time: that's just enough for a normal person to blink and allow the horror being faced with 1,000 people with (from the wizard's point of view) impenetrable armor and wands of death.
Last point: If the wizard does plane shift away, that's not winning. That's running away. If he gets xp for evading the encounter, does the RL army get xp for evading the encounter too?

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 10:28 PM
Another idea to consider: read other posts. Namely mine. Even if the wizard is dumped in front of an army, he's not going to die.

Not exactly. Some of the protective abilities are not actually as detrimental as you have made them out to be. Invisibility for example does not remove the potential to be seen with a spot check, it simply imposes a penalty (I think -20). With aid another an invisible wizard could be located within the first 20-50 actions of the army which is of thousands. If the wizard within the first round fails to become A. completely invincible or B. win completely. There is a chance he will lose. If he does not act carefully he could lose. In fact I'd say most of the posters on this board would lose if they were playing the wizard because they are assuming invincibility as a given.

Tavar
2010-05-03, 10:35 PM
The dominate is less "Now order your men to obey me" and more "Now tell me your plans, strengths, and weaknesses.".

lsfreak
2010-05-03, 10:38 PM
He would have been raised in a society that favors independence, in a military that cultivates individual excellence. His loyalty would be to the idea of his nation, not blind obedience to the leader.
For example, Caesar was able to order his men to march on Rome. Do you honestly think that a general could order his men to march on Washington (London, Paris, Reykjavik)?
While such grandiose things probably won't happen, history has proven time and time again that people are willing to do, small-scale, what their commanding officer tells them too. Some of the most distasteful things in the major conflicts of the last century are evidence of this. Time has also proven that small-scale acts, when not that distasteful, can lead to larger-scale acts, until people are unwittingly committing major war crimes. There is also the issue of truly powerful/charismatic people that ARE able to get away with such things, as has happened multiple times in the last 50 years in East and Southeast Asia.


Last point: If the wizard does plane shift away, that's not winning. That's running away. If he gets xp for evading the encounter, does the RL army get xp for evading the encounter too?
Nope. But the wizard does get XP for working his way to the point of being able to defeat the army, thanks to manipulations.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-03, 10:40 PM
Not exactly. Some of the protective abilities are not actually as detrimental as you have made them out to be. Invisibility for example does not remove the potential to be seen with a spot check, it simply imposes a penalty (I think -20). With aid another an invisible wizard could be located within the first 20-50 actions of the army which is of thousands. If the wizard within the first round fails to become A. completely invincible or B. win completely. There is a chance he will lose. If he does not act carefully he could lose. In fact I'd say most of the posters on this board would lose if they were playing the wizard because they are assuming invincibility as a given.
:smallconfused: Superior Invisibility was just down there for extra fun, my real buffs are shapechange, and incorporeality. How does the army get around those two? And any competent player would immediately choose to teleport out. What would you do?



And people are bringing up time stop a whole lot, but it's actually pretty useless. It lasts 12s-30seconds in real time: that's just enough for a normal person to blink and allow the horror being faced with 1,000 people with (from the wizard's point of view) impenetrable armor and wands of death.
:smallconfused: It's enough to teleport away, which is the best strategy when faced with such unreasonable conditions. And "impenetrable armor and wands of death"? really? Wizard has better armor, and does more damage with a second level spell.



Last point: If the wizard does plane shift away, that's not winning. That's running away. If he gets xp for evading the encounter, does the RL army get xp for evading the encounter too?
You're right, he hasn't won, he's just delaying the encounter till he is on more favorable grounds. Doesn't mean he has lost, he's just winning later.

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 10:49 PM
Last point: If the wizard does plane shift away, that's not winning. That's running away. If he gets xp for evading the encounter, does the RL army get xp for evading the encounter too?

That is up to the DM. I'd say yes on both parts. Which is hilarious.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-03, 10:51 PM
That is up to the DM. I'd say yes on both parts. Which is hilarious.

Of course, the Wizard is getting all of the XP himself, while the enemy 'party' has to split the XP for the wizard among "thousands" of soldiers....so it's more likely the Wizard will crack level 21 sooner, at which point we can all pack up and go home, because he has Epic Magic and wins reality.

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 11:12 PM
Of course, the Wizard is getting all of the XP himself, while the enemy 'party' has to split the XP for the wizard among "thousands" of soldiers....so it's more likely the Wizard will crack level 21 sooner, at which point we can all pack up and go home, because he has Epic Magic and wins reality.

... sure if you give full experience for running away. By that logic Rincewind should be an epic level wizard by now.

Math_Mage
2010-05-03, 11:18 PM
Not exactly. Some of the protective abilities are not actually as detrimental as you have made them out to be. Invisibility for example does not remove the potential to be seen with a spot check, it simply imposes a penalty (I think -20). With aid another an invisible wizard could be located within the first 20-50 actions of the army which is of thousands. If the wizard within the first round fails to become A. completely invincible or B. win completely. There is a chance he will lose. If he does not act carefully he could lose. In fact I'd say most of the posters on this board would lose if they were playing the wizard because they are assuming invincibility as a given.

1. How did the soldiers know to look for someone invisible during the 6 seconds before the wizard gets the **** out of dodge?
2. How did the soldiers know to use Aid Another to help someone Spot?
3. The RAW states that whether or not other parties can aid skill checks, and how many can aid, is up to DM discretion. I don't doubt that more people can cover more ground more effectively, but it's not like two people looking for the same invisible person gives one of them Supernatural Eyes of See Invisibility. This is just my opinion, but I think a DM trying to simulate reality on this score would rule that there are limits to what Aid Another can do on Spot checks.
4. Even if we allow unlimited bonuses to one soldier's Spot through their collective Aid Another actions, the soldiers don't know when the wizard's initiative is. Deciding how many of them need to Aid Another, when most of them will lose initiative under ordinary circumstances, and some of them will fail their Aid Another checks, before someone finally makes their Spot check, is a matter of guesswork. Seeing how many remaining soldiers will hit a target with 50% concealment before the wizard finally gets his turn, assuming essentially the worst possible conditions for the wizard (no chance to prepare, no surprise round, nothing) is yet more chancy.

Rowan Intheback
2010-05-03, 11:36 PM
1. How did the soldiers know to look for someone invisible during the 6 seconds before the wizard gets the **** out of dodge?
2. How did the soldiers know to use Aid Another to help someone Spot?
3. The RAW states that whether or not other parties can aid skill checks, and how many can aid, is up to DM discretion. I don't doubt that more people can cover more ground more effectively, but it's not like two people looking for the same invisible person gives one of them Supernatural Eyes of See Invisibility. This is just my opinion, but I think a DM trying to simulate reality on this score would rule that there are limits to what Aid Another can do on Spot checks.
4. Even if we allow unlimited bonuses to one soldier's Spot through their collective Aid Another actions, the soldiers don't know when the wizard's initiative is. Deciding how many of them need to Aid Another, when most of them will lose initiative under ordinary circumstances, and some of them will fail their Aid Another checks, before someone finally makes their Spot check, is a matter of guesswork. Seeing how many remaining soldiers will hit a target with 50% concealment before the wizard finally gets his turn, assuming essentially the worst possible conditions for the wizard (no chance to prepare, no surprise round, nothing) is yet more chancy.

Well yeah a lot of this comes down to DM calls and starting conditions.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-04, 12:06 AM
... sure if you give full experience for running away. By that logic Rincewind should be an epic level wizard by now.

He probably is...for that matter, it's almost Discworld canon that he's the carrier of an Epic spell. It's just that said spell is so Epic that it takes up all his normal spell slots in addition to his epic spell slots, and the backlash damage from actually casting it would do Bad Things.:smallcool:

Kantolin
2010-05-04, 01:40 AM
This is an extremely amusing topic. ^_^

I'm for the wizard again, though, due in this case to misinformation. One potential problem the army would have, which came up in a recent campaign of mine, is the difference between (say) Invisibility and Dimension Door.

And in our campaign, fly wasn't involved so we had a bit more luck to be had here. But well... your reaction to someone who is invisible and someone who has just jumped even 'barely out of sight over that ridge' is completely different (Or well, it should be). If a wizard blinked into an army who was even decently prepared and vanished, that could mean he's still standing there, or that he's burrowing, or that he turned to air or some sort of gaseous creature, or he's used alter self and turned into something, or he's on a different plane, or he's ~60 feet away, or he's ~1000 feet away, or he's ~infinite feet away on mars or something. Or heck, he's used mislead, or is a clone, or simulacrum, or something.

Now, a lot of these problems can be dealt with (A nuke, for example, solves quite a few of the problems listed), you can't deal with all of them, and it's far less reasonable to assume that the wizard has /nothing/ like that.

An average nonwizard, however, is less likely to be able to deal with things so absolutely (I'm focusing more on medium-level units over 9th level spellcasting). A cleric with appropriate domains can pull wizard tricks, while on their own their most likely chance is to use meld with stone as a means of escape, unless they're high enough level to use Plane Shift (And a cleric isn't as guaranteed to have that). Clerics aren't as good, generally speaking, of getting out of pickles as wizards.

Druids also may not be as instantaneously out of a given situation sans melding with plants or the like. But once they get out, finding a druid would be an absolute nightmare - you'd have to kill every bird, mole, and tree that's anywhere. And if actually worried, all druids can summon things that aren't directly near them, plus he can cause lightning to strike (this gives you a probable ballpark for strafing runs across the countryside, but doesn't really get you a good statement for 'he's here').

The focus nonmagical units would need is defenses, honestly. There are a few good ways to have very high ACs in various categories if necessary. If magical items aren't included, then all they really have is their hit points, which probably aren't sufficient - I personally would state that a barbarian is able to take out most of an army, but he'd eventually go down to sheer numbers eventually.

Offensively for nonmagical types, you need to be able to hit an absolute metric ton of units at once. This is one of the fewish cases where things like the arcane archer's ability become valuable, but a sufficiently optimized fighter-type using something like Knight Protector's Supreme Cleave can probably do a decent job of it. Sadly, though, an unoptimized fighter is unlikely to have much of a solution to sheer numbers, although I do think a fighter taking on an army and taking out a good half of them before going down would be pretty dang cool. ^_^

I do think a point would be given to hide, though. Granted, you can scan for it if magic items aren't permitted, but a good hiding rogue would be insanely rough to track. ^_^

Oh well. Interesting debate, though. ^_^

Ossian
2010-05-04, 05:10 AM
I have kinda lost the thread, in a day something like 5 pages, hard to keep the pace I guess.

I am interested though in a "summary" of the key points as to why the whole "1 high level wizard Vs the world's modern armies" is not even open for discussion.

From start, it was never clear what the wizard wants (domination over the world? Take out an outpost?). Hard to counter, really. Of course a Wiz can take out any outpost if he so chooses, but things do get more complicate after that, and the more the Wiz steps on the "Allied Forces" the more they become complicated.

Assuming we do not go into "Oh my god, supernatural creatures, let us all go to a church and pray", and deal with the Wizard and whatever he summons as "enemies", save for a complete planar shift and hit and run "death from above" incursions on the plane where the army is, eventually the Wizard will be forced on the defensive. he does not have unlimited resources, and pressed to his limits, I reckon he will either be able to divine an attack (with attackers more and more conscious of what they are up against).

He can divine attacks as they are incoming, but they will come WAY too far, and combined with tactical incursions (after all the damn fantasy adventurers take on wizards, with swords you know, I don't see why the best of the best of the SEALs can't try as much). Homing beacon in the robes and there you go, teleport as much as you want, eventually you'll run out of divination/escape spells and the net will close on you. Nuke. Game Over.

Then again, from a purely gaming perspective I believe this is a good opportunity for me to learn where does the omnipotence of Wizards lie. Can it be summarized by someone who has followed the debate and know well the rules (which, admittedly, I do not :( ).

Cheers

Ossian

PId6
2010-05-04, 05:43 AM
I am interested though in a "summary" of the key points as to why the whole "1 high level wizard Vs the world's modern armies" is not even open for discussion.
Advantages wizard has going for him:


Cannot be found - Teleport, Invisibility, and Disguise Self means that modern forces can never find him unless he wants to be found. How do you find a guy who can look like anyone and be anywhere?
Infinite time - Due to extradimensional spaces like Rope Trick and Magnificent Mansion, a wizard can just sit around completely safe and free from harm, preparing spells, waiting for the right moment to strike, what have you.
Omniscient - Okay, maybe not quite, but between Scrying, summoned scouts, and Contact Other Plane, he can know all see all against a world with no protection from divinations.
Friends in all places - Charm and Dominate Person means that he won't have any trouble making friends. He's always just one Teleport + Dominate Person away from ruling over the latest general/politician coming after him.
Offensive bargaining chip - Even a mid-level wizard can do some scary things in a world without magic. Enervation and Create Undead can easily start an undead apocalypse anywhere in the world, while careful applications of Cloudkill or summoned monsters won't leave many survivors. Now why do world governments want to piss him off again?

There's really no contention here. No magic? Then you're screwed, the end.

FatR
2010-05-04, 06:18 AM
I think an important element that has been missing from this conversation is initiative and crits. Sure high AC and such counts for a lot but you're talking thousands of people talking thousands of shots here that is alot of potential for critical hits.
This situation will never happen (assuming high-level characters actually want to win), because high-level characters have superior mobility and detection range and thus can choose the terms of engagement, therefore it is pointless to discuss it.


So if you are playing with 20's is an instant kill
Anyone actually uses this stupid houserule?


Even with out that you have to imagine these people are getting hit a lot.
They have AC Waytoohigh and miss chances. (If they don't bother normally, such things are trivial to get in a few days when you're level 15+). They aren't.


We don't know much about invisibility. Id say greater invisibility is pretty comprehensive but we have devised an incredible range of ways to see things.
This doesn't matter, because invisibility does not change optical properties of the caster, it mindscrews observers into not seeing him. Only fully automated cameras will work.


As far as Nukes go... I'd say even with evasion you have a hard time justifying getting away from one.
Why?


I'd say the heat from a nuke would act like hellfire from Tyrants of the Nine and bypass resistance. Also the fort save for radioactivity especially at ground zero of a blast site would be truly absurd.
Why it should be more than say, 30, which is a guaranteed kill against any non-super human without magical buffs, but can be pretty trivial for high-level characters?

FatR
2010-05-04, 06:34 AM
He can divine attacks as they are incoming, but they will come WAY too far, and combined with tactical incursions (after all the damn fantasy adventurers take on wizards, with swords you know, I don't see why the best of the best of the SEALs can't try as much).
Because they aren't demigods who can be chewed on by Gargantuan dragons and don't even care. They can try of course, they just can't succeed. Not that coming at a high-level DnD wizard with sword will accomplish much even if you are such demigod.

As about your main point, a caster who intends to conquer the world will obtain allies real fast. Even without mindscrew. There is enough people who'll see an opportunity in allying themselves with a god-like being. As said caster is presumably hyper-intelligent he'll probably won't start with blowing **** up, but with gathering information and backup. With his abilities, things like forming a new world religion around himself or provoking a global nuclear war to appear as a savior of humanity on the ruins, if he thinks that direct conquest is suboptimal, are trivially easy. But if his goal is world destruction that greatly simplifies things. Total genocide of humanity is pretty hard to do without things that aren't really allowed in DnD worlds too, like spawn-creating undead (they aren't really allowed because the ability to create spawn is never really used by them, except when meeting adventurers), but demolishing the infrastucture of civilisation and sending the world to a new dark age is pretty easy.


Homing beacon in the robes and there you go, teleport as much as you want, eventually you'll run out of divination/escape spells and the net will close on you. Nuke. Game Over.
Nukes don't reach into extradimensional spaces and Contingencied Resilient Sphere stops them pretty easily.

cenghiz
2010-05-04, 06:46 AM
Gah... shall we start over? Let's make a scenario. I'll make only a wizard for ease of use. My wizard's named Amos.

Amos: "Damn you, Hekkrarinth! Even if you use the artifact to kill me, my allies will resurrect me and next time will be your last time!"

Hekkrarinth lets out a chortle. "Who spoke about killing you, wizard. I'd say 'See you..', but that will be impossible.". He carefully presses two buttons, extends a pole from the strange artifact and aims it towards Amos.

A flash of light, then everything changes. Amos blinks, standing on a very finely made road. Continuous flame enlightens the road, craftfully set atop identical metal poles. Buildings of exceptional quality tower piercing the sky at both sides. It is dusk, darkness slowly gnawing away the light into the night.

"Fabricate, stoneshape, continuous flame... Oh... I've got forced into another place only? Fairly advanced, too.. My will was powerful enough to overcome the magic of the artifact? Why's there that much glass? It must be a peaceful capital."

He quickly produces a scroll from his bag of holding and starts reading it. "My mansion, it is... The folks here may be accomplices of Hekkrarinth. I'd rather get away."

A voice echoes inside his mind. "The location you have specified cannot be reached at the moment. Please try again later."

"My mansion has been destroyed? Impossible! Dimensional anchor? Nope I can't see it." he thinks as his enchanted sight scans his surroundings. He suddenly realizes it's a bit too dull. "Where's the color? Where's the magic?". He focuses his gaze carefully on the continuous flame poles, careful not to look directly. "No magic? What? What is this, then? Maybe an..."

Even though Amos is barely aware of the fact because he's so used to it, he was just fighting before he got transported to modern life and his whole body crackles with his immense magical buffs. There doesn't seem to be a trail of magic around, except the effects - both visible and invisible to the naked eye - of his own magic and his equipment.

His thoughts gets distrupted by a shrill cry of fear from behind. "There we go!" he says. He turns around half-finishing a scorching ray's incantation, just to see an elderly woman with very strange clothing, accompanied by a strange, ratlike creature on a collar. - "Is it seamless? Or such perfect seaming? Fabricate again? Or a masterwork tailor? I need to get the tailor's name. Why's it that tight? How can they work with such tight clothing? She's a whore and tries to express her curves? Gah.. She's one ugly whore indeed. And what's with the beast? Is it a puppy? A cat? A rat? Animated hair?"

"Gubid hue seaa! Seaa! Sungilid!" the woman says. Not an incantation, she's not agreessive for now. Feeling the need to gather information Amos produces an eternal wand of tongues and carefully touches it at his forehead, performing the spell completion. Another cry of dread fills the evening skies. The hairball barks trying to break away from its collar to run away. "Gu.. witch!" the woman exclaims.

Amos looks around. "Where?".. No.. Gah.. commoners often mix up the phrases about magic. "No ma'am. I am a wizard. Forgive me if I..".. a strange voice echoes from an alley and in moments a gnomish invention appears. Amos rolls his eyes. "What's this now? A metal animated cart that accepts mental commands? Those gnomes are.. Wait a moment! Why is it so dull? Where is the magic?"

Trembling, a blue uniformed commoner steps out of the strange invention and fumbles with his belt, extracting a metal contraption. As he starts to aim it at Amos -roll initiative!- he leans forward a bit, quickly uttering his syllables of magic his hands moving frantically. "Nice.. That is the last one! I don't know what he holds but I will find out on my own terms."

The world slows down to weak ticks as Amos feels the rush of magick ordering time to shut up. He quickly fades from view. "Not magical? Is it a crossbow or something?" As the blue-clad commoner could barely move another milimeter, air thickens around Amos. "No bows will harm me today." He quickly rushes diagonally to right, then suddenly the asphalt cracks open and dirt flows into being from beneath, forming a huge earthen figure. The figure, of course, finds his own route in the abused time flow and stands frozen.

Amos feels a rush in his ears as the time starts ticking again. The commoner raises his crossbow and opens his mouth, just to look around dumbfounded. Then he sees the huge elemental and aims at them. Just as two loud blasts and a flame at the tip of the contraption in the commoner's hand can be observed, the elemental stirs barely as one of his shoulders gets chipped a bit and something else hits the dense air sphere around the wizard. The elemental, not yet commanded, acts by instict and buries himself to the ground in moments. Amos knows it will attack the commoner in moments but he lived so long by being on the safe side. He forces his will quickly towards the commoners, they simply fall into a deep slumber. "Overkill? I didn't know they were so weak."

"Do not attack." he commands to the elemental mentally. "Just grab the blue-clad commoner and his crossbow. We're leaving."

He hears the strange siren sounds again, from afar. "More gnome carts?" He watches the elemental fetch the commoner after he calls upon his power again. He quickly grabs the crossbow - "... not a crossbow? What is this? Later I'll have to examine." - from the elemental and grasps at the rope rolled down out of nowhere, suspended in the air. He climbs up in haste and helps the elemental load the unconscious commoner too, then he whisks a hand and the elemental disappears, dismissed. He quickly pulls the rope.

"Let's see...", he thinks. "We'll find out what my friend here has to say about the place I'm in. Mechanus? Maybe.. A part of mechanus I've never visited perhaps.

......

"This is the fourth Texas Hold'em tournament you won this year, Alex. You would like to say something to fans?"

"The trick is to read the opponent's mind. Luck is important, too, but reading is everything.".. Amos wraps his arm around Brianna's waist. After six months, he's getting used to the muscular, blonde stature of his new shape.

"Cute girl.." he thinks. "I hope she doesn't need to disappear, too. When they whine, they give me a headache. I'm sure this one is conditioned well and won't hinder my studies. This time I'll get back to my own world."

Why would the army fall after a chase with Amos again? Where did I do wrong?

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-04, 06:47 AM
... sure if you give full experience for running away. By that logic Rincewind should be an epic level wizard by now.

... He was just responding to a post where you said you would give the wizard XP.

jindra34
2010-05-04, 06:48 AM
This doesn't matter, because invisibility does not change optical properties of the caster, it mindscrews observers into not seeing him. Only fully automated cameras will work.


Actually Invisibility is of the Illusion school, not the Enchantment school so it does likely change the optical properties. The psionic power Cloud Mind does what you described and it also allows a will save.