D&D Society vs. Modern Military

[Amiel]

Suppose a modern army (referring to our present level of military technology; mobilisation force for conquest, et al) somehow found the means to cross over into a D&D fantasy world; D&D within this context can represent anything from third edition, and its descendant, to Pathfinder.

The nation or nations this army represents is interested in securing any adjacent geopolitical regions for resources and expanding its territories.
The opposing force is having none of that. They will use deadly force to defend their world.

Which of these forces will win in such a conflict.


The conflict can also be turned on its head; suppose a fantasy army wishes to invade our earth.


Both forces can have any number of "units" within reason and of a reasonable level; no infinite values.
Example units for the fantasy may include griffons, adult dragons, pegasi et al.
Example units for the modern army may include tanks, supersonic jets et al.

[Elfin]

That depends mainly on one thing.

Are sarrukhs banned?

[dgnslyr]

Now, now, we needn't get so cheesy so quickly.

Hmm, but how would modern arms respond to a metal man who can run faster than light! (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861942/Chuck_E._Cheese)

[tyckspoon]

D&D as it tends to be written in its books and settings, or D&D as it would be if actual intelligent people got ahold of its magic? They're very different things; one would be overwhelmed by the technology of modern warfare, especially a highly advanced and funded operation like the US military. The other one is.. pretty much impregnable, and visits the leaders of the invading army with offers they can't refuse as soon as they invaders step foot on their world. The invading army is soon ordered to stand down and generously offers to donate all their fancy toys to the research projects of some particularly mechanical-minded wizards.

[Godskook]

D&D has people that are superior to Professor X and Magneto. D&D wins and loses based solely on its own merit. Our modern military simply wouldn't be able to withstand scry&die tactics.

[olthar]

The question is worded in a vague enough manner that nobody could really argue with either answer. If someone comes to the question imagining an army of epic level characters against some modern army then I would imagine they see this as an obviously easy answer. On the same token, if someone comes to this question imagining an army like what azure city fielded (mostly lv 1 - 5 npcs with a few pc classes in positions of authority) and then compares that to the hundreds or thousands of nukes that the US or Russia could launch, then I imagine they see this as an obviously easy answer as well. Essentially there are hundreds of possibilities that could lead either side to winning and very few that could actually lead to a fair fight.

In fact, I've tried three times now to create a scenario that makes the fight "fair" and each time I failed. Overall, I guess I have 2 more comments: 1: While not D&D magic, J.K. Rowling (and anyone with half a brain) has stated that the modern would would have easily destroyed the wizarding one in a battle, and 2: divine intervention in the forms of the miracle or wish spells unbalance D&D and would obviously unbalance this question. The problem you get is that once you start limiting magic then those who come to the question thinking "well i wish there was a giant sphere of annihilation in the middle of their army" (or something similar) will legitimately say it isn't a fair comparison. Essentially returning to my original point of there isn't any fair comparison.

[Tvtyrant]

It doesn't matter who would win; you just punched a hole between the dimensions. If the gods aren't pissed, which is doubtful, then the Fiends of the planes are going to be very interested in how to move into new worlds. An army with jet fighters is strong, a literally infinite army of fiends that don't get tired is stronger.

[Yukitsu]

Unless radiation crosses over planar boundaries, we'd be in a pretty bad pickle.

[Eldan]

That's another good question, actually:

Does "D&D world" mean only the prime material world, or the Outer Planes as well? If it's the second our world is screwed beyond measure. I'd actually give a single Mediator, Solar or Pit Fiend a good chance against our entire world, if necessary.

If it's only the prime, then, as has been said, it depends entirely on the level of magical abuse allowed in the setup. If they can just scry, teleport and mindrape every president of the world, we'll have "All Hail Wizardius Epicus" by day three.

[Combat Reflexes]

If it's only the prime, then, as has been said, it depends entirely on the level of magical abuse allowed in the setup. If they can just scry, teleport and mindrape every president of the world, we'll have "All Hail Wizardius Epicus" by day three.

Day three? It'll all be over before anyone notices: Time Stop - Scry - Teleport - Mindrape - Repeat.

If only our military could invent the antimagic field...

[Eldan]

I was thinking of a single epic mage doing it. And unless he uses some kind of endless spell slot cheese, there's still enough world leaders that he will need a lot of slots. By day one, he can have all the important ones, though.

Interestingly, I remember an earlier discussion where we debated how a Pit Fiend would fare against a modern battle tank as represented by d20 modern. The fight wasn't too unfair, actually.

[Kaww]

Look at it this way: What do you think you could do to modern society with lvl 5 beguiler/bard spellcasting? How about wizard?

[Eldan]

Utterly wreck it with half a day of preparation, sure. But that's not open warfare. And that's why I asked: "Rules and munchkinism or fluff as represented in the books."

[Kaww]

I don't know, Tucker's are scary, I ran 5 kobolds vs. lvl 15 party (avg tier 2) and they killed 1 kobold. And those are 1/4 CR kobolds. If played intelligently lvl 5 wizards are tough, lvl 10 are practically immortal... And I'm pretty sure they would know about "our surprise attack" before we knew we were attacking.

[Combat Reflexes]

I was thinking of a single epic mage doing it. And unless he uses some kind of endless spell slot cheese, there's still enough world leaders that he will need a lot of slots. By day one, he can have all the important ones, though.

But our clever friend Wizardus Epicus first got himself a few millions of gold pieces from either Fabricate or via the President of the USA financing him.
With the money he bought thousands of Pearls of Power to endlessly refuel his spell slots for the day and became king of the world etc.

Meteor Swarm, Gate, Towering Thunderhead, Shapechange, Elemental Monolith;
Earth doesn't stand a chance.

[Eldan]

Actually, damage spells are those we have the best chances against. As per the d20srd, an M1A2 abrams tank has 20 hardness and 64 hit points. The 2d6 damage of a meteor swarm is utterly negated, and the 6d6+ fire damage mostly as well, without dealing HP damage. And I'm not even sure if vehicles take half fire damage, like other objects. The tanks gun has a range increment of 400 feet and deals 10d12 damage, pretty dangerous for most things running around.

So, don't use damage spells against earth. They can survive that.

[akma]

Modern army could hire wizard merceneries.

Also, there is the factor of how dirty they fight - will they use biological, chemical and atomic weaponery?
Tanks are nearly indestructable, and air planes are faster then avian creatures. Red dragons would be a problam, since they are immune to fire, and therefore to missles.

How would the modern army resolve ammunition, fuel and other supplies issue?

[blueblade]

Actually, damage spells are those we have the best chances against. As per the d20srd, an M1A2 abrams tank has 20 hardness and 64 hit points. The 2d6 damage of a meteor swarm is utterly negated, and the 6d6+ fire damage mostly as well, without dealing HP damage. And I'm not even sure if vehicles take half fire damage, like other objects. The tanks gun has a range increment of 400 feet and deals 10d12 damage, pretty dangerous for most things running around.

So, don't use damage spells against earth. They can survive that.

Bring out the rust monsters!

[Eldan]

Biological warfare shouldn't be a problem. Cure Disease is easily available, and cures every possible disease. Even disease immunity can't be that hard to get. Same for chemical warfare and poisons.

[Kaww]

Modern army could hire wizard merceneries...


This made me laugh... We can give you this bundle of paper, wast amounts of this black, undrinkable liquid, or gold of which you have more than we do...

[Eldan]

However, if wizards and earth cooperated instead...

We could supply the physics, they the ways to circumvent it. How long until all of the problems of today's society are solved? I mean, Oil is the least problem. That can easily be produced. I'd guess we could find a much better way to produce energy.

Also, they should come over here. Our world is free of monsters, outsiders and avatars of meddling gods.

[Kaww]

What do you think dragons would have to say to a discovery of new world free of meddling adventurists, filled with food and/or weak humans?

[Eldan]

Oh, of course. But once we enchant that 10d12 tank sufficiently, that's no longer a problem.

So, tank golems, anyone?

[DeltaEmil]

Why would we be able to enchant our tanks in the first place?

And yeah, we lose, because ultimately, D&D-dudes have shapeshifters who can impersonate every soldier and general, telepaths that will know every enemy secret, and reality-warpers who can teleport invisible, ethereal, mind-reading monsters who can dominate and take any form in the midst of an enemy encampment, while they're safely hidden in their little pocket dimension that they summoned with a rope trick.

Oh sure, those demi-gods might be surprised at first at those supersonic strange crossbows (unless they already know about firearms) and how these strange men from "Earth" can afford these many juggernaut-constructs, and some will even lose their life for really underestimating them, but that also happens against meddlesome adventurers who go around to kill Cthulhu for another 1000 years.

Scry and die.

[J.Gellert]

It has already happened.

Why do you think the Forgotten Realms are the way they are? Why is Greyhawk in medieval stasis? Why was Saruman defeated at Isengard?

Magic trumps technology. It is harder, better, faster, stronger and completely consumes every single campaign setting where it is introduced. I mean, even in Star Wars, the very few people who have a very limited (compared to D&D) magic still call the shots. And it's a world where technology can teleport you places and grow armies of clones.

Now take, I don't know, Larloch, and throw him against the military forces of every major power on Earth. Minor powers too, just for good measure.

Can I get a T?
Can I get a P?
Can I get a K?

PS. And because there's two sides to every coin, well, here's the other side. There is one single way for Earth to win. That is, if we are the protagonists. The Noble Savages will win every time, even with sticks and stones.

PS2. Yes, nukes are sticks and stones against a wizard. They are direct damage, the wizard laughs at direct damage.

[Eldan]

Why would we be able to enchant our tanks in the first place?
.

That was on the subject of earth and wizards cooperating. Once they can get it running, earth should provide a few advantages for wizards, such as no random demonic invasions or gods knocking people down for getting too powerful (Karsus, anyone?)

[Heliomance]

Why would we be able to enchant our tanks in the first place?

Whyever not? Tanks are certainly masterwork.

[DeltaEmil]

We don't know how to cast spells in the first place.

[Eldan]

Interestingly enough, a tank has the same hardness as adamantine. So building it from Adamantine shouldn't make it any harder, by the rules.
However, giving the tank elemental immunities, at least to sonic and acid, should go a long way. They are not alive, so that already gives them a lot of immunities. Spell resistance would be necessary, or they would get disintegrated. Maybe put a dimensional anchor on them, to stop enemies from teleporting in/teleporting the tank of a cliff.

What else is necessary?

[DeltaEmil]

A spellcaster.

Also, there are already juggernauts (as in, the construct monsters detailed in Monster Manual 2) that do the same job as tanks.

[Eldan]

A spellcaster.

Also, there are already juggernauts (as in, the construct monsters detailed in Monster Manual 2) that do the same job as tanks.

There's plenty of spellcasters, so that's not a problem. And as far as I'm aware, a juggernaut does not have a nonmagical 10d12 main cannon with the range of a fireball spell.

[DeltaEmil]

There's no spellcaster on the sides of "Eartheners".

And nobody cares to create juggernauts that can shoot artillery shells, because these things are only created by sadistic spellcasters to terrorize their non-spellcasting brethrens who rely on swords and bows to kill. Toys. So are tanks for these near-godly men and women who speak eldritch words and cast magick. Armies are only there to entertain those who can reshape reality in a sort of mass-gladiatorial combat.

[Eldan]

Do you even bother to read what anyone else is writing? I've said it twice. This is under the assumption that earth and wizards cooperate. And in a world of antimagic fields and contingency battles, there is still a niche for a nonmagical weapon able to kill any wizard.

[Yora]

I guess I'm the only one here giving some credit to modern military hardware and infrastructure.

Unless it's tippyverse, a D&D army would probably consist mostly of 1st level warriors with spears and leather armor, and maybe one 3rd level wizard and cleric for each 100 soldiers. The number of high level characters (above 10th level) would be very low, 1 in 1000 or less.

And what would a 12th level wizard do against two F16s flying overhead at supersonic speed and dropping a load of bombs. Or a predator drone firing a Hellfire missile? It's a supersonic missile with a reach of 8 km. Good luck raising a wall of force large enough to protect a hundred men in time.
And self propelled artillery can shot over distances of 30 km and more.
Maybe wizards could scry on enemy armies, but a modern army has aerial reconnaisance too, which I think is not much worse.

And then we come to mobility. Wizards can teleport, but only bring four or five other people with them. Everyone else has to travel on foot. A modern army has transport trucks, APCs, and helicopters, and can transport large numbers of troops much faster.

The only advantage a fantasy army has, is combat magic. But a wand of fireballs isn't that impressive against an army that expects to be shelled with heavy artillery.

I simply don't see how much damage a fantasy army could do against a well equiped modern army.

[Ranielle]

D&D world wins but just as they are about to conquer Earth a squad of Grey Knights appear and cleanse the witches, heretics and mutants.

[DeltaEmil]

Do you even bother to read what anyone else is writing? I've said it twice. This is under the assumption that earth and wizards cooperate. I ignore by the reason that Earth has nothing to offer to the wizards that they couldn't take by force if they wanted to, and "Eartheners" can do nothing to stop it in the first place. Cooperation assumes equality amongst partners.

And in a world of antimagic fields and contingency battles, there is still a niche for a nonmagical weapon able to kill any wizard.No, there is only place for stronger wizards and clerics with more intelligence or of great wisdom. Without spellcasters to plane-shift or teleport into the pocket dimensions of other wizards and clerics that they want to kill in the first place, all other means are useless.

[Vizzerdrix]

Hmm... I don't know. Scry and Fry is one thing, but not everyone is a high level caster of some sort. Most big monsters would drop to a fifty Cal. (From upwards of three miles these days, I think).

The big problem would be wizards/Druids/Clerics of levels 15 and up. The question is would those rare people that had that much power take notice in time?

[DeltaEmil]

I guess I'm the only one here giving some credit to modern military hardware and infrastructure.

Unless it's tippyverse, a D&D army would probably consist mostly of 1st level warriors with spears and leather armor, and maybe one 3rd level wizard and cleric for each 100 soldiers. The number of high level characters (above 10th level) would be very low, 1 in 1000 or less.

And what would a 12th level wizard do against two F16s flying overhead at supersonic speed and dropping a load of bombs. Or a predator drone firing a Hellfire missile? It's a supersonic missile with a reach of 8 km. Good luck raising a wall of force large enough to protect a hundred men in time.
And self propelled artillery can shot over distances of 30 km and more.
Maybe wizards could scry on enemy armies, but a modern army has aerial reconnaisance too, which I think is not much worse.

And then we come to mobility. Wizards can teleport, but only bring four or five other people with them. Everyone else has to travel on foot. A modern army has transport trucks, APCs, and helicopters, and can transport large numbers of troops much faster.

The only advantage a fantasy army has, is combat magic. But a wand of fireballs isn't that impressive against an army that expects to be shelled with heavy artillery.

I simply don't see how much damage a fantasy army could do against a well equiped modern army.The D&D-spellcasters send a Shadow. They've won.

[Eldan]

I guess I'm the only one here giving some credit to modern military hardware and infrastructure.

Unless it's tippyverse, a D&D army would probably consist mostly of 1st level warriors with spears and leather armor, and maybe one 3rd level wizard and cleric for each 100 soldiers. The number of high level characters (above 10th level) would be very low, 1 in 1000 or less.

And what would a 12th level wizard do against two F16s flying overhead at supersonic speed and dropping a load of bombs. Or a predator drone firing a Hellfire missile? It's a supersonic missile with a reach of 8 km. Good luck raising a wall of force large enough to protect a hundred men in time.
And self propelled artillery can shot over distances of 30 km and more.
Maybe wizards could scry on enemy armies, but a modern army has aerial reconnaisance too, which I think is not much worse.

And then we come to mobility. Wizards can teleport, but only bring four or five other people with them. Everyone else has to travel on foot. A modern army has transport trucks, APCs, and helicopters, and can transport large numbers of troops much faster.

The only advantage a fantasy army has, is combat magic. But a wand of fireballs isn't that impressive against an army that expects to be shelled with heavy artillery.

I simply don't see how much damage a fantasy army could do against a well equiped modern army.

The army itself is pretty useless, granted. However, the wizard can make himself immune to modern weaponry pretty easily. Stoneskin gives DR 10/adamantine. That absorbs the average rifle shot. A real high level wizard gets DR 15/adamantine via iron body. And that's without any real cheese. He can easily get his AC high enough to be almost impossible to hit, and he can get mirror images and miss chances. He can be invisible. He can teleport short and long distances. He can become ethereal, if he wants, and still cast his spells. If he makes himself immune to fire, pretty much all explosives leave him cold.
He can summon creatures immune to all nonmagical damage. Earth can't do anything against those. He can, as mentioned, dominate Earth's command structure, or impersonate them himself.

[linebackeru]

All of these discussions regarding obscure monsters, extraplanar conflict, etc are unnecessary.

Protection from Arrows = Bullets don't work
Wind Wall drastically reduces the odds of tank/artillery shells hitting
Nukes? Ok, that's where you need high level wizards.

Most of all, though:

Rust Monsters FTW

[Emmerask]

If he makes himself immune to fire, pretty much all explosives leave him cold.

Not really, the fire is no problem for him true but the pressure which rips apart his lung eyes etc still is^^

[_Zoot_]

I'm going to put my money on the modern army, sure, there is a hell of a lot of damage that spell casters, but it is all in subterfuge and trickery. Any large scale destruction they can do, we can do better.

Our soldiers are better trained, better skilled and could predict how their non magic users will fight (what with them fighting the same way we did when we used their tech) and don't even start on equipment. All their non magic users would be obsolete and useless.

If worst comes to worst, we can just wipe them out with superior fire-power, there is very little they can do, especially as we can replace things and they can not. If each of there high level wizards wipes out a tank battalion but we kill them, which do you think can be replaced more easily? On a war footing we could rebuild our armies time and time again, they can't get more wizards that easily.

They may be able to trick and confuse us, but we can wipe cities off the face of the Earth (even with out NBC weapons) and replace our losses where they can not, we would win.

[Gnoman]

I guess I'm the only one here giving some credit to modern military hardware and infrastructure.

Unless it's tippyverse, a D&D army would probably consist mostly of 1st level warriors with spears and leather armor, and maybe one 3rd level wizard and cleric for each 100 soldiers. The number of high level characters (above 10th level) would be very low, 1 in 1000 or less.

And what would a 12th level wizard do against two F16s flying overhead at supersonic speed and dropping a load of bombs. Or a predator drone firing a Hellfire missile? It's a supersonic missile with a reach of 8 km. Good luck raising a wall of force large enough to protect a hundred men in time.
And self propelled artillery can shot over distances of 30 km and more.
Maybe wizards could scry on enemy armies, but a modern army has aerial reconnaisance too, which I think is not much worse.

And then we come to mobility. Wizards can teleport, but only bring four or five other people with them. Everyone else has to travel on foot. A modern army has transport trucks, APCs, and helicopters, and can transport large numbers of troops much faster.

The only advantage a fantasy army has, is combat magic. But a wand of fireballs isn't that impressive against an army that expects to be shelled with heavy artillery.

I simply don't see how much damage a fantasy army could do against a well equiped modern army.

First, fighters would have to contend against summoned flying creatures. Even lower-level Summon Monster spells can put creatures in the air that would be more than dangerous enough to contest them, particularly since the fighters would have only three effective weapons in a D&D world - Guns, bombs, and rockets. Heat-seeking missiles would ignore almost everything, while anything large enough to track on radar would just ignore a fragmentation missile. As far as ground-targets, guided weapons would have nothing to lock on to. (Most fire-and-forget missiles use shape recognition. People are too small to lock on to, and any D&D creature or construction wouldn't be in the database.) On the ground, a wizard spamming Magic Missile would be able to hold off an army of infantry, and any fire attack would handle the vehicles.

[Emmerask]

Protection from Arrows = Bullets don't work

Untrue, its only a 100point (at 10th level which of which the normal d&d wouldn´t have that many) buffer, lets just say a modern gun does 1d8 damage an avg of 4,5 dmg in 5 seconds an mp5 armed soldier makes ~50 attacks that is easily enough to drop a protection from arrow low level d&d soldier in one round :smallwink:




Wind Wall drastically reduces the odds of tank/artillery shells hitting

Wind wall would not work against shells at all, too much mass and speed.

[Vizzerdrix]

AA guns would shut down what ever fliers got summoned, and a sniper has a longer range than magic missile.

[Eldan]

Actually, by d20's definition, autofire shoots 10 bullets per round and can not hit any creature more than once. A rifle deals between 2d6 and 2d10 damage. The average 2d10 shot deals 11 damage, however, which is enough to go through protection from arrows. Wind wall specifically calls out bolts and arrows and gives everything else a 30% miss chance. So that doesn't work against bullets either.

The problem still remains, however: a single level 12+ wizard can easily take over the world if he wants to. Or if he is really strong, he just uses Astral Projection or etherealness and we can never, ever touch him.

[Emmerask]

Actually, by d20's definition, autofire shoots 10 bullets per round and can not hit any creature more than once. A rifle deals between 2d6 and 2d10 damage. The average 2d10 shot deals 11 damage, however, which is enough to go through protection from arrows. Wind wall specifically calls out bolts and arrows and gives everything else a 30% miss chance. So that doesn't work against bullets either.

That is quite a different think then though ^^
I was under the impression we are talking about a real world modern army against a d&d army.
Not a d20modern army against a d&d army ^^

The main problem we face is that we
a) need to establish what kind of d&d world we are speaking about (tippyverse, faerun etc)
b) what kind of modern army under which ruleset
c)which physics we are using
d)is the future deterministic (yes physics too but i8mportant enough to diserve its own mentioning)
e) ? sure there are more

[Killer Angel]

I simply don't see how much damage a fantasy army could do against a well equiped modern army.

As said by others, a fantasy army will be torn apart by a modern army. Machine guns VS metal armors and swords? C'mon.
The fact is that a modern army has literally no defense Vs mid-high lev. casters.

[Eldan]

Oh, sure. However, if we want to discuss what D&D spells can accomplish, we need a numerical basis to model what modern weaponry would do in a d20 setting for purposes of comparison. And the closest we have is d20 modern.

[Yora]

Stoneskin gives DR 10/adamantine. That absorbs the average rifle shot.
No. The average handgun deals 2d6 damage in d20, rifles even 2d8 or 2d10. Some hits would glance off, but some would still hurt the wizard. At after absorbing 150 points of damage (at the most), the spell ends. It may take some time to kill him with rifle fire, but he'll go down eventually.

He can easily get his AC high enough to be almost impossible to hit, and he can get mirror images and miss chances. He can be invisible. He can teleport short and long distances. He can become ethereal, if he wants, and still cast his spells.
This is something most people forget all the time: Yes, wizards can do that, but they can't do it all at once and not he whole day. Most spells have a duration of only a few minutes or less. That may be enough for one skirmish, but in larger battles will be a serious problem.

If he makes himself immune to fire, pretty much all explosives leave him cold.
Again, no. Explosions don't deal fire damage. First there's the pressure wave, which would probably be sonic damage in D&D. Then you have sharpnell, which would be slashing and piercing. And when larger chunks of rock or concrete are flying around, you have bludgeoning as well. And they you may have a little bit of fire damage as well.

If a wizard winning against modern waeapons assumes infinite amounts of wands and scrolls, I counter him with infinite cruise missiles.
If you allow calling outsiders immune to damage, that would probably make the wizards win. But I say having the number of high level spellcasters and the resources to cast these spells in large numbers is a completely unrealistic assumption.

[Emmerask]

Oh, sure. However, if we want to discuss what D&D spells can accomplish, we need a numerical basis to model what modern weaponry would do in a d20 setting for purposes of comparison. And the closest we have is d20 modern.

True but d20 modern does not in any way depict a real army, its weapons etc :smallsmile:

[DeltaEmil]

No wizard or cleric needs to fight at the front like a lowly peasant, and they don't need to summon balor or other high-level monsters.

They send one shadow. One shadow becomes two shadows. Two shadows become four shadows. They then become eight shadows, then 16, 32, 64, 128, and so on, until the shadow apocalypse has consumed all that stood before it and didn't realize a thing.

[linebackeru]

Untrue, its only a 100point (at 10th level which of which the normal d&d wouldn´t have that many) buffer, lets just say a modern gun does 1d8 damage an avg of 4,5 dmg in 5 seconds an mp5 armed soldier makes ~50 attacks that is easily enough to drop a protection from arrow low level d&d soldier in one round :smallwink:



Wind wall would not work against shells at all, too much mass and speed.

"any other normal ranged weapon passing through the (wind) wall has a 30% miss chance."

[Emmerask]

A giant-thrown boulder, a siege engine projectile, and other massive ranged weapons are not affected.

[Eldan]

The immunity to damage I called is specifically from effects like Etherealness.

And yes, the wizard can only buff himself for one or two skirmishes per day. That is not a problem. After that, he planeshifts away, and the army is standing around twiddling it's thumbs while the wizard goes to have a drink in the jacuzzi of of his Mordenkainen's Magnificient Mansion.

And, as has been mentioned: why should he ever actually fight the soldiers himself? He either summons something to deal with them or just ignores them while going after the leaders.

[Emmerask]

I say we just can´t say without first establishing a lot of things:

physics etc
interaction between normal material and magic for example would uranium bypass dmg reduction? are there earth equivalence to adamantium alchemical silver etc?
Is a fireball really that different from a fire-bomb or napalm?
What does a strong laser count as? and radiation?
And so much more the list would be some hundred pages long :smallbiggrin:

Depending on what is decided with all these points the one army will win or the other without establishing this first we could argue for a hundred years without coming to a conclusion.

[DeltaEmil]

Incorporeal creatures can only be hurt by magical weapons or magical attacks.

[Emmerask]

Another thing that would really need to be established is weather our religions have any impact...
For example does blessed water created by (insert religion of your choice) act like blessed water in d&d? Because then shadows won´t stand a chance as we pump millions of gallons of blessed water into their "faces" :smallbiggrin:

Or make that blessed acid or bullets ^^

[The Big Dice]

A modern army has as few major advantages over a D&D army, like the ability to move large numbers of people very quickly. BUt I'd say there are three major advatges the modern guys have.

The first is instant communications. Every unit is in contact with it's chain of command at all times. That's HUGE. That means your troops can respond quickly to changes in the battle, while the enemy is pretty much limited to getting short messages to individuals, who can only give orders to the people who can hear their voice. Even using flags and bugles to signal isn't as effective as radio.

The second is engagement range. The modern army has artillery that can throw explosives several miles. Snipers that can pick off individual targets from a couple of miles and the regular troops are carrying weapons that are capable of killing at a couple of hundred yards. That's another major edge to the modern army.

But the final advantage is almost insurmountable for a D&D army. And that is night vision. The distance even Drow can see in the dark is pitiful. Most things with Darkvision can see 60 feet. To put that into perspective, that's about five or six car lengths. Compare that to a pair of modern night vision goggles.

If you ignore Schroedinger's Epic Wizard, then a D&D army could certainly make a fight of things. But assuming no rules of engagement, they'd take so much damage in the shock and awe stage of the operation that they'd probably surrender.

[hamishspence]

Complete Warrior did suggest that D&D armies might follow a more modern style- airstrikes, "special ops" and so on.

[Killer Angel]

And yes, the wizard can only buff himself for one or two skirmishes per day. That is not a problem. After that, he planeshifts away, and the army is standing around twiddling it's thumbs while the wizard goes to have a drink in the jacuzzi of of his Mordenkainen's Magnificient Mansion.


Even a low level wiz can do that.
Invisibility, ventriloquism to fool the listeners, summon summon summon summon summon, rope trick.
Meh, a low lev wiz can even lay waste to an armoured vehicle, summoning a single swarm.

[Vire]

i'm amused by all the claims of modern day snipers being able to pick off individuals from "a couple of miles" away.

let's remember that the furthest (confirmed) sniper kill was just over 1.5 miles. and that's not an everyday shot.

[Emmerask]

even a 200m away hidden sniper is practically undetectable by d&d creatures
getting a massive -60 on their spot check ^^
So all d&d universe creatures are practically extremely nearsighted while the rl army can spot them from far away ^^
The avg d&d soldier will have a good spot range of maybe 30m :smallbiggrin:

Also against invisibility, infrared vision cancels it (yes in 3.0 it was not the case but in 3.5 it does)

[Eldan]

Darkstalker would probably take care of that.

[sonofzeal]

Within 48 hours, I'd expect the D&D Society to have completely co-opted the leadership of the Modern Military. No muss, no fuss, no "could a Fireball kill a Tank", just two sides united under the same leadership. Bringing the rank and file into line may take longer, but any time a new leader shows up, just Dominate him. Without any sort of trustworthy leadership, the military will crumble in short order.

[The Big Dice]

Within 48 hours, I'd expect the D&D Society to have completely co-opted the leadership of the Modern Military. No muss, no fuss, no "could a Fireball kill a Tank", just two sides united under the same leadership. Bringing the rank and file into line may take longer, but any time a new leader shows up, just Dominate him. Without any sort of trustworthy leadership, the military will crumble in short order.
Problem there is, unless you're dealing with a blind (and therefore stupid) command staff, the change in personality will be noticed. And then steps will be taken. Quite possibly using the Dominated individual to feed the enemy bad intel.

Infiltration is one thing I'd expect both sides to have major problems with. The differences in the two cultures are vast. More so than between two cultures on Earth.

[Aharon]

It depends on the preparation time. If this whole thing happens out of the blue, the modern military doesn't stand a chance.

If the modern military can prepare, they might be able to become harder to attack. Basically reactivating all the Cold War relics, and improving them in a way that makes getting Line of Effect/Line of Sight as hard as possible.

Another way would be to redistribute the power over the nuclear arsenal, so that each soldier above a certain rank could command their release. That way, Decapitation via magic could be retaliated against with a nuclear first strike.

Another point that was glossed over to fast, IMO:
1) Remove Disease does not prevent reinfection => Highly infectious diseases are still hard to get rid off - almost the same moment you remove the disease from someone, he's already reinfected.
2) It's a single target spell, meaning the quantity of Remove Diseases may be rather limited. How many Cure Diseases do your PC clerics usually prepare? How many NPC clerics with access to cure disease are there?

[Killer Angel]

Also against invisibility, infrared vision cancels it (yes in 3.0 it was not the case but in 3.5 it does)

:smallconfused:
It's debatable. An invisible creature cannot be pinpointed by visual means, including darkvision.
Any sources for infrared Vs invisibility in D20 modern, that I'm not aware of?

[Emmerask]

Its against a modern army not against a d20 modern army... those two things are completely different ^^

Anyway darkvision is not infrared vision it was in fact renamed from 3.0s infravision because the term was misleading.
In 3.5 no creature (afaik) has infrared vision and it is not known to d&d physics that there is such a thing.
The spell description says that one becomes invisible from sight but infrared is invisible from sight so arguably you still project heat even if you are invisible.

If this would not be the case then you would walk into a whole lot of other problems (ie you would die very soon) except if we arbitrarily give the invisiblity spell other effects (on top of the heat wave projection stopping) like cooling the recipient at the same time for example :smallwink:

[Eldan]

Another way would be to redistribute the power over the nuclear arsenal, so that each soldier above a certain rank could command their release. That way, Decapitation via magic could be retaliated against with a nuclear first strike.


It also means you only have to possess a low-level soldier to make your enemies nuke themselves.

[Combat Reflexes]

While tanks and airplanes and such are very hard to crack, the crew inside is not. All the fantasy army needs to do is teleporting a Great Wyrm dragon to the field and all men are paralyzed with fear! Take that, military.


Oh, and the fantasy army can use divination magic (Omen of Peril, Locate Object) to find out the position of nuclear rockets. One Teleport Object later, they are gone.

[Emmerask]

While tanks and airplanes and such are very hard to crack, the crew inside is not. All the fantasy army needs to do is teleporting a Great Wyrm dragon to the field and all men are paralyzed with fear! Take that, military.


Creatures within a radius of 30 feet × the dragon’s age category are subject to the effect if they have fewer HD than the dragon == 30 *12 feet radius

360 feet is not really that big a radius, yes it would make some grunts cower in fear, but the tanks and especially airplanes/ artillery would be utterly unaffected
(they are too far away)

Also you must see the creature to be effected, there are no rules I think about watching the creature via a monitor inside your tank ^^

[Combat Reflexes]

Well okay, Dragon doesn't work (except for the aforementioned Red dragon, which is immune to fire)

but what about Epic Magic? No army can stand up to that.

[Emmerask]

True, nearly nothing can ^^

[Aharon]

@Eldan
True. So maybe reprogram the Missiles so that their target cannot be changed? (Again, assuming we know D&D is coming, and know how to target them)

@Combat Reflexes
What Emmerask said.
=> Teleport Object
You first have to get there and touch it. Automated security systems can't be charmed, and at least d20modern weapons seem to be sufficient to break through some protection (i.e. stoneskin).

@Epic Magic
Depends. Are we talking about the Epic Spells from the sourcebooks, or those developed on these boards?

By the way, how long do you think would it take for ModernMilitary to figure out that the powers their enemy uses are precisely described in the previous edition of a RPG?

[Killer Angel]

Anyway darkvision is not infrared vision it was in fact renamed from 3.0s infravision because the term was misleading.
In 3.5 no creature (afaik) has infrared vision and it is not known to d&d physics that there is such a thing.
The spell description says that one becomes invisible from sight but infrared is invisible from sight so arguably you still project heat even if you are invisible.


Well, infrared ARE visible, only the frequency is different. :smalltongue:
You can see light from an invisible source, even if isn't heated (light spell, and so on), so "see/don't see", isn't based on heat sources...

We should ask the DM. :smallbiggrin:

[Chen]

Even if the high level wizards and clerics could destroy the armies, the masses of people that would die in any type of total war invasion scenario would almost certainly cause most sides to just surrender. Not to mention its almost certain there'd be SOME evil self-serving clerics/mages/whatevers who'd be willing to defect.

In a pure fighting scenario though, high level magic cannot really be dealt with at all by a modern military.

[AyeGill]

Problem there is, unless you're dealing with a blind (and therefore stupid) command staff, the change in personality will be noticed. And then steps will be taken. Quite possibly using the Dominated individual to feed the enemy bad intel.

Infiltration is one thing I'd expect both sides to have major problems with. The differences in the two cultures are vast. More so than between two cultures on Earth

What kind of steps could they take? They cant make anyone immune without magic, they can't prevent teleportation without magic, they can't do **** about the dominated individuals because Ultimate McSMagus just happened to mind control the president, the congress, the senate and all the generals of the army, all in a single minute using Greater Arcane Fusion, Celerity, and twin spell.

Also, on feeding false information, there's zone of truth.

Also, on fighting mass battles, there's shadows. How are you gonna penetrate incorporeality.

[Heliomance]

By capturing detailed spectrographic analysis of the incorporeal creature over the course of several skirmishes, determining exactly how it bypasses the Pauli exclusion principle, and developing technology utilising the same principles.

[J.Gellert]

Within 48 hours, I'd expect the D&D Society to have completely co-opted the leadership of the Modern Military. No muss, no fuss, no "could a Fireball kill a Tank", just two sides united under the same leadership. Bringing the rank and file into line may take longer, but any time a new leader shows up, just Dominate him. Without any sort of trustworthy leadership, the military will crumble in short order.

If by "48 hours" you mean "2d6 rounds, tops" then I agree with you.

[Emmerask]

Also, on fighting mass battles, there's shadows. How are you gonna penetrate incorporeality.

Blessed water works against shadows (50% miss chance applies)
riot water cannon tanks with blessed water :smallcool:
Or fire-fighting planes that would be quite awesome :smallbiggrin:


Also we would need to establish why we don´t have magic at all, especially if the "you have enough int, you can become a wizard" rule is in place.
The only reasonable explanation would be that our universe is a dead magic zone, rendering the whole control the rulers, teleport in and steal the a bombs etc void. (the military leaders would control the fight from our universe of course).
There might be cheaters of mystra etc but would their powers work in our universe where mystra has no power at all?

[The Glyphstone]

If by "48 hours" you mean "2d6 rounds, tops" then I agree with you.

That depends on how many people you're co-opting. There's 6 Joint Chiefs of Staff, plus the President and Vice President at least. Plus, the various generals and admirals in command of actual troops, who might not agree with their commanding officer's out-of-the-blue decision to unilaterally surrender to an enemy which hasn't scratched their forces yet.

You can't affect other people during a Time Stop, so even with Rods of Quicken Spell, you can only zap 1-2 targets a turn assuming you need to Teleport between them (not often military leaders are in the same room barring staff meetings). And of course, that implies perfect knowledge of their location for Greater Teleports, which you would have to scry for first, easily eating up the 2d6 rounds on its own. I'd give 24 hours, 48 depending on how deeply you penetrated the command structure.

[Derjuin]

Complete Warrior did suggest that D&D armies might follow a more modern style- airstrikes, "special ops" and so on.

They even have their own kind of nuke (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2013195&postcount=89) :smallwink: (sort of kinda)

[Heliomance]

Any sufficiently advanced and reliable magic is indistinguishable from technology. Magic produces certain effects. There must be a mechanism by which it produces those effects. If we can study it properly, say by the capture of an unlucky/foolish caster (they're not all brilliant strategists who never make mistakes, especially the sorcerers), there is a very good chance we can discover the underlying mechanism and reproduce the results. Or at the very least, figure out how to interfere with them.

[Emmerask]

Sonic and ultrasonic weapons are quite good at interfering with spellcasters I would guess :smallbiggrin:

[Tael]

A D&D army isn't made up of soldiers, it's made up of small groups of high level adventurers that decimate everything they come into contact with. As was stated before, wizards just go incorporeal and lolwut @ anything the military could possibly do. A Cleric or Druid can also destroy entire cities with a single spell slot w/ control winds. Not to mention the chaos any low level caster could cause with mind effecting stuff. High level melee are also pretty ridiculous. A single frenzied berzerker would completely mess up pretty much anything (even tanks die to adamantine weapons).

Also, given how little damage it takes to destroy material in the DMG, high level archers with adamantine arrows would be completely invisible with mundane hiding and could mow down anything from soldiers to helicopters to tanks with the right bow.

Of course, all of this non-caster stuff is just child's play compared to what the big boys can do. The military stands no chance even with stuff like the Locate City Bomb not being used.

[houlio]

Three things:
First, I believe Ethergaunts in D&D use technology that replicates magic, but is in itself not magical. Therefore, some of our Earth technology might be considered magical by the D&D world.

Second, the modern army has a major advantage in that it isn't restricted by a stupid alignment system. This further limits the amount of actions high level D&D characters can take. For example, the high level good characters like paladins or clerics or druids might decide dominating people or sending kill squads or summoning evil outsiders is decidedly not nice thing to do, even against their enemies. Evil characters are similarly restricted in what they can do, not summoning good aligned creatures could make it tough.

Third, D&D may have a few demi-god type people running around who can shatter reality with a thought or something equally silly, but a D&D world will not have the depth of skill and expertise a modern army will. A modern army will be far more thoroughly trained and organized than any D&D equivalent, giving them a far greater advantage. A group of less than, say 5 wizards casting a meteor swarm/time stop fun/whatever will not be able to stop a modern army, much less one. A modern military just has too many professionally trained soldiers.

[Emmerask]

A D&D army isn't made up of soldiers, it's made up of small groups of high level adventurers

Sorry that is not the case in all of the officially published source material^^

All of the countries depicted in those settings have a standing army Tethyr for example, none however has an army made of adventurers ^^

[Heliomance]

How, precisely, is that band of adventurers going to deal with an artillery strike called on their position from twenty miles away? They'll be dead before they know it's coming. The two biggest advantages the modern army has are range and instant communication. That frenzied berserker with an adamantine axe isn't going to get as far as the tank to chop it up before he's a greasy smear on the ground. As for your high level archers, heat-sensitive cameras will pick them up just fine, and again, range advantage to the modern army.

[dgnslyr]

Well, an invincible tank only goes so far when the people inside are low level humans. What spells don't require Line of Sight or Line of Effect?

[Chilingsworth]

You could use transmute rock to lava to deal with tanks. (I was going to say, Rock to mud, but tanks can move in mud, at least well enough that it's not a sure thing.) I think aircraft would be more difficult for the D&D world to deal with. There's nothing fast enough to track a fightercraft in D&D, to my knowledge. Of course, airpower alone wont win a war, but still, it would definately cause some casulties.

[Heliomance]

What D&D has going for it: Infiltration capacity with mind control. Superior mobility of small groups. 8th level+ spells.

What the modern army has going for it: Everything else.

[Tael]

Three things:
First, I believe Ethergaunts in D&D use technology that replicates magic, but is in itself not magical. Therefore, some of our Earth technology might be considered magical by the D&D world.

Wait, seriously? Or is this just your opinion?


Second, the modern army has a major advantage in that it isn't restricted by a stupid alignment system. This further limits the amount of actions high level D&D characters can take. For example, the high level good characters like paladins or clerics or druids might decide dominating people or sending kill squads or summoning evil outsiders is decidedly not nice thing to do, even against their enemies. Evil characters are similarly restricted in what they can do, not summoning good aligned creatures could make it tough.
I really fail to see how this is anything more than a minor annoyance. Casters (especially clerics) have so many options that cutting off some if you're opposite alignment is hardly game ending. And we're not talking about just 1 cleric here, it's an army, and thus there would be good cleric doing casting [good] spells, evil ones casting [evil] spell, and neutral ones doing both.
Also, wizards have no such limitation.



Third, D&D may have a few demi-god type people running around who can shatter reality with a thought or something equally silly, but a D&D world will not have the depth of skill and expertise a modern army will. A modern army will be far more thoroughly trained and organized than any D&D equivalent, giving them a far greater advantage. A group of less than, say 5 wizards casting a meteor swarm/time stop fun/whatever will not be able to stop a modern army, much less one. A modern military just has too many professionally trained soldiers.
How exactly does skill and expertise let you hit an incorporeal target? Or stop you from being eaten by endless hordes of undead? Or demons that have more DR than your bullets can hit for? Or being bombarded by your own allies after because the enemy wizard cast Dominate on your commander?

Also: A bunch of invisible (w/ superior invisibility if you want, or just plain incorporeal) wizards and cleric open as many gates to the abyss as possible outside enemy base. Military is totally screwed.
Cleric or druids use Control Winds to create hurricanes wherever they want. Military is totally screwed.
Casters Planeshift and use these spells in major cities around the world. Military surrenders before entire world is wasteland.

[HunterOfJello]

I think a handful of Changelings Bards using Glibness and a few other bard spells could wreck havoc around the entire world within a short period of time.

Any class that can properly hide themselves while using offensive magic could take out many of the major cities on our planet. For example, Druids wildshaped into small birds while casting using Natural Spell and Invisible Spell could easily go unnoticed while destroying huge areas with powerful spells.

~

If we want to get into cheesy stuff, a flying magical fortress (via the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook) could probably handle all attacks by a modern military other than a nuclear bomb.

Also, Wizards and Sorcerers can be protected from nuclear weapons by using the Resilient Sphere spell and if one is used near them, they can use Teleport to escape unharmed.

[Aharon]

@Tael
It's in the Fiend Folio, page 68.
=> Alignment
For one, the cooperation you posit would not be probable. Good and Evil traditionally don't work together. Would they when they face an enemy that some perceive to be almost powerless?
=> Incorporeal Targets
Is our real world holy water really holy in this scenario? If yes, that's your answer. Otherwise, they are a problem. However, attack via wightocalypse is the equivalent of using WMDs, and might be answered by those.
=> Gating
can be countered with traditional weapons (taking the stats from earlier in the thread).
=> Control Winds
Gives you an 800 ft. radius cylinder 40 ft. high at CL 20. That's roughly 0.2 km². The city I live in has an area of 114.30 km², at roughly 100000 inhabitants. You'll have to cast Control Winds rather often...
=> Surrender before wasteland
As long as the military infrastructure is intact, this won't happen. Modern Warfare does create wastelands, this didn't stop the wars.

@dgnslyr
There are only very few such spells.

Chilingsworth
Transmute Rock to Lava? Where would I find that, it's not in the SRD. If it has the same range as Transmute Rock to Mud, that is a problem (=> Range of tanks is greater).

@Heliomance
While I agree, I would appreciate some elaboration.

[Chilingsworth]

Rock to Lava is in Sandstorm. I didn't think of the range problem. I was just thinking of a spell with no line of sight/effect problems for dealing with tanks (and/or their crews... putting a tank in lava would turn it into an oven.) Still, if RL infantry or partisans could get close enough to tanks to drop molotov cocktails in their hatches, I'd guess a caster would have a chance of getting close enough to tanks to mess them and their crews up.

I still think the biggest problem D&D worlders would have is high-speed aircraft. How are they going to aim anything at them, since they basically are limmited to their mark-one eyeballs for aiming and tracking?

[hunt11]

In this comparison are the D&D casters allowed to cast Miracle and Wish?

[vrellum]

Well, I'd say the modern military would smoke the DnD world. Here's why:

DnD is a simulation game with a lot of exploits and some poorly thought out ideas. However, it is meant to model a world where a guy with a sword can have a major impact on the world. It is also meant to model worlds where standing armies of normal guys with swords are how kingdoms project their power, defend their homeland, etc. These guys would be completely overwhelmed by modern technology.

Also, DnD really nerfs technology. Guns don't do nearly enough damage, for example. Neither do nuclear bombs and the idea that you can evade the blast damage from one is rather silly.

So if you take DnD for what it is. A simulation of a world with magic and that world is ruled by kings who have armies of men with swords (plus some special things like mages, but the armies are very important), a DnD world would fall to a modern tech army.

However, the DnD world would be really good at asymmetric warfare and resisting occupation. Really, really good.

[Killer Angel]

How, precisely, is that band of adventurers going to deal with an artillery strike called on their position from twenty miles away? They'll be dead before they know it's coming. The two biggest advantages the modern army has are range and instant communication. That frenzied berserker with an adamantine axe isn't going to get as far as the tank to chop it up before he's a greasy smear on the ground. As for your high level archers, heat-sensitive cameras will pick them up just fine, and again, range advantage to the modern army.

Although i totally agree on the whole FB thing, on the rest I don't.
Calling artillery strike? you must know what looking for, and it's not so easy.
Adventurers out to face an army, will easily pass unnoticed (disguise, and up to Veil), not counting mundane sneaking. Modern warfare meets difficulty fighting small groups in forest, imagine a bunch of rangers (yeah, even a small company of elven rangers/archers), that can send things like birds (or druid in animal form) to spy at distance.
And obviously, we're not discussing a wiz teleporting said adventurers...

[houlio]

Wait, seriously? Or is this just your opinion?
It largely depends upon your interpretation of the entry on some of their items. I may have it wrong where it wrong in assuming that this accounts for their ability to cast spells.

Ethergaunts have developed a number of technological marvels... Though the features of these objects resemble those of magic items, the objects are in fact technological and are not affected by spells such as antimagic field

I really fail to see how this is anything more than a minor annoyance. Casters (especially clerics) have so many options that cutting off some if you're opposite alignment is hardly game ending. And we're not talking about just 1 cleric here, it's an army, and thus there would be good cleric doing casting [good] spells, evil ones casting [evil] spell, and neutral ones doing both.
Also, wizards have no such limitation.
The alignment system is not supposed to just flag certain actions and spells as being opposed to you, its supposed to model your entire philosophical outlook. Can good and evil D&D characters work together? Can good clerics cast spells to cause mass devastation on other sentient beings, even they are invaders? Wizards are similarly affected by this, even though there is no explicit mechanic for it, a good wizard won't be running around dominating other people for fun and profit.


How exactly does skill and expertise let you hit an incorporeal target?...
The point is that a few demigods in a D&D world and their legions of weak cronies are not often modeled in the same way a modern military is. A modern army will have thousands of professional soldiers, most D&D armies are composed of conscripts. Furthermore, even though one high level wizard is an overpowering threat, that wizard and his friends will never be able to be as coordinated as the army due to logistical and communication restraints due to technology. Logistics and communication are what makes the modern army so good. Sure, a wizard could teleport in and dominate a general or meteor swarm a base out of existence, big whoop, most armies have contingencies in place to deal with these sorts of problems, especially after the Cold War. The military will continue to function even if the structure is broken. And I'm fairly certain that the United States' modern arsenal will outlast a D&D world's worth of 8+ spells for a day at least, which is all it would take to bomb a D&D world back into primordial ooze.

The problem with this is that a modern army would probably never resort to doing that sort of thing.

Furthermore, total occupation would be impossible by either side, there simply is too much land to cover on Earth to be realistic about it and vice-versa. EDIT: vrellum ninja'ed this one, and said it much better than I can.

[Gorgondantess]

D&D world unleashes a small family of rust monsters into the sewers of the world, and leaves well enough alone. Finally, the rust monsters are all over the place- so much metal, they breed like rabbits. At first, they're a curiosity- the government picks them up, checks them out, tries to use their peculiar antennae for military purpose- but soon enough, they're a nuisance, tearing apart infrastructures, and finally they're an epidemic. They're chewing on your car. They're chewing on your stuff. They're chewing on a skyscraper and finally toppling it. They're like locusts, except they destroy much more valuable stuff, and they're big and tough. By the time a semi-effective means of destroying them comes about, there's a bunch of hippies running around, waving flags, saying "Protect the gentle rust monsters! Every creature has a right to live!" Some keep them as pets. This ties up any effective action until it's too late, economies are ruined, and without funding all governments collapse. D&D verse comes in and takes over.



Or just release one shadow. But the above example is funnier.:smallbiggrin:

[Force]

For this debate to become conclusive, a power level must be established. So, what level D&D world are we talking here-- E6? 10+? Everybody and their brother runs around casting epic level magic? How big is the D&D country? Who is their opponent?

At high levels, magic simply has too many "I Win" buttons, even compared to modern technology. At lower levels, or assuming a very small number of high-level magic users, the ubiquity of technology available to the modern world will ensure triumph, though it will be bloody at best.

[Killer Angel]

Furthermore, even though one high level wizard is an overpowering threat, that wizard and his friends will never be able to be as coordinated as the army due to logistical and communication restraints due to technology. Logistics and communication are what makes the modern army so good.

There are low lev spells that gives instant and costant communication between the wiz and his friends, and that let the casters know exactly position and health of their companion.
And should we talk about how many casualties from friendly fire, our modern armies suffer, even now, despite our advanced tech?

[Volthawk]

Well, what kind of D&D world are we talking here? I mean, D&D worlds can vary quite a bit.

[randomhero00]

Modern military hands down. First off, they have the tactical knowledge to run a world war. They have many systems in place for this.

The problem with the fantasy army, and the thing you must keep in mind, is the vast majority are under level 5.

Little breakdown:

airforce jets vs dragons = airforce. Jets are faster, and way more numerable and tactical than dragons

nuke vs anything = nuke wins

tanks vs most things = tank wins most of the time.

Snipers vs any fantasy person = sniper will almost always win. In a gillie suit, a trained sniper probably has the equivelant of +60 to hide or something. And they can do it from miles away.

Monsters are scary, but explosives and gunfire are scarier. All our soldiers require is to pull the trigger or push a button. We simply have far more resources than any fantasy army. Everyone in the military is easily replaceable. Not so for the fantasy army being led by a mature dragon or high level wizard.

Oh, and discipline, we have it, they wouldn't (since we're talking about mixed fantasy armies here). The dragons would argue with the wizards, the more monster types would be in it for themselves. etc. It would just be too easy to beak their morale and discipline.

[Lans]

They even have their own kind of nuke (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2013195&postcount=89) :smallwink: (sort of kinda)

Their is also apocalypse from the sky, which can get to a 1000 mile diameter if cast by high level wizards from faerune.

[Kansaschaser]

I can't imagine all of the D&D cosmos comming to defeat the US Military. There would probably be spellcasters and kingdoms that would want to side with the US Military just so they can use the military's might on their enemies.

So everyone who said the military would get devestated by magic, there would probably be magic users that would side with them to gain advantage over their enemies. In that case, the US Military would probably win.

[Lans]

Little breakdown:

airforce jets vs dragons = airforce. Jets are faster, and way more numerable and tactical than dragons

Dragons with high caster level casts time stop, teleport, summon monster right infront of jet going mach 2. Leaves.


nuke vs anything = nuke wins
Apocalypse from the Sky and Locate City bombs



Snipers vs any fantasy person = sniper will almost always win. In a gillie suit, a trained sniper probably has the equivelant of +60 to hide or something. And they can do it from miles away.
Wizard-"Ow", contact other plain, teleport, fireball.




Monsters are scary, but explosives and gunfire are scarier. All our soldiers require is to pull the trigger or push a button. We simply have far more resources than any fantasy army. Everyone in the military is easily replaceable. Not so for the fantasy army being led by a mature dragon or high level wizard.

The problem is that the mature dragons and high level wizards are going to be getting a crap load of kills vs 0 loss on themselves.

[Force]

The difference between magic and technology (generally) is this...

Magic is limited to those who can cast it or can afford the (generally expensive) magic items required to use it. Most D&D armies I have seen portray the common soldier as carrying no more advanced gear then a medieval soldier would; perhaps a potion if he's lucky. Technology, however, is ubiquitous; most soldiers carry a radio (instantaneous communication), an assault rifle (does 2d8 damage and has options, I believe, to fire more than one bullet per attack) along with a sidearm, grenades and flashbangs (alchemist fire), binoculars (an item of +X to Spot), camoflauge gear (item of +X to Hide), thermite or C4, etc. That's not even touching the squad weapons (machine guns, shoulder-launched missiles).

Not to mention that the US Armed Forces are simply enormous compared to any D&D army. Medieval armies usually possessed, at best, 50,000 soldiers that could be used to fight a specific foe... the US Army & Marines (including reserves) can muster over 1.3 million troops (even assuming a very generous 1-10 teeth/tail ratio, that's 130,000 troops).

There are three ways for a D&D world to win on the ground: monsters, equal ubiquity of magic, and powerful mages. The first requires monsters or outsiders actually willing to do battle with any invaders. No world is monolithic; assuming that simply because a human army is invading the Prime that hordes of red dragons will show up to fight them alongside every magic user from the Prime itself is foolish. More likely is such forces fighting on their own, against invaders that trangress their personal demesnes. Even if we assume that they are willing to fight on behalf of their world instead of their own concerns... Let's do some math. A mature adult Gold Dragon flies at 200 ft/round; approximately 2000 ft/minute or 23 miles per hour. A F-22 Raptor has a supercruise (maximum sustainable supersonic flight speed) speed of 1,220 mph and engages targets from as far away as 30 miles via AMRAAM missiles, which are radar-designated not heat-seeking and thus will hit a (relatively) cool target. It carries six of these missiles as well as two Sidewinder missiles, which have a 10-mile range. On the battlefield, it's clear that the dragon is outclassed. Monsters without flight capabilities will be even more seriously outclassed by air-to-ground missiles, which can be armed with nuclear warheads.

Equal ubiquity of magic requires a magical economy probably equivalent to Eberron; however, once more, magic items are expensive because relatively few people can construct them and they are difficult to mass-produce. Without a Tippyverse situation, magical items required to counteract the Terran technological and numerical advantage will be difficult to come by.

Finally, the last option... high-level mages. This option I cannot argue-- any wizard with dominate can probably turn Terra into his personal plaything, given time. However, without a large number of wizards or one super-powerful mage, decapacitating the entire enemy command structure will be very difficult. Depending on how it is done, the mages may be able to subdue Terra... but it would be a pyrrhic victory indeed if someone realizes what's going on and manages to get off a few nukes first.

[The Glyphstone]

Wizard-"Ow", contact other plain, teleport, fireball.




More accurately - Teleport, Contact Other Plane, Teleport Again, fireball/death spell. The wizard's not going to sit around playing 20 questions while being shot at repeatedly.

[Force]

Dragons with high caster level casts time stop, teleport, summon monster right infront of jet going mach 2. Leaves.



See that and raise you...


A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.

Technically, can't port into empty air. Definitely can't summon a monster into empty air. Also, assuming the dragon scrys a jet and teleports immediately, by the time it arrives (scrys one round, teleports the next) the jet will have moved twenty miles.




Apocalypse from the Sky and Locate City bombs



Second one is shaky legally, first one requires that the wizard pretty much sacrifice themself for the effect. US has hundreds of nukes-- how many 17+ wizards you got?




Wizard-"Ow", contact other plain, teleport, fireball.



.50cal rounds cut bodies in half, and contact other plane has a 10 minute casting time. Also, the wizard just blew two 5th level slots and a 3rd level slot on one sniper. That's not a favorable exchange rate for one sniper.



The problem is that the mature dragons and high level wizards are going to be getting a crap load of kills vs 0 loss on themselves.

How many dragons and wizards do you have?

[Foryn Gilnith]

How does the modern world react to the presence of Vivacious creatures (planar handbook), and the associated positive-energy-explosion effect they bring? A couple of Planar-Bound Vivacious creatures could be quite harmful.

[Eldan]

How, precisely, is that band of adventurers going to deal with an artillery strike called on their position from twenty miles away? They'll be dead before they know it's coming. The two biggest advantages the modern army has are range and instant communication. That frenzied berserker with an adamantine axe isn't going to get as far as the tank to chop it up before he's a greasy smear on the ground. As for your high level archers, heat-sensitive cameras will pick them up just fine, and again, range advantage to the modern army.

Actually, the Frenzied Berkserker specifically can't die to hit point damage as long as they are frenzying, so the artillery strike can't kill them.

Furthermore, there are creatures that can see IR and UV statted up in D&D, and they can't see invisible creatures. Therefore, invisibility covers those parts of the spectrum.

Also, the DMG actually has accurate guides for how many spell casters there are per population. Let me go look those up.

[Tvtyrant]

Sorry people on the military's side; but I have some qualms with your argument. It is predicated on the belief that the enemy is going to be made up of large numbers of low level fighters with a few wizards; this is false. It is in fact going to be made up of infinite numbers of Balors, Pit Fiends, and Solars. Sure the first few battles will be extremely onesided on the side of the modern army, but once the enemy realize how hopeless it is they can simply use GPB or Gate to summon monster after monster out of the various Fiendish Planes, and let them tear into you.

An example: A wizard has bound an Ice Devil. He has it build a series of Walls of Ice, each of which do 1d6 damage when you step through their broken remains. So there is a good chance the wall will kill the enemy soldiers when they step through it. The wizard binds a dozen of them and has them constantly retreating and making the walls. When a tank attempts to just ride through them the wizard hits it with a metamagicked Orb spell and breaks it. The wizard is of course covered by Greater Invisibility. When at last the soldiers have lost dozens or even hundreds of men killing the devils they have accomplished nothing, because the wizard can do it again the next day.


Now the argument here is that your going to send jets/bombers/rockets to deal with it, but jets don't fly that well in storms and bombers can be Time Stop/force caged just as easily as anyone else. The rockets are a problem but since you don't have a supply line your going to run out fairly soon.

[faerrrd]

Is it wrong to assume that radio communication won't work so great everywhere in the D&D world? Could there be some problems with getting signal or am I wrong?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Gentlemen; I have three words for the ones claiming that low-level D&D armies can't beat modern military; those words are:

Pazuzu, Pazuzu Pazuzu


:smallbiggrin:

[Eldan]

Okay, let's see.

Forget it, miscalculated. I'll do it again.

[Tael]

Really, it needs to be established how the worlds interact. If Wizards are the only ones who can easily get between worlds with planeshift, gameover, but if the military is already in the D&D world, they win as they can just carpet bomb/nuke whatever they want. However, I don't see the military can stop a few wizards randomly appearing wherever they want to and destroying everything in sight.

@Demons won't jump for joy at the sight of millions of helpless commoners:
Are you serious? I'm not talking about making deals with them, I'm just saying that if a Wizard opened a gate to the abyss in a city center, demons would be like "Oh look, free lunch!" and pour out of that thing. With DR that prevents most damage from bullets, and the ability to kill any human within reach, and an unlimited supply of the bastards, humanity is doomed.

Control winds is only an 800 ft. radius, but you can move it around for 3 hours per casting, and think about what would happen if a (albeit small) hurricane popped up out of nowhere in a city center?

Any vehicle is instantly destroyed by disintegrate.

Programmed Amnesia or Mindrape military generals and country leaders.

But also remember, Soldiers in D&Dverse armies aren't going to be inexperienced. D&D verse has tons of wars and skirmishes going on all the time, and veterans will be way better because of how XP works.

[Eldan]

How many wizards are there?

Well. A metropolis, it says, has at least 25000 inhabitants.
Out of these, four are wizards of level 1d4+12. Let's say 13. Then, we have twice that many, or 8, of half that level (6), then another 16 of level 3, and finally 32 of level one. That's not many, but then there's equal amounts of sorcerers, druids and clerics. That's the absolute minimum number, it could be substantially higher. If we assume an entire world ,there should be a fair amount of such cities.

Now, in smaller villages, there are less, but even a town of 900+ people has at least one of all those classes of level 1d4, and adepts of level 1d6.

[PersonMan]

.50cal rounds cut bodies in half, and contact other plane has a 10 minute casting time. Also, the wizard just blew two 5th level slots and a 3rd level slot on one sniper. That's not a favorable exchange rate for one sniper.

Bullets cut people in half? So do swords. Wizards can take swords, so they can take bullets.

He'll get those slots back the next day.

In the end, I think that the DnD 'verse people would cause enough casualties that the military campaign would be called off-after a while, there would be large groups of people against the war. Even if the invading force did win, it'd be a long time before they'd be doing anything other than pouring resources into it.

A handful of mid-level surviving wizards/clerics/whatever could wreak serious havoc on any force stationed to keep the peace-with the right tactics, they could continue to fight for decades.

The other thing? If you're in control of an area, how do you spot enemy wizards until they open up with spells? Heck, with the right feat they can make spell effects come from places other than where they are. Unless the military forces would massacre everyone they'd have serious problems telling the difference between civilians and enemies.

[Foryn Gilnith]

It is in fact going to be made up of infinite numbers of Balors, Pit Fiends, and Solars.
That does not satisfy the "infinite values" clause of the OP. It arguably violates the "reasonable level" clause, given that any society I can imagine where mass use of Gate is feasible wouldn't be awfully recognizable as a "D&D Society" for the purposes of this conversation. Tippyverses don't tend to come into existence.

[Eldan]

So, to make things short:

On a conventional battlefield, D&D loses. It's armies are conscripts against all the power of modern technology, and even most monsters will soon be flattened. Wizards are a problem and a balancing factor, but they will hardly engage in open war.

In Infiltration and Guerilla, D&D wins hard, incredibly hard. That includes some monsters: after all, dragons can take human shape. That peasant over there isn't just potentially carrying a concealed gun, like in normal guerilla warfare, he is potentially a twenty ton flying tank with spells.

[Force]

From the OP...

Suppose a modern army (referring to our present level of military technology; mobilisation force for conquest, et al) somehow found the means to cross over into a D&D fantasy world...

Why does the modern army not have supply lines, if they can cross into the D&D world?

How can jets/bombers be forcecaged when they fly at thousands of feet past line of sight, and move faster than scrying sensors keep up with them?

Why are storms an issue when bombers can fly above control weather?


An example: A wizard has bound an Ice Devil. He has it build a series of Walls of Ice, each of which do 1d6 damage when you step through their broken remains. So there is a good chance the wall will kill the enemy soldiers when they step through it. The wizard binds a dozen of them and has them constantly retreating and making the walls. When a tank attempts to just ride through them the wizard hits it with a metamagicked Orb spell and breaks it. The wizard is of course covered by Greater Invisibility. When at last the soldiers have lost dozens or even hundreds of men killing the devils they have accomplished nothing, because the wizard can do it again the next day.


The wizard is more than welcome to do so. He will be hit with shells from 105mm field artillery parked ten miles away, which will shred the devils, the wizard, and the ice walls quite satisfactorily.


Sorry people on the military's side; but I have some qualms with your argument. It is predicated on the belief that the enemy is going to be made up of large numbers of low level fighters with a few wizards; this is false. It is in fact going to be made up of infinite numbers of Balors, Pit Fiends, and Solars. Sure the first few battles will be extremely onesided on the side of the modern army, but once the enemy realize how hopeless it is they can simply use GPB or Gate to summon monster after monster out of the various Fiendish Planes, and let them tear into you.


Gate is a 9th level spell. How many monsters can you Gate in, total? Can you planar bind hundreds of high-level outsiders without causing a fuss that will end in the mage's death? How many monsters can you throw at the problem? I'd be surprised if they were above the low hundreds... and such an army is quite vulnerable to a nuke.


Bullets cut people in half? So do swords. Wizards can take swords, so they can take bullets.

He'll get those slots back the next day.

I had some trouble getting the appropriate numbers for swords, but the article (http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/GTA/motions_and_impacts2.htm) I found measured a sword strike at 140 joules...

A .50 BMG round hits a target with an impact of 20,000 joules. A sword strike and a bullet are NOT comparable. In addition, cutting someone in half with any melee weapon is extraordinarily difficult.

I don't argue that technology > high level magic... but it will not be a curbstomp unless there are hundreds of 17+ wizards.

[houlio]

It is in fact going to be made up of infinite numbers of Balors, Pit Fiends, and Solars.
Why would a Solar ever want to work with a Pit Fiend or Balor? Remember, a D&D-verse is supposed to have plot restrictions on these sorts of things.

Also, if this continues the D&D-verse being used has to be established on solid ground.

EDIT: To the above, you need to remember that high-level humans in D&D can do things like like survive disintegration, which I think at 20 does as much damage as a D20 nuke, if its anything to go by.

[Devmaar]

Why would a Solar ever want to work with a Pit Fiend or Balor? Remember, a D&D-verse is supposed to have plot restrictions on these sorts of things.

Also, if this continues the D&D-verse being used has to be established on solid ground.

They're not working together. A good cleric summons some Solars and says "Help! We need to defend ourselves against these invaders!" while an evil cleric summons some Balors and Pit Fiends and says "Hey, lets go slaughter those guys!"

[Eldan]

From the OP...

Why does the modern army not have supply lines, if they can cross into the D&D world?


Factories can easily be taken out.



How can jets/bombers be forcecaged when they fly at thousands of feet past line of sight, and move faster than scrying sensors keep up with them?


This one is probably true, you have to at least see the jet, which is difficult.

Why are storms an issue when bombers can fly above control weather?

Is there a height limit to weather control?


The wizard is more than welcome to do so. He will be hit with 155calibur field artillery from ten miles away, which will shred the devils, the wizard, and the ice walls quite satisfactorily.


This one has been answered, I think: ethereal and incorporeal wizards can't be hurt.



Gate is a 9th level spell. How many monsters can you Gate in, total? Can you planar bind hundreds of high-level outsiders without causing a fuss that will end in the mage's death? How many monsters can you throw at the problem? I'd be surprised if they were above the low hundreds... and such an army is quite vulnerable to a nuke.


You can, basically, fit as many monsters as fit through the gate while it's active. It lasts up to twenty rounds, and you an fit quite a few monsters through per round, I'd say dozens, since it can have a diameter of up to twenty feat. So, potentially hundreds per gate. The problem with the nuke: fire immune or incorporeal monsters.



I had some trouble getting the appropriate numbers for swords, but the article (http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/GTA/motions_and_impacts2.htm) I found measured a sword strike at 140 joules...

A .50 BMG round hits a target with an impact of 20,000 joules. A sword strike and a bullet are NOT comparable. In addition, cutting someone in half with any weapon is extraordinarily difficult.

We were using D&D numbers, which assumes that a rifle deals 2d10 damage, which a wizard can survive with an average constitution (10) and 9 class levels, even with only 2 HP per level. That's without defences. Artillery and cannons are harder, true, but that's what miss chances are for.

See my numbers above: a world will have dozens of level 15+ wizards, at least. Probably more. I need to find good numbers for how many cities there are in such a world. Also, psions can potentially create more psions, if they get high-level enough.

[Chambers]

Actually, by d20's definition, autofire shoots 10 bullets per round and can not hit any creature more than once. A rifle deals between 2d6 and 2d10 damage. The average 2d10 shot deals 11 damage, however, which is enough to go through protection from arrows. Wind wall specifically calls out bolts and arrows and gives everything else a 30% miss chance. So that doesn't work against bullets either.

The problem still remains, however: a single level 12+ wizard can easily take over the world if he wants to. Or if he is really strong, he just uses Astral Projection or etherealness and we can never, ever touch him.

d20Modern's auto-fire rules are laughable. They are made to make auto-fire less deadly than it is to preserve game balance.

The automatic rifle in the DMG is listed at 2d8 damage for a medium sized, two handed ranged weapon. That's about equivalent to the M16.

Now, the M249 is a squad automatic weapon (commonly called the SAW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M249_light_machine_gun)) that is has a cyclic rate of fire of 800 rounds per minute. It's belt fed, so it can actually fire that many rounds in a minute. To break that into D&D rounds, that's 80 rounds fired every round on autofire.

The M249 uses the same ammunition as the M16, so when the solider auto-fires the SAW, he's doing 80 x 2d6 damage that round. 160d6. Within close range you can put all of that on a point target.

My point is that the d20modern rules don't accurately reflect some very important things, so they can't all be used to determine the modern armies capabilities.

[houlio]

They're not working together. A good cleric summons some Solars and says "Help! We need to defend ourselves against these invaders!" while an evil cleric summons some Balors and Pit Fiends and says "Hey, lets go slaughter those guys!"

That's a better way to say it, the first post made it sound like the good cleric and evil cleric would be working together, which I don't think would necessarily be true.

Also, if the modern military has to play by the rules of a fantasy universe its invading, why do the fantasy people keep all of their shiny toys on Earth? As far as I know, magic doesn't work on Earth. If magic does work on Earth, wouldn't the modern military also be able to get magic users on their side as well?

[Tyndmyr]

That depends mainly on one thing.

Are sarrukhs banned?

Pah. Ironguard alone assures that the first incantatrix they run across gets to run rampant.

But that is nothing compared to the power of the diplomancer.

[Tael]

Also, if the modern military has to play by the rules of a fantasy universe its invading, why do the fantasy people keep all of their shiny toys on Earth? As far as I know, magic doesn't work on Earth. If magic does work on Earth, wouldn't the modern military also be able to get magic users on their side as well?

Because learning magic takes a hell of a long time, and earth currently doesn't have any magic users. Also, are you seriously trying to say that magic just won't work? Alright, I deposit that technology doesn't work in the D&D verse, or it would have progressed far further than it has.

[Force]

Factories can easily be taken out.



If you can find it. Remember that the idea of mass production is foreign to D&D thought.



Is there a height limit to weather control?

As the SRD sayeth...


2-mile-radius circle, centered on you; see text



This one has been answered, I think: ethereal and incorporeal wizards can't be hurt.

Conceded.



You can, basically, fit as many monsters as fit through the gate while it's active. It lasts up to twenty rounds, and you an fit quite a few monsters through per round, I'd say dozens, since it can have a diameter of up to twenty feat. So, potentially hundreds per gate. The problem with the nuke: fire immune or incorporeal monsters.

Again, as the SRD sayeth...


If you choose to call a kind of creature instead of a known individual you may call either a single creature (of any HD) or several creatures. You can call and control several creatures as long as their HD total does not exceed your caster level.

HD limits limit the number of creatures you can get out of the deal.





We were using D&D numbers, which assumes that a rifle deals 2d10 damage, which a wizard can survive with an average constitution (10) and 9 class levels, even with only 2 HP per level. That's without defences. Artillery and cannons are harder, true, but that's what miss chances are for.

Meh... the problem with D&D numbers is that all "rifles" are equal, though a M-4 fires 5.56 NATO rounds that hit at about 3,000 joules/round, while a sniper rifle fires .50 BMG rounds that hit at about 20,000. I would argue that means rifles deal different damage dice and that autofire is more effective than the D20 Modern rules, but by RAW you are correct.

As for artillery... that fires shrapnel, which is an area attack. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe miss chances will help against that.



See my numbers above: a world will have dozens of level 15+ wizards, at least. Probably more. I need to find good numbers for how many cities there are in such a world. Also, psions can potentially create more psions, if they get high-level enough.

4 level 13+ per city. How many cities are we talking, and are all the wizards working together?

[Eldan]

That's what I'm saying: I'm still trying to find numbers for how many metropoleis, by that classification, there were on medieval earth. Not easy to find. We can perhaps just round to one wizard, of various levels, per thousand people.

As for gate: you don't necessarily have to call the outsiders. I'm talking about this function:

Planar Travel

As a mode of planar travel, a gate spell functions much like a plane shift spell, except that the gate opens precisely at the point you desire (a creation effect). Deities and other beings who rule a planar realm can prevent a gate from opening in their presence or personal demesnes if they so desire. Travelers need not join hands with you—anyone who chooses to step through the portal is transported. A gate cannot be opened to another point on the same plane; the spell works only for interplanar travel.

You may hold the gate open only for a brief time (no more than 1 round per caster level), and you must concentrate on doing so, or else the interplanar connection is severed.

Take intelligent outsiders, give them a motivation, and they come through voluntarily.

[Tael]

HD limits limit the number of creatures you can get out of the deal.


We're talking about the portal function, not the calling function.

[randomhero00]

Dragons with high caster level casts time stop, teleport, summon monster right infront of jet going mach 2. Leaves.


Apocalypse from the Sky and Locate City bombs


Wizard-"Ow", contact other plain, teleport, fireball.





The problem is that the mature dragons and high level wizards are going to be getting a crap load of kills vs 0 loss on themselves.
hence why i mentioned there are many jets. they spread out, and the dragon might get one that way and use up half of his best resources. The jets on the other hand are used to casualties.

I admit though if the army was evil and wanted to use a lot of undead, we might be screwed. But I assumed we were talking about a more normal fantasy living army.

edit the problem with using undead in this scenario for widespread epicdemic, is that it'd be like a nuclear apocalypse. The original post assumed the other army wanted land and resources. undead are usually not a way of going about that.

[The Big Dice]

Because learning magic takes a hell of a long time, and earth currently doesn't have any magic users. Also, are you seriously trying to say that magic just won't work? Alright, I deposit that technology doesn't work in the D&D verse, or it would have progressed far further than it has.

Why would anyone bother developing technology based solutions to a problem when there's already magic based solutions to those problems? You don't need cranes when you have summonings and spells to move things. D&Dland barely needs wheels due to the existence of spells like Floating Disk. And add in the concept of a Mages Guild. They would aggressivley protect their monopolies. Which would mean stomping hard on anyone developing ways to do things that would normally be done by wizards.

[Tael]

hence why i mentioned there are many jets. they spread out, and the dragon might get one that way and use up half of his best resources. The jets on the other hand are used to casualties.

I admit though if the army was evil and wanted to use a lot of undead, we might be screwed. But I assumed we were talking about a more normal fantasy living army.

edit the problem with using undead in this scenario for widespread epicdemic, is that it'd be like a nuclear apocalypse. The original post assumed the other army wanted land and resources. undead are usually not a way of going about that.

You don't need dragons to kill jets, there are tons of flying creatures, and a single adamintine arrow from a high level archer is going to destroy your average jet fighter.

[The Glyphstone]

You don't need dragons to kill jets, there are tons of flying creatures, and a single adamintine arrow from a high level archer is going to destroy your average jet fighter.

I'm pretty sure your average jet fighter has more than 1d8+Str bonus hit points. A 20th level fighter can get a STR score of 36 sans cheese (18, racial +2, levelups and Tome, +6 item), so maximum of 26 damage with a +5 weapon. And that's allowing some sort of miracle to let the archer even see the plane, let alone get it into attack range.

[The Big Dice]

You don't need dragons to kill jets, there are tons of flying creatures, and single adamintine arrow from a high level archer is going to destroy your average jet fighter.

Bear in mind that even a ground attack fighter is going to be moving at well over 100 mph. Helicopters would be going at more the kind of speed that a human can track and anticipate with their eye, and even then they can get to the other side of 150mph. So getting the hit would be tricky. Assuming the plane even came into range.

The problem with jets is, they go extremely fast. For purposes other than recon and bombing runs, probably too fast to be useful. Dragons, on the other hand, fly at less than 25 mph if my math is right. (200 feet per turn is more or less 11 yards per second, which is around 22 mph. Hence me rounding up.)

The Dragon might be able to get that up to 100, but on average any vehicle the modern army has that can fly, can fly faster than a dragon.

[Tvtyrant]

Why wouldn't the evil and good guys work together? A brand new enemy that is apparently running around firing 150 MM artillery at people and firing 80 rounds a turn and they are expected to just ignored it? "Welp, looks like we are screwed. Shall we pretend there isn't anything different?" "Lets!"

Seriously though, teleportation alone fixes this in the D&D favor; a Malconvoker can stop time, summon an army of monsters, and then teleport them into the center of the army camp. He teleports out, and they get "destroyed" by the machine guns. The next day he does it again at a different time, and casts Incendiary cloud or cloud kill as well. Rinse and repeat until there are no more earthlings. You still don't know where he is coming from because he has infinite range, and so you cannot counterattack effectively.

[Yukitsu]

How, precisely, is that band of adventurers going to deal with an artillery strike called on their position from twenty miles away? They'll be dead before they know it's coming. The two biggest advantages the modern army has are range and instant communication. That frenzied berserker with an adamantine axe isn't going to get as far as the tank to chop it up before he's a greasy smear on the ground. As for your high level archers, heat-sensitive cameras will pick them up just fine, and again, range advantage to the modern army.

Evasion and reflex saves.


That does not satisfy the "infinite values" clause of the OP. It arguably violates the "reasonable level" clause, given that any society I can imagine where mass use of Gate is feasible wouldn't be awfully recognizable as a "D&D Society" for the purposes of this conversation. Tippyverses don't tend to come into existence.

Those are arguably the canon populations of at least the demons. Infinite baalors would be sufficient for the argument.

[Tyndmyr]

The fun scenario is not "can the modern military take on the D&D world" but what happens when the military appears in the D&D world. Not everyone in D&D is on the same side, normally.

Let's assume core standard rules. Lets further assume that the portal, while two way, uses D&D rules on the D&D side and is a dead magic, etc zone on our side. Otherwise, things get silly.

See, if the military rolls in as one more player in an already very complicated world, it's an entirely different game.

[Volthawk]

Also, thinking about it, the modern side would know all the capabilities of the D&D side (willing to bet whatever army it is has at least 1 person who plays D&D) as soon as they figured out what happened. The D&D side does have divinations, though.

[Gnoman]

Bear in mind that even a ground attack fighter is going to be moving at well over 100 mph. Helicopters would be going at more the kind of speed that a human can track and anticipate with their eye, and even then they can get to the other side of 150mph. So getting the hit would be tricky. Assuming the plane even came into range.

The problem with jets is, they go extremely fast. For purposes other than recon and bombing runs, probably too fast to be useful. Dragons, on the other hand, fly at less than 25 mph if my math is right. (200 feet per turn is more or less 11 yards per second, which is around 22 mph. Hence me rounding up.)

The Dragon might be able to get that up to 100, but on average any vehicle the modern army has that can fly, can fly faster than a dragon.

The problem with aircraft is that they guzzle fuel, every drop of which woulod have to be shipped in, their weapons would be largely useless for the reasons I've already mentioned, and would not be able to fly slow enough to gun down the dragons raping the artillery that people seem so fond of bringing up.

[Saph]

Short term, the D&D world would have an advantage, though not a huge one. After all, if the D&D world gets to play by D&D rules, the modern military gets to play by real-world rules, and real-world rules says one hit from a high-power modern weapon and you're dead.

After the first battle, though, all the D&D geeks in the military (of which there are many) would put together a counter-strategy. Probably the first thing they'd do would be start aggressively training up magic-using specialists of their own.

Long run, I'd give it to the modern military, due to having an extra few centuries of cultural and military development - they'd quickly figure out how to take advantage of magic, and they'd do so with more skill than the basically medieval D&D world would.

[Yukitsu]

One hit from a high powered weapon=dead isn't a rule. Even us low level commoners can take a hit through the head from a .50 calibre weapon and survive, albiet would be very lucky. An inability to grow tougher to survive deadlier hits is not actually a rule of our reality either.

[Tyndmyr]

Also, thinking about it, the modern side would know all the capabilities of the D&D side (willing to bet whatever army it is has at least 1 person who plays D&D) as soon as they figured out what happened. The D&D side does have divinations, though.

I and other military types would have a pretty good idea almost instantly. This caused a great work discussion for me, incidentally. We determined that my complete collection of 3.5 books would instantly be worth a crapload of money. Unfortunately, they would also almost instantly be confiscated by the military for obvious uses.

[AyeGill]

How, precisely, is that band of adventurers going to deal with an artillery strike called on their position from twenty miles away? They'll be dead before they know it's coming. The two biggest advantages the modern army has are range and instant communication. That frenzied berserker with an adamantine axe isn't going to get as far as the tank to chop it up before he's a greasy smear on the ground. As for your high level archers, heat-sensitive cameras will pick them up just fine, and again, range advantage to the modern army.

How much damage do you think an artillery strike deals? It's probably quite a lot, but then you get crazy **** like the Twice-Betrayer of Shar that's immune to death from damage. Or, y'know, the fact that high-level adventurers can turn incorporeal. Or invisible. Or just teleport in. Or Shadow Jaunt.

But i dont even think all that's going to be used. Look at the locate city nuke, 10 miles/level of utter destruction(although the destruction isn't quite so utter around the edges). then look at any Master Spellthief CL optimization: with the right stacking, you can get to hundreds of CL. so we have a... third? fourth? level spell dealing massive destruction in an area of thousands of miles radius. Then we have a high level caster doing that, and teleport, multiple times per round, probably decimating most of the army's armor(since there's oddly no weight limit on Explosive Spell). We can also use contact other plane, with the right wording, to know the positions of all the leaders with a single spell.

Of course, even if that's averted, you still have the Twice-Betrayer of Shar, which is friggin' IMMUNE TO DEATH BY DAMAGE. And that's probably all the army can dish up: damage.

[jseah]

Modern side bribes or seduces one wizard. D&D maniacs get together and present their idea. Tippyverse results. =P

More seriously, the D&D world a slight advantage in that they can fight a devastating guerilla war. High level wizards could easily kill 20+ soldiers a day. Each.
But of course, there are far better things to do with magic than killing random soldiers. Why not earn lots of money and enjoy the good life? Life of extravagance that far exceeds any demiplane. Loads of money, fame, all the women/men you could want. Power too, if you want it. There's far more political power to be had in any large country than ALL of the D&D world combined.

Other than that, if it was total war right from the start, there would be no population centers left of any kind on the D&D side. Total war is total war, and that means overwhelming first strike.
Modern side launches a few spy satellites. A few days later, they have footage of every settlement which they proceed to bomb into non-existence. Simultaneously, nukes go off in every major city and metropolis, instantly destroying almost all resistance.

The remaining roving bands can't manage to do anything useful. The wizards who escape the original wave (of which there will alot) will most likely try to take advantage of the new society that is defenceless against mind manipulating magic.
In a few months, what was formerly the high level casters of the D&D world are now the top CEOs or political figures in every modern country. And they continue their own feuds but also live a life of luxury in the modern world.
To most citizens of the modern world, it's just life as usual.

In Civilization series terms, modern world wins a military victory. Shortly followed by a cultural victory.

[Lamech]

First the DnD world can't really try to attack the earth side since last time I checked magic doesn't exist here, so we are a dead magic world. The fight is some what one sided, since DnD land can never really "win".

Two any of the published DnD societies would get crushed. And quickly. For some innane reason armies get used and are effective in them, DnD geeks would know what is going on and things would go down hill from their. The armies will clash and DnD-land will get massacared.

On the other hand a more intelligently designed DnD world might last longer. (They might also get incinerated by a nuclear weapns.) They could defeat the magicless armies for all the reasons given. Of course in the long run earth would train magic users and still crush DnD land with greater numbers...

[AyeGill]

First the DnD world can't really try to attack the earth side since last time I checked magic doesn't exist here, so we are a dead magic world. The fight is some what one sided, since DnD land can never really "win".

Two any of the published DnD societies would get crushed. And quickly. For some innane reason armies get used and are effective in them, DnD geeks would know what is going on and things would go down hill from their. The armies will clash and DnD-land will get massacared.

On the other hand a more intelligently designed DnD world might last longer. (They might also get incinerated by a nuclear weapns.) They could defeat the magicless armies for all the reasons given. Of course in the long run earth would train magic users and still crush DnD land with greater numbers...

Except, you know, a more intelligently designed DnD world would have Pun-Pun. Earth wouldn't last a round.

[Combat Reflexes]

@Combat Reflexes
What Emmerask said.
=> Teleport Object
You first have to get there and touch it. Automated security systems can't be charmed, and at least d20modern weapons seem to be sufficient to break through some protection (i.e. stoneskin).


Well, we have incorporeal wizards or shadows/ghosts for that.

also, if you want complete and utter cheese, send an allip or two at the modern army. Allip attacks, drains wisdom, kills soldier, creates new allip, allip attacks > world domination for the nonexistents!! :smallcool:

[Eldan]

I and other military types would have a pretty good idea almost instantly. This caused a great work discussion for me, incidentally. We determined that my complete collection of 3.5 books would instantly be worth a crapload of money. Unfortunately, they would also almost instantly be confiscated by the military for obvious uses.

So, can the military force wizards to write a 5th edition, which says "magic does not exist in D&D", then outlaw any edition before it by death penalty?

[pendell]

Does either side get to collect any intelligence or scouting before the fight kicks off?

If so, my money's on earth. Not because of their technology. Because of their organization. An industrial society with research labs, corporations, factories, has a better chance of adapting to the unique challenges posed by D&D rules and either countering them or adapting them as their own.

Vs. fights of this sort always seem to assume that both sides are completely incapable of intelligence gathering or of making modifications or improvements when their own skills and capabilities prove deficient.

But long-term fights don't work that way. You don't just show up with what you had and continue repeating the exact same pattern over and over like video game mooks; you learn from your losses and you make adaptations. Before WW1, airplanes were a novelty. By the end of world war 1 tanks and aircraft and submarines had all been put through a series of ruthless innovations to create an entirely different kind of war, one unforeseen by the people who kicked it off in 1914.

Or another example: In 1941, the Americans had aircraft that were utterly inferior to Japanese aircraft. A vs. fight as we have here would show the Japanese winning. But they didn't. Because the Americans learned from their mistakes and built new, improved fighters. This, coupled with improved tactics, resulted in an entirely different air force by 1945. Which was entirely different from the one that had to compete with Jet fighters over Korea in the 1950s. Once again, F-80s and WWII P-51s were outclassed by Mig-15s.Once again, the US adapted it's technology and its tactics to win again.

So to me, the question is not what both sides start the war with. The question is what will happen during the course of the war. A D&D world may have magic that gives it a power level at or beyond Earth's; but it's still organized on Medieval European lines. Wizards work alone. NPCs still live in the Middle Ages. There is no common stock corporation, and no paper money.

And so my money is on Earth. Because Earth's innovations in organization allow it to collect intelligence, research improvements, manufacture improvements, and get those improvements out to the tip of the spear, coupled with a supply and logistics network that standard D&D simply can't match. It doesn't matter if there are epic-level wizards. For a year, they will win. But they won't win in ten or twenty years when the competitor society spends as much time and energy researching magic as we spend on curing cancer or AIDS.

"Victory is won more by skill than by numbers. And when skill becomes a mass phenomenon an army becomes invincible." -- Vasili Chuikov

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[DeltaEmil]

Our priests are incapable of real magick. Our "holy water" is useless. We will have no time to learn the magick of the D&D-people, and if we have to learn their magick, it just proves that they were superior in the first place.

One shadow, and the modern army from this world called Earth is finished. One shadow, and all of Earth is finished. Except those who might have fled to the bright side of the moon or live in orbital stations.

All we have is wishful thinking for a miracle. It is useless against the Wishes of an arcane spellcaster or the Miracles of any D&D-priest which really can alter reality. But they need not waste such powerful abilities on us non-spellcasters, because we stand no chance against an incorporeal undead thing that reproduces faster than a billion cockroaches in an enclosed space.

We die, unsung, in utter despair, our last thoughts being that this is just ridiculous and unfair.

[Emmerask]

Our priests are incapable of real magic. Our "holy water" is useless. We will have no time to learn the magic of the D&D-people, and if we have to learn their magic, it just proves that they were superior in the first place.

How do you know that? Our universe could just be a dead magic zone :smalltongue:

And we don´t learn their magic they learned the magic we provided them with in our sourcebooks, so its actually our magic only we can´t use it (here)^^

[Tyndmyr]

First the DnD world can't really try to attack the earth side since last time I checked magic doesn't exist here, so we are a dead magic world. The fight is some what one sided, since DnD land can never really "win".

There are a number of insane Ex abilities.

For instance, hide in plain sight. Also, rust monsters.

[AyeGill]

I think that three undetermined factors decide this fight:

1: Epic magic. is it available to the DnD Side. if so, they win immediately, hands down, no argument. An epic wizard and his simulacrums(simulacri?), can create a creature that has any epic spells he though of at the time of creations, as (ex) abilities at will. dead magic will not matter.

2: Dead Magic. If we exclude epic magic, another question appears: Is there a dead magic zone over Earth? That would explain why we have no magicians, certainly. If there is, then DnDland has just lost a major tactical advantage, and will like be resigned to defense, at least in the beginning. Depending on how the army mobilizes its forces, DnDland might still win(for example, if they send in the whole army, it will get decimated, and they'll be vulnerable to assault from a few high-level barbarian/warblade strike teams. But Earth will probably win. If there's no Death Magic, then the war will probably be in DnDlands favor. Earth might still win, but it'll probably be pretty one sided.

3: Can Earth Train Mages?
If there's no death magic zone, can humans from Earth become mages? If so, earth will have much better chances. The war will probably not last long enough for high-level wizards to come into the fight, but if they do, they could overwhelm DnDland with strength of numbers

That's my analysis.

[Tvtyrant]

In a deadland system I would breed thousands of battlebriars and send them out. Mmmmm, needle barrages.

[Tyndmyr]

I would presume that D&D humans are equivalent to our world humans, save for where they live. Thus, we could learn magic, but only over there.

It'd be the one long term shot at winning. Tech + magic = win.

[DeltaEmil]

How do you know that? Our universe could just be a dead magic zone :smalltongue:Or it is created by a bunch of wizards living on a flat world which stands atop the back of four giant elephants standing themselves on the back of an immense turtle that "swims" through the infinity of space.
If we have to make wishful assumptions that we are somehow immune against some things that we have no chance against, then it also only means that D&D-magic is superior to us.

It's like in Star Wreck. If you need to explain away the shields of the Pirk-ships so that a "fair" battle can take place, then it only means that they were superior in the first place. And I'm a real-life Babylon 5-is-cooler-and-a-better-show-than-Star-Trek-is-sort-of-fan. That does not mean I will disregard the fact that except for some technology of the First Ones, the overall technology level in Babylon 5 is lower than what is regularely achieved by the whims of their authors.

[Emmerask]

I would presume that D&D humans are equivalent to our world humans, save for where they live. Thus, we could learn magic, but only over there.

It'd be the one long term shot at winning. Tech + magic = win.

If the only thing one needs for magic is intelligence then yes we could have an army of wizards out there quite soon. We also have quite the numeric advantage 5 billion vs perhaps 100million.
If we train the top 1% in magic in that d&d world then the real world army would win by a landslide ^^

I think with an accelerated training program we could pump out those level 20 wizards on a weekly basis :smallbiggrin:

But I think the first step would not be military aggression it would be economical knowing our hyper capitalism the earth would just make every single d&d being drinking cola, eating Kellogs and wearing boss jeans :smallmad:

[DeltaEmil]

By the time we finished training our first wizards and cleric who use the powers of the enemy (therefore proving that they were superior in the first place), these "wizards" and "clerics" on our side must fight against 6 billion shadows...

[Eldan]

I would presume that D&D humans are equivalent to our world humans, save for where they live. Thus, we could learn magic, but only over there.

It'd be the one long term shot at winning. Tech + magic = win.

Then, however, hte question becomes if our technology works over there. After all, our world does not consist of four elemental atoms and two energies, have intelligent landscapes possessed by nature spirits or an Aether and/or Phlogiston.

[Emmerask]

By the time we finished training our first wizards and cleric who use the powers of the enemy (therefore proving that they were superior in the first place), these "wizards" and "clerics" on our side must fight against 6 billion shadows...

either they can´t exist in our world (dead magic zone)
or our blessed water works which makes them no real threat ^^



Then, however, hte question becomes if our technology works over there. After all, our world does not consist of four elemental atoms and two energies, have intelligent landscapes possessed by nature spirits or an Aether and/or Phlogiston.

Hm, that is a good point

[Tvtyrant]

We enter each others dimensions and no weaponry works for either side, nor magic. Both sides agree instead to trade resources that can work on the other side.

[Emmerask]

More then likely both sides simply can´t exist in the others dimension nor does any element ^^

[Eldan]

Also, someone mentioned nuking D&D-world. However (I only thought of this now), D&D has totally autarkic civilizations both in the deepest ocean and miles underground. How do you defeat them with modern armies?

[Emmerask]

A couple of thousand nukes can kill anything ^^

[Killer Angel]

At high levels, magic simply has too many "I Win" buttons, even compared to modern technology. At lower levels, or assuming a very small number of high-level magic users, the ubiquity of technology available to the modern world will ensure triumph, though it will be bloody at best.

At best, they win a territory they cannot control at all.
leaving aside casters such clerid or druid (good luck entering a forest), and staying on wizard.
A single high level wizard incantatrix can prepare and sink the USS Enterprise, and the next day is again at full potential. But let's say there arent wizard of a level so high (but they should, if we consider the best of our world, they have the best of their).
A mid-low level wizard (5-8) won't face the enemies on a battlefild with a wand of fireball.
They stay in town and collect the news of the disaster of the regular troops.
When the terran armies arrive, they go wild... they're like peasants, they'll appear only when they decide to strike a valuable target.
Invisibility, ventriloquism, summon swarm for the crew inside a vehicle, summon summon summon, rope trick. See ya next day, dear invaders.

[DeltaEmil]

either they can´t exist in our world (dead magic zone)
or our blessed water works which makes them no real threat ^^These are baseless assumptions on our world in the hope that we stand a chance against a mere shadow.

In the end, if it means that to win against our enemies, we need to become like our enemies, then our enemies won, and we become a bog-standard D&D-world with magic-using god-kings who rule over lesser men like us sniveling and licking the scraps from their table. It doesn't matter if these god-kings are invaders from another world/dimension or our own people turned into arcane and divine protectors who were trained to stop the shadow-pocalypse.

It's unfair, and it's stupid.

[Emmerask]

These are baseless assumptions

That made me kind of giggle :smallbiggrin:

ALL of these assumptions are completely baseless, the only base we have are two completely incompatible systems :smallwink:

[Killer Angel]

ALL of these assumptions are completely baseless, the only base we have are two completely incompatible systems :smallwink:

thinking on it, we have some precedent.
In The Gamers, the adventurers killed their real world counterparts... but those were only geek. :smalltongue:

[Ravens_cry]

I foresee a lot of early victories on the modern military side. Most D&D combat, even the magical kind, takes place at short range by modern military standards. In the beginning at least, a sniper could take out a pretty high level caster. And in most D&D worlds, those are rare, damn rare. Healing spells per day are optimized for the small squads of a typical D&D adventuring party, not armies. There is little in the way of flying besides magic and some mounts and that is SLOW. Communication, again aside from expensive and likely rare magic, is also inefficient.
Unless high level magi are as thick midges, the D&D command structure is very top heavy, it's biggest advantages, reality twisting magic, not really suited for large scale warfare.

[DeltaEmil]

That made me kind of giggle :smallbiggrin:

ALL of these assumptions are completely baseless, the only base we have are two completely incompatible systems :smallwink:And yet, we have nothing to bypass a shadow's incorporeality, except for wishful thinking that our "holy water" by completely mundane clergy-men without any real magick would indeed be of any use, or that we live in an anti-magical world.

Wishful thinking remains wishful thinking. We have many powerful nukes that can annihilate the surface of any planet of roughly our size a few hundred times, but yet are still completely useless against shadows, we have warmachines that can fly faster than a dragon and are so heavily armored that even a titan would break his fists against the plating, and yet, an incorporeal shadow simply flies through and transforms the crew into more shadows, we have billions of humans living on our world with highly advanced communication technology that will only be used to yell how nothing can stop these freaky floaty black things that touch, make you weak, and then make you one of them too, faster than any deadly supervirus in any top secret laboratory can wreck upon the world.

And let's not get started when the D&D-mages get serious and send ghost-wizards and wraiths...

[AyeGill]

And let's not get started when the D&D-mages get serious and send ghost-wizards and wraiths...

Or when the lord of DnD-land, Pun-Pun, decides things aren't going well, sweeps in, and kicks ass with his every epic spell as an extraordinary ability.

[Eldan]

Well, yes.

However, Pun-pun is an exploit, and pretty explicitely not part of the deal of this thread. However, summoning a shadow takes a low-level spell slot. Every small town has a wizard capable of calling one, and cities and metropoleis have dozens of them.

[AyeGill]

Well, yes.

However, Pun-pun is an exploit, and pretty explicitely not part of the deal of this thread. However, summoning a shadow takes a low-level spell slot. Every small town has a wizard capable of calling one, and cities and metropoleis have dozens of them.

Saying that pun-pun is an exploit of the rules of DnD, is like saying nukes are an exploit of the laws of physics.

[Emmerask]

But isn´t it more likely that the invaders use that trick seeing that we actually invented the trick? ^^

[Ravens_cry]

And yet, we have nothing to bypass a shadow's incorporeality, except for wishful thinking that our "holy water" by completely mundane clergy-men without any real magick would indeed be of any use, or that we live in an anti-magical world.

Wishful thinking remains wishful thinking. We have many powerful nukes that can annihilate the surface of any planet of roughly our size a few hundred times, but yet are still completely useless against shadows, we have warmachines that can fly faster than a dragon and are so heavily armored that even a titan would break his fists against the plating, and yet, an incorporeal shadow simply flies through and transforms the crew into more shadows, we have billions of humans living on our world with highly advanced communication technology that will only be used to yell how nothing can stop these freaky floaty black things that touch, make you weak, and then make you one of them too, faster than any deadly supervirus in any top secret laboratory can wreck upon the world.

And let's not get started when the D&D-mages get serious and send ghost-wizards and wraiths...
How fast is a shadow? 40 feet a round is not that much.
Also, nothing says Earth can't pull a Cortez. In a world sharply delineated between Good and Evil, with 'Evil' races commonly living on the edge of civilisation, surely there would be some dissaffected orcs, goblins and other races we can team up with. Of course, there is still the the problem with how rare magic is, but it still would shore up some of the difficulties, and that rarity is still a shortcoming for Team D&D.
Orcs with guns. Now where have I heard that before . . .

[pendell]

And yet, we have nothing to bypass a shadow's incorporeality, except for wishful thinking that our "holy water" by completely mundane clergy-men without any real magick would indeed be of any use, or that we live in an anti-magical world.

Wishful thinking remains wishful thinking. We have many powerful nukes that can annihilate the surface of any planet of roughly our size a few hundred times, but yet are still completely useless against shadows, we have warmachines that can fly faster than a dragon and are so heavily armored that even a titan would break his fists against the plating, and yet, an incorporeal shadow simply flies through and transforms the crew into more shadows, we have billions of humans living on our world with highly advanced communication technology that will only be used to yell how nothing can stop these freaky floaty black things that touch, make you weak, and then make you one of them too, faster than any deadly supervirus in any top secret laboratory can wreck upon the world.

And let's not get started when the D&D-mages get serious and send ghost-wizards and wraiths...

Wishful thinking cuts both ways. If it's wishful thinking that Earth is defenseless against magic and that mages have no disadvantages, it's also wishful thinking that magic will work EXACTLY the same way it does here as it does in D&D land -- or that technology does over there.

These are ASSUMPTIONS, and would only be proven by actual experiment, which of course we can't do :).

Unless we write up a campaign to specifically allow for this, there's no easy way to resolve incompatible systems. The person writing the campaign, of course, could easily stack the deck in favor of either civilization if s/he was so minded. It's not like this is reality after all.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Eldan]

Weeeell... there is Iron Kingdom.

[Waker]

Well, I decided I'd get in on this argument.
For one I'll state that some of my strategies are based upon the premise that 1. Earth is a magical dead zone.
2. No epic magic.
My reasons for such are as follows. There has never been any evidence anywhere outside of stories of magic, psionics or any creatures like ghost, fey and the like. Magical Dead Zones exist in several D&D settings, why wouldn't it exist in a world where there has no magic?
As for Epic Magic, why hasn't the few entities possessing epic magic taken over the whole of the world, or at the very least a country? Or there may be epic magic, but likelihood of a being possessing such powerful magic that also lives on the Prime Plane (as opposed to their own demiplane or extraplanar reality) and care enough to battle this invading force as opposed to ignore them entirely is pretty low. While most players look at Epic magic as something to further annoy their DMs with, realistically most characters who achieve such strength are going to focus on grander things.

Ok, now that that silliness is done, I can get to my points.
Bear in mind that in various D&D settings there have been instances of highly dangerous beings entering the world and only garnering a token resistance to battle them. Remember Clockwork Horrors? Or Kaorti? These are horrible non-human entities that can't be reasoned with and destroy everything in their paths. At least a modern army could bribe locals.
Continuing on that thought, if beings like the above mentioned can come to a world and not get the immediate attention of every country, why should we? Thus the more likely scenario is that we could have to deal with one or two countries at a time which would drastically reduce the number of clerics/wizards that could be fielded at a time.
The use of shadows or other undead has several flaws in it. One is the potential for using Holy Water (Earth or confiscated). Or bribing/threatening clerics/paladins to turn the undead for us. A low level can't do much to oppose an army, especially if hostages are involved. The other issue is that a shadow unleashed on an army can cause it's own troubles. Suppose the army just moves away? Now you've got a region full of shadows to deal with, try explaining that to the locals you've "liberated."

I'd post more, but my eyes are bothering me at the moment.

[Tvtyrant]

Still based on the premise that guns work in the D&D world, or jets for that matter. Also that taking over one planet amounts to winning the war, as Spelljammer exists pan-setting. Thus even defeating one planet would mean dealing with interstellar star fleets.

[Ravens_cry]

Saying that pun-pun is an exploit of the rules of DnD, is like saying nukes are an exploit of the laws of physics.
Pun Pun uses the rules as rules, but we are not talking about that. We are talking about a society as described in an average campaign. And Pun-Pun does not exist in almost any campaign setting,and those that do are homebrew.

[Xerit]

The modern army proponents are making some really huge leaps in logic, and seriously underestimating the effects of a small group of invincible killers (ethereal == invincible vs real world opponents with no access to magic).

Lets address another issue, how are the crossing over in the first place? Is it some kind of gate that could simply be blocked, or covered indefinetely in a cloudkill/solidfog spell inside a dome of force, inside a prismatic sphere, surrounded by shadows?

Most of the arguments I see seem to assume the modern army has time to set up shop so to speak on the magical side before some serious butt whoopin comes down on their heads. In a world where prophecy and fortelling are common, daily affairs I don't see how this is possible. Short of them being given the ability to instantly transport whole fortified positions into the field (something I don't see being done with modern technology, or even some breakthrough tech they are being given for the sake of argument). Without such a fortified position, and given that the magical world has time to prepare against what is essentially yet another invasion by "demons from another realm bent on world destruction, using strange weapons" thwarting this threat is a pretty average run of the mill campaign story, not some actual world ending threat.

Also, somewhere there is a thread about 1 level 20 wizard vs the world. If I had skill to go look it up I would, as I believe the dozens of ways said wizard dismantled the world could be put to good use here. I think if somehow the modern military decided to invade the D&D world, the problem wouldn't be how to destroy the D&D world, it would be how to best stop the D&D world from completely subjugating our curious technology with their much superior reality altering magic.

Basically, being able to, at will, bend the rules of reality and make physics do what you want >>> being completely bound by the laws of physics.

EDIT: Also i'd like to point out, that it doesn't take multiple high level casters to destroy an earth army. It takes ONE, and pretty much any ONE.

[Tvtyrant]

I think its fairly obvious that no one is convincing anyone; not one person has switched sides in this thread. If you think Earth would win you think Earth would win, and the opposite on the other side.

[Ravens_cry]

How many level 20 wizards are there in a typical D&D setting?
. Heck, in 1st edition AD&D, there would literally be limited amounts of, past a certain level, of most classes and if you wanted to advance you had to beat the <expletive redacted/> down to gain a level.
There will be no ethereal armies.

[Xerit]

How many level 20 wizards are there in a typical D&D setting?
. Heck, in 1st edition AD&D, there would literally be limited amounts of, past a certain level, of most classes and if you wanted to advance you had to beat the <expletive redacted/> down to gain a level.
There will be no ethereal armies.

Dont need an army. Just need one ethereal spellcaster of sufficiently high level to decide your army needs to go. And then you go.

Lets assume for debate that earth launches an all out invasion and conquers whatever ridiculous army of commoners the earth proponents insist are the only standing resistance for the DnD side. Now you have to deal with resistance from guerrilla fighters (guerrilla spellcasters actually). The modern day US army (the literally most advanced, well funded, and largest military on the planet) is currently bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was defeated in Vietnam by such fighters. And those fighters were using old tech, of the same kind which the US Army was using. Now you have to deal with wizards using technology you can't understand, you can't use, and have no way to fight back against.

Even if you "win" you still lose.

[Selrahc]

I don't really get why the modern world wouldn't be hiring as many high level adventurers as possible to combat the enemy. Adventurers are all about shiny trinkets, and don't really have that much of a tie of loyalty to the fractious medieval kingdoms of DnD. And with an incredible production potential, exotic toys and a unified economic government working on non feudal lines the modern world ought to be able to offer a good deal more financial reward to the high level adventurers than the magic kingdoms.

[Xerit]

I don't really get why the modern world wouldn't be hiring as many high level adventurers as possible to combat the enemy. Adventurers are all about shiny trinkets, and don't really have that much of a tie of loyalty to the fractious medieval kingdoms of DnD. And with an incredible production potential, exotic toys and a unified economic government working on non feudal lines the modern world ought to be able to offer a good deal more financial reward to the high level adventurers than the magic kingdoms.


At which point the argument is "Who can afford to hire more adventurers" not "whos army wins in a fight". Even then I think DnD has the edge, since they can fabricate the trinkets, gold, and other shinys that adventurers want. Exactly how many magical items does earth have sealed away in its storerooms to bribe adventurers? All the gold in the world is usually no more than a means to an end, and can also be fabricated by the DnD side.

Also, this whole line of thinking kind of goes against the premise in general, which is one society versus another. The base assumption, as I understand it, is that both sides are committed to fighting each other to the death.

[Eldan]

Phh. We take the average Sword and Sorcery Hero (Conan, Fafhrd, the Grey Mouser) and drown him in all of Earth's booze and hookers. Since a lot of them hate casters anyway, we get at least some.

[Coidzor]

Biological warfare shouldn't be a problem. Cure Disease is easily available, and cures every possible disease. Even disease immunity can't be that hard to get. Same for chemical warfare and poisons.

Isn't anthrax biological warfare and incapacitates before one could become aware to seek out such healing?

And disease immunity's fairly hard for the rank and file to get. Not that they matter in this discussion or any other discussion involving D&D, of course.

Of course, like all versus threads, this is all too nebulous to be worth discussing anyway, though the thread seems to have gone with the presumption that there's a high level or epic wizard just chilling out and scrying on interdimensional rifts through which armies are going to be spilling forth from and still cares what happens despite living on his own private demiplane enough to either kill everyone or mindrape the leadership into leaving/enslaving Earth.

[Xerit]

Phh. We take the average Sword and Sorcery Hero (Conan, Fafhrd, the Grey Mouser) and drown him in all of Earth's booze and hookers. Since a lot of them hate casters anyway, we get at least some.

Who cares about Conan? Its Gandalf who rules DnD.

[Coidzor]

Who cares about Conan? Its Gandalf who rules DnD.

Not really, Gandalf is like, 5th level. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=7338)

[The Glyphstone]

I think its fairly obvious that no one is convincing anyone; not one person has switched sides in this thread. If you think Earth would win you think Earth would win, and the opposite on the other side.

Yeah, but for most people here, I think the journey is more fun than the destination. The point isn't to convince the other side so much as enjoy a spirited argument with massive quantities of geekiness being thrown around.:smallsmile: Where else are you going to see the MPH speed of a red dragon specifically so it can be compared to an F-22 on afterburner?

[Tvtyrant]

Not really, Gandalf is like, 5th level.

He kills a Balor by himself... I think not.

He just isn't very optimized.

[Xerit]

Of course, like all versus threads, this is all too nebulous to be worth discussing anyway, though the thread seems to have gone with the presumption that there's a high level or epic wizard just chilling out and scrying on interdimensional rifts through which armies are going to be spilling forth from and still cares what happens despite living on his own private demiplane enough to either kill everyone or mindrape the leadership into leaving/enslaving Earth.

I think its a fair assumption that the gods of DnD, will likely warn their clerics of impending doom. Who will likely warn others, and so on, and so on, and at least one of those 'Others' at some point down that chain will be a high enough level wizard that stopping these invading earthlings with their mundane weaponry is within his abilities.

Saying otherwise is kinda selling the DnD's information gathering abilities short in my opinion.

Just because we have no real fortune tellers, or oracles, doesn't mean DnD shouldn't be able to use theirs.

[Coidzor]

He kills a Balor by himself... I think not.

He just isn't very optimized.

No, he broke the bridge the Balrog was standing on. And it was a balrog, not a balor. And died in the process so that his lesser-deity-soul could escape his physical shell and metaphysics.


I think its a fair assumption that the gods of DnD, will likely warn their clerics of impending doom. Who will likely warn others, and so on, and so on, and at least one of those 'Others' at some point down that chain will be a high enough level wizard that stopping these invading earthlings with their mundane weaponry is within his abilities.

Saying otherwise is kinda selling the DnD's information gathering abilities short in my opinion.

Just because we have no real fortune tellers, or oracles, doesn't mean DnD shouldn't be able to use theirs.

This presupposes that it's 1. something the Gods' portfolios can detect and 2. that the gods feel like it, since they can't be bothered about half the plots to actually just destroy the plane of existence or flooding the world with demons out of a permanent gate to the abyss.

And is also meaningless without establishing the particular D&D setting, since there's no high level wizards in Eberron, just dragons.

[The Glyphstone]

He kills a Balor by himself... I think not.

He just isn't very optimized.


No, he broke the bridge the Balrog was standing on. And it was a balrog, not a balor. And died in the process so that his lesser-deity-soul could escape his physical shell and metaphysics.

That's not a function of his being 5th level. That's from his 20 Outsider HD and DvR0 (increased to DvR 1 after his return).

[Gelscressor]

D&D Society will win in the end, pretty much. D&D society being defined as the inhabitants of a single prime world that isn't, say, FR. The Planes do not directly participate in the actual conflict, although they still ''exist'' to be made use for the inhabitants of a single prime world. We take gods appearing out of the equation, because, really. But Priests still get spells for sake of argument. For the argument, I'm assuming that there is a sort of portal connecting the two planets.

Even if the ''Modern Military'' gets to do a first strike and nukes the entire surface, the war can not be won. There's the underworld. There are contingencies. In fact, I'd say its highly unlikely for modern military being able to do a truly devastating first strike; thanks to high level divinations and all. The most dangerous individuals still are alive after the nukes hit.

If enough nukes are used for the core of the planet to be destroyed, earth's still not going to win. There are a select few creatures that can live just fine in space and are unaffected by the entire planet being blown up. These creatures happen to be part of the biggest threat. The most dangerous individuals, on that note, are probably still alive. There might be a lich who's phylactery is on the planet's moon. Contingencies might involve teleports away from the planet itself.

There's still scry , teleport and die/destroy/control tactics possible. Wizard's can just teleport anywhere. If earth still has nukes left at this stage, they probably will be used by the wizards. Be it in the country that they nukes are held...or be it using the nukes against an other country. They could start World War III with ease. If no nukes are left, they can systematically wreck everything and control or kill each important individual one by one. Communication systems can be crippled the same way. Nothing is stopping them from destroying earth's space stations. If D&D society has merely a single level 20 lich Wizard left, D&D society is still going to win. The lich won't need to resort to cheese either.

Also, I'd to react on the idea that earth would win, in the end, when we get our own spellcasters. I really have to disagree with this. Ultimately, it will be easier for D&D society to adapt our technology, then it would be for us to actually get spellcasters that can compete with theirs. A highly trained sniper is deadly? Just think what happens if a high level ranger gets a sniper rifle and learns how to use it. Let alone if he's a Ghost.

[Selrahc]

All the gold in the world is usually no more than a means to an end, and can also be fabricated by the DnD side.

Screw gold. Give them knowledge. Give them powerful toys. Give them comfort. Give them luxury. Satisfy their curiosity. Promise them they can satisfy their bloodlust. Promise them they can take out their enemies. Give them a military system backing them up that isn't idiot nobles commanding peasant levees. Give them a society that is entirely different and new to them, and which they might like. Give them exotic technological marvels.


So yeah, a lot of adventurers would stick around, due to loyalty. Due to cultural ties. Friendship. But a lot wouldn't.


There are a million reasons why adventurers might pick either side. But Adventurers are the only thing that the DnD verse really has going for it as its regular armies would clearly be doomed. But adventurers can't be relied on. A feudal state with a loosely defined rulership, among dozens of other squabbling feudal states does not inspire loyalty. An adventurer is a professional mercenary, which is in itself, not a class of people traditionally bound by ties of loyalty.



Also, this whole line of thinking kind of goes against the premise in general, which is one society versus another.

But if one society is a group of centrally controlled nation states, with efficient military systems based around rigid rank and intense coordination between the states a common occurrence, and the other is a series of small squabbling feudal states or despotisms who rely on high priced, disloyal mercenary special forces to do anything big.. it stands to reason that one side will face a lot more problems in mobilization of forces and loyalty of troops than the other. To ignore that, and give the DnD states some sort of hivemind "Must kill modern world" mentality gives them a lot of free advantage.

[Xerit]

Not really, Gandalf is like, 5th level. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=7338)

I'd like to point out, that the fact that Gandalf CHOSE not to use spells above level 3 in situations which seemed life threatening could just as easily be taken as a sign of him being of such a high level that he didn't feel threatened enough to use anything beyond that. Of course this also displays an extreme amount of indifference to the safety of his fellow party members, but then again so does him riding in on an eagle to save the hobbits at the end. Raising the question of why they had to walk to mt. doom in the first place.

I think Gandalf was an Epic level wizard who was just bored with auto-winning everything and so self nerfed himself and invented a convoluted quest for others which he could participate in. At any time he could simply have taken the ring, teleported to mt. doom, and ended the campaign. He simply didn't, because deep down hes Chaotic Stupid, and was having too much fun to bother saving the world efficiently.

[Eldan]

Fun fact: back when Halflings where still called Hobbits, Balors were called Balrogs. Then type VI demons, to avoid copyright issues.

Edit: and Gandalf isn't a wizard. He's an epic level cleric who had most of his spells taken away by a god who followed a Fated agenda.w

[Xerit]

Screw gold. Give them knowledge. Give them powerful toys. Give them comfort. Give them luxury. Satisfy their curiosity. Promise them they can satisfy their bloodlust. Promise them they can take out their enemies. Give them a military system backing them up that isn't idiot nobles commanding peasant levees. Give them a society that is entirely different and new to them, and which they might like. Give them exotic technological marvels.


So yeah, a lot of adventurers would stick around, due to loyalty. Due to cultural ties. Friendship. But a lot wouldn't.


There are a million reasons why adventurers might pick either side. But Adventurers are the only thing that the DnD verse really has going for it as its regular armies would clearly be doomed. But adventurers can't be relied on. A feudal state with a loosely defined rulership, among dozens of other squabbling feudal states does not inspire loyalty. An adventurer is a professional mercenary, which is in itself, not a class of people traditionally bound by ties of loyalty.




But if one society is a group of centrally controlled nation states, with efficient military systems based around rigid rank and intense coordination between the states a common occurrence, and the other is a series of small squabbling feudal states or despotisms who rely on high priced, disloyal mercenary special forces to do anything big.. it stands to reason that one side will face a lot more problems in mobilization of forces and loyalty of troops than the other. To ignore that, and give the DnD states some sort of hivemind "Must kill modern world" mentality gives them a lot of free advantage.

In short, give them all the things high level adventurers already have by function of being high level adventurers and WBL, a situation the arrival of a massive invading army threatens to destroy, not expand upon. You might be able to entice a few of the lower level adventurers over to your side with the promise of quick rise to power, but what about those already in power? The DnD side is run by these people for a reason, because if they wanted to they could destroy everyone else completely and without much effort.

So you get a few groups of level 2-7 adventurers to join your side, while all the truly high level casters are still on mine, because they benefit most from the status quo, and if anything would see the arrival of a new world without the ability to fight back against them as an opportunity to expand their power base.

Of course this also assumes most/all adventurers are evil/neutral, as goods would defend the DnD world "For the good of good goody goodness". However as shown above, even the neutrals and evils don't really have a reason to defect, at least not in truth. You might be able to convince some high level Lich to become your knew arcane overlord, but its very unlikely any high level caster is going to let you subjugate him to "even the odds" when he could easily swat you like a fly himself.

Also how exactly does this work? Earth invades, nukes the crap out of a few continents, then somehow sets up a worldwide broadcasting ability, and proceeds to say "Hey adventurer people who are currently killing the hell out of us in a mass reprisal the likes of which we could never have forseen, if you join our now doomed civilization, we'll slide you a few gold coins!"

How is that enticing at all?

Either you go first strike, after which you lose because you'll only be killing the people who didn't matter in the first place. Or you go the play nice route, in which there is probably no conflict at all, and your society and technology are probably just assimilated.

[Coidzor]

I think Gandalf was an Epic level wizard who was just bored with auto-winning everything and so self nerfed himself and invented a convoluted quest for others which he could participate in. At any time he could simply have taken the ring, teleported to mt. doom, and ended the campaign. He simply didn't, because deep down hes Chaotic Stupid, and was having too much fun to bother saving the world efficiently.

That would be reinterpreting the character to the extent of chucking Gandalf out and calling someone else Gandalf.

[tyckspoon]

I think its a fair assumption that the gods of DnD, will likely warn their clerics of impending doom. Who will likely warn others, and so on, and so on, and at least one of those 'Others' at some point down that chain will be a high enough level wizard that stopping these invading earthlings with their mundane weaponry is within his abilities.

Saying otherwise is kinda selling the DnD's information gathering abilities short in my opinion.

Just because we have no real fortune tellers, or oracles, doesn't mean DnD shouldn't be able to use theirs.

Actually, assuming divination functions properly, it's really really simple to cut off the war before it ever starts. Step 1: Divine the location where the modern world will attempt to make its incursion. Step 2: Cover the entry point with a Permanent Wall of Force and/or Prismatic Sphere. There ya go. It is now 100% impossible for the modern world to gain access. (Step 3: divine again to make sure they aren't/can't just going to change location and try again.)

[Xerit]

Actually, assuming divination functions properly, it's really really simple to cut off the war before it ever starts. Step 1: Divine the location where the modern world will attempt to make its incursion. Step 2: Cover the entry point with a Permanent Wall of Force and/or Prismatic Sphere. There ya go. It is now 100% impossible for the modern world to gain access. (Step 3: divine again to make sure they aren't/can't just going to change location and try again.)

Same team.

That was my point in my first post with all the "solid fog/cloudkill/dome of force/prismatic sphere" nonsense. I don't see how the modern world even gets a toe-hold much less enough of a grip to actually start fighting.

[The Glyphstone]

Actually, assuming divination functions properly, it's really really simple to cut off the war before it ever starts. Step 1: Divine the location where the modern world will attempt to make its incursion. Step 2: Cover the entry point with a Permanent Wall of Force and/or Prismatic Sphere. There ya go. It is now 100% impossible for the modern world to gain access. (Step 3: divine again to make sure they aren't/can't just going to change location and try again.)

Of course, when the high-level wizard's daily 20 questions divination turns up a 'YES' to the question 'is my world about to be invaded by armies of invaders from another dimension with no magic but incredible weapons and technology so far beyond this world that it could be almost magical in itself', how many wizards would take it seriously rather than thinking that the god/extraplanar entity they prank-called is just screwing with them?

[Xerit]

Of course, when the high-level wizard's daily 20 questions divination turns up a 'YES' to the question 'is my world about to be invaded by armies of invaders from another dimension with no magic but incredible weapons and technology so far beyond this world that it could be almost magical in itself', how many wizards would take it seriously rather than thinking that the god/extraplanar entity they prank-called is just screwing with them?

The wizard wouldn't, but the cleric being told by his god of an impending threat to creation probably would.

[Eldan]

This is D&D we are talking about.

If you are a level 20 wizard and care about your world at all, "is something from another world going to invade this planet next week" should be a regular question. Look at how often this happens.

Next would be questions like "do they have powerful magic?" "No? How about gigantic monsters?" "No? Hmm...."

[Coidzor]

The wizard wouldn't, but the cleric being told by his god of an impending threat to creation probably would.

Because we really have the ability to threaten creation itself. :smalltongue:

Heck, we can't even purposefully bore into other universes, so I don't get where the argument that earth is doing this intentionally is coming from.


This is D&D we are talking about.

If you are a level 20 wizard and care about your world at all, "is something from another world going to invade this planet next week" should be a regular question. Look at how often this happens.

Next would be questions like "do they have powerful magic?" "No? How about gigantic monsters?" "No? Hmm...."

Which raises the question of why the wizard cares about them as a legitimate threat to be cut off instantly rather than studied and looted...

[Emmerask]

In short, give them all the things high level adventurers already have by function of being high level adventurers and WBL, a situation the arrival of a massive invading army threatens to destroy, not expand upon. You might be able to entice a few of the lower level adventurers over to your side with the promise of quick rise to power, but what about those already in power? The DnD side is run by these people for a reason, because if they wanted to they could destroy everyone else completely and without much effort.

This also goes for the countries asking the high level adventurers to aid them though. And the powerful wizard x who always wanted high level wizard ys throne the invasion might be a good starting point... So what do these adventurers want? they want more power and an invasion force gives them that edge that may increase their power.

I´m pretty sure they get many adventurers, even high level ones.

[Xerit]

This also goes for the countries asking the high level adventurers to aid them though. And the powerful wizard x who always wanted high level wizard ys throne the invasion might be a good starting point... So what do these adventurers want? they want more power and an invasion force gives them that edge that may increase their power

Just enough of an edge that wizard X would offer (read as mindrape your leaders) politely to become your new de-facto leader in order to unseat wizard y. Hardly the earths glorious march to victory.

[Emmerask]

Who cares as long as its a victory ^^
well we do but that is beside the point :smallwink:

[Coidzor]

Well, everyone knows how Mindrapey McGee would auto-win.

Have we bothered discussing places like Eberron or Dark Sun where mindrape would either not be within their power or not occur to them to use?

[Eldan]

Dark Sun? Dragon Kings win, Earth gets defiled to hell and back until it looks like Dune.

Eberron is slightly more interesting, but now we are dealing with organized armies actually using widespread magic.

[Coidzor]

Dark Sun? Dragon Kings win, Earth gets defiled to hell and back until it looks like Dune.

Eberron is slightly more interesting, but now we are dealing with organized armies actually using widespread magic.

Still more interesting than pre-Epic or Epic Wizard mindrapes everyone.

And Eberron seems more in line with the point of opening the topic to me than whether a level 17+ Wizard is an I Win button when free of constraints imposed by a writer.

[Eldan]

True, and I phrased this badly. By "slightly more interesting", I meant "we should discuss this instead".

[Coidzor]

True, and I phrased this badly. By "slightly more interesting", I meant "we should discuss this instead".

Well, then, I completely agree.

[Eldan]

I'm now thinking of more interesting and well-defined match-ups.

How about:

The Drow of Faerun find themselves magically transported to approximately two miles below continental Europe, the year 2012, Earth. Lolth commands them to unite and conquer this new planet for her glory, and she threatens severe punishment if they should fail her. However, Earth is cut off from the planes, and therefore, the Drow can summon no other creatures for support. Lolth herself maintains only a vague grasp on her followers, enough to grant spells, but not intervene herself.

Or:

From the Pacific ocean rises a new continent. It is Khorvaire, as inhabited by the Five Nations and the new nations of the Last War. How are they integrated into Earth society?

[sonofzeal]

Problem there is, unless you're dealing with a blind (and therefore stupid) command staff, the change in personality will be noticed. And then steps will be taken. Quite possibly using the Dominated individual to feed the enemy bad intel.

Infiltration is one thing I'd expect both sides to have major problems with. The differences in the two cultures are vast. More so than between two cultures on Earth.
There's no significant personality change under "Dominate", all you need is a cheezed DC. "Mind Rape" only has as much personality change as you want it to, but we'll leave that aside because, honestly, 9th level spells are overkill.


If by "48 hours" you mean "2d6 rounds, tops" then I agree with you.
It'll likely take them a little while to identify the command staff in the first place, given that they would have little to no experience with modern military structures, so it might take some time to identify the appropriate people and figure out what exactly you want them to do. There's also the question of making sure the dominating agent goes undetected, and remember that the magical army wouldn't know what sort of detection abilities the modern army would have. A botched operation would give the game away, so they'd need some time figuring out just how wide-open the modern army really is to this sort of tactic.

First move is to grab a random grunt, pump him for information by whatever means, and probably just kill him. From there actually, rather than Scry-and-Dominate, the better approach might be Still Spell Silent Spell Dominate during a diplomatic negotiation.

Whichever way, I'd give pretty good odds on a single optimized 9th level Beguiler against an entire modern military complex.

[Force]

Also, I'd to react on the idea that earth would win, in the end, when we get our own spellcasters. I really have to disagree with this. Ultimately, it will be easier for D&D society to adapt our technology, then it would be for us to actually get spellcasters that can compete with theirs. A highly trained sniper is deadly? Just think what happens if a high level ranger gets a sniper rifle and learns how to use it. Let alone if he's a Ghost.

Terra has six billion people and several societies that are constantly innovating... vs. a feudal world stuck in medieval stasis. It's more likely that, unless the D&D world nukes Terra via magical methods, they will be culturally absorbed into Terran society. Magic can exist next to technology, but using, understand and (most importantly) building technology requires a technological mindset.

[The Glyphstone]

There's no significant personality change under "Dominate", all you need is a cheezed DC. "Mind Rape" only has as much personality change as you want it to, but we'll leave that aside because, honestly, 9th level spells are overkill.


Personality change, no, but it is supposed to be obvious that something is wrong:


Once you have given a dominated creature a command, it continues to attempt to carry out that command to the exclusion of all other activities except those necessary for day-to-day survival (such as sleeping, eating, and so forth). Because of this limited range of activity, a Sense Motive check against DC 15 (rather than DC 25) can determine that the subject’s behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect (see the Sense Motive skill description).

So, there have to be some sort of nonverbal cues that other people can pick up on.

[Heliomance]

I'm wavering back and forth on this one. I agree that in a guerilla situation, D&D wins so hard it's not even funny. Open war though? Not sure. I think D&D has the potential to win very fast, like so:

Wizard gates in Solar
Solar flies above army and orders them to lay down arms.
Half of army lays down arms and kneels, as that right there is an angel, and the wizard is obviously an agent sent directly from God.

[Force]

I'm now thinking of more interesting and well-defined match-ups.

How about:

The Drow of Faerun find themselves magically transported to approximately two miles below continental Europe, the year 2012, Earth. Lolth commands them to unite and conquer this new planet for her glory, and she threatens severe punishment if they should fail her. However, Earth is cut off from the planes, and therefore, the Drow can summon no other creatures for support. Lolth herself maintains only a vague grasp on her followers, enough to grant spells, but not intervene herself.

Or:

From the Pacific ocean rises a new continent. It is Khorvaire, as inhabited by the Five Nations and the new nations of the Last War. How are they integrated into Earth society?

How many Drow are there, and what percentage of them are significant magic users (capable of using 4th level spells or higher)? That will determine how well they do.

According to some Googling, there are approximately 15 million beings on Khorvaire, which is less than several American states (though it's noted on Wikipedia the number is disputed, it's RAW, shrug). In all honesty, unless they start making threatening moves, Khorvaire society suddenly experiences a new renaissance as Terran nations send their best and brightest to study this new magic and intiate trade. If they act aggressively... there are probably as many soldiers on Terra as there are inhabitants of Khorvaire. They get snowed under.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm wavering back and forth on this one. I agree that in a guerilla situation, D&D wins so hard it's not even funny. Open war though? Not sure. I think D&D has the potential to win very fast, like so:

Wizard gates in Solar
Solar flies above army and orders them to lay down arms.
Half of army lays down arms and kneels, as that right there is an angel, and the wizard is obviously an agent sent directly from God.

Let's avoid religion-related solutions to the fight. Otherwise this thread will get ugly, and by ugly, I mean 'locked'.

[FentonLyebread]

well, they better have some sahuagin!:smallsigh:

[Coidzor]

Let's avoid religion-related solutions to the fight. Otherwise this thread will get ugly, and by ugly, I mean 'locked'.

Or even 9th level spells because we've had 7 pages about 'em already so they've been well covered.

[DeltaEmil]

How fast is a shadow? 40 feet a round is not that much.
Also, nothing says Earth can't pull a Cortez. In a world sharply delineated between Good and Evil, with 'Evil' races commonly living on the edge of civilisation, surely there would be some dissaffected orcs, goblins and other races we can team up with. Of course, there is still the the problem with how rare magic is, but it still would shore up some of the difficulties, and that rarity is still a shortcoming for Team D&D.
Orcs with guns. Now where have I heard that before . . .40 ft. speed with good maneuverability is faster than a normal human can run. And orcs would be better off having powerful clerics that can shoot lightning and thunder waves by the power of Gruumsh than a few pitiful firearms that still don't kill shadows...

[Ilmryn]

Strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

No one wins.
The modern world can nuke the dnd world into oblivion. Unless there is an unrealistic number of high-level wizards, the dnd world can't stop death by nuke.
However, a single intelligently played wizard can destroy the entire army as well as the modern world. As long as the wiz has Ghostform, the modern world can't do a thing to him because they don't have magical weapons. It would take a while, to be sure, but in the end the single wizard could destroy earth.

The victor: none

[Coidzor]

40 ft. speed with good maneuverability is faster than a normal human can run. And orcs would be better off having powerful clerics that can shoot lightning and thunder waves by the power of Gruumsh than a few pitiful firearms that still don't kill shadows...

I'm not seeing how those two are mutually exclusive. Humans aren't ethergaunts with their penchant for gibbing clerics after all.

Shadows are relatively rare in D&D theatres of engagement, hence why there's no settings crawling in them. So they shouldn't be assumed to be the first option used in a fight.

[Xerit]

No one wins.
The modern world can nuke the dnd world into oblivion. Unless there is an unrealistic number of high-level wizards, the dnd world can't stop death by nuke.
However, a single intelligently played wizard can destroy the entire army as well as the modern world. As long as the wiz has Ghostform, the modern world can't do a thing to him because they don't have magical weapons. It would take a while, to be sure, but in the end the single wizard could destroy earth.

The victor: none

How does earth keep getting thousands of nukes into this new world? All through that same gate they are marching their army through? And No one on the magical side has shut that down yet?

1 wizard is alot easier to mobilize than hundreds of missile platforms needed to actually blanket a planet in nuclear death.

Assuming equal hostility, my "nuke" kills you first.

[DeltaEmil]

The wizard wins. He becomes the new overlord of Earth, and renames it, let's say, Oearth II.

[Coidzor]

The wizard wins. He becomes the new overlord of Earth, and renames it, let's say, Oearth II.

Oerth. And that's if it's Greyhawk which has its own peculiarities.

[Force]

40 ft. speed with good maneuverability is faster than a normal human can run. And orcs would be better off having powerful clerics that can shoot lightning and thunder waves by the power of Gruumsh than a few pitiful firearms that still don't kill shadows...

There are how many clerics to a tribe of orcs? 2d8 M-4's may not be much compared to 5d6+ lightning bolts, but quantity hath a quality all of its own.

[DeltaEmil]

Eh, it's a wizard who is too lazy to correct grammatical mistakes. :smalltongue:

Other spellcasters will probably rename Earth into "Allhailourgloriousandsupremeleaderwithsuperawesome magicalpowerswhoissmarterandmorebeautifulthanwedir teaterscouldeverbe-World"

[tyckspoon]

Other spellcasters will probably rename Earth into "Allhailourgloriousandsupremeleaderwithsuperawesome magicalpowerswhoissmarterandmorebeautifulthanwedir teaterscouldeverbe-WorldBob"

That other name is far too long. You now live on Bob. Deal with it. :smallbiggrin:

[Marillion]

Shadows are relatively rare in D&D theatres of engagement, hence why there's no settings crawling in them. So they shouldn't be assumed to be the first option used in a fight.

In addition to that, even assuming that Shadows are used on the modern army and we are unable to figure out a way to harm them, and we are all thus overwhelmed and turned into Shadows ourselves, there's still another problem. There is now a literal army of Shadows on the loose. They will overrun the world, turning entire cities to their number by the day. Within the year (at most) even if a few enclaves of people guarded by high-level casters have survived, the vast majority of the DnD world will have succumbed to the plague. Their world, as they know it, will have ceased to be, and it will be by their own hand.

I doubt such a weapon will be used lightly.

[DeltaEmil]

The one who controls the first shadow controls all his shadow spawns, which in turn control their spawns and spawny-spawn...

However, shadows and these other super-fast spawning monsters might explain why these super-magical worlds don't have populations in the trillions. Aside from colourless fire raining from the heavens or conjured devastations, it's necromancers creating zombie- and shadow-pocalypses that regularely end the world, and a few survivors rebuild their magi-tek civilization from scratch, with new magi-god-kings ruling over them, and naming their world Bob.

[Marillion]

The one who controls the first shadow controls all his shadow spawns, which in turn control their spawns and spawny-spawn...
Ok, so now there's one guy with a literally world-ending weapon at his command. That'll go over well with the rest of the world :smalltongue:



However, shadows and these other super-fast spawning monsters might explain why these super-magical worlds don't have populations in the trillions. Aside from colourless fire raining from the heavens or conjured devastations, it's necromancers creating zombie- and shadow-pocalypses that regularely end the world, and a few survivors rebuild their magi-tek civilization from scratch, with new magi-god-kings ruling over them, and naming their world Bob.
I am Marillion, and I endorse this idea.

[DeltaEmil]

Another reason could be that all populations are deliberatly kept small, so that when the inevitable Shadowpocalypse (or Wraith-Dämmerung, and other pseudo-coolio-doomsday-names) knocks on the door of D&D-civilization, there won't be too many of these monstrosities around for the few remaining god-kings to deal with.

[The Big Dice]

Another reason could be that all populations are deliberatly kept small, so that when the inevitable Shadowpocalypse (or Wraith-Dämmerung, and other pseudo-coolio-doomsday-names) knocks on the door of D&D-civilization, there won't be too many of these monstrosities around for the few remaining god-kings to deal with.
D&D populations are relatively small because there's so much conflict over resources. Without a wizard to do it, the land just couldn't reasonably support the populations of humanoid life found in a typical D&D world.

And don't get me started on why the Underdark isn't either baking hot or full of water.

[DeltaEmil]

D&D populations are relatively small because there's so much conflict over resources. Without a wizard to do it, the land just couldn't reasonably support the populations of humanoid life found in a typical D&D world.

And don't get me started on why the Underdark isn't either baking hot or full of water.It's all about these petty magi-god-kings full of greed and avarice who seek to control all, and the losing magi-god-kings who unleash the shadow-pocalypse as a last act of defiance, killing peasants and magi-god-kings alike. Such is the lot of those who wield not the power to reshape reality and create magical monstrosities that blight the land and feast upon the mortals' souls.

It is also the fate of the men of Earth, who's mastery over the elements allow them to split the atom and unleash fires as bright as the sun, as hot as in the hearts of stars, that will blight the lands for centuries and millennia to come, who have harnessed this dangerous source of energy to turn the nights into day, who have great knowledge of medicine, have tamed the lands, built mighty cities with towers of steel and glass and molten stone, travel in carriages that move by themselves, listen to etheric waves for entertainment and knowledge, gaze into windows that show moving pictures and words that no magic book could ever replicate, yet cannot stop the undead incorporeal tide that the heartless malevolent magi-god-kings unleashed upon them.

And then the Earth was renamed Berry, Terry or Sally, and the greedy and silly magi-god-kings warred over who would have the right to name their new dominion which they wrestled from the former 7 billion men that lived there in less than 7 days, and they unleashed the shadow-pocalypse and the Wraith-Dämmerung upon each another.

And they never learned.

[ArcanistSupreme]

From the OP:


The nation or nations this army represents is interested in securing any adjacent geopolitical regions for resources and expanding its territories.

How is nuking the other side into oblivion coming anywhere close to fulfilling this criteria? This forces more traditional warfare, which to me implies the following:

Once the wizards figure out that the bombers and jets have to land to be refueled the Terran army runs into some serious problems. A wizard with dimension door (heck, even dimension hop) and summon monster is going to wreak havoc inside military bases. Inside cities things get worse, as battlefield control magic decimates any kind of vehicle-based strategy. Morale problems ensue.

Keep in mind that this is based entirely on tactics available to low-level casters. They might not be capable of wholesale slaughter, but they can cause plenty of damage and make tracking them down next to impossible. Even if the army does manage to get some of them, they'll never be able to stop all of them. Sure, tech might be more replaceable than magic, but what happens when the factories keep getting shut down? How easy is it mass produce wave after wave of multi-million dollar aircraft that keeps breaking before it even leaves the ground?

If either side wants the other territory intact, it's going to come down to a long, drawn-out conflict. This means guerrilla tactics, and D&D guerrilla tactics roflstomps real guerrilla tactics hard, as do D&D counter-guerrilla tactics.

[Tvtyrant]

It's all about these petty magi-god-kings full of greed and avarice who seek to control all, and the losing magi-god-kings who unleash the shadow-pocalypse as a last act of defiance, killing peasants and magi-god-kings alike. Such is the lot of those who wield not the power to reshape reality and create magical monstrosities that blight the land and feast upon the mortals' souls.

It is also the fate of the men of Earth, who's mastery over the elements allow them to split the atom and unleash fires as bright as the sun, as hot as in the hearts of stars, that will blight the lands for centuries and millennia to come, who have harnessed this dangerous source of energy to turn the nights into day, who have great knowledge of medicine, have tamed the lands, built mighty cities with towers of steel and glass and molten stone, travel in carriages that move by themselves, listen to etheric waves for entertainment and knowledge, gaze into windows that show moving pictures and words that no magic book could ever replicate, yet cannot stop the undead incorporeal tide that the heartless malevolent magi-god-kings unleashed upon them.

And then the Earth was renamed Berry, Terry or Sally, and the greedy and silly magi-god-kings warred over who would have the right to name their new dominion which they wrestled from the former 7 billion men that lived there in less than 7 days, and they unleashed the shadow-pocalypse and the Wraith-Dämmerung upon each another.

And they never learned.
I am sigging thing. For it is beautiful.

EDIT: Too large for sigging, so I saved it to my hard drive.

[Tiki Snakes]

One Evil wizard whose ambitions are interfered with would end such a conflict pretty quickly, simply by commiting unstoppable attrocities on the Earth forces and/or civilian populations so as to destroy all support for such military adventurism.

It's all fun and games until someone with no morals to hold them back and access to decent level spells turns up in new york.

Logistics is why D&D world (Assuming 3.5ish, of course) would win. Because a couple of Arcane Adventurers can be a pretty good opposition to the invasion, but for the Earth to bring enough forces to task is a monumental task beyond belief.

And at the end of the day, all it takes is Portfolio Sense to kick in, and the invasion doesn't get to begin.

[Tyrant]

Another reason could be that all populations are deliberatly kept small, so that when the inevitable Shadowpocalypse (or Wraith-Dämmerung, and other pseudo-coolio-doomsday-names) knocks on the door of D&D-civilization, there won't be too many of these monstrosities around for the few remaining god-kings to deal with.

Or, it could be the fact that they have a number of hostile enemies within their own race who are hell bent on destroying them for a laundry list of reasons. And cultists who sacrifice people. And other sentient species to deal with (who also have their own little internal fueds) . And extra planar entities. And dragons. And all the fun things that come with living in a medieval society like famine and plague. Yeah, I see those people organizing a defense. More likely, anyone who moves to commit any serious resources to defense gets stabbed in the back by his laundry list of enemies.

General thoughts on the thread, spoilered to avoid wall o text
Look at FR. You've got a set up that is a balancing act between numerous regional powers. It is almost impossible for them to move in a vacuum, and alliances aren't a high priority in parts of their world. So, the army shows up. Who rushes to fight them? Elminster? No, he's stuck in Hell. Or off on another plane saving the world from some other threat. The Sisters? They're trying to find Elminster so the Simbul doesn't go crazy trying to find him. Khelben? He's defending Waterdeep from 1001 plots and attacks. On the evil side, maybe Thay? Good luck getting the Zulkirs to cooperate. Anyone near Zhentarum territory who makes a move gets a knife in the back from the Zhents who make their move. Cormyr? Too busy fighting the Shade Enclave. Or, maybe they show up during the latest Dragon Rage. Or right after the Spellplague.

No matter which D&D world you use, it doesn't exist in a vacuum where everyone will drop everything, hold hands, and fight off the invaders. Who's to say the bribery wouldn't work the other way? A spellcaster sees the potential that a huge (by their standards), well trained, heavily armed armed represents if only they had that little extra something. Or, a cleric from a god who has views that are sympathetic to the invaders decides to try to win them over to his cause by teaching them how to channel divine power? What sane commander will turn down the help from someone who has verifiable "powers" and who is offering to either teach people with aptitude or pass on some magical trinkets. He thinks he's passing on junk in exchange for an army and the commander thinks he's literally being handed the magic bullet (that he obviously plans on having studied to give him more and more magic bullets).

As for divine intervention (even in the form of telling followers what is about to happen), again if I look at FR it just doesn't seem to happen that often. Who was told about the impending return of the Shade Enclave (a world altering event)? Who was told of Szass Tam's plans to overthrow the other Zulkirs and attempt to destroy the world and make himself the new overgod (world shattering if I've ever seen it)? In fact, he betrayed the clerics in Thay to devistating effect, and they had no divine warning even though he had to actuallly plan it out. Heck, Mystra (a god) has been blindsided and killed twice. Once by a mortal. A powerful mortal, sure, but he used magic and with her being the god of magic she probably should've seen it coming. Why didn't Bane tell the Zhentarim (headed by his high priest, no less) to not go down whatever road lead to them upsetting the Shades to the point that the Shades olbiterated them? Why did no god warn anyone about the Shadowstorm that left unchecked would've consumed their world, or Sammaster's plan to subvert the Dragon Rage to his own ends, or any number of other world ending threats that come their way? I would't put any stock into the gods giving anyone the heads up if FR is anything to go by. Who knows, maybe Waukeen, Gond, Bane, Torm, or Helm would welcome the modern military with open arms? Introducing a highly trained and heavily armed force with no allegiances to any regional powers (and apparently the intent to conquer or destroy whatever they encounter) into a dynamic situation will not have a cut and dry ending that involves those being invaded uniting in any meaningful way.

That's not to say the modern military would win. Army to army, sure they crush the guys with swords and armor. Against magic? I don't know. There are a number of undefined variables that could swing it either way and so far they have yet to be defined. I don't think the ability of the modern military to cause absolute destruction should be discounted, if that is the way the war goes real early on. I would think that at least some of the spellcasters are going to be in the cities that get wiped out in the blink of an eye and caught unawares. The number of followers worshipping the gods is going to take quite a nose dive if the nukes start flying. Even the druids would be hurt as their forests burn in the nuclear fire. On the other hand, I'm sure the magic users could cause some serious damage on the other side. Personally I think it will be the divine casters who swing this fight. Why would the gods content themselves with a world who's population is likely not more than 100 million (and probably way below that), of which they only have a small piece of the pie, when there's one with 6 billion people on the other side of the portal?

As for Epic McCaster, I think folks are forgetting some important things. Again, using the FR, not every single person with the ability to wield arcane magic has access to every spell and metamagic feat ever devised. Group A has some, group B has some others, and so on and so on. There are some general spells that most casters seem to have, but they are clearly limited on others. Not every spell caster can scry (much less scry and die). Not every caster can teleport. Not every caster has a list of metamagic feats and a trunk full of wands and scepters. Some casters don't have the first contingency spell, much less access to all of them. There are probably less than 20 casters in the FR (just a guess, I don't see it being more than 40) who can reasonably be super optimized (due to age, power, and experience that would've given them access to a wide range or spells), and most of them are busy fighting the schemes of the others.

And what if it's another D&D world? Dragonlance? At the time of the original trilogy it is a world with limited magic and more or less no divine magic. Sure, there's the dragons to deal with. But the major cities can be obliterated with ease and most of the armies scattered to the wind. Dark Sun? The army shows up and is instantly the most wealthy faction on the entire planet due to actually having a near limitless supply of metal. And water. And sunblock. The Dragon Kings and maybe the psions are an issue. Then again, how many cities are there? I don't know the exact number but I know it is a tiny fraction of the number of nukes the US can throw at them. Let's see anyone get by when the last few habitable areas are radioactive craters. Eberron probably stands a real chance due to it's more wide spread use of magic within it's militaries and having just a few major powers with larger armies instead of the scattered kingdoms of the FR or the few cities of Dark Sun.

[Melayl]

One must remember that nobody (sane) in this world's military has ever seen a flight of dragons bearing down on them, or rank upon rank of trolls and ogres and giants and minotaurs and undead of various sorts, and all the other thousands of damned scary creatures that would/could be charging at them.

You'd have a large number of soldiers who were to scared/stunned/fascinated to act for a time.

Shock value would play a large role in many of the (initial, at least) battles.

Spells like Cloudkill (as others have mentioned) would decimate the ranks of infintry. Heat/Chill Metal would be hard on any equipment. Lightning bolts would downright devastate electronics in the area of the attack.

Heck, open a portal to the elemental plane of fire or water and watch the world burn/drown.

Air elementals won't be harmed by much we have, but would hurt our units.

See also the last book of the Darksword Trilogy (which covers a scenario much like this topic...)

[One Tin Soldier]

Ok, I've read all the way through this thread now, and there are many interesting things to be said.
First, everything depends on what kind of war is being fought. Or perhaps more accurately, what the goals of each side is. This has been said in a number of posts already, so I'll just sum up. If it is a total war situation, then Terrans win quickly and brutally. The presence of military aircraft, long-range artillery, and superior logistical capability would utterly crush the D&D world infrastructure within an hour of fighting. Even without nukes, and taking into account whatever high-level casters are readily available. Even this, however, is an extreme scenario, and before long lead into the second extreme scenario.
The guerrilla warfare. In the words of another user, D&D magic users roflstomp whatever Terran occupation forces are there. Especially if they manage to get through the portal to Terra to mindrape military leaders. (Though I don't think that getting through would be as easy as it sounds. Terrans would quickly learn how to defend the gate from such tactics, i.e. by coercing someone into dimension-locking the area surrounding it.)
So that way, Terrans win short term, D&D wins long term. But it is unlikely that any total war scenarios would be happening. After all, the OP says they are after resources. The most logical first step would be to study this new world they've found, and IMO the most likely reaction to what they find would be to use non-military strategies. Set up trade with existing kingdoms, establish diplomatic dialogue. After a bit of time, maybe start establishing some land to call Terran, probably some kind of hybrid between diplomatic outpost and city-state. And while this is going on, going for cultural victory. The technology, industrialization, and sheer scale of Terran societies would probably win over the locals pretty well. And Terrans would in exchange learn tricks from magic, possibly developing their own spellcasters. If the Terrans work patiently and aren't blatantly aggressive, the fractured D&D kingdoms wouldn't consider them threatening enough to make any organized effort to drive them out. There might be a few kingdoms that respond with hostility, but even high-level casters aren't more than a nuisance if Terrans have the support of other locals.
The real long-term effects can't really be fathomed. Personally, I think that access to magic combined with technology would allow things like casual space travel, and basically end the restrictions on Terra's resources. (And the D&D world's, for that matter.)

On a separate note, I have a couple thoughts regarding combat things people keep bringing up. First is the popular shadow-apocalypse, and how we would be powerless against it, since they're incorporeal. But incorporeals are affected by force effects, like magic missle. Explosives often kill by their pressure wave. Wouldn't this be effective against incorporeals? Yeah, Terrans would be forced to use pretty powerful explosives to stand a chance of really getting rid of them, and collateral damage would be huge, but they're far from helpless.
Also, how has anyone not brought up the Tarrasque yet? And whether it could be killed by a nuke? (I think yes by the Chunky Salsa Rule/Total Vaporization Rule.)

[houlio]

You need to remember exactly how difficult it would be to secure regions either on Earth or in Standard D&D World-17. High-level wizards won't enjoy running to Earth and spend their precious time by mind-raping/obliterating/anti-matter + matter annihilating some random place without magic, monsters, or anything else a high-level D&D wizard would ever likely conceive, based upon their usually medieval context.

It is also unanimous that Earth forces would lose in a D&D guerrilla war.

Therefore, I think the Khorvaire idea expressed earlier is much more interesting. I think that there would definitely be a give and take between Khorvaire rising up in the Pacific Ocean, magic is too important to have no idle effect on the world. In fact, in a purely cultural exchange, Khorvaire might even do better than the rest of Earth would in the whole acculturation process, simply because Khorvaire's culture already focuses on organization (like all the Great Houses) and technological progress.
Otherwise, Khorvaire would fare horribly economically and militarily and probably politically as well. It is being torn out of its normal place, trade would be all messed up. The important business of looting ancient ruins is strictly forbidden by Earth's international laws (yay UNESCO), and also imagine what would happen if all those downtrodden warforged started picking up on things like Marxism or Anarchism as ways to find a new meaning in their otherwise slightly depressing lives (hello Che-Mechanica).