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View Full Version : D&D vs. Military - Discussion of 4 scenarios detailed in the first post



Aharon
2011-01-14, 05:10 AM
The other thread has become a bit cluttered, but I find the idea interesting, so I tried to make the scenarios a bit clearer. This may pose problems, as I sometimes refer to specific source books.

Rules:
Nothing from TO is assumed to be used by the D&D side. There was a PDF called "The Very Best of CO", but I can't find it right now. I have it at home, so I will add items to this list. Right now, the things I remember, plus some that were proposed in the thread

No Pun-Pun
No Omniscificer
No Dorfls
No Thought Bottles
No Nanobots
No Consumptive Field Abuse
Nothing from the Jakeverse (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137447)
A wish can never give you more wishes in any way, therefore, no infinite wish chains. (proposed by Eldan)
The gods do not interfere
Magic: Magic does continue to work on earth, but you need the spark of magic to cast spells. It's still discussed wether our side can learn magic after this spark has come in contact with earth.
Physics/Science: Physics and science that make the scenarios flat-out impossible is ignored/explained away with magic. Generally, d20modern rules are used to model aspects of our world. If you object to a specific part, please state the reason in the discussion.
Please use canon NPCs where possible. If you don't want to do that, use NPCs generated by the DMG advice for generating settlements - i.e., core, single-classed characters only. Information on city population sizes can be found in the setting-specific wikis, a town generator can be found here (http://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_town.php).
Nuclear weapons: 1MT warheads deal half energy, half force damage, 160d8 (based on discussion here and here (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=309235), and roughly on the rules in the d20 modern SRD (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd)) .
Nonnuclear heavy weaponry (high-yield bombs, artillery and tank ammunition) deals the damage values given in the d20MSRD, but is half force, half sonic/bludgeoning (The Glyphstones Proposal)
In the scenario-world, the exact D&D rules aren't known on Earth. Similar games may exist, but it's not a situation in which our side can realize and exploit the rules just by looking them up in a sourcebook.


If you feel that these rules are too restrictive or that rules should be added, please say so.

Now, onto the scenarios:
1) Without forewarning, a two-way gate (as the spell, but with instantaneous duration) opens between Madrid, Spain and Suzail, the capital of Cormyr. The year on Earth is 2010, the year in the Forgotten Realms is the last year before the edition change (would be around 1380, but I'm not sure).

Spain was chosen because it is among the top 20 military spenders. I am not dead set on using Spain for this scenario, but I object to using the USA, because it's military spending is far higher than that of any nation. To compare the two, one would have to use a superpower on the Fantasy side, too - and to my knowledge, no D&D setting has such a superpower. Feel free to correct me.

Objectives of either side aren't clear, and should be discussed in this thread before we go on to wether there would be a conflict or not. I'm inclined to think that the Earth side might try to impose its cultural values (The average cormyrian peasant is probably worse off than the average real world African, for example). If the discussion goes in this direction, we will have to be careful to avoid discussing real world politics.

2) As in the other thread, Khorvaire appears in the middle of the pacific ocean. If you have the relevant knowledge, it would be interesting if you shared how this would affect climate patterns etc. Assume that the water and islands reappear on Eberron, so that there are no floods or Tsunamis caused by the sudden change. I do not know the exact size of Khorvaire, but I guess that this might make Hawai disappear, so in this scenario, the USA are directly effected.
Again, outright war does not neccessarily happen, we should discuss the objectives of both sides first.

3) The city detailed in the last 3.5 Drow book, Erelhei-Cinlu (http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Erelhei-Cinlu), appears under the Alps, along with a cavern network that has contact to the surface and enough caverns to sustain their food production. Lolth orders them to attack the surface, but wisely adds that they can - and should - take their time to prepare. She gives them 30 years to gain at least a part of the surface - say, Bavaria.

4) Iran suddenly appears in the Western Heartlands of Faerun. The ground under them is dislocated as well, so they have all the resources that are underground, specifically oil.
(If you think this is too likely to lead to political discussions, please substitute another 2nd world country that is rich in oil, for example Russia, Norway or another country high on this list. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production)

And now - have fun!

Eldan
2011-01-14, 05:23 AM
I would actually add a few rules, such as:

A wish can never give you more wishes in any way, therefore, no infinite wish chains.

As on scenario two and it's influence on climate: I'm not very good with climate, I must admit, but a short summary of my opinion as an ecologist is "total f-up".
Weather patterns change massively all over the globe. Currents are stopped. Heat exchange would be screwed up. We suddenly have less water and more dry land, which massively changes things such as how much sunlight is absorbed vs. reflected by the earth (I'd predict heating from that, but I'm not quite sure). Less water surface furthermore means less absorption of carbon dioxide into water. Potentially balanced by Khorvaire having a lot of jungles in it's southern half, but that shouldn't actually influence much.

Edit: in any kind of realistic set-up, the Drow caves would either instantly fill with water or be immensely heated up, perhaps both :smallwink:

More edits: as I've said before, Khorvaire, as compared to many other D&D settings, has a lot more common with contemporary earth. At least the civilized states show a lot of signs of essentially being Victorian in some aspects. There's working international trade, a banking system, large-scale manufacturing, professional armies and a formalized education system. Furthermore, a lot of the great powers of the setting are either sealed away, on different continents or more or less passive.
Therefore, Khorvaire landing on earth (discarding climate effects for now) should largely result in what is basically a trade and technology revolution on both sides. Khorvaire should understand the promises and advantages of technology, and their magic is a lot more applicable to us than that of most settings, since they produce consumer goods and lots of them.

Aharon
2011-01-14, 05:35 AM
That happens when you don't know the science behind that kind of thing :smallyuk:

So let's either put their caverns above sea-level (i.e., under the mountains that make up the alps, but not under sea-level), or let's assume that their city already incorporates the neccessary technology to prevent flooding (There's precedence for that in fantasy, I think Pratchett's dwarfs do pump out the water). The heat would lead to lots of naked drow, I don't think anyone would object to that :smallwink:

But to err on the side of caution, the "below mountains, above sea-level" might be the better solution.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 05:37 AM
Actually...

(sorry for the nit-picking, but I enjoy it immensely :smalltongue: )

Ground water levels in the alps are high above sea level. After all, you can have springs very high up. I know quite a few caves, and a lot of them have underground lakes. Furthermore, there's snowmelt, which provides enormous volumes of water every spring.

So, your best bet is saying "there's magic that prevents the Underdark from flooding". Or just ignoring it.

Ironically, I was also the one proposing that scenario, along with the Khorvaire one.

Emmerask
2011-01-14, 05:57 AM
I think a few more rulings should really be made before the discussion starts ^^

-Foremost I would say is magic, is it something everyone could do or does one need a spark of magic to be able to practice it?
Seeing that magic prevents the underdark from being flooded does take away the possibility of a dead magic zone, I see only the magic spark "theory" holding up.
-I think we should ignore all physics involved ^^
-Gods should likewise not be used except for enabling casters to cast their spells.
-Also I think that earth should have materials that have similar properties to adamantine, cold iron etc.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 06:02 AM
Well, according to d20 modern, a modern battle tank has the same hardness as adamantine, so there's that. Apparently, our steel (or whatever tanks are made off) is pretty impressive.

Cold Iron seems to be a special material in D&D, where historically, it just refers to any iron and steel.

*.*.*.*
2011-01-14, 06:21 AM
Can radiation kill Big T? If not, hell yeah DND Godzilla. CR 3 monsters can kill you, but not nuclear weaponry

FelixG
2011-01-14, 06:24 AM
Can radiation kill Big T? If not, hell yeah DND Godzilla. CR 3 monsters can kill you, but not nuclear weaponry

If I recall correctly D20 modern nukes state that anything that gets caught in the blast just ceases to be.. And if Big T does survive...well he will be embedded in a good deal of glass and stone for a while. :smallbiggrin:

Eldan
2011-01-14, 06:25 AM
With T's strength, smashing its way out shouldn't be too hard. And I assume it could regenerate from a nuke, even. I mean, it's pretty clear about "regenerates from everything". If divine fire can't incinerate you, why should a nuke?

FelixG
2011-01-14, 06:31 AM
With T's strength, smashing its way out shouldn't be too hard. And I assume it could regenerate from a nuke, even. I mean, it's pretty clear about "regenerates from everything". If divine fire can't incinerate you, why should a nuke?

Because some concessions need to be made to both sides for such a debate to work. otherwise this:

"Well if the place was teleported to the real world we don't have magic so neither would they" :smallbiggrin:

*.*.*.*
2011-01-14, 06:34 AM
Also, couldn't mages destroy cities with locate city bombs or Apocalypse from the Sky(BoVD)? Hell, a 1st level necromancer could probably create a wightocalypse to wipe out earth.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 06:37 AM
The Wightocalypse or Shadowcalypse is still the greatest problem, yes. That just can't be conveniently stopped with D&D means, short of shooting anyone who has their abilities drained before they are converted.

Now the Locate City bomb... that never worked in the first place, and if it did, should be excluded.

Apocalpyse from the sky uses an artefact, if I remember, and those should be rare enough.

Zombimode
2011-01-14, 06:53 AM
(The average cormyrian peasant is probably worse off than the average real world African, for example).

I beg your pardon?
You are talking about the war-torn, malaria infected and aids ridden barren wastes of the forgotten continent?
No thanks, I will stick with lush middle-european and mostly monster-free landscape of Cormyr with a mostly working social structure, good basic level of education for everyone with borders protected by war wizards.

Aharon
2011-01-14, 07:03 AM
@all scenarios
I agree with Emmerasks proposal regarding no godly interventions and will add them to the first post if nobody objects.
About the magic spark:
This seems the most elegant solution. You can only cast if you have the magic spark, and there hasn't been anybody with that ability until 2010. We now have to discuss wether contact with this spark spreads it on earth, or if it stays confined to those originally from the casting side. This is especially important in the Khorvaire and the Erelhei-Cinlu scenarios, as their magic would cease to work once all the casters have died.
About the special materials thing: I'm not sure yet wether I agree or not, but I see the significance if hostilities do happen => DR isn't a problem for tanks, but normal weapons could be made a lot more effective if we have access to special materials.
As a compromise, I would propose that Earth does have the materials based on real world stuff - cold iron, silver, maybe iron wood -, but doesn't have the clearly magical stuff - darkwood, adamantine, mithral.

Ignoring all physics potentially makes the Khorvaire scenario less interesting, and makes it hard to judge some potential interactions. I would propose: Let's ignore all physics that would make one of the scenarios flat-out impossible, or explain them away with magic.

=> Khorvaire Scenario
What do you think? Should we disregard the climate effects Khorvaire would have? If we do, I think Eldan's scenario of trade with mutual benefit would be likely. Is there anything else interesting to happen in that case? How would we interact with several monarchies suddenly popping up? How would the world react to intelligent robots?
=> Drow Scenario
I think we agree on magic as a solution to hot drowning drow.

@*.*.*.*
I think this would be more suited for the other thread. Big T is neither on Khorvaire, nor in Erelhei-Cinlu, and, to my knowledge, not active in the Forgotten Realms. Or do you see any reason why Big T would attack transposed!Iran or suddenly appear in Suzail, go through the portal and wreck havoc in Madrid?

But the point about nuclear weapons is worthwhile to discuss. Eldan, could you provide a source for your claim? I tried finding nukes in the d20 modern SRD, but they seem to be placed counterintuitively - didn't find them.
If regeneration is absolutely limited to the specific materials, a nuke wouldn't kill a large amount of D&D critters - from lowly ogre mages to the mighty solar.

Does anyone object against generally modelling the real world by d20 modern rules, unless there seems something really off?
(For example, I think deseases aren't modelled well in this system (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/modern/smack/environmentandhazards.html).)

@Zombimode
Africa is large, and doesn't solely consist of Darfur, Congo and Zimbabwe. While I wouldn't want to live there, I think it's still better in, say Algeria or South Africa than in Cormyr. If you're inclined to get more information, here's the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa) on the subect of african economy.

@Wightocalypse/Shadowcalypse
Do you think we should just ban it?
If not, in which scenario do you think it is likely to happen?
1)
Would Cormyr try to use it on Spain? If so, for what reason?
2)
Would some power group from Khorvaire use it on the rest of the world? If so, which and for what reason?
3)
Would someone use it on Iran? If so, who and for what reason?
4)
Would the drow use it? Which power group within Erelhei-Cinlu is likely to have this idea? Would it be an unanimous decision? Would some drow prefer to keep the surfacers as slaves? What would happen if one of the notoriously backstabby drow killed the controller of the shadow/wight that started the apocalypse?

*.*.*.*
2011-01-14, 07:24 AM
Or do you see any reason why Big T would attack transposed!Iran or suddenly appear in Suzail, go through the portal and wreck havoc in Madrid?

I've seen Telepaths who easily crank their save DCs high enough to dominate him

Aharon
2011-01-14, 07:31 AM
@*.*.*.*
Yes, that's nice, I know the rules make lots of stuff possible. There is another thread for the general discussion of a modern army vs. D&D found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182987). I didn't ask wether it was possible or not, but why it would actually happen.

So, if you're actually interested in discussing specific scenarios, it would be nice if you looked in the Forgotten realms wiki, for example under the Cormyr (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Cormyr) section, or in any FR-sourcebook you have available, and told us which Telepath in the FR would come up with a plot to find the Tarrasque and unleash it on Earth/transposed!Iran, and why he would do so.

*.*.*.*
2011-01-14, 07:34 AM
@*.*.*.*
Yes, that's nice, I know the rules make lots of stuff possible. There is another thread for the general discussion of a modern army vs. D&D found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182987). I didn't ask wether it was possible or not, but why it would actually happen.


My apologies

Eldan
2011-01-14, 07:43 AM
I have no idea where nukes do in d20 modern, my knowledge of that system is very limited.

However, I mainly named the Tarrasque because it explicitly says in the rules:


No form of attack deals lethal damage to the tarrasque. The tarrasque regenerates even if it fails a saving throw against a disintegrate spell or a death effect

Which seems to cover even nukes, to me.

As for any kind of Spawncapolypse: it can easily happen, as there are low level spells to summon the undead. Khorvaire, as the example I know best, has it's own organizations that could almost be called terrorist groups. The Emerald Claw and the Blood of Vol are both undead focused, evil, and power-hungry, and I could see them trying this tactic.

Aharon
2011-01-14, 07:46 AM
@*.*.*.*
No problem, you were trying to be helpful :smallsmile: It's just that the general stuff was already extensively discussed.

Now, I looked up psionics in the realms here (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Psionics), and it seems that no psionic power group in or near Cormyr exists. There are two such organizations near Iran, in Thethyr and in Skullport. But the question remains why they would try such a non-obvious way, especially considering that there is no sourcebook information on where the Tarrasque's layer can be found (at least that I know of).

@Eldan
As far as my rules-knowledge goes, the Tarrasque's regeneration is only special because, unlike other creatures, it doesn't give any way except wishing it dead that stops it. So if the Tarrasque's regeneration is unaffected by nuclear weapons, the same is true for some other creatures with regeneration (though a point could be made that part of the damage from a nuclear explosion would be fire damage, so creatures whose regeneration is beaten by fire would still die).

@Blood of Vol and Emerald Claw
I'll keep in mind to look at those organizations. This opens up interesting territory, as we already determined in the other thread that D&D-World has a significant advantage at skirmishes and terrorist-style fighting.

2xMachina
2011-01-14, 07:53 AM
A single thrallherd could wreck havok. Get thralls, set them to go back to where they work (steal info etc), and go axe-crazy. When they die, ANOTHER fella becomes their thrall for free.

Rinse and repeat.

As for motivation... There's always crazy megalomaniacs. Else, where do BBEG's come from?

Eldan
2011-01-14, 07:56 AM
@Eldan
As far as my rules-knowledge goes, the Tarrasque's regeneration is only special because, unlike other creatures, it doesn't give any way except wishing it dead that stops it. So if the Tarrasque's regeneration is unaffected by nuclear weapons, the same is true for some other creatures with regeneration (though a point could be made that part of the damage from a nuclear explosion would be fire damage, so creatures whose regeneration is beaten by fire would still die).

Here I meant specifically the "disintegration and death effects" part. Read this part of the regeneration rules:


Regeneration does not restore hit points lost from starvation, thirst, or suffocation.

Attack forms that don’t deal hit point damage ignore regeneration.

An attack that can cause instant death only threatens the creature with death if it is delivered by weapons that deal it lethal damage.

So, if nukes kill in some way without dealing damage or is an instant-death effect, it would kill anything other than a Tarrasque, which has a specific exception against them.

Aharon
2011-01-14, 07:58 AM
@2xMachina
Thank you for your input :smallsmile: But this thread is about above specific scenarios. The general stuff was already extensively discussed here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182987).

So, if you're actually interested in discussing specific scenarios, it would be nice if you looked up actual Thrallherds in the Forgotten Realms near the Western Heartlands, Cormyr, Erelhei-Cilnu or on Khorvaire, and detailed why they would do that.

You're the second person to provide a specific scenario, so I guess I'll better change the thread title. Sorry for the misunderstanding :smallredface:

Eldan
2011-01-14, 08:01 AM
Thrallherds would probably be specifically mentioned somewhere if one existed in Eberron. You start that class at level 6, while most NPCs are not that high-leveled. There are a few people of up to level 20 around on Khorvaire (that flesh-warper Transmuter wizard, the level 20 awakened tree of the druid orders, the lolipope...), but generally, you could probably do an E6 game in Eberron without changing much about the setting.

2xMachina
2011-01-14, 08:05 AM
I assumed that it's probably likely there exists at least a single thrallherd in such a large area.

I felt thrallherds are BBEG material. Creepy mind controller finding a new world would probably try to take it over, screw what the authorities think.

EDIT: Unless you want Canon characters only? Nothing that was never mentioned in books?

Amiel
2011-01-14, 08:07 AM
Nukes are tricky because the immense quantities of radiation that permeates an area after fallout deal an untyped damage type and causes mutations. Perhaps these mutations are of an unspecified conclusion.

A tarrasque may not be immune to this untyped damage and possibly also not to the mutagenic effects.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 08:10 AM
Agreed on the mutations, but the untyped damage would be converted to nonlethal by any kind of regeneration. That's normal for all untyped damages.

However, if I had to stat radiation, I would make it ability damage/drain/burn.

Killer Angel
2011-01-14, 08:17 AM
To compare the two, one would have to use a superpower on the Fantasy side, too - and to my knowledge, no D&D setting has such a superpower. Feel free to correct me.


Don't know if Thay can count, at least in terms of sheer power. After all, it's a magocracy very aggressive.

Amiel
2011-01-14, 08:20 AM
Agreed on the mutations, but the untyped damage would be converted to nonlethal by any kind of regeneration. That's normal for all untyped damages.

However, if I had to stat radiation, I would make it ability damage/drain/burn.

I don't where I read it, but I seem to recall that untyped damage bypasses all DR? I think the logic went that since it is unspecified damage, no DR can negate it. Or am I misremembering?

Good idea on the ability damage/drain/burn; I'll probably make it deal all three.

Aharon
2011-01-14, 08:25 AM
@2xMachina
I probably didn't make it explicit enough in the first post. It seemed like the wisest thing to avoid rules exploits - high level magic is already incredibly powerful without the exploits, and if we add extremely optimised builds, the conclusion seems forfeit that magic wins (that was the conclusion of the general discussion). That's why I tried to add constraints that would make both sides stand on more even footing.
As a compromise, I will add a rule for NPC generation above.

I actually like your scenario, but it would be probably easier if we tried to put it in one of the four categories. It's probably suited best for either the Khorvaire goes to Earth one or the Madrid-Suzail Gate one. Do you agree that a standard Enchanter could essentially do the same? If you agree, let's use that as a baseline.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 08:32 AM
I don't where I read it, but I seem to recall that untyped damage bypasses all DR? I think the logic went that since it is unspecified damage, no DR can negate it. Or am I misremembering?

Good idea on the ability damage/drain/burn; I'll probably make it deal all three.

You seem to be. Specifially:
Regeneration is not a form of damage reduction. While unspecified damage is usually magical and does bypass damage reduction, it does not negate regeneration. It is still damage, and regeneration converts all damage except specified types to nonlethal.

2xMachina
2011-01-14, 08:34 AM
IIRC, Thrallherd is possible at lvl 6.

I do agree that Thrallherd is OP though, with the clause "lost thralls and believers are replaced within 24 hours" which gives them neverending mooks.

An Enchanter losses most of the power, being only able to Dominate people. It is still rather effective, but detecting dominated is not that hard. Thralls are themselves, but fanatical to someone, so it is quite a bit harder to detect.

kalkyrie
2011-01-14, 08:44 AM
Regarding the Shadowcalypse, they have one major problem. It will work too well.

Take the 'Iran is transferred to a D&D world' scenario. Assume there is no obvious counter to the Shadowcalypse, and Iran gets overwhelmed.
Iran's population is about 70mill. Considering Thay's population is 5mill, you may have just created a Shadow for every person on the planet. Good luck limiting that.

(Of course, the normal world has a 'Mutually Assured Destruction' tactic available as well. Don't think I need to spell it out!)

Eldan
2011-01-14, 08:46 AM
(Of course, the normal world has a 'Mutually Assured Destruction' tactic available as well. Don't think I need to spell it out!)

Jersey Shore? Abba concerts? Talk-show marathons?

Amiel
2011-01-14, 08:50 AM
You seem to be. Specifially:
Regeneration is not a form of damage reduction. While unspecified damage is usually magical and does bypass damage reduction, it does not negate regeneration. It is still damage, and regeneration converts all damage except specified types to nonlethal.

Ah well; incidently, I was going to post force damage in that post.
The SRD on regeneration had this to say though: "attack forms that don't deal hit point damage ignore regeneration."
The untyped damage from a nuke doesn't necessarily have to be hit point damage.


Jersey Shore? Abba concerts? Talk-show marathons?

Reality tv.

Jan Mattys
2011-01-14, 08:56 AM
IMHO it would be pretty absurd to give a point blank nuclear detonation a damage value.

It's much more similar to an instant disintegration effect (no save) than it is to fire damage imho.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 08:56 AM
Ah well; incidently, I was going to post force damage in that post.
The SRD on regeneration had this to say though: "attack forms that don't deal hit point damage ignore regeneration."
The untyped damage from a nuke doesn't necessarily have to be hit point damage.


Well. There's really only two kinds of damage in D&D as far as I'm aware, ability damage and hit point damage. While ability damage (similar to poisons and diseases) is probably the best way to model radiation, the Tarrasque is also "[immune] to fire, poison, disease, energy drain, and ability damage". If the Nuke killed with out damage, it would be an instant death effect, from which it can also regenerate.

Jan Mattys
2011-01-14, 09:09 AM
Well. There's really only two kinds of damage in D&D as far as I'm aware, ability damage and hit point damage. While ability damage (similar to poisons and diseases) is probably the best way to model radiation, the Tarrasque is also "[immune] to fire, poison, disease, energy drain, and ability damage". If the Nuke killed with out damage, it would be an instant death effect, from which it can also regenerate.

Well, yes, but a nuke is not a d&d item, so it can deal non-d&d types of damage.
Like a non-magical disintegration effect.

The Glyphstone
2011-01-14, 09:12 AM
Regarding the Shadowpocalype, I'd suggest a cross-compatibility compromise that kinetic shock waves (the sort created by artillery shells or heavyweight bombs) are treated as force damage. This at least means that one CR2 monster won't automatically win the fight, though limiting the effects to bombardment/support weaponry means they'll still be a problem.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 09:14 AM
Which would probably kill it, yes.

However, why are we even discussing this? None of the proposed scenarios is likely to include a tarrasque.

Edit:
Shock waves as force damage? That seems totally wrong to me. Shock waves are bludgeoning, or perhaps sonic. Force is specifically called "magical force" or "pure magic".

The Glyphstone
2011-01-14, 09:26 AM
Which would probably kill it, yes.

However, why are we even discussing this? None of the proposed scenarios is likely to include a tarrasque.

Edit:
Shock waves as force damage? That seems totally wrong to me. Shock waves are bludgeoning, or perhaps sonic. Force is specifically called "magical force" or "pure magic".
What about psionic powers like Concussion Blast?

Sonic perhaps - but I did say it was a compromise. If there are no weapon-based ways to injure an incorporeal monster for our scenarios, then DeltaEmil does have a point from the other thread...we can just all pick up our marbles and go home, because a single CR2 monster will obliterate the Real World forces all by itself, and we don't get to have a debate at all.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 09:31 AM
Interesting, I didn't know about Concussion blast. I'd agree that Telekinetic force is much closer to a real-world shockwave. I'd say it's reasonable to assume, then that shockwaves deal at least some force damage.

The Glyphstone
2011-01-14, 09:36 AM
Maybe half force, half sonic/bludgeoning?

Aharon
2011-01-14, 09:36 AM
@2xMachina
I agree, but Dominate should be sufficient for one of the purposes you have detailed (going axe-crazy). The other (information gathering) could be solved with other enchantments - Charm Person in conjunction with Suggestion should be enough for that.

@Killer Angel
Do you think the Thay vs. USA scenario is more interesting? I agree that it is more probable that it would lead to conflict than the Spain-Cormyr one, especially seeing how people are far worse of in Thay than in Cormyr.
@all
Does anybody think that Thay isn't superpower enough to deal with the USA?

@kalkyrie
As long as the one who unleashes the spawnpocalypse remains alive, this isn't a problem - he would just have 70 million shadows under his command. The moment he dies, though, things get ugly.

@Nuclear Weapons/Tarrasque
Nuclear Weapons aren't only important because of the Tarrasque, but because they are in the game if we use USA vs. Thay instead of Spain vs. Cormyr. It might also matter in the Khorvaire Appears! scenario, though it is less likely there.
There are rules for them in d20 Future, the Starship part (found here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd)). According to these rules, a 1MT nuke deals 16d8 points of energy damage (72 average).
I think that either that number, or the 10d12 of the M1Abrams (65 average), is off. (Hiroshima was a 0.013MT nuke, and it dealt a lot more damage than 1/76th of one shot from an M1Abrams).

There's also radiation sickness in the chapter about environmental hazards (same link as above).

However, we probably won't get those things completely right, so I suggest we stick to a combination of these rules and The Glyphstones proposal - half energy, half force for nuclear weapons, with the damage values given in the d20modern SRD, and other artillery/heavy weaponry should be half force, half sonic/bludgeoning.

This thread (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=309235) discusses the low damage of nukes. A poster claims that this is purely meant for space-battles and the value is this low because there are no shockwaves in space. The thread produces several houserules, between "multiply by ten against non-starship targets", 1000d6 and 4000000d6. The first was the most conservative estimate in that thread, and I think we should go with it so that nukes are an actual danger for high-HD monsters. Even with that, it takes 2 one Megaton-warheads to obliterate a Great Wyrm red dragon with 1 class level (=> elite array=> higher con => more hp).

Eldan
2011-01-14, 09:40 AM
Yeah, compared to a tank, that damage is laughably low. It also means that any number of high-level creatures in D&D can easily shrug off a megaton nuke.

The Glyphstone
2011-01-14, 09:43 AM
Heck, it means a 20th level barbarian basically eats nuclear bombs for breakfast. Without salt. That should be adjusted by, say, a factor of 10 or so.

Amiel
2011-01-14, 09:43 AM
Well. There's really only two kinds of damage in D&D as far as I'm aware, ability damage and hit point damage. While ability damage (similar to poisons and diseases) is probably the best way to model radiation, the Tarrasque is also "[immune] to fire, poison, disease, energy drain, and ability damage". If the Nuke killed with out damage, it would be an instant death effect, from which it can also regenerate.

Which is why I said the nuke was tricky to model; it adheres to no standard D&D paradigm.


Which would probably kill it, yes.

However, why are we even discussing this? None of the proposed scenarios is likely to include a tarrasque.

But such a scenario may include a nuke; Spain or any other real-world nation may procure a nuke to terminate aggression and pacify a region.


Shock waves as force damage? That seems totally wrong to me. Shock waves are bludgeoning, or perhaps sonic. Force is specifically called "magical force" or "pure magic".

I'd say it makes sense, as force damage. Specifically as a form of energy.
I would say that the damage from a nuclear blast will primarily be force damage but also include bludgeoning, sonic and fire damage.



I'm leery on providing D&D variables to real-world weapons, since they deal vastly more damage than their written stats would suggest.

Salbazier
2011-01-14, 10:03 AM
Heck, it means a 20th level barbarian basically eats nuclear bombs for breakfast. Without salt. That should be adjusted by, say, a factor of 10 or so.

More like one hundred or one thousand, i'd say.

Killer Angel
2011-01-14, 10:05 AM
@Killer Angel
Do you think the Thay vs. USA scenario is more interesting? I agree that it is more probable that it would lead to conflict than the Spain-Cormyr one, especially seeing how people are far worse of in Thay than in Cormyr.


Not necessarly more interesting, but the approaches could be dramatically different.

Chen
2011-01-14, 10:38 AM
I'm leery on providing D&D variables to real-world weapons, since they deal vastly more damage than their written stats would suggest.

This is an issue with the hit point system. Its reasonable to assume that a sword or melee weapon can be dodged or blocked with a shield and even arrows can be deflected by armor and such. Thus misses are combination of dodges, blocks, parries and even hits can be considered glancing blows as the fighter becomes more skilled (i.e., more hit points).

This type of abstraction is already difficult with medieval ranged weapons, which can at least conceivably be parried/blocked since they are not THAT fast (I feel bows are a bit less deadly than they should be at high levels, compared to melee weapons). The problem becomes even bigger with guns. Its not realistic to consistently be dodging bullets without any type of cover. I'll grant magic armor can help but the difference between a level 1 fighter and a level 20 fighter shouldn't be on the order of 20x when he's being shot at by a machine gun (thats neglecting items and such, just hit point wise).

The logical way to do things would be to make guns deal a ton more damage so you massively overkill low hp things and just barely kill high hp things. That at least makes things more consistent if you're using HP as a measure of "toughness" rather than each 8 hp lost being the equivalent to having a longbow arrow sticking out of you somewhere.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 10:40 AM
Or we could use vitality/wound points. Which is a bit better, but still includes the problem of people evading bullets like crazy.

Killer Angel
2011-01-14, 11:09 AM
Or we could use vitality/wound points. Which is a bit better, but still includes the problem of people evading bullets like crazy.

Monk training FTW (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh4Kx9IqIZw)! :smallbiggrin:

Ormur
2011-01-14, 12:20 PM
If I were to simulate a nuke in D&D terms I'd try to translate the real world effect into D&D damage types based on the radius from ground zero.

The direct effects are the blast damage and thermal effects. The blast would be bludgeoning or force and the thermal effects probably just insane amounts of fire damage.

Because those effects usually kill everything within a certain distance the direct radiation caused by the blast, which dissipates pretty quickly, usually matters less for immediate survivability, at least with higher yield nukes. But since this is D&D where things can be immune to fire and survive huge blasts it might be more important and I'd model it as initially huge amounts of constitution damage.

The fallout from a ground bursts and the after-effects of the initial radiation could similarly be modelled as constitution damage with extra effects depending on how detailed we want this to be.

For ground zero we should just ad a bunch of zeros behind the d6 we want to roll for those damage types.

Edit: Con drain would be better as mentioned below.

2xMachina
2011-01-14, 12:26 PM
Make it Con Drain, and you've got something. Immunity to Con Damage isn't impossible (eg, T). Also, Drain is permanent, Damage is healed by 1 each day.

Chilingsworth
2011-01-14, 12:27 PM
I know it's kinda off-topic, but with all this talk of nukes, I just have to mention this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du3WhHrrNgs):

Also, definately any ability damage delt from close exposure to a nuke should be drain. You Don't get better from it!

Salbazier
2011-01-14, 12:56 PM
What will happen with undeads and golems then?

2xMachina
2011-01-14, 12:59 PM
Hope they aren't immune to Fire?

Eldan
2011-01-14, 01:29 PM
If we assume that the blast wave deals force damage, that kills the golem and undead. Otherwise, I have no problem with them surviving radiation.

Salbazier
2011-01-14, 01:30 PM
I mean what the effect of con damagedrain to creatures without con?

Cuaqchi
2011-01-14, 01:33 PM
-Also I think that earth should have materials that have similar properties to adamantine, cold iron etc.

Depends on what you are looking for in terms of equivilancy.
- Aluminium can be compared in some ways to Mithral being lighter and of comparable strength to steel. That is why it is used on aircraft, and rockets.
- Titanium can be compared to Adamantine, although this one one gets a little trickier when you consider all the benefits Adamantine has in D&Dverse.
- Cold Iron is the most difficult but any low carbon steel, preferably one which was formed using 'cold rolling' is probably similar to the intended result.


Well, according to d20 modern, a modern battle tank has the same hardness as adamantine, so there's that. Apparently, our steel (or whatever tanks are made off) is pretty impressive.

Our most modern tanks are plated with advanced ceramic composites or a combination of steel and ceramic. The secondary effect of this is that they are immune to Rusting and Rust Monsters.

Also APDU ammunition will likely have to be analyzed. Only used by the US, but they have the effect of literally melting whatever is behind the armour plating.

Forum Explorer
2011-01-14, 01:45 PM
can some weapons be considered magic for purposes of damaging incorperal/DR?

Afterall Afterall any technology no matter how primative is magic to those who don't understand it. (http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00255.htm)

Chilingsworth
2011-01-14, 01:46 PM
I mean what the effect of con damagedrain to creatures without con?

No effect at all. Also, aren't undead and (non-living) constructs immune to ability damage/drain (at least to physical ability scores?)

Redrat2k6
2011-01-14, 02:15 PM
More back on topic of the thread,

From what I have seen of our military we would actually do quite well. I feel like most play grounders have underestimated the force and strength of our bombs and missile's and technology.

Also it seems to me like our population is vastly superior to theirs, even considering the amounts of monsters in each manual. The biology economics could not support all of the lifeforms en mass if we remember the 10% 1% predator rule.

Also, and more importantly, us as play grounders would be the most vital resource in protecting our world. We have their information and we know how to exploit it. Remember they are invading US! We need to defend what is ours! I'm sure we can think of creative ways of using our amazing weapons, technology and sheer numbers and firepower to at least stall the war and force the DnD universe to use guerrilla tactics from genesis planes and whatnot.

Salbazier
2011-01-14, 02:22 PM
We need to recognize those things for what they are first. I imagine the ruckus it caused in the media, possibly incomplete report, and the knee-jerk reaction of panic or disbelief will make it more difficult to identify the obvious.

Then we must convince the authorities, which is a lot harder.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 02:25 PM
I think that's another rule we should include in the premises:

"D&D is not known in the real world."

Chilingsworth
2011-01-14, 02:33 PM
I think that's another rule we should include in the premises:

"D&D is not known in the real world."

NOOOO!!! How will us nerds live out our "we save the world" fantasies then?!? :smalltongue::smallwink:

Zonugal
2011-01-14, 02:33 PM
So what do we do in the case of one of these guys (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a)?

I imagine one of them would be an extremely impressive opponent to almost any nation on the planet.


Energy Drain for three negative levels which creates full fledged vampires, who may never break free of their enslavement.
Control Weather (CL 12) at will
Telekinesis (CL 12) at will
Telepathy out to 100 feet (which means Mindsight is viable)
Extreme damage reduction and fast healing
Almost no weaknesses that standard vampires possesses (which means it could reasonably pass for a human)
An intensely obscure method of disposing of the vampire lord which actually is only temporary.
Likely to be smarter and more charismatic than near anyone on the planet.

Redrat2k6
2011-01-14, 02:43 PM
@ Zonugal

Hit it in the daylight with enough firepower so it "seems to die" then jettison it's body and head into the sun in holy water filled rockets.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 02:44 PM
Yeah... strap it to a satellite, launch it out of the solar system. That should work.

Emmerask
2011-01-14, 02:48 PM
So what do we do in the case of one of these guys (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a)?

I imagine one of them would be an extremely impressive opponent to almost any nation on the planet.


Energy Drain for three negative levels which creates full fledged vampires, who may never break free of their enslavement.
Control Weather (CL 12) at will
Telekinesis (CL 12) at will
Telepathy out to 100 feet (which means Mindsight is viable)
Extreme damage reduction and fast healing
Almost no weaknesses that standard vampires possesses (which means it could reasonably pass for a human)
An intensely obscure method of disposing of the vampire lord which actually is only temporary.
Likely to be smarter and more charismatic than near anyone on the planet.


We show twilight on every single tv screen all around the country, the vampires will be so embarrassed that they either die instantly or go back to d&d world :smalltongue:

Forum Explorer
2011-01-14, 02:49 PM
We show twilight on every single tv screen all around the country, the vampires will be so embarrassed that they either die instantly or go back to d&d world :smalltongue:

but that's why they came over. The Twilight movies were so bad that the portal opened so that vampires could come over and redeem themselves. :smallbiggrin:

Emmerask
2011-01-14, 02:50 PM
Then I will welcome our new overlords and offer my help :smallbiggrin:

Eldan
2011-01-14, 02:51 PM
Well, if vampire lords come over to erradicate twilight, they are really not much of a threat, if such a minor thing annoys them.

Redrat2k6
2011-01-14, 02:52 PM
@Eldan

Heck I would help them. I mean... what?

Emmerask
2011-01-14, 02:56 PM
Hm are there any rules for chainsaws?
I think that would be my weapon of choice against such creatures ^^

Arbane
2011-01-14, 03:09 PM
It's not military, but three things occurred to me pretty early on:

1: Any Intelligence agency on earth would commit mass human sacrifice to have access to even mid-level Diviner spells.

2: The Drow would have to be COMPLETE MORONS to go for military conquest when they could use assassination, enchantment, disguise, bribery and blackmail to take over Bavaria from the top down. Yeah, it results in less heads on poles and other fun stuff, but it also gets you shot a lot less.

3: Use the Call of Cthulhu answer: "When you nuke the Tarrasque, it reforms three minutes later, and now it's radioactive."

Chess435
2011-01-14, 03:29 PM
Epic Level Monk with infinite deflection + exceptional deflection vs. guys with machine guns.

Think about it.

Eldan
2011-01-14, 03:33 PM
Isn't there also a feat that allows you to reflect projectiles back at the shooters?

Edit: Yup. So, monk with those three epic feats + army any size with ranged weapons = no more army.

Excession
2011-01-14, 03:52 PM
Epic Level Monk with infinite deflection + exceptional deflection vs. guys with machine guns.

Think about it.

Does the line "You must be aware of the attack" still apply in epic? If so, snipers. It's not especially easy to be aware of a supersonic bullet before it arrives. Alternatively, flame-throwers.

Chilingsworth
2011-01-14, 03:58 PM
Well, afaik, there are no cannon/reasonably generatable epic monks in the set-up described by the OP, so it seems kinda moot to me to disscus what they can do.

kiergon
2011-01-14, 04:34 PM
I think it would go like this on the different scenarios.

Portal between Madrid and Suzail:
Terrans lose and badly why? many powerful groups are interested in maintaining the status quo, and some of them woudl love to kill more and are unable due to casters stoping them
as I posted on the other thread

Where to begin? I guess by the less obvious choice, which would be the Twisted Rune. These mofos killed Halaster, Halaster as in the Archwizard that was invited to be a chosen of Mystra and say no way, a netherese archmage who chained the Skulls of skullport, etc...not even Elminster or the seven sisters were inhis league he is stated as a higher wizard caster lvl than Elminster, any of the seven sisters, Szass Tam (Spelling?) or Khelben.
They are all powerful undead epic casters, liches and such, so any of them would destroy our world. Oh and btw they are playing a game of sorts with the Forgotten Realms world, where they use nations as pawns in a game of chess, I guess they would feel upset by an army of invaders coming to destroy their carefully played game. And yes they would intervene in this war, and they have the resources to do constants scrying to see if anybody is meddling on their chess game.
Also you have Larloch and his coven of liches, although I think Larloch wouldnt intervene in the war unless his Warlock Crypt (or whatever is called) was being invaded.
Then you have the Phaerimm, The Sharn (who btw do intervene against creatures that could destroy the world such as a the Phaerimm), you have Iolaum the netherese caster, who is a lich, elder brain caster 40+.
Then you have the sixty sarrukh liches of Oreme, each of them a Sarrukh and then a lich and either a very high lvl caster or an outright epic one.
And I left the big guns for the end, the epic dragons of Toril, his holy gold Emperor, which is supposed to be the strongest caster and being in Toril, think about it, a Gold dragon who is a stronger caster than Larloch or Iolaum, yeah...then you have a Red Great Wyrm that was a wizard 33 or something like that.
I didnt mention the sisters, khelben, zhentarim, red wizards, any of the gods churches and such, because they are fighting among themselves, just the guys who are free to stop our army.
On any setting you have the aboleths, and if Shaboath is an example to go by, their Savants can be something like a Wizard 30/cleric 30/ Psion 30. so yeah...
The Illithids with their elder brains, how the hell are we going to fight against that? really im curious how the hell could we fight the Illithids is they decided that we are their greatest chance for an everlasting farm of brians.

And if you think that any of the above mentioned groups wouldnt intervene, why not? for the illithids itīs a free meal (literally), ignore the wizards and outsiders if you want, how do we deal with the Illithids or Aboleths? they live miles underground, the aboleths tens of miles. The deepest mine on earth is something like 2.5 miles deep, and its a great feat of engineering, and something that took years to do.

oh btw there are aboleths cities near Suzail under the sea of stars (or whatever its name is) and an illithid city under the dalelands.

Also Mr T is in anauroch, and the Shades could wake him up and sending Suzail way.

Next,

Khorvaire appearing in the pacific? where exactly? becuase this could mean the end of most living beings on earth, including Khorvairians.
Our planet would be a mass of ice if there was a major continent on the tropics, a continent has a higher albedo than water (that means reflects more sun radiation) which means less heat stays on earth, which means a fast cooling earth, since the poles start to expand, and so do polar glaciers, and ice reflects much more sunlight so this process accelerates. Also the water currents are whats keeping the northern hemisphere habitable, without them? well we have seen this happen before. Earth was completely frozen 650 million years ago, not pretty.

besides that, I dont know much about eberron to comment.


Drow city on the alps?
If the drow can stop their own internal wars, I think they would at least conquer the Eurozone, they could use sex, power or gold to buy any politician, and if he said no, he would be mental raped to obey. That is if the drow can solve the problem of flooding due to snow and glaciar melting, and water trying to, you know, go down due to gravity.
Im not sure there are enough drow to conquer the world, but the European parliament, easily.


Iran appearing in Faerun in the Western Heartlands?
why thats the main zone of operations of the Twisted rune, or Larloch. You have the sons of Bhaal nearby (Baldurs gate), and you dont have a big precense of "good" groups, not many harpers or agents of Khelben, not many elven kingdoms, just a few groups of wild elves (or was it forest elves?) no big dwarven precense.
So yeah Iran would be conquered in a week, by Twisted runes agents, of if Larloch wanted to steal the technology to study it, he would send one of his minor agents to steal it, and if Iran could resist him, he would send Szass Tam (o yes, he is his agent) or any of the liches that live in Warlocks Crypt.
Any one of the sons of Bhaal (the ones worth talkign about) would be able to take Iran by himself, they are epic, after all and godlings too.

Lamech
2011-01-14, 05:00 PM
First on DnD int and IQ scores. .5% of the DnD world is 18 int. So that correlates to 3 standard deviations up or an IQ of 145, for a DnD world. (All in all 2.5 int is about 1 corralates to one standard deviation, or 15 IQ points.) But this is a pre-flynn effect IQ. According to a stray graph on wikipedia a fedualism 100 would be a little under 70 of today's IQ; of course I truly doubt its based on accurate data but in 1932 it was more like 80.

Regardless the average human from our world is gonna be have a nice flynn bonus to int. Also our IQ doesn't top out at 145; keeping up with the 15=2.5 int, a 200ish would be about 28+flynn bonus.

Second the senario's:
First one: Why would fighting happen? (Immediatly) Its a fedual system world and we win at food making. Good ruler on DnD side and we gather intelligence and info before fighting. We would learn magic, and then we could stomp the DnD world if we so chose. (Flynn effect+7 billion people)
Second: Not a huge expert on Eberon. First they lose their precious ethereal plane and astral plane, so hopefully this causes confusion, and keeps people off-guard long enough for people to get into a magical academy and put magic on the internet. Of course some random evil person might try to infiltrate and sieze control and get away with it. Although it will be a lot harder without scry and die. (Invisiblity will show up on heat, we have experts and tech to see through a mere +10 disguise bonus, ect.)
Third: A huge cavern system defining real world geology? It collaspes, floods and melts at the same time?
Fourth: Hmm... an isolated country might do something stuipid. I mean if they are smart and effective they might be able to pull off the same win as in two, but the other side won't be off-balance, and will possess access to other planes.

grimbold
2011-01-14, 05:13 PM
you are all forgetting a big issue that would hurt the earthlings in said war
all the nerds would die of having to many nerdgasms at D&D coming to life
then nobody could run the weapons systems

Ormur
2011-01-14, 05:29 PM
The population aspect is really interesting though. As someone mentioned Iran has a population of 70 million which is way bigger than most D&D countries, maybe even a large chunk of the humanoid population of a prime material plane.

In D&D masses of people aren't actually very useful, except as a pool for training higher level individuals that could actually accomplish something against a modern society. But the real world is actually pretty egalitarian in that respect. The average modern peasant today might be just as useless as a D&D one in a fight but modern society has to expend proportionately lot less resources to make individuals very dangerous.

A few months of military training and modern weapons, logistics and communication can make large numbers people proportionately a lot more relevant than D&D commoners, or even fighters, armed with pikes.

I'm not saying that would be enough to matter against a high level caster but a D&D world has to expend very limited resources into forging magical items and years of both training and killing monsters for XP to get the sort of fighting ability that matters against any significant challenge.

So assuming D&D versus modern society wouldn't be an instant curb stomp the modern world would win a war of attrition, even if it's only a single country like Iran, provided it isn't too small.

Salbazier
2011-01-14, 08:36 PM
Khorvaire appearing in the pacific? where exactly? becuase this could mean the end of most living beings on earth, including Khorvairians.
Our planet would be a mass of ice if there was a major continent on the tropics, a continent has a higher albedo than water (that means reflects more sun radiation) which means less heat stays on earth, which means a fast cooling earth, since the poles start to expand, and so do polar glaciers, and ice reflects much more sunlight so this process accelerates. Also the water currents are whats keeping the northern hemisphere habitable, without them? well we have seen this happen before. Earth was completely frozen 650 million years ago, not pretty.

besides that, I dont know much about eberron to comment.




That pretty extreme, and to be honest, rather simplistic. Plus glacial age didn't happen becaue of landmass rising AFAIK. Rather it was all the water turned into ice that reduce the sea level.

kiergon
2011-01-15, 12:22 AM
That pretty extreme, and to be honest, rather simplistic. Plus glacial age didn't happen becaue of landmass rising AFAIK. Rather it was all the water turned into ice that reduce the sea level.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age#Position_of_the_continents

read under "A supercontinent covers most of the equator"
We already have number 1 and 2, as in:
1.- A continent sits on top of a pole, as Antarctica does today.
2.- A polar sea is almost land-locked, as the Arctic Ocean is today.

And then we have the himalayas that are cooling our world due to raining and thus decreasing the amount of atmospheric CO2.

Thats why I asked where would Khorvaire rise, because if its in the equator earth is going from an interglacial period (yup right now we are living in an ice age, just in an interglacial period) to a full glaciation, maybe even worse than the last one, since last time we didnt have a continent in the equator. It also depends on the size of the continent, but from what I read on this thread or the other one, its the size of Asia, so a big one.

it would also change the jet stream, since new air currents would be created and such, this is a major ecological mayhem, if you ignore the physics for arguments sake, thats fine by me, in fact it probably would be more interesting, since otherwise the topic ends there, but I wanted to say what would probably happen.

Fendalus
2011-01-15, 01:53 AM
It also depends on the size of the continent, but from what I read on this thread or the other one, its the size of Asia, so a big one.

Based off the 3.5 ECS, it's roughly 4000mi wide and 3000mi tall. Or about 6400km by 4800km. Not as it's total area, mind you, but the rough distance between the farthest east/west and north/south points on the continent. (Islands excluded) It's probably closer to South America in size.

And if this will lead to a new chunk of the ice age, just remove some restrictions and let the industrialized nations do something they are quite good at: Producing greenhouse gasses. Should at least slow it down.

Megawizard
2011-01-15, 08:39 AM
If we assume that the blast wave deals force damage, that kills the golem and undead. Otherwise, I have no problem with them surviving radiation.

That's assuming you can spot the undead. Shaddows, being incorporeal, have the big advantage of being able to travel inside solid matter, pop up to create some spawns, then go back underground. Unless you have enough spare ammo to nuke the whole area into smithereens, you can't really see them coming.

I must also point out that D&D has "explosive" mundane weapons here and there, none of wich deal force damage, only bludgeoding+fire damage.

And even then, look at the incorporeal subtype:

Incorporeal Subtype

An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms.

Full immunity to nonmagical. Point. Our world has exactly zero magic weaponry. Or magic of any kind to be more precise. Even if we do know that weak point, we have no way to get magic weaponry to counter it, besides geting our hands on the evil cleric, wich is probably siting inside the rope trick created by his eternal wand.

EDIT: Also, drop a frenzied berseker in a crowded city with deathless frenzy and supreme cleave (5-foot step after killing something, no limit), and things would get very very ugly.

Amphetryon
2011-01-15, 08:48 AM
Apologies if I missed it from earlier in the thread, but Fimbulwinter (Frostburn) should be considered a frightening tool for Team D&D. Its radius and duration alone can wreak serious havoc, and cause supply problems for Team Military, not to mention the loss of life.

Eldan
2011-01-15, 09:34 AM
I must also point out that D&D has "explosive" mundane weapons here and there, none of wich deal force damage, only bludgeoding+fire damage.

We did talk about that, and your position was the same as my own at first. However, there is Concussion Blast (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/concussionBlast.htm), which is, as it says, a concussive blast which deals force damage. So, in the interest of making this scenario at all feasible, it was proposed that explosions deal at least some force damage.

Megawizard
2011-01-15, 09:56 AM
We did talk about that, and your position was the same as my own at first. However, there is Concussion Blast (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/concussionBlast.htm), which is, as it says, a concussive blast which deals force damage. So, in the interest of making this scenario at all feasible, it was proposed that explosions deal at least some force damage.

That's the exception, not the rule. Fireball is also an explosion, but doesn't deal force damage. I can actually point you to dozens of other spells that cause explosions and blasts, but don't deal force damage at all. Concussion blast only deals force damage because a wizard psion did it.

And if we extrapolate too much then what? D&D auto-loses, becauses we'll always be able to draw real-world tangents to nullify all their tricks, at wich point we're left with the modern military fighting a bunch of dudes in funny robes and medieval soldiers.

So well, this whole idea isn't very feasible indeed. Either magic stuff really kicks ass and casters roll over everything we have available, or you allow mundane stuff to counter magic based on obscure extrapolations and the modern world easily wins on the back of sheer numbers.

Eldan
2011-01-15, 09:59 AM
Actually, strictly as written, Fireball has no pressure at all, as it can not move anything. Would you like to argue for that position?

And even if we can deal force damage to shadows, there's a hundred thousand things wizards can do we can't. Teleportation. Planar Travel. Shapeshifting. Summoning. Weather Control. Creating material from nothing.

Ormur
2011-01-15, 10:10 AM
Sonic damage might be a better approximation of the blasts than bludgeoning or force though. Otherwise I don't know what sonic damage is supposed to be, not that I know what force damage is supposed to be either.

Zonugal
2011-01-16, 05:22 AM
Yeah... strap it to a satellite, launch it out of the solar system. That should work.

The thing that is iffy & hard with vampire lords is that there isn't any non-magical way that an ordinary society could discern they are vampires.

Amiel
2011-01-16, 07:38 AM
The fangs, the abnormal strength and that unpleasant perfume of freshly dug graves might be a giveaway.

And there's no lacking vampiric lore, especially given society's prediction for the darkly mysterious.

Plus, they won't take kindly to garlic.

Aharon
2011-01-16, 11:37 AM
@Forum Explorer
No, our weapons shouldn't be considered magic, it would tilt the scenario too far in favor of the modern world, and, unlike the rulings on Artillery etc. doing force damage, is pretty far-fetched.

@Redrat2k6
Thank you for your input! Do you have any additional ideas specific to the scenarios?

@Salbazier/Eldan
Rule added.

@Zonugal
Yes, Vampire Lords are incredibly dangerous. In which of the scenarios would a Vampire Lord appear, and why, in your opinion?

@Arbane
=> Intelligence Agencies
Sure. I guess this applies to all scenarios equally. I don't really know a lot about these organizations, what could they do to actually get Diviners to cooperate?
=> Drow Morons
They are led by a retardedly evil godess who demands them to conquer. I think this is in character for Lolth. They have 30 years to subtly prepare their conquest, so they could infiltrate major EU organizations.

@Eldan/chess435
The epic monk could still be affected by area of effect attacks - Napalm, Fire Throwers, etc. Are there any such epic monks in any of the settings, or are they likely to be created with a town generator?

@kiergon
Thank you for adding your thoughts!
I thought the Twisted Rune is more interested in controlling than destroying? They are playing chess with nations, not Battleships.
War is not a given in most scenarios, but might happen. Do you think the Twisted Rune would let their minions attack Iran/Spain? If so, which minions? Keep in mind that they seldomly interfere directly, for whatever reason.
Most of the other epic level threats you mentioned (Sarrukh, Dragon God-King, etc.) behave in the same way.

The only ones that actually would behave imperialistically/hostile that you mentioned are the Aboleths and the Mind Flayers. The Aboleths shouldn't be a problem in any of the scenarios, as the Underdark isn't directly linked to the Modern World in any of them, and they rarely leave because of the living conditions they need. The Mind Flayers are different. They might actually be interested in this. Do you think a group of them would leave the Underdark and try to wrest control of Iran, or do you refer to the Portal/Khorvaire scenarios?

If the Shades wake up the Tarrasque and send him towards Suzail, that's primarily a problem for Cormyr, and not for Spain on the other end of the portal.

@Khorvaire
If you know the details, please post them. Even if they include math, I'm not afraid:smallwink:

@Drow&Alps
I agree that this outcome is likely. Do you have any specifics in mind?

@Western Heartlands
Yes, Larloch could do that. What would be the result?
=> Bhaal Spawn isn't canon, and if we go by the games, there's only one left, who took Bhaals position (or abstained)

Will answer to the rest later on.

Yukitsu
2011-01-16, 03:10 PM
1) Without forewarning, a two-way gate (as the spell, but with instantaneous duration) opens between Madrid, Spain and Suzail, the capital of Cormyr. The year on Earth is 2010, the year in the Forgotten Realms is the last year before the edition change (would be around 1380, but I'm not sure).

Spain was chosen because it is among the top 20 military spenders. I am not dead set on using Spain for this scenario, but I object to using the USA, because it's military spending is far higher than that of any nation. To compare the two, one would have to use a superpower on the Fantasy side, too - and to my knowledge, no D&D setting has such a superpower. Feel free to correct me.

Objectives of either side aren't clear, and should be discussed in this thread before we go on to wether there would be a conflict or not. I'm inclined to think that the Earth side might try to impose its cultural values (The average cormyrian peasant is probably worse off than the average real world African, for example). If the discussion goes in this direction, we will have to be careful to avoid discussing real world politics.

From our point of view:

At the start, we want exploration, and a military from "the UN" would lockdown the portal. Well defended scientists would spend a few days to as much as a few months analysing it before anyone would actually be authorised to go through. Drones collecting data would move back and forth before they were certain the air was breathable, the portal didn't cause untoward damage to organic tissue and that the monsters that walked through from time to time weren't going to destroy all of earth (and if they determined they would, the portal would be locked down and a means to destroy it would be sought.) The fact that it opens into a city will be classified pending more information, especially since the locals will keep panicking and breaking the wierd looking constructs that wonder through the portal.

After early exploration, a few expendable, but brave "heros" of earth will venture forth with a big media blitz and discover a new world/civilization. These travelers will be confounded by the inability to speak the local language. An envoy with truespeak will likely be found enabling both sides a possibility of communication where they explore our world, and we explore theirs.

What we find is vast tracts of largely unused or underutilized airable land, mass stocks of valuable mineral wealth and a plethora of exotic wildlife which may be very beneficial economically or ecologically on earth. Spain is still in lockdown in case of migratory diseases, however, with our modern medicine and their ability to cast spells, disease is not an issue.

A soldier brings home a pet Flumph to Australia, causing the Flumph outbreak of 2020. The Australians are uninjured by this, but greatly annoyed.

Magic will be noted and analysed, but it's the butt end of the deal, as our entire academic institution is set up to laugh at the people who look into this sort of thing. As such, only our least intelligent minds will delve into it. This means we will be at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding the tactical rammifications of magic.

We are not related to dragons. There are 0 sorcerers on earth. It would take months for a standard intelligent human on earth to gain a level to become a wizard leaving us with nill until significantly more academic respect for the supernatural was garnered on earth. Similarly, our methods and institutions that are hired and taken seriously are woefully underequipped to analyse non-physical qualities.

Eventually, the conclusion will be some variety of open invasion for the purpose of making territorial gains as annexing Faerun would temporarily alleviate our population problems, would ease global warming, and would provide a mass of untapped mineral and fuel wealth. This would initially occur as a series of purchases or conquests, either of which would be marked by a retalliatory measure from any great nation (as they all prefer the status quo.)

Before we get to the war proper, let's discuss this in terms of occurance from the Faerunian viewpoint.

The portal opens, and the wizards of the city will recognize it as such (as portals are much better defined in their world compared to ours). A few adventurers will check it out before lockdown on either side can occur, and it will be described as a new plane of existance.

News of a new plane opening will spread among the wizards, clerics, druids etc. as quickly as news of a portal opening on our world would spread, as this is revolutionary news. Independant scholars would first ask this question: Is this plane a threat? The answer is, for reasons described earlier, yes.

At this point in time, a powerful wizard will investigate this plane from across planar boundaries. The wizards that do will realize we are highly advanced in many respects, but are completely assbackwards as far as magic goes. At first, it will not be understood that the creators of the machines are not their users, and the wizards will mind probe tank commanders, getting little useful technical information, but a vast amount of tank tactics. However, it would occur of them to eventually ask "who does know how to make this stupid thing" at which point they start investigating scientists and engineers.

This grants them the knowledge of advanced science, but not an understanding of it. While this wouldn't come into play immediately in terms of their ability to wield advanced technology against us, it would grant justification for them to remain on talking terms with us for as long as possible while they take as much of our knowledge covertly as they can instead of closing the portal.

Eventually, they will have learned everything we know, even if they don't have the industry, comprehension or mindset to use it. At this point, they hit a wall and close the gate, having taken everything of value from us.

A few however, such as the red wizards of They, would have small cults spring up over earth. This would start a new age of witch hunts, but the red wizards have enough of a leg up to become the "man behind the man" on all of earth's governments, functionally dominating the planet.

This negates the war alluded to earlier, as it is not beneficial from the Faerunian side, as they already took what they needed.

Zonugal
2011-01-16, 03:21 PM
The fangs, the abnormal strength and that unpleasant perfume of freshly dug graves might be a giveaway.

And there's no lacking vampiric lore, especially given society's prediction for the darkly mysterious.

Plus, they won't take kindly to garlic.

Vampire lords cannot be repelled by garlic or holy symbols. They also have no fear of mirrors, and they cast reflections as living beings do. In addition vampire lords can cross over or through running water with no impediments. They are not harmed in any way by immersion in running water. Finally a vampire lord is not as vulnerable to sunlight as a normal vampire, and can go about in broad daylight if it desires.

Priest: "Are you a vampire?"
Vampire Lord: "Heavens no, see my reflection in this here mirror!" *Bites into some garlic*


@Zonugal
Yes, Vampire Lords are incredibly dangerous. In which of the scenarios would a Vampire Lord appear, and why, in your opinion?

While they could appear in almost any of them I think scenario one might be the most fitting as I can really imagine a Vampire lord coming to Spain for the new invigoration of a foreign culture.

Tango! Salsa! Spanish ladies!

Why wouldn't the Vampire lord invade!?!

The Glyphstone
2011-01-16, 03:46 PM
Very detailed analysis


Great go-over, though the only part I'd have to question is the bit about the wizards closing the gate on us. What in the scenario lets them do this? The terms seem to describe the portal as a spontaneous event that neither side expected or caused.

Yukitsu
2011-01-16, 03:51 PM
Great go-over, though the only part I'd have to question is the bit about the wizards closing the gate on us. What in the scenario lets them do this? The terms seem to describe the portal as a spontaneous event that neither side expected or caused.

There's a spell for closing instantaneous portals in the planar handbook. The alternative being they just put in force walls a milionth of a micron away from all exit points effectively closing it. If it's some wierd DM made fiat thing, which for this scenario it very well could be, and even disjunction didn't work on it, there is still no reason it cannot be permanently blocked off.

The Glyphstone
2011-01-16, 03:52 PM
There's a spell for closing instantaneous portals in the planar handbook. The alternative being they just put in force walls a milionth of a micron away from all exit points effectively closing it. If it's some wierd DM made fiat thing, which for this scenario it very well could be, and even disjunction didn't work on it, there is still no reason it cannot be permanently blocked off.

Walling it up then, that works. At least until our homegrown wizards level up enough to break the force walls, at which point enough time will have passed that our universes would probably be indistinguishable.

Yukitsu
2011-01-16, 03:58 PM
Walling it up then, that works. At least until our homegrown wizards level up enough to break the force walls, at which point enough time will have passed that our universes would probably be indistinguishable.

Properly walled, they won't be able to disintegrate the wall of force. The lazy way is 24 animated objects playing music on lyres of building placed in sequence, then borg cubing the animated objects so they can't be interfered with internally. At this point in time, the only thing that can open the gate is a divine blast.

Edit: Forgot the necessity of forbidance.

Lamech
2011-01-16, 04:27 PM
You can't go halfway through portals and you can't throw spells through them. Its really easy to seal a portal. A brick wall does it; can't be disintrigtated from the other side, and if you walk through you are now smashed against a brick wall. And if its instantaneous duration? Its not magical and incorporeals aren't affected and they wouldn't get moved by the portal.

stuffs
Its opening in the middle of a good kingdom, and a city. A quasi-feudal DnD system means its focused on producing food and we can easily out produce DnD in that respect. Second we are not set up to laugh at magic. They would need to bring back one magic item to prove it, and those are lying around stray dungeon that adventures are called to clear. We would obviously study magic.
Two unless the wizards actually travel to our world what will they get info from? Contact outer plane shouldn't work since neither side starts knowing about the other. Legend lore gets legends and would confuse the crap out of the wizards. Scry would work on people they have already seen, but it would give information that conflicts with legend lore. (Scry would probably get our people being debriefed, from which they could conclude we lack magic, but legend lore would say we DO have magic, and legend lore can't be fooled.) Actually traveling to our world will be hard since the portal will be sealed by us most of the time and carefully watched the rest. Finally its opening in a good kingdom. They won't engage in theft or mind probing, especially if we are eager to engage in trade.

Nor do I see any reason for the DnD side to seal the portal permanently. We have things they want (endless food), and they have what we want (magic).

The Glyphstone
2011-01-16, 04:32 PM
You can't go halfway through portals and you can't throw spells through them. Its really easy to seal a portal. A brick wall does it; can't be disintrigtated from the other side, and if you walk through you are now smashed against a brick wall. And if its instantaneous duration? Its not magical and incorporeals aren't affected and they wouldn't get moved by the portal.


Do portals maintain momentum/energy? Cannons/artillery shells, or catapults (from the other side) would make a real mess of a brick wall if they do.

Megawizard
2011-01-16, 04:44 PM
This grants them the knowledge of advanced science, but not an understanding of it. While this wouldn't come into play immediately in terms of their ability to wield advanced technology against us, it would grant justification for them to remain on talking terms with us for as long as possible while they take as much of our knowledge covertly as they can instead of closing the portal.

That's way too optimistic on my opinion. Why? Because we have pretty much our knowledge printed on books.

And wizards/librarians surely know the power of books. They won't reveal their magic secrets when they can loot our libraries.

Then, there's a spell out there that allow you to read the tickest books in a few rounds. Considering how D&D wizards have insane Int scores (Einstein would be around Int 18, D&D wizards can easily reach 24-30), they'll learn what we know very very quickly. Then we have rampaging golems with chainguns.

Lamech
2011-01-16, 04:49 PM
Then, there's a spell out there that allow you to read the tickest books in a few rounds. Considering how D&D wizards have insane Int scores (Einstein would be around Int 18, D&D wizards can easily reach 24-30), they'll learn what we know very very quickly. Then we have rampaging golems with chainguns.... No, no Einstein would not be 18 int. 18 int is 145 on the IQ scale. (.5% have 18 int, thats three standard deviations or 145 IQ). And not our IQ, the DnD quasi-feudal pre-flynn effect IQ scale.
Einstien is therefore FAR above 18 int.
Secondly we are opening into a good kingdom and DnD world has magic colleges too. They won't steal if we can simply trade our knowledge.


Do portals maintain momentum/energy? Cannons/artillery shells, or catapults (from the other side) would make a real mess of a brick wall if they do. Air, water ect, just STOP at the portal edge. I'm not sure what would happen since there isn't really raw though.

Megawizard
2011-01-16, 05:48 PM
... No, no Einstein would not be 18 int. 18 int is 145 on the IQ scale. (.5% have 18 int, thats three standard deviations or 145 IQ). And not our IQ, the DnD quasi-feudal pre-flynn effect IQ scale.
Einstien is therefore FAR above 18 int.
Secondly we are opening into a good kingdom and DnD world has magic colleges too. They won't steal if we can simply trade our knowledge.

1-No he isn't. IQ scale is suposed to apply to people regardless of the age they lived on. And 18 is the max a human character can possibly can start with.

2-PlunderingExploring other civilizations is a perfectly aceptable and actually respected line of work in the D&D world.

3-The kingdom may be good. What makes you believe they see us as good when they discover that despite we having no "evil" races or monsters to deal with, we spend plenty of time fighting and lying among ourselves?

Lamech
2011-01-16, 06:15 PM
1-No he isn't. IQ scale is suposed to apply to people regardless of the age they lived on. And 18 is the max a human character can possibly can start with.Umm... okay. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by IQ works on people regardless of the age they lived on, but...
This is how the IQ test works. They have a test, they standardize the results. The average is 100. A standard deviation up or down is 15 points up or down in the same direction. The population the IQ test is used on will ALWAYS have an average of 100 if done properly. (Well not exactly because sampling error.) If the population gets smarter it will still have a average of 100. Roughly .5% of the population will ALWAYS be 145 and up. If you say killed everyone who had an IQ of below 145, then the next day the average IQ would be 100.
Now the Flynn effect. Basically people have been getting smarter. Someone who got a 100 on the IQ test in the 1930's would end up with a 80 today.

Now maybe in DnD land people randomly top out at a certain intelligence level. Maximum falling velocity in DnD land is 50ft/second for some reason. Are you going to argue that those gravity rules apply here too? Maybe they just didn't just bother effectivly simulating 145+ on the IQ scale. Regardless einstien and other super smart people are above 145 IQ, and are much smarter than 145 IQ's. We don't randomly top out at 3 standard deviations of intelligence up. And our IQ 100 people will be smarter than their IQ 100 people because of the flynn effect.


2-PlunderingExploring other civilizations is a perfectly aceptable and actually respected line of work in the D&D world.No thats generally seen as a bad thing. (Unless they are exploring and not stealing stuff.) They are very unhappy with orcs that raid them. And only evil people would hold a double standard. (Isn't alignment great?)

3-The kingdom may be good. What makes you believe they see us as good when they discover that despite we having no "evil" races or monsters to deal with, we spend plenty of time fighting and lying among ourselves?
So do the human kingdoms in Fauren. See Thay. They could easily determine goodness by a simple detect evil and find that we are roughly as nice as them. Well the fact that we've gotten rid of a lot of racism and sexism might buff our goodness a little, but...

Zonugal
2011-01-16, 06:20 PM
1-No he isn't. IQ scale is suposed to apply to people regardless of the age they lived on. And 18 is the max a human character can possibly can start with.

Einstein starts with an 18 in intelligence, dumps all his level boosts into intelligence bringing it to 22 and finally adds the venerable age bonuses to get it to 25.

This presupposes that Einstein is a higher level character though...

Yukitsu
2011-01-16, 08:14 PM
You can't go halfway through portals and you can't throw spells through them. Its really easy to seal a portal. A brick wall does it; can't be disintrigtated from the other side, and if you walk through you are now smashed against a brick wall. And if its instantaneous duration? Its not magical and incorporeals aren't affected and they wouldn't get moved by the portal.

Depends on the portal type. I'd rather go with the safe bet and make it impervious just in case.


Its opening in the middle of a good kingdom, and a city. A quasi-feudal DnD system means its focused on producing food and we can easily out produce DnD in that respect. Second we are not set up to laugh at magic. They would need to bring back one magic item to prove it, and those are lying around stray dungeon that adventures are called to clear. We would obviously study magic.

We set up to laugh at anything pseudo sciency. They'll take it apart, try to find what powers it, try to analyse it under various high frequincy scopy thingies, and then try to quantify the energy. It's kind of like the Higgs Boson. We're pretty sure it's there and we're pretty sure we know what it does, but we don't do anything with it until we're certain it exists. Any answer of "it's magic" will not be taken very seriously by the scientific community at large.


Two unless the wizards actually travel to our world what will they get info from? Contact outer plane shouldn't work since neither side starts knowing about the other. Legend lore gets legends and would confuse the crap out of the wizards. Scry would work on people they have already seen, but it would give information that conflicts with legend lore. (Scry would probably get our people being debriefed, from which they could conclude we lack magic, but legend lore would say we DO have magic, and legend lore can't be fooled.) Actually traveling to our world will be hard since the portal will be sealed by us most of the time and carefully watched the rest. Finally its opening in a good kingdom. They won't engage in theft or mind probing, especially if we are eager to engage in trade.

I said they do visit our world, they just do so while incorporeal, and thus undetectable with our current technology, and completely immune to our retaliation as well as our blockade, which I conceded was there, but side stepped. Knowledge gained is pulled directly from our scientist's brains.


Nor do I see any reason for the DnD side to seal the portal permanently. We have things they want (endless food), and they have what we want (magic).

Endless food is only an issue for them until they steal our agricultural knowledge, which is actually relatively simple.


That's way too optimistic on my opinion. Why? Because we have pretty much our knowledge printed on books.

And wizards/librarians surely know the power of books. They won't reveal their magic secrets when they can loot our libraries.

Then, there's a spell out there that allow you to read the tickest books in a few rounds. Considering how D&D wizards have insane Int scores (Einstein would be around Int 18, D&D wizards can easily reach 24-30), they'll learn what we know very very quickly. Then we have rampaging golems with chainguns.

Just reading in and of itself is not the best way to learn. They'd really need to take the time to sit down and figure out the hows and whys of our technology before they comprehended why some of our machines work as they do, and how to apply this to themselves.

Yukitsu
2011-01-16, 08:40 PM
2) As in the other thread, Khorvaire appears in the middle of the pacific ocean. If you have the relevant knowledge, it would be interesting if you shared how this would affect climate patterns etc. Assume that the water and islands reappear on Eberron, so that there are no floods or Tsunamis caused by the sudden change. I do not know the exact size of Khorvaire, but I guess that this might make Hawai disappear, so in this scenario, the USA are directly effected.
Again, outright war does not neccessarily happen, we should discuss the objectives of both sides first.


Unlike the other, this one is much more mundane, and all around much less interesting.

Such a massive new landmass is detected immediately, while khorvaire is left mostly in the dark, since it's harder to notice that the sea changed. Astrologers note that something is kinda off.

Mass satalite imaging, large scale exploration teams to see if this place rose up from the water, conspiracy theories regarding Atlantis etc, occur, and the settlements will be found quickly. Unlike with Faerun, the argument that most of the landmass is desired by first world countries doesn't really apply, since it's already about as densely packed as Australia, and about the same size.

Eberron already works on fundamental scientific principles, and the main houses are all based on adaptability and business savvy. What will happen is, the main houses in a bid to outdo one another will have a large number of exchange students, will sell openly far more items etc. In other words, the main cities of Eberron quickly become integrated into our society, with the caveat that they will be more popular on the stock exchange than Mac computers.

On the flip side, since these corporations benefit from selling items, our own corporations will over time learn to use these devices, to replicate them etc. We become "more magical" over generations, while their technology becomes far more advanced.

Thanks to the Eberron tendancy to impliment magic with technology, we hit a sort of singularity state, since unlimited free energy is now a reality. With it, earth and Khorvaire, which is an economic superpower likely on par with the states, can head into deep space, traveling to other galaxies etc. and colonizing our solar system.

On the far less positive side, militarism both on Khorvaire and the world in general will dramatically increase. The outsiders that are across khorvaire are now a problem for countries like the US and China, who will basically implement mass militarization programs eradicating the evil outsiders on Khorvair. This militarism and the fight over the resultant land, as well as the demonic ability to take over the minds of others may make this the bloodiest war earth will ever see.

However, as Eberron and even the evil outsiders of Eberron are relatively low level and much less magically innovative compared to the Faerunians, the evil outsiders with the guidance of the main houses will likely lose any long term war, though insurgencies in third world countries that would gladly be led by a demon will abound. If it weren't for the entirely new field and unlimited energy provided, the sheer number of third world and terrorist insurrections would likely ruin us.

Militarization of the warforged will be almost immediate. Living humans will eventually be phased out for warforged, then later, simple controlled robots powered by magic. The phased out warforged create new ghettoes around the earth, and may cause a robot uprising.

Lamech
2011-01-16, 08:50 PM
We set up to laugh at anything pseudo sciency. They'll take it apart, try to find what powers it, try to analyse it under various high frequincy scopy thingies, and then try to quantify the energy. It's kind of like the Higgs Boson. We're pretty sure it's there and we're pretty sure we know what it does, but we don't do anything with it until we're certain it exists. Any answer of "it's magic" will not be taken very seriously by the scientific community at large.Yes they would try to take the magical toys apart, and analyze them. And they would conclude fairly quickly it doesn't follow the current laws of physics. And then we would test the rules for casting spells and we would determine in about the same time it takes learn to cast spells casting spells work. We do in fact have people who test "supernatural powers". (They don't work, but if someone did have them we would see it.)


I said they do visit our world, they just do so while incorporeal, and thus undetectable with our current technology, and completely immune to our retaliation as well as our blockade, which I conceded was there, but side stepped. Knowledge gained is pulled directly from our scientist's brains.How? The portal? Instant duration means non-magical, so if they are incorpeal they can't use it. Even if they could incorporeality has been nerfed so you can only move if you are touching the outside. A half decent seal will mean the wizard will be trapped. And then die a few rounds later.

Yukitsu
2011-01-16, 09:44 PM
Yes they would try to take the magical toys apart, and analyze them. And they would conclude fairly quickly it doesn't follow the current laws of physics. And then we would test the rules for casting spells and we would determine in about the same time it takes learn to cast spells casting spells work. We do in fact have people who test "supernatural powers". (They don't work, but if someone did have them we would see it.)

The problem is, since we don't have supernatural powers, the people who do test it are insane, hucksters and frauds, or skeptics disproving it. They'll look for magnetic energy, internal batteries, exotic particles, x-ray it for advanced internal components before they say "it's magic". "Doesn't fit the rules of physics" has never lead to any concession that it's magic, it leads to an assumption of incomplete physical laws, such as black body radiation or quantum mechanics.


How? The portal? Instant duration means non-magical, so if they are incorpeal they can't use it. Even if they could incorporeality has been nerfed so you can only move if you are touching the outside. A half decent seal will mean the wizard will be trapped. And then die a few rounds later.

Incorporeals can use mundane portals. And aside, we don't build walls larger than a wizard can be long.

Lamech
2011-01-16, 10:21 PM
The problem is, since we don't have supernatural powers, the people who do test it are insane, hucksters and frauds, or skeptics disproving it. They'll look for magnetic energy, internal batteries, exotic particles, x-ray it for advanced internal components before they say "it's magic". "Doesn't fit the rules of physics" has never lead to any concession that it's magic, it leads to an assumption of incomplete physical laws, such as black body radiation or quantum mechanics.Yes we would say it is incomplete laws of physics. You can't break the laws of physics by defenition. No we would not say wizards don't exist if we have one proving it to us.




Incorporeals can use mundane portals. And aside, we don't build walls larger than a wizard can be long.Ever seen a bank vault? This would be even bigger. And no incorporeals are pretty much immune to everything non-magical. They can't interact with it and it can't interact with them. There is no logical reason for them to be affected by this one thing.

Also per the opening post killing the wizard with explosives would still work. (If they are immune to pressure they will suffer death from the vacuum's 1d4 a round. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/nailedToTheSky.htm)). Also slamming massive doors on the wizard would work wonders.

Yukitsu
2011-01-16, 10:53 PM
Lol at explosives being equivalent to epic level spells. (and of course that spell has no passage stating an incorporeal object is affected.)

That aside, they would look at it assuming wizards are using a physical law that violates our current understanding. Magic is a non-physical entity, and as such, we're not geared to learn it until we change our mind set to one of "things work, don't bother with the details" as opposed to how we do things which is "let's get to the details so we can make this work."

Next, instantaneous portals as described are two way doors. They aren't casting some effect to let you pass through, there's not interacting with it. Like a door, you aren't affecting an open door by going through it, you're not interacting with it, much the same way a ghost can use a mundane portal.

Lastly, no wall we'd ever assume is necessary is as large as a wizard who wants to leave is long.

Lamech
2011-01-17, 12:27 AM
Lol at explosives being equivalent to epic level spells. (and of course that spell has no passage stating an incorporeal object is affected.)I said this where? Nailed to the sky teleports you, and increases your velocity. It does NOT deal damage. Not being affected by any pressure (a vacuum) and heat/cold damages you. I did nothing comparing explosives to that. I said if they are immune to pressure they will not be affected by pressure and effectivly be in a vacuum. So incorperal things either a) aren't affected by air pressure, in which case they take damage from the lack of pressure or b) will get popped by explosives.


That aside, they would look at it assuming wizards are using a physical law that violates our current understanding. Magic is a non-physical entity, and as such, we're not geared to learn it until we change our mind set to one of "things work, don't bother with the details" as opposed to how we do things which is "let's get to the details so we can make this work."Umm... our mindset is not "let's get to the details to make this work". We are perfectly content to simply understand what something does. See gravity? We deal with that just fine yet we have no idea how it works.

Yes we would also attempt to figure out how magic works. But we would be just fine with what it does.


Next, instantaneous portals as described are two way doors. They aren't casting some effect to let you pass through, there's not interacting with it. Like a door, you aren't affecting an open door by going through it, you're not interacting with it, much the same way a ghost can use a mundane portal.No. Portals suck you through. They move you. You touch a portal you get yoinked through and placed on the other side. This one specifically is like gate, so its specifically sucking you through like plane shift+accuracy.



Lastly, no wall we'd ever assume is necessary is as large as a wizard who wants to leave is long.We would prepare it to resist what we can throw at it at least. How many meters do we need to stop a few kiloton blast? Megaton? A few megatons? A lot

Also questions on the DnD world. Why is are the wizards walking into a wall incorporeal? If its a plane, a military facility, a dead magic world? The wizard dies. Won't they attempt to divine first? And use legend lore and have the crap confused out of them? Two, why are the only people who have access to this portal located in the good kingdom, apparently evil wizards who are okay with trespass and breaking into peoples heads? Instead of say... good wizards who would want to help the magicless masses or every cleric ever who wants to spread the word? Seriously the people from our side would simply need to ask a stray cleric about their religion so they could spread it and possibly give him a handful of gems to pay paper and copying costs, and said cleric would give them everything we need to learn magic.

Eldan
2011-01-17, 03:54 AM
However, as Eberron and even the evil outsiders of Eberron are relatively low level and much less magically innovative compared to the Faerunians, the evil outsiders with the guidance of the main houses will likely lose any long term war, though insurgencies in third world countries that would gladly be led by a demon will abound. If it weren't for the entirely new field and unlimited energy provided, the sheer number of third world and terrorist insurrections would likely ruin us.
.

I would like to contest that. The Daelkyr alone are CR 20, and very powerful at that, with Polymorph any Object at will. The Rakshasa Rajas are basically Eberron's version of imprisoned Elder Gods, and so are the Demons of the Dragon Below. There is some very, very powerful stuff around in Eberron, players just rarely see it.


Furthermore, I would also like to argue in favour of magic having definite, explainable laws. After all, researching the laws of magic is exactly what wizards do, and if they can, so can scientists. True, the laws are weird and seemingly illogical, but, as a scientist myself, I would argue that there is always a law behind everything which can be researched.

Wings of Peace
2011-01-17, 06:32 AM
Furthermore, I would also like to argue in favour of magic having definite, explainable laws. After all, researching the laws of magic is exactly what wizards do, and if they can, so can scientists. True, the laws are weird and seemingly illogical, but, as a scientist myself, I would argue that there is always a law behind everything which can be researched.

Personally I think it would actually be less dangerous if our side learned magic than if the DnD sides learned our science. It would take us some amount of time to learn to harness magic, it would take very little time however, for a wizard to appear in our world, pick up a college course book, discover electrons, and think "What if I made a 10'x10' cube of these things with True Creation?"

Eldan
2011-01-17, 06:34 AM
Well, that depends. As I've said, D&D matter, as written, doesn't share many properties with our matter. Who says that there are even electrons over there? Maybe there's just Air Atoms with positive spin, which become Lightning Atoms. (http://mimir.net/essays/planarphysics.html)

Also, if said mage does it over in the D&D-verse, all our problems with them are solved.

Wings of Peace
2011-01-17, 06:50 AM
Well, that depends. As I've said, D&D matter, as written, doesn't share many properties with our matter. Who says that there are even electrons over there? Maybe there's just Air Atoms with positive spin, which become Lightning Atoms. (http://mimir.net/essays/planarphysics.html)

Also, if said mage does it over in the D&D-verse, all our problems with them are solved.

I was referring to if said mage did it in our universe. I should have been more clear.

Yukitsu
2011-01-17, 02:19 PM
Lamech's just baiting me into having a long, nit-picky argument as to whether or not I can go open my books. If anyone agrees with what he's saying, I'll go into those points in more detail, but if no one else agrees with him, I find it sufficient leaving it at that.


I would like to contest that. The Daelkyr alone are CR 20, and very powerful at that, with Polymorph any Object at will. The Rakshasa Rajas are basically Eberron's version of imprisoned Elder Gods, and so are the Demons of the Dragon Below. There is some very, very powerful stuff around in Eberron, players just rarely see it.

Contrasting it to Faerun however. Faerun has a more standard monster cosmology, where the legions of hell had many epic level pit fields held in reserve by Asmodeus for an assault on the 7 mounting heavens of celestia. A force which he currently deems is insufficient without demonic intervention. I would bet that the Daelkyr with the knowledge of the temples of the silver flame, and of the wizards in Eberron, the modern military could hold them at bay, especially since all but a handful are locked below Khyber.

That aside, I did say that military expendature and military campaigns would be endemic due to those sorts of threats. I'm simply pointing out that they have a tremendous disadvantage from a pure atritional point of view, when they were insufficient to defeat even Khorvair.


Furthermore, I would also like to argue in favour of magic having definite, explainable laws. After all, researching the laws of magic is exactly what wizards do, and if they can, so can scientists. True, the laws are weird and seemingly illogical, but, as a scientist myself, I would argue that there is always a law behind everything which can be researched.

Even if this is the case, I do wonder how you would aproach it. I doubt you would start by just saying "whelp, he's using magic, and it's violating all of our natural laws." instead of first trying to eliminate all possible physical answers.

The laws of magic are explainable, but they are not identical to our model of science. Quantitative judgement is possible, but there are enough qualitative quirks that we won't actually be able to have our brightest scientists suddenly flinging magic missiles everywhere through depth of analysis.

kiergon
2011-01-17, 03:09 PM
@Forum Explorer

@kiergon
Thank you for adding your thoughts!


you are welcome


@Forum Explorer
I thought the Twisted Rune is more interested in controlling than destroying? They are playing chess with nations, not Battleships.
War is not a given in most scenarios, but might happen. Do you think the Twisted Rune would let their minions attack Iran/Spain? If so, which minions? Keep in mind that they seldomly interfere directly, for whatever reason.


Yes, but they do outright kill people that fall outside their plans and that could be a threat, it all depends on what spain/iran does, if they dont change the status quo that much, then they will be manipulated same as any other country, if Iran starts an all out war with its neighbours, then They are more likely to take offense.
I think the twisted rune would end up controlling either Iran or Spain if they wanted to, but would use a lot of subterfuge, and would be kind of like the Illuminati are for conspiracy theorist, except this guys have a ton of magic, and they play their game out of boredom (more than outright evil).



@Forum Explorer
Most of the other epic level threats you mentioned (Sarrukh, Dragon God-King, etc.) behave in the same way.


The Sharn would intervene if the Iranians or Spaniards are being a threat to the world, they wouldnt probably out right kill them, but would put a magic bubble around them or something along those lines, otherwise they would be ignored.
I have no idea when or why would the Holy Golden Emperor act really, just that if it fancies him, he could anihilate anything he put his mind into destroying.
The Sarrukh, well they could even be benefactors to Iran, like they were for Netheril, and teach them Magic and such. It all depends on which Lich of Oreme is awake at the time. (this btw, would be a very interesting thing, Iran become the next Netheril)


@Forum Explorer
The only ones that actually would behave imperialistically/hostile that you mentioned are the Aboleths and the Mind Flayers. The Aboleths shouldn't be a problem in any of the scenarios, as the Underdark isn't directly linked to the Modern World in any of them, and they rarely leave because of the living conditions they need. The Mind Flayers are different. They might actually be interested in this. Do you think a group of them would leave the Underdark and try to wrest control of Iran, or do you refer to the Portal/Khorvaire scenarios?



Aboleths love having new slaves and new knowledge, since they pretty much know everything about everything on dnd, new knowledge would tempt them. They act through their slaves tho, and this could include anything from Drows, Kuo toas, Derros or even Illithids. It depends on what the grand Savant of any city wants, if he just wants the information, they would abduct people who know a lot of what he wants to know about and that could be it, if he wants a ton of slaves tho, he would send armies from the underdark to conquer, say Iran. when they see Iran can defend itself, they would send more scouts, and then find out this nation has no divine or arcane casters, and then they would send big guns, maybe a couple of aboleths lead by a normal savant plus an army of slaves.
I dont think the aboleths would cross the portal to Spain.

The mind flayers, they are more inquisitive and more scientifically oriented that pretty much any dnd race, except tinker gnomes, perhaps.
in the Case of Iran, they would send a Druuth (a group of doppelgangers lead by a greater doppelganger who is itself lead by a cult of Illithids) first to check what this new country has to offer. Then to replace powerful individuals, and that way control the nation, then they would slowly (at first) send the brightest Iranian thralls to their city and study them and their new science. Then send more and more slaves to the underdark to become food, this could bring a new enlightening era for the Illithids and might be the reason why they become the new (old) empire, how they solve interplanetary travel, mixing nuclear energy with psionics and such.

And I have no doubts they would cross to our world, and start conquering country after country bly replacing the political leaders and army officials with Druuths, then slowly becoming the masters behind the scenes (think about the reptoids or reptiles, or however those aliens are called by conspiracy theories, just this one can read minds and mind rape you, without the need for machines)


@Forum Explorer
If the Shades wake up the Tarrasque and send him towards Suzail, that's primarily a problem for Cormyr, and not for Spain on the other end of the portal.


yes it would be a horrible problem for cormyr, but if the shades are feeling particularly nasty, they could make sure the Tarrasque goes down the Portal street way. This wouldnt be the end of the world here on earth, not even of Spain, but madrid would be devastated as if hit by an earthquake, and europe would have a new catastrophe along the lines of an earthquake or volcano that randomly awakes every 20 years, devastates the land then dissapears for another 20 years. I guess by the 3rd time the Tarrasque awakens biologists and geologists would understand him far better than anybody did in Faerun, and would be able to predict where he would strike next. Europe would have their own Gojira.



@Forum Explorer
@Khorvaire
If you know the details, please post them. Even if they include math, I'm not afraid:smallwink:



An Ice age is caused by several factors some of which reinforce each other.
We are in an iterglacial period, that means we have a cooling coming, in fact climate scientists believe its coming in at the most 50,000 years without human interference, more if we continue to release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

The factors are

Atmospheric composition (how much % of greenhouse gases are in the air): The less greenhouse gasses, the more heat is reflected back into space, so the cooler it is, the inverse is true as well.
Changes in Earths orbit around the sun (called Milankovitch cycles). This changes the angleon which Earth's rotational axis spins, right now it is 23.44 degrees and is decreasing. if it decreases the northern hemisphere receives less sunlight, which means a cooler norther hemisphere.
The solar output.This is specially true regarding the number of sunspots. One of the reasons we are having a colder than usual winter is becuase the Sun is passing through a minimum period of sunspots, the Nasa predicted in 2006, that 2010-2011 would have a huge numebr of Sunspots, and it didnt happen, we are in fact passing through a longer than usual minimun cycle, if this lasted for a decade for example, it could take us to a mini ace age.
The movement of the tectonic plates. This changes where the continents stand and as such changes the ocean currents and the wind jet stream.
The Jet stream and it water counterpart, the ocean themoaline ciculation currents moves hot air and water from the equator and tropics to the northern and southern hemispheres, and moves back cold water and air to the tropics and equator.
Water has a much higher heat capacity than air, that means it doesnt radiate heat as fast, which means it stays warmer for a longer period of time.
Also supervolcanoes and meteorites can change the climate by putting a huge layer of particles in the upper atmosphere, which blocks the sun, and that cools our planet.

A new continent on the equator would disrupt the jet stream and more importantly the thermoaline circulation current. This would cool down the northern hemisphere, which means we would get larger ice sheets, which reflect more solar rays, and so on. This is a very drastic change to our weather patterns, the changes in the jet stream would cause floods in places where it never floods and drought in other places, this is a much higher climate concern than man made global warning. This is orders of magnitude worse than man made global warming, in fact global warming is bad, but at least it has some positive effects, such as a higher output of food, it has been proven in labs that if there is a higher concentration in several % points of CO2, plants require less water for photosynthesis and grow more.
Cold kills plants, so much less food, and most of the food of the world is produced in the northern hemisphere. In fact if you take US, Canada and Russia out of the picture the world starves.

Im a climate geek, but not a climate scientist
Sorry dont know the math.



@Forum Explorer
@Drow&Alps
I agree that this outcome is likely. Do you have any specifics in mind?


Its a big if, but they would frist need to stop their infighting for them to be a real threat.
Then at first they would send shapeshifted spies to the major cities, say, in Switzerland (since they are in the alps) from them they would learn several languages, English, German, Italian and French. after a couple of years they would know the politics of the region, who the powerbrokers are and such. then they would slowly approach the bankers in switzerland first, they would either control them outright with spells or maybe even replace them with shapeshifted drows, from there they move a couple of hundreds of drow to Belgium, Germany and France. The Belgium agents start replacing EU officials for either drows or in some cases they simply charm them. Some would even cooperate outright due to sexual favors, gold (they own the banks now) and the promise of immortality (hey with a relatively minor spell they can cure the worst cancer, wouldnt you obey them if you had cancer or a son of yours?). The French start replacing the big bankers there (Societe Generale, and such), the Germans do the same but in Germany, and also take control of the captains of industry, and so now they have VW, Pfizer, Deutshebank, Siemens, and many other big companies under their control.
From here I see two different outcomes:
The Drow still cooperate and can control their inner backstaving instincts. The drow cause a major economic collapse the likes of which we have never seen, they control the banks, the EU central bank, and major industries, they let chaos rule the streets, and then suddenly a new political party has the answer (shapeshifted drows) they will bring order back, but now they need more power and they need to put more restrictions on their citicens, I bet you a dime that the people would accept. And there is a new constitution made, and such. We now have a new and completely dominated Drow Empire. I dont think they have the numbers to expand from Europe, but hey, the Matrons now own one of the major continents, I think thats more than enough.
The drows become the new aristocracy, underground they rule, they owuld have half drow bastards that would be probably their agents in the world.
The drow would dedicate themselves to outright hedonism, think of a cult of Slaanesh.
Europe would become more dangerous for tourists, now with drow cultists looking for humans to sacrifice to lolth, or just to sacrifice for the fun of it, of course this would be just a couple of thousand a year. But still horrible. And they would probably kill more tourists than Europeans, since that could cause revolts.

If the Drow canīt cooperate at this moment: I think it could easily turn into a civil war between several factions. Which would become a real war between countries, and then a world war.
It would be a worse war than WWI and WWII combined, since now the leaders of the countries are literally demon worshipers madmen. You would see a lot of senseless bloodshed and destruction.
Europe would be devastated at the end, and less then 50% of the original Drow would survive, they would have to replenish their ranks with half drow, and they could still rule, but now they would rule over a devastated landscape.


@Forum Explorer
@Western Heartlands
Yes, Larloch could do that. What would be the result?
=> Bhaal Spawn isn't canon, and if we go by the games, there's only one left, who took Bhaals position (or abstained)


Larloch, he wouldnt go to Spain, but if Iran apeared in his backyard, and he saw any toy he wanted, he would take it, he has done this in the past, of course the toys he likes usually are artifacts/relics like the Nether Scrolls and such, but if he liked the idea of nuclear energy, which might as well be an epic toy, he would take it, and wouldnt mind killing anybody for it, He wouldnt act personally, he never needs to, he has a cabal of tens of epic liches that serve him and also agents like Szas Tam, he would probably use Szas Tam since he has used him before, and Szas Tam could aproach Iran as a foreign diplomat, he looks alive, and he would speak Parsi as good as any Iranian, if anybody dare to oppose his wishes, he would never be found again, unless you go looking for him in the crypts under his palace, in which case you would find a new undead servant.
On the Other hand Larloch couldnt care less about what a new nation does to its neighbours, so he is the least likely to take action of the superpowers in faerun, if nothing in Iran catches his fancy.
My take on baldurs gate is that there were more Bhaalspawn than the ones you saw, just many hiding and such, I might be wrong, its been a while since I played those games.

Ormur
2011-01-17, 03:26 PM
There's a kind of dichotomy between magic and science in that for the people of Faerun it would be relatively easy for them to understand the basic principles behind science but harder to apply them as technology whereas it wouldn't be very hard for us to apply magic (purchase some wands, enrol in a magic academy) but much harder to actually understand magic in terms we'd be content with.

Sure a very intelligent wizard might become an expert on a particular branch of science even more easily than intelligent students from earth but the scope of human knowledge required to maintain a modern society is too vast for the relatively few scholars of a D&D society to handle. Translating that to actual technology also requires armies of experienced engineers and craftsmen. Magic offers some workarounds but based on the description of D&D societies the scholarly elite isn't particularly adept at translating even the comprehensive knowledge of magic they have to something useful and practical. Why should they be better at applying their new-found knowledge of metallurgy and quantum physics.

Eldan
2011-01-18, 04:27 AM
Just a minor nitpick in Kiergon's point:

We don't have any major cities in the alps :smalltongue:

Actually, most of the alps is kinda uninhabited. The people living there are mostly in the lowest valleys. The higher up parts, well, let's say that there are villages which are completely empty during the summer and only fill up with inhabitants during the winter, when skiing tourism starts.

Destro2119
2021-02-21, 07:19 PM
A bit late, but we really need to take into account specific settings.

This is because a 3.X world that is even remotely optimized would basically be Eberron/Starfinder on steroids. It would be like showing up with a knife vs the full military power of Gallifrey.

Because the "generic medieval (which isn't even that medieval) mishmash nonsense" of the average fantasy world cannot support its own weight 99% of the time. Historians would take one look at a DnD world and their heads would implode from the sheer nonsense that the game writers have scribbled down to make a "fantasy world."

If we go by fluff alone, then modern world destroys Dragonlance, full stop until some great power is tapped and all the forces of the evil Modernites are destroyed utterly. FR curbstomps us so badly it is laughable, and so does Greyhawk just on a lesser scale.

That is my 2 cents.

EDIT: Also, it is interesting to note that the VAST majority of DnD settings are postapocalyptic. As in, NOT at full strength like modern earth.

LordCdrMilitant
2021-02-22, 04:15 AM
The other thread has become a bit cluttered, but I find the idea interesting, so I tried to make the scenarios a bit clearer. This may pose problems, as I sometimes refer to specific source books.

Rules:
Nothing from TO is assumed to be used by the D&D side. There was a PDF called "The Very Best of CO", but I can't find it right now. I have it at home, so I will add items to this list. Right now, the things I remember, plus some that were proposed in the thread

No Pun-Pun
No Omniscificer
No Dorfls
No Thought Bottles
No Nanobots
No Consumptive Field Abuse
Nothing from the Jakeverse (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137447)
A wish can never give you more wishes in any way, therefore, no infinite wish chains. (proposed by Eldan)
The gods do not interfere
Magic: Magic does continue to work on earth, but you need the spark of magic to cast spells. It's still discussed wether our side can learn magic after this spark has come in contact with earth.
Physics/Science: Physics and science that make the scenarios flat-out impossible is ignored/explained away with magic. Generally, d20modern rules are used to model aspects of our world. If you object to a specific part, please state the reason in the discussion.
Please use canon NPCs where possible. If you don't want to do that, use NPCs generated by the DMG advice for generating settlements - i.e., core, single-classed characters only. Information on city population sizes can be found in the setting-specific wikis, a town generator can be found here (http://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_town.php).
Nuclear weapons: 1MT warheads deal half energy, half force damage, 160d8 (based on discussion here and here (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=309235), and roughly on the rules in the d20 modern SRD (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd)) .
Nonnuclear heavy weaponry (high-yield bombs, artillery and tank ammunition) deals the damage values given in the d20MSRD, but is half force, half sonic/bludgeoning (The Glyphstones Proposal)
In the scenario-world, the exact D&D rules aren't known on Earth. Similar games may exist, but it's not a situation in which our side can realize and exploit the rules just by looking them up in a sourcebook.



I'm not really able to engage with these questions as stipulated, because IRL BULLETS AND SWORDS KILL PEOPLE. [Unlike in D&D, where it's kind of like trying to kill someone with a whiffle bat after the first level.]

In D&D, a 120mm gun [regardless of the variety of available ammunition], fails to kill an 8th level fighter with a direct hit half the time and has a range increment of 400ft, and a 70 ton vehicle with ceramic armor is also only slightly harder to kill than said aforementioned 8th level fighter.

Obviously, this is a terrible representation. Even the basic facts are wrong. The range increment is listed at 400ft, giving a maximum range of 4000ft, less than a mile, when the main gun is ranged out of 5km, 16000 ft and armored vehicles usually engage at range over a mile.



That said
Via the most Fantasy-favoring approach short of wish, essentially your suggestion, the modern world wins though virtue of numerics and logistics. The modern world has a absolutely massive population relative to any medieval fantasy world, and because of modern automations in logistics and agriculture, can also support a vastly larger force at war and make war more continuously in all seasons and weather. That alone is enough to drown all the dragons and level 20 fighter and all that in a tide of bodies and guns [short of wishing us to go away. Wishing us to go away always works]. The modern world can also easily decimate cropland without retaliation visa-vis a variety of missiles and aircraft that essentially can't be stopped by anything in a fantasy arsenal including magical creatures, so the fantasy world would be force to capitulate within a year facing famine and economic collapse. You can only conjure so much food. The modern world would be mildly affected by the mobilization [and essentially unaffected in the portal case], though I would expect there to be some political fallout from conducting such a genocide.

Via a more realistic approach, the fantasy world stands even less of a chance at war. In addition to the logistical advantages, when the advanced weapons and integrated warfare of the modern battlefield actually mean something, even a company with ample support packages would be essentially unstoppable [though admittedly, it would take more than a company to hold all the ground they capture.] It would also be a lot better for the fantasy world, because well, it's very likely that after a rapid capitulation with limited damage to the lands and casualties limited to the armies mustered for war, money and trade would start flowing in and the worst case is they would end up like modern Africa or the Middle East [which is still generally an improvement over the medieval period that fantasy worlds generally are in]. Things would probably get worse for the present day though, since the influx of new abilities would open up a massive space for individual abuse of power and increase the relative threat level of the individual pretty drastically. Your posited thing where only the predestined limited few could gain access to magic would create a massive societal imbalance and possibly upheaval from within.





In essence, TL:DR, while I ordinarily really like modern vs. fantasy things, if you want to model anything, you probably shouldn't be modelling it with D&D. D&D and it's system family is exceptionally poor at modeling something that resembles reality to any degree even for simple things without magic.

truemane
2021-02-22, 11:13 AM
Metamagic Mod: Thread Necromancy. This one's nearly a record.