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EvilElitest
2007-03-01, 10:35 PM
If anyone has read "do PC's make armies irrelevant" thread, they will know it has been bogged down with comments concerning magic vs. tech. The arguments are extensive and Will take to long to go though, i want to see want other people think other than the 5 on that thread..

Now here are the ground rules. The United States and Canada have magically been taken to a new planet. Don't ask. in this world, the only other country is an exact replica of th US in land mass (and Canada) however it is a mid evil fantasy world. This world has Eberron tech and magic. It has the same population of the US. However it has the same percentage of casters per population as a normal setting. They also have the same parentage of high level PCs as a normal world with that population. Everybody is human. You can't leave the plane but you can summon creatures into it. Magic works fine in this world. And so does the US satellites which are all already up in space. Both sides no they can't leave their world until the other side is destroyed. They also if they died, their souls will be trapped in the core. The losers's souls will be destoryed while the winners will go home. So everyone will fight to the death. Both sides no NOTHING of each other. The tech world is attacking, magic defending. The magic world does not understand the tech (role play) and visia versa. It is remotly possible that soem magic users could learn the ways of tech, but not possible at all in the other way. Any other rules i should put in before we start?
from,
EE

oriong
2007-03-01, 10:52 PM
This depends entirely on how agressive both sides can afford to be and what you mean by 'win'.

If 'win' means "eliminate the entire population of the opposing side" then the magic team is a definite shoe-in because they can easily and practically seamlessly infiltrate the 'tech' sides forces. Since no technology exists to detect or counter magic the tech side is doomed at this point as the magic side pretty much has a knife at their throat. it could take centuries for them to entirel wipe out the population of the Techies, and 90+% of the magic side will die but they'll win.

If 'win' simply means to wipe out the opposing country's civilization/army/large chunk of the population and there are no real limits on 'agression' then the tech side will win, hands down. There is no magical equivalent to the devestation produced by the higher end technological weaponry (missiles, nukes, war weapons) and the population with no casting ability is completely outgunned (literally) by the tech team. Heck, the US team could win in a day: launch all nukes. They're not staying on that world after all. Sure, high level wizards will be able to escape via teleportation, walls of force, etc, but they're such a fraction of the population that it's pointless to consider them.

This is assuming no cheese (infinite solar cascade for instance), no epic spellcasting (a victory for the tech team is still possible but stats would be required), and no direct divine intervention.

crazedloon
2007-03-01, 10:53 PM
Ok US says screw this planet we leave after we win targets all major cities and lets lose a full spread nuclear attack the magic users have no clue what these metal tubes are mostly wiped out the remainder are (and thus can not properly counter) and they are easily wiped out as they try to cope with the radiation and the massive damage caused by this attack. Then when the actual attack from the land and air troops appear they can not fight back with the left over casters and fighters. The fighters in their steal armor are no match for the armor piercing bullets of the US and the casters just aren’t enough to kill every last one of the US forces.

Game over Tech wins welcome to culture shock :smallwink:

Sardia
2007-03-01, 11:01 PM
Oh, forget about the nukes-- immunize your population against everything you can think of, then distribute the nastiest mix of smallpox, measles, mumps, plague, etc across the widest possible spread of the world. Do the same with livestock and staple crops where possible.

Behold_the_Void
2007-03-01, 11:01 PM
Just for some interesting considerations:

D20 Future stats a tactical nuclear weapon at 15d8, easily survivable by higher-level characters. Guns do somewhere in the ballpark of 2d6-2d10 damage.

I do agree that a nuclear strike would likely win the day though. However, with the US, one must remember the government system and how hard it'd be for them to initiate such an attack. By then it may be entirely too late, unless the Eberron-style world suffers the same problems.

EvilElitest
2007-03-01, 11:02 PM
Ok US says screw this planet we leave after we win targets all major cities and lets lose a full spread nuclear attack the magic users have no clue what these metal tubes are mostly wiped out the remainder are (and thus can not properly counter) and they are easily wiped out as they try to cope with the radiation and the massive damage caused by this attack. Then when the actual attack from the land and air troops appear they can not fight back with the left over casters and fighters. The fighters in their steal armor are no match for the armor piercing bullets of the US and the casters just aren’t enough to kill every last one of the US forces.

Game over Tech wins welcome to culture shock :smallwink:

Sounds good, lets say you need to wipe out every major city, kill 75% of the poupulation or when the other side surrenders. Nether sides knows what happens to their souls if they give up. Oh and the US will have about 5,000 A-bombs and teh same amount of weapons and soilder they had before teh iraq war.
from,
EE

oriong
2007-03-01, 11:08 PM
D20 Future stats a tactical nuclear weapon at 15d8, easily survivable by higher-level characters. Guns do somewhere in the ballpark of 2d6-2d10 damage.



Yes but it doesn't matter if the high level characters survive, your goal is (possibly) population decimation. Also keep in mind those are tactical nuclear weapons, not strategic nukes, they're meant to be small scale.


I do agree that a nuclear strike would likely win the day though. However, with the US, one must remember the government system and how hard it'd be for them to initiate such an attack. By then it may be entirely too late, unless the Eberron-style world suffers the same problems.


Keep in mind that the assumption is that everyone knows they must fight to the death (here I am assuming no one has any reason to doubt this 'message' and the consequences are nasty enough that peace is not a consideration). Very likely most of the problems in the way of initiating nuclear war will be circumvented very quickly (I promise you there are plans in place right now to unleash nuclear weapons within less than an hour should there be a percieved need.)


Sounds good, lets say you need to wipe out every major city, kill 75% of the poupulation or when the other side surrenders. Nether sides knows what happens to their souls if they give up. Oh and the US will have about 5,000 A-bombs and teh same amount of weapons and soilder they had before teh iraq war.

Tech wins then. No contest.

Roland St. Jude
2007-03-01, 11:10 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: Please try to stick to one thread per topic. Opening a new topic just to solicit more or different opinions on the same topic isn't really necessary. Thanks.


One Topic, One Thread
There should be, in most cases, one thread for a specific topic. Please check and see if there is already an active thread (one that has been posted on in the last six weeks and is no further back than page 3) discussing a topic before posting a new one.