Toasters over Sharn...

[Were-Sandwich]

THis came up in a discaussion me and my brother had earlier:

If the Cylons attacked Eberron, who would win?

Assuming 3 Cylon baseships FTL into orbit around eberron, and are spotted immediatly, but not recognised, what would happen.


My money is on Eberron. Magic + Dragons > Robots

[Seffbasilisk]

Eberron has robots too. Golems? Warforged?

[Wolf_Shade]

Is Eberron a united government or split into nation states of some sort?
Do Cylons have orbital bombardment technology?

If the answer to the second is yes, Cylons win.
If the answer to the first is split nation states, Cylons win.

If the Cylons must operate through direct confrontation, Eberron wins.

[vrellum]

Well, it depends on the rules that one is using for the scenario. Are you using herioc fantasy rules where heroes and monsters are obscenely difficult to kill? Or something more realisitic.

Actually, either way it shouldn't make much difference if the Cylons just want to kill everything. There's not much the inhabitants of Eberron could do against the Cylons dropping nukes on them from orbit.

Even a modern military would tear Eberron up and the Cylons are a lot more advanced than we are.

[Saph]

Ah, the quintessential geek argument has moved on. Once it was the Imperial Starfleet vs. the Federation. Now it's Base Stars vs. the Eberronians. :P

I'm pretty sure Eberron doesn't have anything that stops nuclear missiles, so there shouldn't really be anything to stop the Cylons from just nuking every city on the planet . . .

. . . which would kill every inhabitant except the rogues.

"A nuclear missile landed next to you! How the hell are you still alive?"
"Evasion."
"But . . . the blast radius . . ."
"Yeah, I had to jump pretty far. But hey, nice to see someone designing adventures around my abilities."

- Saph

[Wolf_Shade]

*snip*I'm pretty sure Eberron doesn't have anything that stops nuclear missiles,*snip* - Saph
Damage reduction/magic.

[Pauwel]

Damage reduction/magic.

Energy damage, no matter where it comes from, bypasses Damage Reduction.

[Saph]

Damage reduction/magic.

So that would be something like DR 10/magic or 20/magic, right?

I'm not sure how much damage a direct hit from a nuclear missile does under d20 rules, but I'm pretty sure it'd be more than 20 points.

Edit: forgot, it doesn't work against energy damage anyway. Not like it'd make much difference, though.

- Saph

[Green Bean]

So that would be something like DR 10/magic or 20/magic, right?

I'm not sure how much damage a direct hit from a nuclear missile does under d20 rules, but I'm pretty sure it'd be more than 20 points.

Edit: forgot, it doesn't work against energy damage anyway. Not like it'd make much difference, though.

- Saph

So all of the fire elementals would survive? :smallamused:

[Saph]

So all of the fire elementals would survive? :smallamused:

Depends - does a nuke do fire damage, concussion damage (bludgeoning?), radiation damage (poison?), or all three?

- Saph

[Rnett]

Fire in a small base, radiation towards everything else. And wind. Dun forget knocking crap over with air. Don't know if you could call that concussion... Though air molecules are probably pretty blunt.

[barawn]

Depends - does a nuke do fire damage, concussion damage (bludgeoning?), radiation damage (poison?), or all three?

- Saph

Concussion damage, mainly. The fire damage would be pretty tightly contained. It's the shockwave which does more, over a much larger radius.

[Closet_Skeleton]

So all of the fire elementals would survive? :smallamused:

Also, Iron Golems would be healed. Also, they'd gain temporary hp. Several thousand temporary hp.

:smalleek:

Actually, I think d20 Future has stats for a nuke that deals 16d8. But nobody pays attention to it.

[goat]

Depends if the local gods are paying attention.

I think they'd be annoyed if someone tried to nuke all their followers.

[Yuki Akuma]

Depends if the local gods are paying attention.

I think they'd be annoyed if someone tried to nuke all their followers.

Eberronian gods never pay attention, and might not even exist anyway.

[Nerd-o-rama]

"Hey, Liquid, you know what would be awesome?"
"Kettles that fly and kill people!"
"What?
"Yeah! No one would ever suspect a mere kettle. Then they'd be free to cause mayhem!"
"Liquid?"
"Yeah?"
"Those are toasters."
"Oh."
"You idiot."

[The_Snark]

Yeah, no help from gods. Dragons, on the other hand... they're pretty aloof in Ebberon, but I think nuclear devastation would probably annoy them. And some of them would survive.

Additionally, there's Khyber. Daelkyr, beholders, mind flayers... they're all deep underground, so no orbital bombardment and no massive attacks.

[goat]

Do you think a Cylon centurion would show up as evil, or would they be neutral like a golem?

[Were-Sandwich]

I think its pretty much over for the Cylons once Argonosen gets involved. All those bigass dragons flying around toasting Raiders, and I bet they have some Secret Magic Weapon on thier side.

And I'd like to dispute the 'can't hurt them in orbit' thing. Its never specified if airships have a flight ceiling. So, airships could fly up and strike at the orbital ships. Send 'forged so they dont' have to worry about breathing, and use wands, alchemists fire, magic missile strafing etc.

I think on the ground, eberron wins, though. You could use Firtrap + Arrows to get explosive ammo. And I'm pretty sure that the inspired will have sometihng to say after the first nukes fall on Sarlona.

[Attilargh]

Actually, I think d20 Future has stats for a nuke that deals 16d8. But nobody pays attention to it.
It does (http://www.dominion-x.net/msrd_html/FutureStarships.html), see "Table: Starship Weapons". I believe the "low" amount of damage is to leave sturdy buildings standing.

[vrellum]

There is no way the hot air ballons (also known as airships) could get anywhere near the Cylon ships. And the attacks that you mention wouldn't affect the ships anyway. Alchemist fire? No oxygen so it won't burn. Magic missile? Can't hurt objects.

The centurions seem to be hard to bring down with an assault rifle, so in any realistic setting arrows and other archaic weapons wouldn't be a threat to them.

The dragons would get toasted by some nukes and any that survived would get gunned down by the Cylon troops.

Ofcourse this a in a semirealistic scenario, if you want to convert it over to d20, then who knows. DnD is set up to highly favor powerful individuals and gives a huge advantage to archaic weapons, in part by severely nerfing the deadliness of advanced weapons.

In a realistic setting a single shot from a high powered rifle can drop a full grown elephant. The Cylons have stuff a lot better than assault rifles, so I can't imagine anything on Eberron being able to standup to the firepower that the Cylons could bring to bear. Not to mention the communication capabilities of the Cylons vastly dwarf the capabilities of the Eberronians as well as the speed that the Cylons can redeploy their troops.

[Were-Sandwich]

There is no way the hot air ballons (also known as airships) could get anywhere near the Cylon ships.

Eberron Airships are propelled by bound elementals, not hot-air. And you seem to be selling magic a bit short. Explosive bullets have been proven to destroy Cylons, why won't Fire Trap arrows do the same?

[Illiterate Scribe]

I know that high level casters aren't as common in Eberron as in Faerun (oh, the horror, as 50,000 epic wizards turn on the cylons!), but wouldn't opening a gate to Xoriat, or any other traditional caster win cause some major upset on board one of their ships?

Artificer, with a twinned energy admixtured born of the three thunders explosive metamagic triggered scroll of apocalypse from the sky?

[OzymandiasVolt]

Apocalypse from the sky hits everything in a ten mile per level radius. Including the caster. Unless you want to do the Cylons' work for them, it's not the best course of action.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Eberron Airships are propelled by bound elementals, not hot-air. And you seem to be selling magic a bit short. Explosive bullets have been proven to destroy Cylons, why won't Fire Trap arrows do the same?
Still, just playing Rakshasa's Advocate, there's the question of breathable air and pressure when reaching orbit. You'd either need to invent pressurized cabins or something akin to a Spelljammer (or just assume Eberron uses the same physics as the Spelljammer setting) to reach orbit. This is disregarding the necessity of escape velocity, which is orders of magnitude more than 33 1/3 feet per second, the listed top speed of an airship.

[Storm Bringer]

hang on, aren't walls of force basically immune to anything short of magic?


cast them over just the right place.


since there is magic that explicitly allows people to breathe in a vacum, and lots of it, that part is not an issue.

taking the top given speed (33.3ft/sec), the fastest airship can do....about 23 miles per hour(33.3/5280*60*60=22.7 9, to 1dp), or about 545 miles a day. call LEO limit 125miles.....it's going to take about 5 and a half hours at that speed to reach the lowest possible height the cylon warships.

Nerd-o-rama, if you're under constant power, you don't NEED to reach escape velocity. Thats the speed when momentum will get you into a orbital slot, and you can turn off the power soruce.

whats actaully gonna stop them hurting the baseships is the fact the baseships are doing about.....6 to 8 km/s just to stay up. or 21,600 to 28,800 kph.

that's what will stop you hurting them

[Were-Sandwich]

Place wall of force in their flight path, very-freakin'-thin side on. Slice-and-dice.

[vrellum]

Eberron Airships are propelled by bound elementals, not hot-air. And you seem to be selling magic a bit short. Explosive bullets have been proven to destroy Cylons, why won't Fire Trap arrows do the same?

Yeah, but speedwise there isn't much difference. I don't see a modern airforce, let alone one capable of FTL, being threatened by a flying ship with a top speed of around 30 mph.

Also airships are pretty fragile. They're made of wood, so I doubt that the Cylons would have any trouble shooting them down with their base ships or with their fighters if someone tried the days long journey into orbit.

Well, a firetrapped arrow might destroy one, might not. How many do you think will be available? However do you think the user will be able to fire them before they are toasted by the Cylons? Also, bullets >> arrows in range, accuracy, penetrating power, stopping power, etc.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Stormbringer: good points about airships.
Stormbringer and Were-Sandwich:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y66/al0013/motivator8247434.jpg
They can only be placed vertically, and there are zero rules for what happens when you run into the "sharp" side, to prevent abuse of offensive spells. Things that run into the ends are stopped just as if they hit the sides though, but running into them at all might feasibly smash things moving as fast as Cylon ships would be.

[vrellum]

The problem with this scenario is we're comparing two vastly different societies, one of which is fictional and the other is impossible. That makes it really hard to come up with an answer based on raw numbers.

However, consider this: In Eberron guys running around with swords and shooting arrows are common. That puts their tech level at around 16th century. The magic varieties aren't much better than their mundane equivalents. For example, a +5 bow isn't that much better than a strength 20 bow, if the person using the high strength bow is strong enough properly use it. By comparison even the best bows are far, far inferior to a modern firearm.

The first thing that has to find something that is similar between the two societies. Eberron still uses a lot of 16th century tech. The majority of their military power is based on tech that isn't much different than 16th century tech. In the Cylon universe, 16th century-type technology probably did exist. Ofcourse the Cylons didn't use it, but humans did many years ago in their past.

How does 16th century tech compare to Eberron? Well, a lot of Eberron's stuff is based on this level of tech. The effectiveness of their magic is balanced against this technology level and while it is definately better it either isn't so much better that it completely overshadows the mundane version or it is too rare to replace the mundane version. Eberron does have other things: powerful spell casters, terrible monsters, etc. but those things are rare.

How does 16th century tech compare to the Cylons? Well, the Cylons are far, far advanced over that level of technology. So Cylon tech greatly overshadows 16th century tech in just about every imaginable way. In addition Cylon tech is common and has supplanted the older tech on just about every level.

The Cylons carry weapons that far exceed the capabilties of anything in existence at that time. The Cylons are also pretty much immune to any weapon that could be fielded at that time (excepting a cannon and Eberron doesn't have them).

So Cylons win.

[goat]

Do you think lighting would fry the brains out of one? I imagine them being pretty fire resistant.

[Emperor Tippy]

Stormbringer: good points about airships.
Stormbringer and Were-Sandwich:

They can only be placed vertically, and there are zero rules for what happens when you run into the "sharp" side, to prevent abuse of offensive spells. Things that run into the ends are stopped just as if they hit the sides though, but running into them at all might feasibly smash things moving as fast as Cylon ships would be.

The offensive abuse of WoF is inherent in the spell. Per strict RAW every time its cast you pretty much gorge a couple mile long hole through the planet, if not more.


If you go by a WoF is unmovable in relation to a specific frame of reference, which frame do you choose?

In space which way is vertical is entirely relative.

As for the Cylons winning, I can use Eberron tech to create a cannon that fires a 100 pound object at C. Tell me what can survive that?

[Nerd-o-rama]

Okay, point on the relative frame of reference. However, the way it is used in game indicates that, when used on a planet, it is stationary relative to an area on the surface of the planet, in other words, it's always in geostationary orbit. As for what's vertical, I assume that as long as you're casting it within the gravity well of a planet with normal gravity, "vertical" means "oriented toward the center of the dominant gravity well."

And I'll tell you what can't survive that. The Universe, since you'll be creating an object of infinite mass thanks to our old friend Relativity. I don't want another thread to derail into the ways you can rape physics with a few simple D&D spells and a complete lack of common sense. But PM me whatever impossible idea you have, Tippy. I'm just too damn curious.

[Solo]

As for the Cylons winning, I can use Eberron tech to create a cannon that fires a 100 pound object at C. Tell me what can survive that?

Does it involve commoners forming a line to pass things around with a readied action?

[goat]

Is it one of those that requires a pair of gates, or a teleportation circle?

[Emperor Tippy]

Is it one of those that requires a pair of gates, or a teleportation circle?

Yes. Teleportation Circle and Ring Gates specifically.

[vrellum]

Probably doesn't work, else the world would have already been destroyed. Perhaps the universe as well.

[vrellum]

This discussion kinda reminds of a scenario where someone wanted to test the effectiveness of a Warhammer 40K army against a Warhammer Fantasy army. They decided to use 40K rules when the marines were attacking and fantasy rules when the fantasy army was attacking.

The marines lost bad.

Since neither of the groups here are real the participants in the "war" can use whatever rules they wish. I do not believe D20 is suitable for comparing "magic worlds" vs "future worlds".

The best way is to try to find a similar thing and baseline the performance of each group against that baseline. Using this method I believe the Cylons would have little trouble defeating Eberron.

[Emperor Tippy]

Probably doesn't work, else the world would have already been destroyed. Perhaps the universe as well.

If the Cylons get nukes and FTL capabilities it works.

Gravity is providing all the acceleration you need. Teleportation allows you to make a reasonably small space into an effectively infinite fall. After 24 hours of acceleration a 100 pound ball is going fast enough that the energy released on impact is the equivalent of over 3 million kilograms of TNT.

It takes 354 days to accelerate the ball to .99+ C. At that point it will impact with enough energy to vaporize a planet.

[Solo]

Can't we just conjure up some antimatter next to the Cyclon space ships?

[Emperor Tippy]

Can't we just conjure up some antimatter next to the Cyclon space ships?

Well you can always do that as well, what with Major Creation and all.

Better question, who wins in an Iron Golem against a Toaster?

[Nerd-o-rama]

I always hate it when people try to conjure things that can't possibly be observed without a particle accelerator using D&D spells. Alright, I get it, Eschew Materials and Major Creation lets you conjure anti-neutronium. How the smeg is a D&D character meant to know what anti-neutronium is?

I address this here because I believe it will be a shorter debate.

[Solo]

I always hate it when people try to conjure things that can't possibly be observed without a particle accelerator using D&D spells. Alright, I get it, Eschew Materials and Major Creation lets you conjure anti-neutronium. How the smeg is a D&D character meant to know what anti-neutronium is?

I address this here because I believe it will be a shorter debate.

Well, it involves asking the Gods about quantum mechanics...

Alternatively, you could be a Lich who has dedicated thousands of years to researching physics and quantum mechanics. That +30 intellect should help, as it means you could play chess with Einstein, Newton, Hawking, Feyman, Bohr, and Fermi at the same time and win against all of them.

[vrellum]

If the Cylons get nukes and FTL capabilities it works.

Gravity is providing all the acceleration you need. Teleportation allows you to make a reasonably small space into an effectively infinite fall. After 24 hours of acceleration a 100 pound ball is going fast enough that the energy released on impact is the equivalent of over 3 million kilograms of TNT.

It takes 354 days to accelerate the ball to .99+ C. At that point it will impact with enough energy to vaporize a planet.

I don't think so. For any meaningful discussion you should use internally consistent worlds. If things worked the way you describe them Eberron would be dramatically different. There wouldn't have been a last war because the major military powers would have destroyed the planet with their awesome weapons. However, no weapons like you have described were used. Thus it is likely that things don't work the way you've described them. I'd call it a rules exploit.

Same thing with antimatter. For some reason mages can't make antimatter using eschew material and major creation. I don't know why, but its obvious they can't, otherwise they would have done it and blown stuff up.

[Solo]

They said the same thing about the atom bomb as well.

[EvilElitest]

Ah, the quintessential geek argument has moved on. Once it was the Imperial Starfleet vs. the Federation. Now it's Base Stars vs. the Eberronians. :P

1. Do you mean the Federation from the series by Terry Brooks, or something else i don't know about
2. Ultimate geek battle of link vs. Seph
from,
EE

[Beleriphon]

I think we're forgetting a very important factor here: Warforged Titan teleported inside a Basestar. Those skinjobs sure are awful squishy.

[Nerd-o-rama]

1. Do you mean the Federation from the series by Terry Brooks, or something else i don't know about
...You're joking, right? Just in case you're having a serious blonde moment, he meant the one from the Star Trek franchise.

For the record, the Empire usually wins that fight since Star Wars weapons are usually presented as orders of magnitude more powerful.

vrellum: All that statement really means is that no one's thought of it yet. Clearly, no one's thought about antimatter in a D&D world because they have no way of observing it. As for Tippy's hyper-acceleration cannon things, they require a lot of knowledge that is directly observable, but people wouldn't have any reason to think of with pre-20th-century levels of scientific knowledge: how exactly gravity works (other than "things fall toward the ground"), that outer space is a vacuum, the fact that you have to fire the cannon before it reaches relativistic speeds and expands until you've blown up your own planet...

[vrellum]

...You're joking, right? Just in case you're having a serious blonde moment, he meant the one from the Star Trek franchise.

For the record, the Empire usually wins that fight since Star Wars weapons are usually presented as orders of magnitude more powerful.

vrellum: All that statement really means is that no one's thought of it yet. Clearly, no one's thought about antimatter in a D&D world because they have no way of observing it. As for Tippy's hyper-acceleration cannon things, they require a lot of knowledge that is directly observable, but people wouldn't have any reason to think of with pre-20th-century levels of scientific knowledge: how exactly gravity works (other than "things fall toward the ground"), that outer space is a vacuum, the fact that you have to fire the cannon before it reaches relativistic speeds and expands until you've blown up your own planet...


I disagree. I do think that it is clear that they haven't thought of the idea because nobody seems to be aware that antimatter exists. Thus they can't summon it. However, since noone has tried we don't know if they could do it, even if they knew about it. There could infact be multiple reasons why they couldn't or it could be simply they don't know of its existence. Eberron is made up after all, therefore what they can and can't do and why they can and can't do it are somewhat at the whim of the authors.

Same thing for the accelerator. We don't know why they can't do, but we know they can't because they haven't. It may be that teleport and gate don't work that way. It might be because they haven't thought of it.

For both of these ideas, the civilizations on Eberron have been around for a long time and nobody has used these ideas. So I don't think its likely that they will suddenly become available when Eberron is being invaded by the Cylons and thus we can disregard them in this conversation.

[Emperor Tippy]

I disagree. I do think that it is clear that they haven't thought of the idea because nobody seems to be aware that antimatter exists. Thus they can't summon it. However, since noone has tried we don't know if they could do it, even if they knew about it. There could infact be multiple reasons why they couldn't or it could be simply they don't know of its existence. Eberron is made up after all, therefore what they can and can't do and why they can and can't do it are somewhat at the whim of the authors.

The only reason one couldn't summon antimatter is that they don't know it exists. As soon as they find out then any one who knows about it can summon it.


Same thing for the accelerator. We don't know why they can't do, but we know they can't because they haven't. It may be that teleport and gate don't work that way. It might be because they haven't thought of it.

Again, if they knew enough physics they could make one. Teleport doesn't change momentum. Acceleration by gravity is a constant 9.8 m/s with earth like gravity. There is no terminal velocity in a vacuum. Ring Gates even say they can transfer attacks.


For both of these ideas, the civilizations on Eberron have been around for a long time and nobody has used these ideas. So I don't think its likely that they will suddenly become available when Eberron is being invaded by the Cylons and thus we can disregard them in this conversation.

Eberron has fully functional AI. The Giants in Xen'Drix where FAR more advanced than current Eberron Tech and they were still crushed by the dragons with relative ease. If the dragons got involved it is no contest that Eberron wins (epic spell casting anyone?).

Even without the dragons you can still win with the RAW.

[vrellum]

.

Even without the dragons you can still win with the RAW.

There are no RAW that govern the summoning of antimatter. There are no RAW that govern accelerating an object to relativistic speeds via teleport and gate.

Here's the biggest problem with the way you want to do the comparison.
There are no RAW that are suitable for guaging the outcome of this war. None.

In Eberron the majority of a nation's military power comes from guys with a sword and some armor. Casters and monsters play a role, but they were support elements, not the main force.

Against Cylon tech, sword and armor guys are worthless. Since against Eberron tech and magic, sword and armor guys are not worthless, it indicates that Eberron tech and magic has a long way to go before it catches up with Cylon tech.

[Tobrian]

Depends - does a nuke do fire damage, concussion damage (bludgeoning?), radiation damage (poison?), or all three?

All that and a nonmagical necromantic energy fall-out.
Well look at the effects of radiation "poisoning". It's not a chemical poison. It's clearly a necromantic blight.

[Emperor Tippy]

There are no RAW that govern the summoning of antimatter. There are no RAW that govern accelerating an object to relativistic speeds via teleport and gate.

Antimatter is easy by RAW. Eschew Materials + Major Creation creates cubic feet of the stuff.

The matter/antimatter reaction isn't RAW though.

Same with accelerating an object. How it is done is easy within the RAW. The effects of doing it aren't covered by the RAW.

Here's the biggest problem with the way you want to do the comparison.
There are no RAW that are suitable for gaging the outcome of this war. None.


In Eberron the majority of a nation's military power comes from guys with a sword and some armor. Casters and monsters play a role, but they were support elements, not the main force.

Against Cylon tech, sword and armor guys are worthless. Since against Eberron tech and magic, sword and armor guys are not worthless, it indicates that Eberron tech and magic has a long way to go before it catches up with Cylon tech.

*sigh*

I was assuming that the Cylons get their tech and Eberron gets magic with a few high level casters at least (all those nice dragons). Operating under normal earth physics, excluding magic and Cylon tech that can't be replicated today.
If those are valid assumptions then you can make matter/antimatter bombs, projectiles traveling at factors of C, black holes, and various other things.

[Were-Sandwich]

You could make a more sane railgun using Lightning Rail stones. ust place them all really close together along the inside of a 5ft diameter tube. Attach another stone to a lot of Necklaces of Fireballs, or antimatter, or whatever you can dream up, then aim, fire.

What would Brown Mould do to a ship engine? Not pretty, I bet. And green slime. that could be nasty.

Pity Cylons don't have to breathe, otherwise you could use soem kind of contact-activated disintegrate torpedo to decompress the whole bulkhead.

[Saph]

Antimatter is easy by RAW. Eschew Materials + Major Creation creates cubic feet of the stuff.

Doesn't work. You need Knowledge (Modern Physics) to know about the existence of antimatter, and the skill doesn't exist in D&D.

- Saph

[bosssmiley]

Doesn't work. You need Knowledge (Modern Physics) to know about the existence of antimatter, and the skill doesn't exist in D&D.

- Saph

*Ting, ting, ting*

At last, common sense detected. We seem to have the same (arguably erroneous) assumption that the natural laws of the D&Dverse work the same as ours as manifested itself over in the Moon Base thread. It boggles the mind that people are trying to apply physics to a game world that contains giant flying lizards and men who can summon explosions by playing with bat poo.

Am I the only other person here who saw Nuclear Suicide Wizards as a joke monster? Or read Swordguy's infamous Osmium creation post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2013195&postcount=89) with a sense of vertiginous, nauseated horror? :smallconfused:

</exasperated crie de couer>

"Antimatter? Is that like those stones you get on the Negative Energy Plane?"
-- Tordek
(although I see Tobrian beat me to this 3 posts ago :smallwink: )

[Emperor Tippy]

Doesn't work. You need Knowledge (Modern Physics) to know about the existence of antimatter, and the skill doesn't exist in D&D.

- Saph

Like the Craft and Profession skills, Knowledge actually encompasses a number of unrelated skills. Knowledge represents a study of some body of lore, possibly an academic or even scientific discipline.

Below are listed typical fields of study.

* Arcana (ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, cryptic phrases, constructs, dragons, magical beasts)
* Architecture and engineering (buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications)
* Dungeoneering (aberrations, caverns, oozes, spelunking)
* Geography (lands, terrain, climate, people)
* History (royalty, wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)
* Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)
* Nature (animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, vermin)
* Nobility and royalty (lineages, heraldry, family trees, mottoes, personalities)
* Religion (gods and goddesses, mythic history, ecclesiastic tradition, holy symbols, undead)
* The planes (the Inner Planes, the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, outsiders, elementals, magic related to the planes)


Knowledge: Physics is a valid knowledge skill. It's a scientific discipline and the knowledge skill is quite clear that what is listed below are just a few fields, not the sum total of all knowledge skills.

Knowledge: Physics is perfectly valid.


And if you subscribe to the erroneous belief that the listed knowledge skills are all possible knowledge skills then its covered in Knowledge: Nature

[Saph]

Like the Craft and Profession skills, Knowledge actually encompasses a number of unrelated skills. Knowledge represents a study of some body of lore, possibly an academic or even scientific discipline . . . Below are listed typical fields of study.

Yes. Now take a look at your PHB and see what comes right after that last sentence you quoted. "With your DM's approval, you can invent new areas of knowledge."


Knowledge: Physics is perfectly valid.

It's a homebrew skill, not RAW. You need DM approval. Go ahead, explain to your DM why he should let you have it because blowing up your planet with antimatter will enhance the campaign for all the other players. :)

- Saph

[Nerd-o-rama]

Okay, slow down.

First, this is a hypothetical situation, not necessarily someone's D&D campaign (although that would be kinda awesome). This isn't a thread arguing about in-game balance, this is a thread about a situation with defined participants (the world of Eberron as presented in the ECS and the Cylons as prested in BSG) and potential resolutions to it.

However, my personal opinion is that it stretches the imagination far past the breaking point that someone in the Eberron Campaign Setting, as presented, could conceive of the idea of anti-matter and implement it in time for it to make any difference in this fight. Eberron has, at best, eighteenth century science, closer to the fifteenth century if we consider most of their technology is based not on an understanding of physics, but on the ability to tell physics to shut up and sit down. Same goes for the ring gate infinite loop cannon. You think these people know how gravity actually works? You think they even have a concept of relativity? I sure as hell don't.

[Emperor Tippy]

Oh, I doubt they do. But it can be done by the RAW.

I would still give the win to Eberron if you take the dragons into account. Epic Magic crushes the Cylons easily.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Oh, I doubt they do. But it can be done by the RAW.

I would still give the win to Eberron if you take the dragons into account. Epic Magic crushes the Cylons easily.
Depends on if the Dragons abuse it or not.

Wait. Why wouldn't they?

Okay, but the mortal races are probably all still doomed.

[Emperor Tippy]

Well unless the dragons decided to act early, yeah.

The elves, with the deathless court, might also be able to get the epic magic necessary.

[vrellum]

Also, I don't think eschew materials would work to create antimatter. Eschew materials only works with material components that cost 1gp or less. Since antimatter is so hard to come by I don't antimatter would be cheap enough.

[Emperor Tippy]

Eschew Materials can replace Artifacts. And Antimatter is only uncommon on earth. It makes up a fairly significant portion of the universe.

[Solo]

Eschew Materials can replace Artifacts. And Antimatter is only uncommon on earth. It makes up a fairly significant portion of the universe.

It does? I was under the impression that antimatter was rare here.

[Emperor Tippy]

The standard model says that every particle has an antiparticle.

It naturally occurs in our own solar system, just in very small amounts and is almost instantly annihilated.

[Gralamin]

Eschew Materials can replace Artifacts. And Antimatter is only uncommon on earth. It makes up a fairly significant portion of the universe.

They really should give Artifacts a listed price, just to avoid that.

[Emperor Tippy]

They really should give Artifacts a listed price, just to avoid that.

Yeah, or just a note in Eschew Materials saying that it can't replace artifacts.

[vrellum]

Regardless, by RAW you can't use eschew materials to substitute for antimatter because there is no list price for antimatter.

Just because something is common through out the cosmos does not mean it is cheap. Also, you need an undefined, but tiny bit of the material. According to modern physics there is a lot of antimatter present in the universe. But it's present as individual particles that (almost) instantly react with matter and convert to energy. Getting a tiny piece of antimatter is not possible at our current tech level and there is no reason to think it would be cheap on Eberron.

The fact that eschew materials can replace an artifact just shows that RAW can be abused and those abuses really shouldn't be used when trying to decide how this conflict would turn out.

[lord_khaine]

can we get this away from matter/antimatter again?
i must admit, i have no idea who those cycklons is, but would it even be nececary to go to epic magic to get rid of them?

how would fx those cycklons reack in this scenario.
1 lv 17 undying elven wizard, casts shapechange, turns into a ghost, then teleport abord 1 of those ships, where he then..

a) starts using the family fortune on gate scrolls to call in paragon dragons, spectres, devils demons etc.

b) casts invisibility, then dominate on whoever is flying the ship, asking the poor sod to ram one of the other ships.

c) pulls out a staff of disintegrate and begins to remove the ship from the engine room and out.

[Human Paragon 3]

It's entirely up to the speed that Eberon can react. If the cylons scouted the planet out with raiders first and then just jumped in and launched their nukes (like they did to the 12 colonies) Eberron would not have enough time to react and the entire planet would be reduced to a "glass parking lot."

If Eberon had advanced knowledge, say, a parlay where the cylons gave terms of surrender, or a sufficient divination that warned them about the cylons, they could probably muster a capable defense including teleporting onto their ships and unleashing horrors not capable of science.

[vrellum]

Well, the wizard would have to have a description of the ship in order to teleport into it. Once there he wouldn't know where to go. So there are two problems.

I think another problem would be the ghost is etherial and thus can not affect the material plane unless it manifests. So unless it did manifest itself, it couldn't affect anything.

However, ghosts are only hit by magical weapons (a DnD rules convention) if this is enforced and it is decided that the Cylons don't have any weapons that can hurt the "ghost", then this tactic would work well provided the "ghost" made it to the ship.

One other point, I'm not sure how succeptable the pilots would be to mind affecting spells. They may be immune or at least have good saving throws. So I don't think this tactic would work too well.

[lord_khaine]

huh, well good saving throws are the reason why the gods Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook and Skip WIlliams gave me both enervation and limited wish to reduce their save.

now if you will excuse me i have to sacrifice some d20.

[Human Paragon 3]

huh, well good saving throws are the reason why the gods Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook and Skip WIlliams gave me both enervation and limited wish to reduce their save.

now if you will excuse me i have to sacrifice some d20.

Nah, they'd be imune: construct traits.

[The Valiant Turtle]

They may not have anti-matter, but they do have Sphere's of Annihilation. Frankly, I'd prefer the spheres. Anti-matter is gone when "used" the Sphere of Annihilation keeps on going.

If the Eberronians have advance knowledge and can Scry + Teleport aboard the ships, I'd say they would win easily, but the nukes might still be a problem.

[Middle Snu]

If we assume that the goal of both sides is to destroy the other, then you're all forgetting about the information gap.

Cylons could probably turn the planet into a nuclear wasteland before anyone in Ebberron realized what was happening.

[Green Bean]

What the whole thing comes down to is who's set of physics you're using. If you go with BG physics, then the Cylons just nuke the place from orbit. If you use DnD physics, the nukes will do pathetic damage (isn't it something like 25d8 in d20 Modern?), and the counterattack will involve hundreds of high level characters blowing them out of the sky.

[Endless_Helix]

Personally, I think that Eberron is a fairly clear victor... Primarily because of
-Divination (The ability to successfully predict the future? Sign me up!)
and
-Teleportation

That combination really rules out the whole issue of lack of foreknowledge. There are enough spellcasters that have the ability to cast Foresight, Divination, Commune, etc. etc., and at least get a shot at disrupting the nuclear bombardment, at most they literally have a long enough period of time to directly attack or parlay with the Cylons. Tongues eliminates the language barrier, and if that doesn't work, Gate, Divine Power+Righteous Might+Divine Favor+Greater Mighty Wallop, Shapechange, Miracle, Wish, pretty much any of the really powerful spell combos would end the fight before it started. A wish/miracle could probably defuse all the bombs, or stop the radiation or something.

[Engineer]

But is it 70's or re-launch BSG? That is the question.

Either way, I feel confident there is a spell that could get rid of radiation poisoning, or if there is not pretty quickly someone would make one. So the cylons would get locked in a neverending guerilla war. 8-hours of sleep and your are refuelled. Also Dungeons. I don't think Cylons have discovered large monster bearing places that seem to exist forever.

[Orak]

I would have to agree with the Eberron win.

Teleportation circle into one of the toaster ships. Take your whole army inside. A sphere of ultimate destruction by a mage that has superior invisibility running could take out a whole ship single handedly.

In the end it just comes down to magic wins. Sure, bows and swords may not be really effective against an army of lazer wielding robots, but magic would still win.

Various mind control spells would break the toaster leaders.

Basically, one 20th level mage could take out a toaster ship single handedly. And with a few spells, could allow his teammates to destroy another.

And as Endless_Helix stated, Eberron would see it coming way before with divination spells.