Modern Army v. D&D

[Acanous]

That's how we've had it play at the local table, so I'm just surprised that it doesn't.

Fimbulwinter looks exceptionally horrid. Wonder if it's low enough level to be Maximized or Chained.

[candycorn]

That's how we've had it play at the local table, so I'm just surprised that it doesn't.

Fimbulwinter looks exceptionally horrid. Wonder if it's low enough level to be Maximized or Chained.

Actually, they word it that way to prevent creatures from sitting in safety in the ethereal and pummeling things.

Fimbulwinter is a level 9 spell.

[Aux-Ash]

Okay.

Let's have a look again. And once more, please add a motivation. -Why- is this so impossibly powerful that the mundanes have no chance?

Spoiler

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Frostburn. Makes it winter(Or a really nasty winter if it's autumn/winter) for 4d12 months.

Range? Radius? Casting time? Spell level? Any other drawbacks.

In the wonderfully balanced MMII. Basically immobile, but cast as an 18th level sorcerer(With some domains, even), and have Contact other Plane(And a bunch of other Divinations) at will, as a free action.

That immobile bit is a horrific drawback against the terrans. Do you know that we have muntions with blast radii larger than -most- enlarged spells have ranges? We don't even have to hit it... just hit close to it.

And that's not going up to nukes.

CoP, Augury, etc. Divination isn't the only Divination, you know.

Augury is the lesser version of it. Useful yes. Impossibly powerful? Eh,I have difficulty seeing how. But it is an advantage the terrans don't have. True.

CoP seems a bit dangerous to use. And you can only recieve confirmations or denials.

In all cases, it requires you to know what to ask. But again, yes, they're useful. Can probably save many lives if used properly. Mind... poorly worded questions can also lead to perfectly doable tactics being discarded.

A downside, yes, but the power behind it is worth it.

Agreed, though it does lower it's effectivness a bit. Thus far I think it's the most powerful spell I've analyzed.

LPB gets the succubus. That has Charm, illusions, and is otherwise the perfect assassin. Just order it on an assassination campaign. Bound Nightmares can give you Astral Projection early.

That's the fun part of it. Geas, Bestow Curses, Crushing Despair, and various other Debuffs on it and buffs on yourself, it's easy to break most things.

So... you summon something with willsave +7, spellresistance and charisma 26 and counts on it failing one spell resistance check, one willsave and two consecutive charisma scores?

And then, in order to ensure that it does. You spend even more spells on it?
Just how many spells do you have?

Assuming that you do pull it off though. I guess it'll do decently. Good for assassinations and blakc ops no doubt. But the whole plan strikes me as either very expensive or very much up to chance.

Ah, you significantly overestimate the earthquake readiness in the US. Significantly. Check the figures on what would happen if a big one hit LA. Couple articles online have covered this. The US is the only country I have experience with, but just a demonstration of being able to flatten a city within minutes is useful.

It's not a big one. It's tiny and lasts 6 seconds. The spell specificially mentions it'll only collapse wood buildings and those made of masonry. But not stone or -reinforced masonry-. We use reinforced concrete for most things.

Will it cause damage? Yes. But considering the radius is smaller than the surface area of many officebuildings it's not nearly as impressive as it sounds. This spell is self contained in most individual buidlings.
At best you can collapse -a- building. A poorly built one.

To compare... most actual earthquakes have radii in the tens of thousands of ft. This one got 80. Not 80 yards or meters... feet. Not even 27 m.

Druids have Storm of Vengeance, which has acid rain. I am not expecting these spells to have a massive impact per se, but more the idea that "We control the Earth and the Skies. Bring it." Would you voluntarily attack someone who can create earthquakes with a word?

A 120 m radius stormcloud. 200 m range. Spellcaster have to stand completely still for 1 minute. You know... this is also one of those things that sounds more impressive than it is.
The terrans got munitions that will do worse and we're not even talking high end stuff. And apparently we're not afraid of people with those muntions... so why would we be afraid of this. Especially since our friend the caster have to plant himself within efficient firing range. This spell would be a terran sniper's wet dream.

The subtle spells do a lot more damage, but the large-scale-ish flashy ones? They damage moral. Psychological warfare. Terror tactics. Imagine, say, what a soldier would do if you sent demons, like serious demons, into their camp at night, butchered a bunch of their men, and five minutes later, their dead get up and kill them.

The same sort of morale damage night time artillery or airstrikes do? It's not as the terran world haven't got terror tactics on their own you know. We learned to guard against night time attacks hundreds of years ago. The idea is sound, to be sure. And I'm sure the demons are terrifying.

And it's not as if the terrans will be completely helpless. Even if the demons teleport in... it'll take what... 6 - 12 seconds before people start shooting at it? 15 before the machine guns are down? 1 minute before there's at least one tank firing (assuming they have one).

Still yes. Solid tactic. Should definately be in repertoire.

Ah, okay. Plague of undead animates all corpses within a certain area.

Range, radius, duration, spell level?

[Gwendol]

A large giant can hurl a rock causing 2d6+STR mod damage. We can approximate the initial velocity to be around 45 m/s. With the weight of the rock (45 lb) the energy is about 20.6 kJ, which equates to 17 hp damage on average.
The projectile fired by what is probably the most common cannon in the world, the Bofors 40mm, weighs 1 kg (or around 2 lb). Initial velocity is 1021 m/s. The damage from impact alone is equivalent to 425 hp damage, but then you need to account for the explosive, which carries about the same amount of energy. That's about 800 hp damage. From one round. This gun fires 4 rounds/second, which means 24 shells/round. Round 1: 19200 hp damage.

Modern day bofors guns comes with programmable munitions, meaning they will behave differently according to the target.

D&D world is too slow and too limited range to cope with this. Psycological warfare? Try having your celestial/infernal ally being blown to tiny bits ten times over the second they are detected a few times and see how the clerics handle the loss.

[candycorn]

The problems with use of munitions for terrans isn't the power of the munition, but the identification of targets.

Let's say, for example, that the terrans can't immediately associate the guy in the shirt and leather pants with the hail of fire falling down around them, as really, all he did was wave his arms around and shout.

Terrans have a word for that. It's not "mage". It's "crazy". And we don't call down artillery strikes on "crazy".

So we have to locate and identify the target, something far from assured. Once terrans do that, they've got an edge. But in small scale engagements, when the other side has the ability to literally disappear and reappear 1000 miles away? When they have the ability to scout via magic before they land in the hot zone?

No, small scale engagements go firmly to the D&D side. Modern militaries have always had success fighting armies, and difficulty finding and fighting specific individuals. Once D&D goes to small squad combat, it wins, most every time.

[Hecuba]

Range? Radius? Casting time? Spell level? Any other drawbacks.

Range/radius are mile/level. It takes 20 minutes, and lasts 3 months to just under a year. 9th level.

[kardar233]

If D&D goes on the offensive, RL is irreparably boned.

Don't even need Planar Binding. Planar Ally in some Demons; Succubi are a good option. Tell them that their assignment is to fragment or destroy world governments and military commands. For them, it's basically a paid vacation.

If you just want to destroy the entire world, you've got plenty of options. Sun-Gate Mega Lazor Beam should be able to melt continents given a while, the Metabreath-stackers can cover a good part of the world in whatever element they feel like for quite a while, Decanters of Endless Water in the oceans will cause massive flooding, etc.

[Silva Stormrage]

Has anyone brought up the spell blizzard from Frost Burn? 1ft of snow a round for a round/caster level in a 100ft radius per caster level? Widened and extended (With rods) and you can deal a crazy amount of damage to bases and other structures.

[Little Brother]

Let's have a look again. And once more, please add a motivation. -Why- is this so impossibly powerful that the mundanes have no chance?

Okay.

Range? Radius? Casting time? Spell level? Any other drawbacks.

Range is centered on self, or maybe close range. Radius is 1mi/CL. Casting time is 10 minutes, but its actually 1 full round action, due to Uncanny Forethought. Level 9. Might have, like, a fifty XP cost.

The damage? Destroys all crop production within that range for half a year. Plus, the psychological impact of "The climate is mine."

That immobile bit is a horrific drawback against the terrans. Do you know that we have muntions with blast radii larger than -most- enlarged spells have ranges? We don't even have to hit it... just hit close to it.

Demiplanes, or indestructible moving fortresses mean immobile isn't that big of a deal.

And that's not going up to nukes.

Which I banned because they kill everyone but high-level Psions, Wilders, and Wizards, who then, for revenge or something, destroy earth. Everyone loses. Plus, land for colonization? Land with MAGIC? I think that's worth not nuking.

Augury is the lesser version of it. Useful yes. Impossibly powerful? Eh,I have difficulty seeing how. But it is an advantage the terrans don't have. True.

When it is at-will as a free action, meaning they can literally cast it a billion times in one round. Weirds are basically omniscient.

CoP seems a bit dangerous to use. And you can only recieve confirmations or denials.

Well-worded questions? Plus, an arbitrary number of them from your simulacrum-Weird? There's a reason every wizard's day starts with a game or three of 20 questions.

In all cases, it requires you to know what to ask. But again, yes, they're useful. Can probably save many lives if used properly. Mind... poorly worded questions can also lead to perfectly doable tactics being discarded.

Remember. Free action. At will. Omniscient elementals.

So... you summon something with willsave +7, spellresistance and charisma 26 and counts on it failing one spell resistance check, one willsave and two consecutive charisma scores?

Bestow curse=Penalty to checks, Cha, and Wis. Geas and a couple days gives you even larger penalties, as does Crushing Despair. Plus, you have +4 Cha from Eagle's splendor, and +a lot more from things like Moment of Prescience and Greater Heroics.

And then, in order to ensure that it does. You spend even more spells on it?
Just how many spells do you have?

As a high-level wizard? Basically however many I want. Remember, you can kill a bajillion people with basically no risk, but the succubus can do it with ACTUALLY no risk, while you go off and do other things. You get spells back every day, you know.

Assuming that you do pull it off though. I guess it'll do decently. Good for assassinations and blakc ops no doubt. But the whole plan strikes me as either very expensive or very much up to chance.

One day's worth of spells would let you get about however many succubi you want. That's just from LPB. Especially if you have your own(Preferably accelerated) demiplane.

It's not a big one. It's tiny and lasts 6 seconds. The spell specificially mentions it'll only collapse wood buildings and those made of masonry. But not stone or -reinforced masonry-. We use reinforced concrete for most things.

Okay. It'll collapse houses. And old buildings. And cause a massive panic, which is what matters. Death by destruction of economy works.

Will it cause damage? Yes. But considering the radius is smaller than the surface area of many officebuildings it's not nearly as impressive as it sounds. This spell is self contained in most individual buidlings.
At best you can collapse -a- building. A poorly built one.

Ur-Theurge with a persisted Undermaster can use it every round all day. I think he can live with that.

To compare... most actual earthquakes have radii in the tens of thousands of ft. This one got 80. Not 80 yards or meters... feet. Not even 27 m.

Per use. 270M in a minute. And the terror of causing Earthquakes, even small tremors, at will? That's nasty.

A 120 m radius stormcloud. 200 m range. Spellcaster have to stand completely still for 1 minute. You know... this is also one of those things that sounds more impressive than it is.
The terrans got munitions that will do worse and we're not even talking high end stuff. And apparently we're not afraid of people with those muntions... so why would we be afraid of this. Especially since our friend the caster have to plant himself within efficient firing range. This spell would be a terran sniper's wet dream.

Invisibility/Ethereal/Xorn movement/otherwise being unseeable or untargetable while casting? I can live with this.

The same sort of morale damage night time artillery or airstrikes do? It's not as the terran world haven't got terror tactics on their own you know. We learned to guard against night time attacks hundreds of years ago. The idea is sound, to be sure. And I'm sure the demons are terrifying.

And it's not as if the terrans will be completely helpless. Even if the demons teleport in... it'll take what... 6 - 12 seconds before people start shooting at it? 15 before the machine guns are down? 1 minute before there's at least one tank firing (assuming they have one).

Still yes. Solid tactic. Should definately be in repertoire.

Yeah. If, what, 8 demons/devils pop in, they can kill a dozen or two before dying. Ten minutes later, another demon pops up, kills a couple more. Then, ten minutes later, it happens again.

Or cast elemental swarm, summoning Earth Elementals underground. After they just swing from underground. Kill a bunch.

Range, radius, duration, spell level?[/spoiler]

Close range, all corpses within range, Instantaneous, level 9(So minimum of 110 feat). Once again, the caster just hides below ground, harassed, EQs, gets a bunch of corpses ready, then animates them and retreats. Easy.

And I'm sure a decent number of the soldiers would vacate their bowels then run from zombies.

[Averis Vol]

Wait, the DnD world people have to wait their turn to attack. that means the troll moves thirty feet and claws, then waits for the army to finish its turn, then go again if its still alive? I believe power in vast numbers screws the action economy in this situation.

[Aux-Ash]

Range/radius are mile/level. It takes 20 minutes, and lasts 3 months to just under a year. 9th level.

Now this, this is a WMD. This is horrifically powerful. This is one of those things the terrans can do nothing about. I seriously doubt you can knock out all the farmland... but you don't have to either. Just a handful of time is enough to give anyone a pause.

Note though... it's primary only a weapon that can be deployed against the civilian population.

[Gwendol]

The problems with use of munitions for terrans isn't the power of the munition, but the identification of targets.

Let's say, for example, that the terrans can't immediately associate the guy in the shirt and leather pants with the hail of fire falling down around them, as really, all he did was wave his arms around and shout.

Terrans have a word for that. It's not "mage". It's "crazy". And we don't call down artillery strikes on "crazy".

So we have to locate and identify the target, something far from assured. Once terrans do that, they've got an edge. But in small scale engagements, when the other side has the ability to literally disappear and reappear 1000 miles away? When they have the ability to scout via magic before they land in the hot zone?

No, small scale engagements go firmly to the D&D side. Modern militaries have always had success fighting armies, and difficulty finding and fighting specific individuals. Once D&D goes to small squad combat, it wins, most every time.

I imagine the ROE would be more along the lines "if it moves, destroy it... if it doesn't move, but looks funny, destroy it"

I don't think they would care too much about collateral damage. If magic is on the table, so is anything we can do.

Oh, and a 40 mm cannon is not an artillery strike. It's a fairly light weight piece of hardware. Heavy guns do much more damage at a much longer range.

[candycorn]

I imagine the ROE would be more along the lines "if it moves, destroy it... if it doesn't move, but looks funny, destroy it"

I don't think they would care too much about collateral damage. If magic is on the table, so is anything we can do.

Oh, and a 40 mm cannon is not an artillery strike. It's a fairly light weight piece of hardware. Heavy guns do much more damage at a much longer range.

...except that your RoE is not an established RoE for any existing modern military force. They generally strive to preserve life. After all, those guys are going to grow your vegetables once you take over.

[Gwendol]

Invading an alien realm powered by magic? Having to fend off undead and the forces of the abyss? Really?

To me, any scenario is hilarious (what is the motivation behind this war? How will alliances really hold up? Why will the non-magical humans not simply side with the terran forces to end once and for all the tyranny of magic, that has held back technological progress for eons? And so on).

I thought the idea was to pitch modern state of the art armies (or rather military technology) against D&D warfare which is pre-gunpowder technology and magic, and monsters.

I assume real physics apply for the most part, and the reference to rounds is mostly addressing the time for spellcasting.

Again, compared with real world war machines: most things in D&D (including spells) move too slow, and have too limited a range to matter much. Furthermore, the destructive power of munitions is not to be underestimated.

An elder earth elemental has a measly 228 HP. That's less than half the damage of a 40mm a-can round.

Infantry units typically carry a automatic grenade launcher. They launch 4 40mm grenades per second. Each of those have a kill radius of about 16' from impact, and a casuality radius of 427'. Automatic rifles are also equipped with single shot grenade launchers of the same caliber (but low velocity).

There are things that cannot be hurt physically in D&D world, and given enough high level spellcasters anything is possible. But for the most part; if it bleeds, it dies.

[Ashtagon]

It's not a big one. It's tiny and lasts 6 seconds. The spell specificially mentions it'll only collapse wood buildings and those made of masonry. But not stone or -reinforced masonry-. We use reinforced concrete for most things.

Reinforced masonry is still masonry, so would be affected by the spell as any other masonry.

Stone, last time I checked, is quite a common material for masonry construction. Masonry refers to any kind of construction that involves individual units (typically fired bricks, but including concrete blocks, clay tiles, cut dried earth, and raw stone) which are usually (but not always) pasted together using cement, concrete, or other material.

So yeah. modern buildings aren't as universally invulnerable to the spell as you might think.

[Killer Angel]

Again, compared with real world war machines: most things in D&D (including spells) move too slow, and have too limited a range to matter much. Furthermore, the destructive power of munitions is not to be underestimated.

An elder earth elemental has a measly 228 HP. That's less than half the damage of a 40mm a-can round.

Infantry units typically carry a automatic grenade launcher. They launch 4 40mm grenades per second. Each of those have a kill radius of about 16' from impact, and a casuality radius of 427'. Automatic rifles are also equipped with single shot grenade launchers of the same caliber (but low velocity).

There are things that cannot be hurt physically in D&D world, and given enough high level spellcasters anything is possible. But for the most part; if it bleeds, it dies.

Open warfare is the field of modern army, but guerrilla tactics, scry'n'die, hit and run, are home of D&D. Modern army win the war, but cannot hold the territory, and they will be constantly wiped away.

BTW, the elder elemental, tnx to earth glide, is not an easy target.

Plus, D&D got an infinite source of elementals.

[Hirax]

Still haven't seen any effective counters for being incorporeal. If this were to turn into a game and I had to build a character for it, I'd just persist ghostform and exterminate all humans with impunity. People are a renewable resource, after all. In the process of exterminating everyone I'd command a few with necrotic tumor, of course. You can never have too many slaves.

For destroying all people, without harming the world too much, apocalypse from the sky with some good CL pumping, a maximize rod, energy sub (cold, to minimize damage to structures, they take 1/4 damage from it), and eschew materials (to dump the need for an artifact) would do do the trick. If you could get to CL 50 (easy since it's the only spell you'll be casting that day), that means all creatures in a 500 mile radius around you eat 60 cold damage. Any material with hardness 15 or better would be unaffected. You could then shapechange into a spell weaver, with its thousand mile telepathy, and exterminate any survivors manually. Yay mindsight!

A 500 mile radius circle would destroy about 785,398 square miles. Apocalypse has that nasty 1 day casting time though, so let's assume you spend one day casting, and one day cleaning up the area that was affected. Asia is approximately 17,139,445 square miles, so you'd need 22 castings and 22 days of cleanup, plus probably another casting or three in case it's shaped in such a way that you can't get by with the mathematical minimum. Let's call it 2 months. Given that the remaining continents are smaller, I think it's safe to assume you could annihilate the world in a year. And capture however many slaves you managed to capture with necrotic tumor on the side. And what the heck, let's open it up to people that want to surrender, too. If they're cool.

[candycorn]

Invading an alien realm powered by magic? Having to fend off undead and the forces of the abyss? Really?

To me, any scenario is hilarious (what is the motivation behind this war? How will alliances really hold up? Why will the non-magical humans not simply side with the terran forces to end once and for all the tyranny of magic, that has held back technological progress for eons? And so on).

I thought the idea was to pitch modern state of the art armies (or rather military technology) against D&D warfare which is pre-gunpowder technology and magic, and monsters.

I assume real physics apply for the most part, and the reference to rounds is mostly addressing the time for spellcasting.

Again, compared with real world war machines: most things in D&D (including spells) move too slow, and have too limited a range to matter much. Furthermore, the destructive power of munitions is not to be underestimated.

An elder earth elemental has a measly 228 HP. That's less than half the damage of a 40mm a-can round.

Infantry units typically carry a automatic grenade launcher. They launch 4 40mm grenades per second. Each of those have a kill radius of about 16' from impact, and a casuality radius of 427'. Automatic rifles are also equipped with single shot grenade launchers of the same caliber (but low velocity).

There are things that cannot be hurt physically in D&D world, and given enough high level spellcasters anything is possible. But for the most part; if it bleeds, it dies.

And you still overestimate the ability to find small groups moving to engage. A variety of illusion spells will minimize the ability to detect these groups. Once done, three to four individuals does not warrant 40mm shells or the like. Bear in mind, it is actually a violation of operating paramaters for virtually every modern military to use any weapon larger than a 50 caliber round on humans. While that wouldn't apply to creatures that weren't human, it would require identification.

The reason we still have infantry is because tanks and planes can't do it all. Yes, jets and tanks move very fast. But that doesn't prevent them from being stopped. Heck, a wall of force will crumple a tank, since it's invisible.

Once a small group makes it to a base, past the initial perimeter, they are only detected if seen. Generally, time to fully engage inside such a base is about 30 seconds, once detected. With clairvoyance and teleportation, it's easy enough to make it in an unoccupied area. From there, the group (known as a "Party") would have 30 seconds to raise hell and get out.

That's very doable.

Mass suggestion (we're not a threat, go grab a beer) could further delay that.

Earthquake can shred landing areas, ruining the ability to launch most aircraft.
Shatter can render tanks unable to operate.
Reverse Gravity can be even worse.
Summoning Yeth hounds will throw an entire base into confusion.
Terrain altering spells from below can destroy foundations upon which the base and vehicles depend.

In other words, the vehicles in the field are powerful, but the support network upon which they depend is relatively fragile. It can be disrupted. It can be stopped. And the ignorance of magic possessed by the terrans will result in a first base being quite surprised by this.

Because we don't deploy our top grade stuff against a bunch of savages with swords and bows. And we don't anticipate the kinds of things suggested above. It's beyond reasonable expectations for the troops, so we can safely say that initially, such troops will be taken by surprise. With the strike possible from surprise, the first base will go down quick.

Second base? They'll likely have more defense against teleportation and such, but it could still happen again... From here on out, it's just harder.

[Gwendol]

Agree re sea battles. That will be tougher mostly due to the fact that sensors are much more limited. Otoh, nuking underwater will do fairly extensive damage too.

[Hirax]

Still haven't seen any effective counters for being incorporeal. If this were to turn into a game and I had to build a character for it, I'd just persist ghostform and exterminate all humans with impunity. People are a renewable resource, after all. In the process of exterminating everyone I'd command a few with necrotic tumor, of course. You can never have too many slaves.

For destroying all people, without harming the world too much, apocalypse from the sky with some good CL pumping, a maximize rod, energy sub (cold, to minimize damage to structures, they take 1/4 damage from it), and eschew materials (to dump the need for an artifact) would do do the trick. If you could get to CL 50 (easy since it's the only spell you'll be casting that day), that means all creatures in a 500 mile radius around you eat 60 cold damage. Any material with hardness 15 or better would be unaffected, notably only wood an inch thick or less would be destroyed by a single casting. You could then shapechange into a spell weaver, with its thousand mile telepathy, and exterminate any survivors manually. Yay mindsight!

A 500 mile radius circle would destroy about 785,398 square miles. Apocalypse has that nasty 1 day casting time though, so let's assume you spend one day casting, and one day cleaning up the area that was affected. Asia is approximately 17,139,445 square miles, so you'd need 22 castings and 22 days of cleanup, plus probably another casting or three in case it's shaped in such a way that you can't get by with the mathematical minimum. Let's call it 2 months. Given that the remaining continents are smaller, I think it's safe to assume you could annihilate the world in a year. And capture however many slaves you managed to capture with necrotic tumor on the side. And what the heck, let's open it up to people that want to surrender, too. If they're cool.

[candycorn]

Still haven't seen any effective counters for being incorporeal. If this were to turn into a game and I had to build a character for it, I'd just persist ghostform and exterminate all humans with impunity. People are a renewable resource, after all. In the process of exterminating everyone I'd command a few with necrotic tumor, of course. You can never have too many slaves.

Any weapon based on energy has a 50% chance of hitting. When explosive weapons do THAT much damage, that means that 2 shots = about a 70% kill chance. You'll need more than just incorporeal to walk around with impunity.

[Hirax]

{{scrubbed}}

[Little Brother]

Hirax: Uncanny Forethought, once again, comes to the rescue of Apocalypse from the Sky. 24 hr->6 seconds.

The question, though, is how would you recommend dealing with all the wis damage/drain? Necropolitan/Lich?

[Gwendol]

And you still overestimate the ability to find small groups moving to engage. A variety of illusion spells will minimize the ability to detect these groups. Once done, three to four individuals does not warrant 40mm shells or the like. Bear in mind, it is actually a violation of operating paramaters for virtually every modern military to use any weapon larger than a 50 caliber round on humans. While that wouldn't apply to creatures that weren't human, it would require identification.

Imposing an arbitrary ROE in this hypothetical scenario does not carry any weight whatsoever. Units would use RFID or similar which the illusions will not be able to duplicate, thus will not be foolproof.

And Hirax is right, I don't think there is any counter to things that can only be harmed by magic for example. You could make life difficult for them through indirect means, maybe, if they are living.
Also, it is not clear how gamma rays, neutron irradiation, etc, interacts with DR and immunities. I'd say few things would be resisting that, but I'm sure there are different opinions.

I don't see how the limited range, destructive power, and slow speed of everything in D&D world isn't a liability.

[Hirax]

Hirax: Uncanny Forethought, once again, comes to the rescue of Apocalypse from the Sky. 24 hr->6 seconds.

The question, though, is how would you recommend dealing with all the wis damage/drain? Necropolitan/Lich?

Shapechange into something immune to them while casting. Pick a different one each time to keep things fresh. Variety is the spice of life!

[Killer Angel]

Modern day bofors guns comes with programmable munitions, meaning they will behave differently according to the target.

D&D world is too slow and too limited range to cope with this.

When I'm invisible, I scry on you, and you cannot literally harm me, to be slow only means that i'll win slowly (unless i'm not playing with time, also).

[Little Brother]

Shapechange into something immune to them while casting. Pick a different one each time to keep things fresh. Variety is the spice of life!

The level of win in this post makes me almost want to sig it. You win about fifty interwebz.

Also: If a city has a couple of casters, they can mix walls of force and Mirage Arcana for pretty good defenses. I mean, it's kinda hard to attack a city you can't see. I mean, it's far from the perfect defense, but look at the Windy Canyon in OotS. It's pretty useful, until they decide to carpet bomb the area(But you should be able to shut down air travel and artillery other ways).

[Gwendol]

Invisible is not undetectable. By any means.

Scrying takes an hour to cast... pray no shells fall nearby. While working at any range,

If the subject moves, the sensor follows at a speed of up to 150 feet.

if the subject moves, your scrying can't follow.

[Ingus]

Slightly OT

Spoiler

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I once planned it.

To make things funnier, let's do it with this or this "real" world (I did with both).
Then improve damage from guns (my solution was from 17-20 to 12-20 crit range; if crit, death with no save [which is, by the way, much more "realistic"]).

It is a pain (I can't tell where ) to set a common ground of rules, but it was very funny to craft.

At the end, Real World would have won

Spoiler

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...but Graecia capta coepit Romam

[Killer Angel]

Invisible is not undetectable. By any means.

Scrying takes an hour to cast... pray no shells fall nearby. While working at any range,
if the subject moves, your scrying can't follow.

I'm invisible, if you're not actively looking for me, it's damn hard to notice something. Once the chaos starts, you have to worry for something else.
Invisible is not totally undetectable, sure, but stack some other protection to pass unheard, and good luck.
But even if... i'm still totally invulnerable to anything you can throw at me.

Scrying is not only the spell scry but also scrying greater, prying eyes, and so on.

A prepared caster, can spread havoc between your troops every single day, and you simply cannot stop it.