PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?

[Liquor Box]

Like, think with portals type science? Or via a Gate spell? Because if we're assuming the Chinese government figured out magic, this fight gets a lot different: namely, it becomes "can a small army of wizards of varying level who have no cultural experience with high-tier combat defeat a Wizard 20 who is familiar with high-tier tactics due to having lived in a world with magic their entire life?", and the answer to that question is largely dependent on how much TO is acceptable and how much is going too far. The reason the original scenario is useful for discussion is because it's taking two vaguely-understood forces (the Chinese army, as it exists in our world, and a Wizard 20). Giving the Chinese army magic introduces a variable of "how would China react to the existence of magic, and what tactics/builds would they make use of upon discovering it?"

Alternatively, the scientific portal idea basically ends with an army of real-world people (so, level 6 at the highest, generally) assaulting the established fortress of a Wizard 20 (let's assume it's even on the wizard's private demiplane, and science accomplished what magic couldn't and got a portal there). What happens from here is largely dependent on what kind of technology the Chinese army can bring to bear without risk to their own troops (they could nuke the wizard's fortress, but they would probably prefer to nuke it when they don't have an army assaulting it), how those weapons translate into PF mechanics (what kind of damage does a nuke deal, what's the AoE, how might it affect/be affected by other mechanics, etc), and what defenses the Wizard has on his permanent stronghold. That could certainly be an interesting question, with the only really uncertain part being whether the mechanics ascribed to their weaponry are fair within the system. My general assumption would be that a Wizard's fortress would be able to endure quite a lengthy siege by an army of lvl 6 or lower characters, but if they have portal technology, maybe there's other stuff that it's reasonable for them to have?

I don't think I proposed that the Chinese army would be able to do magic at all.

I suggested that if planes actually existed like they do in the DnD world, it is not implausible that the Chinese would have a technological way to manipulate them. This may (or may not) have a similar mechanical effect to the way a wizard manipulates them, but it is by no means magic.

[Liquor Box]

And how, on earth, would you ever be able to state that with certainty? Proving negatives is impossible.

We don't require certainty in most discussions, an acceptable degree of accuracy is sufficient. If we did, we would be able to talk about very little - because most of what we talk about is not axiomatically certain.

Proving negative to an acceptable degree is not at all impossible. I can prove to myself to an acceptable degree that you are not in this room with me (a negative) because I cannot see you, and I am confident that I would be able to see you if you were here.

Do you believe that magic exists in the real world?

[awa]

The wizard can gain access to advance tech easily, our technology (and china's)for the most part can be used by anyone, magic on the other hand can only be used by incredibly exceptional individuals. Not to mention one dominate and now they work for you. Combined with superior information gathering ability, the odd of the wizard commanding modern technology far exceed our ability to invent new forms of science fast enough to be of any use before the army is wiped out or co-opted etc.

[ryu]

We don't require certainty in most discussions, an acceptable degree of accuracy is sufficient. If we did, we would be able to talk about very little - because most of what we talk about is not axiomatically certain.

Proving negative to an acceptable degree is not at all impossible. I can prove to myself to an acceptable degree that you are not in this room with me (a negative) because I cannot see you, and I am confident that I would be able to see you if you were here.

Do you believe that magic exists in the real world?

Define magic, and for that matter give conclusive proof about the dimensional limits of reality.

[AvatarVecna]

To the best of my knowledge, magic is not a real thing in the dimension that this conversation is taking place in. Whether this lack of proof of magic is due to this dimension being a dead magic zone, is due to D&D-esque deities ensuring no magical knowledge is available in this dimension, or is due to existing mages in this dimension keeping knowledge that magic is a real thing in our world locked away from the general public is a triple combo of religion, politics, and conspiracy theories, all of which I'm pretty sure are things the mods don't want us discussing.

The standard operating procedure for a thread like this (because of course it comes up with depressing regularity) is that our world has magic, but does not have knowledge of magic, so only the wizard can use it, and we have to use technology to resist the wizard (which inevitably fails because wizards are broken bull****). A more interesting question, but one that's significantly harder to answer with any degree of accuracy and confidence, is what would happen if our world has magic but no magical knowledge, and the introduction of the wizard to our world sends the various governments in search of how to weaponize this "magic". How the various governments/nations would go about learning enough magic to take down an angry Wizard 20 while avoiding getting destroyed by that wizard would make an interesting campaign concept, but I'm unsure of how successful such a thing would be IRL (since RL animals likely can't provide a ton of XP, due to CR being limited to like 11 or something with the Giant Squid, and that likely not being enough to get to 20th lvl yourself).

I guess my point is this: there's a lot of interesting directions the "wizard in our world" scenario could go in, but "our world has no magic so the wizard is just a commoner now" is kind of a boring one.

[Xar Zarath]

...They require someone who has already gained the information from something that isn't a non-existent...useless for discovering information the civilization itself doesn't have.

...our world has magic, but does not have knowledge of magic, so only the wizard can use it...world has magic but no magical knowledge...

This. Forgive me if I chopped it to bits but my previous point may not have been clear enough for everyone. Essentially for this scenario I consider that yes, our world has magic. That is how a Wizard 20 can operate in our world for the destroy army scenario.

While our world does have magic, the knowledge that can manipulate said magic into performing wondrous feats like what the Wizard does is non-existent. Because of that we don't know magic. We simply don't have the input or even some scrap of magic runes by which we could reverse engineer and discover a way to master magic.

Having said that, there are also reputedly magical texts and real life tomes which could prove useful in the fight against the Wizard but this expands the scenario even further. After all some of these tomes are in the care of other countries and such and may not feel helpful towards the Chinese army since the Wizard is only bent on destroying them and no one else.

[ryu]

This. Forgive me if I chopped it to bits but my previous point may not have been clear enough for everyone. Essentially for this scenario I consider that yes, our world has magic. That is how a Wizard 20 can operate in our world for the destroy army scenario.

While our world does have magic, the knowledge that can manipulate said magic into performing wondrous feats like what the Wizard does is non-existent. Because of that we don't know magic. We simply don't have the input or even some scrap of magic runes by which we could reverse engineer and discover a way to master magic.

Having said that, there are also reputedly magical texts and real life tomes which could prove useful in the fight against the Wizard but this expands the scenario even further. After all some of these tomes are in the care of other countries and such and may not feel helpful towards the Chinese army since the Wizard is only bent on destroying them and no one else.

There's also the possibility of the wizard finding them in divination and simply confiscating them as a first move. Legitimately workable magic texts are more dangerous in this scenario than fully anything else on the planet. Even that. Especially that.

[Liquor Box]

The wizard can gain access to advance tech easily, our technology (and china's)for the most part can be used by anyone, magic on the other hand can only be used by incredibly exceptional individuals. Not to mention one dominate and now they work for you. Combined with superior information gathering ability, the odd of the wizard commanding modern technology far exceed our ability to invent new forms of science fast enough to be of any use before the army is wiped out or co-opted etc.

Do you mean he can gain access to the technology itself - like building nuclear weapons? Or do you mean he can access requisite information about how it works?

I haven't suggested that China would ever use magic. Only that, if there were DnD concepts such as magic and planes in the universe China existed in, China may well have developed technological means (that are themselves not at all magic) to manipulate those concepts.

[Liquor Box]

Define magic, and for that matter give conclusive proof about the dimensional limits of reality.

Sure, I should have better defined magic - for the purposes of this discussion it is Arcane Magic that is relevant. Which is a good thing since talking about whether divine magic exists in the real world probably violates forum rules.

Do you think arcane magic, of the type used by wizards in 3.5 exists in the real world?

[Liquor Box]

To the best of my knowledge, magic is not a real thing in the dimension that this conversation is taking place in. Whether this lack of proof of magic is due to this dimension being a dead magic zone, is due to D&D-esque deities ensuring no magical knowledge is available in this dimension, or is due to existing mages in this dimension keeping knowledge that magic is a real thing in our world locked away from the general public is a triple combo of religion, politics, and conspiracy theories, all of which I'm pretty sure are things the mods don't want us discussing.

The standard operating procedure for a thread like this (because of course it comes up with depressing regularity) is that our world has magic, but does not have knowledge of magic, so only the wizard can use it, and we have to use technology to resist the wizard (which inevitably fails because wizards are broken bull****). A more interesting question, but one that's significantly harder to answer with any degree of accuracy and confidence, is what would happen if our world has magic but no magical knowledge, and the introduction of the wizard to our world sends the various governments in search of how to weaponize this "magic". How the various governments/nations would go about learning enough magic to take down an angry Wizard 20 while avoiding getting destroyed by that wizard would make an interesting campaign concept, but I'm unsure of how successful such a thing would be IRL (since RL animals likely can't provide a ton of XP, due to CR being limited to like 11 or something with the Giant Squid, and that likely not being enough to get to 20th lvl yourself).

I guess my point is this: there's a lot of interesting directions the "wizard in our world" scenario could go in, but "our world has no magic so the wizard is just a commoner now" is kind of a boring one.

I wasn't aware that there was a generally accepted scenario where this encounter took place, which meant that magic existed in this world but real world folk had no knowledge of it.

The scenario I was assuming was closer to the bolded part of your quote. Where the wizard and the Chinese army both existed in a universe where there was magic and knew about the magic (although, like real world Chinese, the Chinese army has not wizards). The Chinese would therefore have the opportunity to learn about and manipulate the forces in that universe that had been introduced by the DnD universe (and specifically multiple planes) in the same way that the wizard would have the opportunity to learn about the like of nuclear weapons, and use spells like dominate to potentially take advantage of those.

[ryu]

Sure, I should have better defined magic - for the purposes of this discussion it is Arcane Magic that is relevant. Which is a good thing since talking about whether divine magic exists in the real world probably violates forum rules.

Do you think arcane magic, of the type used by wizards in 3.5 exists in the real world?

That is extremely specific and only has any real likelihood of truth in a reality with an infinite or arbitrarily large number of dimensions we've yet to access, or if reality experiences an a cycle of reseting with randomized rules with no end visible within the system.

[Liquor Box]

This. Forgive me if I chopped it to bits but my previous point may not have been clear enough for everyone. Essentially for this scenario I consider that yes, our world has magic. That is how a Wizard 20 can operate in our world for the destroy army scenario.

While our world does have magic, the knowledge that can manipulate said magic into performing wondrous feats like what the Wizard does is non-existent. Because of that we don't know magic. We simply don't have the input or even some scrap of magic runes by which we could reverse engineer and discover a way to master magic.

Having said that, there are also reputedly magical texts and real life tomes which could prove useful in the fight against the Wizard but this expands the scenario even further. After all some of these tomes are in the care of other countries and such and may not feel helpful towards the Chinese army since the Wizard is only bent on destroying them and no one else.

Thanks for clarifying the sceanrio. As I said, I hadn't know there was a pre-understood scenario for this. yes, the wizard would have an advantage if we changed the environment to suit him

What happens where there is a conflict between real world physics and magic? For example, in the real world if human flesh is made hot enough (with oxygen etc) it burns, which conflicts with human flesh subject to some magical fire resistance or immunity. I presume in that instance the magic prevails?

[Liquor Box]

That is extremely specific and only has any real likelihood of truth in a reality with an infinite or arbitrarily large number of dimensions we've yet to access, or if reality experiences an a cycle of reseting with randomized rules with no end visible within the system.

Well, arcane magic is a specific as it needs to be to be of any utility to the wizard. If divine magic exists on our world, it wouldn't be of any use to the wizard.

If that magic did exist on another dimension (lets face it, probably not) it would not be much use to the wizard in this dimension.

[ryu]

Well, arcane magic is a specific as it needs to be to be of any utility to the wizard. If divine magic exists on our world, it wouldn't be of any use to the wizard.

If that magic did exist on another dimension (lets face it, probably not) it would not be much use to the wizard in this dimension.

Not specific within the categories of D&D. Specific within the realms of defined supernatural in general. Arcane D&D magic is a very, VERY, particular subset of weird we wouldn't know actually worked if it did exist here.

[Liquor Box]

Not specific within the categories of D&D. Specific within the realms of defined supernatural in general. Arcane D&D magic is a very, VERY, particular subset of weird we wouldn't know actually worked if it did exist here.

If it did work here, I would probably be a wizard.

[ryu]

If it did work here, I would probably be a wizard.

Do you have any idea how many people aspire to protagonist roles of ultimate power? I legitimately doubt you'd find a single person not interested in being a wizard if study based arcane magic was provably a thing.

[Barstro]

I legitimately doubt you'd find a single person not interested in being a wizard if study based arcane magic was provably a thing.

Hard enough finding someone wanting to graduate if studying math was provably a thing.

No, in a world where magic is real, the masses will still idolize and strive to be athletes.

[khadgar567]

Hard enough finding someone wanting to graduate if studying math was provably a thing.

No, in a world where magic is real, the masses will still idolize and strive to be athletes.

talk for yourself mate I probably go sphere caster to be honest much more understandable then current education system

[Extra Anchovies]

Hard enough finding someone wanting to graduate if studying math was provably a thing.

No, in a world where magic is real, the masses will still idolize and strive to be athletes.

#$@&ing barbarians, getting all the full-color cover art while we're relegated to black-and-white in the spells chapter...

[ryu]

Hard enough finding someone wanting to graduate if studying math was provably a thing.

No, in a world where magic is real, the masses will still idolize and strive to be athletes.

But, but high tier wizardry is simultaneously eternal life, infinite power, more resources than the richest people to exist on our planet, and if no one else is similarly powerful the freedom to do literally anything and everything you want with minimal real consequences... And of course the ability to spread all of this good fortune to anyone you care about. If I were to bare witness to that I'd double up on my wizardry and go the way of farnsworth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIWHMb3JxmE

[awa]

if wizardry is something that can just be learned not requiring any kind of rare talent then even at the lowest levels its world changing. just mending and prestidigitation would be incredibly useful for working with extremely delicate things.

[Gnaeus]

But, but high tier wizardry is simultaneously eternal life, infinite power, more resources than the richest people to exist on our planet, and if no one else is similarly powerful the freedom to do literally anything and everything you want with minimal real consequences... And of course the ability to spread all of this good fortune to anyone you care about. If I were to bare witness to that I'd double up on my wizardry

Ok, but how many wizards (not including sorcerers) manage that level of power? In Faerun or Forgotten Realms, where they have lots of advantages, like teachers and magic books and magocracies like Thay that push every remotely talented person in that direction? Then remove all the ones from prior generations who are prolonging their lives magically? Maybe a couple dozen a generation with all those advantages? You would statistically have a better chance of winning a Nobel prize or becoming a tech billionaire. And really, the difference in power between a wizard 20 and a tech giant with $12 billion to spend on magic stuff is pretty minimal. And yet, the % of the population which is actively trying to be Bill Gates or Elon Musk is pretty low.

[ryu]

Ok, but how many wizards (not including sorcerers) manage that level of power? In Faerun or Forgotten Realms, where they have lots of advantages, like teachers and magic books and magocracies like Thay that push every remotely talented person in that direction? Then remove all the ones from prior generations who are prolonging their lives magically? Maybe a couple dozen a generation with all those advantages? You would statistically have a better chance of winning a Nobel prize or becoming a tech billionaire. And really, the difference in power between a wizard 20 and a tech giant with $12 billion to spend on magic stuff is pretty minimal. And yet, the % of the population which is actively trying to be Bill Gates or Elon Musk is pretty low.

Except wizard 10 has access to most of the good tricks in one form or another anyway, all published settings unilaterally assume the general population is made of the kind of gibbering idiot where not even level zero spells have been fully commodified thus leaving the setting standard medieval without reason, Standard settings lacked near universally available knowledge of what lives where and reliable methods of finding the relatively dangerous stuff to hunt besides wandering into it, and of course doesn't even recognize the sheer skew towards magic classes due to the fact that magic is good for things that aren't stabbing.

[Segev]

The spirit of this question is fairly obviously that a wizard, with powers heretofore unknown on Earth, arrives on Earth as Earth is at the moment we're discussing the problem. This means that any situation which makes it so that Earth-science has discovered "magic" and found ways to exploit it prior to now is a violation of the spirit of the question. It also means any situation which makes the wizard lack his magical powers violates the spirit of the question.

If you want to answer the questions as to what's possible and who can do what, I propose the following:

The wizard arrives at the precise moment when the laws of our physical universe alter to permit him to use exactly the kind of magic he has, while retaining full functionality of our existing technology and understanding of the science behind it.

If people of Earth start learning magic, they'll find it works, and we can research ways to exploit it. If the wizard chooses to use any Earth-based technology, it continues to work just fine. Any conflicts are resolved by some process (call it "magic") which enables things to work as one might expect without having to invalidate capabilities of Earthlings or of the wizard.

But the level 20 wizard is the only level 20 wizard around for QUITE some time, as it takes a while to learn magic and get to level 20.

[Barstro]

But the level 20 wizard is the only level 20 wizard around for QUITE some time, as it takes a while to learn magic and get to level 20.

Since nothing has changed with the world other than learning from those who have come before us, cavemen had just as much access to nuclear power as the common man has access to magic.
There are level 20 wizards in DnD because they have been researching for centuries (and possibly had the gods helping them). I'd put "takes a while to learn" at a few generations unless someone can make a decent argument for how computers can help in the research.

Similarly, unless the Wizard is able to convince others to teach him about mundane weapons of war, I'd think he would fail to grasp nuclear weapons or even basic aircraft.

EDIT: and if we're bringing DnD training into it; where are the earthlings going to find enough fodder to kill in order to level? We don't have goblins. Our greatest chance at survival is that gold is so expensive that the Wizard will have trouble finding enough things to act as Materials for powerful spells.

[Gnaeus]

Since nothing has changed with the world other than learning from those who have come before us, cavemen had just as much access to nuclear power as the common man has access to magic.
There are level 20 wizards in DnD because they have been researching for centuries (and possibly had the gods helping them). I'd put "takes a while to learn" at a few generations unless someone can make a decent argument for how computers can help in the research.

Similarly, unless the Wizard is able to convince others to teach him about mundane weapons of war, I'd think he would fail to grasp nuclear weapons or even basic aircraft.

Yes, but:
1. Any remotely optimized wizard is a super-genius with magical items further enhancing his brain.
2. Convincing natives to teach him things is brutally simple in lots of easy ways.

[Barstro]

Yes, but:
1. Any remotely optimized wizard is a super-genius with magical items further enhancing his brain.
2. Convincing natives to teach him things is brutally simple in lots of easy ways.

I wasn't so concerned about the Wizard's ability to learn. It's more about the Wizard caring to learn. Until a nuke goes off, he has no reason to comprehend the existence or power. Without knowing that it exists, there is no reason to know anything about it.

The time taken to learn about nukes (assuming he cares) would be better spent flinging spells around. The only way I see the Wizard actually using any of our mundane things is because of opportunistic toadies wanting to latch onto anything of power. THOSE bottom feeders will gladly either explain to him, or else receive his blessing to just do it on their own.

None of the above applies to us learning magic, though. There is no reason for the Wizard to take time out to teach it to anybody and even less reason than that for him to want any of us to learn.

[AvatarVecna]

and if we're bringing DnD training into it; where are the earthlings going to find enough fodder to kill in order to level? We don't have goblins.

Animals. In a previous thread along these same lines, where the question devolved into "a Wizard 1 from D&D world appears on Earth", I proposed that the wizard would use magic in secret, but would mostly kill things with hunting rifles. Hunting licenses give them a good reason to get into fights with moderately difficult-to-defeat animals, and modern Earth has developed a lot of ways to kill things without magic. Once the wizard is high enough level to Polymorph, he can do away with the hunting licenses and start poaching bigger creatures that are more threatening (and tend to be rarer). Eventually he can graduate to hunting down Giant Squids, which will see him top out somewhere around lvl 18-19. Presumably, at least a small portion of IRL people could do the same, assuming that the general population figured out that killing things would give them XP (the nerds would probably make the connection first, for obvious reasons). At this point, the world could very well descend into anarchy as people seek out other people to kill as well (since other people can level up, they'd actually be more threatening than animals usually).

[Gnaeus]

I wasn't so concerned about the Wizard's ability to learn. It's more about the Wizard caring to learn. Until a nuke goes off, he has no reason to comprehend the existence or power. Without knowing that it exists, there is no reason to know anything about it.

The time taken to learn about nukes (assuming he cares) would be better spent flinging spells around. The only way I see the Wizard actually using any of our mundane things is because of opportunistic toadies wanting to latch onto anything of power. THOSE bottom feeders will gladly either explain to him, or else receive his blessing to just do it on their own.

None of the above applies to us learning magic, though. There is no reason for the Wizard to take time out to teach it to anybody and even less reason than that for him to want any of us to learn.

I would think that before any wizard 20 with a 26+ Int goes all barbarian and starts throwing spells at a million man army, he would want to know what kind of weapons they had, how they were organized, etc. He probably didn't get to be a wizard 20 without understanding at least the basics of opposition research. He doesn't know the Chinese army doesn't have a legion of Solars until he asks. Practically speaking, this may start with a commune or contact higher plane with a question like "do my enemies possess the ability to threaten my existence". Of course, the answer may be "no" and he may find out about nukes when his astral projection gets blasted. But either way, he will know about them long before they can harm him.

[Eldariel]

This is applicable in any scenario with a character of even just average intellect (indeed, the idea stands already in Sun Tzu's Art of War): The first thing you do when thrown into an unexpected or unknown situation is to assess everything you know, everything you don't know and how to learn what you need to know to make good decisions. Trace all the knowledge you can, divine what you're missing and if desired, dominate some locals into unveiling all their relevant knowledge. In any event, a Wizard has no reason to make their presence known until they're ready to act. That's half the fight in any normal D&D 3.5 fight too - you must always know your capabilities, and learn your opponents'. If you can do that without your opponent being able to do the same, you should be winning basically always (or realise that you have no chance of victory and thus avoid provoking your target in the first place). That is, if you start preparations against a target without the target being aware of you, you should win.

In this scenario it seems a foregone conclusion that the Wizard will not become a known quality to the Army until she is ready; the scenario is the Wizard being whisked into this world and wanting to destroy the Chinese army after all. Thus, the Wizard will have all the time in the world to find out everything about the Army, then infiltrate the chain of command, dominate some key people and have China nuke itself or whatever. Not that it matters so much; if the Wizard knows their enemy lacks interplanar travel, she'll have all the time in the world in any scenario. Though really, I have a hard time seeing why a Wizard would want to destroy any armies or whatever; I'd rather be a humanitarian, bring about a new age of prosperity in Earth, kickstart space colonization, provide eternal life and perhaps rewrite the brains of some annoying individuals (of course, the beauty of being a God is that you can indeed rebuild the world in your image; sucks to be the world if that isn't a pretty image, but I'd certainly go along with it).