Wizards vs fighters, bombers, and attack aircraft.

[Juton]

You'd open the portal on the enemy HQ after kidnapping a soldier to find it. Decimating the entire command structure should take an afternoon.

I was assuming that the gate was something that just came into existence at some random location. Sure, team fantasy could have opened it, but team super-science could have too (go Stargate!).

The Tarrasque's Regen can only be stopped by a Wish and it regens from total destruction, so it's going to be totally immortal on our world.

Considering the number of things with awesome Ex. powers, I'm still voting on the fantasy universe.

Hell, a mess of shadows are almost unkillable. You'd need flame throwers on hand to even have a chance and they'd be useless in any situation where the shadows were in melee.

You and I have different assumptions about how this would work. I assume that when a magical creature hits earth its magic stops working. I think that the Tarrarasque's size it would be over the terrestrial weight limit of about 120 tons IIRC, either its bones would be so large that it couldn't move (they'd be fixed in place) or without magic its bones wouldn't be strong enough to support itself. I don't know what happens if you bring a shadow into a realm with no magic, my guess is it just stops existing.

If you assume there is some type of way for magic to work in our realm, doesn't that mean that earth's religious myths could be true also? Je-zus loves our troops and all that.

How would you capture the Wizard? He can escape with Dimension Door or Rope Trick, so capturing him seems nearly impossible. He could Polymorph. He could go Invisible.

That's just assuming that he doesn't charm the first commander he sees or kills them with a fireball or something.

Sure, he won't have many of those tricks since he's limited by 9th level slots for Invoke Magic, but it doesn't seem that he'd need many. He would even metamagic them up since that doesn't change the level of the spell, only the slot used.

Dimension Door, that's only 1200 feet, if it's in a desert or something soldiers can see where he goes. Or the soldiers are organized in a search pattern and sees where he arrives. If he does rope trick then I'm sure the soldiers would bring scientists to that location to study what happened. Remember he can't prep new spells on earth, even if he can get spell slots back he can't cast Invoke Magic again. If he Polymorphs they can still shoot him. Maybe they can track him if he goes invisible with infrared, maybe they have dogs that can track. Charming an officer will just make him friendly, if he wouldn't risk his commision for an earthly friend he wouldn't for the Wizard. I might assume that a modern soldier in the age of RPGs either has or desperately covets an ability similar to evasion.

Or not. These are the types of things a MC would decide in a game. If you where writing the scenario you could make it an even match or lopsided for either party. Makes me wonder why I wrote so much.

[K]

You'd open the portal on the enemy HQ after kidnapping a soldier to find it. Decimating the entire command structure should take an afternoon.

I was assuming that the gate was something that just came into existence at some random location. Sure, team fantasy could have opened it, but team super-science could have too (go Stargate!).

The Tarrasque's Regen can only be stopped by a Wish and it regens from total destruction, so it's going to be totally immortal on our world.

Considering the number of things with awesome Ex. powers, I'm still voting on the fantasy universe.

Hell, a mess of shadows are almost unkillable. You'd need flame throwers on hand to even have a chance and they'd be useless in any situation where the shadows were in melee.

You and I have different assumptions about how this would work. I assume that when a magical creature hits earth its magic stops working. I think that the Tarrarasque's size it would be over the terrestrial weight limit of about 120 tons IIRC, either its bones would be so large that it couldn't move (they'd be fixed in place) or without magic its bones wouldn't be strong enough to support itself. I don't know what happens if you bring a shadow into a realm with no magic, my guess is it just stops existing.

If you assume there is some type of way for magic to work in our realm, doesn't that mean that earth's religious myths could be true also? Je-zus loves our troops and all that.

The assumption has to be the DnD rules or else we can't even have a conversation.

So if Earth is a plane with the Dead Magic trait, we don't have to even worry about whether monsters of giant size can exist (in DnD it's not magic, but just think dinosaurs if you need more explanation).

If you assume that the modern world has super tech or magic or some other set of non-DnD rules, this discussion goes completely off the rails.

How would you capture the Wizard? He can escape with Dimension Door or Rope Trick, so capturing him seems nearly impossible. He could Polymorph. He could go Invisible.

That's just assuming that he doesn't charm the first commander he sees or kills them with a fireball or something.

Sure, he won't have many of those tricks since he's limited by 9th level slots for Invoke Magic, but it doesn't seem that he'd need many. He would even metamagic them up since that doesn't change the level of the spell, only the slot used.

Dimension Door, that's only 1200 feet, if it's in a desert or something soldiers can see where he goes. Or the soldiers are organized in a search pattern and sees where he arrives. If he does rope trick then I'm sure the soldiers would bring scientists to that location to study what happened. Remember he can't prep new spells on earth, even if he can get spell slots back he can't cast Invoke Magic again. If he Polymorphs they can still shoot him. Maybe they can track him if he goes invisible with infrared, maybe they have dogs that can track. Charming an officer will just make him friendly, if he wouldn't risk his commision for an earthly friend he wouldn't for the Wizard. I might assume that a modern soldier in the age of RPGs either has or desperately covets an ability similar to evasion.

Or not. These are the types of things a MC would decide in a game. If you where writing the scenario you could make it an even match or lopsided for either party. Makes me wonder why I wrote so much.

The Wizard could still prep spells. He just needs something like Spell Mastery. For someone who learned Invoke Magic, it's not even a stretch to think that he'd prepare for a situation like this.

As for military counters, I don't think any of them will work. Remember, this is not a scenario that has to be balanced so we don't need to assume that soldiers are super smart or they respond in ways that normal solders won't in order to make a story.

The Wizards really can just school everyone before the moderns figure out how magic works or have effective counters.

[Juton]

The assumption has to be the DnD rules or else we can't even have a conversation.

If we do that then the scenario becomes heavily, if not completely tilted in the Wizard's favour because of how the game books are written. For instance a 20th level Wizard has enough hitpoints to tank a three round burst to the chest and not drop. And he can begin casting spells a second after taking those rounds and not even have to make a concentration check.

It becomes a parallel to all those Fighter vs Wizard threads. Team Fantasy can come to earth and not be bound by all the rules that the natives are. While Team Fantasy can also steal or duplicate every technological advantage the soldiers have. F-15E fighter pilots can't have nice things.

[K]

The assumption has to be the DnD rules or else we can't even have a conversation.

If we do that then the scenario becomes heavily, if not completely tilted in the Wizard's favour because of how the game books are written. For instance a 20th level Wizard has enough hitpoints to tank a three round burst to the chest and not drop. And he can begin casting spells a second after taking those rounds and not even have to make a concentration check.

It becomes a parallel to all those Fighter vs Wizard threads. Team Fantasy can come to earth and not be bound by all the rules that the natives are. While Team Fantasy can also steal or duplicate every technological advantage the soldiers have. F-15E fighter pilots can't have nice things.

Yup.

[hyzmarca]

How does the modern side know to do that?

Via a careful and thorough reading of the SRD.

[K]

How does the modern side know to do that?

Via a careful and thurough reading of the SRD.

Ha!

[Vebyast]

The Tarrasque's Regen can only be stopped by a Wish and it regens from total destruction, so it's going to be totally immortal on our world.

Repeatedly execute it with a cannon until you can build a rocket big enough to launch all its parts into space and leave them on a trajectory to Alpha Centauri.

---

Going in the opposite direction, why aren't we giving real-land people character levels, or the opportunity to gain them? I mean, none of them are going to start above level one or two, but "peasant whose farm was razed by orcs" is a reasonable, albeit boring, backstory for a character. And then a lot of games have characters levelling all the way to 20 and finishing the campaign over the course of months.

[sabs]

Can I be a cleric in this scenario? Cause I can win a lot faster. I just buy a slave from the slave markets, I cast Contagion on him, and send him through the gate/wormhole and then sit around giggling helplessly. Send in a few more along the way. Maybe I'll use orcs instead of humans, so I feel better about myself.

Cause, modern medicine is going to be fubared trying to deal with a magical disease.

[hyzmarca]

Can I be a cleric in this scenario? Cause I can win a lot faster. I just buy a slave from the slave markets, I cast Contagion on him, and send him through the gate/wormhole and then sit around giggling helplessly. Send in a few more along the way. Maybe I'll use orcs instead of humans, so I feel better about myself.

Cause, modern medicine is going to be fubared trying to deal with a magical disease.

Not really. All of those diseases have fort saves, so modern medical techniques should be useful against them. And only two are deadly. The rest, though quickly debilitating, will eventually be recovered from.

Most of them have crappy infection vectors, as well. Slimy Doom requires that you touch a victim's slime. Not many people are going to do that. Filth Fever can only be contracted through an open wound, which makes it about as easy to contract as HIV, only with a substantially faster incubation period. Its basic reproduction number is going to be negative.

Mind Fire and Cackle Fever can potentially be spread via sneezing, but they are not lethal and their incubation period is way too fast. Basic quarantine measures should be effective.

Blinding sickness is ingestion vector, meaning that it's completely defeated by basic sanitation.

And at any rate, all can be cured by use of the healing skill.

So lets be hard on our doctors and say that they're all level 1 with 4 ranks of the heal skill (since it's a class skill) and 13 Wisdom (average array) and that modern equipment doesn't help at all.

This give him a +5. He beats slimy doom on a 9 and filth fever on a 7. He has to do this twice in a row. So we're looking at 30% and 40% cure rates. But the infected character also gets a Fort save, and the better of the two is used, which bumps the cure rate up to 47% and 57%.

Of course, it's perfectly reasonable to give both patient and doctor a +2 bonus for having access to modern medical resources. That gives us a 62% and 77% chance of curing them, respectively.

[sabs]

Huh, Really Clerics need better Plague creation spells. That's just depressing. I forgot the fort save issue. Hell, with a fort save, modern medicine even probably helps. Broad spectrum antibiotics or anti virals. Back to the drawing board.

[Prak]

Oh, hell, clerics are great at creating plagues, you just need to handle it differently.

Send in spawn creating undead. To a high population density third world country.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Oh, hell, clerics are great at creating plagues, you just need to handle it differently.

Send in spawn creating undead. To a high population density third world country.

Create Spawn is always [Su], I believe.

[Prak]

Well fuck then. This is why I dislike the idea of treating ModernLand as a dead magic zone.

[Whipstitch]

One thing that's pretty interesting is that Earth Glide and most acid effects are Ex rather than Su, so earth elementals, xorn and delvers could be pretty obnoxious if you could convince them to lend a hand.

[Wrathzog]

Well fuck then. This is why I dislike the idea of treating ModernLand as a dead magic zone.

Sure, but it's also the only thing keeping Mundania from losing Yesterday.

[hyzmarca]

The thing about spawn-creating undead is that they're intelligent. They're generally not going to go out and create huge numbers of spawn because there is a limited food supply and that screws them over.

Worse, the spawn often retain their memories of life. The vast majority are going to have the same loyalties in undeath that they had in life.

On top of that, many intelligent undead are better off cooperating with modern auithorities than they are fighting them.

Vampires can have their blood delivered by the Red Cross and if they play up the angst brooding Twilight crap will have more young women than they can possibly drink just towing themselves at them.

Ghouls, likewise, can get a steady supply of edible cadavers at no risk from various legitimate sources. Those people who checked the organ donor back on their drivers' licenses, not all of their parts are medically useful. Smart ghouls, of which there are many, will play nice in order to get free lunch.

Mohrgs are problematic, but their growth is not exponential. Their spawn are normal zombie, so you just have to blow up the leader.

Wights are the most dangerous, since there is little that the modern world can offer them. However, his victims will retain their intelligence and memories. Kill the lead wight, and his creations become Emancipated Spawn with similar personalities to what they had in life. And since Wights don't have to eat, you don't have to worry about feeding them.

Failed Zompocolypse attempts are how you get mixed cities of intelligent undead and living people cooperating side by side.


Anyway, lets go with The City Beyond the Gate, then. A lot of magic just doesn't work, particularly the spells that require access to other planes, but some does.

[Wrathzog]

That reminds me, are we working with the assumption that Psionics are also nullified/dampened in Mundania?

[K]

If you are going to use a plague, you use Ghoul Fever. It creates ghouls.

Zombie apocalypse anyone?

[Endovior]

If you are going to use a plague, you use Ghoul Fever. It creates ghouls.

Zombie apocalypse anyone?

Nope, Ghoul Fever is [Su].

[K]

If you are going to use a plague, you use Ghoul Fever. It creates ghouls.

Zombie apocalypse anyone?

Nope, Ghoul Fever is [Su].

Doh!

[Prak]

As is energy drain, so no vampire hordes either. Curse of lycanthropy is too, so no were-pocalypse, even.

[DSMatticus]

I don't think discussing epic magic has any value. And I don't think anything without magic "but really big and immortal" stands a chance against being shot to hell with tanks, getting up, getting shot again, repeat a few more times until they incinerate it and bury it in a concrete tomb it never escapes from. No, sieging the modern world without magic is impossible.

But seriously, you show up on the magic side of the portal and a 13th level wizard fucking destroys your fighter jet, end of story. And anything else you bring through. Clever wizards do it at level 9. All wizards are clever, because they have spells that tell them the fucking future if they ask nicely.

Worse, the spawn often retain their memories of life. The vast majority are going to have the same loyalties in undeath that they had in life.

No, they automatically become evil. It's D&D. Are there any compulsion effects which would linger? I suspect psionics has some instant mental changes effects which would persist through an AMF, and so you can make someone who wants to overrun the world. And traditional methods of bribery and coercion still work. "Go forth, turn that world into a dead place using spawn, come back and I'll give you a kingdom or seven. We'll bury the portal in lava and never have to worry about the ravenous hordes of undead you've made coming back."

[Kaelik]

Mindrape.

All you have to do is find a way to get them over to the magic side of the portal, Mindrape them, and then all leaders are instantly your bitch forever.

So can a level 20 Wizard abduct Obama without anyone knowing and then return him?

Keep in mind, they could totally work their way up by Mindraping people who help them kidnap cops who help them kidnap secret service who protect someone relatively unimportant who help them get others who help them get Obama.

[Prak]

You could also have the wizard just straight drop a gate into the Oval Office, pull Obama through, magic him, and send him back.
Or drop arbitrarily large gates into "Coming Soon: Plague Town" and bring random schmucks over them, turn them into spawn, and so on.

[Grek]

Gate spells cannot be opened into a Dead Magic plane.