Forgotten realms invades Earth RAR

[mr friendly guy]

Map of Faerun and Maztica shown below

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/P ... aer%C3%BBn

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Maztica

Inspired by the Sauron invades Earth and Orc threads, lets try something a bit more powerful. After all Gandalf is only a fifth level magic user. (Don't kill me Tolkien fans, it was only a joke).

Due to an act of an enigmatic omnipotent crossover obsessed being known as the Dungeon Master, portals appear on Earth connecting every country (in existence as of Jan 1 2014) with some part of Faerun circa 3rd edition and 3.5 edition of D & D. Every Earth country gets only one portal which appear in the geographical "centre" of that country touching the ground. These portals for our purposes are indestructible by any technology we currently have and any magical or divine powers from the realms. Each portal is on the ground and is a cube shape measuring 1 km by 1 km by 1 km. However you can only enter the portal via one way. These portals will connect to a portal in a region of Faerun in the following way.

1. The US and Canada will have their portals appear in the Sword Coast near Waterdeep.

2. South America (and Mexico) gets their portals appearing in Maztica. Maztica always struck me as South American like.
Just to make it even more interesting, at this time the followers of Helm again send an expedition force to Maztica.

3. European nations including Russia find a portal leading to Silver Marches and the Western Heartlands

4. China's portal ends up where Rasheman, the Hordelands and Thay meet. (The Horde struck me as ancient mongol pastiches)

5. African portals all end up in Unther and Mulhorand (since that has similarity to ancient egypt).

6. South and Central Asia (eg India, Pakistan, the Stans) have their portals in the Shaar

7. Australia and the Pacific Islanders have their portals connecting to the hidden Elven island of Evermeet

8. Other countries not mentioned have their portals connecting to Calimshan.

Other assumptions

1. As with all vs threads, all powers work the same - so technology works in the FR, while magic also works on Earth

2. There are no dead magic or wild magic areas on Earth

3. Faerun is resource rich, so there will be oil, rare earths and other minerals etc.

4. The FR gods can grant spells, but cannot send their avatars down, due to a decree by AO.

5. The Shadow mages of Shade are just making their reappearance.

6. People on earth are aware of the Forgotten realms and the history of the realms so far appears to match the source material. Just to make this fair, the library of Candledeep gets 10 magic books of infinite pages which tells them about us. The book will automatically translate its words into any language of the realms, and tells them about human history, wars, and about our technological capabilities, but not how our machines and science works.

7. Here is the plot device - for some reason everyone on Faerun perceives us, our artwork and media as looking like Orcs. Very ugly Orcs. The Gods believe we are about to have a second Orcgate war. So even if they see a picture of the Mona Lisa, to them she looks like a thrice accursed Orc. For the moment, this illusion cannot be undone by any divine power. Even the Gods perceive us as Orcs. To make things a bit more interesting, the Dungeon Master resurrects the dead Deity Leira Goddess of Illusion and has her cast this illusion in return for staying alive. She regains her portfolio from Cyric.

This illusion spell isn't absolute of course. Any children between Faerun's inhabitants and us will look like how we expect a child from both parents should look, ie human, and regular Faerunians will perceive it as such.

So how does the appearance of humans from planet Earth disrupt the balance of power in Faerun? Are their magic sufficient to beat our technology?

[Jub]

There are a few obvious things to think about in this sort of scenario.

1. How many high level individuals (spell casters and certain types of monsters especially) directly involve themselves with this? Kind of a subsection to this, how tough are these individuals against things like modern assault rifles?

2. How quickly and easily would people on Earth be able to understand, use, and start level up magical abilities?

These are really the main things that matter to this scenario, we know that the average foot soldier from the Realms is going to be cannon fodder, so it's up to the high end of things to cause problems for us. Even so, it's doubtful that too much happens mainly because some simple scrying and telepathy will quickly show that we aren't the menace that they think we are.

---

As for what various companies and governments here might try that's also pretty easy. We'll likely start exploring, opening up trade, and trying to make alliances. If things don't go too badly initially (when the other guys still think we're savages) we'll likely look for nations that our allies in the realms don't like and make a push for their natural resources. Think of what the forces of even a middle power today could do to the armies of a realms nation.

If things go badly, war is pretty likely and that boils down to the questions I asked early in the post.

[mr friendly guy]

Monsters outside the prime material plane aren't involved unless summoned.

Monsters in the realms which lurk in certain areas, eg monsters around Myth Drannor aren't involve unless we directly encroach on their areas. I will include Larloch in this scenario.

High level NPCS would naturally be concerned. For example Elminster, the Simbul, Manshoon etc. As for how tough they are, we apply the same rules as with all vs debates. For example if they can survive x blows with swords, then a full burst from modern assault rifles should fix them.

As for the scrying tells them about us, well wouldn't they have to enter our world first? I am a bit out of date on D & D, but I am pretty sure a mage scrying from the Realms won't see into the World of Krynn. So by that same token, their mages have to enter our world first. By which time chances are our military forces would have secured the portals and prevent mages getting in and having the luxury to cast spells.

Just to make conflict more likely. I will have the Gods of Faerun warn their followers that these "orcs" ie us are dangerous and want to invade. This occurs due to plot device.

[Jub]

Monsters outside the prime material plane aren't involved unless summoned.

Monsters in the realms which lurk in certain areas, eg monsters around Myth Drannor aren't involve unless we directly encroach on their areas. I will include Larloch in this scenario.

High level NPCS would naturally be concerned. For example Elminster, the Simbul, Manshoon etc. As for how tough they are, we apply the same rules as with all vs debates. For example if they can survive x blows with swords, then a full burst from modern assault rifles should fix them.

As for the scrying tells them about us, well wouldn't they have to enter our world first? I am a bit out of date on D & D, but I am pretty sure a mage scrying from the Realms won't see into the World of Krynn. So by that same token, their mages have to enter our world first. By which time chances are our military forces would have secured the portals and prevent mages getting in and having the luxury to cast spells.

Just to make conflict more likely. I will have the Gods of Faerun warn their followers that these "orcs" ie us are dangerous and want to invade. This occurs due to plot device.

First off, once they know we're here spell casters won't need the portals to reach us, and even if they did need them how would we keep an invisible (I'm going to assume that it works on all spectrums) mage with a contingent teleport spell from getting past us? Even if we do spot them they can teleport outside of any reasonable perimeter we could secure. This is assuming that they can't just plane shift over here as desired. Not that they would need to as a caster in 3.x (because frankly screw 4e and Next and their caster nerfs) can scry across planes, the target just gets an easier will save. We can assume that the books they get will at least give the Realms the names of our leaders, but they'll likely have pictures as well and thus are free to start scrying right away.

Once they get the sort of info that can be gained that way they can do fun stuff like cast greater invisibility and silence on themselves, teleport/plane shift to the subject of their scrying, and start the mind reading (or mental domination if they're less moral). They'd know from the book that they won't have to deal with counter spells and anti scrying measures, so baring some even easier method of figuring out what we're up to I think it's a safe bet that at least somebody tries this method of scouting.

Assuming they go into this depth of scouting, and they likely would, they'd quickly figure out that we aren't evil and are confused as hell about these portals. At that point trade can begin.

In a war, Earth is screwed if high level casters are involved unless we can get some form of magical defenses up. It's just too easy for scry and die tactics to take out nearly any number of policy makers and military leaders. Not to mention that there are spells that can change the weather, create massive storms, and fuck over crops and we can't do anything to stop this stuff. So while our tech allows us to curb stomp the little guys, we lose to the epic fantasy powers that we simple have no counters to.

[Jub]

Also, why don't any of the portals connect to places in the Underdark, or do the Drow, Mindflayers, etc. not get to have fun too? For that matter what do the dragons, aboleths and other intelligent monsters think of these events? Not to mention the various epic level interdimensional travelers, and non-monstrous citizens of the other planes with concerns about the fate of the realms.

Or do the realms get cut off from everything but their gods before this event happens? Not that the solves the issue of epic level dragons taking interest in a new world to plunder...

[mr friendly guy]

Monsters outside the prime material plane aren't involved unless summoned.

Monsters in the realms which lurk in certain areas, eg monsters around Myth Drannor aren't involve unless we directly encroach on their areas. I will include Larloch in this scenario.

High level NPCS would naturally be concerned. For example Elminster, the Simbul, Manshoon etc. As for how tough they are, we apply the same rules as with all vs debates. For example if they can survive x blows with swords, then a full burst from modern assault rifles should fix them.

As for the scrying tells them about us, well wouldn't they have to enter our world first? I am a bit out of date on D & D, but I am pretty sure a mage scrying from the Realms won't see into the World of Krynn. So by that same token, their mages have to enter our world first. By which time chances are our military forces would have secured the portals and prevent mages getting in and having the luxury to cast spells.

Just to make conflict more likely. I will have the Gods of Faerun warn their followers that these "orcs" ie us are dangerous and want to invade. This occurs due to plot device.

First off, once they know we're here spell casters won't need the portals to reach us, and even if they did need them how would we keep an invisible (I'm going to assume that it works on all spectrums) mage with a contingent teleport spell from getting past us? Even if we do spot them they can teleport outside of any reasonable perimeter we could secure. This is assuming that they can't just plane shift over here as desired. Not that they would need to as a caster in 3.x (because frankly screw 4e and Next and their caster nerfs) can scry across planes, the target just gets an easier will save. We can assume that the books they get will at least give the Realms the names of our leaders, but they'll likely have pictures as well and thus are free to start scrying right away.

Once they get the sort of info that can be gained that way they can do fun stuff like cast greater invisibility and silence on themselves, teleport/plane shift to the subject of their scrying, and start the mind reading (or mental domination if they're less moral). They'd know from the book that they won't have to deal with counter spells and anti scrying measures, so baring some even easier method of figuring out what we're up to I think it's a safe bet that at least somebody tries this method of scouting.

Assuming they go into this depth of scouting, and they likely would, they'd quickly figure out that we aren't evil and are confused as hell about these portals. At that point trade can begin.

In a war, Earth is screwed if high level casters are involved unless we can get some form of magical defenses up. It's just too easy for scry and die tactics to take out nearly any number of policy makers and military leaders. Not to mention that there are spells that can change the weather, create massive storms, and fuck over crops and we can't do anything to stop this stuff. So while our tech allows us to curb stomp the little guys, we lose to the epic fantasy powers that we simple have no counters to.

1. Invisibility doesn't act like Star Trek's phase cloak. So the time honoured way of throwing stuff over the target still works. Since we know this from RPG products we can try radar. Radar can detect something as small as a bird, so a human size figure should be noticed.

2. I thought to teleport one has to first physically been to that place. So a mage entering our world has to first sneak past the portals go inside the White House before teleporting to it.

3. Scrying across planes is a bit different then scrying across a planet on the same plane.

4. I hadn't thought about any spells which might allow them to find our leaders based on our appearance. However since they perceive our leaders as Orks and they clearly don't look like that, I am going to say the spell fails.

5. Can you elaborate more on the high level casters. In my experience when we argue D & D or comics we get a "no numbers" approach to debating. Moreover chances are they as vulnerable to us as we are to them, so if we survive the initial onslaught, lets see how well they do against our attack.

6. Humans from Earth can learn magic the same speed humans in Faerun can under the same conditions. The problem is the language barrier, however if we can transfer their knowledge into our educational institutions, we should be able to train more mages and faster at that point. In summary, we start off slow until we get a "critical mass" then we start swamping them with magic users. This might take some years though, and the war may have very well been won at that point.

[mr friendly guy]

Also, why don't any of the portals connect to places in the Underdark, or do the Drow, Mindflayers, etc. not get to have fun too? For that matter what do the dragons, aboleths and other intelligent monsters think of these events? Not to mention the various epic level interdimensional travelers, and non-monstrous citizens of the other planes with concerns about the fate of the realms.

Or do the realms get cut off from everything but their gods before this event happens? Not that the solves the issue of epic level dragons taking interest in a new world to plunder...

The DM doesn't want to play with Drow. Although Drow coming to the surface world can naturally find out about these events.

As for what intelligent monsters think of these events - speculate. What would Dragons think about rumours of an "Orc" invasion. Would they even care?

[Jub]

1. Invisibility doesn't act like Star Trek's phase cloak. So the time honoured way of throwing stuff over time still works. Since we know this from RPG products we can try radar. Radar can detect something as small as a bird, so a human size figure should be noticed.

Going etheral does though, plus even if you are detect so? If you're super high level you can use contingency spells to teleport you, or stop time, or just fly through the portal polymorphed into a fly. Even low level mages could use tricks to confuse the radar, such as summoned decoys, mirror images, meld with stone and the like.

2. I thought to teleport one has to first physically been to that place. So a mage entering our world has to first sneak past the portals go inside the White House before teleporting to it.

To teleport you only need to have seen the destination and scrying can do this, so can a picture from one of the books you gave them.

3. Scrying across planes is a bit different then scrying across a planet on the same plane.

That actually makes it easier, scrying as per the srd, has unlimited distance on the same plane. So the president or a member of his security detail, don't even get the slight bump to will saves against scrying.

4. I hadn't thought about any spells which might allow them to find our leaders based on our appearance. However since they perceive our leaders as Orks and they clearly don't look like that, I am going to say the spell fails.

That's not a hard work around, they can already teleport to various government buildings if they get as much info on us as we do on them. You only need a picture to teleport after all.

5. Can you elaborate more on the high level casters. In my experience when we argue D & D or comics we get a "no numbers" approach to debating. Moreover chances are they as vulnerable to us as we are to them, so if we survive the initial onslaught, lets see how well they do against our attack.

High level spellcasters, of which we have a few examples as NPCs, can do universally broken things. Magic users in general are bastards to deal with for a few reasons.

1. Scrying/Divination in General; they can see us from the safety of their own home or tower.
2. Teleportation; what isn't to like about instant travel.
3. Understanding Languages; that's a 3rd level spell and they can now speak and understand any language they come across.
4. Mind Control; everything from making the target see you as a trusted friend, to putting people to sleep, to out right rewritting somebody's thoughts.
5. Illusions; they can make scenes that our best technology couldn't tell was fake.
6. Wish/Miracle; need I say more on this one?
7. Weather Control; that's not even super high level either.
8. Skill Boosting Spells; there is magic that could make one proficient with any weapon they come across, and I think there are spells that also do the same for other skills. So they can use and understand our tech via magic and we can't do the same with spells.
9. Instant Death Spells; was the PotUS assassinated or was that heart attack natural?
10. Transformation Magic; they can change into literally anything in six seconds or less.
11. Necromancy; who doesn't like the idea of them killing an important world leader and bringing them back as an intelligent undead that can't help but spill his deepest darkest secrets to the one who created him.

This isn't even mentioning the damage dealing spells, or the fact that every six seconds a high enough level combat mage could disintegrate a tank.

Plus numbers wise there are bound to be a few thousand spell casters of various stripes

6. Humans from Earth can learn magic the same speed humans in Faerun can under the same conditions. The problem is the language barrier, however if we can transfer their knowledge into our educational institutions, we should be able to train more mages and faster at that point. In summary, we start off slow until we get a "critical mass" then we start swamping them with magic users. This might take some years though, and the war may have very well been won at that point.

You might mean lost, given the shit that spell casters can do.

As for what intelligent monsters think of these events - speculate. What would Dragons think about rumours of an "Orc" invasion. Would they even care?

Likely that this is a new world ripe for them to enslave and conquer. They might even manage it too given how many of them can cast spells and how long term they think.

[mr friendly guy]

1. Invisibility doesn't act like Star Trek's phase cloak. So the time honoured way of throwing stuff over time still works. Since we know this from RPG products we can try radar. Radar can detect something as small as a bird, so a human size figure should be noticed.

Going etheral does though, plus even if you are detect so? If you're super high level you can use contingency spells to teleport you, or stop time, or just fly through the portal polymorphed into a fly. Even low level mages could use tricks to confuse the radar, such as summoned decoys, mirror images, meld with stone and the like.

How long can they stay etheral though. What's to stop us guarding the other end as well? What's to stop us blowing up the area around the portal when the decoys come through?

To teleport you only need to have seen the destination and scrying can do this, so can a picture from one of the books you gave them.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Teleport

Can you actually quantify things? Because according to this the distance is 100 miles per caster level. The distance from the one end of the US to the other is 3000 miles, so at least a level 15 Caster to reach all other points of the US. And certainly a high level mage there isn't going to go from the US to say China anytime soon.

Also you need familiarity. How familiar are they going to be from pictures in a book? Maybe if they are lucky end up in the vicinity of the white house. Right inside near where the President is, unlikely.

Also since we know what they can do, we can hide our leaders.

That actually makes it easier, scrying as per the srd, has unlimited distance on the same plane. So the president or a member of his security detail, don't even get the slight bump to will saves against scrying.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Scrying

Bloody no limits on the distance.

Problem is you are scrying for an Orc named Barrack Obama. Unfortunately he doesn't exist. There is a human named Obama, but since you kind of think he is an orc you are looking for the wrong person.

That's not a hard work around, they can already teleport to various government buildings if they get as much info on us as we do on them. You only need a picture to teleport after all.

1. Hide the leaders
2. Who is to say that his spell doesn't get confuse with the real white house and say theme replicas and fails because the distance is too great or ends up at the replica.

High level spellcasters, of which we have a few examples as NPCs, can do universally broken things. Magic users in general are bastards to deal with for a few reasons.

1. Scrying/Divination in General; they can see us from the safety of their own home or tower.

Useful in a conflict between military equals. I am not convinced it would make much difference if the other side is much stronger. Szass Tam had scrying yet he decided not to confront the Mongol Tuigan hordes.

You focus on the strengths but not the limitations. One hour to cast and lasting only one minute / caster level. Unless it just happens to catch that person at the right time, you might not learn much more than basic things like troop movements, which frankly aren't going to be hidden anyway.

Moreover the problem is that we are perceived as orcs, so they will be scrying for beings who don't exist.

2. Teleportation; what isn't to like about instant travel.

Limitations noted again. Moreover if the NPC puts themselves in harms way, unless they have a contingent spell to escape, what is to stop us killing them or at least hurting them so bad they won't be a force for the foreseeable future.

3. Understanding Languages; that's a 3rd level spell and they can now speak and understand any language they come across.

Not so useful in military conflict here.

4. Mind Control; everything from making the target see you as a trusted friend, to putting people to sleep, to out right rewritting somebody's thoughts.

Can you provide a link to the spell? Because we did not quantify its effects.

5. Illusions; they can make scenes that our best technology couldn't tell was fake.

Evidence for this claim.

6. Wish/Miracle; need I say more on this one?

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wish
Yes maybe you should. Impressive for resurrecting your favourite friend, but ain't going to help much when most of your guys have been killed and the spell costs a lot of cast.

7. Weather Control; that's not even super high level either.

Quantify please. Over what area can it do this?

8. Skill Boosting Spells; there is magic that could make one proficient with any weapon they come across, and I think there are spells that also do the same for other skills. So they can use and understand our tech via magic and we can't do the same with spells.

Link please? Moreover understanding how to use a gun (ie press the button) isn't the same as building one.

9. Instant Death Spells; was the PotUS assassinated or was that heart attack natural?

Can you actually quantify the spells?

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Power_Word_Kill

Even an epic character casting power word kill has a limited range of less than 100 feet. Contrast to modern weapons and against much more numerous foes?

Also consider what would happen in RL if the POTUS was killed. Americans just replace him with someone else. Did it for Lincoln, did it for Kennedy. Its hardly "broken".

10. Transformation Magic; they can change into literally anything in six seconds or less.

They can still be killed right?

11. Necromancy; who doesn't like the idea of them killing an important world leader and bringing them back as an intelligent undead that can't help but spill his deepest darkest secrets to the one who created him.

The world's political system has moved on from the Feudal system of the realms. Its not like any world leader is going to be able to give them the knowledge to build our weapons.

This isn't even mentioning the damage dealing spells, or the fact that every six seconds a high enough level combat mage could disintegrate a tank.

Evidence?

Plus numbers wise there are bound to be a few thousand spell casters of various stripes

Most of them which could be gun down. After all they can be killed by swords, bows and arrows right?

Likely that this is a new world ripe for them to enslave and conquer. They might even manage it too given how many of them can cast spells and how long term they think.

They haven't even conquered Toril Abeir and they are thinking about another one? Are these guys even trying to conquer Toril Abeir?

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Disintegrate

Even a level 40 mage can only disintegrate at a range of 500 feet. Tanks have been known to kill other tanks in the range of kilometres. 500 feet is barely 150 metres. Even if disintegrate can render a tank inoperative, mages would be destroyed before they can get into range. In the event one gets lucky and teleports or goes etheral they will be gun down the moment they arrived or become corporal again.

[Darmalus]

Powerful magic users are in short supply and have a limited number of spells per day. A few hundred super assassins don't win wars, they may even make things worse by convincing the other side they MUST destroy every living thing on the other side to make them stop.

[Ralin]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Teleport

Can you actually quantify things? Because according to this the distance is 100 miles per caster level. The distance from the one end of the US to the other is 3000 miles, so at least a level 15 Caster to reach all other points of the US. And certainly a high level mage there isn't going to go from the US to say China anytime soon.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportGreater.htm

Two levels higher. Unlimited range. In some settings you might argue that not many people exist who can cast it, but Faerun sure as hell isn't one of them.

Note that that's also the level where wizards can start casting Plane Shift, which presumably works as normal. Assuming Faerun is actually on another plane, which you didn't specify and I think some D&D sources say (granted in a mostly joking way) is not.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Disintegrate

Even a level 40 mage can only disintegrate at a range of 500 feet. Tanks have been known to kill other tanks in the range of kilometres. 500 feet is barely 150 metres. Even if disintegrate can render a tank inoperative, mages would be destroyed before they can get into range. In the event one gets lucky and teleports or goes etheral they will be gun down the moment they arrived or become corporal again.

If they can cast Disintegrate they can probably cast Greater Invisibility too. I'm pretty sure there was also a spell in Faerun called Ironguard that makes metal pass right through the target, though I can't remember if it was coverted to 3.5. They'd also have access to things like Protection from Arrows and Stoneskin which might be enough to deal with small arms fire depending on how much damage you think modern military sidearms translate into in d20 terms (I think things like d20 Modern put them in the 1d12 range? I'd have to look it up).

I also figure that a high level wizard or sorcerer would have the sense to do things like attack tanks and planes while they’re on the ground/being maintained instead of charging into a battle group on the move and hurling off Disintegrates left and right while screaming “COME TRY ME IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH!”

[Jub]

How long can they stay etheral though. What's to stop us guarding the other end as well? What's to stop us blowing up the area around the portal when the decoys come through?

That depends on the spell used, the base version is only rounds per level, but that's enough to easily get past the forces guarding the portal with either a simple teleport or you could take to the sky. Of course it might be easier to come through as a fly or something that won't be detected.

If their wasting resources blowing up decoys you win. Summoned creatures don't cost anything, nor do mirror images or illusions all of which can get the enemy to waste his ammo and get desensitized to things passing through the portal.

Plus, you assume that radar will detect an invisble person easily with radar. I'm not sure that we have radar sets that will work well enough to detect a person among ground clutter. Even if the area is defoliated and made flat, you could spoof the radar with decoys and then walk on past.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Teleport

Can you actually quantify things? Because according to this the distance is 100 miles per caster level. The distance from the one end of the US to the other is 3000 miles, so at least a level 15 Caster to reach all other points of the US. And certainly a high level mage there isn't going to go from the US to say China anytime soon.

Also you need familiarity. How familiar are they going to be from pictures in a book? Maybe if they are lucky end up in the vicinity of the white house. Right inside near where the President is, unlikely.

Also since we know what they can do, we can hide our leaders.

Who says you need to make the trip in a single spell? All you need to use it for is to get past the guards at the gate and then you can get where you need to go at leisure. Also Greater Teleport, which the higher level mages get, has unlimited range and you never arrive off target. Thus you can blink from your study back in Faerun, right to exactly the oval office or the last place your scrying saw the PotUS at.

You can't hide them from scrying and if this scenario is at all fair the books these guys get will show world leaders as they will appear to the people of the realms. Otherwise both sides clearly don't know about one another and the RAR is kind of stacked to one side as we'll know more about them than they'll know about us.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Scrying

Bloody no limits on the distance.

Problem is you are scrying for an Orc named Barrack Obama. Unfortunately he doesn't exist. There is a human named Obama, but since you kind of think he is an orc you are looking for the wrong person.

I'm pretty sure that's not how things work. You can scry on a target that is polymorphed into an entirely different kingdom after all. So nice dice there, if it exists and you know of it, you can scry on it.

1. Hide the leaders
2. Who is to say that his spell doesn't get confuse with the real white house and say theme replicas and fails because the distance is too great or ends up at the replica.

You can scry on the leaders with ease.

Greater teleport says you won't arrive off target, plus you can always scan a wider area so that doesn't happen.

Useful in a conflict between military equals. I am not convinced it would make much difference if the other side is much stronger. Szass Tam had scrying yet he decided not to confront the Mongol Tuigan hordes.

You focus on the strengths but not the limitations. One hour to cast and lasting only one minute / caster level. Unless it just happens to catch that person at the right time, you might not learn much more than basic things like troop movements, which frankly aren't going to be hidden anyway.

Moreover the problem is that we are perceived as orcs, so they will be scrying for beings who don't exist.

It doesn't matter if it has a short duration if you cast the spell on the target you're looking for and teleporting less than ten seconds later. Plus you can always literally ask your god where person x is and get an answer.

Your scrying thing is a BS asspull that has no basis in D&D. You can scry on people who've cast illusions on themselves or even ones that have polymorphed so you can find the PotUS easy as anybody else.

Limitations noted again. Moreover if the NPC puts themselves in harms way, unless they have a contingent spell to escape, what is to stop us killing them or at least hurting them so bad they won't be a force for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, have you seen the AC boosting tricks Mages and Clerics can do? Not to mention damage reduction enough to stop a bullet cold based on the stats for modern weapons in the 3.5 DMG.

Not so useful in military conflict here.

It is if you use say an illusion to make the enemy see you as his best friend. Then you can talk to your new friend and have him understand you.

Can you provide a link to the spell? Because we did not quantify its effects.

There is this wonderful thing called google out there, but effects range from simple stuff like charm person and calm emotions to stuff like Geas/Quest give the president a quest to lose the war/make peace/stop the invasion by any meansor you could just dominate him or modify his memories. They have more than one option and this is only the core stuff, you can literally mind rape a person at higher levels.

Evidence for this claim.

Major Image Can make sounds, scents, and thermal effects which should fool most imaging systems at range.

Persistent Image Does the same, but can also be used to speak to the target as well.

There are examples of effects created by illusions that also recreate tactile feedback, but I can't recall the spell to create those at the moment.

Yes maybe you should. Impressive for resurrecting your favourite friend, but ain't going to help much when most of your guys have been killed and the spell costs a lot of cast.

You want an example of what wish can do. It can summon objects up to 25,000gp. Now that gold is worth about $11,000,000, I'd bet that's enough bribe a few people. It's also enough to simply wish tanks, nuclear weapons, machine tools, and the like into existence.

Quantify please. Over what area can it do this?

That depends on the spell now doesn't it?

One example is a fairly basic one control weather. Do you really want to deal with natural disasters that can show up as needed and in places they can't normally happen?

Control Winds is another way to get storm force winds as desired.

If one wanted to they could use these spells + teleport to take chunks out of crops. Or just to really fuck with

Link please? Moreover understanding how to use a gun (ie press the button) isn't the same as building one.

Master's Touch; Cheap enough to crank out enmass in the form of gloves and then your soldiers can use the weapons you wished for. (At average cost one wish can get you roughly 20,000 AK's per wish at world wide average prices.)

Can you actually quantify the spells?

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Power_Word_Kill

Even an epic character casting power word kill has a limited range of less than 100 feet. Contrast to modern weapons and against much more numerous foes?

Also consider what would happen in RL if the POTUS was killed. Americans just replace him with someone else. Did it for Lincoln, did it for Kennedy. Its hardly "broken".

Yeah, but a key general dead at the wrong time is still a pain. Same with a key leader of industry or a specific diplomat. Plus you can cast it while invisible, or while made impossible to hit after you stack buffs on yourself. Or you can cast it while you're polymorphed into a fly and sitting in a corner somewhere.

They can still be killed right?

That depends on the form.

The world's political system has moved on from the Feudal system of the realms. Its not like any world leader is going to be able to give them the knowledge to build our weapons.

So? The president still knows battle plans, plus you always go after leading scientists, plant managers, and the like instead. Hell you could even just make them into loyal undead that still look human. See Necropoltians in Libris Mortis, and send them back home to live normal lives as your ally.

Evidence?

Have you never heard of Disintegrate Most tanks cease to work with a 10ft cube taken out of them. The range is short, but again invisibility, or meld with stone or just making yourself impossible to hit.

Most of them which could be gun down. After all they can be killed by swords, bows and arrows right?

In theory, but there's a reason why they are considered broken after all. Hell they can literally make themselves impossible to kill with the right spells, or they could simply become Liches, or ghosts. How do you kill incorporeal undead without magic weapons?

They haven't even conquered Toril Abeir and they are thinking about another one? Are these guys even trying to conquer Toril Abeir?

Yeah, mainly due to being cockblocked there by gods and other equally powerful beings. Using some nice epic magic what kind of havok could a red dragon cause once he realizes what Fort Knox holds?

-----

Might I also mention the infinitly powerful beings that can walk the D&D earth. What does Earth do when Pun-Pun shows up? Or the Omniscificer? Or the planet killer umm... thing... Yes that does say it can do 3.879e271 d6+2265 damage per throw. Plus, infinite actions and infinite damage loops exist in D&D as does the potential to violate thermodynamics.

[Jub]

Also, if you're so sure the Earth side wins, why make the RAR?

Why not simply say, so we've conquered Faerun, what next?

[Darth Tanner]

Why exactly is there going to be a war again? Just because we look like orcs doesnt mean we are a defacto enemy, especially as any divination or reading those books on us will reveal we are more cultured and advanced than any people previously encountered.

I'd expect us to be able to explain that our orc persona is an illusion and that we would trade as normal with us trading advanced materials and technology for raw materials and magic.

If it does come to blows our major probllem will be lack of magic weapons to overcome magical defences... as we can still nuke any city we like though its not like we are at much of a disadvnatge in the long run.

Also you saying the portals are one way... does that mean we can only go there but not come back?

[Jub]

Mr. Friendly guy seems to just want a scenario to wank to given that not only do we appear as orcs, but he also added this in a different post:

Just to make conflict more likely. I will have the Gods of Faerun warn their followers that these "orcs" ie us are dangerous and want to invade. This occurs due to plot device.

I guess he just wants to see spears versus tanks for some reason.

Frankly I've been showing off casters and what they can do, because that's interesting with or without a war. Plus, I do think a well played caster can win the war by making the right people 'his/her friend' and starting a nuclear exchange.

[Darth Tanner]

Seeing as its going to be decades to centuries before we have any meaningful level of magic of our own there is a huge risk that organisations like the Zents/Thay are going to infitrate us and dominate/mind control enough important people to effectively take control of our society. We would literally have no defence against that in the early stages other than spreading out any leadership role to the point where you would have to control the majority of people directly anyway.

Obviously we would hope that counter organisations would help us out like the Harpers.

[Jub]

Mind control would be bad enough, but think of the very real turmoil that will happen once magic is out of the bag and people realize that there are literal gods to worship and that none of them are Jehovah/Jesus. That alone could be crippling and make people think twice about just nuking things. After all, we wouldn't know that the gods aren't able to send down avatars to our world as punishment for killing their people.

[Ralin]

Why exactly is there going to be a war again? Just because we look like orcs doesnt mean we are a defacto enemy, especially as any divination or reading those books on us will reveal we are more cultured and advanced than any people previously encountered.

Especially since there is already a stable orc kingdom in the Realms.

Or at least there was last I checked.

Seeing as its going to be decades to centuries before we have any meaningful level of magic of our own there is a huge risk that organisations like the Zents/Thay are going to infitrate us and dominate/mind control enough important people to effectively take control of our society. We would literally have no defence against that in the early stages other than spreading out any leadership role to the point where you would have to control the majority of people directly anyway.

Those spells can be resisted via Will saves, and even if they aren’t it’s relatively easy to tell someone is under the effects of a domination spell or power. Charm effects are harder to spot, but people in positions of sufficient authority to be worth targeting are going to deal with a lot of people on a daily basis, some of whom will presumably have high Sense Motive modifiers. So the threat of mind control, while real, is exaggerated.

I don’t think there are hard rules for this, but I imagine that the “turn the president into an undead under your control” plan has similar problems.

Might I also mention the infinitly powerful beings that can walk the D&D earth. What does Earth do when Pun-Pun shows up? Or the Omniscificer? Or the planet killer umm... thing... Yes that does say it can do 3.879e271 d6+2265 damage per throw. Plus, infinite actions and infinite damage loops exist in D&D as does the potential to violate thermodynamics.

Or in less game-y terms, there’s always the possibility of a wight, shadow or wraith bomb.

Also:

4. China's portal ends up where Rasheman, the Hordelands and Thay meet. (The Horde struck me as ancient mongol pastiches)

Just checking, you do realize there is an actual China-analogue empire in the Realms, right? Like, complete with a big wall to keep the Tuigan out?

[Jub]

Or in less game-y terms, there’s always the possibility of a wight, shadow or wraith bomb.

Yeah, lacking magic weapons you can't actually touch them. That makes them pretty touch to stop and, of course they make spawn.

[mr friendly guy]

Also, if you're so sure the Earth side wins, why make the RAR?

Why not simply say, so we've conquered Faerun, what next?

The same reason we do these debates. Assuming we are both arguing from "good faith" ie we don't believe one side will win no matter what the evidence is like the rabid trekkies - you come up with your arguments, I come up with my counters. Rinse and repeat until one of us acknowledges the evidence favours one side. Like how some Trekkies were convinced to support Wars after all the evidence was presented.

[mr friendly guy]

Two levels higher. Unlimited range. In some settings you might argue that not many people exist who can cast it, but Faerun sure as hell isn't one of them.

Note that that's also the level where wizards can start casting Plane Shift, which presumably works as normal. Assuming Faerun is actually on another plane, which you didn't specify and I think some D&D sources say (granted in a mostly joking way) is not.

I consider us on the same plane. Still the problem with teleporting remains in my reply above.

If they can cast Disintegrate they can probably cast Greater Invisibility too. I'm pretty sure there was also a spell in Faerun called Ironguard that makes metal pass right through the target, though I can't remember if it was coverted to 3.5. They'd also have access to things like Protection from Arrows and Stoneskin which might be enough to deal with small arms fire depending on how much damage you think modern military sidearms translate into in d20 terms (I think things like d20 Modern put them in the 1d12 range? I'd have to look it up).

Why does everyone seem hell bent on converting real weapons in d20 terms? Why not convert D & D into real world terms? You know like this forum mentions use of science and logic in fantasy.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=26144

Since a mage with stone skin can still be hurt with a regular weapon if hit hard enough, then for the most part most guns would do more damage medieval weapons especially in a D & D round. An Ak-47 can fire off 12-15 rounds per second according to my google. Even if a bullet causes only 10 hp damage, within 6 second standard round the stoneskin gets overwhelmed (just to show I can play it in D & D terms).

You know what's funny. Comparing a gun in d20 terms and saying it must do x times the damage of a sword because thats what the game stats say, is like saying a Yugi-Oh monsters is several times more powerful than a magic the gathering monster because the Yugi-Oh card has higher stats.

I also figure that a high level wizard or sorcerer would have the sense to do things like attack tanks and planes while they’re on the ground/being maintained instead of charging into a battle group on the move and hurling off Disintegrates left and right while screaming “COME TRY ME IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH!”

By that same logic we would do that as well. Especially since humans have actually destroyed planes while still in their hangars.

[mr friendly guy]

Why exactly is there going to be a war again? Just because we look like orcs doesnt mean we are a defacto enemy, especially as any divination or reading those books on us will reveal we are more cultured and advanced than any people previously encountered.

That's like asking why will Star Wars automatically fight Star Trek? What happened to the Federation's vaunted diplomacy? If you want to see the two sides fight, you can to create a plot device to do so.

I'd expect us to be able to explain that our orc persona is an illusion and that we would trade as normal with us trading advanced materials and technology for raw materials and magic.

Thought of that too. Which is why I stated the deities believe you are orcs and an orcgate war is about to happen.

Also you saying the portals are one way... does that mean we can only go there but not come back?

No. It just means you can only enter from one side. Since I specified the portal is ginormous cube, well a cube resting on the ground does have 5 faces does it not. It means you can only enter via one of those faces.

[Ralin]

Why does everyone seem hell bent on converting real weapons in d20 terms? Why not convert D & D into real world terms? You know like this forum mentions use of science and logic in fantasy.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=26144

Since a mage with stone skin can still be hurt with a regular weapon if hit hard enough, then for the most part most guns would do more damage medieval weapons especially in a D & D round. An Ak-47 can fire off 12-15 rounds per second according to my google. Even if a bullet causes only 10 hp damage, within 6 second standard round the stoneskin gets overwhelmed (just to show I can play it in D & D terms).

Because D&D defines how those spells and abilities work in d20 terms and does the same for real world weapons? If you’re going to shrug your shoulders and say that guns do way, way more damage than d20 says they do you’re not talking about D&D spells and abilities anymore, now are you? You can’t just mix and match.

For reference: http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org ... apons.html

Granted it does define them as doing more damage than I remembered. It has been awhile.

[Jub]

Okay if you wanted to make this a versus why didn't you say so in the first place?

First off the way you're getting them to fight is stupid for a versus, as is saying scrying doesn't work because they're looking for Obama the orc, not Obama the human, silly magic users. If you want a straight up fight you don't need the illusions. This whole thing is setup to give modern Earth a leg up from the start while handicaping some of the more unique vectors of attack that the D&D side gets.

-----

But if you want to do this debate style I'll throw down the numbers.

Faerun has about 43.2 million people of the civilized races in the surface kingdoms. This doesn't factor in the various monstrous human societies, or any of the underdark societies. So it's safe to say that there is more manpower than that, but only so much of it would really be a factor. Now we could try to work out the exact number of people in each class at each level and soon, but that is tedious, and rather pointless as it would give us a rough number at best. The best we have is that a 20th level character will have ~30 lower level characters under him, and that larger cities tend to attract higher level people. We also know that around 10% of the population will have a PC class based on how city generation works. That means that you end up with roughly 139,400 level 20 characters with class levels, with ~278,800 in the 10-20 level bracket, 557,600 in the 5-10 bracket, ~1.12 million in the 2-5 bracket, and the other ~2.23 million as first level PCs. That's nothing to sneeze at given what some classes can do at higher levels.

Now that we have some idea of how many PC's and of what power level they're at. We need to figure out how game mechanics line up with reality, thankfully the game does give some stats for modern weapons. These can be found on page 146 of the DMG and show that a gun is about as powerful, per shot, as a great sword. That's not far off of reality as a gun really isn't much more damaging that a sword slash.

This means that the bog standard Fighter can, at level 20, absorb around 20 shots from an assault rifle with his 175 hit points. That's a lot given the accuracy rates that even modern soldiers tend to have. Toss DR 5 against magic attacks on the fighter and suddenly entire magazines of assault rifle fire don't drop him. You can complain about how 'real' that feels, but higher level characters have been known to square off against gods and come out on top.

I kind of ran out of steam a bit there, I'll add to these thoughts a bit later.

-----

Why does everyone seem hell bent on converting real weapons in d20 terms? Why not convert D & D into real world terms? You know like this forum mentions use of science and logic in fantasy.
viewtopic.php?f=32&t=26144

Since a mage with stone skin can still be hurt with a regular weapon if hit hard enough, then for the most part most guns would do more damage medieval weapons especially in a D & D round. An Ak-47 can fire off 12-15 rounds per second according to my google. Even if a bullet causes only 10 hp damage, within 6 second standard round the stoneskin gets overwhelmed (just to show I can play it in D & D terms).

You know what's funny. Comparing a gun in d20 terms and saying it must do x times the damage of a sword because thats what the game stats say, is like saying a Yugi-Oh monsters is several times more powerful than a magic the gathering monster because the Yugi-Oh card has higher stats.

How do you suppose we work things out then?

Also, you assume that all 12-15 rounds from an AK burst will hit, at full auto no less. In this place called reality, hit rates tend to be rather lower than that even with officers firing at civilians with no prior training. Firing at a D&D character is more like firing at a super hero given the sheer ridiculous toughness that even 5th level &D characters tend to have.