D&D 5E Monster Tactics: Avoiding Fireballs

[Helldritch]

The real question is how many adventurers actualy exists in the population.

In previous edition. Adventurers and classed people were assumed to be quite rare. Perhaps one fighter or thief for every 100 commoners or so (I don't remember exactly but this seems ok). For every 25 or so fighter and thieves there would be about 1 caster (whatever the type). Most of the time that caster would either be a cleric or a druid. Wizards are actualy pretty rare (or at least they should be). This means that in a village of 400 souls, you might have 4 fighters or thieves (or any combination thereoff). You might see one caster... or not.

What we see here, is the bias of the adventuring life. Just like a soldier have the impression that everyone around him is ion the military, so does the adventurers have the same impression about the world but for adventurers (or classed people). Like minded people attract like minded people. Computer technicians see computer technicians all day long while I might see one every two or three months, maybe less.

Our adventurers see a lot of classes people because they go to them. Who cares about the 100,000 souls that are not classed in Waterdeep? We will care about the 1000 or so classed ones that the players will interact with.
A dragon? Most people won't see one in their entire life time. Will you built your defenses about a distant possible threat or will you build your defenses for what you can actually see attacking your city? You will go for the most plausible threat.

A walled city is still great for most of the threat it will encounter. It works with or without magic. And remember that if magic can be used to attack. It can be used for defense. Wards vs fireball/magic could well be something that the defenders would have installed on key parts of their defense. A dragon is fearsome. But so is a volley of arrows. If dragons are such a problem, then remember what we saw in Games of Throne. It didn't take that long to build a defense against dragon. It wasn't perfect, but with the help of magic, these balista would have been a lot more deadlier to dragon. The same could be applied to giants. Magic is usefull both on the offensive and the defensive.

 

[Reynard]

So the orcs have a biased view: their contact with humans and demihumans is either victims when they raid, or adventurers who come to them. So it makes sense that enemy humanoids are more likely to be prepared for PC types.

 

[MarkB]

So the orcs have a biased view: their contact with humans and demihumans is either victims when they raid, or adventurers who come to them. So it makes sense that enemy humanoids are more likely to be prepared for PC types.

Plus, orcs are effectively "adventurers" by default - they go out and fight things routinely, and other things come and fight them. So logically, they should be getting loads of experience and advancing in a variety of classes, gaining spellcasters of their own.

 

[Shiroiken]

Fireball: Promoting social distancing since 1974.

D&D: promoting social distancing since 1974. I'd say geekhood in general, but who knows when THAT started...

 

[Reynard]

D&D: promoting social distancing since 1974. I'd say geekhood in general, but who knows when THAT started...

I don't know, my closest friendships are with those I game with, whether they are the friends I made in high school 30 years ago or those I have only met recently. Roleplaying is inherently intimate because you have to share something of yourself to get much out of it.

 

[dave2008]

Because we also have up to 9th level spells. As soon as the world discovered that people were capable of the work that could be done with 9th level magic... every nation would spend every gold piece to get their best and the brightest to increase productivity with that level of magical technology. Do you really think after 10,000 years of magical research and development in the Forgotten Realms... creating magic on par with what 9th level spells could create and do (especially with elves who could actually live throughout half of that)... that their world would still be at a medieval level of construction?

Heck... look at where we are as a society after 10,000 years of advancement, and we haven't had 9th level magic available to us that entire time! They have in the Realms. Their Industrial Revolution should have happened millenia ago. But because we just like knights in shining armor, they still use wagons to get around and have walled cities you need to throw ballista bolts at.

Maybe magic leads to stagnation instead of growth.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Maybe magic leads to stagnation instead of growth.

Well, it's fantasy so there is no way of actually knowing. But seeing as how D&D fantasy has a foundation of real-world medieval living... I would just look at how the real world progressed out of the Dark Ages with technological advancement. And it doesn't take much of a critical thinker or someone who has ever played Sid Meier's Civilization to come to the conclusion that a nation that has people capable of flying and attacking from the sky would render city walls obsolete. So what's really more likely here?

 

[dave2008]

Well, it's fantasy so there is no way of actually knowing. But seeing as how D&D fantasy has a foundation of real-world medieval living... I would just look at how the real world progressed out of the Dark Ages with technological advancement. And it doesn't take much of a critical thinker or someone who has ever played Sid Meier's Civilization to come to the conclusion that a nation that has people capable of flying and attacking from the sky would render city walls obsolete. So what's really more likely here?

Well with D&D it depends on what world your talking about. If only 5 people in the world can "fly" then walls as still important. That, however, is less interesting to me than why does magic cause the society to stagnate in a pseudo-medieval state. Instead of say no, it wouldn't; say yes it does, but how and why. That is more interesting to me.

 

[Oofta]

Well, it's fantasy so there is no way of actually knowing. But seeing as how D&D fantasy has a foundation of real-world medieval living... I would just look at how the real world progressed out of the Dark Ages with technological advancement. And it doesn't take much of a critical thinker or someone who has ever played Sid Meier's Civilization to come to the conclusion that a nation that has people capable of flying and attacking from the sky would render city walls obsolete. So what's really more likely here?

How big of a threat is that though in most campaign? Mass manufacturing of gunpowder and cannons were what gradually killed walls. Even then, it took a couple of centuries and the advent of bombers to put the final nail in the coffin. Even if some groups can attack from the air most campaigns aren't going to have the equivalent of cannon, much less a fleet of B-52 bombers.

As others have stated, yes giants could do a lot of damage to walls before they get shot full of holes. But how often do cities need to defend against giants? Most of the time they're defending against orcs and other humans.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Well with D&D it depends on what world your talking about. If only 5 people in the world can "fly" then walls as still important. That, however, is less interesting to me than why does magic cause the society to stagnate in a pseudo-medieval state. Instead of say no, it wouldn't; say yes it does, but how and why. That is more interesting to me.

And how often do you ever ask that question of yourself or the worlds you play in?

Hey, we've all been playing in these D&D worlds for 40+ years and never questioned it. I know I have. But I also can readily admit that the technological evolution of these worlds that acquired the types of power they see through high-level magic does not make a lick of sense.

If others don't want to agree and want to think that a world like the Forgotten Realms that has probably thousands of people currently that can cast Fabricate and yet no nation there has had an industrial revolution over their last 10,000 years to monetize and iterate on that yet... hey, you do you.