High-Tech Forces vs. High-Magic Forces

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just got this XP award comment:

jasper:
um how do know that they are not already in the entertainment world?

Which just gave me a hilarious thought: what if the dimensional breach happened in Hollywood or some other place in which the next great epic fantasy film were being shot with a cast of thousands.

The initial slaughter would be horrendous. "TOM CRUISE SLAIN ON SET OF 'LEGEND 2!!!"

But the invaders would be damn near clueless as to why the soldiers they were fighting were sooooooo poorly armed and trained.

Then would come the response...SWAT, Nat. Guard...who knows.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

There are multiple Geneva Conventions (note the plural), and the latter ones are not signed as much as the earlier ones. (The USA has not signed the most recent conventions.) But in this scenario, it doesn't matter.

If goblins are coming through some kind of rift, humanity falls back on what it considers fair play or not ("just war" or whichever system you want to use)--against non-humans. Humanity doesn't know what the goblins' views of these ideals are--nor their goals, fidelity to their ideals, etc. So in the "First Goblin War," it is pretty much anything goes that a human can justify to another human. After the war, assuming some kind of stalemate, truce, exchange of ideas, etc, then there may be a first "Goblin Convention" signed. It probably won't be exactly like any of the Geneva Conventions, unless the goblins are much like humans.

In the early going, "misunderstanding" will dominate everything. This will lead to all kinds of things that the active parties will come to regret (for various reasons). Lack of conventions on treatment of prisoners in war and targetting of civilians are one of many.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm not sure I agree there, unless one is of the school of thought that guns do more damage than swords. A sword in the head is just as bad as a bullet.

I was thinking more about the fact that the spell doesn't just have a duration, it gets ablated by damage too. Depending upon caster level it only stops 30-100 total damage before it is used up (which isn't many machine gun bullets). It also means that even if heavier munitions are considered 'normal' weapons, a lot of their damage is going to get through.

Makes sense now?

 

[Plane Sailing]

And that horde may well be critters with a whole lot of hit points, for whom a bullet or two (generally the most a real-person takes before being out of the fight) may not be a big deal. Perhaps closing to melee range is not such a problem. And then, modern forces have issues. You cannot spray automatic weapon's fire when the enemy is among your ranks, unless you don't care about killing your own men.

I think WW1 and the advent of the machine gun showed that mass attacks against machine guns just doesn't work!

 

[Morrus]

I was thinking more about the fact that the spell doesn't just have a duration, it gets ablated by damage too. Depending upon caster level it only stops 30-100 total damage before it is used up (which isn't many machine gun bullets

You're tracking each machine gun bullet separately? That's one fiendishly complicated RPG system!

In d20 Modern (the only place we'll find roughly compatible machine gun stats), a burst from a machine gun is gonna do on average 10 damage or so. That makes protection from normal missiles reasonable protection against it. If you're unlucky enough to be hit by 6-10 machine gun bursts, then yeah, you're screwed.

 

[Kraydak]

You're tracking each machine gun bullet separately? That's one fiendishly complicated RPG system!

In d20 Modern (the only place we'll find roughly compatible machine gun stats), a burst from a machine gun is gonna do on average 10 damage or so. That makes protection from normal missiles reasonable protection against it. If you're unlucky enough to be hit by 6-10 machine gun bursts, then yeah, you're screwed.

But if you run d20 Modern, then walking onto a battlefield with a non-magical sword or just plain fists is a completely valid option. Those stats turn the question from high-tech forces vs high-magic forces into: no magic but reskinned medieval weapons forces vs medieval weapons forces with magic.

Even the case where people talk up melee weapon in the modern world, ie close quarter combat, we use guns. Yes, we *do* have (para)-military forces that are completely focused on that problem. We call them SWAT. They do not use swords. There is enough random violence with melee weapons (by people not planning on getting into a fight) that if melee weapons had a place, we'd know about it.

If bows AND swords both have a place in the high-magic force, then high-tech has a total weapon dominance. If only bows have a place, then those bows are special enough to warrant closer investigation. If only swords, then the armor is special. If the sword/bow armed troops are only there to die and let the bards sing about the slaughter, well...

 

[Morrus]

But if you run d20 Modern, then walking onto a battlefield with a non-magical sword or just plain fists is a completely valid option. Those stats turn the question from high-tech forces vs high-magic forces into: no magic but reskinned medieval weapons forces vs medieval weapons forces with magic.

Even the case where people talk up melee weapon in the modern world, ie close quarter combat, we use guns. Yes, we *do* have (para)-military forces that are completely focused on that problem. We call them SWAT. They do not use swords. There is enough random violence with melee weapons (by people not planning on getting into a fight) that if melee weapons had a place, we'd know about it.

If bows AND swords both have a place in the high-magic force, then high-tech has a total weapon dominance. If only bows have a place, then those bows are special enough to warrant closer investigation. If only swords, then the armor is special. If the sword/bow armed troops are only there to die and let the bards sing about the slaughter, well...

I didn't mention swords....

I was talking about magic spells. Although magic bows could be relevant, too.

I agree a medieval peasant isn't going to stand much chance against a machine gun wielding modern soldier. But a wizard might.

 

[Umbran]

I think WW1 and the advent of the machine gun showed that mass attacks against machine guns just doesn't work!

A mass attack of *real-world humans* against machine guns doesn't work. But, that's because human beings are frail, and it typically takes a single bullet to take one of us of commission. The spray of bullets is actually pretty diffuse, and you only land one or two bullets in any particular target in the crowd. Much of the effect of machine guns on a charge has more to do with morale than with dishing out physical damage.

But, what if that horde isn't just like real-world humans? Just like we have to ask how magic works in the modern world, we have to ask how the critters themselves work. If that charge is of uruk-hai and ogres who can take several bullets before stopping, and are downright suicidal by real-world morale standards, the scene might be quite different.

 

[prosfilaes]

The first few clashes should be interesting, as neither side really "gets" the other -- but I would give the magic-using force the advantage here, because they've presumably been scrying on the tech-using force, even if they don't understand everything they've seen or heard.

But we're having the discussion here. Any solider can tell you what a dragon is, but the goblins don't know what an airplane is. If they're so convenient as to come from a D&D world, we have Jane's Guide to Fantasy Forces (aka the Monster Manual.)

But, what if that horde isn't just like real-world humans? Just like we have to ask how magic works in the modern world, we have to ask how the critters themselves work. If that charge is of uruk-hai and ogres who can take several bullets before stopping, and are downright suicidal by real-world morale standards, the scene might be quite different.

Again, it's all about how you stack things. Ogres are chaotic evil; I don't think you're going to get swarms of ogres to rush artillery and machine gun nests. According to the Monstrous Manual, their morale is nothing special; it's just Steady (11-12); Solider Humans are Steady (10-12), and Mercenary Humans are Steady (11-12).) Uruk-hai might work better; I don't have D&D stats on them. On one or the other, I think you're underestimating the morale of humans; I don't think there's any evidence that humans failed to take machine-gun nests because they were too cowardly to do so.

I do question numbers. Humans could probably field an army of 100 million if it came out to all-out war. That's more than the entire population of D&D style fantasy worlds. And the population of D&D style fantasy worlds is made up mostly of 1 HD creatures. You could field an army of orcs or goblins or humans, but ogres and uruk-hai are going to be flavorings, Special Forces.

Also, that whole Geneva Convention thing? Adhering to the Geneva Convention saves the lives of your troops, because the other side is more likely to surrender to you. The fact that the Geneva Convention is vastly generous compared to anything the enemy might have known is could be extremely helpful. It gets back to the goblins that surrendering goblins get three-square meals a day, and you may get mass defections. Even the wizards might start defecting; would you rather be the chief wizard adviser to the US Air Force at some hidden base in the US or under a couple layers of command eating military rations in the field?

 

[Plane Sailing]

You're tracking each machine gun bullet separately? That's one fiendishly complicated RPG system!

For some reason you don't get the very simple observation I was making, and have made a series of fairly obtuse replies. Sorry, don't understand. I'll duck out of this conversation now.