Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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I mean, even "high magic" is a relative term. It can mean there's a wizard for every town, or just that the relative handful of wizards in existence compared to the population at large advertise their existence and can do some impressive stuff. Magic being well-known as a part of life doesn't mean it's actually super accessible.
The basis for discussion IS a low-magic world (btw as I started "reading the rulebooks" in 1978 I think I understand them as well as most). Even in a "standard" D&D world spell casters need long rests, material components...wizards can be killed by nonmagical means. It would depend heavily on how many spell casters there were compared to the general population. You are free to disagree, there are multiple sources of fiction that support any version of this discussion.
Specifically, if 1 in 100 is some kind of spell caster it's like you propose. At 1 in 1000 it would be much different, at 1 in 10000 spell casters would have to watch their step very carefully in my opinion anyway.
You might try to temper your snark when replying, it's unseemly.
DND was started by some guys who were wargaming large scale battles and asked "what if i could play a single combatant?" The game they created shifts the focus on a single person, and rebalances reality so that battles are no longer a meat grinder. One character can reasonably expect a good chance to live to see the end of the war.
WW1 was a meat grinder that peaked at six thousand combatants killed each day. The Battle of Sommes had some units suffer 90% casualty rates in minutes. Thats not a "game" by any definition. You are talking about outcomes that are basically "roll initiative. On your turn, roll d20, if you roll a 10 or lower, youre dead"
Artillery is the 9th level spell Meteor Swarm, but cast hundreds of times. Chemical and biological weapons is Stinking Cloud, but homebrewed to do more damage when upcast to level 9, also cast hundreds of times. Machine guns lay down a cone shaped aoe that does 8d6 every turn, and can go for a ful minute. The ranges on all these is miles for artillery and 500 yards for machine gun fire. That wont fit on the 4 foot combat map where 1inch is 5ft
If you want to play that scenario as something resembling a game, you will want to wargame it, with large units of soldiers, not an individual adventurer.
If you want to play an individual adventurer during the great war, you have to get away from the front lines. DND does that by moving pcs from the battle of helms deep and putting them into a dungeon where the tactics is small scale, room to room, and the ranges fit on a 3 foot map.
Call of Duty might be a better option
Hobbyist historian here, I take particular interest in the Bronze Age, Classical age and Renaissance generally speaking.
D&D generally seems to make conventional weaponry of all types (Cannons, Muskets, rifles) exceptionally weak compared to magic. Like a Cannon does 8d10 damage which is barely stronger than a base level fireball. These are weapons designed to destroy castle walls and fortifications and by DND logic it's the equivalent of being hit by a pike 8 times. From a historical perspective I think DnD represents most modern weapons poorly. Particularly Siege Weapons.
My misgivings aside, I think you can make a fun WW1 inspired campaign in DND. I personally am tired of the same medieval high fantasy setting, so I usually don't run Forgotten realms campaigns for that reason. Anyways, I had a diversions in one of my campaigns (it was my own setting) based on the Bronze Age that toyed with the idea of civilizational resets and featured a World War 1 inspired aspect to it. It was received well though admittedly, I was only really dipping my toes into that type of setting. I tended to use some hombrew to address some of my misgivings on how more conventional weaponry is represented however. (That is just my personal preference.)
You can absolutely run a WW1 type setting with DND mechanics ofc, I've delved into it myself with my last campaign with a variety of different periods. I wouldn't let anybody here discourage you from it, good campaigns are founded on passion and ambition. You can absolutely use the base rules to explore that type of setting with success.
Damage in D&D has always had some wonkiness because the game isn't designed to have everything render your character into goop with a single hit. Especially 5E.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah; really there's no fundamental reason why a Fireball exploding point blank next to you can a) be survivable at all, b) leave you in a functional state, c) be something you can potentially dodge half the damage it would deal based on your agility even when there's no cover to get behind, and d) possibly have you completely avoid its effect altogether because you're "Evasive" and yet tanking anything you'd see in a typical Call of Duty game until your HP runs out- which is exactly how CoD gameplay works- is somehow a bridge too far.
There is no context for how hot the flames generated by a fireball is. But yeah I am absolutely going to tell you that a fireball is not comparable to a cannonball striking a wall with such absurd amount of force it shatters several chunks of stone. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that is several tiers higher than a fireball.
Every single game in existence utilizes some degree of suspension of disbelief, congratulations on discovering that just now. We all suspend our suspensions of disbelief for the games we play and endure mechanics that don't make 100% to get immersed in a game.
Yes I am telling you that tanking a literal cannonball/Catatpult rock to the face and brushing it off like it is nothing is extremely ridiculous, most COD games don't in fact have you tank through a literal artillery piece to the face like it is nothing.
That said, it's not even the issue I have. The issue I have is with how they balance siege weapons, the issue is how ludicrously underpwoered every piece of siege equipment is. It's the equivalent of adding a howitzer to a cod game and make it do 2 ticks more damage than a M-1 Garand bullet. Which seems to fall in line with the whole design philosophy of severely underpowering mundane things to make the magic things cooler looking.