I've often been wondering if this scenario would work:
A squad of US soldiers in Afghanistan are in a house when it gets hit by a Taliban attack. In one way or another, they are knocked unconscious and wake up in a ruined building a few miles from Neverwinter. The world starts taken over by a dragon-worshipping cult, and the soldiers must stop it to get back to their world.
Would their weapons be too overpowered? Would the residents of the Forgotten Realms accept them or treat them like aliens from another plane of existence? If they chose the second option, would that still make a good campaign starter? Thoughts?
Their weapons would just be interesting and powerful, sure they could turn kill a guard with a click of their gun, but so does smashing their skull in with a maul. Considering how strange their attire would be and their fascinating weapons, they would probably be treated as outsiders or something.
I mean, that might be a good campaign starter, but you’ll have to explain how much guns they have, what classes are restricted and what level they start at, I probably wouldn’t put a marine above level 2 unless their all rearly experienced.
To me, the problem is action economy. Our soldiers have (as an example) some style of AR-15 variant. It can easily empty a full mag in a single round, and with practice, you can place all those shots in a torso sized area at maybe 100'. Well, propably not shoulder fired, but regardless.
So you can do an absurd amount of damage.
However, each soldier goes into combat with - most likely - 5 or maybe 6 mags of ammo. So. In short: They'll be super OP for 5-6 rounds of combat, at which point they'll likely be bringing knives to a swordfight.
Or they can conserve their ammo. That'd be clever, but comes at the cost of all that damage.
It's difficult. Do they have full gear? If so, they also each carry at least a couple of hand grenades, and there'll likely be a squard LMG and anti tank weapon. They'll have night vision (which is by no means limited to 30'), and radio coms, for as long as battery lasts.
How are they for rations? Because there's no guarantee they can just forage for food.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
As mentioned above there is a limit to ammo & battery power. There are rules for firearms. If you bring in modern weapons, how do you homebrew the stats, range/damage/etc.
It might be easier to run this instead: A squad of US soldiers in Afghanistan are innear a house when it gets hit by a Taliban attack. They rush into the house for cover and find themselves not in a house, but the entrance door opened up into your fantasy land.
Add a words of lights/noise/etc. describing a one way portal. This way you can give them the appropriate weapons & armor & clothes. I assume they already have the character classes already.
As mentioned above there is a limit to ammo & battery power. There are rules for firearms. If you bring in modern weapons, how do you homebrew the stats, range/damage/etc.
It might be easier to run this instead: A squad of US soldiers in Afghanistan are innear a house when it gets hit by a Taliban attack. They rush into the house for cover and find themselves not in a house, but the entrance door opened up into your fantasy land.
Add a words of lights/noise/etc. describing a one way portal. This way you can give them the appropriate weapons & armor & clothes. I assume they already have the character classes already.
First are we talking regular army/marines or are we talking special forces? The later, whether army, navy, marines or Air Force are a whole different category for this. If regular military, once the ammo and batteries runs out your basically normal people with clubs, knives and roughly studded leather armor that grants advantage against piercing attacks. Put a bayonet on the rifle and you have the equivalent of a ykla or short spear (no throwing). Of course they would be picking up the weapons of those they killed so they would be learning how to use “primitive” weapons later on. So they would be mostly basically fighters of L1-3 (noncoms). Some might be rangers rather than fighters (ranger badged members). One might sort of qualify as a cleric (medic). Special forces are trained in wilderness survival, stealth and “primitive” weapons. They generally have a number of years of experience as well as considerable advanced training. They would probably qualify as L3-5 ranger multiclasses. They would be taking the weapons from those they killed to have tools for combat once the ammo runs out. They also would have things like solar battery chargers to keep their batteries charged leaving them with “magic” items to see in the dark (120’) and communicate (radios and silent language - hand signals). If the new world is one with gunpowder or an equivalent then they would be cleaning up their brass and remaking bullets and grenades. Such a team would be an interesting group to play.
The logistics would bite them with a quickness. I was in the US Army in 1995 to 1999. I was not infantry, but was trained in basic infantry tactics.
A soldier's basic load was 210 rounds of 5.56mm ammo for their individual weapon in 7 30 round magazines. We'd sometimes carry more, but that was rare. Sometimes there'd be an M203 grenade launcher. The 203 gunner would carry a basic load of 5.56 for the M-16 portion of the weapon, and I am not sure how many. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 rounds for the grenade launcher. A squad would also have an M-249 automatic rifle. Between the auto rifleman and the rest of the squad, you've probably got an extra thousand rounds of 5.56. if you have an officer with you, you might have an extra 9mm with ~45 rounds or so in 3 15 round magazines.
Now, that might sound like a LOT of ammo, but we were not trained for one shot, one kill. We were trained to suppress. You shoot in the general direction of the enemy and keep his head down, while another element can maneuver and attempt to flank. That ammo will go away with a quickness. 5.56 is likely to not be very effective at shooting at anything other than cultists, and if the cultists were wearing any sort of heavy armor, the effectiveness would be quite low. M855 will penetrate an old soviet style helmet, but thick plate armor is likely going to stop it or slow it down enough to be ineffective. You may have a single AT-4 rocket launcher (recoilless rifle) and a couple of claymore anti-personnel mines. Use them wisely.
Then there's batteries. You night vision and radios aren't going to keep batteries for long. You'll have maybe a week worth of continuous use.
When the tech fails, these guys are in a world of trouble. In the 90s we trained with bayonets. For a single day. And it wasn't critical training. It was too hot the day my basic company did the bayonet training, and we were not allowed to do the assault course. The rifle with bayonet is kind of a short spear. So, these guys could probably pick up spears and hold their own against peasant farmers with the training I had back in the day. I don't think that bayonet training is done anymore though, so YMMV. Anyone knew knows their way around medieval weapons though would hand them their backsides. They've have a very short window of opportunity to "win" and get home before they are completely combat ineffective.
I read a short story when I was in high school called "The Man Who Came Early" about a US Army MP being transported back in time to the viking era in Iceland. The short version of the ending is, the guy gives a good account of himself with his pistol before it runs out of ammo and he's taken down. That's how I see things happening for these guys.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
But against an enemy with little or no ranged ability, supression would be silly. And you underestimate the penetration of 5.56. Although sure, it won't punch through ceramic or metal (or composite) armor. But 'leathery skin' or whatever we imagine infernals as having won't stop it.
While ammo lasts, soldiers are more than capable of handling infernals - in my view. It all comes down to numbers. If numbers are like 1:1, army wins. At some rate, and I couldn't say whether it's 10:1 or 20:1, or maybe 100:1 - but eventually, the ability to kill at range is overwhelmed, and infernals win.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Ummm, first who said anything about infernals they are showing up near Neverwinter? As Crzyhawk points out much of the fire training is suppressive not aimed fire ( I think the marines still teach aimed fire but it’s more by guess and by gosh in the other services) so unless some are hunters before joining it’s not going to take long even at 3 round bursts before the ammo is gone. I haven’t looked closely at unit equipment in years but with all the small drones and other gear I wouldn’t be too surprised if even small units didn’t have some sort of packable solar battery charge systems today so batteries might last a bit longer. As I said earlier SF are a whole different ballgame with non standard equipment, much more training and battle experience to fall back on.
I will say this about he ammo and battery problem - given the number of campaigns that don’t keep track of rations, arrows, torches, components, etc unless you have a nitty gritty DM they can be considered as infinite as very thing else which does change the story line considerably.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I've often been wondering if this scenario would work:
A squad of US soldiers in Afghanistan are in a house when it gets hit by a Taliban attack. In one way or another, they are knocked unconscious and wake up in a ruined building a few miles from Neverwinter. The world starts taken over by a dragon-worshipping cult, and the soldiers must stop it to get back to their world.
Would their weapons be too overpowered? Would the residents of the Forgotten Realms accept them or treat them like aliens from another plane of existence? If they chose the second option, would that still make a good campaign starter? Thoughts?
Their weapons would just be interesting and powerful, sure they could turn kill a guard with a click of their gun, but so does smashing their skull in with a maul. Considering how strange their attire would be and their fascinating weapons, they would probably be treated as outsiders or something.
I mean, that might be a good campaign starter, but you’ll have to explain how much guns they have, what classes are restricted and what level they start at, I probably wouldn’t put a marine above level 2 unless their all rearly experienced.
To me, the problem is action economy. Our soldiers have (as an example) some style of AR-15 variant. It can easily empty a full mag in a single round, and with practice, you can place all those shots in a torso sized area at maybe 100'. Well, propably not shoulder fired, but regardless.
So you can do an absurd amount of damage.
However, each soldier goes into combat with - most likely - 5 or maybe 6 mags of ammo. So. In short: They'll be super OP for 5-6 rounds of combat, at which point they'll likely be bringing knives to a swordfight.
Or they can conserve their ammo. That'd be clever, but comes at the cost of all that damage.
It's difficult. Do they have full gear? If so, they also each carry at least a couple of hand grenades, and there'll likely be a squard LMG and anti tank weapon. They'll have night vision (which is by no means limited to 30'), and radio coms, for as long as battery lasts.
How are they for rations? Because there's no guarantee they can just forage for food.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
As mentioned above there is a limit to ammo & battery power. There are rules for firearms. If you bring in modern weapons, how do you homebrew the stats, range/damage/etc.
It might be easier to run this instead: A squad of US soldiers in Afghanistan are
innear a house when it gets hit by a Taliban attack. They rush into the house for cover and find themselves not in a house, but the entrance door opened up into your fantasy land.Add a words of lights/noise/etc. describing a one way portal. This way you can give them the appropriate weapons & armor & clothes. I assume they already have the character classes already.
Great Thinking
First are we talking regular army/marines or are we talking special forces? The later, whether army, navy, marines or Air Force are a whole different category for this. If regular military, once the ammo and batteries runs out your basically normal people with clubs, knives and roughly studded leather armor that grants advantage against piercing attacks. Put a bayonet on the rifle and you have the equivalent of a ykla or short spear (no throwing). Of course they would be picking up the weapons of those they killed so they would be learning how to use “primitive” weapons later on. So they would be mostly basically fighters of L1-3 (noncoms). Some might be rangers rather than fighters (ranger badged members). One might sort of qualify as a cleric (medic).
Special forces are trained in wilderness survival, stealth and “primitive” weapons. They generally have a number of years of experience as well as considerable advanced training. They would probably qualify as L3-5 ranger multiclasses. They would be taking the weapons from those they killed to have tools for combat once the ammo runs out. They also would have things like solar battery chargers to keep their batteries charged leaving them with “magic” items to see in the dark (120’) and communicate (radios and silent language - hand signals). If the new world is one with gunpowder or an equivalent then they would be cleaning up their brass and remaking bullets and grenades. Such a team would be an interesting group to play.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
The logistics would bite them with a quickness. I was in the US Army in 1995 to 1999. I was not infantry, but was trained in basic infantry tactics.
A soldier's basic load was 210 rounds of 5.56mm ammo for their individual weapon in 7 30 round magazines. We'd sometimes carry more, but that was rare. Sometimes there'd be an M203 grenade launcher. The 203 gunner would carry a basic load of 5.56 for the M-16 portion of the weapon, and I am not sure how many. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 rounds for the grenade launcher. A squad would also have an M-249 automatic rifle. Between the auto rifleman and the rest of the squad, you've probably got an extra thousand rounds of 5.56. if you have an officer with you, you might have an extra 9mm with ~45 rounds or so in 3 15 round magazines.
Now, that might sound like a LOT of ammo, but we were not trained for one shot, one kill. We were trained to suppress. You shoot in the general direction of the enemy and keep his head down, while another element can maneuver and attempt to flank. That ammo will go away with a quickness. 5.56 is likely to not be very effective at shooting at anything other than cultists, and if the cultists were wearing any sort of heavy armor, the effectiveness would be quite low. M855 will penetrate an old soviet style helmet, but thick plate armor is likely going to stop it or slow it down enough to be ineffective. You may have a single AT-4 rocket launcher (recoilless rifle) and a couple of claymore anti-personnel mines. Use them wisely.
Then there's batteries. You night vision and radios aren't going to keep batteries for long. You'll have maybe a week worth of continuous use.
When the tech fails, these guys are in a world of trouble. In the 90s we trained with bayonets. For a single day. And it wasn't critical training. It was too hot the day my basic company did the bayonet training, and we were not allowed to do the assault course. The rifle with bayonet is kind of a short spear. So, these guys could probably pick up spears and hold their own against peasant farmers with the training I had back in the day. I don't think that bayonet training is done anymore though, so YMMV. Anyone knew knows their way around medieval weapons though would hand them their backsides. They've have a very short window of opportunity to "win" and get home before they are completely combat ineffective.
I read a short story when I was in high school called "The Man Who Came Early" about a US Army MP being transported back in time to the viking era in Iceland. The short version of the ending is, the guy gives a good account of himself with his pistol before it runs out of ammo and he's taken down. That's how I see things happening for these guys.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
But against an enemy with little or no ranged ability, supression would be silly. And you underestimate the penetration of 5.56. Although sure, it won't punch through ceramic or metal (or composite) armor. But 'leathery skin' or whatever we imagine infernals as having won't stop it.
While ammo lasts, soldiers are more than capable of handling infernals - in my view. It all comes down to numbers. If numbers are like 1:1, army wins. At some rate, and I couldn't say whether it's 10:1 or 20:1, or maybe 100:1 - but eventually, the ability to kill at range is overwhelmed, and infernals win.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Ummm, first who said anything about infernals they are showing up near Neverwinter? As Crzyhawk points out much of the fire training is suppressive not aimed fire ( I think the marines still teach aimed fire but it’s more by guess and by gosh in the other services) so unless some are hunters before joining it’s not going to take long even at 3 round bursts before the ammo is gone. I haven’t looked closely at unit equipment in years but with all the small drones and other gear I wouldn’t be too surprised if even small units didn’t have some sort of packable solar battery charge systems today so batteries might last a bit longer. As I said earlier SF are a whole different ballgame with non standard equipment, much more training and battle experience to fall back on.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I will say this about he ammo and battery problem - given the number of campaigns that don’t keep track of rations, arrows, torches, components, etc unless you have a nitty gritty DM they can be considered as infinite as very thing else which does change the story line considerably.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.