To all the several people who replied to me, all generally trying to rebuttal with something to the effect of "But why haven't smart and charismatic people already taken over". 1. they have. and 2. They're not all shape-changing dragons??
I can't understand how the ability to shapechange is somehow getting entirely ignored here. You could never find them. All they need to do to gain any and all resources they need is to replace someone.
Has no one watched movies about body snatchers or dopplegangers or anything along this trope? Now imagine that instead of just some simpleminded entity it was a super-genius, ultra-wise, inhumanly-charismatic entity doing it. And one who, on a whim, could be anyone they wanted, or any animal. And whose default natural form is... a friggen dragon.
No one can go toe to to with one of these guys. Their killrate would be 100%. Kill, eat, replace. They wouldn't even need to worry about hiding bodies which is the number 1 bodysnatcher trope giveaway.
Some of them can even read thoughts.
It'd be over for Europe. And they wouldn't even realize it had started.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
To all the several people who replied to me, all generally trying to rebuttal with something to the effect of "But why haven't smart and charismatic people already taken over". 1. they have. and 2. They're not all shape-changing dragons??
I can't understand how the ability to shapechange is somehow getting entirely ignored here. You could never find them. All they need to do to gain any and all resources they need is to replace someone.
Has no one watched movies about body snatchers or dopplegangers or anything along this trope? Now imagine that instead of just some simpleminded entity it was a super-genius, ultra-wise, inhumanly-charismatic entity doing it. And one who, on a whim, could be anyone they wanted, or any animal. And whose default natural form is... a friggen dragon.
No one can go toe to to with one of these guys. Their killrate would be 100%. Kill, eat, replace. They wouldn't even need to worry about hiding bodies which is the number 1 bodysnatcher trope giveaway.
Some of them can even read thoughts.
It'd be over for Europe. And they wouldn't even realize it had started.
As I said, pretty sure they can't shapechange into a specific person.
This whole thing doesn't work. They need to sleep, but they need to cast shapechange every hour, which interrupts their long rest/sleep.
And this is where you get it entirely wrong: They'd be found in no time at all.
How you look is just a tiny fraction of the information about you, and it's not the most important trace you leave behind. At all. If and when your dragon establishes a foothold of any kind, it starts leaving traces. If it owns anything, that's registered. If it buys or sells anything, that's registered. If it talks to anyone on any platform - at all - that can be traced. Anything it ever writes down on anything other than a napkin can be found.
Being able to shapeshift is very, very situationally helpful. It does not achieve anything at all, in the final outcome. Except, maybe, enable escape when all it's plans fail. And even that requires it to shift outside of CCTV coverage.
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.
To all the several people who replied to me, all generally trying to rebuttal with something to the effect of "But why haven't smart and charismatic people already taken over". 1. they have. and 2. They're not all shape-changing dragons??
I can't understand how the ability to shapechange is somehow getting entirely ignored here. You could never find them. All they need to do to gain any and all resources they need is to replace someone.
Has no one watched movies about body snatchers or dopplegangers or anything along this trope? Now imagine that instead of just some simpleminded entity it was a super-genius, ultra-wise, inhumanly-charismatic entity doing it. And one who, on a whim, could be anyone they wanted, or any animal. And whose default natural form is... a friggen dragon.
No one can go toe to to with one of these guys. Their killrate would be 100%. Kill, eat, replace. They wouldn't even need to worry about hiding bodies which is the number 1 bodysnatcher trope giveaway.
Some of them can even read thoughts.
It'd be over for Europe. And they wouldn't even realize it had started.
As I said, pretty sure they can't shapechange into a specific person.
This whole thing doesn't work. They need to sleep, but they need to cast shapechange every hour, which interrupts their long rest/sleep.
1. Why not? Of course they can. They can look however they like.
2. They do it at will. They can just do it as often as they want.
And this is where you get it entirely wrong: They'd be found in no time at all.
How you look is just a tiny fraction of the information about you, and it's not the most important trace you leave behind. At all. If and when your dragon establishes a foothold of any kind, it starts leaving traces. If it owns anything, that's registered. If it buys or sells anything, that's registered. If it talks to anyone on any platform - at all - that can be traced. Anything it ever writes down on anything other than a napkin can be found.
Being able to shapeshift is very, very situationally helpful. It does not achieve anything at all, in the final outcome. Except, maybe, enable escape when all it's plans fail. And even that requires it to shift outside of CCTV coverage.
So? How would anyone know the difference between of of them and anyone else.
Explain how you think several thousand supergenius shapechangers is going to ... what just bluster in front of a police department and accidentally slip up??
It is game over dude. No one could catch them. We wouldn't even know what to look for.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
To all the several people who replied to me, all generally trying to rebuttal with something to the effect of "But why haven't smart and charismatic people already taken over". 1. they have. and 2. They're not all shape-changing dragons??
I can't understand how the ability to shapechange is somehow getting entirely ignored here. You could never find them. All they need to do to gain any and all resources they need is to replace someone.
Has no one watched movies about body snatchers or dopplegangers or anything along this trope? Now imagine that instead of just some simpleminded entity it was a super-genius, ultra-wise, inhumanly-charismatic entity doing it. And one who, on a whim, could be anyone they wanted, or any animal. And whose default natural form is... a friggen dragon.
No one can go toe to to with one of these guys. Their killrate would be 100%. Kill, eat, replace. They wouldn't even need to worry about hiding bodies which is the number 1 bodysnatcher trope giveaway.
Some of them can even read thoughts.
It'd be over for Europe. And they wouldn't even realize it had started.
As I said, pretty sure they can't shapechange into a specific person.
This whole thing doesn't work. They need to sleep, but they need to cast shapechange every hour, which interrupts their long rest/sleep.
1. Why not? Of course they can. They can look however they like.
2. They do it at will. They can just do it as often as they want.
It does not anywhere say that. shapechange, for reference
Not while sleeping. That is an actual rule. "Interrupting the Rest. A Long Rest is stopped by the following interruptions: [...] Casting a spell other than a cantrip"
And this is where you get it entirely wrong: They'd be found in no time at all.
How you look is just a tiny fraction of the information about you, and it's not the most important trace you leave behind. At all. If and when your dragon establishes a foothold of any kind, it starts leaving traces. If it owns anything, that's registered. If it buys or sells anything, that's registered. If it talks to anyone on any platform - at all - that can be traced. Anything it ever writes down on anything other than a napkin can be found.
Being able to shapeshift is very, very situationally helpful. It does not achieve anything at all, in the final outcome. Except, maybe, enable escape when all it's plans fail. And even that requires it to shift outside of CCTV coverage.
So? How would anyone know the difference between of of them and anyone else.
Explain how you think several thousand supergenius shapechangers is going to ... what just bluster in front of a police department and accidentally slip up??
It is game over dude. No one could catch them. We wouldn't even know what to look for.
So? How would anyone know the difference between of of them and anyone else.
If they try to replace someone they'll be almost immediately be found out because they won't know:
where they live,
what their phone number is,
the PIN to any of their credit cards,
the password to any of their computers or digital accounts,
how to drive their car / ride their bike / use the bus system / use the train or subway system,
how to answer their phone, or even what the ringing of their phone means,
Do you not think people will be suspicious if the CEO of Tesla suddenly starts staring dumbfounded at the rectangle of metal that is playing music and vibrating?
So? How would anyone know the difference between of of them and anyone else.
If they try to replace someone they'll be almost immediately be found out because they won't know:
where they live,
what their phone number is,
the PIN to any of their credit cards,
the password to any of their computers or digital accounts,
how to drive their car / ride their bike / use the bus system / use the train or subway system,
how to answer their phone, or even what the ringing of their phone means,
Do you not think people will be suspicious if the CEO of Tesla suddenly starts staring dumbfounded at the rectangle of metal that is playing music and vibrating?
Elon is probably the worst example you could’ve given; given his recent antics, people have a pretty decent chance to just assume he’s trying to roleplay as a child again.
So? How would anyone know the difference between of of them and anyone else.
If they try to replace someone they'll be almost immediately be found out because they won't know:
where they live,
what their phone number is,
the PIN to any of their credit cards,
the password to any of their computers or digital accounts,
how to drive their car / ride their bike / use the bus system / use the train or subway system,
how to answer their phone, or even what the ringing of their phone means,
Do you not think people will be suspicious if the CEO of Tesla suddenly starts staring dumbfounded at the rectangle of metal that is playing music and vibrating?
1. Internet cafe computer go brr. That or a phone.
2. Im pretty sure they could just check the phone they manage to steal from the guy they ate.
3. Make new ones.
4. Reset or buy new ones.
5. Read a tutorial or just practice with multiple personas until they get it right.
6. Eh they could figure it out, if they screw up hard enough, body snatch again.
If you pretend to be the CEO of Tesla I think people would be more suspicious of him actually having empathy for people than him instead of just being incompetent with basic modern technology. Also just steal average Joe's stuff and work up from there, you can’t say someone's a dragon just because they act like a moron, maybe they got severe brain damage? Even if they find out your a dragon somehow, I dunno, snap their necks and steal their face?
The real problem for dragon infiltrators is that at regular intervals - at least once a day, while sleeping - they need to be a dragon. Next, they start with absolutely nothing, no possessions and no knowledge of how the modern world works. Or - demonstrably worse - they start with a ton of gold that they can't account for, but really want to sell.
If they are ever discovered - and they will be, regularly, they'll have to run on foot, or fly. If they ever turn into dragons, they die. If they run on foot, they get caught. 'Oh, but they'll just shape change' I hear you say. Well, good luck with doing that unobserved anywhere the dragon has any real reason for being - giving that it's infiltrating.
There will be tons and tons of evidence for anything dragons try to do. They may be able to walk away from all that if found out - but every time they're found out, they need to get away clean. Or they die. And they can't get away clean, not consistently, when surrounded by observers and cameras.
The modern world is a death trap. There's nowhere to hide. And really, consigning dragons to hiding like rats isn't really victory.
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.
The real problem for dragon infiltrators is that at regular intervals - at least once a day, while sleeping - they need to be a dragon. Next, they start with absolutely nothing, no possessions and no knowledge of how the modern world works. Or - demonstrably worse - they start with a ton of gold that they can't account for, but really want to sell.
If they are ever discovered - and they will be, regularly, they'll have to run on foot, or fly. If they ever turn into dragons, they die. If they run on foot, they get caught. 'Oh, but they'll just shape change' I hear you say. Well, good luck with doing that unobserved anywhere the dragon has any real reason for being - giving that it's infiltrating.
There will be tons and tons of evidence for anything dragons try to do. They may be able to walk away from all that if found out - but every time they're found out, they need to get away clean. Or they die. And they can't get away clean, not consistently, when surrounded by observers and cameras.
The modern world is a death trap. There's nowhere to hide. And really, consigning dragons to hiding like rats isn't really victory.
1. Nothing's stopping them from just going to a local forest, digging real deep, napping for a few hours under a massive rock, wake back up and dust themselves off before pretending to be a normal human being. If cameras are everywhere and tracking is so easy, then why can it take days if not weeks for police to find people lost in the wild? I’m sure or someone tried to x ray the ground for some reason, they will probably glance over the dragon sleeping underneath everything and assume it’s just tree roots, rocks, or any of the other massive stuff underground.
Also they could selling some in a pawn shop for a few bucks while dumping the rest in the middle of nowhere, if someone else finds it, good for em, if the millitary's paranoid their gonna start a man hunt.
2. What? There are snipers everywhere now? I don’t think Europe would become this hyper futuristic 1984 timeline just because there’s a 1 in a million chance for a guy to be a dragon. Given there’s gonna be mass panic because it’s a god damn dragon, they could sneak off pretty easily under the panic, you don’t go “oh it’s gonna turn into someone else watch”, your gonna run instead, while the dragon could just become a homeless man, lay low and kidnap another guy.
3. This assumes that the military can respond in literal minutes when it takes hours for them to actually mobilise, so at most the dragon deals with SWAT teams, which are much more manageable. Unless they got cameras that focus on your face without it having the graphics card of a potato chip, how are you gonna figure out that the dragon pretending to be a homeless man is actually the guy you found, cause the police are probably just gonna handcuff em, shoot em and just say we killed a dragon, national hero or whatever.
Even if they find out your a dragon somehow, I dunno, snap their necks and steal their face?
LOL, so the dragon goes to the iPhone store by looking for the logo on it, asks "What is the code it keeps asking for?" Then when the customer service agent gets suspicious that a person who has owned an iPhone for 10 years doesn't know how to work it and goes to call paramedics to check him for memory loss the dragon snaps their neck in broad daylight in front of dozens of people in the mall/store and that somehow doesn't reveal them to the world???
1. Internet cafe computer go brr. That or a phone.
LOLOLOLOL A dragon from a medieval world that doesn't even have electricity somehow knows the internet exists, what it can do and how to use it?
Elon is probably the worst example you could’ve given; given his recent antics, people have a pretty decent chance to just assume he’s trying to roleplay as a child again.
Elon is perfect because even with all that, it would be instantly obvious if he was replaced with a dragon. The inability to post on X, the fact he doesn't recognize any of his personal staff or know what they do, the moment he suggests walking from Tesla HQ to talk to Donald Trump, or the moment he can't log into his phone.
1. Nothing's stopping them from just going to a local forest, digging real deep, napping for a few hours under a massive rock, wake back up and dust themselves off before pretending to be a normal human being. If cameras are everywhere and tracking is so easy, then why can it take days if not weeks for police to find people lost in the wild? I’m sure or someone tried to x ray the ground for some reason, they will probably glance over the dragon sleeping underneath everything and assume it’s just tree roots, rocks, or any of the other massive stuff underground.
Also they could selling some in a pawn shop for a few bucks while dumping the rest in the middle of nowhere, if someone else finds it, good for em, if the millitary's paranoid their gonna start a man hunt.
2. What? There are snipers everywhere now? I don’t think Europe would become this hyper futuristic 1984 timeline just because there’s a 1 in a million chance for a guy to be a dragon. Given there’s gonna be mass panic because it’s a god damn dragon, they could sneak off pretty easily under the panic, you don’t go “oh it’s gonna turn into someone else watch”, your gonna run instead, while the dragon could just become a homeless man, lay low and kidnap another guy.
3. This assumes that the military can respond in literal minutes when it takes hours for them to actually mobilise, so at most the dragon deals with SWAT teams, which are much more manageable. Unless they got cameras that focus on your face without it having the graphics card of a potato chip, how are you gonna figure out that the dragon pretending to be a homeless man is actually the guy you found, cause the police are probably just gonna handcuff em, shoot em and just say we killed a dragon, national hero or whatever.
1. A dragon can sleep under a rock in the forest. Yes. That's absolutely, definitely not related to what I'm saying, in any way. But yes, if they put in the travel time, and can do so freely and undetected, then they can absolutely sleep under a rock. Only that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if they want to do anything, achieve anything, they will need to do work. And all work - except perhaps building a chair from a tree you felled next to your sleeping rock - leaves traces. You can't do work under a rock in the forest - you will have to come to the city. Where money you spend, things you do online, the car you drive, your cellphone - are all - tracable. And so you shift shape ........... but you still need your car to reach your sleeping rock, and you still have your phone in your pocket, and your credit cards, and so on. That's even providing you ever get far enough to own stuff and know how to use it.
2. Dragons are big. Become a dragon - even for a little while - and the response is full military. You die to supersonic weapons fired many miles away - unaware that you're in a fight at all. Snipers do not enter into the equation.
3. During the Dragon Wars, I feel I'm justified in assumine F-35's on patrol, and loitering munitions of all sorts in the sky. Yes, I assume near-instant response. Because that's what it will be. This is a fight for survival - the dragon apocalypse. Absolutely everything is on maximum alert.
As an aside, as I stated earlier, half a dozen guys with Colt 1911's can dump full mags of ammo into a dragon in literal seconds. Essentially, you're looking at 8x6 impacts per round, doing damage on the order of 10 times more than a crossbow. The dragon is toast before any swat members get hurt (unless it wins the initiative roll or whatever). And that's assuming they're armed with only pistols more than 100 years old.
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.
1. A dragon can sleep under a rock in the forest. Yes. That's absolutely, definitely not related to what I'm saying, in any way. But yes, if they put in the travel time, and can do so freely and undetected, then they can absolutely sleep under a rock. Only that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if they want to do anything, achieve anything, they will need to do work. And all work - except perhaps building a chair from a tree you felled next to your sleeping rock - leaves traces. You can't do work under a rock in the forest - you will have to come to the city. Where money you spend, things you do online, the car you drive, your cellphone - are all - tracable. And so you shift shape ........... but you still need your car to reach your sleeping rock, and you still have your phone in your pocket, and your credit cards, and so on. That's even providing you ever get far enough to own stuff and know how to use it.
2. Dragons are big. Become a dragon - even for a little while - and the response is full military. You die to supersonic weapons fired many miles away - unaware that you're in a fight at all. Snipers do not enter into the equation.
3. During the Dragon Wars, I feel I'm justified in assumine F-35's on patrol, and loitering munitions of all sorts in the sky. Yes, I assume near-instant response. Because that's what it will be. This is a fight for survival - the dragon apocalypse. Absolutely everything is on maximum alert.
As an aside, as I stated earlier, half a dozen guys with Colt 1911's can dump full mags of ammo into a dragon in literal seconds. Essentially, you're looking at 8x6 impacts per round, doing damage on the order of 10 times more than a crossbow. The dragon is toast before any swat members get hurt (unless it wins the initiative roll or whatever). And that's assuming they're armed with only pistols more than 100 years old.
1. Their phones aren’t glued to their faces. Have you not heard of just walking, it’s not uncommon for people to walk late at night, most people would assume you’re just on a late night stroll or going somewhere, and your telling me the dragons don’t have the foresight to think “hmm this super smart box created by the people I’m trying to beat is very fragile, better put this back home in case it cracks”
2. If a group of very loud war criminals were screaming about bombing an urban area, I would not be betting that the military would just bomb them to oblivion, this isn’t Top Gun. Because A. That would be doing the criminal’s jobs for them and B. What military is insane enough to bomb an urban centre, why not nuke Iraq instead of doing urban warfare, the guys there aren’t super smart shape shifting dragons.
3. As in the American Korean movie called D-War? Because those look and act a lot more like nagas (not even the smart ones). Also this might be a wild concept to you, but fuel is expensive as all hell, and wasting jets on a potential sighting is a waste of resources, sure strafe bomb all you like, but a ai real dog fight with a dragon as as likely has having a dog fight with a weather balloon, your not fighting to catch up with it, your fighting your own speed in order to actually shoot the damn thing. You’re assuming the dragons are ALL going rah I’m gonna eat you all. I dunno what type of dragons you think D&D harbours, since their just as likely to be politicians, royals and cunning masterminds as they are a force of nature.
Commoners have a 1d8 of hit points, and there’s tons of cases where people survive a Colt 1911, so unless modern humans have 20 hp or something (enough to tank a ballista), how hard the bullet hits isn’t gonna matter as much as if it actual hits a place that isn’t covered head to toes in scales that are as dense as steel as thick as your thumbs. Also please explain the exact scenario where the main characters all stand up to the big bad dragon and all suddenly becomes expert marksmen and shoot the dragon until it dies, because the dragon is far more likely to just ram them with its body mass and sustain some wounds akin to that of bee stings for them. Also your saying a 1911 does somehow nearly as much as a ballista to a dragon? That’s pretty funny to believe, just look at modern pistol rules.
Wheres the source for how the 1911 is 10 times stronger than a crossbow, which one of what variety and why is a ballistia only 3 times stronger than a heavy crossbow and 1/3 of the danger of a handgun.
Even if they find out your a dragon somehow, I dunno, snap their necks and steal their face?
LOL, so the dragon goes to the iPhone store by looking for the logo on it, asks "What is the code it keeps asking for?" Then when the customer service agent gets suspicious that a person who has owned an iPhone for 10 years doesn't know how to work it and goes to call paramedics to check him for memory loss the dragon snaps their neck in broad daylight in front of dozens of people in the mall/store and that somehow doesn't reveal them to the world???
1. Internet cafe computer go brr. That or a phone.
LOLOLOLOL A dragon from a medieval world that doesn't even have electricity somehow knows the internet exists, what it can do and how to use it?
Elon is probably the worst example you could’ve given; given his recent antics, people have a pretty decent chance to just assume he’s trying to roleplay as a child again.
Elon is perfect because even with all that, it would be instantly obvious if he was replaced with a dragon. The inability to post on X, the fact he doesn't recognize any of his personal staff or know what they do, the moment he suggests walking from Tesla HQ to talk to Donald Trump, or the moment he can't log into his phone.
Okay that’s funny as all hell, but I’m pretty sure Elon doing anything would not be surprising anymore, he’s gone nuts. Also stealing another identity and moving is an option.
1. A dragon can sleep under a rock in the forest. Yes. That's absolutely, definitely not related to what I'm saying, in any way. But yes, if they put in the travel time, and can do so freely and undetected, then they can absolutely sleep under a rock. Only that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if they want to do anything, achieve anything, they will need to do work. And all work - except perhaps building a chair from a tree you felled next to your sleeping rock - leaves traces. You can't do work under a rock in the forest - you will have to come to the city. Where money you spend, things you do online, the car you drive, your cellphone - are all - tracable. And so you shift shape ........... but you still need your car to reach your sleeping rock, and you still have your phone in your pocket, and your credit cards, and so on. That's even providing you ever get far enough to own stuff and know how to use it.
2. Dragons are big. Become a dragon - even for a little while - and the response is full military. You die to supersonic weapons fired many miles away - unaware that you're in a fight at all. Snipers do not enter into the equation.
3. During the Dragon Wars, I feel I'm justified in assumine F-35's on patrol, and loitering munitions of all sorts in the sky. Yes, I assume near-instant response. Because that's what it will be. This is a fight for survival - the dragon apocalypse. Absolutely everything is on maximum alert.
As an aside, as I stated earlier, half a dozen guys with Colt 1911's can dump full mags of ammo into a dragon in literal seconds. Essentially, you're looking at 8x6 impacts per round, doing damage on the order of 10 times more than a crossbow. The dragon is toast before any swat members get hurt (unless it wins the initiative roll or whatever). And that's assuming they're armed with only pistols more than 100 years old.
2. If a group of very loud war criminals were screaming about bombing an urban area, I would not be betting that the military would just bomb them to oblivion, this isn’t Top Gun. Because A. That would be doing the criminal’s jobs for them and B. What military is insane enough to bomb an urban centre, why not nuke Iraq instead of doing urban warfare, the guys there aren’t super smart shape shifting dragons.
So the dragon is very secretly digging a pit in the middle of an urban area to sleep in? I don't think that would be very stealthy. Also, if the location of the dragon is known, one bunker buster would probably take it out. If not, then 10 bunker busters!
1. Their phones aren’t glued to their faces. Have you not heard of just walking, it’s not uncommon for people to walk late at night, most people would assume you’re just on a late night stroll or going somewhere, and your telling me the dragons don’t have the foresight to think “hmm this super smart box created by the people I’m trying to beat is very fragile, better put this back home in case it cracks”
2. If a group of very loud war criminals were screaming about bombing an urban area, I would not be betting that the military would just bomb them to oblivion, this isn’t Top Gun. Because A. That would be doing the criminal’s jobs for them and B. What military is insane enough to bomb an urban centre, why not nuke Iraq instead of doing urban warfare, the guys there aren’t super smart shape shifting dragons.
3. As in the American Korean movie called D-War? Because those look and act a lot more like nagas (not even the smart ones). Also this might be a wild concept to you, but fuel is expensive as all hell, and wasting jets on a potential sighting is a waste of resources, sure strafe bomb all you like, but a ai real dog fight with a dragon as as likely has having a dog fight with a weather balloon, your not fighting to catch up with it, your fighting your own speed in order to actually shoot the damn thing. You’re assuming the dragons are ALL going rah I’m gonna eat you all. I dunno what type of dragons you think D&D harbours, since their just as likely to be politicians, royals and cunning masterminds as they are a force of nature.
Commoners have a 1d8 of hit points, and there’s tons of cases where people survive a Colt 1911, so unless modern humans have 20 hp or something (enough to tank a ballista), how hard the bullet hits isn’t gonna matter as much as if it actual hits a place that isn’t covered head to toes in scales that are as dense as steel as thick as your thumbs. Also please explain the exact scenario where the main characters all stand up to the big bad dragon and all suddenly becomes expert marksmen and shoot the dragon until it dies, because the dragon is far more likely to just ram them with its body mass and sustain some wounds akin to that of bee stings for them. Also your saying a 1911 does somehow nearly as much as a ballista to a dragon? That’s pretty funny to believe, just look at modern pistol rules.
Wheres the source for how the 1911 is 10 times stronger than a crossbow, which one of what variety and why is a ballistia only 3 times stronger than a heavy crossbow and 1/3 of the danger of a handgun.
1: Sure I've heard of walking. This is the dragon that has to work in the city to achieve anything of note, and sleeps in the forest. Yes? How far is this guy walking now? Look, I'm not saying dragons would be too stupid to take any precautions. I'm saying there aren't enough precautions to work. If you're planning the end of the world (for us poor humans) you need a working organisation, you need a hub, logistics, communications. You cannot plan this if you're not doing anything. And everything you do related to achieve your end goal of defeating the humans can be traced, and will eventually lead to military response.
2: I don't know what you're saying here. If a dragon shows up on radar, a long range missile is launched instantly. Were not dropping ballistic missiles or artillery on a city block - we're using guided smart munitions to kill a dragon. And these travel at way past the speed of sound. The dragon never knows it's under attack - it just blinks, and when it's eyes open, it has a massive crater in it's body.
3: Again, I have no idea what you're saying. Here's my view: We're not applying D&D action economy to how soldiers in the real world fire their weapons. Nu-uh. No way. I'll grant you, anything the dragon does kills instantly. It can breath fire, or just claws or whatever, and no contest: That target dies. However, it's just irrelevant. The times ten thing may be slightly hyperbole - I got the ballistic energy of a crossbow bolt vs a 1911 pistol round earlier in this thread and couldn't be arsed to look it up. It is substantially more powerful, but if it's x10 I dunno. And it doesn't matter: 6 guys firing their 100yo guns at a target they cannot miss - but that can bleed and die - are going to kill it in seconds. If - instead of 6 guys with pistols - we say this is a squad of infantry with rifles, a squad support weapon (LMG), grenade launchers, antitank weapons .... and so on ..... it just get's orders of magnitude worse for the dragon.
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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.
1. Their phones aren’t glued to their faces. Have you not heard of just walking, it’s not uncommon for people to walk late at night, most people would assume you’re just on a late night stroll or going somewhere, and your telling me the dragons don’t have the foresight to think “hmm this super smart box created by the people I’m trying to beat is very fragile, better put this back home in case it cracks”
2. If a group of very loud war criminals were screaming about bombing an urban area, I would not be betting that the military would just bomb them to oblivion, this isn’t Top Gun. Because A. That would be doing the criminal’s jobs for them and B. What military is insane enough to bomb an urban centre, why not nuke Iraq instead of doing urban warfare, the guys there aren’t super smart shape shifting dragons.
3. As in the American Korean movie called D-War? Because those look and act a lot more like nagas (not even the smart ones). Also this might be a wild concept to you, but fuel is expensive as all hell, and wasting jets on a potential sighting is a waste of resources, sure strafe bomb all you like, but a ai real dog fight with a dragon as as likely has having a dog fight with a weather balloon, your not fighting to catch up with it, your fighting your own speed in order to actually shoot the damn thing. You’re assuming the dragons are ALL going rah I’m gonna eat you all. I dunno what type of dragons you think D&D harbours, since their just as likely to be politicians, royals and cunning masterminds as they are a force of nature.
Commoners have a 1d8 of hit points, and there’s tons of cases where people survive a Colt 1911, so unless modern humans have 20 hp or something (enough to tank a ballista), how hard the bullet hits isn’t gonna matter as much as if it actual hits a place that isn’t covered head to toes in scales that are as dense as steel as thick as your thumbs. Also please explain the exact scenario where the main characters all stand up to the big bad dragon and all suddenly becomes expert marksmen and shoot the dragon until it dies, because the dragon is far more likely to just ram them with its body mass and sustain some wounds akin to that of bee stings for them. Also your saying a 1911 does somehow nearly as much as a ballista to a dragon? That’s pretty funny to believe, just look at modern pistol rules.
Wheres the source for how the 1911 is 10 times stronger than a crossbow, which one of what variety and why is a ballistia only 3 times stronger than a heavy crossbow and 1/3 of the danger of a handgun.
1: Sure I've heard of walking. This is the dragon that has to work in the city to achieve anything of note, and sleeps in the forest. Yes? How far is this guy walking now? Look, I'm not saying dragons would be too stupid to take any precautions. I'm saying there aren't enough precautions to work. If you're planning the end of the world (for us poor humans) you need a working organisation, you need a hub, logistics, communications. You cannot plan this if you're not doing anything. And everything you do related to achieve your end goal of defeating the humans can be traced, and will eventually lead to military response.
2: I don't know what you're saying here. If a dragon shows up on radar, a long range missile is launched instantly. Were not dropping ballistic missiles or artillery on a city block - we're using guided smart munitions to kill a dragon. And these travel at way past the speed of sound. The dragon never knows it's under attack - it just blinks, and when it's eyes open, it has a massive crater in it's body.
3: Again, I have no idea what you're saying. Here's my view: We're not applying D&D action economy to how soldiers in the real world fire their weapons. Nu-uh. No way. I'll grant you, anything the dragon does kills instantly. It can breath fire, or just claws or whatever, and no contest: That target dies. However, it's just irrelevant. The times ten thing may be slightly hyperbole - I got the ballistic energy of a crossbow bolt vs a 1911 pistol round earlier in this thread and couldn't be arsed to look it up. It is substantially more powerful, but if it's x10 I dunno. And it doesn't matter: 6 guys firing their 100yo guns at a target they cannot miss - but that can bleed and die - are going to kill it in seconds. If - instead of 6 guys with pistols - we say this is a squad of infantry with rifles, a squad support weapon (LMG), grenade launchers, antitank weapons .... and so on ..... it just get's orders of magnitude worse for the dragon.
1. A certain Muslim man was hiding in a random house, and you can’t say he wasn’t planning anything. Also you don’t need to kill all humans, just make sure they can’t respond effectively against you by disabling their ability to actually end your live via military.
2. So you’re telling me if a random big animal just happened to look vaguely like a dragon, they instantly explode? How does the missile figure that out, magic? How would you even identify that without mistaking a semi truck, moose or something of similar size at a far away range, I’d like to see whatever tech allows you to instantly identify a target the moment it exists for half a second without further identification that WON'T cause a random incident.
3. They can miss, I dunno what to tell you, the dragon isn’t made out of butter and can somehow tank swords the size of an entire human being, I don’t think it’s just gonna have handgun bullets phase through it, is the gun gonna be good enough to punch through it and hurt, absolutely, but your also talking about it killing a magical being that goes toe to toe with giants and often times win. Your telling me a volley of handguns are somehow deadlier to a dragon than a 17 foot tall giant (that’s on the small end) pulling an entire tree from its roots and bashing the dragon's face in, or a storn giant just straight up smiting a dragon and the dragon acting like it just got knock out punched instead of dying instantly.
2. So you’re telling me if a random big animal just happened to look vaguely like a dragon, they instantly explode? How does the missile figure that out, magic? How would you even identify that without mistaking a semi truck, moose or something of similar size at a far away range, I’d like to see whatever tech allows you to instantly identify a target the moment it exists for half a second without further identification that WON'T cause a random incident.
Dang it! I forgot about the winged elephants and giant land eels.
3. They can miss, I dunno what to tell you, the dragon isn’t made out of butter and can somehow tank swords the size of an entire human being, I don’t think it’s just gonna have handgun bullets phase through it, is the gun gonna be good enough to punch through it and hurt, absolutely, but your also talking about it killing a magical being that goes toe to toe with giants and often times win. Your telling me a volley of handguns are somehow deadlier to a dragon than a 17 foot tall giant (that’s on the small end) pulling an entire tree from its roots and bashing the dragon's face in, or a storn giant just straight up smiting a dragon and the dragon acting like it just got knock out punched instead of dying instantly.
Yes, a few dozen bullets from a gun will do more damage to a dragon than a really big person hitting it with a stick
Dang it! I forgot about the winged elephants and giant land eels.
Yes, a few dozen bullets from a gun will do more damage to a dragon than a really big person hitting it with a stick
Did you forget about the moose strong enough to tip cars sideways and large enough to make bulls look chumps, cause I don’t remember missiles having taught to see the difference between one massive animal with antlers turning cars upside down and the big scaly lizard doing the same thing, cause that means your gonna need someone close by to give the coordinates of the dragon, and that means that they either have a scope to see said dragon, knowledge of coordinates and the ability to access the military, and that just happens their walking by and see a dragon, i mean, it could work, but that’s really unlikely for agents to just go nowhere and wait for a dragon to pop up.
The "average” weight of a tree is one ton, and that’s not considering those that are 3 to 4 tons heavy, you have to be a different kind of mad to think an object that weights a literal ton falling on you won’t hurt you as much as getting turned to Swiss cheese. Cause you would get splattered by it casually falling on you, it would destroy the roof and ceiling of a brick house and flatten a car. Now take the tree and have it be used as a club by a giant, that amount of weight along with the strength of a monster of that size could obliterate trucks, turn houses into flats and a human into meaty shrapnel. Big trees have killed elephants before, and dragons just eat those attacks from a giant using it as an actual weapon.
The "average” weight of a tree is one ton, and that’s not considering those that are 3 to 4 tons heavy,
The "average" weight of a pickup truck is 4-5 tons. And people survive two pick up trucks hitting each other at 30+ miles per hour speeds pretty routinely.
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To all the several people who replied to me, all generally trying to rebuttal with something to the effect of "But why haven't smart and charismatic people already taken over". 1. they have. and 2. They're not all shape-changing dragons??
I can't understand how the ability to shapechange is somehow getting entirely ignored here. You could never find them. All they need to do to gain any and all resources they need is to replace someone.
Has no one watched movies about body snatchers or dopplegangers or anything along this trope? Now imagine that instead of just some simpleminded entity it was a super-genius, ultra-wise, inhumanly-charismatic entity doing it. And one who, on a whim, could be anyone they wanted, or any animal. And whose default natural form is... a friggen dragon.
No one can go toe to to with one of these guys. Their killrate would be 100%. Kill, eat, replace. They wouldn't even need to worry about hiding bodies which is the number 1 bodysnatcher trope giveaway.
Some of them can even read thoughts.
It'd be over for Europe. And they wouldn't even realize it had started.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
And this is where you get it entirely wrong: They'd be found in no time at all.
How you look is just a tiny fraction of the information about you, and it's not the most important trace you leave behind. At all. If and when your dragon establishes a foothold of any kind, it starts leaving traces. If it owns anything, that's registered. If it buys or sells anything, that's registered. If it talks to anyone on any platform - at all - that can be traced. Anything it ever writes down on anything other than a napkin can be found.
Being able to shapeshift is very, very situationally helpful. It does not achieve anything at all, in the final outcome. Except, maybe, enable escape when all it's plans fail. And even that requires it to shift outside of CCTV coverage.
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.
1. Why not? Of course they can. They can look however they like.
2. They do it at will. They can just do it as often as they want.
So? How would anyone know the difference between of of them and anyone else.
Explain how you think several thousand supergenius shapechangers is going to ... what just bluster in front of a police department and accidentally slip up??
It is game over dude. No one could catch them. We wouldn't even know what to look for.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
The strange chanting every hour.
If they try to replace someone they'll be almost immediately be found out because they won't know:
Do you not think people will be suspicious if the CEO of Tesla suddenly starts staring dumbfounded at the rectangle of metal that is playing music and vibrating?
Elon is probably the worst example you could’ve given; given his recent antics, people have a pretty decent chance to just assume he’s trying to roleplay as a child again.
1. Internet cafe computer go brr. That or a phone.
2. Im pretty sure they could just check the phone they manage to steal from the guy they ate.
3. Make new ones.
4. Reset or buy new ones.
5. Read a tutorial or just practice with multiple personas until they get it right.
6. Eh they could figure it out, if they screw up hard enough, body snatch again.
If you pretend to be the CEO of Tesla I think people would be more suspicious of him actually having empathy for people than him instead of just being incompetent with basic modern technology. Also just steal average Joe's stuff and work up from there, you can’t say someone's a dragon just because they act like a moron, maybe they got severe brain damage? Even if they find out your a dragon somehow, I dunno, snap their necks and steal their face?
The real problem for dragon infiltrators is that at regular intervals - at least once a day, while sleeping - they need to be a dragon. Next, they start with absolutely nothing, no possessions and no knowledge of how the modern world works. Or - demonstrably worse - they start with a ton of gold that they can't account for, but really want to sell.
If they are ever discovered - and they will be, regularly, they'll have to run on foot, or fly. If they ever turn into dragons, they die. If they run on foot, they get caught. 'Oh, but they'll just shape change' I hear you say. Well, good luck with doing that unobserved anywhere the dragon has any real reason for being - giving that it's infiltrating.
There will be tons and tons of evidence for anything dragons try to do. They may be able to walk away from all that if found out - but every time they're found out, they need to get away clean. Or they die. And they can't get away clean, not consistently, when surrounded by observers and cameras.
The modern world is a death trap. There's nowhere to hide. And really, consigning dragons to hiding like rats isn't really victory.
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.
1. Nothing's stopping them from just going to a local forest, digging real deep, napping for a few hours under a massive rock, wake back up and dust themselves off before pretending to be a normal human being. If cameras are everywhere and tracking is so easy, then why can it take days if not weeks for police to find people lost in the wild? I’m sure or someone tried to x ray the ground for some reason, they will probably glance over the dragon sleeping underneath everything and assume it’s just tree roots, rocks, or any of the other massive stuff underground.
Also they could selling some in a pawn shop for a few bucks while dumping the rest in the middle of nowhere, if someone else finds it, good for em, if the millitary's paranoid their gonna start a man hunt.
2. What? There are snipers everywhere now? I don’t think Europe would become this hyper futuristic 1984 timeline just because there’s a 1 in a million chance for a guy to be a dragon. Given there’s gonna be mass panic because it’s a god damn dragon, they could sneak off pretty easily under the panic, you don’t go “oh it’s gonna turn into someone else watch”, your gonna run instead, while the dragon could just become a homeless man, lay low and kidnap another guy.
3. This assumes that the military can respond in literal minutes when it takes hours for them to actually mobilise, so at most the dragon deals with SWAT teams, which are much more manageable. Unless they got cameras that focus on your face without it having the graphics card of a potato chip, how are you gonna figure out that the dragon pretending to be a homeless man is actually the guy you found, cause the police are probably just gonna handcuff em, shoot em and just say we killed a dragon, national hero or whatever.
LOL, so the dragon goes to the iPhone store by looking for the logo on it, asks "What is the code it keeps asking for?" Then when the customer service agent gets suspicious that a person who has owned an iPhone for 10 years doesn't know how to work it and goes to call paramedics to check him for memory loss the dragon snaps their neck in broad daylight in front of dozens of people in the mall/store and that somehow doesn't reveal them to the world???
LOLOLOLOL A dragon from a medieval world that doesn't even have electricity somehow knows the internet exists, what it can do and how to use it?
Elon is perfect because even with all that, it would be instantly obvious if he was replaced with a dragon. The inability to post on X, the fact he doesn't recognize any of his personal staff or know what they do, the moment he suggests walking from Tesla HQ to talk to Donald Trump, or the moment he can't log into his phone.
1. A dragon can sleep under a rock in the forest. Yes. That's absolutely, definitely not related to what I'm saying, in any way. But yes, if they put in the travel time, and can do so freely and undetected, then they can absolutely sleep under a rock. Only that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if they want to do anything, achieve anything, they will need to do work. And all work - except perhaps building a chair from a tree you felled next to your sleeping rock - leaves traces. You can't do work under a rock in the forest - you will have to come to the city. Where money you spend, things you do online, the car you drive, your cellphone - are all - tracable. And so you shift shape ........... but you still need your car to reach your sleeping rock, and you still have your phone in your pocket, and your credit cards, and so on. That's even providing you ever get far enough to own stuff and know how to use it.
2. Dragons are big. Become a dragon - even for a little while - and the response is full military. You die to supersonic weapons fired many miles away - unaware that you're in a fight at all. Snipers do not enter into the equation.
3. During the Dragon Wars, I feel I'm justified in assumine F-35's on patrol, and loitering munitions of all sorts in the sky. Yes, I assume near-instant response. Because that's what it will be. This is a fight for survival - the dragon apocalypse. Absolutely everything is on maximum alert.
As an aside, as I stated earlier, half a dozen guys with Colt 1911's can dump full mags of ammo into a dragon in literal seconds. Essentially, you're looking at 8x6 impacts per round, doing damage on the order of 10 times more than a crossbow. The dragon is toast before any swat members get hurt (unless it wins the initiative roll or whatever). And that's assuming they're armed with only pistols more than 100 years old.
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.
1. Their phones aren’t glued to their faces. Have you not heard of just walking, it’s not uncommon for people to walk late at night, most people would assume you’re just on a late night stroll or going somewhere, and your telling me the dragons don’t have the foresight to think “hmm this super smart box created by the people I’m trying to beat is very fragile, better put this back home in case it cracks”
2. If a group of very loud war criminals were screaming about bombing an urban area, I would not be betting that the military would just bomb them to oblivion, this isn’t Top Gun. Because A. That would be doing the criminal’s jobs for them and B. What military is insane enough to bomb an urban centre, why not nuke Iraq instead of doing urban warfare, the guys there aren’t super smart shape shifting dragons.
3. As in the American Korean movie called D-War? Because those look and act a lot more like nagas (not even the smart ones). Also this might be a wild concept to you, but fuel is expensive as all hell, and wasting jets on a potential sighting is a waste of resources, sure strafe bomb all you like, but a ai real dog fight with a dragon as as likely has having a dog fight with a weather balloon, your not fighting to catch up with it, your fighting your own speed in order to actually shoot the damn thing. You’re assuming the dragons are ALL going rah I’m gonna eat you all. I dunno what type of dragons you think D&D harbours, since their just as likely to be politicians, royals and cunning masterminds as they are a force of nature.
Commoners have a 1d8 of hit points, and there’s tons of cases where people survive a Colt 1911, so unless modern humans have 20 hp or something (enough to tank a ballista), how hard the bullet hits isn’t gonna matter as much as if it actual hits a place that isn’t covered head to toes in scales that are as dense as steel as thick as your thumbs. Also please explain the exact scenario where the main characters all stand up to the big bad dragon and all suddenly becomes expert marksmen and shoot the dragon until it dies, because the dragon is far more likely to just ram them with its body mass and sustain some wounds akin to that of bee stings for them. Also your saying a 1911 does somehow nearly as much as a ballista to a dragon? That’s pretty funny to believe, just look at modern pistol rules.
Wheres the source for how the 1911 is 10 times stronger than a crossbow, which one of what variety and why is a ballistia only 3 times stronger than a heavy crossbow and 1/3 of the danger of a handgun.
Okay that’s funny as all hell, but I’m pretty sure Elon doing anything would not be surprising anymore, he’s gone nuts. Also stealing another identity and moving is an option.
So the dragon is very secretly digging a pit in the middle of an urban area to sleep in? I don't think that would be very stealthy. Also, if the location of the dragon is known, one bunker buster would probably take it out. If not, then 10 bunker busters!
1: Sure I've heard of walking. This is the dragon that has to work in the city to achieve anything of note, and sleeps in the forest. Yes? How far is this guy walking now? Look, I'm not saying dragons would be too stupid to take any precautions. I'm saying there aren't enough precautions to work. If you're planning the end of the world (for us poor humans) you need a working organisation, you need a hub, logistics, communications. You cannot plan this if you're not doing anything. And everything you do related to achieve your end goal of defeating the humans can be traced, and will eventually lead to military response.
2: I don't know what you're saying here. If a dragon shows up on radar, a long range missile is launched instantly. Were not dropping ballistic missiles or artillery on a city block - we're using guided smart munitions to kill a dragon. And these travel at way past the speed of sound. The dragon never knows it's under attack - it just blinks, and when it's eyes open, it has a massive crater in it's body.
3: Again, I have no idea what you're saying. Here's my view: We're not applying D&D action economy to how soldiers in the real world fire their weapons. Nu-uh. No way. I'll grant you, anything the dragon does kills instantly. It can breath fire, or just claws or whatever, and no contest: That target dies. However, it's just irrelevant. The times ten thing may be slightly hyperbole - I got the ballistic energy of a crossbow bolt vs a 1911 pistol round earlier in this thread and couldn't be arsed to look it up. It is substantially more powerful, but if it's x10 I dunno. And it doesn't matter: 6 guys firing their 100yo guns at a target they cannot miss - but that can bleed and die - are going to kill it in seconds. If - instead of 6 guys with pistols - we say this is a squad of infantry with rifles, a squad support weapon (LMG), grenade launchers, antitank weapons .... and so on ..... it just get's orders of magnitude worse for the dragon.
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.
1. A certain Muslim man was hiding in a random house, and you can’t say he wasn’t planning anything. Also you don’t need to kill all humans, just make sure they can’t respond effectively against you by disabling their ability to actually end your live via military.
2. So you’re telling me if a random big animal just happened to look vaguely like a dragon, they instantly explode? How does the missile figure that out, magic? How would you even identify that without mistaking a semi truck, moose or something of similar size at a far away range, I’d like to see whatever tech allows you to instantly identify a target the moment it exists for half a second without further identification that WON'T cause a random incident.
3. They can miss, I dunno what to tell you, the dragon isn’t made out of butter and can somehow tank swords the size of an entire human being, I don’t think it’s just gonna have handgun bullets phase through it, is the gun gonna be good enough to punch through it and hurt, absolutely, but your also talking about it killing a magical being that goes toe to toe with giants and often times win. Your telling me a volley of handguns are somehow deadlier to a dragon than a 17 foot tall giant (that’s on the small end) pulling an entire tree from its roots and bashing the dragon's face in, or a storn giant just straight up smiting a dragon and the dragon acting like it just got knock out punched instead of dying instantly.
Dang it! I forgot about the winged elephants and giant land eels.
Yes, a few dozen bullets from a gun will do more damage to a dragon than a really big person hitting it with a stick
Did you forget about the moose strong enough to tip cars sideways and large enough to make bulls look chumps, cause I don’t remember missiles having taught to see the difference between one massive animal with antlers turning cars upside down and the big scaly lizard doing the same thing, cause that means your gonna need someone close by to give the coordinates of the dragon, and that means that they either have a scope to see said dragon, knowledge of coordinates and the ability to access the military, and that just happens their walking by and see a dragon, i mean, it could work, but that’s really unlikely for agents to just go nowhere and wait for a dragon to pop up.
The "average” weight of a tree is one ton, and that’s not considering those that are 3 to 4 tons heavy, you have to be a different kind of mad to think an object that weights a literal ton falling on you won’t hurt you as much as getting turned to Swiss cheese. Cause you would get splattered by it casually falling on you, it would destroy the roof and ceiling of a brick house and flatten a car. Now take the tree and have it be used as a club by a giant, that amount of weight along with the strength of a monster of that size could obliterate trucks, turn houses into flats and a human into meaty shrapnel. Big trees have killed elephants before, and dragons just eat those attacks from a giant using it as an actual weapon.
The "average" weight of a pickup truck is 4-5 tons. And people survive two pick up trucks hitting each other at 30+ miles per hour speeds pretty routinely.