Breath weapons are completely irrelevant - they are simply far too short range to be effective at all. WW1 hand-held rifles were able to pierce half an inch of solid steel plate at 330 ft. Elephant guns from the late 19th century can kill a charging elephant or rhinoceros with a single shot.
In WW2 we have high-mobility anti-aircraft weaponry consisting of ATVs mounted with four .50 caliber machine guns that each fire 8 rounds/second (aka 48 shots per D&D round) = 192 total shots per D&D round, capable of moving at 60+ miles per hour = 540 ft per D&D round, and across all kind of terrain, with a 1 mile effective range.
Modern weapons would easily 1-shot even a greatwyrm from multiple miles away.
The last time in history that dragons would have been at all a threat is WW1 more than 100 years ago.
The maximum range at which any dragon can damage anyone is 90 feet. If you are 91 feet away from any dragon, you are perfectly safe.
A longbow has a maximum effective range of 150 feet, and a maximum range (with disadvantage) of 600 feet. An M-60 machine gun has a maximum effective range of 3280 feet, and a maximum range (with disadvantage) of 8704 feet. That's 2.65 kilometers, in Euro-math. And a longbow can typically fire 2 arrows per round, but a Tier 4 fighter using Action Surge can fire up to 8 arrows in one round. An M-60 can fire 60 times per round, round after round, until the barrel melts and the assistant gunner uses an action to swap out a new barrel.
And how the heck can anyone think that Europe is worried about collateral damage? As Agilemind mentioned, just look at WW1. Will Europe's bombing and artillery damage their own land? Yes. Check out Google Maps and browse around the fields of Europe. You can still see craters and trench lines amid the farms and towns from wars 80 and 110 years ago. That's damage that Europeans inflicted on Europeans. Oh, green dragons can breath deadly poison gas - so can Europeans! Chlorine, phosgene, and ♫ everybody say MUSTAAAARRRRRD! ♫ Dragons can't use their breath weapons if they can't breath. Sure, black dragons might poison the rivers and lakes with acid. But Europeans don't drink from rivers and lakes. They have infrastructure. They have water treatment plants. They have filtration systems. They have bottled water. Nestle is European! And if they run out of bottled water they'll drink beer. And when they run out of beer they'll drink wine. And when they run out of wine they'll drink the blood of their enemies. Every dragon would die without ever even seeing the person or people who kill it. A fighter jet travelling Mach 2 can hit a dragon from 50 miles away with pinpoint accuracy with a missile capable of leveling an entire city block. Heck, why even risk a pilot. Europe can mount that same missile on an unmanned drone.
D&D is a fantasy game. So it's understandable that someone who has only ever experienced the fantasy of D&D and the fantasy of Hollywood movies might think that a fight between dragons and humanity would be a fair fight. Heck, I watched Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale killing dragons back in 2002. But even the most savage, most ruthless, and most sadistic dragon pales in comparison to what humanity is capable of. The very word "sadistic" is named after a human - Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade!
Breath weapons are completely irrelevant - they are simply far too short range to be effective at all. WW1 hand-held rifles were able to pierce half an inch of solid steel plate at 330 ft. Elephant guns from the late 19th century can kill a charging elephant or rhinoceros with a single shot.
In WW2 we have high-mobility anti-aircraft weaponry consisting of ATVs mounted with four .50 caliber machine guns that each fire 8 rounds/second (aka 48 shots per D&D round) = 192 total shots per D&D round, capable of moving at 60+ miles per hour = 540 ft per D&D round, and across all kind of terrain, with a 1 mile effective range.
Modern weapons would easily 1-shot even a greatwyrm from multiple miles away.
The last time in history that dragons would have been at all a threat is WW1 more than 100 years ago.
That would be a dex save, why do you assume everything game mechanics wise would be in your favour, I don’t see time manipulating technology in the 21st century. Also the 90 foot range thing has been pointed out like twice already, does matter when someone like Inferno could cast teleport, time stop and breath attack.
By Elephant gun logic, a ballista should one shot a elephant in the head, yet its max damage is 63 at best, not even enough to get it to single digits. We also have Cannons in DND, which deal 8d10 on a hit, if that dealt max damage but not a crit the elephant would still be alive, are you telling me that a elephant gun is somehow more devastating to a elephant, than a cannon made to bust castle walls?
The maximum range at which any dragon can damage anyone is 90 feet. If you are 91 feet away from any dragon, you are perfectly safe.
A longbow has a maximum effective range of 150 feet, and a maximum range (with disadvantage) of 600 feet. An M-60 machine gun has a maximum effective range of 3280 feet, and a maximum range (with disadvantage) of 8704 feet. That's 2.65 kilometers, in Euro-math. And a longbow can typically fire 2 arrows per round, but a Tier 4 fighter using Action Surge can fire up to 8 arrows in one round. An M-60 can fire 60 times per round, round after round, until the barrel melts and the assistant gunner uses an action to swap out a new barrel.
And how the heck can anyone think that Europe is worried about collateral damage? As Agilemind mentioned, just look at WW1. Will Europe's bombing and artillery damage their own land? Yes. Check out Google Maps and browse around the fields of Europe. You can still see craters and trench lines amid the farms and towns from wars 80 and 110 years ago. That's damage that Europeans inflicted on Europeans. Oh, green dragons can breath deadly poison gas - so can Europeans! Chlorine, phosgene, and ♫ everybody say MUSTAAAARRRRRD! ♫ Dragons can't use their breath weapons if they can't breath. Sure, black dragons might poison the rivers and lakes with acid. But Europeans don't drink from rivers and lakes. They have infrastructure. They have water treatment plants. They have filtration systems. They have bottled water. Nestle is European! And if they run out of bottled water they'll drink beer. And when they run out of beer they'll drink wine. And when they run out of wine they'll drink the blood of their enemies. Every dragon would die without ever even seeing the person or people who kill it. A fighter jet travelling Mach 2 can hit a dragon from 50 miles away with pinpoint accuracy with a missile capable of leveling an entire city block. Heck, why even risk a pilot. Europe can mount that same missile on an unmanned drone.
D&D is a fantasy game. So it's understandable that someone who has only ever experienced the fantasy of D&D and the fantasy of Hollywood movies might think that a fight between dragons and humanity would be a fair fight. Heck, I watched Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale killing dragons back in 2002. But even the most savage, most ruthless, and most sadistic dragon pales in comparison to what humanity is capable of. The very word "sadistic" is named after a human - Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade!
Dragons are monsters. Humans aren't monsters.
We're something far far worse.
Mass firing guns like a machine gun are translated into dex saves, as seen in the modern weapons section, with Burst Fire, so no, they would not shred the dragon due to how dex saves work.
And everyone says WW1 was a horrible traumatising event that should never be replicated, Europe's only reason for engaging in the world wars was because of a large faction of nations fighting another, dragons aren’t a country, there’s no dragon infantry to obliterate or gas. The assumption that every dragon would be flying that high is somewhat nonsensical, considering growing into adulthood implies that your not stupid enough to fight nations who have dealt with dragons before, and with Europes fighter jets, yea their gonna assume Europe is a serious threat. Not to mention no military worth their salt would engage all their jets 24/7 in random areas in hope for a dragon, even if they took off and got to the location of a dragon in minutes (it takes an average of 30 for one to mobilise, not counting distance time), that’s already ample time for most to flee and become undetected. You heavily confuse desperation with courage and nationalism, especially when the dragons could just, stop them drink making edible food, look at the black ones, let them take a swim in a field of wheat and everything now tastes like battery acid.
This isn’t philosophy about man being the real monsters, this is Europes entire military vs forces of nature that could destroy anything mankind has built like a meteor and disappear as easily as a needle in a hay stack. If you want to talk about who’s worst, yes humanity's weaponry is undoubtedly more powerful, but the sheer mess a cunning dragon could create via just a few spells makes it insanely resource and man power extensive to just pin down the oversized lizard. “Christian Bale killing dragons back in 2002“, really? Using dragons from a completely different source material? Wow, you are truly an astute professor, it’s not like Faerun dragons are significantly more magical, less reliant on biology and have heavy hitters capable of affecting entire nations with their power.
Look at the mental stats of a dragon, not to mention literally every green dragon can inhale cyanide, drink wood alcohol and Botulinum and they are fine.
I agree the military beats dragons in a head on fight, arrows can hurt the damn thing if you try. It’s just no dragon who managed to get to adulthood ever picks a fight with a nation they don’t even know the name of.
Heres my reason why dragons would win.
1. Black dragons teleport or slowly encroach to dams or otherwise large supplies of livestock and food, melt everything with vitriolic sphere and their breaths before feasting for a bit, then hide near that location as the water starts fouling up fast, with anyone on the ground taking twice as long to navigate due to the haze. If they send jets or tanks, they cast fear and flee, bonus points if they're near a large body of water as the water is now unusable until filtered throughly.
2. The greatwyrms and metallics with magic turn human, live around them for a week to garner information, before gossiping and coordinating on who to assassinate and where to plant explosives. Inferno wishes to teleport near the largest amount of nuclear weapons in an area, casts delayed fireball and sticks it close somewhere, teleports and waits. If not targeting weaponry and planes, they assassinate politicians by watching tv, casting Scrying on important figures that are still active, teleport to their location and pop them like a pimple.
3. Green dragons inhabit any large forests and cut of various supplies by destroying trucks and upturning trees everywhere. Meaning they could just pick off the humans in a settlement or otherwise turn them into a cult with Geas, that or kidnap important figures and brainwash them to follow their commands, if they don’t, they better be able to shrug or the mental equivalent off a ballista to the body.
4. Red dragons do all the terrorising and destroying, burning everything down before laying low and relaxing in volcanos, which are barely monitored at all.
5. Every dragon in general would coordinate with others within their area on what areas to target and finally and most vital of all. The white dragons occasionally maul cars when it’s snowing.
The maximum range at which any dragon can damage anyone is 90 feet. If you are 91 feet away from any dragon, you are perfectly safe.
A longbow has a maximum effective range of 150 feet, and a maximum range (with disadvantage) of 600 feet. An M-60 machine gun has a maximum effective range of 3280 feet, and a maximum range (with disadvantage) of 8704 feet. That's 2.65 kilometers, in Euro-math. And a longbow can typically fire 2 arrows per round, but a Tier 4 fighter using Action Surge can fire up to 8 arrows in one round. An M-60 can fire 60 times per round, round after round, until the barrel melts and the assistant gunner uses an action to swap out a new barrel.
And how the heck can anyone think that Europe is worried about collateral damage? As Agilemind mentioned, just look at WW1. Will Europe's bombing and artillery damage their own land? Yes. Check out Google Maps and browse around the fields of Europe. You can still see craters and trench lines amid the farms and towns from wars 80 and 110 years ago. That's damage that Europeans inflicted on Europeans. Oh, green dragons can breath deadly poison gas - so can Europeans! Chlorine, phosgene, and ♫ everybody say MUSTAAAARRRRRD! ♫ Dragons can't use their breath weapons if they can't breath. Sure, black dragons might poison the rivers and lakes with acid. But Europeans don't drink from rivers and lakes. They have infrastructure. They have water treatment plants. They have filtration systems. They have bottled water. Nestle is European! And if they run out of bottled water they'll drink beer. And when they run out of beer they'll drink wine. And when they run out of wine they'll drink the blood of their enemies. Every dragon would die without ever even seeing the person or people who kill it. A fighter jet travelling Mach 2 can hit a dragon from 50 miles away with pinpoint accuracy with a missile capable of leveling an entire city block. Heck, why even risk a pilot. Europe can mount that same missile on an unmanned drone.
D&D is a fantasy game. So it's understandable that someone who has only ever experienced the fantasy of D&D and the fantasy of Hollywood movies might think that a fight between dragons and humanity would be a fair fight. Heck, I watched Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale killing dragons back in 2002. But even the most savage, most ruthless, and most sadistic dragon pales in comparison to what humanity is capable of. The very word "sadistic" is named after a human - Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade!
Dragons are monsters. Humans aren't monsters.
We're something far far worse.
Mass firing guns like a machine gun are translated into dex saves, as seen in the modern weapons section, with Burst Fire, so no, they would not shred the dragon due to how dex saves work.
And everyone says WW1 was a horrible traumatising event that should never be replicated, Europe's only reason for engaging in the world wars was because of a large faction of nations fighting another, dragons aren’t a country, there’s no dragon infantry to obliterate or gas. The assumption that every dragon would be flying that high is somewhat nonsensical, considering growing into adulthood implies that your not stupid enough to fight nations who have dealt with dragons before, and with Europes fighter jets, yea their gonna assume Europe is a serious threat. Not to mention no military worth their salt would engage all their jets 24/7 in random areas in hope for a dragon, even if they took off and got to the location of a dragon in minutes (it takes an average of 30 for one to mobilise, not counting distance time), that’s already ample time for most to flee and become undetected. You heavily confuse desperation with courage and nationalism, especially when the dragons could just, stop them drink making edible food, look at the black ones, let them take a swim in a field of wheat and everything now tastes like battery acid.
This isn’t philosophy about man being the real monsters, this is Europes entire military vs forces of nature that could destroy anything mankind has built like a meteor and disappear as easily as a needle in a hay stack. If you want to talk about who’s worst, yes humanity's weaponry is undoubtedly more powerful, but the sheer mess a cunning dragon could create via just a few spells makes it insanely resource and man power extensive to just pin down the oversized lizard. “Christian Bale killing dragons back in 2002“, really? Using dragons from a completely different source material? Wow, you are truly an astute professor, it’s not like Faerun dragons are significantly more magical, less reliant on biology and have heavy hitters capable of affecting entire nations with their power.
Look at the mental stats of a dragon, not to mention literally every green dragon can inhale cyanide, drink wood alcohol and Botulinum and they are fine.
Looking it up, radar can reach to around 300 miles, so I don't think these dragons are hiding anywhere.
I agree the military beats dragons in a head on fight, arrows can hurt the damn thing if you try. It’s just no dragon who managed to get to adulthood ever picks a fight with a nation they don’t even know the name of.
Heres my reason why dragons would win.
1. Black dragons teleport or slowly encroach to dams or otherwise large supplies of livestock and food, melt everything with vitriolic sphere and their breaths before feasting for a bit, then hide near that location as the water starts fouling up fast, with anyone on the ground taking twice as long to navigate due to the haze. If they send jets or tanks, they cast fear and flee, bonus points if they're near a large body of water as the water is now unusable until filtered throughly.
2. The greatwyrms and metallics with magic turn human, live around them for a week to garner information, before gossiping and coordinating on who to assassinate and where to plant explosives. Inferno wishes to teleport near the largest amount of nuclear weapons in an area, casts delayed fireball and sticks it close somewhere, teleports and waits. If not targeting weaponry and planes, they assassinate politicians by watching tv, casting Scrying on important figures that are still active, teleport to their location and pop them like a pimple.
3. Green dragons inhabit any large forests and cut of various supplies by destroying trucks and upturning trees everywhere. Meaning they could just pick off the humans in a settlement or otherwise turn them into a cult with Geas, that or kidnap important figures and brainwash them to follow their commands, if they don’t, they better be able to shrug or the mental equivalent off a ballista to the body.
4. Red dragons do all the terrorising and destroying, burning everything down before laying low and relaxing in volcanos, which are barely monitored at all.
5. Every dragon in general would coordinate with others within their area on what areas to target and finally and most vital of all. The white dragons occasionally maul cars when it’s snowing.
What is the sourcebook for Inferno? I'd be quite interested to see their statblock.
I agree the military beats dragons in a head on fight, arrows can hurt the damn thing if you try. It’s just no dragon who managed to get to adulthood ever picks a fight with a nation they don’t even know the name of.
Heres my reason why dragons would win.
1. Black dragons teleport or slowly encroach to dams or otherwise large supplies of livestock and food, melt everything with vitriolic sphere and their breaths before feasting for a bit, then hide near that location as the water starts fouling up fast, with anyone on the ground taking twice as long to navigate due to the haze. If they send jets or tanks, they cast fear and flee, bonus points if they're near a large body of water as the water is now unusable until filtered throughly.
2. The greatwyrms and metallics with magic turn human, live around them for a week to garner information, before gossiping and coordinating on who to assassinate and where to plant explosives. Inferno wishes to teleport near the largest amount of nuclear weapons in an area, casts delayed fireball and sticks it close somewhere, teleports and waits. If not targeting weaponry and planes, they assassinate politicians by watching tv, casting Scrying on important figures that are still active, teleport to their location and pop them like a pimple.
3. Green dragons inhabit any large forests and cut of various supplies by destroying trucks and upturning trees everywhere. Meaning they could just pick off the humans in a settlement or otherwise turn them into a cult with Geas, that or kidnap important figures and brainwash them to follow their commands, if they don’t, they better be able to shrug or the mental equivalent off a ballista to the body.
4. Red dragons do all the terrorising and destroying, burning everything down before laying low and relaxing in volcanos, which are barely monitored at all.
5. Every dragon in general would coordinate with others within their area on what areas to target and finally and most vital of all. The white dragons occasionally maul cars when it’s snowing.
What is the sourcebook for Inferno? I'd be quite interested to see their statblock.
I believe the old books online about his stats were deleted, but I think a few forums have remnants of it.
Mass firing guns like a machine gun are translated into dex saves, as seen in the modern weapons section, with Burst Fire, so no, they would not shred the dragon due to how dex saves work.
And everyone says WW1 was a horrible traumatising event that should never be replicated, Europe's only reason for engaging in the world wars was because of a large faction of nations fighting another, dragons aren’t a country, there’s no dragon infantry to obliterate or gas. The assumption that every dragon would be flying that high is somewhat nonsensical, considering growing into adulthood implies that your not stupid enough to fight nations who have dealt with dragons before, and with Europes fighter jets, yea their gonna assume Europe is a serious threat. Not to mention no military worth their salt would engage all their jets 24/7 in random areas in hope for a dragon, even if they took off and got to the location of a dragon in minutes (it takes an average of 30 for one to mobilise, not counting distance time), that’s already ample time for most to flee and become undetected.
Looking it up, radar can reach to around 300 miles, so I don't think these dragons are hiding anywhere.
Well most ground penetrating radars are quiet limited, at the very least the dragons would hide their specific location, but probably not their lair's location if people have managed to track them, although those capable of burrowing would probably counter it by creating temporary but complex burrows and digging to new locations.
I agree the military beats dragons in a head on fight, arrows can hurt the damn thing if you try. It’s just no dragon who managed to get to adulthood ever picks a fight with a nation they don’t even know the name of.
Heres my reason why dragons would win.
1. Black dragons teleport or slowly encroach to dams or otherwise large supplies of livestock and food, melt everything with vitriolic sphere and their breaths before feasting for a bit, then hide near that location as the water starts fouling up fast, with anyone on the ground taking twice as long to navigate due to the haze. If they send jets or tanks, they cast fear and flee, bonus points if they're near a large body of water as the water is now unusable until filtered throughly.
2. The greatwyrms and metallics with magic turn human, live around them for a week to garner information, before gossiping and coordinating on who to assassinate and where to plant explosives. Inferno wishes to teleport near the largest amount of nuclear weapons in an area, casts delayed fireball and sticks it close somewhere, teleports and waits. If not targeting weaponry and planes, they assassinate politicians by watching tv, casting Scrying on important figures that are still active, teleport to their location and pop them like a pimple.
3. Green dragons inhabit any large forests and cut of various supplies by destroying trucks and upturning trees everywhere. Meaning they could just pick off the humans in a settlement or otherwise turn them into a cult with Geas, that or kidnap important figures and brainwash them to follow their commands, if they don’t, they better be able to shrug or the mental equivalent off a ballista to the body.
4. Red dragons do all the terrorising and destroying, burning everything down before laying low and relaxing in volcanos, which are barely monitored at all.
5. Every dragon in general would coordinate with others within their area on what areas to target and finally and most vital of all. The white dragons occasionally maul cars when it’s snowing.
What is the sourcebook for Inferno? I'd be quite interested to see their statblock.
I believe the old books online about his stats were deleted, but I think a few forums have remnants of it.
RAW, firearms aren't saving throw weapons. You make attack rolls just like any other weapon. But whether it's an attack roll or a saving throw is moot. Regardless of the dragon's AC, regardless of the save DC, I'm going to give you the full benefit of the doubt and say that the attacker only hits on a Natural 20 and/or the dragon only fails their Dex save on a Natural 1. The math is the same either way.
Fifty people, each wielding an M-60, open fire on a dragon from 500 meters away. It will take the dragon 18 rounds to either get out of the weapons' range or get close enough to counterattack. Each M-60 fires 60 times per round. 50 attackers x 60 shots per round x 18 rounds = 54,000 shots before the dragon even has a chance to respond. Now let's say that ONLY a Nat 20 attack or a Nat 1 save results in a hit, that's still 2700 hits. Each hit does 2d10 damage. That means the dragon will taking 1650 hit points of damage PER ROUND for 18 consecutive rounds before even being able to fight back.
And that doesn't even take into account the AMRAAM missile that is moving toward the dragon at 3000 miles per hour from a plane 20 miles away. What's the damage dice for 44 pounds of high explosives?
I would also like to point out that you criticized me for citing, "a completely different source material" when I mentioned the movie Reign of Fire. And you followed that up by citing non-canon info from some random dude's blog post from 23 years ago (which, coincidentally, was the same year that Reign of Fire came out).
Seriously though, it was a great movie. I highly recommend that you watch it . . . if you still have a VCR laying around, that is.
Breath weapons are completely irrelevant - they are simply far too short range to be effective at all. WW1 hand-held rifles were able to pierce half an inch of solid steel plate at 330 ft. Elephant guns from the late 19th century can kill a charging elephant or rhinoceros with a single shot.
In WW2 we have high-mobility anti-aircraft weaponry consisting of ATVs mounted with four .50 caliber machine guns that each fire 8 rounds/second (aka 48 shots per D&D round) = 192 total shots per D&D round, capable of moving at 60+ miles per hour = 540 ft per D&D round, and across all kind of terrain, with a 1 mile effective range.
Modern weapons would easily 1-shot even a greatwyrm from multiple miles away.
The last time in history that dragons would have been at all a threat is WW1 more than 100 years ago.
That would be a dex save, why do you assume everything game mechanics wise would be in your favour, I don’t see time manipulating technology in the 21st century. Also the 90 foot range thing has been pointed out like twice already, does matter when someone like Inferno could cast teleport, time stop and breath attack.
By Elephant gun logic, a ballista should one shot a elephant in the head, yet its max damage is 63 at best, not even enough to get it to single digits. We also have Cannons in DND, which deal 8d10 on a hit, if that dealt max damage but not a crit the elephant would still be alive, are you telling me that a elephant gun is somehow more devastating to a elephant, than a cannon made to bust castle walls?
D&D game mechanic have very little to do with the real world, so what are you even talking about? If we are talking about in-game mechanics your question is unintelligible because there are no stats for modern weapons in-game. D&D game mechanics explicitly don't even attempt to simulate the real world, they are designed to be fun for players. So the answer to your question in-game mechanics is "the winner is whomever the DM thinks it would be more fun to be the winner." Entertainment is entertainment only, it doesn't and shouldn't follow the rules of the real world because it's main purpose is often escapism from the banality, unfairness, and arbitrariness of the real world, to one where justice is served, people change and grow, things happen for a reason and the winner is whomever we are rooting for to win.
Also FYI, a ballista IRL shouldn't be able to even hit a dragon, they are not that accurate and way too slow to aim. There is a reason they were primarily used against large immobile objects rather than fast-moving enemy troops.
RAW, firearms aren't saving throw weapons. You make attack rolls just like any other weapon. But whether it's an attack roll or a saving throw is moot. Regardless of the dragon's AC, regardless of the save DC, I'm going to give you the full benefit of the doubt and say that the attacker only hits on a Natural 20 and/or the dragon only fails their Dex save on a Natural 1. The math is the same either way.
Fifty people, each wielding an M-60, open fire on a dragon from 500 meters away. It will take the dragon 18 rounds to either get out of the weapons' range or get close enough to counterattack. Each M-60 fires 60 times per round. 50 attackers x 60 shots per round x 18 rounds = 54,000 shots before the dragon even has a chance to respond. Now let's say that ONLY a Nat 20 attack or a Nat 1 save results in a hit, that's still 2700 hits. Each hit does 2d10 damage. That means the dragon will taking 1650 hit points of damage PER ROUND for 18 consecutive rounds before even being able to fight back.
And that doesn't even take into account the AMRAAM missile that is moving toward the dragon at 3000 miles per hour from a plane 20 miles away. What's the damage dice for 44 pounds of high explosives?
I would also like to point out that you criticized me for citing, "a completely different source material" when I mentioned the movie Reign of Fire. And you followed that up by citing non-canon info from some random dude's blog post from 23 years ago (which, coincidentally, was the same year that Reign of Fire came out).
Seriously though, it was a great movie. I highly recommend that you watch it . . . if you still have a VCR laying around, that is.
So are you assuming an assault rifle does 2d10 piercing on a single bullet? Because the actual stat of a assault rifle is “A weapon that has the burst fire property can make a normal single-target attack, or it can spray a 10-foot-cube area within normal range with shots. Each creature in the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take the weapon's normal damage. This action uses ten pieces of ammunition." 2d8 per normal damage, let’s also say their to hit is +5 (16 dex and +2 proficiency), only 20 out of 50 would hit, still impressive, but that’s only a total of 180 piercing damage IF the dragon is being attacked without disadvantage. With the burst attack, an additional 3 would miss due to legendary resistance. Also note that the assault rifle has a effective range of 80/240, this is the dnd conversion, seeing that it exists in the same game version as an average Adult Red Dragon, I would takes its statblock as more definitive. With its legendary actions a Red dragon could move 140 feet in 6 seconds, meaning in at the very least 2 rounds the dragon would be out of range if they were right next to the men. What you assumed would mean that your guys could use the attack action 60 times, and considering a fighter can make at most 8 attacks with action surge, not likely.
But that’s not even considering cover nor how the hell 50 men managed to get in range of a dragon, but yea they would be enough to scare one away, if their not bundled up through. Also the missiles would be at best at meteor swarm levels of damage, so survivable for a dragon.
“citing non-canon info” no, he is canon, he’s been mentioned through multiple dnd sources, the only reason I’m bringing up the blog is because thats the only statblock of him that still exists. Not to mention Reign of Fire is not in the DND canon, so information from it can be disregarded on how the dragons would otherwise act or go against Europe.
RAW, firearms aren't saving throw weapons. You make attack rolls just like any other weapon. But whether it's an attack roll or a saving throw is moot. Regardless of the dragon's AC, regardless of the save DC, I'm going to give you the full benefit of the doubt and say that the attacker only hits on a Natural 20 and/or the dragon only fails their Dex save on a Natural 1. The math is the same either way.
Fifty people, each wielding an M-60, open fire on a dragon from 500 meters away. It will take the dragon 18 rounds to either get out of the weapons' range or get close enough to counterattack. Each M-60 fires 60 times per round. 50 attackers x 60 shots per round x 18 rounds = 54,000 shots before the dragon even has a chance to respond. Now let's say that ONLY a Nat 20 attack or a Nat 1 save results in a hit, that's still 2700 hits. Each hit does 2d10 damage. That means the dragon will taking 1650 hit points of damage PER ROUND for 18 consecutive rounds before even being able to fight back.
And that doesn't even take into account the AMRAAM missile that is moving toward the dragon at 3000 miles per hour from a plane 20 miles away. What's the damage dice for 44 pounds of high explosives?
I would also like to point out that you criticized me for citing, "a completely different source material" when I mentioned the movie Reign of Fire. And you followed that up by citing non-canon info from some random dude's blog post from 23 years ago (which, coincidentally, was the same year that Reign of Fire came out).
Seriously though, it was a great movie. I highly recommend that you watch it . . . if you still have a VCR laying around, that is.
So are you assuming an assault rifle does 2d10 piercing on a single bullet? Because the actual stat of a assault rifle is “A weapon that has the burst fire property can make a normal single-target attack, or it can spray a 10-foot-cube area within normal range with shots. Each creature in the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take the weapon's normal damage. This action uses ten pieces of ammunition." 2d8 per normal damage, let’s also say their to hit is +5 (16 dex and +2 proficiency), only 20 out of 50 would hit, still impressive, but that’s only a total of 180 piercing damage IF the dragon is being attacked without disadvantage. With the burst attack, an additional 3 would miss due to legendary resistance. Also note that the assault rifle has a effective range of 80/240, this is the dnd conversion, seeing that it exists in the same game version as an average Adult Red Dragon, I would takes its statblock as more definitive. With its legendary actions a Red dragon could move 140 feet in 6 seconds, meaning in at the very least 2 rounds the dragon would be out of range if they were right next to the men. What you assumed would mean that your guys could use the attack action 60 times, and considering a fighter can make at most 8 attacks with action surge, not likely.
But that’s not even considering cover nor how the hell 50 men managed to get in range of a dragon, but yea they would be enough to scare one away, if their not bundled up through. Also the missiles would be at best at meteor swarm levels of damage, so survivable for a dragon.
“citing non-canon info” no, he is canon, he’s been mentioned through multiple dnd sources, the only reason I’m bringing up the blog is because thats the only statblock of him that still exists. Not to mention Reign of Fire is not in the DND canon, so information from it can be disregarded on how the dragons would otherwise act or go against Europe.
Not to mention no military worth their salt would engage all their jets 24/7 in random areas in hope for a dragon, even if they took off and got to the location of a dragon in minutes (it takes an average of 30 for one to mobilise, not counting distance time), that’s already ample time for most to flee and become undetected.
Dude! You are aware there was this thing called "The Cold War" where basically every developed country on earth built extensive radar systems and fleets of fighter jets to detect and intercept enemy nukes miles before those things could get to major population centres. And you do know about GPS and Google Earth right? You are aware there are thousands of satellites constantly scanning the Earth for various different purposes. There's also spy planes and spy balloons high up in the stratosphere constantly surveilling areas of national security interest - including weapons sites, powerplants, nuclear waste sites, and other areas of national interest. (There's even a cute promotional program about it for kids where NORAD tracks Santa on Xmas eve).
Geez, Google Earth has satellite images of sufficient resolution to count individual animals roaming the Serengeti, covering essentially the entire planet, that are routinely updated. And that's the tech we know about. Intelligence agencies and militaries have a whole whack of communication and sensor equipment up there doing all kinds of stuff all the time that is all protected national secrets.
That's before even considering that >50% of the global population own a smartphone capable of photographing or videoing a dragon and posting it to the internet for all to see within seconds. Within hours all the dragons would be being live-tracked by various remote sensing systems.
PS Re: burrowing - there's global systems of seismometers spread out around the world to monitor earthquakes and volcanic activity, any dragon digging out a massive complex in a few hours will get picked up pretty easily.
I used the "Hunting Rifle" RAW stat block as the basis for the 2d10 damage. the M-60 fires a 7.62 mm high explosive round. That is equivalent to what hunting rifles use. If you would prefer that I instead use the stats for an "automatic rifle" that would be 2d8, which means instead of the dragon taking 1650 hp of damage per round, it would only be taking 1350 hp per round.
Not to mention no military worth their salt would engage all their jets 24/7 in random areas in hope for a dragon, even if they took off and got to the location of a dragon in minutes (it takes an average of 30 for one to mobilise, not counting distance time), that’s already ample time for most to flee and become undetected.
Dude! You are aware there was this thing called "The Cold War" where basically every developed country on earth built extensive radar systems and fleets of fighter jets to detect and intercept enemy nukes miles before those things could get to major population centres. And you do know about GPS and Google Earth right? You are aware there are thousands of satellites constantly scanning the Earth for various different purposes. There's also spy planes and spy balloons high up in the stratosphere constantly surveilling areas of national security interest - including weapons sites, powerplants, nuclear waste sites, and other areas of national interest. (There's even a cute promotional program about it for kids where NORAD tracks Santa on Xmas eve).
Geez, Google Earth has satellite images of sufficient resolution to count individual animals roaming the Serengeti, covering essentially the entire planet, that are routinely updated. And that's the tech we know about. Intelligence agencies and militaries have a whole whack of communication and sensor equipment up there doing all kinds of stuff all the time that is all protected national secrets.
That's before even considering that >50% of the global population own a smartphone capable of photographing or videoing a dragon and posting it to the internet for all to see within seconds. Within hours all the dragons would be being live-tracked by various remote sensing systems.
Within hours, key note, not to mention nukes are a lot more noticeable than dragons and have a decade or so of fear in order for them to create countermeasures. I also don’t remember how knowing where a dragon WAS, would help when they could teleport or become visually invisible.
You have no idea the amount of secret files spread on the internet that the dragon could just find on War Thunder, let alone some of the less savoury websites. Europe has yet to make anti magic countermeasures for Legend Lore, Divination and Scrying. And I’m pretty sure nukes are considered legendary weapons of mass destruction, see Godzilla.
”Within hours all the dragons would be being live-tracked by various remote sensing systems.” Teleport, invisibility and illusions would counter it, especially when the dragons pop out of nowhere and most people panic instead of making detailed observations about what their capable of, any reliable sources would be mixed in with photoshop for people wanting attention, the internet is unreliable in terms of information for mythical creatures coming from nowhere, some people are destined to mistake it for a trend.
RAW, firearms aren't saving throw weapons. You make attack rolls just like any other weapon. But whether it's an attack roll or a saving throw is moot. Regardless of the dragon's AC, regardless of the save DC, I'm going to give you the full benefit of the doubt and say that the attacker only hits on a Natural 20 and/or the dragon only fails their Dex save on a Natural 1. The math is the same either way.
Fifty people, each wielding an M-60, open fire on a dragon from 500 meters away. It will take the dragon 18 rounds to either get out of the weapons' range or get close enough to counterattack. Each M-60 fires 60 times per round. 50 attackers x 60 shots per round x 18 rounds = 54,000 shots before the dragon even has a chance to respond. Now let's say that ONLY a Nat 20 attack or a Nat 1 save results in a hit, that's still 2700 hits. Each hit does 2d10 damage. That means the dragon will taking 1650 hit points of damage PER ROUND for 18 consecutive rounds before even being able to fight back.
And that doesn't even take into account the AMRAAM missile that is moving toward the dragon at 3000 miles per hour from a plane 20 miles away. What's the damage dice for 44 pounds of high explosives?
I would also like to point out that you criticized me for citing, "a completely different source material" when I mentioned the movie Reign of Fire. And you followed that up by citing non-canon info from some random dude's blog post from 23 years ago (which, coincidentally, was the same year that Reign of Fire came out).
Seriously though, it was a great movie. I highly recommend that you watch it . . . if you still have a VCR laying around, that is.
So are you assuming an assault rifle does 2d10 piercing on a single bullet? Because the actual stat of a assault rifle is “A weapon that has the burst fire property can make a normal single-target attack, or it can spray a 10-foot-cube area within normal range with shots. Each creature in the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take the weapon's normal damage. This action uses ten pieces of ammunition." 2d8 per normal damage, let’s also say their to hit is +5 (16 dex and +2 proficiency), only 20 out of 50 would hit, still impressive, but that’s only a total of 180 piercing damage IF the dragon is being attacked without disadvantage. With the burst attack, an additional 3 would miss due to legendary resistance. Also note that the assault rifle has a effective range of 80/240, this is the dnd conversion, seeing that it exists in the same game version as an average Adult Red Dragon, I would takes its statblock as more definitive. With its legendary actions a Red dragon could move 140 feet in 6 seconds, meaning in at the very least 2 rounds the dragon would be out of range if they were right next to the men. What you assumed would mean that your guys could use the attack action 60 times, and considering a fighter can make at most 8 attacks with action surge, not likely.
But that’s not even considering cover nor how the hell 50 men managed to get in range of a dragon, but yea they would be enough to scare one away, if their not bundled up through. Also the missiles would be at best at meteor swarm levels of damage, so survivable for a dragon.
“citing non-canon info” no, he is canon, he’s been mentioned through multiple dnd sources, the only reason I’m bringing up the blog is because thats the only statblock of him that still exists. Not to mention Reign of Fire is not in the DND canon, so information from it can be disregarded on how the dragons would otherwise act or go against Europe.
Even if he was cannon, that was pre-3.5e.
I see no reason why he isn’t usable, it only specified Faerun, not pre 5e content nor characters.
I used the "Hunting Rifle" RAW stat block as the basis for the 2d10 damage. the M-60 fires a 7.62 mm high explosive round. That is equivalent to what hunting rifles use. If you would prefer that I instead use the stats for an "automatic rifle" that would be 2d8, which means instead of the dragon taking 1650 hp of damage per round, it would only be taking 1350 hp per round.
I happily grant you that concession.
Wow humans can make 60 attacks, Kyle from kindergarten must be a level 20 epic fighter, it’s not like Burst Fire is literally right in the weapon called the ASSAULT rifle.
Where in the dnd conversion of an assault rifle, does it state you're allowed to deal 120d8 damage with it?
not to mention nukes are a lot more noticeable than dragons
????????? Nukes are about the same size as a dragon and like 100x faster than a dragon and can have anti-radar coating / plating. Dragons are giant, slow moving, lizards, most of them have terrible DEX scores for a reason.
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Breath weapons are completely irrelevant - they are simply far too short range to be effective at all. WW1 hand-held rifles were able to pierce half an inch of solid steel plate at 330 ft. Elephant guns from the late 19th century can kill a charging elephant or rhinoceros with a single shot.
In WW2 we have high-mobility anti-aircraft weaponry consisting of ATVs mounted with four .50 caliber machine guns that each fire 8 rounds/second (aka 48 shots per D&D round) = 192 total shots per D&D round, capable of moving at 60+ miles per hour = 540 ft per D&D round, and across all kind of terrain, with a 1 mile effective range.
Modern weapons would easily 1-shot even a greatwyrm from multiple miles away.
The last time in history that dragons would have been at all a threat is WW1 more than 100 years ago.
The maximum range at which any dragon can damage anyone is 90 feet. If you are 91 feet away from any dragon, you are perfectly safe.
A longbow has a maximum effective range of 150 feet, and a maximum range (with disadvantage) of 600 feet. An M-60 machine gun has a maximum effective range of 3280 feet, and a maximum range (with disadvantage) of 8704 feet. That's 2.65 kilometers, in Euro-math. And a longbow can typically fire 2 arrows per round, but a Tier 4 fighter using Action Surge can fire up to 8 arrows in one round. An M-60 can fire 60 times per round, round after round, until the barrel melts and the assistant gunner uses an action to swap out a new barrel.
And how the heck can anyone think that Europe is worried about collateral damage? As Agilemind mentioned, just look at WW1. Will Europe's bombing and artillery damage their own land? Yes. Check out Google Maps and browse around the fields of Europe. You can still see craters and trench lines amid the farms and towns from wars 80 and 110 years ago. That's damage that Europeans inflicted on Europeans. Oh, green dragons can breath deadly poison gas - so can Europeans! Chlorine, phosgene, and ♫ everybody say MUSTAAAARRRRRD! ♫ Dragons can't use their breath weapons if they can't breath. Sure, black dragons might poison the rivers and lakes with acid. But Europeans don't drink from rivers and lakes. They have infrastructure. They have water treatment plants. They have filtration systems. They have bottled water. Nestle is European! And if they run out of bottled water they'll drink beer. And when they run out of beer they'll drink wine. And when they run out of wine they'll drink the blood of their enemies. Every dragon would die without ever even seeing the person or people who kill it. A fighter jet travelling Mach 2 can hit a dragon from 50 miles away with pinpoint accuracy with a missile capable of leveling an entire city block. Heck, why even risk a pilot. Europe can mount that same missile on an unmanned drone.
D&D is a fantasy game. So it's understandable that someone who has only ever experienced the fantasy of D&D and the fantasy of Hollywood movies might think that a fight between dragons and humanity would be a fair fight. Heck, I watched Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale killing dragons back in 2002. But even the most savage, most ruthless, and most sadistic dragon pales in comparison to what humanity is capable of. The very word "sadistic" is named after a human - Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade!
Dragons are monsters. Humans aren't monsters.
We're something far far worse.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
That would be a dex save, why do you assume everything game mechanics wise would be in your favour, I don’t see time manipulating technology in the 21st century. Also the 90 foot range thing has been pointed out like twice already, does matter when someone like Inferno could cast teleport, time stop and breath attack.
By Elephant gun logic, a ballista should one shot a elephant in the head, yet its max damage is 63 at best, not even enough to get it to single digits. We also have Cannons in DND, which deal 8d10 on a hit, if that dealt max damage but not a crit the elephant would still be alive, are you telling me that a elephant gun is somehow more devastating to a elephant, than a cannon made to bust castle walls?
Mass firing guns like a machine gun are translated into dex saves, as seen in the modern weapons section, with Burst Fire, so no, they would not shred the dragon due to how dex saves work.
And everyone says WW1 was a horrible traumatising event that should never be replicated, Europe's only reason for engaging in the world wars was because of a large faction of nations fighting another, dragons aren’t a country, there’s no dragon infantry to obliterate or gas. The assumption that every dragon would be flying that high is somewhat nonsensical, considering growing into adulthood implies that your not stupid enough to fight nations who have dealt with dragons before, and with Europes fighter jets, yea their gonna assume Europe is a serious threat. Not to mention no military worth their salt would engage all their jets 24/7 in random areas in hope for a dragon, even if they took off and got to the location of a dragon in minutes (it takes an average of 30 for one to mobilise, not counting distance time), that’s already ample time for most to flee and become undetected. You heavily confuse desperation with courage and nationalism, especially when the dragons could just, stop them drink making edible food, look at the black ones, let them take a swim in a field of wheat and everything now tastes like battery acid.
This isn’t philosophy about man being the real monsters, this is Europes entire military vs forces of nature that could destroy anything mankind has built like a meteor and disappear as easily as a needle in a hay stack. If you want to talk about who’s worst, yes humanity's weaponry is undoubtedly more powerful, but the sheer mess a cunning dragon could create via just a few spells makes it insanely resource and man power extensive to just pin down the oversized lizard. “Christian Bale killing dragons back in 2002“, really? Using dragons from a completely different source material? Wow, you are truly an astute professor, it’s not like Faerun dragons are significantly more magical, less reliant on biology and have heavy hitters capable of affecting entire nations with their power.
Look at the mental stats of a dragon, not to mention literally every green dragon can inhale cyanide, drink wood alcohol and Botulinum and they are fine.
I agree the military beats dragons in a head on fight, arrows can hurt the damn thing if you try. It’s just no dragon who managed to get to adulthood ever picks a fight with a nation they don’t even know the name of.
Heres my reason why dragons would win.
1. Black dragons teleport or slowly encroach to dams or otherwise large supplies of livestock and food, melt everything with vitriolic sphere and their breaths before feasting for a bit, then hide near that location as the water starts fouling up fast, with anyone on the ground taking twice as long to navigate due to the haze. If they send jets or tanks, they cast fear and flee, bonus points if they're near a large body of water as the water is now unusable until filtered throughly.
2. The greatwyrms and metallics with magic turn human, live around them for a week to garner information, before gossiping and coordinating on who to assassinate and where to plant explosives. Inferno wishes to teleport near the largest amount of nuclear weapons in an area, casts delayed fireball and sticks it close somewhere, teleports and waits. If not targeting weaponry and planes, they assassinate politicians by watching tv, casting Scrying on important figures that are still active, teleport to their location and pop them like a pimple.
3. Green dragons inhabit any large forests and cut of various supplies by destroying trucks and upturning trees everywhere. Meaning they could just pick off the humans in a settlement or otherwise turn them into a cult with Geas, that or kidnap important figures and brainwash them to follow their commands, if they don’t, they better be able to shrug or the mental equivalent off a ballista to the body.
4. Red dragons do all the terrorising and destroying, burning everything down before laying low and relaxing in volcanos, which are barely monitored at all.
5. Every dragon in general would coordinate with others within their area on what areas to target and finally and most vital of all. The white dragons occasionally maul cars when it’s snowing.
Looking it up, radar can reach to around 300 miles, so I don't think these dragons are hiding anywhere.
What is the sourcebook for Inferno? I'd be quite interested to see their statblock.
I believe the old books online about his stats were deleted, but I think a few forums have remnants of it.
Found it: https://www.enworld.org/threads/inferno-epic-dragon-of-faerun.16142/
This is for an advanced greatwyrm, yea, it’s a lot, https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/unique-monsters/cr-25/choral-the-conqueror/
it’s a bit lengthy.
Well most ground penetrating radars are quiet limited, at the very least the dragons would hide their specific location, but probably not their lair's location if people have managed to track them, although those capable of burrowing would probably counter it by creating temporary but complex burrows and digging to new locations.
According to the date of the post, Inferno is from 3e or earlier.
RAW, firearms aren't saving throw weapons. You make attack rolls just like any other weapon. But whether it's an attack roll or a saving throw is moot. Regardless of the dragon's AC, regardless of the save DC, I'm going to give you the full benefit of the doubt and say that the attacker only hits on a Natural 20 and/or the dragon only fails their Dex save on a Natural 1. The math is the same either way.
Fifty people, each wielding an M-60, open fire on a dragon from 500 meters away. It will take the dragon 18 rounds to either get out of the weapons' range or get close enough to counterattack. Each M-60 fires 60 times per round. 50 attackers x 60 shots per round x 18 rounds = 54,000 shots before the dragon even has a chance to respond. Now let's say that ONLY a Nat 20 attack or a Nat 1 save results in a hit, that's still 2700 hits. Each hit does 2d10 damage. That means the dragon will taking 1650 hit points of damage PER ROUND for 18 consecutive rounds before even being able to fight back.
And that doesn't even take into account the AMRAAM missile that is moving toward the dragon at 3000 miles per hour from a plane 20 miles away. What's the damage dice for 44 pounds of high explosives?
I would also like to point out that you criticized me for citing, "a completely different source material" when I mentioned the movie Reign of Fire. And you followed that up by citing non-canon info from some random dude's blog post from 23 years ago (which, coincidentally, was the same year that Reign of Fire came out).
Seriously though, it was a great movie. I highly recommend that you watch it . . . if you still have a VCR laying around, that is.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
D&D game mechanic have very little to do with the real world, so what are you even talking about? If we are talking about in-game mechanics your question is unintelligible because there are no stats for modern weapons in-game. D&D game mechanics explicitly don't even attempt to simulate the real world, they are designed to be fun for players. So the answer to your question in-game mechanics is "the winner is whomever the DM thinks it would be more fun to be the winner." Entertainment is entertainment only, it doesn't and shouldn't follow the rules of the real world because it's main purpose is often escapism from the banality, unfairness, and arbitrariness of the real world, to one where justice is served, people change and grow, things happen for a reason and the winner is whomever we are rooting for to win.
Also FYI, a ballista IRL shouldn't be able to even hit a dragon, they are not that accurate and way too slow to aim. There is a reason they were primarily used against large immobile objects rather than fast-moving enemy troops.
So are you assuming an assault rifle does 2d10 piercing on a single bullet? Because the actual stat of a assault rifle is “A weapon that has the burst fire property can make a normal single-target attack, or it can spray a 10-foot-cube area within normal range with shots. Each creature in the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take the weapon's normal damage. This action uses ten pieces of ammunition." 2d8 per normal damage, let’s also say their to hit is +5 (16 dex and +2 proficiency), only 20 out of 50 would hit, still impressive, but that’s only a total of 180 piercing damage IF the dragon is being attacked without disadvantage. With the burst attack, an additional 3 would miss due to legendary resistance. Also note that the assault rifle has a effective range of 80/240, this is the dnd conversion, seeing that it exists in the same game version as an average Adult Red Dragon, I would takes its statblock as more definitive. With its legendary actions a Red dragon could move 140 feet in 6 seconds, meaning in at the very least 2 rounds the dragon would be out of range if they were right next to the men. What you assumed would mean that your guys could use the attack action 60 times, and considering a fighter can make at most 8 attacks with action surge, not likely.
But that’s not even considering cover nor how the hell 50 men managed to get in range of a dragon, but yea they would be enough to scare one away, if their not bundled up through. Also the missiles would be at best at meteor swarm levels of damage, so survivable for a dragon.
“citing non-canon info” no, he is canon, he’s been mentioned through multiple dnd sources, the only reason I’m bringing up the blog is because thats the only statblock of him that still exists. Not to mention Reign of Fire is not in the DND canon, so information from it can be disregarded on how the dragons would otherwise act or go against Europe.
Even if he was cannon, that was pre-3.5e.
Dude! You are aware there was this thing called "The Cold War" where basically every developed country on earth built extensive radar systems and fleets of fighter jets to detect and intercept enemy nukes miles before those things could get to major population centres. And you do know about GPS and Google Earth right? You are aware there are thousands of satellites constantly scanning the Earth for various different purposes. There's also spy planes and spy balloons high up in the stratosphere constantly surveilling areas of national security interest - including weapons sites, powerplants, nuclear waste sites, and other areas of national interest. (There's even a cute promotional program about it for kids where NORAD tracks Santa on Xmas eve).
Geez, Google Earth has satellite images of sufficient resolution to count individual animals roaming the Serengeti, covering essentially the entire planet, that are routinely updated. And that's the tech we know about. Intelligence agencies and militaries have a whole whack of communication and sensor equipment up there doing all kinds of stuff all the time that is all protected national secrets.
That's before even considering that >50% of the global population own a smartphone capable of photographing or videoing a dragon and posting it to the internet for all to see within seconds. Within hours all the dragons would be being live-tracked by various remote sensing systems.
PS Re: burrowing - there's global systems of seismometers spread out around the world to monitor earthquakes and volcanic activity, any dragon digging out a massive complex in a few hours will get picked up pretty easily.
I used the "Hunting Rifle" RAW stat block as the basis for the 2d10 damage. the M-60 fires a 7.62 mm high explosive round. That is equivalent to what hunting rifles use. If you would prefer that I instead use the stats for an "automatic rifle" that would be 2d8, which means instead of the dragon taking 1650 hp of damage per round, it would only be taking 1350 hp per round.
I happily grant you that concession.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
Within hours, key note, not to mention nukes are a lot more noticeable than dragons and have a decade or so of fear in order for them to create countermeasures. I also don’t remember how knowing where a dragon WAS, would help when they could teleport or become visually invisible.
You have no idea the amount of secret files spread on the internet that the dragon could just find on War Thunder, let alone some of the less savoury websites. Europe has yet to make anti magic countermeasures for Legend Lore, Divination and Scrying. And I’m pretty sure nukes are considered legendary weapons of mass destruction, see Godzilla.
”Within hours all the dragons would be being live-tracked by various remote sensing systems.” Teleport, invisibility and illusions would counter it, especially when the dragons pop out of nowhere and most people panic instead of making detailed observations about what their capable of, any reliable sources would be mixed in with photoshop for people wanting attention, the internet is unreliable in terms of information for mythical creatures coming from nowhere, some people are destined to mistake it for a trend.
I see no reason why he isn’t usable, it only specified Faerun, not pre 5e content nor characters.
Wow humans can make 60 attacks, Kyle from kindergarten must be a level 20 epic fighter, it’s not like Burst Fire is literally right in the weapon called the ASSAULT rifle.
Where in the dnd conversion of an assault rifle, does it state you're allowed to deal 120d8 damage with it?
????????? Nukes are about the same size as a dragon and like 100x faster than a dragon and can have anti-radar coating / plating. Dragons are giant, slow moving, lizards, most of them have terrible DEX scores for a reason.