but the radiation that stays in your body and gives cancer would probably be necrotic
That's not how radiation works. All gamma radiation is identical, and all would be radiant damage. Radiation also doesn't stay in your body, radioactive material could enter your body - e.g. inhaling radioactive dust, or eating radioactive things. Inhaled dust can get stuck in the lungs, but consumed radioactive elements mostly get flushed out of you. Anyone close enough to a denotation of a nuke to inhale the radioactive dust will almost certainly die from radiation poisoning from the initial blast rather than the dust. Radiation cuts up DNA, this prevents cells from being able to divide successfully, which doesn't kill you instantly, radiation poisoning kills you long after you are no longer exposed to the radiation due to your cells being unable to divide and replace themselves when the cells die as part of their normal lifecycle since different cells have different life cycles this causes the characteristic symptoms of radiation poisoning. Person that is not at all radioactive can still die of radiation poisoning. At lower doses it simply causes mutations, those mutations mostly are cleared out by normal repair systems of the body, but might sometimes happen in the right spot to contribute to the development of cancer, however cancer generally requires many mutations in specific genes to occur so a single dose of radiation doesn't immediately cause cancer you need a bunch more time for random mutations to occur on top of those caused by the radiation to cause the cancer, but in no way does the "radiation stay in your body" the individuals exposed to radiation are not at all radioactive themselves, they do not have radiation in their body. There are no mechanics in D&D that make sense for radiation poisoning or increased cancer risk following radiation exposure, because D&D is a fun silly game and dying of radiation poisoning is very much not that.
But besides all that, it doesn't matter for the situation presented: dropping a nuke down a deep cave to kill the dragon hiding there because the initial explosion is instantly killing that dragon, and "explosion" is not necrotic damage. The initial blast would be a combination of radiant (radiation), and fire + thunder (explosion).
Why not go to the side and just try to push it from there
LOL have you never seen a rank? the gun on the top rotates so the tank can fire in a wide angle. A modern tank shell does a lot more than 10d10, a tank shell would easily one-shot an elephant. But again, you can't translate D&D mechanics to the real world because D&D.explicitly is not an accurate simulation and isn't attempting to be so. Just look at the hp difference between a rhinoceros and an elephant in D&D - it makes no sense at all from a real world perspective. In D&D a single human monk can punch an elephant to death.... when in reality, an elephant would hardly notice even the strongest martial artist's punch.
In a non-global scenario, fighting the somewhat less capable European militaries, without the US total information systems (I forget the proper name), dragons stand more of a chance. Off the top of my head, I'd say it would come down to speed and readiness: If the dragons get the jump, and are able to catch enough jets on the ground, they might actually be able to do some damage.
I don't know how many dragons are in Faerun, but I think it's safe to assume that the majority of them are essentially harmless. But there could be ... what, maybe 20-30 really big ones? I don't know, but anyways, once jets are airborne, they will die very, very quickly. If they get enough jets on the ground, and if there are enough targets, maybe mass will play somewhat in their favor: Each jet carries only so much ordnance.
I asked GPT for a number pulled out of thin air for how many dragons in Faerun. This is the result:
~1,200 ancient or adult dragons, hoarding treasure and grudges
~2,500 young dragons stalking the wilds
~3,000 wyrmlings, hidden in caves or guarded nests
~500 dracoliches, shadow dragons, and other oddities who don't play by dragon rules
~232 weird ones (half-dragons, dragon turtles, dragonborn with delusions of grandeur, etc.)
By comparison, there are only around 2000 fighter jets. Not that fighter jets are the only weapons in the arsenal, but they are the best one. However, each fighter jet will handily destroy a handful of dragons. And just for reference, my assumption is that any air-to-air missile launched will hit it's target and inflict non-survivable damage.
So. As I said, much closer - in part because if they're quick about it the dragons might get the jump, and wipe out part of the opposition, and in part because of a reliance on more limited target acquisition and intelligence.
Just to be precise, I'll add: Dragons still lose. But maybe with a sliver of a chance to actually win. No more than 5% or so, but ... it's there. There could be like ... one dragon survivor, standing astride the smoldering embers of our doomed civilization.
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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.
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.
1. Canned food and bottled water does exist and is very common in bunkers or war times this wouldn’t do anything especially considering that we have some of the largest filtration companies who just get their supplies from other countries anyway.
2. Most political figures are consistently guarded, especially important ones. For example, if a dragon teleported next to the king of the UK, they would get shot down within seconds because there are always tens if not hundreds of well trained guards. Not only this, but the dragons would most often need to be small enough to teleport into bunkers which most political figures would be in, and a young dragon isn’t going to be killing a highly guarded facility any time soon.
3. How would uprooting trees or stopping vans benefit anything, most supplies are delivered via planes which could just be guarded by fighter jets, same with boats which could easily be protected by submarines armed with dragon killing torpedoes
4. Radar would easily detect them from these volcanoes, and again a couple of well trained gunners could easily take them out let alone missiles
5. They would not. Dragons don’t even cooperate in Faerun so please explain why chromatic, metallic and gem dragons would just simultaneously decide to coordinate when so many fight each other even during wars.
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.
Because I can’t remember what happened in 3E, but there was a distinct event that was basically the universe reforming. If Faerun is able to transcend multiple realities yet we aren’t it seems that you’re being a bit more favourable to the dragons
The gem regenerates back to 50 hp every 6 seconds and has an AC of 20, so unlikely for them to be able to break it (no shooting it with a gun doesn’t work, they still need it to hit and beat the AC). Not to mention I don’t think they would be able to correlate a random jewellery with the dragon's soul, there’s just as much of a chance of it being because the dragon teleporting there, they could potentially create multiple false gems and place them in the same places, if they don’t go for concentrated urban areas, a random cave a mile deep could suffice, just use a raw Crystal as a soul gem and place it in a few feet of dirt and rubble.
Meaning that most explosives (including bunker busters) would be unable to reach it, entering would be treacherous, finding the soul gem (if they even know what that is) would require tons of digging and exploration to identify a cheap looking crystal before actually destroying it when it’s close to punching through a tank that regenerates.
I think a stick of dynamite would suffice in destroying the gem (even using the normal rules for dynamite, you could rig 7 sticks of it to explode in one turn and destroy the gem). Also, if the same dragon always appears in the same location on the military's ground penetrating radar after it dies, I think they would get a little suspicious.
You would actually need 10 dynamites attached to each other to do it in, they would have to overestimate or else waste their entire time to destroy the gem, destroying the gem's the easy part, getting to it is a literal suicide mission. If the dragon's scared that humans may get close, they would create zombies, ghouls and wights to guard the insides of the cavern, maybe even create some magical traps and cave ins and… we just made a literal dungeon with a dragon in it, huh, guess they really are the best way to hide stuff.
Establishing a kill zone above the cave would be the best idea, shredding it before it gets to a populated area would be their only option that isn’t diving into the vilest cave to ever exist, although WHEN the dragon exits would be a tense as hell scenario, which may be completely ignored by the dragon slamming their head into the stone until they dig up another area.
Please explain how zombies, ghouls and wights would exist in the real world? Not only that but the original post said it was dragons V humans, yet for some reason the dragons are the ones who get helping forces. Again, it really seems like this is some kind of bias
It's pretty important for this discussion to understand what dragons can and cannot do - and what modern tech can, and cannot do.
Huge heat signatures cannot hide anywhere in the world. Well, except in caves maybe, but even a dragon cannot stay in there forever. Dragons are absolutely overwhelmingly powerful inside a certain range. Sadly for dragons, that range is irrelevant in the real world. They have any number of very powerful abilities - but none of them are going to make any serious impression on a modern military force. I ask you to simply compare whatever spell you like to an artillery strike (cannon do not fire alone - a battery is generally 6 pieces, and they usually fire at least 3-6 shots). Modern artillery course corrects. Some modern artillery is actually target seeking. And that's artillery, arguably the least smart weapon in a modern arsenal.
Most of the arguments in this thread are correct, but irrelevant to the discussion. Some dragons can hide, but most can't. No dragons can actually win a fight. If it ever comes to a fight, dragons lose almost instantly. Even if the plan is to teleport in, do something largely irrelevant like toss a 9th level spell and teleport back out, the dragon is likely to die before completing the spell.
Maybe you can consider it in terms of sheer kinetic energy. A crossbow can damage a dragon. I don't really care about the rules, but a crossbow has a given rate of fire, and a given amount of kinetic energy on target. Even your basic 1911 handgun has 4-5 times the kinetic energy, and can empty a 8 round clip in maybe 2-3 seconds. And you're not going to miss a target the size of a dragon. And it's scales aren't going to help it.
Half a dozen guys with 1911's would absolutely shred a dragon in a single round of combat. And we're not discussing half a dozen guys with aging pistols, but the entire military might of continental Europe (minus Russia). It's just not going to work. Dragons can see in the dark - we can see from space, every inch of the planet, in real time, around the clock. Dragons can do magic at maybe ... a mile distant. We can launch missiles from somewhere between 70-120 miles away. Magic has casting time. Missiles will kill a dragon before it has time to realise it's under attack.
As I stated above, 7000+ dragons are a lot. If we do them some favors, and assume they start in favorable positions with favorable intelligence, and get the jump on a world that isn't expecting dragon attack, maybe they can reduce the enemy forces enough to stand some shred of chance. But then we're helping the dragons - a lot - and there are still millions of men with rifles, thousands and thousands of manpads, javelins, nlaws, tripple-a, and so on. Even if we assume the dragons wipe out all the fighter jets (the greatest obvious threat), there are insurmountable odds arrayed against them.
Oh, and as a side note. Someone mentioned casting a fireball on an ICBM. I can't totally guarantee I'm right, but I'd guess that does absolutely nothing at all. Fireballs aren't hot enough to melt armor or weapons, and a 1 second flash of fire isn't going to do anything at all to a giant rocket.
Same for 'every dragon would coordinate'. They'd have to meet, to do that. We have an all-encompassing information infrastructure. Dragons can yell, at best, to cover slightly longer distances. Or maybe cast a few spells here and there.
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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.
It's pretty important for this discussion to understand what dragons can and cannot do - and what modern tech can, and cannot do.
Huge heat signatures cannot hide anywhere in the world. Well, except in caves maybe, but even a dragon cannot stay in there forever. Dragons are absolutely overwhelmingly powerful inside a certain range. Sadly for dragons, that range is irrelevant in the real world. They have any number of very powerful abilities - but none of them are going to make any serious impression on a modern military force. I ask you to simply compare whatever spell you like to an artillery strike (cannon do not fire alone - a battery is generally 6 pieces, and they usually fire at least 3-6 shots). Modern artillery course corrects. Some modern artillery is actually target seeking. And that's artillery, arguably the least smart weapon in a modern arsenal.
Most of the arguments in this thread are correct, but irrelevant to the discussion. Some dragons can hide, but most can't. No dragons can actually win a fight. If it ever comes to a fight, dragons lose almost instantly. Even if the plan is to teleport in, do something largely irrelevant like toss a 9th level spell and teleport back out, the dragon is likely to die before completing the spell.
Maybe you can consider it in terms of sheer kinetic energy. A crossbow can damage a dragon. I don't really care about the rules, but a crossbow has a given rate of fire, and a given amount of kinetic energy on target. Even your basic 1911 handgun has 4-5 times the kinetic energy, and can empty a 8 round clip in maybe 2-3 seconds. And you're not going to miss a target the size of a dragon. And it's scales aren't going to help it.
Half a dozen guys with 1911's would absolutely shred a dragon in a single round of combat. And we're not discussing half a dozen guys with aging pistols, but the entire military might of continental Europe (minus Russia). It's just not going to work. Dragons can see in the dark - we can see from space, every inch of the planet, in real time, around the clock. Dragons can do magic at maybe ... a mile distant. We can launch missiles from somewhere between 70-120 miles away. Magic has casting time. Missiles will kill a dragon before it has time to realise it's under attack.
As I stated above, 7000+ dragons are a lot. If we do them some favors, and assume they start in favorable positions with favorable intelligence, and get the jump on a world that isn't expecting dragon attack, maybe they can reduce the enemy forces enough to stand some shred of chance. But then we're helping the dragons - a lot - and there are still millions of men with rifles, thousands and thousands of manpads, javelins, nlaws, tripple-a, and so on. Even if we assume the dragons wipe out all the fighter jets (the greatest obvious threat), there are insurmountable odds arrayed against them.
Oh, and as a side note. Someone mentioned casting a fireball on an ICBM. I can't totally guarantee I'm right, but I'd guess that does absolutely nothing at all. Fireballs aren't hot enough to melt armor or weapons, and a 1 second flash of fire isn't going to do anything at all to a giant rocket.
Same for 'every dragon would coordinate'. They'd have to meet, to do that. We have an all-encompassing information infrastructure. Dragons can yell, at best, to cover slightly longer distances. Or maybe cast a few spells here and there.
1. Good point.
2. Well it really depends on what they fight, if it’s a few squadrons or even a tank or two in their home turf, they could win, even if they get really busted up.
3. This is where mechanics get a little weird, considering the modern pistol deals 2d6 piercing damage and does not have a rapid dump mechanic. The power of a normal handgun only really affects its damage in D&D, with it doing nothing for the actual to hit, for all we know, dragons are stupidly hard to hit regardless and even have proficiency in dexterity saving throws that are significantly higher than an average human. So no matter the context, it’s always harder to hit a dragon than a dude, even if you have a elephant gun.
4. Half the dozen guys with pistols argument won’t work, and depending on when the dragon notices, a action is less than 6 seconds, seeing they could take a bonus action and move while doing said action, so it really depends on how fast a dragon notices one.
5. Yea we have an insane amount of explosives designed to kill anything flying now that I think about it. The problem would probably be more of them going against weapons of war rather than the actual people in said military, seeing the tooth to tail ratio, I’d wager a large amount would get killed before they figure out everything that can kill them.
6. Yea at that rate the only way anything could really survive an ICBM is if they hid deep in a cave, teleported away or cross their fingers that they make their dex save and eat the damage without getting splattered.
2. Well it really depends on what they fight, if it’s a few squadrons or even a tank or two in their home turf, they could win, even if they get really busted up.
3. This is where mechanics get a little weird, considering the modern pistol deals 2d6 piercing damage and does not have a rapid dump mechanic. The power of a normal handgun only really affects its damage in D&D, with it doing nothing for the actual to hit, for all we know, dragons are stupidly hard to hit regardless and even have proficiency in dexterity saving throws that are significantly higher than an average human. So no matter the context, it’s always harder to hit a dragon than a dude, even if you have a elephant gun.
4. Half the dozen guys with pistols argument won’t work, and depending on when the dragon notices, a action is less than 6 seconds, seeing they could take a bonus action and move while doing said action, so it really depends on how fast a dragon notices one.
5. Yea we have an insane amount of explosives designed to kill anything flying now that I think about it. The problem would probably be more of them going against weapons of war rather than the actual people in said military, seeing the tooth to tail ratio, I’d wager a large amount would get killed before they figure out everything that can kill them.
6. Yea at that rate the only way anything could really survive an ICBM is if they hid deep in a cave, teleported away or cross their fingers that they make their dex save and eat the damage without getting splattered.
I'm not buying anything related to action economics. I consider the question to be: Who would win, IRL, if these forces met. Not: Who'd win if everything was handled on a battlemap, in game.
If it were done by DND rules, an AMRAAM or Hellfire missile wouldn't instantly destroy a dragon. Which it would. Living things aren't designed to withstand supersonic delivery of high explosives to their insides. I'm not going there at all.
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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.
If it were done by DND rules, an AMRAAM or Hellfire missile wouldn't instantly destroy a dragon.
It might or it might not. DND rules exist to make a fun game not to simulate reality. It's the same as dumb arguments about comic-book mash-ups. Stan Lee famously explained it as (paraphrased) 'the winner is whomever the writer wants to make a good story.' Same goes for DND, the winner in the fiction of D&D is whomever the DM wants to be the winner.
The winner in reality is modern armies because magic doesn't exist, and a dragon is just a big flying lizard.
If it were done by DND rules, an AMRAAM or Hellfire missile wouldn't instantly destroy a dragon.
It might or it might not. DND rules exist to make a fun game not to simulate reality. It's the same as dumb arguments about comic-book mash-ups. Stan Lee famously explained it as (paraphrased) 'the winner is whomever the writer wants to make a good story.' Same goes for DND, the winner is whomever the DM wants to be the winner.
I think the DM would need to do a lot for a commoner to kill a tarrasque.
If it were done by DND rules, an AMRAAM or Hellfire missile wouldn't instantly destroy a dragon.
It might or it might not. DND rules exist to make a fun game not to simulate reality. It's the same as dumb arguments about comic-book mash-ups. Stan Lee famously explained it as (paraphrased) 'the winner is whomever the writer wants to make a good story.' Same goes for DND, the winner is whomever the DM wants to be the winner.
I think the DM would need to do a lot for a commoner to kill a tarrasque.
Not at all. That's practically a story straight out of the bible : David vs Goliath. Here's a bunch of ways it happens:
The commoner has been blessed by a god and is immune to the damage of the tarrasque.
The commoner has a legendary magic weapon of tarrasque killing.
The commoner has longbow and a griffin mount so can keep flying out of range of the tarrasque and pick it off.
There are secret tunnels underground that only the commoner can fit through and they pop up and down from those tunnels sniping the tarrasque
The tarrasque is wearing a magical collar that had kept the tarrasque captive for eons until a baddie turned it off. The commoner need only hit it with a pebble from a sling or to climb onto the tarrasque and press a button on it to instantly capture it again.
The commoner invents an extremely powerful poison / disease and leaves a carcass laced with it for the tarrasque to find.
If it were done by DND rules, an AMRAAM or Hellfire missile wouldn't instantly destroy a dragon.
It might or it might not. DND rules exist to make a fun game not to simulate reality. It's the same as dumb arguments about comic-book mash-ups. Stan Lee famously explained it as (paraphrased) 'the winner is whomever the writer wants to make a good story.' Same goes for DND, the winner in the fiction of D&D is whomever the DM wants to be the winner.
The winner in reality is modern armies because magic doesn't exist, and a dragon is just a big flying lizard.
Agreed. But the question posed here - to me - is inherently outside of DND rules. That's also why I'm so certain of the outcome. If we sat down and statted out all the weapons, vehicles, ranges and so on, came up with an action economy for missile fires, assault rifle RoF ... and so on ... if I had to guess, the odds of the dragons would be warped entirely out of proportion.
And then it'd still lose. Maybe.
But, like, I used 1911 before. It's a bad example, and a good one: A few guys at 50-100 yards range could empty entire clips into the dragon before it had any chance to react (discounting initiative here). But keeping with the magic of John Browning, stick a bunch of M2's on pickup trucks, those same six guys can fire from a mile distant, still hit every shot (because of the size of the target), and kite the dragon for as long as they like - or need, at any rate. Belted ammo at 600 rounds per minute, 12.7mm armor piercing.
And we're talking weapons that were used in WW2.
There is not way for any dragon to ever stand a chance.
Anyways - I'm under no delusions about anyone's deep desire to keep reading my rants on this topic =D suffice it to say, what money I have isn't getting bet on a dragon victory.
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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.
I’d like to see what happens if you threw a bunch of Adult/Ancient Blue Dragons in
Those guys have Cloaked Flight (and Scrying in their spell list for assassinations) when you look at the 2025 book
Well - we could have a discussion of whether Invisible means the entire spectrum of light, or whether they still show up on IR. Regardless, they're still visible to radar. There are radar guided missiles, AMRAAM is one, so being invisible to the open eye means not a lot.
They still die long before they have a chance to know they're in a fight.
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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.
If we sat down and statted out all the weapons, vehicles, ranges and so on, came up with an action economy for missile fires, assault rifle RoF ... and so on ... if I had to guess, the odds of the dragons would be warped entirely out of proportion.
The problem there is that it seems to me, everyone wants to stat out things differently. For instance most people seem to be assuming that modern day professional soldiers would have < 50 hit points, but why? Most PCs reach level 20 within a few months of adventure time, why would a soldier who is a veteran of Afghanistant/Iraq wars be level 5? surely they would be level 20 Fighters thus completely capable of taking out dragons as long as they were in a group of 5+ which they often are. Same goes for lots of other professionals, senior firefighters, spies, police, university professors, engineers etc... are all likely to but up at the top levels of their classes. Spies would be high level rogues, police/firefighters high level fighters or paladins, university professors and scientists are essentially modern day equivalents of wizards.
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 win conditions for Europe are complete eradication or removal of all dragons??
That... ain't never going to happen.
I don't know how so many people overlook it but a ton of dragons can just shapechange.
That alone means game over. You're never going to catch them all. They'll infiltrate every major power and topple Europe from within.
And you'll never find all of them. Never.
If one smart person could topple a country, there wouldn't be any countries.
Putting aside we're talking about shapechanging dragons, not a random dude. And, thousands of them, not one... putting that aside:
You're aware countries have been toppled before, I hope. History, our very real past, is rife with examples of countries falling. Like, this is a thing that has happened. Many times.
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 win conditions for Europe are complete eradication or removal of all dragons??
That... ain't never going to happen.
I don't know how so many people overlook it but a ton of dragons can just shapechange.
That alone means game over. You're never going to catch them all. They'll infiltrate every major power and topple Europe from within.
And you'll never find all of them. Never.
If one smart person could topple a country, there wouldn't be any countries.
Putting aside we're talking about shapechanging dragons, not a random dude. And, thousands of them, not one... putting that aside:
You're aware countries have been toppled before, I hope. History, our very real past, is rife with examples of countries falling. Like, this is a thing that has happened. Many times.
Key word: history. Do you know of any European countries that have collapsed in recent history? And do keep in mind that China and Russia already (probably) have thousands of agents trying to topple the US and its major allies.
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That's not how radiation works. All gamma radiation is identical, and all would be radiant damage. Radiation also doesn't stay in your body, radioactive material could enter your body - e.g. inhaling radioactive dust, or eating radioactive things. Inhaled dust can get stuck in the lungs, but consumed radioactive elements mostly get flushed out of you. Anyone close enough to a denotation of a nuke to inhale the radioactive dust will almost certainly die from radiation poisoning from the initial blast rather than the dust. Radiation cuts up DNA, this prevents cells from being able to divide successfully, which doesn't kill you instantly, radiation poisoning kills you long after you are no longer exposed to the radiation due to your cells being unable to divide and replace themselves when the cells die as part of their normal lifecycle since different cells have different life cycles this causes the characteristic symptoms of radiation poisoning. Person that is not at all radioactive can still die of radiation poisoning. At lower doses it simply causes mutations, those mutations mostly are cleared out by normal repair systems of the body, but might sometimes happen in the right spot to contribute to the development of cancer, however cancer generally requires many mutations in specific genes to occur so a single dose of radiation doesn't immediately cause cancer you need a bunch more time for random mutations to occur on top of those caused by the radiation to cause the cancer, but in no way does the "radiation stay in your body" the individuals exposed to radiation are not at all radioactive themselves, they do not have radiation in their body. There are no mechanics in D&D that make sense for radiation poisoning or increased cancer risk following radiation exposure, because D&D is a fun silly game and dying of radiation poisoning is very much not that.
But besides all that, it doesn't matter for the situation presented: dropping a nuke down a deep cave to kill the dragon hiding there because the initial explosion is instantly killing that dragon, and "explosion" is not necrotic damage. The initial blast would be a combination of radiant (radiation), and fire + thunder (explosion).
LOL have you never seen a rank? the gun on the top rotates so the tank can fire in a wide angle. A modern tank shell does a lot more than 10d10, a tank shell would easily one-shot an elephant. But again, you can't translate D&D mechanics to the real world because D&D.explicitly is not an accurate simulation and isn't attempting to be so. Just look at the hp difference between a rhinoceros and an elephant in D&D - it makes no sense at all from a real world perspective. In D&D a single human monk can punch an elephant to death.... when in reality, an elephant would hardly notice even the strongest martial artist's punch.
In a non-global scenario, fighting the somewhat less capable European militaries, without the US total information systems (I forget the proper name), dragons stand more of a chance. Off the top of my head, I'd say it would come down to speed and readiness: If the dragons get the jump, and are able to catch enough jets on the ground, they might actually be able to do some damage.
I don't know how many dragons are in Faerun, but I think it's safe to assume that the majority of them are essentially harmless. But there could be ... what, maybe 20-30 really big ones? I don't know, but anyways, once jets are airborne, they will die very, very quickly. If they get enough jets on the ground, and if there are enough targets, maybe mass will play somewhat in their favor: Each jet carries only so much ordnance.
I asked GPT for a number pulled out of thin air for how many dragons in Faerun. This is the result:
~1,200 ancient or adult dragons, hoarding treasure and grudges
~2,500 young dragons stalking the wilds
~3,000 wyrmlings, hidden in caves or guarded nests
~500 dracoliches, shadow dragons, and other oddities who don't play by dragon rules
~232 weird ones (half-dragons, dragon turtles, dragonborn with delusions of grandeur, etc.)
By comparison, there are only around 2000 fighter jets. Not that fighter jets are the only weapons in the arsenal, but they are the best one. However, each fighter jet will handily destroy a handful of dragons. And just for reference, my assumption is that any air-to-air missile launched will hit it's target and inflict non-survivable damage.
So. As I said, much closer - in part because if they're quick about it the dragons might get the jump, and wipe out part of the opposition, and in part because of a reliance on more limited target acquisition and intelligence.
Just to be precise, I'll add: Dragons still lose. But maybe with a sliver of a chance to actually win. No more than 5% or so, but ... it's there. There could be like ... one dragon survivor, standing astride the smoldering embers of our doomed civilization.
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. Canned food and bottled water does exist and is very common in bunkers or war times this wouldn’t do anything especially considering that we have some of the largest filtration companies who just get their supplies from other countries anyway.
2. Most political figures are consistently guarded, especially important ones. For example, if a dragon teleported next to the king of the UK, they would get shot down within seconds because there are always tens if not hundreds of well trained guards. Not only this, but the dragons would most often need to be small enough to teleport into bunkers which most political figures would be in, and a young dragon isn’t going to be killing a highly guarded facility any time soon.
3. How would uprooting trees or stopping vans benefit anything, most supplies are delivered via planes which could just be guarded by fighter jets, same with boats which could easily be protected by submarines armed with dragon killing torpedoes
4. Radar would easily detect them from these volcanoes, and again a couple of well trained gunners could easily take them out let alone missiles
5. They would not. Dragons don’t even cooperate in Faerun so please explain why chromatic, metallic and gem dragons would just simultaneously decide to coordinate when so many fight each other even during wars.
Because I can’t remember what happened in 3E, but there was a distinct event that was basically the universe reforming. If Faerun is able to transcend multiple realities yet we aren’t it seems that you’re being a bit more favourable to the dragons
Please explain how zombies, ghouls and wights would exist in the real world? Not only that but the original post said it was dragons V humans, yet for some reason the dragons are the ones who get helping forces. Again, it really seems like this is some kind of bias
It's pretty important for this discussion to understand what dragons can and cannot do - and what modern tech can, and cannot do.
Huge heat signatures cannot hide anywhere in the world. Well, except in caves maybe, but even a dragon cannot stay in there forever. Dragons are absolutely overwhelmingly powerful inside a certain range. Sadly for dragons, that range is irrelevant in the real world. They have any number of very powerful abilities - but none of them are going to make any serious impression on a modern military force. I ask you to simply compare whatever spell you like to an artillery strike (cannon do not fire alone - a battery is generally 6 pieces, and they usually fire at least 3-6 shots). Modern artillery course corrects. Some modern artillery is actually target seeking. And that's artillery, arguably the least smart weapon in a modern arsenal.
Most of the arguments in this thread are correct, but irrelevant to the discussion. Some dragons can hide, but most can't. No dragons can actually win a fight. If it ever comes to a fight, dragons lose almost instantly. Even if the plan is to teleport in, do something largely irrelevant like toss a 9th level spell and teleport back out, the dragon is likely to die before completing the spell.
Maybe you can consider it in terms of sheer kinetic energy. A crossbow can damage a dragon. I don't really care about the rules, but a crossbow has a given rate of fire, and a given amount of kinetic energy on target. Even your basic 1911 handgun has 4-5 times the kinetic energy, and can empty a 8 round clip in maybe 2-3 seconds. And you're not going to miss a target the size of a dragon. And it's scales aren't going to help it.
Half a dozen guys with 1911's would absolutely shred a dragon in a single round of combat. And we're not discussing half a dozen guys with aging pistols, but the entire military might of continental Europe (minus Russia). It's just not going to work. Dragons can see in the dark - we can see from space, every inch of the planet, in real time, around the clock. Dragons can do magic at maybe ... a mile distant. We can launch missiles from somewhere between 70-120 miles away. Magic has casting time. Missiles will kill a dragon before it has time to realise it's under attack.
As I stated above, 7000+ dragons are a lot. If we do them some favors, and assume they start in favorable positions with favorable intelligence, and get the jump on a world that isn't expecting dragon attack, maybe they can reduce the enemy forces enough to stand some shred of chance. But then we're helping the dragons - a lot - and there are still millions of men with rifles, thousands and thousands of manpads, javelins, nlaws, tripple-a, and so on. Even if we assume the dragons wipe out all the fighter jets (the greatest obvious threat), there are insurmountable odds arrayed against them.
Oh, and as a side note. Someone mentioned casting a fireball on an ICBM. I can't totally guarantee I'm right, but I'd guess that does absolutely nothing at all. Fireballs aren't hot enough to melt armor or weapons, and a 1 second flash of fire isn't going to do anything at all to a giant rocket.
Same for 'every dragon would coordinate'. They'd have to meet, to do that. We have an all-encompassing information infrastructure. Dragons can yell, at best, to cover slightly longer distances. Or maybe cast a few spells here and there.
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. Good point.
2. Well it really depends on what they fight, if it’s a few squadrons or even a tank or two in their home turf, they could win, even if they get really busted up.
3. This is where mechanics get a little weird, considering the modern pistol deals 2d6 piercing damage and does not have a rapid dump mechanic. The power of a normal handgun only really affects its damage in D&D, with it doing nothing for the actual to hit, for all we know, dragons are stupidly hard to hit regardless and even have proficiency in dexterity saving throws that are significantly higher than an average human. So no matter the context, it’s always harder to hit a dragon than a dude, even if you have a elephant gun.
4. Half the dozen guys with pistols argument won’t work, and depending on when the dragon notices, a action is less than 6 seconds, seeing they could take a bonus action and move while doing said action, so it really depends on how fast a dragon notices one.
5. Yea we have an insane amount of explosives designed to kill anything flying now that I think about it. The problem would probably be more of them going against weapons of war rather than the actual people in said military, seeing the tooth to tail ratio, I’d wager a large amount would get killed before they figure out everything that can kill them.
6. Yea at that rate the only way anything could really survive an ICBM is if they hid deep in a cave, teleported away or cross their fingers that they make their dex save and eat the damage without getting splattered.
I'm not buying anything related to action economics. I consider the question to be: Who would win, IRL, if these forces met. Not: Who'd win if everything was handled on a battlemap, in game.
If it were done by DND rules, an AMRAAM or Hellfire missile wouldn't instantly destroy a dragon. Which it would. Living things aren't designed to withstand supersonic delivery of high explosives to their insides. I'm not going there at all.
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.
It might or it might not. DND rules exist to make a fun game not to simulate reality. It's the same as dumb arguments about comic-book mash-ups. Stan Lee famously explained it as (paraphrased) 'the winner is whomever the writer wants to make a good story.' Same goes for DND, the winner in the fiction of D&D is whomever the DM wants to be the winner.
The winner in reality is modern armies because magic doesn't exist, and a dragon is just a big flying lizard.
I think the DM would need to do a lot for a commoner to kill a tarrasque.
Not at all. That's practically a story straight out of the bible : David vs Goliath. Here's a bunch of ways it happens:
Agreed. But the question posed here - to me - is inherently outside of DND rules. That's also why I'm so certain of the outcome. If we sat down and statted out all the weapons, vehicles, ranges and so on, came up with an action economy for missile fires, assault rifle RoF ... and so on ... if I had to guess, the odds of the dragons would be warped entirely out of proportion.
And then it'd still lose. Maybe.
But, like, I used 1911 before. It's a bad example, and a good one: A few guys at 50-100 yards range could empty entire clips into the dragon before it had any chance to react (discounting initiative here). But keeping with the magic of John Browning, stick a bunch of M2's on pickup trucks, those same six guys can fire from a mile distant, still hit every shot (because of the size of the target), and kite the dragon for as long as they like - or need, at any rate. Belted ammo at 600 rounds per minute, 12.7mm armor piercing.
And we're talking weapons that were used in WW2.
There is not way for any dragon to ever stand a chance.
Anyways - I'm under no delusions about anyone's deep desire to keep reading my rants on this topic =D suffice it to say, what money I have isn't getting bet on a dragon 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.
I’d like to see what happens if you threw a bunch of Adult/Ancient Blue Dragons in
Those guys have Cloaked Flight (and Scrying in their spell list for assassinations) when you look at the 2025 book
Well - we could have a discussion of whether Invisible means the entire spectrum of light, or whether they still show up on IR. Regardless, they're still visible to radar. There are radar guided missiles, AMRAAM is one, so being invisible to the open eye means not a lot.
They still die long before they have a chance to know they're in a fight.
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 problem there is that it seems to me, everyone wants to stat out things differently. For instance most people seem to be assuming that modern day professional soldiers would have < 50 hit points, but why? Most PCs reach level 20 within a few months of adventure time, why would a soldier who is a veteran of Afghanistant/Iraq wars be level 5? surely they would be level 20 Fighters thus completely capable of taking out dragons as long as they were in a group of 5+ which they often are. Same goes for lots of other professionals, senior firefighters, spies, police, university professors, engineers etc... are all likely to but up at the top levels of their classes. Spies would be high level rogues, police/firefighters high level fighters or paladins, university professors and scientists are essentially modern day equivalents of wizards.
The win conditions for Europe are complete eradication or removal of all dragons??
That... ain't never going to happen.
I don't know how so many people overlook it but a ton of dragons can just shapechange.
That alone means game over. You're never going to catch them all. They'll infiltrate every major power and topple Europe from within.
And you'll never find all of them. Never.
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.
If one smart person could topple a country, there wouldn't be any countries.
Putting aside we're talking about shapechanging dragons, not a random dude. And, thousands of them, not one... putting that aside:
You're aware countries have been toppled before, I hope. History, our very real past, is rife with examples of countries falling. Like, this is a thing that has happened. Many times.
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.
Key word: history. Do you know of any European countries that have collapsed in recent history? And do keep in mind that China and Russia already (probably) have thousands of agents trying to topple the US and its major allies.