Okay, now hold up. This isn't as easy as it sounds.
In this (very fictional) scenario (*coughs as strange lights envelop him*), we can assume the following.
Technology is at modern-day levels (so yes, warheads, etc. etc.)
Humans know about these invaders somehow, although it's mostly government executives. This is a secret mostly kept hidden from the general public.
Don't be too unkind to anyone on this thread (I've seen how some of these threads can get out of hand). This is a fictional discussion - respect others' opinions, please.
Finally, these government officials don't want to simply nuke major cities and kill people. Lowest bloodshed, people.
We'll assume that there's about a million of these invaders, casting levels set at the numbers below:
All of them can cast various cantrips and 1st-level spells.
500,000 can cast 2nd-level spells, along with the spells above.
250,000 can cast 3rd-level spells, along with the spells above.
125,000 can cast 4th-level spells, along with the spells above.
62,500 can cast 5th-level spells, along with the spells above.
31,250 can cast 6th-level spells, along with the spells above.
15,625 can cast 7th-level spells, along with the spells above.
5,000 can cast 8th-level spells, along with the spells above.
1,000 can cast 9th-level spells, along with the spells above.
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Considering we don’t actually know how well in sync these spell casters are with each other, we have to assume that they might have their Wishes overlap, making it less world ending than expected. They’re unlikely to know what everyone else is thinking and every single continent makes them rather spread out.
You're are also assuming that all these wizards are optimised, when that’s pretty damn unlikely, especially for Jeff the hedge wizard. All 500,000 first level spell casters would probably just be wiped out by starvation and being homeless. If they don’t have create Food and Water, Charm Person or Disguise self, they’re gonna be pretty easy to take down when they’ve been dumpster diving. So most of them are gonna be wiped out or struggle due to not having the necessary spells for going to an alien civilisation.
Also do we account for Sorcerers, Bards, Druids and Clerics?
Considering we don’t actually know how well in sync these spell casters are with each other, we have to assume that they might have their Wishes overlap, making it less world ending than expected. They’re unlikely to know what everyone else is thinking and every single continent makes them rather spread out.
You're are also assuming that all these wizards are optimised, when that’s pretty damn unlikely, especially for Jeff the hedge wizard. All 500,000 first level spell casters would probably just be wiped out by starvation and being homeless. If they don’t have create Food and Water, Charm Person or Disguise self, they’re gonna be pretty easy to take down when they’ve been dumpster diving. So most of them are gonna be wiped out or struggle due to not having the necessary spells for going to an alien civilisation.
Also do we account for Sorcerers, Bards, Druids and Clerics?
If even one chooses a good wish, then they just win.
If even one chooses a good wish, then they just win.
Practically all the crazy stuff they could do with Wish has a 33% chance of obliterating their ability to use the spell forever. Not to mention they can’t turn rain to acid or whatever, the limits of wish is below that of moving an actual mountain, so anything above an 8th level spell could just flat out fail.
Yeah wish is going to be a problem but really that big . The problems the mages have to deal with are range, area of effect and time. Yes there are a few spells that are truly line of sight without a limited range but the vast majority are limited to120 ft vs a rifle’ 500-100 yd/m range. Further most spells are effectively subsonic vs mos bullets being supersonic. Then you have the ranges and area of effects of artillery. A 155 mm howitzer has a range of 15-25 miles with a kill zone of 50m diameter and a frag zone another 450m diameter outside that. Compare that to meteor swarm 4 x 40’ diameter blasts at upto a mile down range. Add in the effects of gravity bombs and guided munitions from bombers at 20-40k feet. The. There are strafing runs - yes you could potentially see the plane and maybe disable it with a wish, but reality says that by the time you hear it it’s not there anymore and unless your trained to to “lead” the sound it’s firing at you before you can spot it and your dead before you can effectively react. Add in tanks, APCs, drones, etc and your mages are slaughtered fairly quickly without really even seeing the defenders.
Yeah wish is going to be a problem but really that big . The problems the mages have to deal with are range, area of effect and time. Yes there are a few spells that are truly line of sight without a limited range but the vast majority are limited to120 ft vs a rifle’ 500-100 yd/m range. Further most spells are effectively subsonic vs mos bullets being supersonic. Then you have the ranges and area of effects of artillery. A 155 mm howitzer has a range of 15-25 miles with a kill zone of 50m diameter and a frag zone another 450m diameter outside that. Compare that to meteor swarm 4 x 40’ diameter blasts at upto a mile down range. Add in the effects of gravity bombs and guided munitions from bombers at 20-40k feet. The. There are strafing runs - yes you could potentially see the plane and maybe disable it with a wish, but reality says that by the time you hear it it’s not there anymore and unless your trained to to “lead” the sound it’s firing at you before you can spot it and your dead before you can effectively react. Add in tanks, APCs, drones, etc and your mages are slaughtered fairly quickly without really even seeing the defenders.
If even one chooses a good wish, then they just win.
Practically all the crazy stuff they could do with Wish has a 33% chance of obliterating their ability to use the spell forever. Not to mention they can’t turn rain to acid or whatever, the limits of wish is below that of moving an actual mountain, so anything above an 8th level spell could just flat out fail.
Where do you get that from? Wish has many negatives, but heavy limitation is not one of them. One could literally wish for a mountain to move. I imagine an effective wish would be for an emp blast, or for all refined uranium to disappear.
I don't know which side would win, but I know who would lose.
Everybody.
Just because, "these government officials don't want to simply nuke major cities and kill people" doesn't mean they won't. They have already literally done that before and several are threatening to do it right now. While the Magic Army and the Tech Army are busy killing each other, billions of regular people will be killed as collateral damage.
As a very wise program once said, "The only winning move is not to play."
Practically all the crazy stuff they could do with Wish has a 33% chance of obliterating their ability to use the spell forever. Not to mention they can’t turn rain to acid or whatever, the limits of wish is below that of moving an actual mountain, so anything above an 8th level spell could just flat out fail.
Where do you get that from? Wish has many negatives, but heavy limitation is not one of them. One could literally wish for a mountain to move. I imagine an effective wish would be for an emp blast, or for all refined uranium to disappear.
While an EMP might be doable, that implies the wizard has enough time to understand how said EMP works and where to best use it, and wishing for worth of that to simply disappear absolutely not possible. The world has a supply of roughly 2,000 tons of refined uranium, with around 40 trillion unrefined Uranium in the earth.
If you compare it to Proctiv's move mountain (an epic level spell that was banned by Mystra herself for being above 9th level) which only removed a mountain top, at best you could create a 300 foot cube of matter without enacting stress, which is no where near enough to remove. If we say it’s made out of pure gold, that’s less than 200 tons, and that’s for creating matter, not destroying it, with there being no rules for the destruction of matter other than risking stress or just casting disintegration.
Practically all the crazy stuff they could do with Wish has a 33% chance of obliterating their ability to use the spell forever. Not to mention they can’t turn rain to acid or whatever, the limits of wish is below that of moving an actual mountain, so anything above an 8th level spell could just flat out fail.
Where do you get that from? Wish has many negatives, but heavy limitation is not one of them. One could literally wish for a mountain to move. I imagine an effective wish would be for an emp blast, or for all refined uranium to disappear.
While an EMP might be doable, that implies the wizard has enough time to understand how said EMP works and where to best use it, and wishing for worth of that to simply disappear absolutely not possible. The world has a supply of roughly 2,000 tons of refined uranium, with around 40 trillion unrefined Uranium in the earth.
If you compare it to Proctiv's move mountain (an epic level spell that was banned by Mystra herself for being above 9th level) which only removed a mountain top, at best you could create a 300 foot cube of matter without enacting stress, which is no where near enough to remove. If we say it’s made out of pure gold, that’s less than 200 tons, and that’s for creating matter, not destroying it, with there being no rules for the destruction of matter other than risking stress or just casting disintegration.
What is the source for this lore about a "move mountain" spell? (please don't say alpha playtest archive transcript for AD&D) Regardless, there is no such limitation on that fairly strait-forwards wish.
Source is 2E's Netheril: Empire of Magic, which states it’s a 10th level spell and is the very spell that created one of the most famous cities known in DND, which held Karsus, creator of Karus's Avatar, and eventually who made the accident known as Karsus's Folly, resulting in the death of Mystral and the shift to 3E.
“You may wish for something not included in any of the other effects. To do so, state your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might be achieved only in part, or you might suffer an unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a Legendary magic item or an Artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner. If your wish is granted and its effects have consequences for a whole community, region, or world, you are likely to attract powerful foes. If your wish would affect a god, the god’s divine servants might instantly intervene to prevent it or to encourage you to craft the wish in a particular way. If your wish would undo the multiverse itself, threaten the City of Sigil, or affect the Lady of Pain in any way, you see an image of her in your mind for a moment; she shakes her head, and your wish fails.
The stress of casting Wish to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a Long Rest, you take 1d10 Necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can’t be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength score becomes 3 for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast Wish ever again if you suffer this stress.”
I'm going to go with a million of anything vs the world, the world wins. But it's much worse than that - it's only just 1000 vs the world. Wizards seem like super powerful dudes, but they're really not. They (literally) cannot do much of anything - on the battlefield - that an infantryman cannot do.
I already hear the objections: Wizards can summon demons/reverse gravity/cover the battlefield in illusions/whatever.
But ... a demon is just a larger infantryman, reverse gravity happens all the time (briefly, as a result of explosion), soldiers use stealth, camouflage, smoke and so on. One high level wizard is certainly more powerful than one infantryman - but we have zillions of them. Not to mention that on top of the man+rifle combo, we have artillery, ballistic missiles, fighter-bombers, and so on. For the most part, the man+rifle has enough range to defeat any wizard, no contest. Hand grenades, night vision (that's much greater than 30'), supply and command structures, surveillance satellites, hunter/killer drones.
Wish isn't any sort of issue. I say that because - any use of wish that would just end the fight, falls into the category of 'spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might be achieved only in part, or you might suffer an unforeseen consequence'. Because otherwise, why even ask the question? Why have more than just a single wizard - or even just some random mook with a ring of 3 wishes.
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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'm going to go with a million of anything vs the world, the world wins. But it's much worse than that - it's only just 1000 vs the world. Wizards seem like super powerful dudes, but they're really not. They (literally) cannot do much of anything - on the battlefield - that an infantryman cannot do.
I already hear the objections: Wizards can summon demons/reverse gravity/cover the battlefield in illusions/whatever.
But ... a demon is just a larger infantryman, reverse gravity happens all the time (briefly, as a result of explosion), soldiers use stealth, camouflage, smoke and so on. One high level wizard is certainly more powerful than one infantryman - but we have zillions of them. Not to mention that on top of the man+rifle combo, we have artillery, ballistic missiles, fighter-bombers, and so on. For the most part, the man+rifle has enough range to defeat any wizard, no contest. Hand grenades, night vision (that's much greater than 30'), supply and command structures, surveillance satellites, hunter/killer drones.
Wish isn't any sort of issue. I say that because - any use of wish that would just end the fight, falls into the category of 'spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might be achieved only in part, or you might suffer an unforeseen consequence'. Because otherwise, why even ask the question? Why have more than just a single wizard - or even just some random mook with a ring of 3 wishes.
So you're essentially saying the person who created this thread is the DM for that and would block wish because the question is solved otherwise? Seems like a pretty big assumption to me.
Source is 2E's Netheril: Empire of Magic, which states it’s a 10th level spell and is the very spell that created one of the most famous cities known in DND, which held Karsus, creator of Karus's Avatar, and eventually who made the accident known as Karsus's Folly, resulting in the death of Mystral and the shift to 3E.
“You may wish for something not included in any of the other effects. To do so, state your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might be achieved only in part, or you might suffer an unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a Legendary magic item or an Artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner. If your wish is granted and its effects have consequences for a whole community, region, or world, you are likely to attract powerful foes. If your wish would affect a god, the god’s divine servants might instantly intervene to prevent it or to encourage you to craft the wish in a particular way. If your wish would undo the multiverse itself, threaten the City of Sigil, or affect the Lady of Pain in any way, you see an image of her in your mind for a moment; she shakes her head, and your wish fails.
The stress of casting Wish to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a Long Rest, you take 1d10 Necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can’t be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength score becomes 3 for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast Wish ever again if you suffer this stress.”
i see a potential flaw many people are over looking in this magic vs tech discussion. with only 1 million 'invaders' I would not imagine that there would be one large clump of invading magic users all in one spot to be targeted in a straight up military conflict. with just one million invaders that leaves only 5128 magic users per country. a force of that size shouldn't risk all of their troops in big groups, and i would hope they would break up into multiple small factions operating in more of a gorilla warfare scenario. this would negate many of the advantages of the modern military that have been mentioned such as artillery, nuclear weapons, and such.
many good points were made regarding the advanced tech that earth currently has such as night vision, and superior range for the common soldiers and artillery. so i'll play devils advocate and speak on behalf of the wizards. and i won't rely on any 8th or 9th level spells, because i don't think they're needed for wizards to win.
there are 50,000+ wizards that have access to the contingency spell. which coupled with spells that transport you to another location make you virtually impossible to kill. contingency also allows you to place 'traps' avoiding the range discrepancy. access to greater invisibility would make you difficult to target, as well as access to many illusion spells and an enemy that has no anti magic ability.
but most realistically, as a magic user, I'd never actually face you myself. I'd be tucked away somewhere safe and sound and ready to escape to the ethereal plane at a moments notice while you're stuck fighting my summoned dragons and celestials.
history is littered with examples of large scale military losing to smaller numbers using unorthodox tactics. modern military facing that level of magic would be no exception. for technology to win i think it would need to be more advanced than what we currently have, or magic is weaker than access to high level spells.
I just wanted to offer some numbers, because it's a nice sunny day and I'm bored. Shall we assume that the wizards will be more or less evenly distributed throughout the global population? There are roughly eight billion people on the Pale Blue Dot. (I know, I know, it's really 8,191,988,453 with 1 more added every half second. but it's easier to divide by big round numbers so hush, we're calling it 8 billion).
So Asia gets 589,000 wizards. Africa gets 176,000. Europe gets 95,000. North America gets 77,000. South America gets 56,000. And the vast reaches of Oceana get just under 6,000.
Now, where on each continent do they arrive? Because Africa's a big place. I don't care what Mercator says, Africa's big! There would be one wizard per 67 square miles. Now, if they all showed up in clumps (Casablanca, Cairo, Kampala, Cape Town), they could coordinate very easily. But if one wizard shows up in Mokombe and the next nearest wizard is in Yalamboto, they will have to spend the first several days just finding one another, and some of them may never be found. And Oceania! Good luck! One wizard per atoll with nothing in sight but ocean. Even if they have Teleport, they just got here. At best they qualify as "Viewed Once", so they've only got a 27% chance of hitting their target destination. So if the wizard on Bora-Bora tries to get to Sydney, she's going to miss by 1,124 miles. Maybe that means Airlie Beach, maybe it means the burning sands of the Simpson Desert, maybe it means the South Tasman Seas halfway to Antarctica.
I'm just sayin', we need more details before we can provide a fair assessment.
Okay, now hold up. This isn't as easy as it sounds. :
All of them can cast various cantrips and 1st-level spells.
500,000 can cast 2nd-level spells, along with the spells above.
That's a lot of dead politicians.
I don’t think politicians walk around willy nilly without some bodyguards or security. And I think a random dude sputtering nonsense and spamming their hands while holding up an old stick might get tazed before they could cast a spell.
I think the argument is kinda impossible to handle considering we don’t have any win conditions, is it destroy all real world governments, take over the world or just chill in a 5-star resort eating caviar?
The entire population of earth is far too high for wizards to actually end, and the spells wizards can cast make them stupidly hard to catch, meaning a stalemate is basically inevitable.
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Okay, now hold up. This isn't as easy as it sounds.
In this (very fictional) scenario (*coughs as strange lights envelop him*), we can assume the following.
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3,000 attempts to wish seems decisive.
Considering we don’t actually know how well in sync these spell casters are with each other, we have to assume that they might have their Wishes overlap, making it less world ending than expected. They’re unlikely to know what everyone else is thinking and every single continent makes them rather spread out.
You're are also assuming that all these wizards are optimised, when that’s pretty damn unlikely, especially for Jeff the hedge wizard. All 500,000 first level spell casters would probably just be wiped out by starvation and being homeless. If they don’t have create Food and Water, Charm Person or Disguise self, they’re gonna be pretty easy to take down when they’ve been dumpster diving. So most of them are gonna be wiped out or struggle due to not having the necessary spells for going to an alien civilisation.
Also do we account for Sorcerers, Bards, Druids and Clerics?
If even one chooses a good wish, then they just win.
Practically all the crazy stuff they could do with Wish has a 33% chance of obliterating their ability to use the spell forever. Not to mention they can’t turn rain to acid or whatever, the limits of wish is below that of moving an actual mountain, so anything above an 8th level spell could just flat out fail.
Yeah wish is going to be a problem but really that big . The problems the mages have to deal with are range, area of effect and time. Yes there are a few spells that are truly line of sight without a limited range but the vast majority are limited to120 ft vs a rifle’ 500-100 yd/m range. Further most spells are effectively subsonic vs mos bullets being supersonic. Then you have the ranges and area of effects of artillery. A 155 mm howitzer has a range of 15-25 miles with a kill zone of 50m diameter and a frag zone another 450m diameter outside that. Compare that to meteor swarm 4 x 40’ diameter blasts at upto a mile down range. Add in the effects of gravity bombs and guided munitions from bombers at 20-40k feet. The. There are strafing runs - yes you could potentially see the plane and maybe disable it with a wish, but reality says that by the time you hear it it’s not there anymore and unless your trained to to “lead” the sound it’s firing at you before you can spot it and your dead before you can effectively react. Add in tanks, APCs, drones, etc and your mages are slaughtered fairly quickly without really even seeing the defenders.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
It's just that wish is... wish.
Where do you get that from? Wish has many negatives, but heavy limitation is not one of them. One could literally wish for a mountain to move. I imagine an effective wish would be for an emp blast, or for all refined uranium to disappear.
I don't know which side would win, but I know who would lose.
Everybody.
Just because, "these government officials don't want to simply nuke major cities and kill people" doesn't mean they won't. They have already literally done that before and several are threatening to do it right now. While the Magic Army and the Tech Army are busy killing each other, billions of regular people will be killed as collateral damage.
As a very wise program once said, "The only winning move is not to play."
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While an EMP might be doable, that implies the wizard has enough time to understand how said EMP works and where to best use it, and wishing for worth of that to simply disappear absolutely not possible. The world has a supply of roughly 2,000 tons of refined uranium, with around 40 trillion unrefined Uranium in the earth.
If you compare it to Proctiv's move mountain (an epic level spell that was banned by Mystra herself for being above 9th level) which only removed a mountain top, at best you could create a 300 foot cube of matter without enacting stress, which is no where near enough to remove. If we say it’s made out of pure gold, that’s less than 200 tons, and that’s for creating matter, not destroying it, with there being no rules for the destruction of matter other than risking stress or just casting disintegration.
What is the source for this lore about a "move mountain" spell? (please don't say alpha playtest archive transcript for AD&D) Regardless, there is no such limitation on that fairly strait-forwards wish.
Source is 2E's Netheril: Empire of Magic, which states it’s a 10th level spell and is the very spell that created one of the most famous cities known in DND, which held Karsus, creator of Karus's Avatar, and eventually who made the accident known as Karsus's Folly, resulting in the death of Mystral and the shift to 3E.
“You may wish for something not included in any of the other effects. To do so, state your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might be achieved only in part, or you might suffer an unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a Legendary magic item or an Artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner. If your wish is granted and its effects have consequences for a whole community, region, or world, you are likely to attract powerful foes. If your wish would affect a god, the god’s divine servants might instantly intervene to prevent it or to encourage you to craft the wish in a particular way. If your wish would undo the multiverse itself, threaten the City of Sigil, or affect the Lady of Pain in any way, you see an image of her in your mind for a moment; she shakes her head, and your wish fails.
The stress of casting Wish to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a Long Rest, you take 1d10 Necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can’t be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength score becomes 3 for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast Wish ever again if you suffer this stress.”
I'm going to go with a million of anything vs the world, the world wins. But it's much worse than that - it's only just 1000 vs the world. Wizards seem like super powerful dudes, but they're really not. They (literally) cannot do much of anything - on the battlefield - that an infantryman cannot do.
I already hear the objections: Wizards can summon demons/reverse gravity/cover the battlefield in illusions/whatever.
But ... a demon is just a larger infantryman, reverse gravity happens all the time (briefly, as a result of explosion), soldiers use stealth, camouflage, smoke and so on. One high level wizard is certainly more powerful than one infantryman - but we have zillions of them. Not to mention that on top of the man+rifle combo, we have artillery, ballistic missiles, fighter-bombers, and so on. For the most part, the man+rifle has enough range to defeat any wizard, no contest. Hand grenades, night vision (that's much greater than 30'), supply and command structures, surveillance satellites, hunter/killer drones.
Wish isn't any sort of issue. I say that because - any use of wish that would just end the fight, falls into the category of 'spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might be achieved only in part, or you might suffer an unforeseen consequence'. Because otherwise, why even ask the question? Why have more than just a single wizard - or even just some random mook with a ring of 3 wishes.
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.
So you're essentially saying the person who created this thread is the DM for that and would block wish because the question is solved otherwise? Seems like a pretty big assumption to me.
If Mystra is dead, then what is she going to do?
i see a potential flaw many people are over looking in this magic vs tech discussion. with only 1 million 'invaders' I would not imagine that there would be one large clump of invading magic users all in one spot to be targeted in a straight up military conflict. with just one million invaders that leaves only 5128 magic users per country. a force of that size shouldn't risk all of their troops in big groups, and i would hope they would break up into multiple small factions operating in more of a gorilla warfare scenario. this would negate many of the advantages of the modern military that have been mentioned such as artillery, nuclear weapons, and such.
many good points were made regarding the advanced tech that earth currently has such as night vision, and superior range for the common soldiers and artillery. so i'll play devils advocate and speak on behalf of the wizards. and i won't rely on any 8th or 9th level spells, because i don't think they're needed for wizards to win.
there are 50,000+ wizards that have access to the contingency spell. which coupled with spells that transport you to another location make you virtually impossible to kill. contingency also allows you to place 'traps' avoiding the range discrepancy. access to greater invisibility would make you difficult to target, as well as access to many illusion spells and an enemy that has no anti magic ability.
but most realistically, as a magic user, I'd never actually face you myself. I'd be tucked away somewhere safe and sound and ready to escape to the ethereal plane at a moments notice while you're stuck fighting my summoned dragons and celestials.
history is littered with examples of large scale military losing to smaller numbers using unorthodox tactics. modern military facing that level of magic would be no exception. for technology to win i think it would need to be more advanced than what we currently have, or magic is weaker than access to high level spells.
lots of nifty ideas here
I just wanted to offer some numbers, because it's a nice sunny day and I'm bored. Shall we assume that the wizards will be more or less evenly distributed throughout the global population? There are roughly eight billion people on the Pale Blue Dot. (I know, I know, it's really 8,191,988,453 with 1 more added every half second. but it's easier to divide by big round numbers so hush, we're calling it 8 billion).
So Asia gets 589,000 wizards. Africa gets 176,000. Europe gets 95,000. North America gets 77,000. South America gets 56,000. And the vast reaches of Oceana get just under 6,000.
Now, where on each continent do they arrive? Because Africa's a big place. I don't care what Mercator says, Africa's big! There would be one wizard per 67 square miles. Now, if they all showed up in clumps (Casablanca, Cairo, Kampala, Cape Town), they could coordinate very easily. But if one wizard shows up in Mokombe and the next nearest wizard is in Yalamboto, they will have to spend the first several days just finding one another, and some of them may never be found. And Oceania! Good luck! One wizard per atoll with nothing in sight but ocean. Even if they have Teleport, they just got here. At best they qualify as "Viewed Once", so they've only got a 27% chance of hitting their target destination. So if the wizard on Bora-Bora tries to get to Sydney, she's going to miss by 1,124 miles. Maybe that means Airlie Beach, maybe it means the burning sands of the Simpson Desert, maybe it means the South Tasman Seas halfway to Antarctica.
I'm just sayin', we need more details before we can provide a fair assessment.
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's a lot of dead politicians.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I don’t think politicians walk around willy nilly without some bodyguards or security. And I think a random dude sputtering nonsense and spamming their hands while holding up an old stick might get tazed before they could cast a spell.
I think the argument is kinda impossible to handle considering we don’t have any win conditions, is it destroy all real world governments, take over the world or just chill in a 5-star resort eating caviar?
The entire population of earth is far too high for wizards to actually end, and the spells wizards can cast make them stupidly hard to catch, meaning a stalemate is basically inevitable.