Encounter brainstorming thread

>I'd fight a mortarman and a rifleman the same way that I'd fight a scout sniper

Let me give you a serious answer.

The first problem is one of conceptualization. A modern soldier can engage from distances that are, in some instances, beyond visual range and certainly beyond the range that anyone in a standard adventuring party can retaliate beyond. A few in-game rounds of sustained fire from someone in cover laying down fmj rounds aimed at the squishiest party members followed by the martials who have no ability to retaliate is going to be more than most parties can handle. Environmental modifiers complicate this further: engaging with someone utilize thermal optics and night vision while engaging from range could make a night-time forest encounter an even worse slaughter.

I've kinda fancied this image. Like what could have taken place that brought these two forces together.

Depends on the fantasy setting

My fantasy setting involes bunch of F-4/F-104/F-111 pilots that consist of many different kind of fantasy races that triying to protect their homeland that consist of several floating cities from supersonic wyverns, shapeshifting sapient dragons, cliffracers and, of course, other conglomerate of floating cities. And the tech level is basically 1970s with applied magic in them (somekind of bioshock like application), so i would laught at his face while i blast him from above.

>how crazy would it be if you were playing in a fantasy setting and your entire party had to fight a modern day *Big Boss*?
ftfy

THAT is how you make an anachronism worthwhile

I'm sorry, when I was reading that all I could hear was the sound of a /k/omrade furiously jacking off over 'muh guns.'

You have to admit that guns have better range than swords, though.

>fantasy setting

I miss HeroScape

Not him but i don't remember any fantasy setting having individual combat over 500 meters

He still gets fucked up by Magic Missile as Magic Missile never misses. Your modern rifleman is a low-leveled duelist or ranger with equipment that's above-average for being mundane, but is ultimately just that, mass-produced mundane equipment. He still has to deal with the same martial ceiling that every other non-magical class in existence has to deal with.

D&D 5e.

Someone should make a 1 mile board just to use this

Ok, Turbo-Satan, as someone who doesn't play DnD I have to ask - at what point MM is capable of one-shotting someone with 100% chance? And what's it's effective range?

No idea about 5th edition, but in d&d 3.5 even a level 20 wizard (pretty much an end of campaign legendary mage) casting it has a range of just over 91m. The damage will be likely be sufficient to kill any commoner, but people with a reasonable number of character levels will likely be fine.

Wizards do far more OP things though depending on their level. Invisibility, spells where people have to make a saving throw or are completely incapacitated and effectively dead (or just outright dead), spells that would provide immunity to non-magical weapons, shapechanging, and so on.

In answer to the OP, it likely depends on how you would convert a modern day soldier into you system. It's possible the soldier would just wipe them out from ridiculous ranges if the party didn't know they'd be facing an opponent like that, but even relatively low levels wizards / clerics in a system like D&D would likely obliterate them.

Okay, so you fire off the magic missiles and they seem to hit, however he seems completely unaffected. You can roll arcana to try and figure out why. In the meantime you hear a thump - he fired some projectile which flies in an arc in your general direction. You instinctively jump away and rightly so, because the projectile explodes like a fireball. Roll dex save. Next turn.

If we're going with an operating operator that operates at maximum operational efficiency, then let's go with a moderately optimized D&D 5e character.

>20th level character
>Loremaster Wizard 6 / Twilight Druid 14
Casting Magic Missile as a 9th level spell, he creates 11 missiles that each do exactly the same amount of damage, which is the result of a 1d4+1 roll. Twilight Druid allows you to add 7 d10 dice from your Harvest's Scythe pool that damage roll, which means you fire 11 magical missiles that each do the result of 1d4+1+7d10. On average, this would do mean each missile does an average of 42 damage each. There are 11 missiles. That means an average of 462 damage. As he is a Loremaster Wizard, he can sacrifice a 2nd level spell to make the Magic Missile have a maximum range of a mile. So that's 462 damage that cannot miss its target or be resisted by the target at a range of a mile.

To put this into context, in D&D 5e, your average human commoner has 4 hit points. And like I said, this is a moderately optimized character rather than a fully optimized one.

Oh, so here we have someone that doesn't even play the game, they just want to masturbate over how a true operator would totally kick any dumb wizard's ass.

I, for one, want an actual answer, but none of the posts has satisfied me so far. So stop projecting.

DnD is shit anyway.

>I can't solve a high level encounter with a single casting of magic missle bawwwww
You've never seen helmed horror or rakshasa's statblocks or heard of brooch of shielding, have you?

If you're the same person who posted , then it's evident you'll never be satisfied. You were presented with a method of targeting your precious operating operator that cannot be avoided or resisted and you just pretended it didn't work or had no effect.

Anyone could list a dozen other spells from any edition that would solve this problem but if you're just going to fiat them away with no explanation, there's no point in even trying.

A squadron, maybe? Otherwise, if the party has any caster with a remotely working brain and diverse spell-list, they'll probably find something to shut down a single soldier pretty easily (assuming this is D&D).

not him, but no, I haven't. what are you talking about and what does it have to do with a modern soldier?

Funny how the thread immediately assumed that "fantasy setting" = "DnD".

If you're going with something as vague as 'fantasy setting,' yes, everyone's going to assume that you're going to mean D&D, the system usually used to represent generic fantasy settings.

The creatures I mentioned are unaffected by magic missile and brooch of shielding is an item similarly protecting from it. First word in the thread is "Encounter" and we are building an interesting encounter with modern day soldier. Encounters that are solvable with single casting of magic missile are shit, and we don't do shit encounters, so we grant the modern soldier immunity to force damage and explain it via "that's how modern armor interacts with magic" handwaving.

That's what I dislike, that it has gotten to the point that DnD is assumed to have monopoly on fantasy.

Though to be frank, the biggest faggot here is OP for posting a bait thread.

Okay, fully present the stats of the modern soldier rather than making them up on the spot and state the system that you're using as well.

For example, thermal optics and night vision. That counts as darkvision is a system like D&D 5e, right?

Okay, I can see why you'd do it like that, but I'm getting a bad feeling about it. The same feeling I get when reading "Humanity, Fuck Yeah" stories.

I don't really see how making him immune to the parties attempts at damage helps much. A modern soldier just wouldn't have that much HP (12?) so any situation where he gets into range of any player would end unsatisfactorily, since it's just 1 guy.

This thread is a bunch of guys waving their dicks around.

A modern soldier is just a human ranger with a really awesome bow. How your party handles him is depends on whether he's level 1 cannon fodder or BBEG operating at the highest speed with the lowest drag.

>some level 3 chub with a weapon that does 1d8+dex
We deal with him same as any archer

Wrong.

A green-as-grass modern soldier is CR 10 at the very least, regardless of edition.

I'm not even going to start on how powerful a properly armed veteran would be.

See

run up to him and attack as soon as you can?

Don't really think thermal would be an analogue to dark vision because thermal is like YOU'RE A FUCKING GLOWING WHITE SILHOUETTE AGAINST A DARK GRAY BACKDROP

In 5e a gladiator has 112 hitpoints, he'll survive a single round of spellcasting and we should design the adventure so that it's him who can instagib the party from distance rather than the other way round. Make him a marksman/sniper, place him in some tall building in an urban/ruin environment, ton of traps, maybe some drones and/or uncooperative locals. It could be a cool session, direct approach gets everybody killed, so the party needs to somehow reach him while avoiding traps, distracting him and so on. Basically a Stalingrad session except the party consists of fantasy adventurers.

An aimed shot would be an auto-hit like Magic Missile, probably for something like 6d8 force damage.

A burst would probably be three +9 attacks, which each do 6d8 force damage.

A full-auto spray would probably be twelve +4 attacks, which each do 6d8 force damage.

Yup. He can plink at us all he wants, assuming his pea-shooter can even hit our AC.

How fast and strong is a magic missile anyway?
How well would it do against level 4 plates

Okay, thermal is darkvision plus advantage to perception checks. How's that?

that pic triggers me just because of how varied the different soldiers are, especially the two guys in the background with the camo paint and what appears to be a ghile hood.

I think you underestimate how much a copper coated lead ball going a kilometre a second hurts

Sounds about right.

See .

Most ancient dragons have around 400 hitpoints. That moderately optimized spell is enough to one-shot a lot of ancient dragons.

Are level 4 plates stronger than the scales of an ancient dragon and is the body beneath stronger than the sinew of an ancient dragon?

Rolled 6, 4, 2, 1, 3, 5 = 21 (6d8)

>6d8 force damage

Dragons have what, zero damage resistance?

In which case, I play a warlock with Devil's Sight and cast Darkness on an object the warlock's carrying. Darkness can't be seen through by darkvision, but a warlock with Devil's Sight can see through it. So any attack against the warlock has disadvantage and any attack the warlock makes against someone who can't see him through the Darkness spell has advantage, due to the Darkness spell blocking the thermal optics.

Yes, but it was canned by the military.

I don't know about the plates because that shit is hard af but i guess anyone behind the plate would have their torso turned to goop by blunt force trauma at that point anyway

The last wizard I played had a permanently hung spell to redirect any bullets that hit him 180 degrees back at whoever fired them. Specifically bullets. Good for any other bullets that hit within a 6 second window after the first.

I only got *one* use out of that spell in the whole campaign and I'm still not satisfied with how it went down, mainly because any mouthbreathing retard should understand that hooking up 3 MG42s on a tripwire to fire at a wizard in order to distract them while you shank them in the back is a terrible idea, because as soon as they shanked me too hard to re-cast the spell I just went prone, removing the one obstacle protecting said edgelord from the next 360 rounds put down range. I still don't know what the fuck that NPC was expecting to happen, to this day.

Like don't get me wrong, it definitely distracted me, and I got shanked REAL hard, but it doesn't seem to weigh up vs. how fucking hard the dude got turned into a fog of blood by crossfire. But I was already past the expendable fodder and summons at that point. He was a guy who definitely knew what was going on and definitely should have had a self-preservation instinct. I just don't understand what the hell he was trying to accomplish.

good, now you're actually putting some thought in instead of casting 'I win'

I guess infrared is still light so that works?
But thermals usually emit their own light so how does that interact with darkness?

Devil's Sight Darkness warlocks are commonly viewed as boring 'I win' buttons in D&D 5e, so a lot of people would disagree with you. The point is, there are established methods of getting around foes like this.

Darkness creates darkness, IE makes a room darker than it should be given the amount of light present. It stands to reason that in order to do this it must be suppressing light and light sources in the area.

If you cast darkness on a fire, the fire is dimmed. Therefore the thermal signatures of anything around would also be dimmed.

Darkness is a spell that creates a magical darkness that cannot be seen through, even by creatures with eyes adapted to seeing in the dark through a variety of means.

Thermal optics have been stated to be the equivalent of darkvision, in the system. Are you stated that's now inaccurate, after it's previously been established in this thread that it's a suitable comparison?

If a guy is at 500 meters, the bullet will be at you in half a second and in half a second, he could easily move away because it would take 1 second for the bullet to eventually reach back at him from shooting you.
I guess it works if you don't want to get hit but not many people are gonna die from that past close range.
If he was further away, he wouldn't even have to move because bullet drop would move the bullet away from him

Depends on what CR you're aiming for. For 10-ish in 5e I'd do something like:
Aimed shot: +8, 5d10 piercing (magical) and DC 15 Con save or instantly drop to 0 hp instead.
Hip fire: +8, take three shots, 5d10 piercing (magical) each.
Burst fire: everything in cone of fire takes 10d10 piercing, DC15 dex save for half.

Depending on power level you could even say the thermal vision basically grants you diminished true sight. I'd have the darkness block it though.
You must remember it's only disadvantage to hit though, and the soldier is going to have burst fire and explosives. Darkness will make you safer, but not safe.

If you cast Darkness on a fire, would it be colder? Infrared is heat.

No i'm just wondering how it would affect the thermal's own light

Infrared is light emitted by heat, that's how they pick up heat signatures

It'd have to first hit, mind you. A low level mook like a soldier would have to hit bonus around +2, meaning he'd hit just on critical success against even moderately geared up party.

Darkness blocks vision of all things that exist within it, no matter how they are viewed. Only a few specific divination spells or passive effects are able to see through magical darkness.

Yeah maybe if you were fighting conscripts
You guys actually underestimate the average soldier. Not that they'll stand much of a chance anyway

A soldier is a common man given training and equipment. That would make him a low level NPC in D&D.

Yeah and guns are designed to be easy to aim. Except handguns. Fuck handguns

Infrared light isn't literally heat, it's just the wavelength of light predominantly responsible for heat transfer by radiation, which in turn is only one of the three primary means of heat transfer. It is for example, totally possible to have massive quantities of infrared light be absorbed by something and only increase its temperature a small amount, if the photon capture is managed correctly.

It certainly does means the fire wouldn't feel as warm from further away, but up close it would be exactly as hot. In fact, setting a shitload of bonfires inside an area darkened by this spell would make for an extremely easy deathtrap, as people wouldn't be able to tell if they caught fire until they were thoroughly alight.

>hex him
>he can't aim
>his gun jams on the second shot
>he drops grenade clumsily at his feet
>BOOM
One dead modern soldier later everything is better with a healthy dose of magic

Don't mind he has no idea how infrared works

Thing is around levels 5-6 the characters start to detach from what's realistic and turn into super heroes. That assault rifle does 2d8 damage and shoots three times in a round, for average of 27 dmg (assuming all shots hit which is not a given by far). An average Fighter at that point has at least 50-60 hp, and his fighting efficiency is not affected at all as long as he has at least 1 hp left.

You can understand the growing horror of that poor bastard soldier when he fires at the monster, seeing him hit his target yet it keeps coming at him, shrugging off what should be mortal wounds like water.

And then there's the actually dangerous classes, like wizards and druids.

You ever tried pulling the pin on a grenade? It's harder than it looks

That seems like the least crazy encounter the party has yet to fight. Certainly less crazy than giant hair snakes or astrotelepath hive minds.

How long is a round anyway?
I head people say a round is 5 second but in 5 seconds, you would have expended all your rounds and are partway through reloading

A round is six seconds, and you can fire three bullets in that time so emptying your clip is going to take some time. You can attack and reload during the same turn if you don't move.

>3 rounds in 6 seconds
Is this guy sniping or some shit? An AK which shoots slow for an assault rifle fires 30 rounds in 3 seconds. Hell even if you had a semi automatic rifle you could fire all your rounds in 6 seconds

dnd 5e says an automatic rifle hurts for 2d10+dex.

pf says 1d10

You probably aren't going to hit anything If you do that though.

I don't know much about guns but the recoil of 30 bullets in 3 seconds should throw tour sim off.

If the guy has an M16 he could do it. Maybe a few grazes and near misses here and there but a standing man is a pretty big target and most would hit.

>In fact, setting a shitload of bonfires inside an area darkened by this spell would make for an extremely easy deathtrap, as people wouldn't be able to tell if they caught fire until they were thoroughly alight.
I'm totally stealing this.

Perhaps in real world, but we're talking about encounter in a fantasy world D&D, where an assault rifle would fire three rounds in six seconds.

Why would it only fire three rounds per second, apart from Gm fiat?

*per six seconds.

Offer him beer and tobacco. Job jobbed.

Isn't MM like 1d4 or something? It's like throwing a moderately heavy rock at the other guy, isn't it?

They could be a patch job of different units. Like things have gone so far south that most of the groups in combat are whoever could manage to group up after their main forces were decimated.

Though that's probably a bit far fetched.

Because of the game world rules, of course. It wouldn't be a very balanced weapon if it didn't you know?

>D&D has rules for modern weaponry
>An assault rifle does about 2d10 damage IIRC

Literally can't kill me even if he hit max damage critical hits for 5 rounds straight. So pfft I dunno, mind control him and get his tech or something.

>first party
>skelly-man with a blunderbus and a lightning cannon
>minotaur that fell five hundred feet and survived by yelling
>bard and mage who are made of paper
>monk who can dodge gravity
>warlock who fires darkfire grenades from his fingertips

Unless the army dude is sufficiently meme-y then this is going to be a very one-sided fight.

>second group
>human ranger with enough STR to tackle a trotting horse
>>decent sneak skills
>>good shot with a bow
>frost troll illusionist
>>adept at misdirection
>>focuses on misdirecting and incapacitating enemy combatants
>human kid, probably a chosen one
>>really lucky
>>cute

Not nearly as meme-tier as the other party. Fight would largely depend on who got the drop on who, and also who got shot down first. The troll is going to make the soldier's day a real pain in the ass if he's allowed to get more than one or two spells off.

>It's like throwing a moderately heavy rock at the other guy
It can very well kill you if it hits your head

>magic missile
I love how people think they'll even see the soldier.

Yeah, but he's wearing a helmet.