Zedalb
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Unreliable narrator VS WOG.
I think the rule books take priority, especially given they even have rules following canon character sheets
How to have a fantasy kingdom fight the US Armed Forces?
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Unreliable narrator VS WOG.
I think the rule books take priority, especially given they even have rules following canon character sheets
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I mean, realistically these settings probably wouldn't be limited to the standard book of spells, and would just kind of have extradimensonal bunkers littered around based on that sort of spellwork, probably one or more specifically with a party of high end shitkickers lounging around ready to counterattack in case something does, in fact, delete their city -- setting equivalent of MAD in a world where small groups absolutely can suddenly lay waste to cities or nations and regularly have to deal with other stuff that both can and will.*
Rope trick was just an idle thought of one thing that probably dozens of casters in the city could cast, showing casual and potentially pervasive access to something that could no-sell a missile strike (well, and most everything else, too, the spell's kinda' silly), heh. The divination wouldn't have to be precise, anyway, the city'd just conscript a couple dozen to persistently chain cast the thing until they got it right, and then whoever hit them would have to deal with whatever was tucked away in the rabbit hole of asskick.
*E: Though as a general thing, this is much of why I don't think it'd actually go that well for someone trying a sudden missile or artillery strike -- dnd is a setting where any settlement of note or significant age will have been tried and tested against sudden citykillers or long range rapid attacks like that. It might not be covered in a splatbook or whatever, but they're going to have experience surviving stuff like that in their settings or there's not going to be a city to try to bomb.
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Zedalb
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Limited spell slots and low level divination doesn't actually do very much means you can't realistically have a constant steam of divination about city specific threats.
Even the fourth level spell "Divination" can't warn you about something like that and has a failure chance (alleviated by having multiple people cast it but again limited spell slots)
Like, this is getting into fanon "is it theoritically possible" rather than, "Do we see this in setting" and since people are ignoring what the author of the setting said, I don't think anything I can say can matter.
When the author is just shot down we are in no true scottsman.
We can't agree on literally anything on the setting because people disagree with the guy who wrote it.
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If we use the author of the setting (Ed Greenwood), then scry and fry is standard tactics for high level mages and the US government dies screaming. It's mentioned again and again, in Elminster: Making of a Mage, Elminster in Myth Drannor, in the "grey box" Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting for 2e, and probably quite a few other places if I took the time.
And that's the thing. Fantasy Settings DON'T use tactics compatible with what the OP wants. Because the realities on the ground in those setting make those tactics meaningless. Why waste time grinding down the endless undead army of Dark Lord Whatsisname IV when you can end the threat by sending a band of high level motherfuckers to kill the man himself? So they build themselves, their societies, around that.
They aren't going to target your army. They are going to kill your political leadership. And in the case of most fantasy settings I can think of that are significantly different enough from "Just Middle Ages Europe but with a single dragon and a magic sword", they're going to succeed because you don't have a counter for the ways they can do that.
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Epsilon Rose
The King of Unrest
You were specific about a set of rulesets, that multiple settings use, while also claiming you were positing generic "tools" and not making arguments because you weren't talking about a specific setting. You only briefly mentioned LFR.
We've already been over this, but powerful characters often aren't firmly attached to specific cities and probably aren't counted in their populations, so you're still looking for PhDs in highschool.
Really? Why? Because that is a really weird thing and I don't see any way to explain it in a coherent setting, which is what you need for this exercise to make any sense. Again, the D&D devs are awful at this sort of detailed world building. Or, more accurately, what they're describing isn't a world or nation, but a theme park where PCs and named NPCs can show off and feel special and the fact that none of it makes sense doesn't matter because it's just a theme park, not a lived in world.
Beyond that, the rest of your assessment is flawed.
- Artillery may or may not be able to kill a mage, but that only matters if the artillery knows they're there and can target them. Neither of those things are safe assumptions.
- Contingency can stop one-shot kills in multiple ways, you just need to pick the correct contingencies.
- You are weirdly fond of ICBMS as a solution to things when I'm pretty sure the US military isn't anywhere near that flippant about their use. More importantly, if they care about a single person enough to dedicate an entire ICBM to eliminating them, it's probably because that person has already kicked the USA's teeth in, at which point they very well may have lost the capacity to deploy ICBMs.
- Contingency Spells trigger instantly, once their contingency is met, so their casting time is irrelevant.
- Multiple types of clairvoiance and foresight already exist. So, should the US decide to task an ICBM to killing individuals, they would not be limited to reacting after it's already in the air. This has already been pointed out to you. ... Are you reading other people's posts?
- Force effects are explicitly immune to all types of damage and are fairly common. —To put it in perspective, Floating Disk is a lv 1 spell and Resilient Sphere is a level 4 spell.— WotC doesn't do much with force effects, or not nearly as much as one might expect from their nature and the applications we do see, but that's largely because of game balance. "Real" wizards would not face those limitations and a version of Floating Disk that floats in front of you or a version of Resilient Sphere that isn't designed to trap people should be more than possible.
- Protection from Arrows is a thing. There's no reason to think a similar spell could not be created for Artillery, if it ever became an issue.
... You want the rule books to take priority, but also we can't have player builds because ... reasons? No.
Commune is basically perfect for this type of thing. It lets you ask a relevant patron deity a series of yes or no questions (though they can give slightly longer answers if they want) and it doesn't have a failure chance. I could very easily see major cities or capitals using it daily and starting with something like "Is it likely the city will be destroyed in the next 48 hours." That would give a pretty big tip-off that an ICBM was incoming.
There are some partial exceptions, but those mostly happen because the author thought through the prevalence of magic a bit more and actually integrated it into things. At that point you get places like Mundus Magicus, where there are definitely Heroes who decide the day, but there are also significant armed forces that are built around using magic. Problem is, those settings also tend to not stagnate in the Middle Ages. So, if you really don't want Heroes to be the first response, then you probably need to accept the other side is going to be fielding a fleet of heavily shielded airships with DEWs. Also, most of their foot soldiers are capable of flight and can output attacks reminiscent of a minigun with homing bullets. ... Have fun?
Cloak&Dagger
Definitely Insane
I don't know, when I read the OP's question I read it as 'Tolkienesque' or 'Warhammer Fantasy' style fantasy, not the increasingly power escalating or nonsense Gamer/Isekai/Xianxia stuff. If eating a nuke is a regular thing in a setting, the whole point of the question is missed.
And Tolkien really gives us the best example of what nukes vs magic looks like anyway. When Sauron faced an overwhelming Numenorian invasion force, he surrendered and offered his services as an advisor. When he became renowed as wise and respected as an advisor and convinced Numenor to invade the gods, the gods wiped Numenor off the map like Atlantis.
Sauron, despite getting sunk and his body destroyed along with them, continued just fine, and went on to continue plaguing Middle-Earth and corrupting everything he got near.
That's what a 'Modern Earth has the firepower advantage' situation looks like with a competent opposing mage not focused on their own firepower.
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Mak Taru
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If the President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other political leaders were suddenly assassinated, would that really stop the military, though? There would always be someone lower on the chain of command to give orders, and it might make the soldiers more angry and determined to get revenge.
How? Without anyone to give orders, the army is as good as gone. They will just be picked off, one by one.
Mak Taru
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There are generals, colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, sergeants, etc. Their numbers keep increasing as you go down the ranks. It can't be practical to individually target and assassinate all of them.
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what happens is we go down the line of succession until it reaches someone who sues for peace or even outright surrenders, and that ends the war.
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Once you get rid of civilian leadership and anyone up to a level of general.
You start to loose lot cohesion.
There is nobody able to give commands, nobody who can direct without ton of questions.
An army, becomes many smaller armies that may, or may not, agree on a general direction but almost certainly not the details.
And that is before the heroes/adventurers start to hit and loot factories and storage depots.
Modern army needs a ton of stuff even during peace time, and even more so during war, the amount of spare parts, fuel, ammo, food, clothes, etc, an army go through is mind boggling.
You start to loose lot cohesion.
There is nobody able to give commands, nobody who can direct without ton of questions.
An army, becomes many smaller armies that may, or may not, agree on a general direction but almost certainly not the details.
And that is before the heroes/adventurers start to hit and loot factories and storage depots.
Modern army needs a ton of stuff even during peace time, and even more so during war, the amount of spare parts, fuel, ammo, food, clothes, etc, an army go through is mind boggling.
Eh, if they see it coming (you can probably assume the possibility of that is there, a citykiller would have every priest or divination caster in the joint twigging out), rope trick is pretty low level, innit? Rope trick could dodge a nuke/ICBM strike, far as I'm aware
Anything giving incorporeality should also work.
Hell, Greenwoods own novels don't agree with that; they're so chock-full of random mid- and high-level mages they're almost random encounters.
FR also has a number of magocracies which probably wouldn't be sustainable.
And who said FR is the defining standard, anyway? It's hardly the only D&D setting; Mystara, for example has at leadt 1,000 level 36 casters (in BECMI, in 2E AD&D they're about level 28-30) and that's just counting Alphatia's ruling council.
For the purposes of the OP, however, we might want to look at more military fantasy. How would, say, the Black Company fare against an equivalent-sized US unit (assuming the BC is in one of the times its suzeable)?
Mak Taru
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Didn't think of that, probably because I'm too used to assuming bloodlust in vs debates as a default.
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To be honest, I'd assume it doesn't even need to get to the Speaker of the House. Politicians don't tend to be willing to die for a random war. Like, if this was the fantasy kingdom doing the invading with intent to subjugate, then that might get them to be willing to face death rather than be slaves, but no modern politician will die for a war that isn't existential.
Then all they need to do is kill everyone...except the Congress, who sign off on wars.
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Are you assuming an army, and a civilian populace, that are 100% committed to war, no matter what the cost, even if it kills them and everyone they know?
Like, is everyone in the modern army side a bloodthirsty psychopath or something?
Because morale is an actual thing.
Only as much as during the Second World War.
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Second World War had actual strategic goals.
And US civilian population was relatively safe behind the goddamn ocean between them and the enemy.
Like, what are these people fighting for? What is this war about?
Because that shit matters, and so far it seems to be genocide for the sake of genocide.
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Miho Chan
One with too many ideas
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Okay, first of all? The Second World War? This is not an honest example given the OP's statement. Given that neither of the Axis with a significant Navy had a chance of reaching CONUS, Civilians were truly not at risk of being killed. At all. (Until the I-400s started a forest fire, but not relevant). Regardless, this is a silly argument. As @Valmond has stated, there were strategic goals in WWII beyond "LMAO CONQUEST". Additionally, all those people immediately saying nukes will fly? Why? For what reason? The US doesn't pull out the nukes by doctrine until everything has gone to hell and worse. Given that the OP has stated he wanted Army Scale clashes between Fantasy and Modern Tech, I will sigh heavily and point to Final Fantasy XIV's interpretation of what would happen (Because something similar actually happens in those games, albeit at a smaller scale) if you really want an example.
However, if you want to force me to actually think, here are my thoughts:
Given A: Mages being common/magic being common, and B: The Modern Tech Users cannot into magic in a reasonable time, basically, this will happen. The US will deploy troops due to the nebulous reason these two polities are at war (Given I wasn't given a good reason, I'll write it off as VS Debate shennagins). 1st point of contention with glorious army clash: We haven't done that shit in a real way since the Civil War IIRC. It just doesn't make any sense with modern technology and doctrine. So, you have the fantasy guys lining up to defend their portal, for example. Well, you know what the US will say to that? "Artillery? See those fantasy rejects?" "Yes Sir." "I don't want to." At which point, the Army's artillery will rain hell down upon the fantasy army. Of course, due to magic, it won't be a total slaughter, but the fantasy armies will quickly learn that engaging on the open field of battle is a Bad Idea.
Having established that "GLORIOUS ARMY CLASH" won't realistically happen, we move on to the logical conclusion of this. The US secures the portal with minor casualties. Someone says to invade the portal. The military, of course, being intelligent people, will send scouts through first, likely a UAV or some unmanned vehicle. If that doesn't work, I'd imagine they'd deploy either dedicated recon units or Spec Ops to scout, given that it is not a "regular army grunt" job to scout the enemy in an ideal situation (again, IIRC). So, given that Fantasy Army has lost their first engagement in a rain of fire and brimstone (what it'd probably look like to them), they'll likely fall back, and either: call the adventurers or send in their more elite units to hold the dragon they poked. At which point, the ending becomes nebulous. Because, once more, we run into the reality of war. That it's impossible to really prosecute forever. And I can 100% see the US not really being willing to push the engagement into the other side of the portal, given the losses they'd take from Fantasy World's Nation. Yes, I believe the US would eventually pull a V. But it would be an extremely costly one, one that leaves them demonized in that world, and cities burning as they take them.
More than likely, we'll see diplomacy win out. Given that the OP hasn't stated that both sides have a cause they cannot back down from, I can see peace being formed between the two, and potentially, eventual friendship. Because, once more, we run into the problem of VS debates. I am given a scenario in which I don't know the context, and two polities (or characters) are fighting for some nebulous reason. My default response to that has always been and will always be "But Why?"
Mak Taru
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The fantasy kingdom could want to kill all the Americans and torture their souls for all eternity. That would be some effective motivation.
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Sure, if you want to come up with an excuse for why US army committing genocide is totes cool, we could say that.
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That puts in into the "evil and high magic" kingdoms. Say, the Dread Empire of Praes. So you're fighting roman-ish armies (but with full plate and late medieval tech) with magic artillery, backed by diabolists and necromancy capable of producing effectively unlimited numbers of troops. And when they feel the need for spite, like say you bombard one of their cities, they call in the Demons. As an example, one demon was enough to not merely delete an entire city, but to rip all memory about it from everyone for a hundred years. And that's a demon of emptiness. One of the less fucked up ones.
Mak Taru
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That brings a question to mind, if we posit a scenario where demons exist, does that mean that faith-based rituals and tools like holy water and prayer work against them, even when used by non-magical people?
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Depends, in the mentioned setting those don't do shit. Only those priests specifically empowered to "wield the light" have any holy powers. Lay people might get lucky if their situation matches one of the accepted "Stories" and they get to become a Hero, but that's really it.