How dangerous would a BBEG human fighter with an aura of "realism and historical accuracy" be in a D&D game?
The aura is a mile wide. It acts as a dead magic zone, because magic is not realistic.
The aura deletes from existence any object that did not existence in the "medieval" time period that D&D purports to be set in: no plate armor, no rapiers.
All fantasy armor and fantasy weapons become useless hunks of metal that merely encumber the user while in the aura. Anyone trying to operate a weapon (or even throw a punch) in the aura MUST do so in a realistic and historically accurate way, with a proper description from the player or the GM, or else it becomes ineffectual.
All fantastical creatures lose their fantastical qualities. Elves drop dead and die, because humanoids living for a long time is unrealistic. Giants and dragons collapse on their own weight, realistically.
Could your D&D party even hope to stop this BBEG?
If you don't want to play in a fantasy game, you could just say so instead of contriving a way to kill your D&D game.
>>44062205
Bow. Arrow. True Strike.
Fire from outside zone. McRealism Man is struck; wound becomes infected. With no access to Cure Disease, he dies.
If you stab him once with a rusty knife does he get gangrene and die, realistically?
>>44062243
Fantastical effect gets mundane-ified by the aura.
>>44062205
So this guy is rewriting the local laws of physics to conform to his expectations of how the world should work, and it's everyone else who's being unrealistic? Come on.
>>44062275
There's nothing fantastical about an arrow flying at exactly the perfect angle to hit a guy.
![ellis_crecy_3[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qryXWgu.jpg "ellis_crecy_3[1].jpg")
>>44062205
I basically play the narrator from Crecy *anyway*, that cunt is FUCKED.
>>44062205
The ability to create a zone that alters reality is unrealistic. The zone instantly vanishes as the fighter's aura acts upon itself.
>>4406220
Other things this man would be weak to:
>trip fighters
>wolves
>starvation, dehydration
>cold
>mounted fighters
>any archer
>poisons
>tigers
>snakes
He's very non-threatening, it's quite easy to kill a lvl whatever fighter with no EX abilities, magic items, "unrealistic" powers, etc.
>>44062205
I hit you with a crowbar for being a historical accuracy sperg
>>44062205
>magic
>not realistic
But it's realistic in the world of DnD.
That's like meeting a guy in real life who has an aura of no-gamma rays because gamma rays aren't realistic.
>>44062205
>>44062243
>>44062251
These anons are already picking up on the obvious flaw of this "BBEG": He's extremely vulnerable to diseases and infection.
You also need to consider the fact that this persona would probably be severely undernourished or at the very least mildly stunted and noticeably weaker than other regular humanoids and so forth.
Simply because everybody else would have the long-term benefits of living in a magical world: excessive wider access to clean food and water encouraging rampant and constant reliable growth.
Even if you took away everybodies magical strength and magical development you'd still have a bunch of people with comparable health to that of modern-day folks with the strength and durability brought about by living in a medieval world.
He wouldn't be a capable "BBEG" he would be more like a leper: people and creatures would avoid him and he'd eventually be killed either by a wild animal or a low-level party.
>>44062350
>implying gamma rays are real
This is probably the least interesting, least compelling way to fuck up a game. Congrats, you've managed to create a villain that could not only kill the party, but would also kill their desire to ever play with the GM who pulls this.
>>44062378
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray
>>44062378
>tfw your gamma rayfu will never be real
>>44062205
Hire an infiltrator / assassin. Nothing magical about those. Equip with real, deadly poison; while in fantastic surroundings it probably just does XdY damage, but when brought into the aura it turns into extremely lethal substance even in small doses. Poisoning will be fairly effortless after the inflitrator is in place. There are no detect poisons or detect alignments or detect lies or detect anythings to hamper their work, and no cure poisons or resurrects to save the BBEG once poison has been ingested.
>>44062306
>muh bodkins can punch through plate
Total.
Bullshit.
>>44062205
Sick an owlbear on him.
Unless they are too magical, in which case sick a bear bear on him. Or a full owl.
>>44062444
>a bear bear
half bear, half a different kind of bear?
>>44062306
Who is this man talking to??
>>44062460
>he doesn't know about Polar Grizzlies
>>44062460
If an owlbear is half owl, half bear, then a bear bear would be half bear, half bear.
>>44062460
Something like this?
>>44062469
No one in universe. The whole comic is told as though the Narrator in omnipotent about the events taking places and is talking to the reader.
>>44062486
>fat and adorable looking from a distance
>gigantic and probably terrifying up close
best bear, confirmed.
![1413727023_99P8kd6[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0PmLB7t.jpg "1413727023_99P8kd6[1].jpg")
>>44062444
>Sick an owlbear on him.
>Unless they are too magical
If Platypuseses can be real than an Owlbear is entirely within the realm of reality.
They literally have the same backstory: People both think they were crafted together by some asshole with a weird sense of humor, but in reality truth is stranger than fiction, etc.
>>44062205
considering the current party has an angel with a bow, a 8 ft robot, a heavy armored cleric,and a ghost goblin with ghost bat, they'd do fine.
The party warmage would be rubbish, though.
>>44062528
>Palatapi actually evolving without magic
if there is ever proof that magic existed in this world at some point, it would be with the existence of the platypus
Extremely dangerous considering he merely needs to go near an elven city to destroy it. He makes a highly effective terrorist.
However, it's fairly simply to kill him. You merely need to get a group of 10-15 people to his location and they'll simply beat him to death.
He works very well as a terrorism BBEG if he is stealthy and hides, seeking to destroy rather than start an actual war.
>>44062615
>BBEG canthreaten entire civilizations with extinction
>a dozen guys capable of running a mile, each armed with a sock and half a brick could be his undoing.
>>44063018
Have you even read OP's concept?
Even if he's a fully armored knigt, without support a dozen peasants would still push his shit in
>>44063018
>What is Exalted?
>>44063018
I want to believe this is a Pratchett reference.
>>44062205
Well, if he's not magical, he has to sleep sometime. Last I checked, a subtle knifing in the dark wasn't all that magical or historically inaccurate.
>>44064409
it's the sock and half brick thing.
>>44062205
He dies to dysentery, plague, nasty flu or any of the myriad other nasty things that were realistically happening to the people on regular basis.
No the question is if the aura sticks around even after his demise.
>>44062205
Get like 30 hirelings with spears, pay them in gold and have them charge the dude down with a pike block. If this motherfucker is all about realism then beat him with realism tactics.
>>44062205
>Beat him up the old-fashioned way, with fists sticks and benches.
>Tie him up with a strong non-magical rope
Congratulations. You have just given your players something to sic at your precious lich/archmage/demon/old god/whatever BBEGs and completely wreck the game.
>>44062205
Holy Jesus. I'm high as fuck right now and even I can reckognize what a giagantic faggot you are being.
You could topple an empire with that sort of aura
>>44062205
What if
Hear me out guys
Long time ago, someone greentexted their campaign about Paladins who gained powers by slaying other gods and paladins of their order? Where they wanted to create basically hell on earth for some eldritch god?
What if you took that same concept
Hear me out
Took that same concept and applied it to CoC gods? Like you have a paladin who slayed an Eldritch god in some strange or odd ritual that gave him the ability to kill magic of any kind, but also gave him reality altering abilities?
I really want to do a campaign with a BBEG like this.
>>44062205
pin him down, brand "THIS MACHINE KILLS ELVES" on his back and prepare for the coming knife-ear genocide.
PC becomes new BBEG, begin new campaign
>>44068441
That could work, as long as he had control of the aura and could deactivate and manipulate it at will. Then he becomes something a god tier anti mage knight as opposed to the leper like terrorist we're dreaming up now.
>>44068715
EXACTLY!
Afraid of magical autists fucking you up?
BOOP. 500 foot anti magic aura and all your knights and followers are not only trained but conditioned to be unaffected by the sudden switch.
Fireballs? Magic is what keeps the plasma condensed. Without it? Hot air that dissipates in a second or two.
Lightning? BANG! That's it. A big flash and hotter air because again, plasma.
Arrows? Thicker armor and chainmail as well as shields. Remember, knights carried a decent amount of metal and could perform acrobatics in it.
Poison? The Paladin, being a competent asshole, shrinks the aura to have zealot mage/paladin spell check food for anything that poisons him. Or make it so he doesn't need food or drink because he exists somewhere outside of time and space. He can exist and is lifebound by his earthly form, but doesn't follow its rules. Doesn't mean he can't be killed or destroyed either.
Traps? Turn off aura for as long as he can, start spamming cantrips and magic. Or never get into the position in the first place. Or again, competent Paladin who either never gets into traps into the first place OR has high dexterity to acrobat his way out of any possible shit.
Boulders and other shit like catapults and ballistae? Simple, his aura is kind of like a rule enforcer binding and changing the world around him to form another's. So when he activates it, a heavier gravity is imposed or again, reality bending abilities.
One on one, he's beatable but you need to be incredibly creative to fight him. But without a massive amount of auxiliary support, he won't last.
He is a BBEG that can only be beaten through attrition and insane levels of planning and creativity. You won't outlive him, he'll out live you. He will have supporters and because he never reveals any aspect of his identity, he can simply take off the mask and helmet and disappear into the crowd which he has done. He is an campaign long encounter.
>>44068935
Did anyone care who he was before he put on the mask though?
>>44062205
>How dangerous would a BBEG human fighter with an aura of "realism and historical accuracy" be in a D&D game?
Not even a little
>>44062205
A wizard stands two miles away and conjures a giant chunk of rock over his head. Chuncks of rock are realistic, so it's not erased as long as the starting point out of the range.
If you pull that its erased, the wizard goes and hires a hundred of local bandits to ambush him.
One man versus hundred is not realistic win, so he's hosed by his own power.
>>44062243
The aura is a mile wide. Most modern day guns can't even shoot a mile out, much less a bow & arrow.
>>44070702
Magic. Aim it so it's at a high point of parabola before it enters the nullification point, then it falls straight to his noggin under mundane laws of physics.
>>44062528
>tfw Platypi can inject you with an extremely painful neurotoxin
Seriously, what the fuck nature?
>>44071097
The Platypus is nature's way of saying "I stitched this together out of shit I found on the warehouse floor and it can still kick your ass"
>>44070770
Except it looses its magic velocity and power the moment it's in the zone thus it probably goes down and hits the earth or changes trajectory wildly.
>>44071121
>phsyics is magic
Let me guess, his aura also kills hired bandits because were paid with money handled by a Wizard?
And then he starts teabagging Asmodeus because he isn't quite Mary-Sue bullshit OP enough yet?
>>44071121
Velocity is not magical.
Otherwise
>realm is created by gods
>including air
>including gravity
>ergo it's magical
>so he weightlessly floats in a mile-wide bubble of void and suffocates
>or zips off into space a-la immovable rod
>>44071121
Are you saying the arrow would teleport to the place and velocity it would be otherwise? Because that's what would happen if you somehow changed the arrow's potential energy to what it would be without the magical assistance.
>>44071128
Okay asshat here's how magic works:
You cast spell on arrow to make it go far. But it looses magic when it goes into field. Thus it can't go far anymore cause the spell is GONE.
You might as well bitch that dispel can eradicate fireball even though fire is something that exists and can be made anyway.
And how the fuck does "paying someone to shiv you" correlate AT ALL with any of that above? Maybe if they were charmed/dominated it might but there's no spell actually working to bypass the barrier.
>>44071121
The only magic involved is the original firing of the bow.
After that, physics functions as normal. An anti-magic aura has no effect on normal, realistic, laws of physics.
>>44071128
>>44071139
>>44071152
Do you people have no reading comprehension?
A bow + arrow cannot fire over miles. If you magically enchant it to do so then the enchantment disappears the moment the arrow enters into the field thus magic doesn't work.
By this logic you may as well just teleport a boulder over his head since you're casting a spell outside of the field!
>>44071150
Arrow does not have magic on it.
Lets compare a cannon and a missile, with gunpowder/fuel being equivalent to magic.
Missile expels fuel constantly, ergo if fuel vanishes it stops accelerating and falls ballistically, which changed trajectory.
Cannon however, has already expelled all the fuel in the initial shot and there is nothing more to negate.
>>44071162
Do you understand the plan here, at all?
You enchant an arrow so that it can reach THE TOP OF A PARABOLA that will come down on top of the shithead on the other side.
Once it reaches the top of the parabola, outside the dome, the rest is 100% gravity and physics. The magic has no play.
The only way the field could negate this tactic is if it could also prevent you from flying up above the dome to drop a rock on him, "because the rock got there by magic."
>>44071162
>By this logic you may as well just teleport a boulder over his head since you're casting a spell outside of the field!
And you can!
Or you can cast a circle of volcano eruption spells around him and trap him in a lake of magma. Will his aura magically vanish the molten rock around him?
>>44071163
Why are you assuming magic operates like a cannon? If a spell's intention is to guide something then it should functionally attach itself to whatever ammunition it is attempting to guide.
>>44071162
Well, you'll have to teleport it more than a mile over his head to be outside the aura radius so your aim will have to be really good, but I'm not sure how gravity would stop working suddenly after that. That seems even less realistic.
>>44071150
As mentioned, the only magic that happens is when the arrow is fired. After that, normal physics takes over, which since it's non-magical, the arrow's current flight path is unaffected.
Otherwise you'd be arguing that nonmagical physics is magic, which makes your guy way more OP and magical than any normal spellcaster.
The fireball is held together with magic, and has a range shorts enough where it would have to be cast inside the zone anyways, so it's a moot point.
Though there are various Orb of X spells from 3.5 that are explicitly nonmagical once they're formed.
>>44071162
The enchantment disappears, but the arrow is still flying through the air as normal physics would have it. Neither physics, nor nonmagical arrows are magic, so he just gets a regular arrow lodged in his forehead.
>>44071178
It isn't a guided missile. It's an artillery cannon with computer calculated aim.
>>44071175
Okay.
That makes sense.
... except we'd have to know his exact location at an exact moment for it to work.
I mean it'd be a good plan if he was outdoors and we just did a volley fire but at that point you may as well just send an army against him!
>>44071179
>That seems even less realistic.
Honestly, this "forced realism" aura causes even more unrealistic shit to happen than literal spellcasters.
>>44071192
Whiny neckbeards are a powerful force, anon.
>>44071191
>... except we'd have to know his exact location at an exact moment for it to work.
Yeah, it's an assassination plan.
Like he's sitting in a chair on a roof or something, then bonk.
>>44071191
I guess the question is if the aura prevents you using divination type magic regarding him from outside the aura because of blockage or whatever.
>>44071203
Or just wait till he goes to sleep or something.
He'll be sleeping in the wilderness sometime if his forced realism aura keeps getting him run out of towns that like their beneficial magic not being broken.
>>44071203
It seems like a really contrived way to kill him with spells when if we could have him be exactly where we want him to we could just... I dunno stab him?
If we assume we can get this guy into any sort of proper position completely still for an extended period of time then this plan seems like a really convoluted solution.
>>44071221
Totally a valid way to kill him, and basically guaranteed to work.
Thus it's completely boring to talk about.
>>44071221
It's just one potential plan on how to deal with him. Out of many.
"Magical-buff snipe him outside of range" only got extended discussion because defender argued without knowing how magic works.
>>44071237
>without knowing how magic works.
... and you do?
What do you know that we don't anon?
>>44071246
Yes we know how magic works in D&D because there's a loads of rules written about it.
Given that OP didn't define anything else, D&D standard is presumed in action.
You can shoot things into an antimagic field and they don't negate your magical statbuffs you got on outside of it, ergo OP shouldn't either.
>>44071246
Not that Anon, but...
Well, the only magic involved is right at the start of the firing process.
More specifically, the magic is not directing the arrow mid-flight to perfectly nail it's target. It's temporarily making the guy firing the arrow basically Deadshot/Bullseye(whichever you prefer), and really fucking good at shooting.
Either way, the arrow itself is nonmagical and sails through the air like any mundane arrow fired by basically an arrow-firing god who's miles outside of the forced realism zone. Said zone can't do jackshit to effect an arrow fired really damn good.
I just portal railgun this idiot from outside of the affected area. Rocks flying at supersonic speed are not unrealistic.
You people are aware that a bow's range is still 110ft and that True Strike does not increase this range at all right?
There are 5280 feet in a mile. ONE MILE.
'Know about magic' my ass.
>>44071292
True Strike is 1st circle spell.
You can homebrew a higher one with progressively bigger effects.
>>44071292
I bet there is a PrC and feat combination that can do that range.
>>44071302
Oh well since we're talking about bullshit homebrew why don't we just assume you have a "Turn off bullshit 'realism realm' spell" in your pouch as well?
It'd about as constructive as anything else in this thread.
I just walk up to the guy and shoot him with a crossbow from twenty feet away.
Literally not stopped by realistic armour, and what is he going to do about it?
>>44071292
>>44071302
>>44071315
Bow range INCREMENT is 110 feet.
You can in fact fire 5 times your range increment, but you get a -2 to hit each range increment.
That only gets you up to 550 feet, though.
A distance enchantment doubles your range increment. Still not good enough. Let's look at some neat magic weapons..
An Eagle's cry bow from Dragon Magazine 326 has a range increment of 220 and can reach 20 times that range increment. That gets you to 4400 feet.
Slap a distance enchantment on that, and you've got double that range; you can hit up to 8800 feet, and then you throw in the spell Raptor's sight to halve the range penalty, and cast true strike to get +20 to hit - So you're basically seeing if you can hit a target with the same probability as if he's right in front of you.
>>44062205
Let's assume this human fighter is a paragon of fighters. What's the hard cap for his core stats? Is a human capable of having 30 STR? What's his max AC? What feats are realistic enough for him to take?
>>44062275
Take a mundane rock and levitate it a mile above his head. There's nothing magic about gravity.
>Dragons collapse under their own weight
Step 1: Wizard summons a dragon
Step 2: Wizard sends the dragon to fly right above the fighter, just out of range
Step 3: Wizard commands dragon to dive
Step 4: Fighter is crushed to death, as would be realistic.
>>44071456
A mile range is 12 increments, under Raptor it's -12 penalty. With True Strike that's +8 left over; then we have BAB, enchant bonus on the bow, etcetera.
Getting an entry point at the top of arrow arc will be some more range, but still, bonuses are going to be left over.
>>44071511
Or, fuck it, if we are talking about realism, since 1 int=10 IQ why not have the 30 IQ epic wizard use a Decanter of Endless Water plus True Creation to create perpetual motion hydroelectric stations to power up a conventional modern military? Or, hell, just True Creation some F-16s, missiles, and fuel?
True Creation reads "The caster creates a nonmagical, unattended object of any sort of matter. Items created are permanent and cannot be negated by dispelling magics or negating powers. For all intents and purposes, these items are completely real."
>>44071592
>The caster must succeed at an appropriate skill check to make a complex item.
So you need to go through the whole process of invention and then enhancing the thing before you get there.
>>44071121
Someone didn't attend his physics lessons or hasn't even reached high school yet. Shouldn't you be in school right about now?
>>44071653
I seriously don't think that it would take long for a 300 IQ wizard with access to divination spells to figure out modern technology, if only because they can use divination to literally get the answers they need. Plus there's a spell which grants +20 to a skill check of the caster's choice.
Still, if you are unconvinced you could just make perpetual steam engines by summoning fire elementals, casting Wall of Iron a bunch of times and using Decanters of Endless Water on the metallic walls. This should be enough to trigger rapid industrialization, making crushing the fighter and his country with conventional military forces fairly trivial. Though at this point just dropping a non-magical rock on the guy from out of range is probably more efficient.
In all honesty there is no excuse for a setting with 3.X wizards to be less advanced than ours. Divination, unlimited energy, matter fabrication and people more than twice as brilliant as our greatest geniuses should be enough to push them far beyond us. Realistic D&D would be closer to The Culture than to Conan.
>>44071338
>I just walk up to the guy and shoot him with a crossbow from twenty feet away.
Five feet. While he's on the toilet. Also, he's your father.
>>44062364
This is pretty much it. Even if he's a bad ass, unlikely as it is it's not impossible, then being in REALISM ZONE means that 3 half competent idiots with slings and knives could easily murder him.
>>44062205
Okay lets up the ante.
The anti-fantasy zone is created by an item.
Item defantasies everything except its own power.
That power is that if it isn't worn by anybody living for a month, it replaces a random non-magical ring in the world that is currently being worn by somebody living.
How much trouble does that ring create in the world and what are long term consequences of it?
>>44071515
The entry point issue is moot; the arrow is non-magical.
The unrealistic part is having a bow that can fire it that hard and that accurately. And that all happens outside.
>>44071853
Someone breaks it with a hammer once they figure out what the problem is. This works on most magic items.
>>44071706
>In all honesty there is no excuse for a setting with 3.X wizards to be less advanced than ours. Divination, unlimited energy, matter fabrication and people more than twice as brilliant as our greatest geniuses should be enough to push them far beyond us. Realistic D&D would be closer to The Culture than to Conan.
Intervention from Deities is the main reason. They like their medeival setting and screw over anyone that tries to alter it on a wide scale.
Or you could go full Tippyverse and have a post scarcity society run by casters
>>44071943
Ah shit. Forgot indestructibility.
>>44062205
It wouldn't work since D&D fundamentally isn't designed as a realistic system. You can only make it work in a generic system.
>>44071853
I'd imagine some organization would take it upon themselves to seal it away in a remote location eventually. Just have somebody designated as its bearer and pass it onto someone else at predetermined intervals. Keep magical defenses outside the exclusion zone to keep the bearer safe.
Plus since it doesn't bind to one person whoever wears it can just pass it to someone else if they get sick or injured.
>>44062275
Arrow is unaffected, it's just an arrow that was shot extremely accurate.
>>44062205
>a proper description from the player or the GM
fagot
>>44062205
Step 1: Acquire pox infected blankets
Step 2: Have traders working for you carry them into the aura to sell really cheap to the people living there
Step 3: As soon as they leave the aura, cast cure disease on them
Plague breaks out in the BBEG's domain, even kings died of plague. Lacking anything better than medieval tech he is fucked
>>44062397
>The joke
>Your head
>>44062484
>Polar Grizzlies
Holy shiatsu those are real!
>>44066572
>Get like 30 hirelings with spears, pay them in gold and have them charge the dude down with a pike block. If this motherfucker is all about realism then beat him with realism tactics.
Paying them in gold is ridiculously generous. You can get away with paying them with silver and it would still be generous.
>>44062430
Shh, let britbongs dream.
If he's a normal guy, I just send three black guys to run up on him with heavy repeating crossbows.
Next?
>>44067166
>Plays will capture him alive to use as a weapon against all other threads
Oh shit, I can't believe I didn't think of that... and that nobody replied. This is brilliant and exactly what PCs will do.
>How dangerous would a BBEG human fighter with an aura of "realism and historical accuracy" be in a D&D game?
Not at all.
The elves just barricade him in his mile-wide zone and cut off his supplies and wait the few months required for them to starve to death. If they step out of the mile wide zone, they're instantly assfucked to death with magic/fantasy weapons.
If they somehow manage to use their square mile of land for inexplicably efficient farming and four-quarter crop rotation, they'll still eventually die just from old age.
Don't fuck with elves.
>>44072640
>Failing to comprehend this hard
the mile zone is centered on the BBEG, (its his aura), as such when he moves the zone moves with him.
>>44072640
Aura's move when you move.
>>44072614
Not at all. The typical wages of mercs in D&D basically find it impossible for them to survive long enough to just pay back their gear.
>>44072640
I think it's a rolling zone, where if he moves, the zone moves. Which is fine; just have humans build a physical barricade around him. He's as strong as a normal man, so even if you drop a few dozen bags on sand on him, he's fucked. Barricade him in, and then send the elves for guard duty.
>>44072655
>he moves and magical people within a mile radius start dying
>everyone mundane singles him out and kills him within a few hours
I see.
>>44072580
Why would anyone even follow the guy in the first place? I can only think of a couple of cases:
1) People who really, really hate elves.
2) People who don't get any benefits from magic (e.g. peasants) but would like to avoid monsters.
Given the latter, I suppose it's possible that Realist McRealism wouldn't starve to death— he'd be pretty effective at protecting peasants, as all he has to do to defeat marauding giants, undead, dragons, etc. is to get within a mile of the threat.
But who else? Is there another category of people who'd benefit from the realism aura?
He might work better as an extremely eccentric intermittent ally than as a BBEG, because I can't see any way he could amass enough power to be an effective BBEG.
