ROB plucks an Ancient Great Horned Dragon (20th Level, Magic Knowledge: All Spell Magic levels 1-15) from Rifts Earth and drops it in an inescapable neutral plane wherein it keeps it's Rifts "Magic Rich Environment" Supernatural status, but D&D Dragons are unaffected. The ROB then pits it against D&D Dragons one on one until it dies (Each battle is seperate and the Great Horned is fully restored after each fight). What kind of (3rd ed) D&D dragon does it take to defeat a Rifts Earth Ancient Great Horned Dragon?
Thanks to the megadamage factor, trying to actually take it out with attack spells won't do much good at all. It'd be tiny chips away at the Rifts dragon while it's taking out massive chunks of the D&D one. However, the D&D one, if it's one of the spellcasting varies, does have save-or-die spells and the like. A D&D dragon with the right magic abilities will out-versatile the Great Horned Dragon for the win (the GHD does have spells of it's own, but Rifts ones are iirc harder to do, big ones generally take longer, and I don't think they get into save-or-die as much).
How 'bout we use Melastirth from Rifts South America 1? He's a 20th Level GHD who knows all Spell Magic levels 1-15, so he fits your criteria. Now, I'm going to assume that DnD hit points equal Palladium hit points. As such, and since the OP says that Melastirth keeps his "Magic Rich Environment" power boost, he has the equivalent of 750,000 hit points and if I understand the way DR in 3e works he has DR/99. That is, an attack that inflicts less than 100 hit points of damage in one shot won't even scratch his scales. And if it does inflict 100 hit points in one shot, congrats... You've inflicted 1 point of damage. Oh, but it gets better. To inflict two points of damage, you need to inflict 200 points of damage in one shot. 199 won't cut it. You must inflict each and every point of damage to him in increments of 100 because that's how Magic Rich Environment works. He really has 7500 of what's called Mega-Damage points, they just equate to three quarters of a million hit points. Oh, and he regenerates 10 Mega-Damage every fifteen seconds and the only known things that stops Palladium regen is radioactive materials like uranium and depleted uranium and a few rare magics.
Sounds like you'd need a pretty solidly optimized Great Wyrm-type dragon to start with, honestly. And most likely need to lead off with stuff like Disjunction, followed by various shenanigan-type spells. There are DnD spells which specifically negate regeneration and the like, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue(DnD regeneration is equally obscure in terms of things that negate it, often enough.) On the flipside, something like a Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon should handily and solidly suffice, if it has some epic spellcasting feats. Great Wyrm Prismatics being full of shiny shenanigans and all that, and ALSO having absurd amounts of DR/armor/damage/exotic effects. Mostly the epic spellcasting, though. DnD has very potent epic spellcasting, and a Great Wyrm prismatic has sorcerer level 38, as well as 78 actual hitdice for the spellcraft and knowledge: arcana skills. If it loaded up on Epic Dispel, it could quite potentially nerf the opposition into the ground; epic Dispel can quash abilities as well as spells.
Okay... You're right... Instead, let's do some comparisons, shall we? What is the damage yield of a ton of TNT in DnD hit point terms? Because in MDC terms you're going to need over five million tons of the stuff to kill Melastirth.
Mega damage means jack as it has no point of reference to D&D and vice versa so you can't argue dick.
DnD, at least, is inconsistent. I say it would be better to use "what kills a base human" but whatever. to answer your request someone would have to find the damage for a stick of dynamite and multiply that by four thousand. so five megatons to kill a horned dragon huh? is that seriously an ability it has? five megatons is well out of the reach of core dragons, so yes, they will have to use mage-fuckery.
A one-megaton bomb is something like 16d8 x 10, average damage 720. You would need on average 4 of them to kill a Prismatic Dragon, assuming all of them hit and were not negated by Prismatic Sphere or other spell shenanigans. So.... actually, the two are not too far off in terms of damage soak; a Great Wyrm Prismatic has 2613 hitpoints on average. Going off comparable damage soak, 3.6 = 2613 and 7500 = 5, 1500 MDC is approximate to 720 hitpoints, or 1 hitpoint = 2.08 MDC, at least where nuclear weapons are concerned. Fairly comparable in the epic tier. DnD has odd scaling, I will say.
where the FUCK are you getting those numbers? I'd be interested to see your calculations, seeing as there aren't stats for nukes in DnD. this also leads to the hilarious point that your "megaton nuke" would barely reduce a single building to ashes.
D20 Future has stats for megaton nuclear weapons, oddly enough. 16d8 ship-scale damage, x10 for "people scale" combat. And oddly enough they would, in fact, completely obliterate your average building, given that they deal said damage to everything in an area; every 5-foot square of wall in said building is taking 720 average damage, which is enough to completely remove from existence a 5x5 cube of solid stone, for instance. A tank has 100 hitpoints and Hardness 10. The d20 system has scaling issues. This is a known fact, where it is more beneficial to rig up one thousand handguns then to shoot a nuke at someone. =P (ship-scale stuff is basically 10x more than "people-scale" stuff. So a starship with 20 hardness has effectively 200 hardness against your puny man-portable weaponry.)
Five megatons to kill this GHD. His superior back in Atlantis, Styphathal, is quite a lot older and more powerful (9500 MDC as opposed to 7500). He'd take 6.5 megatons to kill. That's based on the average damage yield of an Antimatter Cruise Missile which is said to have a one megaton yield and do 4d6x100 M.D. so that's 1400 on an average roll. You'll need 5.4 Antimatter Cruise Missiles on average to put down Melastirth.
this is all D20 modern, not straight up DnD. and "does almost a thousand damage" is very different than "does almost a thousand damage per five square feet" thats ridiculous for a tank. a couple inches of steel have that much health. hell, ten people have significantly more hit points than that.
Given that the individuals concerned are all giant fuckoff magical dragons of exotic material structure, I actually think the scaling isn't too bad. Especially since a Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon IS the most powerful generic dragon. It's an epic monster. It's a CR 66 beast that beats up gods and takes their stuff. It's also a sparkly rainbow godzilla, but that's beside the point. The main strength is spellcasting, though-Epic spellcasting is a hell of an equalizer, and even regular spellcasting can no-sell attacks based on raw damage. By comparison, the most powerful "standard" dragon is a Gold Great Wyrm. It's a CR 27 beastie with an average of 717 hitpoints. It would survive, on average, precisely one megaton bomb, due to DR and resistances, but be inches from dead. Slightly bad luck or slightly below average durability and it's one Gold Great Corpse. It's only a level 19 caster, which would make its spell loadout much more relevant; it is NOT an epic spellcaster, normally speaking. If it were a generic great gold wyrm, I would say the odds are probably in the Rifts dragon's favor; more favorable hitpoints and the like, barring spell shenanigans.
I notice you say that Prismatics "beat up gods and take their stuff". This isn't something GHDs do. It isn't something any dragon does in Rifts with the exception of the actual Dragon Gods. And the only Dragon God who really makes a habit of that is Styphon the Black and he's a fucking asshole.
DnD has bad scaling. I will point out that 100 hitpoints is "mission killed" for a tank, though, not "reduced to component atoms," and it has 20 hardness. Ten average people have 2 hitpoints apiece and ZERO hardness. They don't even make good ablative armor for the tank. Nuclear weapons do 720 average damage, but for objects as opposed to people you do that damage in 5-foot-square increments. Your wall has x hitpoints per 5x5 area; that's how its determined. That nuclear weapon hit EVERYTHING with 720 damage, meaning each discrete 5x5 section of wall is now kablooie, meaning that it will quite solidly eliminate whatever section of geography you feel like dropping it on. There aren't really good rules for simulating it in atmosphere, though; it's 16d8 x 10 in a space environment, contact detonation.
look, if we're going to have any semblance of realism with your goofy D20 modern stats, you should really calc nuke damage based on five square feet
ten average people have 4 hit points before dying, and 14 to be killed instantly. for a weapon to destroy ten bodies then hit me it would have to do 140 damage, as opposed to the tank. which would be 120 damage.
Doesn't really work like that, sadly. Creatures are treated differently than objects in DnD, and take damage differently. There's no such thing as a perfect simulationist system. As for realism: they're giant magical creatures with fucktons of hitpoints(itself a total abstraction) and various voodoo bonuses. A prismatic dragon is made out of magical shimmery rainbow fuckery and has epic skill checks, which allow it to break the laws of physics in entirely nonmagical ways. For instance, this godzilla-sized dragon is capable of squeezing through a hole 32 inches by 32 inches, using Escape Artist, completely nonmagically. It can walk around a town, completely undisguised, asking questions, and be seen as completely normal(epic Gather Information.) With Epic Pickpocket, it can make ANOTHER godzilla-sized beasty disappear from sight, in full view of watchers. With Epic Sense Motive, it can read minds without magic. With Epic Tumble, it can fall from orbit with zero damage. With Epic Balance, it can cha-cha on clouds. Completely and totally WITHOUT magic. Simulationism broke down somewhere along the lines of tenth level, when your human fighter started suplexing elephants as a combat maneuver.
I like the way GURPS does nukes... They don't try to sugar-coat it. They don't try to put a bandage on it and make it better. You drop a nuke and you aren't just looking at hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of points of damage... Oh no. Even with a relatively small tacnuke you can expect a hundred thousand points of damage to everything within a realistic blast radius because that's how GURPS rolls motherfuckers! And that's just the pressure wave, the thermal damage is rolled separately and is similarly vicious and radiation damage is handled separate from that!
Ten average commoners have 2 hitpoints; d4 hd, no constitution bonus. 120 damage would not instantly destroy the tank; it would be mission-killed. You'd need 220 to actually destroy it. More precisely, "ablative armor" isn't really in effect in d20/DnD. Generally weapons are either single target or area, not "pierce through," except with some magic items and feats. A lightning bolt does 10d6 damage in a Line, for instance; you could have a hundred people in front of you and it'd STILL do 10d6 damage to you, whereas if you were shooting a firearm you'd have to shoot each person and then shoot you, assuming they were granting cover. But the firearm wouldn't hurt the tank at all, whereas it would kill the people.
Not that it matters, but ten average commoners have 3 hit points. Average roll on a d4 is 2.5 and it's pan-hobby/industry (you'll see it in examples in canon material) tradition to always round up on die rolls.
no. fantastic elements in something do not preclude realism in other areas. hell. if you want to be a dick about it, the OP specifically says DnD, not all D20 systems. so a stick of dynamite does what? 6d6 damage? well I don't recall correctly. hell, lets be fair and say it deals 1d6. a typical stick of dynamite weighs half a pound. so for one megaton... thats 1d6 x4000 x1,000,000 damage.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-golem-vs.224649/ I think someone said it was possible to figure out how much damage a stick of dynamite would do based on the information in this thread ...
