The OotS Thread III

[Crazedwraith]

oh... wow. Did not see that coming.
Spoiler

I guess, Durkon's going to need to hold on to that staff if it has 'protection from daylight' in it. After all I don't think Durkon's learnt it for himself yet. Malak's comments about Durkon being confused if not under his thrall makes it seem like Durkon's old personality will still be dominant at least for a while and alternatively as Kuja pointed out if he's now lawful evil he might now still feel obligued to honour alive!Durkon's commitment to the Order.

[Kuja]

Wow, Nale actually succeeded at something.

[Serafina]

Spoiler

Silly Malak, should have made it a magic item. Saves spellslots and can only be dispelled for 1d4 rounds.

[Terralthra]

Spoiler

Silly Malak, should have made it a magic item. Saves spellslots and can only be dispelled for 1d4 rounds.

Spoiler

He did make it a magic item. It was on the staff.

[Imperial Overlord]

Spoiler

Silly Malak, should have made it a magic item. Saves spellslots and can only be dispelled for 1d4 rounds.

Spoiler

He did make it a magic item. It was on the staff.

She means a magic item with a permanent effect, instead of a magic item that casts a spell on you. There's a significant difference when it comes to game mechanics.

[Irbis]

She means a magic item with a permanent effect, instead of a magic item that casts a spell on you. There's a significant difference when it comes to game mechanics.

It might just not be possible to do or too expensive. Plus, there is another factor -
Spoiler

Seeing vampires are utterly destroyed within 2 rounds of sunlight, suppressing it for 1d4 rounds would still produce killing result in 75% of cases...

[Mr Bean]

She means a magic item with a permanent effect, instead of a magic item that casts a spell on you. There's a significant difference when it comes to game mechanics.

It might just not be possible to do or too expensive. Plus, there is another factor -
Spoiler

Seeing vampires are utterly destroyed within 2 rounds of sunlight, suppressing it for 1d4 rounds would still produce killing result in 75% of cases...

Which is why a quicken darkness could have saved him just as well.

[Irbis]

Darkness, at least in SRD, states it counters lights such as torches, candles, lamps, etc. It is beaten by higher level light spells, and direct sunlight without anything to even cast a shadow would count, IIRC (like Sunbeam or Daylight spells).

By the way, quickened Darkness is level 6. Malack would need to gut his highest level slots to prepare spell countering something he had at least 2 ways of countering anyway. Seriously, quicken spell is extremely bad course of action when you're so low level without optimizing a pile of bonuses lessening spell level penalty, regardless of what OotS writer seems to think. It's excellent way to bring Wizards near Fighter power level, IMHO.

[Imperial Overlord]

We don't know what items/feats/cool tricks they have to mitigate the costs. Delving in detail that would make a rather boring comic, so it's not going to happen unless a joke can be made about it. Just roll with it.

[Simon_Jester]

Seeing vampires are 'always evil' by template, not really.

I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean that becoming a vampire artificially imposes evilness on your mind? Or does it mean that, by default, vampires are evil? How much room is there for exceptions? I have a copy of the Monster Manual to look up the rules on this kind of thing in principle, but alas it is in another state.

So, does Spoiler

Nale destroy Durkon too, or what? Durkula cannot really help OotS fight Elemental save for maybe ordering summons back, they need V for that.

I don't see why Nale would care about doing that very much.

Darkness, at least in SRD, states it counters lights such as torches, candles, lamps, etc. It is beaten by higher level light spells, and direct sunlight without anything to even cast a shadow would count, IIRC (like Sunbeam or Daylight spells).

By the way, quickened Darkness is level 6. Malack would need to gut his highest level slots to prepare spell countering something he had at least 2 ways of countering anyway. Seriously, quicken spell is extremely bad course of action when you're so low level without optimizing a pile of bonuses lessening spell level penalty, regardless of what OotS writer seems to think. It's excellent way to bring Wizards near Fighter power level, IMHO.

When does Burlew have his characters using quickened spell slots?

The only case I can remember of spamming quickened spells was when Vaarsuvius had those soul splices. But that gave him mountains of spell slots of all levels, three to four times more than a normal wizard could ever have, including epic level spells. So it could actually be a valid combat tactic for him to quicken low level spells, knowing that expends 5-7th level spell slots, because V has so freaking many of those slots that winning the fight in a hurry by casting two spells a round gives V an advantage.

That lets V make maximum quick use of the splices' power, putting down (very strong) opponents before they can take advantage of the fact that the splices are "shackled to V's lame mid-level ass," as Xykon put it. Plus, V's hoping to discard those splices anyway, as quickly as possible, because V thinks that for every minute they're in use, that means three more minutes in Hell for V later on.

[Vaporous]

Man, I didn't see that coming.
Spoiler

Burlew has made some comments on his forum along the lines of "Durkula was always going to happen, and I needed a vampire to turn him, so that's why I created Malak". I guess now that his purpose has been served it's time to trim the cast down.

I liked two thing in particular. One is that it was Nale's idea to send the summoned demons after the Order (leaving Malak without Durkon's demon to help protect him while also distracting his attention.)

The second is Nale's posture and facial expression in the panels just before they attack Malak. He's standing like Tarquin.

I wish we knew more about Nale's side of his relationship with Malak. I feel like that would make this more satisfying. Still, it's pretty cool for Nale to move up a level in competence. And having Tarquin suffer a setback this major helps knock him down a peg from the Villain Sue he's been.

[Kuja]

Seeing vampires are 'always evil' by template, not really.

I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean that becoming a vampire artificially imposes evilness on your mind? Or does it mean that, by default, vampires are evil? How much room is there for exceptions? I have a copy of the Monster Manual to look up the rules on this kind of thing in principle, but alas it is in another state.

The first. The monster manual has a warning under 'vampire characters' that notes:

"Vampires are always evil, which causes characters of certain classes to lose class abilites, as noted in the Player's Handbook. In addition, certain classes take additional penalties.
~
Clerics: Vampire clerics lose their ability to turn undead but gain the ability to rebuke undead. This ability does not affect the vampire's controller or any other vampires that a master controls. A vampire cleric has access to two of the following domains: Chaos, Destruction, Evil, or Trickery."

I'm betting in Durkula's case right now it's Destruction and Evil, assuming he's swtiched from LG to LE which seems the most likely change.

[Vaporous]

Do Thralls/spawn automatically take on their Masters alignment?

[Kuja]

No, they're just turned to evil and must obey all their master's commands.

[Irbis]

I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean that becoming a vampire artificially imposes evilness on your mind? Or does it mean that, by default, vampires are evil? How much room is there for exceptions? I have a copy of the Monster Manual to look up the rules on this kind of thing in principle, but alas it is in another state.

Template modifies base creature. If it says 'evil' the second alignment word changes to evil, period. Either because change in thinking or survival needs. Exceptions? Sure, there are always exceptions (WotC published official Lawful Good Succubus Paladin, for one) but Durkon IMHO was already on LN border and with will be easy for him to adopt LE mindset, IMHO.

I don't see why Nale would care about doing that very much.

Durkon is a part of OotS and/or potential witness if Nale plans to lie about what happened to Malack?

When does Burlew have his characters using quickened spell slots?

Almost every spellcaster does? Xykon used it a few times, but that was actually viable use. Tsukiko here was less, but she has a point about spell slots. Hovewer, this is just dumb. Villains don't need to worry about resources conservation, PCs are expected to have enough resources to deal with 4 encounters a day though while V clearly is trying to run out in one with spells that literally do nothing.

The only case I can remember of spamming quickened spells was when Vaarsuvius had those soul splices. But that gave him mountains of spell slots of all levels, three to four times more than a normal wizard could ever have, including epic level spells. So it could actually be a valid combat tactic for him to quicken low level spells, knowing that expends 5-7th level spell slots, because V has so freaking many of those slots that winning the fight in a hurry by casting two spells a round gives V an advantage.

That lets V make maximum quick use of the splices' power, putting down (very strong) opponents before they can take advantage of the fact that the splices are "shackled to V's lame mid-level ass," as Xykon put it. Plus, V's hoping to discard those splices anyway, as quickly as possible, because V thinks that for every minute they're in use, that means three more minutes in Hell for V later on.

But the point is - these are first/second level spells. At the CRs were talking about, they're about as powerful as farts, because by then targets are either immune, easily save, or don't notice their effects even if successfully hit. You might as well not bother. There are some viable spells to be quickened, but these are the sort optimized caster uses, not OotS ones.

And anyway, from what I saw, serious optimizers usually don't bother with Quicken at all. +4 is just too much, especially when you can just Maximize/Empower with much less effort for free instead. There is one prestige class that does use Quicken, but to quicken highest level spells, not lowest ones.

We don't know what items/feats/cool tricks they have to mitigate the costs. Delving in detail that would make a rather boring comic, so it's not going to happen unless a joke can be made about it. Just roll with it.

We don't?

So far, all 900 OotS strips made it painfully clear no spellcaster except maybe Team Evil ones knows what he/she is doing. They don't have any cool tricks. I mean, look at V - very first line of that character sheet would send any serious optimizer crying. Second would just about be enough for a stroke (albeit V did that in 3rd edition, so it's understandable).

So, yeah, almost all quicken spell uses in OotS so far by good guys is 'how not to do things' case.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't see why Nale would care about doing that very much.

Durkon is a part of OotS and/or potential witness if Nale plans to lie about what happened to Malack?

I think it will depend on how Durkon reacts now that his thrall-control is worn off. You're right, Nale might want to get rid of Durkon as a witness, though I don't think he wants to take any more revenge on Durkon in his capacity as an Order member. He seemed pretty happy with "Durkon gets turned into a vampire." And making Durkon into an undead parody of his former self who is anathema (literally) to all the dwarf used to stand for is pretty good, as revenge goes.

When does Burlew have his characters using quickened spell slots?

Almost every spellcaster does? Xykon used it a few times, but that was actually viable use. Tsukiko here was less, but she has a point about spell slots. Hovewer, this is just dumb. Villains don't need to worry about resources conservation, PCs are expected to have enough resources to deal with 4 encounters a day though while V clearly is trying to run out in one with spells that literally do nothing.

You will notice that during the same battle, V is completely ignoring the paladin who says "hey, I need you to do fly me up to-," and is basically improvising battle tactics on the basis of V's own delusions of grandeur. The killer sleep trance deprivation probably isn't helping either.

The case I'm thinking of is, as I said, with the soul splices- where V has more spell slots than anybody knows what to do with. Come to think of it, Tsukiko is in a similar position in that she has excessive spell slots, and actually could benefit from taking advantage of them by spamming something like 1.3 effective spells per round instead of 1, even if the quickened spell counts as 0.3 effective spells.

The only case I can remember of spamming quickened spells was when Vaarsuvius had those soul splices...

But the point is - these are first/second level spells. At the CRs were talking about, they're about as powerful as farts, because by then targets are either immune, easily save, or don't notice their effects even if successfully hit. You might as well not bother. There are some viable spells to be quickened, but these are the sort optimized caster uses, not OotS ones.

In short, yeah, V's kind of an idiot when it comes to 'efficiently using spell slots.' Vaarsuvius is a dedicated blaster, and not a perfectly optimized one, so that "hey, I can cast two spells at once!" thing would probably appeal to V at times like this even though it really isn't even remotely efficient.

If you want to dwell on it, I'm sorry for you; it's a persistent reality of the OotS universe that nobody on either side is all that optimized.

So far, all 900 OotS strips made it painfully clear no spellcaster except maybe Team Evil ones knows what he/she is doing. They don't have any cool tricks. I mean, look at V - very first line of that character sheet would send any serious optimizer crying. Second would just about be enough for a stroke (albeit V did that in 3rd edition, so it's understandable).

If I were Rich Burlew, I would be explicitly trying to give 'serious optimizers' strokes; they drive me nuts.

[Simon_Jester]

Side note: the "4 encounters a day" thing is particularly arbitrary. It's based on the idea that there is a single set of rules for playing Generic D&D, and everything that falls under the heading 'D&D' must fit that template. If we look at the internal logic of the game world, it is very unlikely that the (half of the) party present with Hinjo's fleet was actually running into four level-appropriate encounters a day. And they're usually fighting the monsters in company with large forces of low level soldiers with a handful of mid-level NPCs in support.

If I were in that position for any length of time, I might actually adjust my spell lineup and think "how can I put down the typical monster as fast as possible before it kills any more red blueshirts, even knowing that I probably won't encounter more than one or two such monsters a day?"

[Grumman]

I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean that becoming a vampire artificially imposes evilness on your mind? Or does it mean that, by default, vampires are evil? How much room is there for exceptions? I have a copy of the Monster Manual to look up the rules on this kind of thing in principle, but alas it is in another state.

Template modifies base creature. If it says 'evil' the second alignment word changes to evil, period. Either because change in thinking or survival needs. Exceptions? Sure, there are always exceptions (WotC published official Lawful Good Succubus Paladin, for one) but Durkon IMHO was already on LN border and with will be easy for him to adopt LE mindset, IMHO.

I can think of three possible ways to be "Always Evil" and not just "Almost Always Evil":

First, they could be sociopaths by nature, incapable of anything better than self-serving "fake character development". Even when they act like a Good individual it's to get the perks of appearing to be Good, or to protect their own "property".

Second, it could be part of their physical nature. Maybe that succubus' [Evil] subtype interferes with the normal ability to detect someone's alignment, so Detect Good thinks she's good and Detect Evil thinks she's evil, and she's only able to keep her Paladin powers because her god knows the readings are wrong. Or this could be a deliberate attempt to mask your alignment as a curse or for infiltration, the same way an Ur-Priest can fake being a cleric well enough to siphon off the gods' magical power without them noticing.

Third, it could be a "No True Scotsman" situation. All Paladins are LG because anyone that stops being LG stops being a Paladin too. Or in a setting where vampires can only feed on sentient beings and always kill/turn their victims, all vampires are evil because the ones that aren't starve themselves to death.

[Ted C]

I don't see why Nale would care about doing that very much.

Durkon is still a cleric with a level equal to or greater than Nales. Even before he became a vampire, he considered Nale an enemy. Before becoming a vampire, he was also friendly with Malack (albeit finding out Malack was a vampire changed his attitude).

With Malack destroyed, Durkon is now a free, powerful, evil, undead cleric with several reasons to want Nale dead. He definitely cares about getting rid of Durkon.

[Kuja]

907 up!
Spoiler

Woo! Way to go Durkula!

[Spekio]

Spoiler

Way to go, Durkula!

[Gaidin]

Spoiler

So apparently Nale forgot that Lawful still counts for something.

[Irbis]

Spoiler

So accent is back?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Spoiler

So accent is back?

Spoiler

With an added fang-y lisp. "Aye...mebbe I haf changed"

[Kuja]

Scotch-sylvanian