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Post by frostwolf on Feb 10, 2015 23:15:49 GMT
Alright, charm itself is pretty nerfed. But suggestion, dominate and whole host of other bullshit tactics totally over balance things. I might get the specifics wrong (I haven't played any recent eddition and it was months ago I last played at all!) but I stand by my anti mind control principle. This is why only The Speaker gets this power in Harkovast! The Speaker is totally unfair. This is why I don't play spell casters all that much. Gets too complicated and I only get interested in blasting you or punching you with fists that are on fire. I'm probably missing out on a lot of fun stuff, but what can I say? I like playing that sort of simple that destroys the complex. Keep your watch, I'll take the rubber mallet.
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Post by TempestFennac on Feb 11, 2015 6:04:51 GMT
Frost, was that rubber mallet comment a reference to an Order of the Stick prequel book called Start of Darkness? (That was an interesting book, even though it did seem as thought Xykon's plot armour mainly existed in the form of the ability to make all casters near him do stupid things).
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Post by frostwolf on Feb 11, 2015 16:30:32 GMT
Frost, was that rubber mallet comment a reference to an Order of the Stick prequel book called Start of Darkness? (That was an interesting book, even though it did seem as thought Xykon's plot armour mainly existed in the form of the ability to make all casters near him do stupid things). Yes. Yes it was.
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Post by TempestFennac on Feb 11, 2015 16:45:38 GMT
You mean the reference or my comment about Xykon's plot armour? What did you think of the story anyway?
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Post by Harkovast on Feb 11, 2015 18:41:41 GMT
What was the stupid thing all casters did, out of interest? (To me its a funny story with DnD jokes, so I've never done a tactical analysis of what the people involved do. The author has stated he has them do stuff for plot reasons not with any serious consideration for game mechannic things.)
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Post by TempestFennac on Feb 11, 2015 20:00:50 GMT
This was definitely about plot reasons rather than what you'd expect from Epic level casters with (theoretically) high Wis or Int. oots.wikia.com/wiki/Start_of_Darkness will provide a lot of context if you've not read the book. Despite being powerful enough to presumably kill Xykon, who was a Venerable human at this point, Lirian spent pretty much the entire battle giving orders to her underlings, as well as using a level 4 spell slot to cast Cure Serious Wounds on a Unicorn which appeared to have 1 arrow wound (admittedly it may have been worse than it seemed and the unicorn may have been out of healing magic) while Xykon slaughters people (she even admits when the virus finally kicks in just as Xykon confronts her that replacing her lost minions will take months). Then she seems to decide against taking any weapons and armour off the people she imprisons (while she realistically didn't have a reason to know what The Crimson Mantle can do, this still seems rather odd given how she could have at least sold the prisoner's stuff). Her fight with Xykon after he becomes a Lich goes like this: she casts Poison, which does nothing because he is undead. Then she turns into a Dragon with lightning breath, which Xykon is also immune to (which is admittedly bad luck more than anything), and then tries Clawing Xykon, which leads to his Damage Reduction nullifying the damage. Then Xykon basically owns her off camera and we resume when she lets slip about the existence of the other gates.
As far as Dorukan went, he didn't constantly do things which were clearly going to be counterproductive, but I find it odd that he didn't seem to have anything which could have negated Xykon's Energy Drain once he finally used it. If I remember correctly, SoD used 3.0 rules and Death-type effects were more lethal than they were in 3.5, so I'm not sure why Dorukan hadn't researched something which works like Death Ward (while I know that there would be very few casters who are Xykon's level along with the fact that it is impossible to predict what spells any Sorcerer will have, it seems to be a glaring oversight from someone who appears to be an Abjuration specialist given that things which Death Ward, www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathWard.htm , protects people from are one of the biggest threats to even high level Wizards). To a degree this ties in with what you said earlier about plot being the bigger concern to the author than the mechanics; throughout the book, Wizards looking down on Xykon for being a Wizard had been a recurring topic (Dorukan even makes a similar comment about that, leading to Xykon spamming ED until he dies while pointing out that there's always a certain level of brute force which no amount of planning can overcome; the line about taking a rubber mallet over a finely tuned pocket any day watch was a reference to something Dr. Xavion said near the start of the book).
This pretty much continued in the main comic considering what happened when Soul-Spliced Vaarseuveus attempted to fight Xykon, which seems to suggest the point is that Wizards can't beat him. This does seem like proving that all Ano-Chees are useless warriors by putting Dark Tail in a fight against Marcus and Konrad at the same considering how the 2 Wizards who we have seen fighting Xykon seemed to have issues with their main decision making. Going back to Dorukan's strategy, something that has to be added is that he seems to have prepared to wait for Xykon to storm the castle while only leaving because he found out his missing girlfriend's soul was in his possession, which may have meant his spell list wasn't optimised but it did still seem like he never tried a few things he could have done (eg: we know he had Transmutation access because he used Teleport, which wasn't a Conjuration back then, but we never saw him use Disintegrate, which under 3.0 rules would have had a good chance of obliterating Xykon, implying that he never thought to use it or didn't learn/memorise it). The Wiki doesn't mention this, but Dorukan does also use Gate at one point to summon a load of angels (one school of thought is that summoning a higher level creature like a Solar would have been better, but less targets would have given Dorukan less chances to buff himself, which he was supposedly doing while Xykon killed the summoned monsters). Also, Xykon and the Goblins had been camped outside for a few months so Durokan had a decent amount of time to prepare (which admittedly may be irrelevant being as he never seemed to expect to need to confront Xykon outside the castle).
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Post by Harkovast on Feb 11, 2015 20:55:23 GMT
I have read start of darkness and my understanding was that Xykon wins by brute force of power. I think analysing whether a druid is better giving orders or casting spells doesn't seem to make much sense. She won that battle, so whatever she was doing worked. Why wouldn't she heal injured followers? Shes no some cold heartless monster who lets other people suffer and die when she doesn't need to. And keeping your unicorn healed and ready to fight seems reasonable. They didn't give the impression she was more powerful than Xykon, Xykon was always presented as monstrously powerful. She just out smarted him, because she was cleverer than him and he only ad brute force to offer. Saying she was being stupid when she totally schooled him, took away all his powers and imprisoned him...I dunno what more you want from her! Make him put on a cheerleading outfit and cheer for her while she walks aroudn the forest? He was beaten about as badly as he could be. It was frankly a humiliation. When he came back the point was meant to be that now hes even more powerful so hes basically immune to tons of stuff and more powerful than ever (demonstrating him philosophy that enough brute force beats cleverness.) She didn't know all the (numerous) powers lichs get...but she wasn't presented as an expert on the monstrous manual! I wouldn't have guessed lightning and physical violence would be useless, so she only really used one spell a lay person could have guessed wouldn't work. One mistake she could have predicted hardly makes her a complete fuck up. She didn't know the red mantle was important...again, why would she? I didn't know it was important till the goblins in the comic started banging on about it.
A guy hadn't taken a precaution against energy drain...that's kind of a weird complaint. If Xykon had spammed fireball would you have complained the wizard failed to have fire proofing items? Xykon could have spammed any number of high level attacks until he found one that could batter through the guys defences. being a sorcerer, he caste a variety of things till one started to work and then just kept casting that over and over. What ever the guy hadn't thought to shield himself from, Xykon would have started to batter him with and Xykon is powerful enough to bludgeon most people into submission.
Not gating in powerful enough minions? Solars are better than angels? I write a webcomic about talking animals havng fantasy adventures...and that complaint is too nerdy even for me!
Maybe people didn't use perfect tactics, but it would be weird if everyone in the comic did use perfect tactics. In real life, in the heat of the moment, most people don't use perfect tactics (including important generals.) I'm pretty sure Xykon was not using the optimal spell in every situation, but the comic isn't about ideal DnD tactics.
I was expecting you to mention when he bashed a guy on the head with a wizarding trophy after faking his surrender. At least there he obviously suckered a guy, who arrogantly underestimated him.
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Post by Harkovast on Feb 11, 2015 20:59:34 GMT
The soul splice didn't work because it was trying to out Xykon the real Xykon. V tried to bring even more fire power to bludgeon Xykon with over whelming force, but the big X is the master of that game so ultimately it was fighting him on his own terms. The lesson isn't that you can't beat Xykon with a wizard, its that you can't beat him with direct brute force because he has more brute force to bring to the table than anyone else.
To beat him the heroes will have to come up with something cleverer, exploiting his weaknesses (his lack of tactics, his disinterest in stuff, his general dickishness), rather than playing into his strengths. Toe to Toe, Xykon always wins because no matter what you do hes just so powerful he will eventually stomp you.
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Post by frostwolf on Feb 12, 2015 1:07:20 GMT
Personally I felt it was really well written. I also like who the start of darkness really referred to within the story as the plot went on. I absolutely enjoy Redcloak's character as he faces challenges and sacrifices he makes for the greater good of goblin kind, and showing how his own guilt and pride are what is stopping him from thinking out of the teenage mindset (that and the actual cloak). Xykon is a terrifying villain, and his process reworked any idea about good villains. I originally thought that the best villain was the fallen hero, someone who tried to do good but failed so badly that he wanted to destroy the world or some shit. Xykon is not that, he's a monster in every meaning of the word with no redeeming qualities aside from his humor (which is incredibly black) and he is just so goddamn perfect.
I don't know a lot of the rules within 3.5 so I don't let that stuff get ahead of me when reading. I'm actually trying to be less of a rules lawyer in my gaming group because I know how much it stifles everyone's creativity and annoys them (I still get miffed when a gnome uses his talk to animals cantrip to speak to wolves. Those are not small animals. That should not have worked). I've probably read the Order of the Stick three times, something I rarely do now because I hate redoing things. The writing is fun, it has it's flaws and what not. But the dialogue and characters, it just makes me want to see how the story unfolds with these characters. They could have them in another setting and I'd love every moment of it.
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Post by frostwolf on Feb 12, 2015 1:08:15 GMT
Toe to Toe, Xykon always wins because no matter what you do hes just so powerful he will eventually stomp you. That's probably an analogy for natural disasters or something that changes history.
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Post by TempestFennac on Feb 12, 2015 6:02:38 GMT
We are in agreement about how preparing for all eventualities would have been impossible as a Wizard (my point was more that level drain is still a huge threat to high level Wizards and that things which Death Ward also protects from are a major problem for Venerable Wizards, but you're right about Fireball being as bad; one issue here is not knowing what spells he actually developed apart from Cloister and possibly the wards he used on the gate and to protect the place with all the 2nd Edition monsters, but I'm mainly assuming that an Epic Level Abjurer would be likely to develop spells which make them really hard to actually kill, unless he was relying on using lower level spell slots which he'd normally cast just before a battle, which wasn't really practical here apart from when he used Gate). The summoning argument is actually one I got off the forum (I did also mention the counterpoint due to seeing them both as valid arguments).
As for Lirian, she should have theoretically been stronger than Xykon (she was apparently Epic level and Xykon seemed to "only" be level 19 at the time, based on him knowing 2 level 9 spells (namely Soul Bind and Energy Drain); while he could have been higher, his lack of use of Meteor Swarm could be evidence that he didn't know it at that point). I agree that she should want to keep followers healthy, but I think she would have done a better job of that by engaging with Xykon after buffing herself and then using something like www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fingerOfDeath.htm on him (mind you, one advantage to keeping Xykon and the Goblins as prisoners was that it meant anyone they were working with wouldn't be able to True Ressurrect them, but this still doesn't justify not taking everyones weapons, armour and other magic items to give to her followers even if she didn't want to sell them in my opinion). I'd also argue that trying to poison or scratch a skeleton should obviously be a waste of time to anyone with any common sense.
That is a good point about the fight with V. One issue is that V wasn't using all the spells at his/her disposal (summoning a ton of monsters to help and/or using one of the Sorcerer's supposed ultra-powerful blasty spells), but this does assume those spells were even prepared by the Soul Spliced casters. I agree about not everyone using the best tactics all the time too but it just seems a bit like an Idiot Ball is often used to justify Xykon surviving threats from people who are more theoretically dangerous than he is. I'd forgotten about the Wizzy Award being used as a weapon until you mentioned it; I hadn't considered this but someone else on the forum had suggested that this was evidence to a degree that Xykon had taken that friendly Wizard's advice about learning to outthink people after he was locked up, which does suggest, if that was Rich's intention rather than just intending it to be an example of him using brute force in another way.
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Post by Harkovast on Feb 12, 2015 21:18:49 GMT
I am going to fight the druid chicks corner here.
I think her tactics were spot on. She didn't know Xykon's power level (OVER 9000!), and even if she had, his offensive spells were dangerous enough to mean she could have got unlucky to a save or die spell and been taken out. Instead she hung back, keeping her followers healed, giving the anti magic bateria stuff time to work. Then when it came time for the face off (which Xykon would have been saving his strongest spells for) he was rendered helpless, meaning those spells would never be cast.
Her plan to capture them was wrong with hindsight, but the method team evil used to escape was treated as the most insane, monsterous idea that I am assuming it never would have occurred as even a possibility. I mean assuming your opponent can't find a secret way to turn himself into an undead monster that is even more powerful and evil is not normally a dangerous assumption!
The fight she won, she basically schooled Xykon, in one of the most humiliating defeats he's ever suffered. She beat him by fighting him indirectly, rather than trying to "Out Xykon" him with over whelming force. She pretty much took him to school.
The second battle she had no time to prepare and was basically just throwing whatever she could at him. Poison was just the normal way she opens a battle (get those status affects on early) and that was useless. So then she pulls out the big guns and slams him with lightning....also useless. Then she goes for a completely different tactic (because magic is failing) and goes for super close combat mode...and even THAT was useless! I honestly don't think there was anything on her spell list to save her at that point.
The battle with the wizard guy later is kind of a demonstration of the themes of the book. Obviously it shows Xykons ideas about power and brute force, but it also kinda shows the anti sorcerer arrogance wizards all seem to have. The wizard guy went in with a range of different powers, as you would when fighting a wizard. He hadn't considered the sheer power and brutality of Xykon or his crude but effective tactics of just spamming whatever is working till you die.
So while the battles may not be optimised to be the best tactics, I don't think the magic users were being super stupid or anything. Obviously they made mistakes, because Xykon killed them, but they didn't seem idiotic to me.
As for Angels not being powerful enough...I can't accept that! Now if the portal had summoned a horde of BMX bandits, then I would see the problem.
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Post by tiberia on Feb 12, 2015 23:19:37 GMT
THAT. That right there is what shadowrun feels like sometimes when the mage goes all out
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Post by frostwolf on Feb 13, 2015 0:55:13 GMT
I should play shadowrun.
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Post by Harkovast on Feb 13, 2015 0:56:17 GMT
Hahhah yeah its pretty great sketch. It always reminds of the way on the Justice League you have guys like Superman and Martian Manhunter who can basically invent new powers when ever the writers feel like it (Is anyone exactly certain what Martian Manhunter can and can't do?) working alongside Green Arrow...who has a bow and arrow....and Huntress...who has a really dinky crossbow....
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