Why the fiends threw in the alternative in #634

[Spoomeister]

I've seen some debate about why the fiends threw in the alternative last-minute plan in 634. It looks pretty obvious to me.


If V accepted the splice as she was ready to do - grim sacrifice on behalf of her family - then she wouldn't enjoy it so much. Or more importantly, need it so much.

enjoyment
By offering a last minute alternative, the fiends ensured that V was accepting for the wrong reasons - pride and power, instead of noble sacrifice. The alternative didn't need to be airtight, and it's foolish to argue that it is or had to be; V was exhausted and panicked, and not thinking clearly. The alternative just needed to be enough to dig down to V's true motivations, pride and power. Now she's more likely to hold onto this power after her family is saved. Which gives the fiends more of V's soul time later, and more of an ally / pawn now.

need
But also notice that this subtle change in focus has the side benefit of possibly throwing V off her game, by introducing the possibility that she'll lose all this delicious power ("I must not fail") rather than giving her something to focus on to keep this only as long as she needs it ("I must save my family").

And if V loses it due to weak will, or if the dragon succeeds before V can get there to stop her, that's ideal. V will be begging for the splice again, or for another (even worse) deal. Whereas if she tried for noble reasons but failed, she would be likely to mourn and move on, maybe even learn from from the experience.

Which makes me conclude that the fiends are happy if this works, but even more happy if she up and drops it immediately, thus making V susceptible to a much worse deal (for V) that could give the fiends something even more valuable, like an in on getting to the next gate.

conclusion
So, what seems like an odd thing to do in #634 (make V reconsider right when she was about to do what they ostensibly wanted anyway) is actually a bit of insurance. The fiends wanted to make sure the splice either corrupts completely, or fails absolutely.

A middle ground that makes everyone happy, doesn't make the fiends happy at all. While they were telling the truth in that they don't care whether the splice really works, or whether V really saves her family, the last thing the fiends want is for V to learn from this experience. :smallamused:

[Snake-Aes]

Welcome to mind screw. It's very similar to what Xykon did when his method of choice in the throne room was the bouncy ball.

[Ladorak]

I imagine the plunge into evil must be taken willingly or not at all. When V didn't have an alternative taking the offer was an act of self sacrifice. I think the 3 friends have more invested in V then a simple proof of concept. Fiend 2 says 'Everything is coming together quite nicely.' Shows more of a plan than a simple temptation

[magic9mushroom]

I've seen some debate about why the fiends threw in the alternative last-minute plan in 634. It looks pretty obvious to me.


If V accepted the splice as she was ready to do - grim sacrifice on behalf of her family - then she wouldn't enjoy it so much. Or more importantly, need it so much.

enjoyment
By offering a last minute alternative, the fiends ensured that V was accepting for the wrong reasons - pride and power, instead of noble sacrifice. The alternative didn't need to be airtight, and it's foolish to argue that it is or had to be; V was exhausted and panicked, and not thinking clearly. The alternative just needed to be enough to dig down to V's true motivations, pride and power. Now she's more likely to hold onto this power after her family is saved. Which gives the fiends more of V's soul time later, and more of an ally / pawn now.

need
But also notice that this subtle change in focus has the side benefit of possibly throwing V off her game, by introducing the possibility that she'll lose all this delicious power ("I must not fail") rather than giving her something to focus on to keep this only as long as she needs it ("I must save my family").

And if V loses it due to weak will, or if the dragon succeeds before V can get there to stop her, that's ideal. V will be begging for the splice again, or for another (even worse) deal. Whereas if she tried for noble reasons but failed, she would be likely to mourn and move on, maybe even learn from from the experience.

Which makes me conclude that the fiends are happy if this works, but even more happy if she up and drops it immediately, thus making V susceptible to a much worse deal (for V) that could give the fiends something even more valuable, like an in on getting to the next gate.

conclusion
So, what seems like an odd thing to do in #634 (make V reconsider right when she was about to do what they ostensibly wanted anyway) is actually a bit of insurance. The fiends wanted to make sure the splice either corrupts completely, or fails absolutely.

A middle ground that makes everyone happy, doesn't make the fiends happy at all. While they were telling the truth in that they don't care whether the splice really works, or whether V really saves her family, the last thing the fiends want is for V to learn from this experience. :smallamused:



Close. The alternative was obviously to make sure she did it for Evil reasons.

We do know, however, that there's something fishy going on with this deal.

1) Only Archdukes of Hell or the most powerful Demon Lords can chuck up a Time Stop that lasts longer than 5 rounds, which this did. No amount of Epic Magic cheese can do it. Possibly Infernals too. In any case, these are NOT the sort of fiends that would normally be handling something like this.

2) The Fiends don't get anything tangible out of the deal as outlined. Fiends in general want souls because souls = power. Stuff that allows them to get more souls, like money, is secondary but still useful. This doesn't give them anything like that.

3) This is overkill. Seriously, this is overkill to a ridiculous degree. Why give V such a ridiculous amount of power when she would have settled for less? V would have given the price asked for a scroll of Sending. This is Ultimate Arcane Power for the sake of Ultimate Arcane Power.

4) The Fiends' discussion after UberV teleports out. This is an EVENT, to borrow a term from David Eddings. This is a critically important gambit to them. Why?

So yeah, this is something big.

[hamishspence]

Given that three fiends identical to these ones (almost certainly the same ones) asked Sabine to "notify them of anything that would tip the balance of Good and Evil in our favour", I'm inclined to think that this is connected, and they specifically picked V for this reason.

[Xesirin]

Close. The alternative was obviously to make sure she did it for Evil reasons.

We do know, however, that there's something fishy going on with this deal.

1) Only Archdukes of Hell or the most powerful Demon Lords can chuck up a Time Stop that lasts longer than 5 rounds, which this did. No amount of Epic Magic cheese can do it. Possibly Infernals too. In any case, these are NOT the sort of fiends that would normally be handling something like this.

2) The Fiends don't get anything tangible out of the deal as outlined. Fiends in general want souls because souls = power. Stuff that allows them to get more souls, like money, is secondary but still useful. This doesn't give them anything like that.

3) This is overkill. Seriously, this is overkill to a ridiculous degree. Why give V such a ridiculous amount of power when she would have settled for less? V would have given the price asked for a scroll of Sending. This is Ultimate Arcane Power for the sake of Ultimate Arcane Power.

4) The Fiends' discussion after UberV teleports out. This is an EVENT, to borrow a term from David Eddings. This is a critically important gambit to them. Why?

So yeah, this is something big.


I dunno. Assuming that the fiends were telling the straight truth the whole time, (and for the sake of argument, I'm going to) we still have a pretty clear motive for them to give this to Vaarsuvius without planning o screw him over.

1. Talking is a free action (exceptions ignored) so this very well could have lasted five rounds. (Just because 3 weeks passed in RL time doesn't mean that much time passed in the story :smallbiggrin:)

2. Tangible? No. But again, assuming they were being honest, we know what they DO get: credibility. For demonsfiends, (especially those with plans like theirs) credibility is probably worth a fair amount.

3. If I had to choose between ultimate power I could use myself to be the big hero, or to get a small ability so someone else could do it, I'd probably pick the ultimate power, and I don't have nearly the unchecked ego Vaarsuvius has.

4. "You're our proof of concept." Vaarsuvius performing well works for their, again, credibility.

There's non-deceptive reasons they would do this. (I mean, they actually degenerated into a rant about how they wanted to storm the upper planes!)

So why did they provide the alternative? Maybe it's a character thing. The (I'm figuring it was the Devil amongst them) pointed out the alternative because he felt like it. Or maybe to cement Vaarsuvius' resolve so he wouldn't screw it up and make them look bad.

[Tensu]

I'm with the "to make t a truly evil act" side. they turned an act of martyrdom into a sin of pride by telling him the alternative and why he wasn't going to do it, pulling V ever further down the descent into darkness and adding ever more creditability to their cause. all without even needing to lie to him.

[Kranden]

By forcing vaarsuvius to pick the evil path even though there were alternatives pretty much just damned his soul in my opinion. He cant even claim he had no choice, he chose this because he refused to fail on his own again.

[Mando Knight]

1) Only Archdukes of Hell or the most powerful Demon Lords can chuck up a Time Stop that lasts longer than 5 rounds, which this did. No amount of Epic Magic cheese can do it. Possibly Infernals too. In any case, these are NOT the sort of fiends that would normally be handling something like this.

No cheese is really needed. Just 10th level and higher spells from Improved Spell Capacity: 10th level spells nets you Extended Time Stop, 12th gives you Empowered Time Stop (for fewer bonus rounds than Extended Time Stop), 13th grants Maximized Time Stop for a fixed 5 rounds or Empowered Extended Time Stop for about 6-14 rounds, 14th grants Maximized Extended Time Stop for 10 rounds, 15th grants Maximized Empowered Time Stop for about 6-7 rounds, or 16th level for Maximized Empowered Extended Time Stop for 11-14 rounds.

Of course, you can only cast those levels of spells if you have bonus spell slots of that level...

Or if you're a Cleric with the Trickery Domain, and use DMM to apply metamagic without actually expending the higher spell slots...

[Quistar]

I imagine the plunge into evil must be taken willingly or not at all. When V didn't have an alternative taking the offer was an act of self sacrifice. I think the 3 friends have more invested in V then a simple proof of concept. Fiend 2 says 'Everything is coming together quite nicely.' Shows more of a plan than a simple temptation

Exactly. There's nothing more annoying than a paladin-type that makes a deal with the devil to save someone, and then is a noble martyr for all of eternity. No real value in it, and it's just damned (pun intended) annoying to the devil. Better to really bring them down in the bargain so they deserve what they ask for.

I must admit, that was a clever alternative plan. Shame V put his/her own need for power and success over the family's well-being.

[LadyFalcia]

What you have to look at here are the fiends' motives in giving this deal to Vaarsuvius in the first place. They want a few things from him, but some of them are only in potentia, as it were.

1.) Proof of concept - If they weren't lying through their teeth here, then V will be their equivalent of a nice big graph for the presentation when they launch their big thing of multi-alignment fiend co-operation!

2.) V's Soul - They get V's soul for the amount of time that he has it Spliced, which could be anything according to them from minutes to weeks. I'm not entirely sure what they want with this, it all depends on whether this is mind-control while alive, or damned while dead. It really does depend.

3.) V's Damnation - This is the one that they don't have for certain, but their actions sort of hint that this is one of the results they're willing to manipulate towards. If V had taken the deal after that long rambling assurance to himself then it's unlikely that taking the deal in itself would be enough to start him on the rolling descent toward the Lower Planes permanently. However, as soon as they heard his statements to himself, they burst his bubble.

Self-deception is not a good quality, but if V truly believed that this was the only way to save his children then he wouldn't have been damned beyond the allotted time. However, taking a deal with fiends without it being the only choice - doing it through fear, through pride, through some twisted need to be self-sufficient... While it's not enough to sign you a one-way ticket there, it's certainly a step on the right direction as far as the fiends are concerned.

However, I'm pretty sure that they were well aware of V's motivations and that telling him of the alternative was not really a risk. The panic induced by the countdown probably didn't help. However, if they'd let him touch the blue orb with a sense of "noble sacrifice", that wouldn't have been nearly as much of a win for their side. On a side note, beings with that high an INT score probably could have thought of a better plan that V might have well taken - but they wouldn't have told him that one, would they? :smallamused:

[TheTurnipKing]

What's interesting to me is that they only gave one alternative - I get the impression that there were more, if only V had stopped to think about it. That would explain why the other two were put out at first before they saw where the first fiend was going with it.

[Nekomata]

They gave an alternative to make sure V can't use "I had no choice" defence in court. It's in the rules for selling your soul and such.

They gave the one convoluted plan, because something like "Send the imp to nearest magic shop to buy a scroll of sending" could actually be accepted.

[Gamgee]

Even if they get V for 10 seconds it's game over. Hir has to do anything for them and if that means swearing a lifetime of allegiance to them it is game over. Unless I missed it stating they couldn't force this on V. Either way it's bad news.

[FoE]

The IFCC are the same fiends that were seen speaking to Sabine. She likely told them about the Snarl and the Gates. That kind of power is just too great for the fiends to leave alone.


V's Soul - They get V's soul for the amount of time that he has it Spliced, which could be anything according to them from minutes to weeks. I'm not entirely sure what they want with this

They now possess limited control over the most powerful member of a party currently involved in a quest on which rests the fate of reality itself. A control that they may institute at any time that they wish. This is a bid for power.

As for why the fiends presented the alternative … well, I think they did it as a taunt. Remember, these are supremely evil beings here. They presented another option knowing full well that Vaarsuvius wouldn't take it. Basically, they did it for ****s and giggles.

[Kaytara]

I think they did it to shake things up. As already noted, Vaarsuvius was at first convinced that he was doing this for his family. When the name the "alternative", notice they don't give Vaarsuvius time to comment or otherwise evaluate its chances of success, they move on straight to why V won't take it. This unsettles him, because the evil power plan clearly sounds more straightforward and more likely to get the job done, but now he has to doubt himself and try to sort out his own emotions - is he doing this out of pride, or out of love, or both, and to what extent?
The countdown certainly doesn't help. With no chance to make up his mind about his own reasons, Vaarsuvius decides to cling to the one thing he IS certain about - that he must succeed - and touch the blue orb, but concedes to himself that the fiends are probably at least partially right.
The "plan" and the countdown served the purpose of making Vaarsuvius lose his confidence and believe that he was willingly making a deal with the devil while they were alternatives.
In hindsight, Vaarsuvius may easily come to the conclusion (as most of us did) that the other plan was ridiculous, but that won't change the fact that he had made his decision under a different impression.

[Callista]

I'm with the "to make t a truly evil act" side. they turned an act of martyrdom into a sin of pride by telling him the alternative and why he wasn't going to do it, pulling V ever further down the descent into darkness and adding ever more creditability to their cause. all without even needing to lie to him.Lying is risky, too. All V needs is a 20 on Sense Motive; and anyway, V's wisdom score can't be too shabby, so a 20 might not even be needed. Lying is too risky. The chance that V will use logic or some Knowledge skill to detect lies is too high. A good liar knows that telling the truth, if it accomplishes your objectives without leaving you vulnerable, is always preferable to lies.

[Lazy Fat Man]

Several good theories here. There may be something in devil lore that prevents deals made under duress and so they gave V this way out. But I think it has more to do with getting V to like the feeling of power he gets from it, and If (s)he admits (s)he wants power before the splice, (s)he may keep it longer. If not, (s)he may chose to end the splice as soon as (s)he kills the dragon.

I think it's also interesting that they reminded hir to go after the dragon in this latest comic. Why would they care if V rescues hir family or not? I really don't know, but it would be a real thrill to V if (s)he can dispatch the dragon easily after the splice. And may really motivate hir to keep the splice as long as possible.

These fiends sure are fiendish.:smalltongue:

[David Argall]

Fiends interested in V's soul would not want to expose false motives. Doing so makes it easier for V to repent, or not take the deal at all. A V who insists it is a noble self-sacrifice would be willing to do more dubious actions based on mistaken ideas. It is only when V realizes he is lying about his motives that he can redeem himself.

[Spiky]

It may be as simple as: the splice works better if V is evil or in such a state of mind.

[Demonicbunny]

A few things that I noticed.

1. They never said that their limited control over Vs soul would be after his death (although V certainly believes that they meant it. The thought that they would get control over his soul while he was still alive never crossed his mind I think).

2. Giving V the option of bailing out removes the mentioned Duress clause.

3. Giving V the option of bailing out also means that this deal was an evil act on Vs part with few redeeming features. Thus giving V the way out increases the chance that the demon/yugoloth/devil gets his soul anyway once V dies (due to alignment change).

4. Giving him the option of bailing out gave them the option of pushing Vs vanity/pride button and increasing his chance of accepting the deal.

[LuisDantas]

A few things that I noticed.

(..)

4. Giving him the option of bailing out gave them the option of pushing Vs vanity/pride button and increasing his chance of accepting the deal.

I disagree on this one. V would certainly be far more proud and more accepting of the deal if he/she believed no reasonable alternative to exist. A noble sacrifice beats a panicked and conflicted choice any day in the vanity scale.

It did, however, shake V quite a bit, which probably made hir control over the Splice all the more tenuous and hir instability all the greater. So it was worth the bigger risk that V would refuse the deal.

Incidentally, I don't think the alternative plan is much good at all. As noted elsewhere, it relies on too many uncertain things, such as

1) Qarr not being ordered from someone with due authority to refrain from transporting V's head to Hinjo's ship
2) Durkon being capable of both ressurrecting and sending at a moment's notice
3) Aandarius being available and battle-ready - again, at a moment's notice
4) BTW, would Aandarius even bother to consider a 25-word message from a Dwarf that he never heard about and asking him nicely to go face an Ancient Black Dragon?

And then we have things like the Oracle's precognitive powers, which I feel are more than likely to come into play somehow. For all we know, the ABD may be planning to scold V into shame for killing someone just for being evil when V hirself has just accepted an unholy splice.

[Laughing Dragon]

2) Durkon being capable of both ressurrecting and sending at a moment's notice.

This brings up something that I haden't thought of before ... the IFCC have been watching/divining on the OOTS characters for a while. How else would they "know" that Durkon had a scroll of sending that he was saving for emergency purposes? If that's not how they knew, then we are talking limited ominicience which places the IFCC pretty high in the fiendish "chain of command."

The answers to the "why give an alternative" question are obvious to me ... 1) removal of the "duress" clause. Having an alternative, ANY alternative, makes the consequences of the act of dealing with fiends less escapeable, & 2) it's a matter of degree. Duress/nobility as a motive can only give a character a small nudge toward evil; whereas bargining with fiends while willfully committing a mortal sin (or several, like pride and/or greed and/or lust for power and/or vengence) is like an evil trifecta. V is not merely nudged toward evil, he becomes the tender morsel in an evil fondue!

The real question now is: How much longer will V remain an upstanding member of the OOTS? Will he replace Xykon? I don't think so. Xykon's motives are simple, and easy to understand, at least for Redcloak. While V (spliced or unspliced) either is or potentially can be more powerful than Xykon, his motives are considerably more convoluted; making him more difficult to use/control. Besides, I don't think that Redcloak's motives/goals and the IFCC's quite match up.

[JonahFalcon]

The reason is that Rich Burlew wants to eliminate the rationalization of "V had no choice."

V had a choice, and was a coward.

[GoC]

Nice analysis.
My pet theory is a drug/pyramid scheme of sorts.
They make these sweet deals so that the arcane casters get addicted to the power and turn evil as a result of the soul splice. They then rent these new souls to lower powered magic users and so on. I'd say this really is their proof-of-concept and it's a brilliant idea. By far the best temptation scheme I've seen in D&D.

btw: Keep in mind that the alternative was more implausable than V successfuly asking Thor to kill the dragon, I've no idea why she fell for it.
Seriously, a full 20 minutes til V's master gets there? The dragon needs 5 rounds maximum to kill V's family and soul-bind the children!

[David Argall]

Duress is not a factor here.

Duress only happens when X pressures Y to do something Y has no duty to do. Thus I duress you when I say "Sign or I shoot". But I do not duress you when I say "Sign and I stop Jones from shooting you." [As long as Jones is not my underling whom I ordered to shoot you, or misc other complications] Neither do I duress you when I say "Sign or I throw you off my property, your rented home." I have a full right to do that in any case, and so do not duress you by exercising my rights.

Wider definitions of duress are common, but can't be used in any contract situation. They simply make it impossible to sign a binding contract. You are always under "duress" of some sort or degree.

[Xasf]

If you saw the movie "Bedazzled", I think it's something like that:
Selling your soul to devil (and demon and deamon in this case) for power does not fare well if your intentions are selfless and pure. I believe that's a concept as old as the whole soul selling business itself, so yeah, they wanted to make sure that both V hirself and us the readers are consciously aware of the real intentions behind this deal.

[JonahFalcon]

Duress is not a factor here.

Duress only happens when X pressures Y to do something Y has no duty to do. Thus I duress you when I say "Sign or I shoot". But I do not duress you when I say "Sign and I stop Jones from shooting you." [As long as Jones is not my underling whom I ordered to shoot you, or misc other complications] Neither do I duress you when I say "Sign or I throw you off my property, your rented home." I have a full right to do that in any case, and so do not duress you by exercising my rights.

Wider definitions of duress are common, but can't be used in any contract situation. They simply make it impossible to sign a binding contract. You are always under "duress" of some sort or degree.

Besides, V had all day to think about it. Time was not a factor.

Again, there was another way, but V thought more about her head than her soul.

[Flickerdart]

And then we have things like the Oracle's precognitive powers, which I feel are more than likely to come into play somehow. For all we know, the ABD may be planning to scold V into shame for killing someone just for being evil when V hirself has just accepted an unholy splice.
It is not very likely that V will care, not with three evil mages telling him to grind the dragon into a fine powder and then set the powder on fire.

[Elfey]

The reason is that Rich Burlew wants to eliminate the rationalization of "V had no choice."

V had a choice, and was a coward.

I think Rich had to show this for this reason and to hammer it home V has more options if V is willing to humble hirself.

Beyond that V also needed to know it was for the wrong reasons. These three fiends have the reasons they stated to help V. But they wouldn't be the only ones. I see V near the end of the story having to pay the price. Redcloak needs a high level Arcane caster to do anything with the gates. Imagine the IFCC taking control of V at that moment...

The interaction with between the Souls and V scare me. I see massive destruction coming with V's killing of the Dragon. That perhaps a Muffin baker and a brat or two might be in the blast radius of what ever V uses.

If Munckin D20 books were in the house rules...

Thermonuclear Airburst
Evocation[Fire]
Level: Wiz 9
Components: V, XP
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Really, really far away (1 mile +1 mile/level)
Area: 1,000 ft. radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Reflex Half
Spell Resistance: Yes

Upon completion of this spell, a massive nuclear explosion takes place somewhere in the sky above a point designated by the caster. Boom. This is just like fireball except:

It deals 1,000d6 damage to everyone caught in the blast.

A pretty mushroom cloud remains over the area for about five minutes. Yay!

Anyone still living is radioactive and has a nice, healthy, green glow and dies of radiation poisoing in 1d6 days. Wish or Miracle is the only sure thing that will heal radiation poisoning. Even if you're raised or resurrected, you will die again in another 1d6 days.

XP Cost: 100,000 XP plus 1 XP point for every point of damage inflicted by the blast. Any caster reduced to 0 XP dies immediately. You must roll damage for everything in the blast. Separately.

(Courtesy of Steve Jackson Games)

[vegetalss4]

Lying is risky, too. All V needs is a 20 on Sense Motive; and anyway, V's wisdom score can't be too shabby, so a 20 might not even be needed. Lying is too risky. The chance that V will use logic or some Knowledge skill to detect lies is too high. A good liar knows that telling the truth, if it accomplishes your objectives without leaving you vulnerable, is always preferable to lies.

skill checks doesn't work that way. a natural 20 does not auto success, and as archfiends they most likely has a bluff modifier that are far more higher than V's sense motive than 20, meaning that they could get V to beleive a far out tale, even if V rolled a natural 20 and they rolled a natural 1

[Mc. Lovin']

wouldnt be as evil if there were no other option

[JonahFalcon]

They must be lying, so V is justified in selling her soul!

Rationalization City. V had a choice, and took the most cowardly one.

End of story.

[Kish]

and anyway, V's wisdom score can't be too shabby, so a 20 might not even be needed.
Vaarsuvius' Wisdom score is unestablished and could easily be quite poor. Personally, looking at his/her actions I imagine it's higher than Belkar's or Elan's, but neither of those is saying much.

[JonahFalcon]

V told Qarr to give her a Faustian contract. She was dead set on selling her soul, and the only reason she didn't sell her soul to Qarr was that he was incapable of doing so.