Jephton's archmage powers

[Nerdanel]

I noticed that we haven't seen V use any of Jephton's archmage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/archmage.htm) High Arcana powers.

Arcane Fire:
No show. It could have been useful dealing damage against Xykon, but considering that it requires a ranged touch attack to hit, it probably wouldn't have been that great an idea.

Arcane Reach:
V never used that.

Mastery of Counterspelling:
I guess this could have happened invisibly in the latest strip. V countered Xykon's spell, but there was no indication of Xykon getting hit with his own spell and not being affected because he was immune to it.

Mastery of Elements:
V never converted a spell to use another element, even though it could have been useful against Xykon. Not useful enough to have been a must, though, and Xykon might have made himself immune or resistant to acid and sonic too for all we know.

Mastery of Shaping:
V never used that either. It would have allowed him to use things like a meteor swarm at short range without the need to make himself immune to fire, or whatever element V had converted it into using Jephton's splice.

Spell Power:
This one is invisible, so it might have been there all along without us being none the wiser.

Spell-like Ability:
V kept saying the names of the spells, so it looks like he didn't use this either.

As far as we know, V used Jephton the sorcerer/archmage as if Jephton was just a sorcerer with unusually few spell slots. But then, as Jephton was the weakest of the spliced souls, V might not have actually cast that many spells from him.

I wonder if we will see later on in the comic some real archmage High Arcana action.

[dancrilis]

Number of points.

Firstly we don't know if V was aware that those powers existed.
Secondly we have never seen Xykon using any of those either (who is a self identified archmage (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0434.html)).
Thirdly we don't know whether Jephton was an Archmage (meaning: prestige-class) or an archmage (meaning: A very powerful mage).

[Ancalagon]

No, Xykon is not a self-identified archmage. The "also" connects the "librarian" with the "archmage" (in Fyron), and not "archmage Xykon" with "archmage Fyron".

[Vemynal]

^he's correct

[tyckspoon]

Thirdly we don't know whether Jephton was an Archmage (meaning: prestige-class) or an archmage (meaning: A very powerful mage).

We don't have absolute proof such as seeing Jephton use a High Arcana, no, but the fiends did present him as a "sorcerer-archmage," which is a formulation that looks a hell of a lot like describing a multiclass. Archmage applied as a title for "a very powerful mage" would also apply to all three souls; it doesn't seem to make much sense for only Jephton to have been called out as such if the fiend wasn't referring to his class.

[Kornaki]

You don't even know if V CAN use those abilities. Even if it's the souls casting the actual spells, and she just tells them what to cast, spell like ability and arcane fire may still be impossible to access for V

[factotum]

We don't have absolute proof such as seeing Jephton use a High Arcana, no, but the fiends did present him as a "sorcerer-archmage," which is a formulation that looks a hell of a lot like describing a multiclass.

Conversely, if they just identified him as an archmage then like as not everyone would assume he was a wizard, not a sorcerer, so they had to specify what he was in his honorific. And this wouldn't be the first time we have a character who has a title which is nothing to do with their class levels--remember Miko being a Samurai without having any levels in that class at all?

[Flickerdart]

But Jepthon is the weakest of the three. Why call him an honorific in favour of his more powerful buddies?

[Kobold-Bard]

Maybe part of what made him be considered so powerful was that he simply took Spell Power five times.

And of course thanks to the last panel of 653, they are now also completely irrelevant.

[Zevox]

Conversely, if they just identified him as an archmage then like as not everyone would assume he was a wizard, not a sorcerer, so they had to specify what he was in his honorific.
...then why not just identify him as Sorcerer, and not bother calling him an Archamge? Besides, Archmage fits his theme ("Master of Arcane Flexibility" - see especially the "Mastery of Shaping" and "Mastery of Elements" abilities).


But Jepthon is the weakest of the three.
You guys do realize that's pure speculation, right? All we know from the comic is that Haerta was the strongest of the three. It never said anything about who between Ganoron and Jephton was stronger. We've just had people on these boards assuming that for a while.

Zevox

[LightningNinja]

...then why not just identify him as Sorcerer, and not bother calling him an Archamge? Besides, Archmage fits his theme ("Master of Arcane Flexibility" - see especially the "Mastery of Shaping" and "Mastery of Elements" abilities).


You guys do realize that's pure speculation, right? All we know from the comic is that Haerta was the strongest of the three. It never said anything about who between Ganoron and Jephton was stronger. We've just had people on these boards assuming that for a while.

Zevox

The sorcerer lost his epic spell slots after taking 2d4 negative levels. The wizard did not.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Sorceror took 8 negative levels. Wizard took 2. *shrug*

[good_lookin_gus]

Sorceror took 8 negative levels. Wizard took 2. *shrug*

How does that work?

[TSED]

Just assume the level loss was rolled separately. And Jephton was, say, level 28 where Ganonron was also 28. Suddenly they are of equal strength but Jephton's lost his epic spells and Ganonron's still level 26.


<Just a theory.>

[Jaysyn]

How does that work?

2d4 can return any numbers between 2 & 8

[Zevox]

The sorcerer lost his epic spell slots after taking 2d4 negative levels. The wizard did not.
Just because Ganoron did not say he lost his epic spells does not mean he did not. In fact, its pretty hard to imagine him not losing them. If you treat epic spell slots as always more powerful than other spell slots for the purposes of negative level spell loss (as would be logical, in my opinion), they're the first things to go. If you treat them as level 10 slots, the only buffer either had against losing them is their level 11+ spell slots, and we never saw either of them cast anything above a 10th level slot (Quickened Disintegrate/Chain Lightning, Empowered Sunburst), so its possible they didn't even have those (though I wouldn't be surprised if they did, granted).

Also possible is that his two epic teleports were all he had. Epic spell slots are gained very slowly, as they're based on your ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) divided by 10. A level 21-26 caster cannot have more than 2. A level 27 caster can have a third - but won't get a fourth until at least level 37. I wouldn't bet on either Ganoron or Jephton having more than 3 such slots, and wouldn't be surprised if they each had only two.

Zevox

[tyckspoon]

Conversely, if they just identified him as an archmage then like as not everyone would assume he was a wizard, not a sorcerer, so they had to specify what he was in his honorific. And this wouldn't be the first time we have a character who has a title which is nothing to do with their class levels--remember Miko being a Samurai without having any levels in that class at all?

Miko was describing her societal role, which meant her actual classes were pretty much irrelevant to that discussion (which was the point she ended up making, I believe.) The fiends were telling V what the assorted souls could do for him, which calls for mechanical terms; calling one of the souls an "archmage" in the societal sense means nothing there, because they all are. "Sorcerer-archmage" as a description of his classes, however, is a very quick and effective shorthand explanation of what Jephton brought to the splice in much the same way 'Haerta is a necromancer' and 'Ganonron is a conjurer' immediately give V a fast idea of what extra powers he might get from those souls.

[SoC175]

Mastery of Counterspelling:
I guess this could have happened invisibly in the latest strip. V countered Xykon's spell, but there was no indication of Xykon getting hit with his own spell and not being affected because he was immune to it.
MoC still requires the archmage to waste his own standard action to ready the counterspell. So all it would have done if to make sure neither of them gets of a spell.

Mastery of Elements:
V never converted a spell to use another element, even though it could have been useful against Xykon. Not useful enough to have been a must, though, and Xykon might have made himself immune or resistant to acid and sonic too for all we know.
To be fair V had no chance to know in advance against which additional energy typey Xykon has made himself immune. But she should have modified her chain lightning into something beside the standard lich immunities which she should know.

Mastery of Shaping:
V never used that either. It would have allowed him to use things like a meteor swarm at short range without the need to make himself immune to fire, or whatever element V had converted it into using Jephton's splice.
It wasn't needed with her chosen spells.

Also note that we don't know how many levels of archmage the splice has. Even at max. archmage-level he can only have 5 of the 7 possible high arcana abilities and if Jepthon was less than a max level archmage he would have even less

[Lkctgo]

Maybe V just doesn't know how to control Archmage Powers.

[Logalmier]

I think we actually HAVE seen V using archmage powers. In comic 652 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html) we see V using Empowered Sunburst. Sunburst is a burst effect, much like fireball is. However, from the way she uses it it looks like a cone. This could be Jephton's Mastery of Shaping ability at play.

[tyckspoon]

I think we actually HAVE seen V using archmage powers. In comic 652 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html) we see V using Empowered Sunburst. Sunburst is a burst effect, much like fireball is. However, from the way she uses it it looks like a cone. This could be Jephton's Mastery of Shaping ability at play.

Except converting shapes isn't actually what Mastery of Shaping does. It lets you create untargeted zones within an area of effect spell. I suppose we could be looking at something where the entirety of the spell except the section facing toward Xykon was shaped away, tho, so as not to fry V in her own spell. Really stupid way to go about if so, since that spell could probably have tapped Redcloak et al as well and V would only need to shape out a single space to be safe.

[Simanos]

Except converting shapes isn't actually what Mastery of Shaping does. It lets you create untargeted zones within an area of effect spell. I suppose we could be looking at something where the entirety of the spell except the section facing toward Xykon was shaped away, tho, so as not to fry V in her own spell. Really stupid way to go about if so, since that spell could probably have tapped Redcloak et al as well and V would only need to shape out a single space to be safe.
80 feet radius (not diameter!) is pretty big indeed...