56 Black Dragons . . . at a minimum!

[Saknussem]

Okay, I was thinking...the evil outworlders told V. that s/he wouldn't get any exp from killing anything while soul-spliced. Here is a replay of the conversation:

E.O. 1 "And third, you won't get any XP from anything you defeat while you're spliced."

E.O. 2 "Well, you could, technically, but your effective level would be so high that it's pretty unlikely."

When V casted "Familicide", s/he took out 56 black dragons. I counted them. Really. Now, granted that maybe half were young, and I didn't count the eggs, then that means 28 adult or older black dragons. Isn't THAT enough to give V a whole mess of XP?

[Zherog]

Nope. When you defeat a group of enemies, XP is calculated based on the CR of each individual creature, not on the encounter level of the whole fight.

[Theolotus]

Okay, I was thinking...the evil outworlders told V. that s/he wouldn't get any exp from killing anything while soul-spliced. Here is a replay of the conversation:

E.O. 1 "And third, you won't get any XP from anything you defeat while you're spliced."

E.O. 2 "Well, you could, technically, but your effective level would be so high that it's pretty unlikely."

When V casted "Familicide", s/he took out 56 black dragons. I counted them. Really. Now, granted that maybe half were young, and I didn't count the eggs, then that means 28 adult or older black dragons. Isn't THAT enough to give V a whole mess of XP? (emphasis mine)

Given that V was spliced with 3 OTHER casters at the time, that would make his/her ECL in the range of 57(assuming that V is level 12, and that the other 3 at only level 15( 15+15+15+12=57)). I dont know off the top of my head what the xp would be for an ECL of 57, but I doubt it would be significant.

[DBJack]

Actually, they were all epic, so at least in their 20s, so at least CR 75.

Which takes a lot.

[Kish]

Only an extreme Santa Claus DM would give anyone so much as one experience point for killing anything up to and including the gods by casting a spell which automatically kills them without a saving throw, without any warning or opportunity to defend themselves in any way.

[Snake-Aes]

cr calculations don't work that way. Giving one person the spellcasting of three epic people won't give him three extra actions per round, nor skill bonuses, or save bonuses, or hit points, or anything that makes up a class. No. Odds are V was ranked at 35 or so, maybe 40.

Hell, a group of three people of level 20 don't make their encounter level 60 either.

[Theolotus]

cr calculations don't work that way. Giving one person the spellcasting of three epic people won't give him three extra actions per round, nor skill bonuses, or save bonuses, or hit points, or anything that makes up a class. No. Odds are V was ranked at 35 or so, maybe 40.

Hell, a group of three people of level 20 don't make their encounter level 60 either.
(emphasis mine)

Yes s/he did. That was the whole point.
No extra actions, skill bounuses, saves, or HP; however, the save DC, extra spells, available spells, etc are added as if s/he were of the combined character level. Three level 20 charaters don't equate a level 60 encounter, but one charater with +20 Effective Charater Levels(ECL) three times over would be 60-72(roughly).

[Callista]

It might be more like a Gestalt character...

[Ytaker]

(emphasis mine)

Yes s/he did. That was the whole point.
No extra actions, skill bounuses, saves, or HP; however, the save DC, extra spells, available spells, etc are added as if s/he were of the combined character level. Three level 20 charaters don't equate a level 60 encounter, but one charater with +20 Effective Charater Levels(ECL) three times over would be 60-72(roughly).

They don't stack though. The casting level from the necromancer doesn't stack with the wizard. The spell resistance doesn't stack. BAB doesn't stack. V doesn't have caster levels in necromancy. As such, a cr 60 encounter would have far too much spell resistance for V, have too powerful spells, have too many hp.

[derfenrirwolv]

When V casted "Familicide", s/he took out 56 black dragons. I counted them. Really. Now, granted that maybe half were young, and I didn't count the eggs, then that means 28 adult or older black dragons. Isn't THAT enough to give V a whole mess of XP?

CR is, at its core, an indication of how challenging an encounter is for someone. You don't learn by doing something easy you learn by doing something hard. Judging from the effort, risk, and perseverence it it took V to kill all of those dragons (none) , clearly they were not much of a challange to them. He killed them without them even being aware of his existance

[Shhalahr Windrider]

They don't stack though. The casting level from the necromancer doesn't stack with the wizard. The spell resistance doesn't stack. BAB doesn't stack. V doesn't have caster levels in necromancy. As such, a cr 60 encounter would have far too much spell resistance for V, have too powerful spells, have too many hp.
And the caster levels of a standard Sorcerer 5/Wizard 5 don't stack either, but such a character is stl Character Level 10. Likewise, spell resistance from separate sources don't stack. And do we have any evidence that V's BAB/Epic Attack Bonus didn't benefit?

[Da Pwnzlord]

CR is, at its core, an indication of how challenging an encounter is for someone. You don't learn by doing something easy you learn by doing something hard. Judging from the effort, risk, and perseverence it it took V to kill all of those dragons (none) , clearly they were not much of a challange to them. He killed them without:smalltongue: them even being aware of his existance

But it did cause (or will cause) V great difficulty in the form of selling her soul to fiends. Litterally killing the dragons was the easy part. Gaining the ability to do so was the hard part.

And heck, doesn't she get some roleplaying XP for this? It worked for Belkar after all. :smalltongue:

[SaintRidley]

finishing up my archive trawl, noting a little on the wording on V's explanation of Familicide.

"Every living creature that directly shares your bloodline is dead. Every living creature that is directly related to any of those creatures is also dead."

That second sentence is very telling, since some of those dragons were clearly half dragons. Their non-dragon blood relatives would reasonably be affected by the spell as well, given that wording.

V, of course, is only concerned with the effects on the population of black dragons (25% of the world's population of them). But given the half dragons and their blood relatives... How many innocent centaurs and humans and whatever else some of those distant dragon relatives bred with died in the spell?

[Zanaril]

Every half dragon has to be directly related to a black dragon, so roughly a quater of the half dragons in the world were killed.

A quater of all the half dragons in the world were killed.

How common are half dragons, anyway?

[oball]

He killed them without them even being aware of his existance

Clearly V is a master of Llap-Goch (http://popamericana.com/!/LLAP-Goch.gif).

[Mesiolan]

A PC gains XP for overcoming / defeating an encounter. The XP tables offer no XP for encounters, which are eight or more levels below the PC. Compared are the CR of the monsters vs. the ELC of the character.

Sooo....

1) V did not encounter the black dragons. They were not threatening her or even in V's presence. First reason for no XP for dragons killed by Familicide.

2) The greates black dragon of the 3.5 core rules is CR 22. If V was ELC 30+ during the Familicide spell, V would still get nothing. Question: which ELC had V at that time?

The rules are somewhat silent on this point, but I'd eyeball ther ELC at the highest soul splice bound to her. For the second epic soul splice I'd add +2, for the third +1. For V's weak lv. 14 body and the lack of 3 spells/round I'd even give a -1. You calculate the ELC of a monster group at ELC=CR (of highest) + 2 for each doubling of the monsters present. A group of three identical monsters are ELC = CR+3.

Total: necromancers's soul splice +2, ELC about 30-35. No XP for killing dragons, not even the mother dragon.

After the necromancer left, I'd eyeball V's ELC at the high 20s (perhaps 28). V should thus get some XP for batteling Xykon, but not too much (he/she lost and did not "overcome" the encounter).

[lindorm]

How many innocent centaurs and humans and whatever else some of those distant dragon relatives bred with died in the spell?
None.
Unless dragon blood is sexually transmittable.
Much like genetics, curses of this nature only travel downstream.

*edit*
Example; while I am a blood relation to my nephew, I'm not a blood relative to my brother-in-law (which would have been rather icky).
Cast "familicide" on me, and my nephew and his mother dies as collaterals, but not his father.

[RebelRogue]

Vs effective level would be in the range of 14+21+21+21=77 (this is set low). A great wyrm black dragon has a CR of 22. Doubling up the number of creatures adds 2 to the CR. In order for an encounter to give XP to a character, it must have a CR of at least ECL-7, which in this case is 70. That's a CR difference of 70-22=48 or 24 doublings. In other words, it would take 2^24 = 16777216 great wyrms to provide any XP for V! And most of those dragons were clearly much younger.

[Asta Kask]

How common are half dragons, anyway?

Judging from the rules books, dragons will pretty much "do it" with anything that looks vaguely alive. I once dreamt up a scenario for low-level characters involving a half-dragon sheep and a scared-out-of-his-wits farmer... so I'd say they're pretty common.

[Kilremgor]

V's ECL cannot be 77+, as (caster and stat-related) levels did not stack in the splice.
If they would've stacked, Superb Dispelling would have failed to dispel any of V's buffs (the dispel check having about 88+ DC). It is also clear that hp, saves, BAB etc. did not stack either.
So his CR is more akin to several distinct monsters in the encounter, not one ultra-CR creature.

[Bedinsis]

When V casted "Familicide", s/he took out 56 black dragons. I counted them.

I thought the page didn't display every single creature that died of the familicide-spell, it was just to showcase some of the many creatures that died. The gradual decrease in panel size would artistically represent that "many more died". So :vaarsuvius: took out at least 56 Black Dragons.

edit: I only now noticed the at a minimum in the headline. Awkward. Please ignore this post.

[Ytaker]

That second sentence is very telling, since some of those dragons were clearly half dragons. Their non-dragon blood relatives would reasonably be affected by the spell as well, given that wording.

V's lucky it didn't kill sorcerers en masse. They claim to be descended from dragons.

"And the caster levels of a standard Sorcerer 5/Wizard 5 don't stack either, but such a character is stl Character Level 10. Likewise, spell resistance from separate sources don't stack. And do we have any evidence that V's BAB/Epic Attack Bonus didn't benefit?"

If you have spell resistance from multiple sources, the highest takes priority. V had to use her own, rather than the spell resistance from a level sixty character. V also lacked the treasure from a level sixty caster.

He was beaten by Xykon anyway. That indicates it's not a case of linear stacking.

[The Rose Dragon]

V's lucky it didn't kill sorcerers en masse. They claim to be descended from dragons.

Well, on the other hand, if it did kill sorcerers, Xykon might have been among them.

He wouldn't have been, of course, due to the plot, but from a gamer's standpoint, it would have been a great solution if it worked.

[Callista]

"Doubling the number of foes adds 2 to the encounter level." (DMG)

So: One black dragon, CR 20. Two are ECL 22. And so on. 64 of them are only ECL 30.

That is assuming they are all actually present, of course. This encounter was significantly easier than usual to defeat, so the XP is halved.

That leaves very little left over for V.

[Ytaker]

Do you think that 56 is all there are? That seems like a small number of dragons.

[Mesiolan]

"Doubling the number of foes adds 2 to the encounter level." (DMG)

So: One black dragon, CR 20. Two are ECL 22. And so on. 64 of them are only ECL 30.

That is assuming they are all actually present, of course. This encounter was significantly easier than usual to defeat, so the XP is halved.

That leaves very little left over for V.

You still get XP based not on ECL, but on CR.
So, if V kills 64 monsters CR 20, he/she gets XP for 64x CR 20, not 1x ELC 30. If V's ECL is 32, he/she'll get 64 x 0 XP, not 1x 4,800 XP.

And I assume her ECL was in the area of ECL 30-35.

[Mesiolan]

Vs effective level would be in the range of 14+21+21+21=77 (this is set low). A great wyrm black dragon has a CR of 22. Doubling up the number of creatures adds 2 to the CR. In order for an encounter to give XP to a character, it must have a CR of at least ECL-7, which in this case is 70. That's a CR difference of 70-22=48 or 24 doublings. In other words, it would take 2^24 = 16777216 great wyrms to provide any XP for V! And most of those dragons were clearly much younger.

You do not add the levels of soul splices together, the same as you do not add the levels of a party to determine their ECL. Three PCs Lv 5 are not ECL 20, they are ECL 8 (=5+(2x1.5)). And "Soul Splice" - as powerful as it might be - does not allow for many spells each round (as three different epic casters would do), it's tacked to a fragile mid-level body, and requires concentration to maintain. So, take the most powerful soul splice, add +2 for a second soul, +1 for the third, and reduce the ECL by one for a fragile body&only one set of actions each round.

If the female necromancer was 30th, and the other two 26th, the soul spliced Vaarsuvius was ECL 31 or 32 in the fight against the dragon, and 26th or 27th in the fight against Xykon. Not more.

[SoC175]

And while it's indeed the RAW, the WotC people themselves has openely admitted that the "Doubling the number of foes adds 2 to the encounter level." becomes utter crap after a certain level range (their exact words were something like "We're fully aware that there's just no situation ever when you would prefer to fight two lvl 22 wizards instead of a single lvl 24 wizard)

[fangthane]

I see the Soul Splice as being incredibly compatible with the general rules associated with Gestalt characters in the Unearthed Arcana. As such, the character level of a character with a Splice would be, in my world, ruled as equal to the highest level soul involved in the splice at any given time. However, the rules for CR also take some effect here.

1. The circumstances of the encounter apply a CR modifier; since the targets are incapable of taking direct action either to protect or to retaliate, they receive an ad hoc negative CR modifier. I'd put it at roughly -(CR-1) but even if it's only a -4 or -5 modifier, coupled with V's spliced ECL it means their individual contributions to his experience total will be nil.
2. CR is substantially more than 8 levels under V's ECL as part of the splice, whether or not they're added together the guidelines for exp say V gets none.

If V were within about 10 levels of Xykon, he might have earned some piddly exp by defeating the lich, but that's about it. I'd consider a story-based award to split between O-Chul and V for having managed to 'lose' the phylactery, but yeah, the dragons are worth 0 total.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Actually, it was 1/4 of the black dragons in the world. (Plus maybe some centaurs from the definite half-dragon, and maybe maybe some humanoids from the possible half-dragons.) And V's soul spliced estimated ECL:
V is around level 14. (Well, that's what many people think; I don't know of anything that puts it one way or the other, so meh.)
I'm taking a wild guess as to the Soul Spliced spellcaster's levels. Familicide's DC can't be less than 100 without extreme cheese. So, if Haerta has a total of +20 to Inteligence from epic spells, a +10 epic headband of intelect, maxed-out Spellcraft, and 16 inteligence base+all the level bonuses, she has to be...(does math) at least 62nd level. I'll say 55th, since she probably has better spells/items than I guessed.
Ganeron...er...which one was he? (checks) Ah, the conjurer! Erm, harder to tell; he cast two epic spells...hm...let's say 50th level, so that he's not TOO far behind Haerta.
How many epic spell slots does a negative level take away? I think one, so Jephton, having lost all of his epic spell slots with one Energy Drain, probably has no more than 59 ranks in spellcraft (or maybe more, if both splices get all the negative levels). 50th level?
Total estimated soul spliced levels: 155.
Divide by 5, since the levels only seem to add spellcasting, and the total setup (evoker 14/necromancer 55/conjurer 50/sorceror 50) is...not quite optimised, and since some feats were duplicated.
31. Plus V's natural 14, that's 45. Maybe...if we ignore two things:
1.) The effort for the semi-genocide was less than when V killed Mamma Dragon, or these critters (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0145.html). No effort/danger, little to no XP.
2.) 128 orcs are not an EL 13 encounter. A level 13 party could cast a couple spells to kill all the orcs, and the PC's ACs are high enough that they won't be hurt. They might get XP if the wizard kills 'em all with his bare fists. That's an example of the rule.




You still get XP based not on ECL, but on CR.
He probably meant EL-Encounter Level, also known as "CR for Groups".




None.
Unless dragon blood is sexually transmittable.
Much like genetics, curses of this nature only travel downstream.

*edit*
Example; while I am a blood relation to my nephew, I'm not a blood relative to my brother-in-law (which would have been rather icky).
Cast "familicide" on me, and my nephew and his mother dies as collaterals, but not his father.
Wrong.
Soul-spliced :vaarsuvius: Every living creature that directly shares your bloodline is dead. Every living creature that is directly related to any of those creatures is dead. Anyone who could possibly make a claim to be part of your family is gone now. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0640.html)
Your brother-in-law is toast.

[SaintRidley]

None.
Unless dragon blood is sexually transmittable.
Much like genetics, curses of this nature only travel downstream.

*edit*
Example; while I am a blood relation to my nephew, I'm not a blood relative to my brother-in-law (which would have been rather icky).
Cast "familicide" on me, and my nephew and his mother dies as collaterals, but not his father.

Everyone blood related to you.

And everyone blood related to those people.

See the wording.

Your nephew dies. Everyone blood related to him dies, too, including his father.

Given my understanding of what V said.



Well, on the other hand, if it did kill sorcerers, Xykon might have been among them.

Xykon's already dead. Just... still moving.

[fangthane]

@greatwyrm - The question of removing epic slots is iffy. :)

Epic spellcasting grants one epic spell slot for each 10 ranks in the appropriate knowledge skill; Ganonron needn't have been higher-level than 21the minimum necessary to take the feat. (24 ranks means 2 epic spells per day) In any case, a negative level doesn't affect skill ranks, just checks. It wouldn't impair* the number of Epic spells the caster is able to use in a day. It would, however, play havoc with any conventional casting abilities, whether in excess of 9th level or not. And of course as mentioned a player with a few negative level penalties will find it harder to achieve the DC to cast one of their epic spells.

*admittedly, this is a specific interpretation of the rules for epic casting and for negative levels; there's also a potentially-legitimate interpretation which would indicate that since epic spells count as level 10 they'd take their place, along with any augmented conventional slots at 10/11+ - but then we'd need to get into the geekery of whether Gan or Jeph took additional higher-leveled spell slots.

[SaintRidley]

Perhaps Ganonron used Improved Spell Capacity rather than Epic Spellcasting to get his high level slots.

In which case his high level slots are functionally and definitionally exactly like his regular spell slots.

[lindorm]

Everyone blood related to you.

And everyone blood related to those people.

See the wording.
"Every living creature that 1)directly shares your bloodline is dead. Every living creature that 2)is directly related to any of those creatures is also dead."

1) in other words, 1 step-relation defined by bloodline.
2) on step further, but still defined by the same bloodline as in 1)

Thus; siblings, progeny and most likely parents of primary target will die.
Progeny of secondary targets (i.e. nephews and nieces) will also die, but NOT in-laws (different bloodline from primary target).
Arguably even primary target's mating partner(s) will go clear, because of the bloodline clause in 1)



Given my understanding of what V said.
Well, obviously my understanding differs. Anyways, it's up to the DM.

*edit*
Forgot; primary target's uncles + aunts (but not their mates or children) and grandparents (but not their siblings) should also be included as secondary targets.

[hamishspence]

Given V's estimate of 1/4 of all black dragonkind, "directly related" may extend more than one generation.

Plus "Directly related to those creatures."

[Kaytara]

Exactly what constitutes "directly related", anyway? O_o How much of the blood do you have to share for that to apply, I wonder?

[lindorm]

Given V's estimate of 1/4 of all black dragonkind, "directly related" may extend more than one generation.

Plus "Directly related to those creatures."

Primary target is an ANCIENT Black Dragon.
And Dragons live rather long at it is.
Quite possible to kill off 60ish individs using my interpretion of the rules AND having it account for just 1/4 of the total number of BLACK dragons in the Stickyverse.

*edit*
This is Dragons with a capital D. The ultimate apex predator.
Can a single world support more than 240 of these?
(and we're still talking Black Dragons, not including any of the other colours)

Also, constant threat from adventurers will keep the population low.

[Snake-Aes]

It might be more like a Gestalt character...

Not even that, and a powerful gestalt combo generally is about as good as having a +2 or +3 to effective level.
Spellcasting is half of what makes a caster. Skills make half of the other half, and the rest is the attack roll and hit points. V gaining the spellcasting of an epic spellcaster did NOT give him +20 ECL. It'd give him another 10, maybe, making V 25. The other two would not give any added power, just more fuel to burn(which does not mean more power to the spells, just more spellcasting endurance), so the other two might have been maybe +5 or +6 each.

[hamishspence]

And, according to her, this was "my only child" that V killed. So, that leaves nephews, nieces, siblings, possibly cousins

[veti]

Exactly what constitutes "directly related", anyway? O_o How much of the blood do you have to share for that to apply, I wonder?

Surely "directly related" includes people who don't share any of your bloodline at all? Spouses, in-laws etc. After all, the idea is to kill off everyone who might be motivated to take revenge, which would surely include those.

As for the XP - if I were DMing, I'd give V quite a lot of XP for roleplaying insanity, and also some amount for each Epic spell she cast. Remember, "XP" is "eXperience Point". The mere act of casting an Epic spell slot should be quite a learning experience for her in itself, since she's nowhere near that level yet.

But no XP for vanquishing enemies who weren't even there. That way lies nuclear devastation.