Which gate so far was best defended? (Start of Darkness spoilers)

[coineineagh]

Not including Kraagor's Tomb/Serini's Gate, which I'm guessing will be the setting for the endgame.
Serini's will be strongest gate of them all: she was diplomatic, so she could enlist aid from the fueding OotScribble members.
Not to mention she may have gotten outside help, like from the halflings, the dwarves (for Kraagor's tomb), or who knows what/who else..

But so far there have been 4 gates, 3 destroyed, and the fourth well on its way to disaster..

(1) Lirian's Gate in the forest (destroyed in Start of Darkness), defended by treants and other forest-dwellers,
(2) Dorukan's Gate in his mountain castle, defended by himself, and his dungeon of mostly good-aligned monsters,
(3) Soon's Gate defended by the Sapphire Guard in Azure City, its meaning and history erased by crusading paladins,
and (4) Girard's Gate defended by his clan's illusions in the remote and secretive Windy Canyon.

I believe the order in which they were destroyed is no coincidence. Redcloak didn't stumble upon the first gate, the Dark One guided him there.
Geography might be a factor, but Lirian's, Dorukan's and Soon's gate were on the same continent, so it seems the Dark One chose the weakest target (in SoD) for Redcloak's original band of goblins to attack.

So, assuming this to be true, that would make Girard's Gate the best defended so far.
There are many reason's I can think of to support this:
1) Xykon also chose this order of attack. Even though Redcloak is guided by the Dark One, Xykon will choose his own methods if he thinks he is free to do so.
I'm guessing the gates' defenses were so vastly different in levels of challenge, that Xykon didn't feel like disagreeing with Redcloak's assessment.
2) It appears the IFCC had a fiendish hand in weakening the defenses of Girard's Gate. Whether this is simply to facilitate "unnecessary conflict" as they claim, or for a more specific purpose, remains to be seen.
But without their intervention, it's unknown whether the OotS or even Xykon could have succeeded against a living Draketooth clan.
3) The Draketooth clan was defeated by an unforeseeable event. It required Haerta's damned soul to interact with the living world through a Soul Splice to cast an epic level necromancy spell.
Perhaps no living soul currently knows that spell, so Familicide is an event that is unforeseeable to the extreme.
4) The collateral damage that the IFCC was willing to endure was quite high too (like a grilling from an angry Tiamat). Evil is no big happy family, but one would assume that the extermination of so many evil dragons would not do them any good. Pun intended.
This again would suggest that despite their vast knowledge, this was the best way they could think of to take down the Gate. This is assuming it was their intention to do so.

Lirians Gate was quite pitiful. It was destroyed by accident in a fire, as the burning treants that held it upright fell over, breaking the Gate.
Careless campers in the forest could also have weakened the fabric of reality this way. Perhaps the quick destruction of the Gate was intentional, but it seems like more foresight than she had demonstrated, and unlikely since she probably didn't know of te Dark One's intent yet.
Perhaps I'm not doing her enough justice: she may have cast druidic protection spells on the treants whenever the forest animals detected any campers or other menaces to reality were nearby.
But there are so many other threats, like teleporting evokers, so I do think Lirian was very unprepared for what came. Perhaps she didn't imagine that anyone would intentionally try to capture/destroy the Gate yet.
Because the defenses are more like simple warnings: "Don't go there, you might fall into the pit." "Don't go there; you might weaken the fabric of the universe." Blurting out the existence of 4 other gates to Xykon was another epic fail.

Dorukan's Gate was slightly better defended; he had built a castle and dungeon, with elaborate defenses to avoid evil invaders from entering. Unfortunately, most of the defenses and defenders were static, or stationary garrisons. They did not respond when Xykon took over.
His arrogance and overconfidence in his own talents still led him to believe that he was the only one needed to actively defend the gate. Not a wise tactic for a rusty and rapidly aging archmage, who was not much younger than Xykon before his transformation.
He should have planned ahead more, and recruited more robust guardians than he had. Of course, we don't know what Xykon had to face when he took over, but whatever it was, it wasn't enough.
This does seem in line with the 'hastily preparing for a new and deliberately hostile foe'. Especially the self-destruct button...

Soon's Gate was a lot more impressive. Soon prepared his paladins well, and even started a campaign against the Dark One's goblin minions, who posed a (mild) threat to the gates. He didn't try to go it alone like Dorukan, and he seems to have taken it very seriously from the start.
His actions helped keep the other gates safe, but only indirectly. The oath of non-interference is a major drawback, and severely limited Soon's actions. It seems only Soon and Girard were ready to kill eachother, and it's a great waste that Soon didn't offer to beef up the defenses of the other gates.
But a promise is a promise. Lawful to a fault. When it came down to the final defense, the ghost-martyrs were an amazing preparation.
The positive energy spirits were perfectly matched against the o-so-common evil cleric and undead (Xykon). Soon himself very nearly defeated them, if it wasn't for Miko's comically unwise and rigid lawfulness.
So the defenses were top-notch, and the destruction of the Gate was unforeseen. Xykon and Redcloak probably couldn't have taken the Gate; they were lucky to survive! But, the battle went all the way to the last line of defense, and the damage done was incalculable. Ironically, unlike Dorukan, Soon might have been better off going it alone.:smallbiggrin:
That's the risk you take when you found a city around the Gate (although an assault like Xykon's was not expected at the time).

So, my conclusion is that Girard did the best job so far:
Secretive, well-defended, well-prepared, cautious in all aspects (except the bloodline thing, but who could have foreseen that?). His gate will probably get few strips attention, but without Familicide, who knows if Team Good or Team Evil would ever have seen Girard's Gate...

As for Serini: She should have taken better care of her diary:smallsigh:

[RMS Oceanic]

You forget an important part about Lirian's gate from Start of Darkness.

It was also guarded by an anti-magic virus, and this actually defeated Xykon. It took a Divine Artifact for Team Evil to salvage a victory from this.

Anywho, I don't really think you can compare the various defence strategies side by side, as they're generally different approaches. The closest would be Dorukan and Girard's use of magic to defend the gate, and it's easy to debate whether giving the gate a powerful magical shield or using magic to direct people away from it is the superior option.

Ultimately I think the way the four gates have been defended is meant to be a critique of their guardian's methods, especially how three of them have been in part undone by their own defences. The worst mistake the Order of the Scribble made was splitting up, no matter how heated their arguments were. Imagine if all five gates were each guarded by:

- Powerful wards
- Deceptive and deadly illusions
- A cadre of paladins and Ghost-Martyrs
- The forces of nature (and Start of Darkness specific stuff)
- Lots of giant monsters

That's five different sources of obstacles anyone with ill intent towards the gates has to get past. My hope is if the rifts and gates still have to be dealt with by the time Xykon is neutralized, the Order of the Stick will pool their resources into defending them.

[Kish]

I believe the order in which they were destroyed is no coincidence. Redcloak didn't stumble upon the first gate, the Dark One guided him there.
Geography might be a factor, but Lirian's, Dorukan's and Soon's gate were on the same continent, so it seems the Dark One chose the weakest target (in SoD) for Redcloak's original band of goblins to attack.

So, assuming this to be true, that would make Girard's Gate the best defended so far.
There are many reason's I can think of to support this:
1) Xykon also chose this order of attack. Even though Redcloak is guided by the Dark One, Xykon will choose his own methods if he thinks he is free to do so.

Except that the comic made Xykon's reason for choosing (or not-choosing, in some cases) that order clear. Lirian's Gate was first because it was the only one he knew about. Soon's Gate was third because he favored paladins as a target.

The only case Xykon's choosing/agreeing to this order can support is ironically opposite the one you're trying to make from that fact: "Kraagor's Gate is probably better defended than Girard's, since Xykon has not indicated any other reason for going after Girard's Gate next."


2) It appears the IFCC had a fiendish hand in weakening the defenses of Girard's Gate. Whether this is simply to facilitate "unnecessary conflict" as they claim, or for a more specific purpose, remains to be seen.
But without their intervention, it's unknown whether the OotS or even Xykon could have succeeded against a living Draketooth clan.
3) The Draketooth clan was defeated by an unforeseeable event. It required Haerta's damned soul to interact with the living world through a Soul Splice to cast an epic level necromancy spell.
Perhaps no living soul currently knows that spell, so Familicide is an event that is unforeseeable to the extreme.

You can't have it both ways. Either the fiends planned it, or it was unforseeable. Pick one.


Lirians Gate was quite pitiful. It was destroyed by accident in a fire, as the burning treants that held it upright fell over, breaking the Gate.
Careless campers in the forest could also have weakened the fabric of reality this way. Perhaps the quick destruction of the Gate was intentional, but it seems like more foresight than she had demonstrated, and unlikely since she probably didn't know of te Dark One's intent yet.
Perhaps I'm not doing her enough justice: she may have cast druidic protection spells on the treants whenever the forest animals detected any campers or other menaces to reality were nearby.
But there are so many other threats, like teleporting evokers, so I do think Lirian was very unprepared for what came. Perhaps she didn't imagine that anyone would intentionally try to capture/destroy the Gate yet.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that there weren't campers in Lirian's forest.

No limb needed for your other option: We know how she kept other spellcasters out, and it nearly destroyed Xykon.


So, my conclusion is that Girard did the best job so far:
Which is really quite an assertion, considering that Girard's defenses, as we've seen them, consist of:
A few basic illusions which Vaarsuvius and Durkon can cut right through.
Some traps which Haley, who has not raised her Disable Device skill recently, was able to disarm.
Some traps which did not kill Yukyuk and were disarmed by Yukyuk setting them off; we don't know if Haley would have been able to find them, but we do know they weren't self-reloading, or lethal to Yukyuk.
We don't know what else would be there if the Draketooths were alive. When you fill in this category with assumptions, you can support "The defenses on Girard's Gate would have been invulnerable" and "The defenses on Girard's Gate would have continued to be pathetic" with equal facility. You're choosing "invulnerable," but it's still an arbitrary choice.

[coineineagh]

I had forgotten about the 2 defenses Lirian and Dorukan had put up.
Unfortunately Dorukan left the shield open for good-aligned characters, and the linear guild proved how easy it is to use unwitting good guys to their advantage. A serious and foreseeable weakness.
As for the former, there is still such a thing as non-magical fire to threaten the treants. I guess that's why that 'fire safety bear' was prowling around. :smallwink: A virus takes time to set in, so a teleporting evoker would have destroyed the Gate before succumbing to it. Litian could definitely have used help from other party members.

I still think the Draketooth's illusions would have been the best defense of all. Granted, Zz'dtri's divinations had already begun to pinpoint Girard's Gate's location before the clan & Penelope died, but I's like to have seen the Linear Guild, or anyone for that matter, even try to get close.
Those high-end phantasms seemed pretty deadly to me, and the devious, xenophobic & paranoid Draketooth clan had generations to devise cunning tricks to combat invaders. The seemingly empty pyramid successfully split up the party already. We will never know what they would have been capable of, had the clad been alive...:smalleek:

[coineineagh]

You can't have it both ways. Either the fiends planned it, or it was unforseeable. Pick one.

Unforeseeable in the sense that the Draketooths couldn't have foreseen that their single lineage would have been a weakness. They probably hadn't heard of the Familicide spell before, and it possibly can't even be cast by any living soul today.

The IFCC fiends had more knowledge and resources than the clan, so what is foreseeable to one, may be unforeseeable to another. Would you take into account the possibility of fiends meddling by Soul Splicing a long-dead necromancer to cast an obscure epic spell unintentionally directed at a distant family member, resulting in the deaths of the entire clan? I can't honestly blame the Draketooths for overlooking that weakness. Can you?:smallconfused:

[Leolo]

Well Soon had expected it. He expected that the people he trust the most could fail and all die.

And had a emergency fallback.

[factotum]

The thing is, all the methods used to guard the gates have flaws, and those flaws are generally so different it's difficult to compare them. In order:

Lirian's Gate--so besotted with the power of Nature to guard it, it had no real defences against the unnatural lich Xykon or even a simple forest fire.

Dorukan's Gate--guarded with the idea that arcane power was the ultimate defence, which fails when you face an enormously powerful arcane caster who is specifically built to take down other arcane casters!

Soon's Gate--Guarded with the idea that the honour of a paladin was unbreakable. In the end it was a fallen Paladin, Miko, who actually messed things up there, and without her interference Xykon and Redcloak would have been stopped permanently, so I'd argue that was by far and away the best-defended Gate.

Girard's Gate--the idea here is that you can't trust anyone outside your family, so you need to guard the gate entirely with members of it. Works well until someone lets off a loose cannon spell that obliterates your entire family, really!

I suspect Serini's gate will have some similar flaw, but we obviously have no idea what it is as yet. Since her schtick was her belief in the power of physical might to overcome all attacks, my suspicion is that Team Evil are mostly casters will be the issue there.

[coineineagh]

Well Soon had expected it. He expected that the people he trust the most could fail and all die.

And had a emergency fallback.

True. I fully expect Girard to have a similar plan B. Because he trusted his family only because he needed to trust someone..

Girard's Gate--the idea here is that you can't trust anyone outside your family, so you need to guard the gate entirely with members of it. Works well until someone lets off a loose cannon spell that obliterates your entire family, really!

I doubt Girard thought the Gate was safe even with his traps and illusions. I'm looking forward to seeing what the clan's 60 years of preparation are worth.. Maybe there are monsters in the pyramid... But if he only trusted Black Dragons to guard the Gate...:smallsigh:he'll be kicking himself in the afterlife!:smallannoyed:

[Leolo]

I don't think that Girard had a real plan B like Soon.

Because he is an epic illusionist. If he would have such a plan B it would propably be an incredible mighty illusion. And the order would have no chance to see what is real and what is not real. In fact epic illusions seems as real as reality. So it would lead us to many strips where the order overcomes traps and monsters and riddles and so on - just to say: "No, it wasn't real. Yeah, you have dreamed all of this" at the end.

It would be hard to integrate it into the story and to integrate the 3 powerfull groups that are heading to the gate. We have already 3 very powerfull groups on their way to the gate.

And it makes for a better story if the gate is really less protected than possible.

[Chess Tyrant]

I don't think that Girard had a real plan B like Soon. We have already 3 very powerfull groups on their way to the gate.

Because he is an epic illusionist. If he would have such a plan B it would propably be an incredible mighty illusion. And the order would have no chance to see what is real and what is not real. In fact epic illusions seems as real as reality. So it would lead us to many strips where the order overcomes traps and monsters and riddles and so on - just to say: "No, it wasn't real. Yeah, you have dreamed all of this" at the end.

My assumption always was that illusions were his Plan A: it doesn't matter how powerful your opponents are if they can't find you. This would make his traps and combat skills Plan B.

Unfortunately, the illusions are fading, the Draketooths aren't alive to fight anymore, and the Order is disabling the traps as they go. :smalleek:

[Winter]

The problem actually is splitting up and by that being unable to defeat against all possible threats.

Lirian's Gate was impossible defeat for casters (see SoD) and fell to sword & fire.

Dorukan's Gate was relatively secure against physical might but vulnerable to casters, who are able to unravel his wards and security.

Soon's Gate could not cope with an "Enemy from within". It relied on the honor and integrity of those who guarded it. It was Miko who finally destroyed it and that is no coincidence.
The gate was not secure against trickery or treason, those things are nothing Soon did expect or could cope with. Miko did not do any of the two, but she still was "from the inside".

Girard's Gate... we do not know anything by now, especially not how it fell. From what we know this gate's security was pretty solid as it relies on the same principle that Soon's relied on (just tell not Soon or Girard). The integrity of a trusted friends and family plus it also is guarded by traps and illusions. That seems like a good plan.

Dorukan's gate was the safest we saw so far. To get there and have your wizard do stuff with the wards, you need a mixed group to defeat the dungeon and at the end you have Dorukan himself (and we do not know what or who else was killed by Xykon there).
On the other hand, a large part of the dungeon (up until to reaching the gate) could be defeated by a band of level 8 to 10 unoptimised, non-coordinated adventurers, yet we only saw them fight the goblins that moved in with Xykon and Redcloak.
If The Trap Roy fell into is any indication, Dorukan's plan and setup was pretty solid.

[Leolo]

Soons Gate had another protection. It was in the middle of a city. So you'd not only have to conquer the city, you also have to hold it for weeks or months until the ritual has been done.

[The Pilgrim]

Soon's Gate could not cope with an "Enemy from within". It relied on the honor and integrity of those who guarded it. It was Miko who finally destroyed it and that is no coincidence.
The gate was not secure against trickery or treason, those things are nothing Soon did expect or could cope with. Miko did not do any of the two, but she still was "from the inside".

Soon's gate didn't fell for "the enemy within". It fell at the hands of the "enemy without" who the Shappire Guard had been breeding through decades of Genocide with a big G. It was the goblinoids who the Azurites had been massacring for generations who came down the hills to stomp Azure City out of the picture.

Additionaly, what failed with Soon's plan was the fact that he relied on the honor and integrity of a Paladin, but let the City and the Shappire Guard in the hands of someone who didn't play by those rules. Shojo didn't gave a dime for the Paladin code, and ultimately the clash between his views and those of his Paladins brought his demise. Of course, the fact that the "honour of a Paladin" often degenerates in "stick-in-the-arse fanaticism" (hello, Miko) didn't help.

Miko destroyed the Gate, yes. And Elan destroyed Dorukan's. Elan wasn't the one responsible for the fall of Dorukan's, Dorukan's love for Lirian and his underestimation of a sorcerer's capabilities did. Neither Miko was truly the one responsible for the fall of Soon.

[Murray]

The defenses for both Soon's gate and Girard's gate fell largely to their own flavors of fanaticism.

The Sapphire Guard held to their code, but lost much of the wisdom behind it. Instead of trying to help reform the Sapphire Guard into a more moderate and intellectual order, Shojo chose to operate behind their back, and fell prey to a deluded, extremist version of the Smite First & Ask Questions Maybe mentality that seems to have been fashionable in the Guard. Even Hinjo, who seems pretty on the ball mentally, kept trying to get himself killed during the battle for Azure City, rather than actually leading his people. The Sapphire Guard was powerful, but was easy to out maneuver mentally. And as pointed out, their preemptive attempts to massacre any serious threat to the gate, only led to making that threat more determined.

And Girard's family has spent decades playing with fire by stealing children and money from wealthy and powerful families, and without Familicide to wipe them out would likely have continued. Sooner or later, someone they had wronged with enough power and resources was going to come calling, and they would have been lucky if it was a messenger to negotiate for Tarquin's step-child. And a defense based on cultish xenophobia could have produced another Miko Myazaki situation, where a petty grudge between family members turns into something much worse.

The big problem with defending the gates is that everything short of pouring them over with magic concrete, bulldozing up a mountain on top ends up as a catch-22. The defenders are too paranoid to enlist outside help, and yet the task is too big to be done on their own. As Winter said, none have had a balance defense.

[Winter]

This discussion leads me to the conclusion:

All gates seen so far had a very solid setup to defend them but fell short due to the paranoia and isolationism of their defenders. So, assuming every one of the defenders sets up their gates as they did... how could they improve the setup with "only a bit" of outside help?

And let's speculate a step further: What'd be a good way to defend a way when you are fully open about what it is? Instead of deciding the gates should be secret, what would have happened if the Order of the Scribble had been aggressively-open about the gates and their need to be defended?

Would be see multi-cultural forts like the "United Races" set up fortresses around the gates to defend them against everyone who wants to take them (which would be a bigger issue as more people would try to take them).

[silvadel]

Lirians gate was the best defended thusfar. It did not even require action to be destroyed on failure. It was only destroyed under power of plot and there is no defense to plot.

[Quild]

If Miko hadn't destroyed the gate, Azure City would still have fallen.

Not sure what would have happened to the martyrs of Sapphire guard, but if some goblin managed to get the Crimson Mantle, it would have been possible for the new champion of the Dark One to get rid of those martyrs (even if it takes more than one champion :D), and to control the gate after finding a new arcane spellcaster :smalleek:.

[Winter]

I disagree.

The gate was destroyed because Lirian made a horrible mistake in planning her defense. Yes, the final chain reaction was played for laughs and sillyness, but it changed nothing about the principle problem in her defense and an big group of goblins with Alchemist's Fires would have obliterated her defense just as the "played for sillyness" did.

Her "real" defense was much trickier than the physical defense, though. Only a caster and misuse the gate and every caster going near it would be neutered, even if they "won" the fight for the gate. That's a pretty awesome setup.

[SavageWombat]

Guys, it's simple. You always run into the easiest challenges at the beginning of the campaign, and it gets harder from there. Redcloak and Xykon were able to take out Lirian and Dorukan approximately eight levels ago, so they must have been a lower CR adventure.

It's not their fault V broke Girard's dungeon before they got there.

I just want to know how the Serini got ahold of enough epic-level monsters to fill a dungeon. Maybe she's a really good pickpocket.

[Winter]

Judging from all the author's comments in the books it is safe to assume OOTS does not work like that.

Yes, the comic has to follow storytelling and RPG necessities but everything that happens also always has an in-universe explanation. Yes, "drama demands Xykon does not get defeated for good at the first encounter" is true, but it also happens in a way that is justified within the universe itself.

So saying "The first gate was the least secured" is not going somewhere as it wasn't. Also, if Dorukan would still have been in there, the dungeon would probably have been next to undoable (imagine an epic wizard doing "things" right when you struggle with some nasty trap or encounter).

[ManuelSacha]

From what we know so far, Serini's gate will be full of big and powerful monsters. She gatered them in Kragoor's tomb and called it a day.

[Steward]

Serini and Kraagor are effectively "guarding" the same gate, right?

[Peelee]

Soon's gate didn't fell for "the enemy within". It fell at the hands of the "enemy without" who the Shappire Guard had been breeding through decades of Genocide with a big G. It was the goblinoids who the Azurites had been massacring for generations who came down the hills to stomp Azure City out of the picture.

The goblin army was able to overrun the city. Xykon and Redcloak, the only two who knew the ritual for the gate, would have died at Soon's hand if not for Miko destroying the gate.


Miko destroyed the Gate, yes. And Elan destroyed Dorukan's. Elan wasn't the one responsible for the fall of Dorukan's, Dorukan's love for Lirian and his underestimation of a sorcerer's capabilities did. Neither Miko was truly the one responsible for the fall of Soon.

If Elan had not destroyed Dorukan's Gate, it still would have fallen earlier. If Miko had not destroyed Soon's gate, it would not have fallen. So Miko was directly responsible for the fall of Soon's Gate.



If Miko hadn't destroyed the gate, Azure City would still have fallen.

Not sure what would have happened to the martyrs of Sapphire guard, but if some goblin managed to get the Crimson Mantle, it would have been possible for the new champion of the Dark One to get rid of those martyrs (even if it takes more than one champion :D), and to control the gate after finding a new arcane spellcaster :smalleek:.

The Crimson Mantle would have been in the throne room. Which, even assuming all other ghost-martyrs have been dispelled, would still be protected by Soon, who was powerful enough to take down both Xykon AND Redcloak simultaneously.

Soon's Gate seemed pretty incredibly well-defended. It took a war as a distraction to even try to take it, and it wouldn't have been taken in any event, as if Miko hadn't destroyed it, Soon would still have triumphed. In the debate for best-defended gate so far, I'm going with Soon's.

[SavageWombat]

Serini and Kraagor are effectively "guarding" the same gate, right?

If Kraagor's guarding the gate, he's doing it from the other side.

Which would be awesome, of course.

[Steward]

Well, yeah, ha ha! :smallsmile: But I mean Kraagor isn't actually "guarding" a gate (being deceased) -- Serini is the one guarding the gate, in the same spot that he died, right?

[Super_slash2]

This annoys me greatly : I would find it very hard to believe that Lirian set up the gate attached to two treants and to break if they fell over without it being on purpose. Think about it. All three of the gates we've seen so far have had easy self destruct mechanisms. Lirian's breaks when either treants dies or are simply told to move apart from each other, Dorukan actually rigged his with a self destruct button and Soon had the king and his paladins sit in the throne room, ready to turn around and break it themselves if it came to it. Every gate had a self destruct mechanism, just because Lirian's died to a forest fire doesn't mean it wasn't meant to break apart when under fire.

Personally, I feel Soon did the best job. Dorukan had an elaborate dungeon but it's the sort of thing adventurers do in their free time, its just a matter of time before something like this happened. I'd imagine Dorukan would be waiting there but we saw how it all played out. And while being an epic wizard is very strong, I guess he had too much faith in the entire combination.

[spoiler]Lirian's always felt way more sinister. To completely and utterly shut down a caster's magic forever basicly makes their levels useless but must also psychologically scar them. It'd be like if Elan couldn't sing or Haley couldn't enjoy having money anymore, it goes deeper than a simple class ability, it cuts into the way the person views themself. The actual jungle defense with the animals seemed like it wouldn't be enough.

I've always found it funny how much Soon's defenses were mocked and that the honour of a paladin blah blah wouldn't amount to much. But then he had basicly the toughest defense so far. Getting the gate basicly meant having to invade and that just provokes diplomatic, military and paladin-y action. You had to get to the throne room past all of his guards and paladins. Then fight the last line of defense, twice. While Soon himself pretty much beats you into submission.


A side-note : does anyone know how Ghost Martyrs work? Because I just realised, while Shojo was faking trials and bamboozling paladins, Soon mightve been in there, listening and taking in all that was said. And even though he didn't intervene, can't help wondering what he might've felt about the whole affair, if ghost martyrdom keeps you there active but incorporeal.

[JSSheridan]

One questions I'd like answered is how the Soon and the Sapphire Guard discovered that the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle knew about the gates/rifts and was a threat to them.

[Steward]

A side-note : does anyone know how Ghost Martyrs work? Because I just realised, while Shojo was faking trials and bamboozling paladins, Soon mightve been in there, listening and taking in all that was said. And even though he didn't intervene, can't help wondering what he might've felt about the whole affair, if ghost martyrdom keeps you there active but incorporeal.

Take this with a grain of salt, since the ghost martyrs aren't actually from the game as far as I know, but they seem similar to the 'Deathless' type of creatures depicted in Eberron, the Book of Exalted Deeds, and other 3.5 sourcebooks. The deathless are similar to undead, but instead of being animated corpses trapped on Earth, they spend most of their time in the afterlife of their deity (a good-aligned plane) and return to the world only when a certain condition is met (ie there is a threat to something they're guarding). The Book of Exalted Deeds introduces the Crypt Warden, whose description contains the following lines:


Evil undead are not the only creatures that guard ancient tombs: crypt wardens are protectors of the resting places of saints and heroes.

Unlike aniated undead that stand eternal guard over their haunts, crypt wardens lie inanimate until their tombs are disturbed. When intruders enter, the crypt warden’s spirit returns from its enjoyment of the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, animating its corpse in deathless form to protect the holy ground it guards. When the threat is over, its soul returns to its rest

Crypt wardens fight fearlessly, for they literally have nothing to lose—win or lose, their spirit returns to heavenly bliss when its task is done.

It's possible that the ghost-martyrs were creatures similar to this. They spend most of their time in heaven/the Upper Planes, and return to the Material Plane/Earth only when the gate is threatened and they have to attack.

It's the way I would have done it -- spending all your time hanging out in the background of a throne room for all eternity would be dull!

[t209]

The goblin army was able to overrun the city. Xykon and Redcloak, the only two who knew the ritual for the gate, would have died at Soon's hand if not for Miko destroying the gate.



If Elan had not destroyed Dorukan's Gate, it still would have fallen earlier. If Miko had not destroyed Soon's gate, it would not have fallen. So Miko was directly responsible for the fall of Soon's Gate.




The Crimson Mantle would have been in the throne room. Which, even assuming all other ghost-martyrs have been dispelled, would still be protected by Soon, who was powerful enough to take down both Xykon AND Redcloak simultaneously.

Soon's Gate seemed pretty incredibly well-defended. It took a war as a distraction to even try to take it, and it wouldn't have been taken in any event, as if Miko hadn't destroyed it, Soon would still have triumphed. In the debate for best-defended gate so far, I'm going with Soon's.

That's one flaw of Soon's Gate. He never knew about Fanatics like Miko. Girard should have make an order of illusionists from outsiders recruit.
Lirian forgot to put fire proofing on trees.
Dorukan's gate is caused by idiocracy of Elan.
Soon's gate was destroyed by Miko's idiocracy. (Now it's permanently in Goblin
s control since Azurites lost their resistance and Elves will abandon their operation).
Girard's gate will fall thanks to V's previous lust for power.
Edit: In my opinion, it would be awesome if they had compromised on defense
- Azurites Paladins and Half Orc Barbarians defending the gate (it will work until a barbarian accidentally destroy the gate during his battle frenzy).
- Good aligned lock on the throne. (that'll work)

[Murray]

@Winter: Advertising the existence of the rifts would be pretty terrible, since even in they first encountered them, the Order of the Scribble found that the rifts tended to attract people like the Holey Brotherhood and Baron Pineapple (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html). Imagine what someone like Kubota would do with his power, influence and skullduggery to Azure City just to control the gate? And he's only a B-level villain.

Soon's second line of defense was nearly ironclad, and wouldn't have been necessary if his first line of defense hadn't been so triggerhappy. But in time, someone would probably have figured out a way around it, the same with Dorukan's defenses and possibly even Girard's. If Lirian's magic persists after her death, than she certainly gets credit for scorched earth policy. Her magic could very well prevent unsavory types from using the gate or the rift, at least living unsavory types.


One questions I'd like answered is how the Soon and the Sapphire Guard discovered that the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle knew about the gates/rifts and was a threat to them.

Ditto. Maybe the secret got 'Ratted' out to the Twelve Gods?

[Giggling Ghast]

I just wanna note that Kraagor isn't guarding anything. It's heavily implied he was killed by the Snarl and, thus, his soul has ceased to exist.


One questions I'd like answered is how the Soon and the Sapphire Guard discovered that the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle knew about the gates/rifts and was a threat to them.

This was answered in Start of Darkness. One of the earlier bearers of the Crimson Mantle had fought the Order of the Scribble (Soon's group).

[Velaryon]

This discussion leads me to the conclusion:

All gates seen so far had a very solid setup to defend them but fell short due to the paranoia and isolationism of their defenders. So, assuming every one of the defenders sets up their gates as they did... how could they improve the setup with "only a bit" of outside help?

And let's speculate a step further: What'd be a good way to defend a way when you are fully open about what it is? Instead of deciding the gates should be secret, what would have happened if the Order of the Scribble had been aggressively-open about the gates and their need to be defended?

Would be see multi-cultural forts like the "United Races" set up fortresses around the gates to defend them against everyone who wants to take them (which would be a bigger issue as more people would try to take them).

Being fully open about the Gates and sharing with the world the knowledge of what they are, what can be done with them, and why they must be protected is an interesting idea, but it's fraught with both potential and peril. On the one hand you're opening up the option for anybody to come and help protect the gate if someone makes a play to control one. But on the other hand you could also end up in a situation where people are actively hindering your ability to protect the gate for petty or selfish reasons. You could easily end up in a scenario where corrupt nobles like Kubota deliberately undercut the Sapphire Guard's resources in an attempt to get their own people positioned better to control the gate. It's a double-edged sword for sure.


If Miko hadn't destroyed the gate, Azure City would still have fallen.

Not sure what would have happened to the martyrs of Sapphire guard, but if some goblin managed to get the Crimson Mantle, it would have been possible for the new champion of the Dark One to get rid of those martyrs (even if it takes more than one champion :D), and to control the gate after finding a new arcane spellcaster :smalleek:.

Only after the Gate is destroyed do the remaining ghost martyrs dissipate, so as long as the Gate is intact then Soon is there to protect it. With the Crimson Mantle in the room, any goblin that wants to take it up has to get past Soon first.

Soon pretty much had the battle won, although it must be pointed out that Xykon's poor tactics against incorporeal creatures is one of the main reasons the battle was so one-sided. Redcloak simply wasn't strong enough to seriously endanger Soon by himself, but Xykon might have put up a better fight if he hadn't wasted so many spells ineffectually trying to clobber the other Ghost Martyrs.

[MReav]

Soon pretty much had the battle won, although it must be pointed out that Xykon's poor tactics against incorporeal creatures is one of the main reasons the battle was so one-sided. Redcloak simply wasn't strong enough to seriously endanger Soon by himself, but Xykon might have put up a better fight if he hadn't wasted so many spells ineffectually trying to clobber the other Ghost Martyrs.

Not necessarily. Against Soon his stuff would be pretty bad, but against the lesser ones, I think the only Force Spell Xykon had was Magic Missile. He'd might have been better off blasting as many as he could with them, because even if you miss 50% of the time, against 20 people, you're still hitting an average of 10, as opposed to only 1 (even if they hit 1 fairly hard).

[Winter]

Of course you only advertise it after securing them in what manner you see fit.

I even come to the conclusion the Order of the Scribble had not choice but to actually advertise some or all of the rifts sooner or later. The current solution was no permanent solution, but the rifts would stay.

Soon and Girard had precautions in case they died and the guarding would go on.
Lirian is also not much worse as she is elven and thus can count on a longer time to be alive. But what happens if she manages to defeat an enemy but die in the process? Who goes on guarding the gate? Lirian had the help for "the friends of the forest" and we can assume they knew the stakes and could organise something.
We only can assume that. The point is: Lirian is not immortal. What then?

The Dungeon of Dorukan would have been some hard dungeon crawl after Dorukans death due to old age, would have been forgotten and eventually, someone would have beaten it (including opening the seal).

As far as we know, Serini's gate is also some big, big dungeon crawl that is unattended once she's dead.

So if you want a long-term solution, you need to make sure that a lot of people know there's a problem so they can pool their ressources and make sure they survive instead of some Villain (or Cult) taking over the gate and doing whatever with it.

Two of the five gates have no long-term solution and for a third we can only assume it would have went on well. This is not even counting the (very high) possibility of a coup in Azure City once Shojo was dead (it even happened to Hinjo and was just delayed by Xykon's army arriving). What if some nasty nobles took over Azure City in one or ten or a hundred years and did not even know what they were sitting on?
So even Soon with his "stable" solution has the problem he had to involve more people to make sure the gate is not tinkered with over the course of centuries.

The Order of the Scribble in general did not seem to have thought about more than their lifetime and on top of this, they even tried to remove all possible information everywhere on the rifts, so in fact they made it harder for anyone who came after them to figure out what is going on and what those strange, sealed rifts are about.
As funny as this sounds, Girard's paranoid solution seems to be the best long-term plan so far. An isolated family-cult that knows what's going on is probably even better than some secret paladin order within a city in which many other factions are active.

To conclude this on topic: The gates best guarded were Soon's and Girard's, probably followed by Lirian's as those actually have a plan for securing it longer than the lifetime of the specific Gate's Warden.

[King of Nowhere]

first, a couple of nitpicks from the op

I believe the order in which they were destroyed is no coincidence. Redcloak didn't stumble upon the first gate, the Dark One guided him there.
Geography might be a factor, but Lirian's, Dorukan's and Soon's gate were on the same continent
The dark one knew only that gate at the time, because a goblin cleric accidentally stumbled into it. So, i believe it's coincidence. Also, Lirian's gate has been said to be in elven lands, which would be on the western continent. So not on the same continent as the other gates.

Then, my opinion: I think the best defended gates was dorukan's and girard, third place for soon.

Lirian's gate was really weak. True, there was the guardian virus, but it takes very little to get immune to it. I guess in the end the REAL defence there was an epic druid. Pretty impressive, after all. And she won't die of old age soon. But if you can get immune to a magical virus and defeat an epic druid, you can get the gate easily. all other defences of that gate, seriosuly, were crap.

Soon's gate was pretty well guarded, with ghost martyrs and such, however it also had the same basic flaw: if you can defeat Soon, you get the gate. Ok, there's a city to conquer, but for an epic guy this is hardly a problem. Xykon could have slaugthered the whole army of azure city by himself, including the higher level guys. ture, he was going to die against soon, but he made some really bad tactical mistakes there. basically, he went alone and low on spells to figth the only creature in the battlefield that could actually defeat him. the smart thing to do would have been running out of the throne room (what kind of stupid oath to defend the gate would forbid you to leave the throne room anyway?), finishing trhe conquest of the city, resting, casting enough buff spells, and killing Soon. All other paladins really were unimportant. If you had the power to kill soon, you also had the power to get rid of them.
Soon did sensibly better that Lirian because
1) he tried hard to ensure secrecy of the gate. And that protected it much better than the paladins.
2) he found a way to still be around to protect the gate once he died of old age
3) He got a powerful template to be even more powerful
4) his defences didn't have some exploitable weakness like "don't work against undead", as was the case of lirian's gate.
But the honor of a paladin? won't matter at all if it can't be broken, because the paladin's body can. And the ghost martyr can be dispelled. And their attacks weren't passing Xykon's dr anyway.

So, those gates had a big problem: the defences were weaker than the gate's founder. if you could defeat the guy, you could take the gate. For this reason, I prefer girard's gate. It was secret enough that it probably could escape detection even by those who weremore powerful that girard, assuming they were not looking for the gate. However, nale was able to find the canyon without epic magic. and even if the illusions of the canyon still worked, a control wind or ghostform would have allowed to fly and scout the area. Or, at worst, just send the minions along with orders to keep pressing against the walls, some of them are going to find the illusionary wall. So girard's gate had good chances of defuse an epic threath, but could have been taken by non-epic power.

Dorukan also did well for secrecy (cloister), but also had some pretty good wards. Xykon did kill him in battle, and then he spent six months without being able to unseal the gate. So I would call his gate the best defended, because it had a good chance of not being found even by those who were powerful enough to conquer it, and had some defences that even those powerful enopugh to kill dorukan could not destroy.
However, it had 2 big flaws:
1) the thing about someone of pure heart dispelling the seals. Maybe it would not have worked on the gate, but only for the artifact's rooms, because it's damn easy to kidnap someone of pure heart and force him to touch the gate.
2) Dorukan himself. He was going to die of old age, and then cloister would have run out, and the dungeon was warded by mid-level monsters. In the end, all it would take was someone capable of breaking the seals. Which would have been pretty hard anyway. He should have tried to become a lich or to live longer somehow.
For those two flaws I don't give his gate the top position.

I see now that my approach to the gate defences was not to figth the defences as they were intended, but to smash them with enough power. IIf a gate was protected by a door that can be opened by solving a riddle, I wouldn't have wondered how hard it was to solve the riddle, but how hard to smash the door.
That's pretty much Xykon's approach.
And it is quite effective.

[Winter]

I also find one situation about Girard's Gate very awkward:

You enter the Canyon, go through all the illusions and defenses and then if you walk through the right wall, you are out again and can find the invisible temple in the middle of the desert.

So... what if you came from that direction in the first place. You circumvent the canyon at all. We see a very large desert around the temple, so walking through that desert might enable you do find the temple without the canyon at all.

Either it's a really stupid oversight by Girard or Mr. Burlew or the serious defenses/illusions only start in/with the pyramid and the canyon is just some "nice extra" to keep invaders who stumble over the right spot walking around until they lose their interest.
On the other hand: If you stumble around and find the canyon and find out it's full of "stuff"... isn't that drawing attention and interest in the first place?

We probably do not know yet what we have to know to understand that.

[Dr.Epic]

Hmm...

Well, not Lirian's. Xykon and Red Cloak almost took that over at the start before they were higher level and had as much experience, training, and gear.

Dorukan I might also say as weak, but the whole enchantment about being pure of heart was a nice touch. Made it more difficult for just anyone to take it over.

Soon's though was pretty powerful. Ghosts almost killed Xykon and Red Cloak. Not to mention it took a siege to distract the entire population from defending just specifically the Gate.

[Math_Mage]

I suspect Serini's gate will have some similar flaw, but we obviously have no idea what it is as yet. Since her schtick was her belief in the power of physical might to overcome all attacks, my suspicion is that Team Evil are mostly casters will be the issue there.

Inb4 Xykon/RC dominate them some monsters and MitD plays a game of Lightest Hit with the rest.

[Incom]

Girard IMO had the best strategy by far. Familicide, from the Draketooths' perspective, pretty much qualifies as DEM. (I am NOT calling it one, I'm just saying it probably felt like one to them--bolt from the blue kills everyone? Yeah.) And who's going to go after the gate if nobody knows how to find it? The only caveat is that the illusions require constant maintenance, but there are probably ways around that. (I'm not ultra-familiar with everything, particularly non-core stuff)

This reminds me: there was a thread a while back on "how would you defend a gate?"--maybe it deserves a necro? /shrug

[hoff]

Dorukan was the best one, the sigils protected it even after its guardians died. It could not be perverted for evil deeds (like blackmailing the gods with genocide), simply because no evil being could access it. Even Xykon couldn't magically remove the sigils.

[Anne Calie]

I can't really comment on Lirian's gat since I haven't read SoD yet, but for what I've read here it didn't seem really well defended.

I think that the best defend Gate so far was Soon's. The main responsability for protecting the gate was the Saffire Guard's, but there was still entire Azure city's facilities to support the Paladins. Xykon e Red Cloack needed an entire army to invade the city and then have the oppotunity to reach the gate, and even so it was a close victory (actually, not really a victory, because hey haven't assumed control of the gate). The biggest flaw I see at Soon's defense was to rely on the will of the Ruler to protect the gate and don't use for his own purpose; it was weak against internal enemies. Have somenone like Kubota replaced Shojo, I don't khnow what would the Paladins do, if they could turn against their liege o protect the gate.

Girard and Dorukan focused only in magic; their defenses were well elaborated, but the lack of versatility is their flaw. Have some more powerful arcane conjurer appeard, they would be busted (as was Dorukan).

In general, none of the Order of the Scribble could find a definite solution for the gates, I supponse that if even they had combines their forces, they still would'n have found it. I guess its up for the Order of the Stick!

[SGNenets]

I disagree on couple points about Lirian's gate.

Lirian's gate fell on Xykon and Redcloak's second attack.

When Lirian first defeated Xykon, she mentioned that Xykon (and his forces) had destroyed most of the defenses and that it would take a long time to recuperate. Thus, the second attack was basically comparable to a hypothetical situation where Xykon and Redcloak failed to secure the throne room of Soon's Gate, but escaped and got themselves better prepared for a second attack in the now-conquered Azure city.

The vulnerability to forest fire is explained by this, as druids get A SPELL SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO PUT OUT FOREST FIRES (and damage fire creatures, but seriously), and Lirian's gate had druid defenders in droves before Xykon killed them all. So as long as the gate defenses are functional, it would never fall to a forest fire. The only time it would is if the gate was seriously compromised, which it was when that "accident" occurred, and in that case one can argue that it is better that the gate is destroyed.

The only real glaring logical flaw in the defence of Lirian's gate is that Lirian seemed to know basically nothing about undead, which is very strange for an epic level character. The guardian virus does nothing to undead, and even if we assume liches are very rare in OOTS universe, she should well know that Poison wouldn't work against a SKELETON.

edit: Of course, logical flaws aside I agree that the overall power level of Lirian's defenders were pretty weak. She had all bases covered, just not at a level that would deter an epic level attacker.

[Whiffet]

Yeah, Lirian's Gate didn't have perfect defenses, but I think people are underrating it. The Guardian Virus was a really clever touch.

[ClockShock]

Dorukan deserves more credit than he's being given. Xykon had been holed up in that dungeon for a pretty long time without making any progress around the magical defences.

[skaddix]

Dorukan deserves more credit than he's being given. Xykon had been holed up in that dungeon for a pretty long time without making any progress around the magical defences.

He is a Lich and cheif sidekick either does not age or ages at incredibly slow rate. They would have gotten bast the defense eventually. Dorukan needed to put a clause in that requires the opener to be an epic level good character that would have basically screwed xykon.

I vote Soon. He almost killed Team Evil. A few more minutes and the threat ends forever.

[LordVader]

I'd rate Soon's Gate as the best defended, because Soon actually would have killed both Xykon and Redcloak if not for Miko's intervention.

Lirian's comes second, because that anti-magic virus was absolutely horrifying.

Dorukan goes third simply because Xykon was able to co-opt his entire defensive fortress. That's just an embarrassing failure. Hell, Xykon was even able to keep some of Girard's employees on retainer.

As for Girard, we don't know enough about his gate yet to rank it, and indeed given the rather ephemeral nature of illusion defenses we may never know enough.

[coineineagh]

The goblin army was able to overrun the city.
....
Soon's Gate seemed pretty incredibly well-defended. It took a war as a distraction to even try to take it, and it wouldn't have been taken in any event, as if Miko hadn't destroyed it, Soon would still have triumphed. In the debate for best-defended gate so far, I'm going with Soon's.

I disagree. Xykon didn't need the army atall: It was brought to the city for Recloak's vendetta. Xykon might have found Redcloak's 'shell game' with the 3 undead slightly more amusing than going alone, but he already had some fun planned with a Symbol if Insanity and one of those super bouncy balls.
Although Xykon used the distraction (badly), he could have flown into the thrown room invisible right away.:smalltongue:

He would have failed because of Soon, but all he needed was a moment to escape the throne room. If he had escaped in such a situation, he would've taken things more seriously, like when his phylactery was lost.:smallfurious:

I guess the army would be needed to secure the Gate long enough to control it, but the city was more of a liability than an extra defense, since countless lives were lost.:smallfrown:

[Stormlock]

I'd like to note another flaw with Girard's gate that hasn't yet (and may not given the circumstances) come up: undead are immune to a lot of the more dangerous illusions, since they're mind affecting. That is a pretty big hole. While a bunch of the misdirection stuff would work just fine, the school doesn't have a lot to work with when it comes to taking out a decently levelled lich, vampire, or other self willed undead and an army of undead minions. While it's not as bad as relying on epic level enchantment, since you at least have shades to fall back on for brute force, it still turns something like the Weird spell from instant death to an entire group to completely useless.

[JSSheridan]

This was answered in Start of Darkness. One of the earlier bearers of the Crimson Mantle had fought the Order of the Scribble (Soon's group).

I'm not totally convinced. Soon wasn't in that panel. And it's a bit of a jump from fighting a one off group of villainous goblins to figuring out there's a divine conspiracy against the nature of the world.

[King of Nowhere]

I disagree on couple points about Lirian's gate.

Lirian's gate fell on Xykon and Redcloak's second attack.

When Lirian first defeated Xykon, she mentioned that Xykon (and his forces) had destroyed most of the defenses and that it would take a long time to recuperate. Thus, the second attack was basically comparable to a hypothetical situation where Xykon and Redcloak failed to secure the throne room of Soon's Gate, but escaped and got themselves better prepared for a second attack in the now-conquered Azure city.

The vulnerability to forest fire is explained by this, as druids get A SPELL SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO PUT OUT FOREST FIRES (and damage fire creatures, but seriously), and Lirian's gate had druid defenders in droves before Xykon killed them all. So as long as the gate defenses are functional, it would never fall to a forest fire. The only time it would is if the gate was seriously compromised, which it was when that "accident" occurred, and in that case one can argue that it is better that the gate is destroyed.

The only real glaring logical flaw in the defence of Lirian's gate is that Lirian seemed to know basically nothing about undead, which is very strange for an epic level character. The guardian virus does nothing to undead, and even if we assume liches are very rare in OOTS universe, she should well know that Poison wouldn't work against a SKELETON.

edit: Of course, logical flaws aside I agree that the overall power level of Lirian's defenders were pretty weak. She had all bases covered, just not at a level that would deter an epic level attacker.

You have a point, Lirian's gate was better than it appeared.
Maybe I'll put Soon in the 4th position after all. But it still had the weakness that none of the gate protection was effective against an epic character except lirian herself. Maybe the virus, if he wasn't prepared for it.

And I think people are seriously overrating Soon's gate. Basically, it was defended by a bunch of mid-level guys. not very impressive. the only effective defence was soon himself, but he could not leave the throne room at all. jjust because xykon and redcloak almost managed to die by putting xykon and his phylactery in the throne room after spending most of theyr high level spells and losing a good bunch of hp, it don't mean it was protected well.

[LordVader]

And I think people are seriously overrating Soon's gate. Basically, it was defended by a bunch of mid-level guys. not very impressive. the only effective defence was soon himself, but he could not leave the throne room at all. jjust because xykon and redcloak almost managed to die by putting xykon and his phylactery in the throne room after spending most of theyr high level spells and losing a good bunch of hp, it don't mean it was protected well.

Again, I'm of the opinion that the facts speak for themselves. Out of everyone, Soon's gate held the best; therefore, it was the best defended.

Consider the fact that Xykon and Redcloak had expended spells and HP (though aren't they fully healed by the time they enter the throne room?) as a direct result of the gate's defenses. Thus, your argument is rather invalid.

[Murray]

I don't think Xykon needed an army to attack Azure City. He could easily have flown into the city and meteor swarmed anyone that talked back until he was the new sheriff in town. And like with Lirian, if Xykon had survived the first encounter with Soon, he probably would have had a better second match, placing him in control of the gate, which he just had to hold onto for the few weeks the ritual would take. And if Redcloak had managed to get to the throne room earlier to tell Xykon not to use lightning, then Soon may not have proven to be so tough afterall.

I think there's a lot of merit in Dorukan's wiliness of turning his gate into a Sword in the Stone affair, but a clever illusionist could bypass it with a patsy.

Girard's defense would have been pretty good, if he hadn't relied on an extremist method for recruiting defenders. But with True Seeing being such a powerful spell, it could only have been a matter of time before the defenses were down to just a gang of illusionists and some traps (that we know of thus far).

It just seems like with enough time and persistence most of the defenses on any of the gates could be overcome by someone like Xykon.

In some ways, I wonder if Dorukan's defense was the best, since it tied up Xykon for so long, first with the siege and then with trying to find a patsy to unlock the gate. That's a lot of time Xykon could have been expending on another gate or other destruction.

[factotum]

I don't think Xykon needed an army to attack Azure City. He could easily have flown into the city and meteor swarmed anyone that talked back until he was the new sheriff in town.

So long as he didn't need to cast more than 7 or 8 of them...and as O-Chul said to Haley on the night before the battle, a swarm of low-level mooks can eventually overwhelm the highest level character.

[King of Nowhere]

So long as he didn't need to cast more than 7 or 8 of them...and as O-Chul said to Haley on the night before the battle, a swarm of low-level mooks can eventually overwhelm the highest level character.

That don't work if the high level character has fly and/or damage reduction. Then, no amount of mooks will be ever able tto damage him.

But it don't really work well with any high level character at all. Because it's true that a swarm of mooks will eventually overcome him, but he will just have to teleport away when he's low in spells and hp and come back tomorrow.
and if xykon came to azure city, zapped a few hundred mooks, teleported away, what could have stopped him?
The "swarm of mooks" argument only applied to ootsers because for them going away and rest until tomorrow was not a real option.

Last but not least, there will be a point where the mooks will stop charging and start running away.

[factotum]

That don't work if the high level character has fly and/or damage reduction. Then, no amount of mooks will be ever able tto damage him.

He has damage reduction 15/Bludgeoning and magic. So, sure, the mooks can't damage him, provided none of them have bludgeoning weapons...or magic ones...or assuming none of them think to just pick up an improvised club and smack him across the skull with it! Plus it would be a real problem if, say, he was trying to do this in a city where there were a large number of warriors capable of doing a Smite Evil and bypassing his damage resistance that way...

[silvadel]

For those saying that Soon's gate was best protected.... There is a MAJOR weakness to the defense...

It assumes that anyone who wants to get the gate is EVIL.

Sure it worked out with Redcloak and pals -- but it is just as possible that whatever forces were trying to get the gate could be neutral or have many neutral members. Somehow I do not think the ghost martyrs and Soon would be as effective without their evil killing kit.

[Forbiddenwar]

As others have hinted at:
How do you define "best defended"? What goal is trying to be achieved?
SOD
Those that say lilian's gate was weakly defended because it failed to fire fail to consider that it was made of trees, it was likely designed to fail to fire as a last resort.

A good character may be tricked into unlocking Dorukon's gate, but a good character would also activate the self destruct without a moment's thought if he/she thought it was for the wrong person.
Soon's gate was also built with a last resort plan B of destroying the gate. Soon was tied to the gate, the only way to get rid of him was to destroy him. (note that Soon took no damage from an epic Lich after several rounds, pretty durable to me)

From this we can gather that the primary goal of the gate was to keep it out of evil spallcasters hands. Now we can look at the defenses.
SOD

A antimagic virus that effects all living casters plus at least one epic druid, plus if any fire is used, then no gate for you.


An epic wizard (I'm sure durokon had a long term plan for defense well beyond his life span. Good lich is common in these cases) + epic level "Overkill" abjurations + and easily found self destruct switch

A country to conquer (not just the city there were other battles on the way) and army of mid to high level paladins. Then another army of mid to high level ghost paladins that you just killed. Then Soon.

We really can't judge Girard or Serini's gate yet.

And so it's difficult to judge which of the three is "better" They all have worked flawlessly.

[Kish]

For those saying that Soon's gate was best protected.... There is a MAJOR weakness to the defense...

It assumes that anyone who wants to get the gate is EVIL.

Sure it worked out with Redcloak and pals -- but it is just as possible that whatever forces were trying to get the gate could be neutral or have many neutral members. Somehow I do not think the ghost martyrs and Soon would be as effective without their evil killing kit.
"It is just as possible that the forces trying to forcibly seize a Gate guarding a soul-eating monstrosity from an order of paladins would be Neutral rather than Evil" is a bizarre claim.

"An order of ghost paladins, of whom the leader is epic-level, would be utterly crippled against enemies on whom they cannot use Smite Evil" is almost as bizarre.

[Winter]

"It is just as possible that the forces trying to forcibly seize a Gate guarding a soul-eating monstrosity from an order of paladins would be Neutral rather than Evil" is a bizarre claim.

I find it to be a very reasonable claim. Adventueres of any alignment will do any dungeon just for the fact that it's "there" without any clue what the actual final "thing" is (remember what happend countless times at your gaming table). We have no indication Dorukan's Dungeon contained any warning "Hi, if you are good, please leave as we are also the good guys here".
So... a band of good or neutral adventurers unlocking the gate (as long as no one warns them) does not seem unlikely at all.

[Kish]

I find it to be a very reasonable claim. Adventueres of any alignment will do any dungeon just for the fact that it's "there" without any clue what the actual final "thing" is (remember what happend countless times at your gaming table).
:smallsigh:

I promise, "We'll slaughter our way through these paladins, because their city constitutes a dungeon!" has only happened countless times at my gaming table in the most literal of senses (that is, one cannot actually count zero).

[Doxkid]

Soon's Gate could not cope with an "Enemy from within". It relied on the honor and integrity of those who guarded it. It was Miko who finally destroyed it and that is no coincidence.
The gate was not secure against trickery or treason, those things are nothing Soon did expect or could cope with. Miko did not do any of the two, but she still was "from the inside".

Trickery, yes. That's exactly what happened to Miko actually; it was roundabout and unintentional but it was still deception, misunderstandings and the like that resulted in her fall.

Treason...not so much. There was literally no way for someone to find out until the OOTS came in. One person knew per generation. Said person was the most physically and magically defended being on the continent.

Unfortunately, the OOTS exudes an aura of idiocy and failure; the moment they enter an equation a gate seems to be doomed.

[t209]

I think Miko is also influenced by political intrigue of Azure City.
- Miko's dad, Eyko Miyazaki, is a nobleman and head of House Miyazaki.
- Miko was orphaned which means they were assasinated.
- If her parents were not killed, she wouldn't be a fanatic who doomed azure city. (but would turned into spoiled brat or saner paladin.)

[Winter]

... also influenced by political intrigue of Azure City.

I think that was the biggest flaw of Soon's Gate. It was right in the center of a massive stew of evil or at least reckless nobles. It could not have ended well with that.

[t209]

I think that was the biggest flaw of Soon's Gate. It was right in the center of a massive stew of evil or at least reckless nobles. It could not have ended well with that.

This proves that Miko was also a byproduct of flaw too. The combination of assasination of Daimyo Eyko and his family, and Knight Templar of Sapphire Guard is what causes the Soon's gate to fall!

[Azukar]

We don't know the full details of Girard's Gate's defences yet, but I personally think Dorukan's Gate was the best-protected.

Remember that "only one of pure heart" could open the seal on the Gate. Xykon and Redcloak *had* the gate for months before the Order showed up, but they couldn't touch it or make any use of it. They could've sat there forever if the heroes hadn't arrived.

Seems that that little, oft-forgotten clause makes Dorukan's Gate the most secure.

[LadyEowyn]

I think Soon's gate was by far the best-defended. I haven't read SoD, but for Lirian's to be taken out by a fire seems pretty weak. Dorukan's dungeon also wasn't that impressive. Girard had a pretty small group defending his, and he depended on enemies never finding the gate - he doesn't seem to have a lot of forces to deal with anyone who does find the place, and certainly nothing on the level of Soon's Sapphire Guard.

Soon had a whole city and army built around his gate, it took an army of 10,000 goblins to even enable Xykon to get close to it, and Soon's ghost-martyrs came within a hair of killing Redcloak and Xykon both. Miko's destruction of the gate was a matter of the wrong person at the wrong time, after the gate had already been under heavy assault. The other gates fell fairly easily; Soon's took a full-on war to assault, and even then the destruction depended on a random and unlucky chance.

I'd venture a guess that Soon's was even better-defended that Kraagor's, given that a city of paladins has to be harder to defeat than a dungeon of relatively-unintelligent monsters.

[t209]

I think Soon's gate was by far the best-defended. I haven't read SoD, but for Lirian's to be taken out by a fire seems pretty weak. Dorukan's dungeon also wasn't that impressive. Girard had a pretty small group defending his, and he depended on enemies never finding the gate - he doesn't seem to have a lot of forces to deal with anyone who does find the place, and certainly nothing on the level of Soon's Sapphire Guard.

Soon had a whole city and army built around his gate, it took an army of 10,000 goblins to even enable Xykon to get close to it, and Soon's ghost-martyrs came within a hair of killing Redcloak and Xykon both. Miko's destruction of the gate was a matter of the wrong person at the wrong time, after the gate had already been under heavy assault. The other gates fell fairly easily; Soon's took a full-on war to assault, and even then the destruction depended on a random and unlucky chance.

I'd venture a guess that Soon's was even better-defended that Kraagor's, given that a city of paladins has to be harder to defeat than a dungeon of relatively-unintelligent monsters.

A girl who was a victim of Court Intrigue and believed in Paladin hood like a fanatic. Or a spanner in the perfect works.

[Dark Elf Bard]

Either Liraian or Soon.

Lirian actually defeated Xykon, but he was not a lich then. Soon... he was good, but he didn't even defend it himself.

Also, we have not sen Kraagor or Girard's gate yet...

[MyNameIsSecret]

I think they all have been well-defended, but fell for various reasons.

Lirian had an army of elves, treants and dire animals to defend the gate, but it mostly made use of the Guardian Virus and that was what beat team evil. The only thing that she didn't expect was for the Crimson Mantle to combat the effects of the virus, and because of that RC was able to make Xykon into a Lich. They quickly defeated Lirian after that.

While Dorukan's gate was protected by a dungeon, it wasn't its primary mean of defence. Dorukan warded his gate 'with the most powerful sigils he could imagine' so much it was 'dripping in obscure warding spells and magical traps', which even Xykon was reluctant to face. Even after he had been defeated, Xykon still couldn't warp the gate, because only one with pure heart could. The downfall of Dorukan was his own arrogance. When he saw that Xykon was holding Lirians soul, he went out to rescue her thinking he was powerful enough to defeat him. He wasn't.

Soon's gate was protected by a city, the Sapphire guard AND their ghost-martyrs. Xykon and Redcloak were beaten again and the only thing that saved them was a delusional fallen paladin, the very thing Soon didn't expect.

Girard's gate? We don't know much about it, but from what we've learned so far is that Girards family had kept the whole thing 'blanketed with high-end phantasms' and other powerful illusions. I expect that its defence system was probably very powerful, but it was Girards own paranoia that was his undoing, trusting only his family - and therefore vulnerable to having all the gates defences wiped out with one Familicide spell.

Serini's gate? We can't be sure until we get to it. All we know is that it is defended by a dungeon filled with the 'nastiest monsters in the world'. While simple, it could very well be effective.

[t209]

Do you think the OOTS Gate defense arcs are based on Three Little Pigs?
-Involves what kind of material (defense systems) to build their houses (Gates).

[SoC175]

Only after the Gate is destroyed do the remaining ghost martyrs dissipate, so as long as the Gate is intact then Soon is there to protect it. With the Crimson Mantle in the room, any goblin that wants to take it up has to get past Soon first.Since Soon is incorporeal, it should be pretty easy to mage hand the mantle out of the room for each new try

I can't really comment on Lirian's gat since I haven't read SoD yet, but for what I've read here it didn't seem really well defended.

I think that the best defend Gate so far was Soon's. The main responsability for protecting the gate was the Saffire Guard's, but there was still entire Azure city's facilities to support the Paladins. Xykon e Red Cloack needed an entire army to invade the city Actually they also had to bring an entire army to conquer Lirian's gate and only reached it after days of heavy fighting.

[androkguz]

I imagine Serini used her rogue epic levels to build her gate in the following way:

-Use Charisma, Sense Motive, Gather Info and Bluff to get a crew of efficient dwarves that ask no questions and have no clue of what is really being build, and don't coment about it. Have them build the structure. Also, fill the dungeon with the nastiest traps you can imagine.

-Get a bunch of strength poisons and non-lethal damage dealing weapons to neutralize a bunch of very high level monsters (but not of her own CR, unless they have terrible senses, see below). Since she is epic level, this should be a piece of cake.

-Use another crew of people to get the monsters into the gate.

-Stay inside the dungeon, using epic level hide and move silently to avoid the monsters and sneak up on intruders.

[Warren Dew]

Interesting thread, thanks.

I don't think any of the gates were as weak as some people have been painting them. We should keep in mind that Team Evil was not able to capture any of the gates effectively; the gates were destroyed, but that's not the worst that could have happened.

To me, it seems like the weaker defenses were Lirian's and Dorukan's, because they seem to have depended primarily on their scribble members, albeit with help from supporting cast. Between these two, I'm not sure which was stronger. Arguably Dorukan's gate had an extra level of defense in the form of the sigils, but it also had an extra weakness, in that Dorukan was arrogant enough to leave his dungeon to fight Xykon. Dorukan's gate would also have become much weaker once Dorukan himself died - but until then, Lirian's gate weakened whenever she was away visiting Dorukan.

Girard seems to have put together a better succession plan than did Dorukan, what with his clan dedicated to the defense of his gate. I don't think it can be faulted just because the clan all died to some hyperepic level spell that probably couldn't be cast by anyone on his world. However, it strikes me that once someone had figured out the approximate location of the gate - which granted required a lucky break - it would only be a matter of time before a sufficiently strong group, like Team Evil, would figure out the illusions and get through them. As with the other gates, there may still be some self destruct mechanism, since presumably the story isn't ending here.

It seems to me that Soon's gate was clearly the most strongly defended. It required not only epic level characters, but also a huge army, to take control of it. Not only that, but there were active defenses that people haven't considered. The Sapphire Guard had seers that could actively search for potential enemies that might try to seize the gate, and also had crusaders to search out and destroy those enemies. Without the antigoblin crusades, it seems likely that the dark one would have managed to bring an army against Azure City or one of the other gate locations decades earlier. The crusades allowed Soon to help defend Kraagor's and Dorukan's gates in a way that didn't break the noninterference promise.

[snikrept]

We don't know yet the full extent of Girard's preparations.

[LordVader]

That don't work if the high level character has fly and/or damage reduction. Then, no amount of mooks will be ever able tto damage him.

Yes, Xykon can fly. Fortunately, so can the Ghost-Martyrs of the Sapphire Guard.



Last but not least, there will be a point where the mooks will stop charging and start running away.
No, there won't be. The paladins won't run away in life, and they sure as hell won't run away once they're immortal ghost-spirits.

I am very interested to see the defenses of Sereni's gate, as all the others have focused around magical protection, while hers is apparently a more physical focus. It'll make for a significant change in dynamic, especially after Girard's.

[Kish]

No, there won't be. The paladins won't run away in life, and they sure as hell won't run away once they're immortal ghost-spirits.
factotum et al were discussing whether the Azure City Army would have been any help against Xykon--not the paladins he fought in the throne room; we know exactly how a one-on-one fight between Xykon and all those paladins went.

[King of Nowhere]

Yes, Xykon can fly. Fortunately, so can the Ghost-Martyrs of the Sapphire Guard.


No, there won't be. The paladins won't run away in life, and they sure as hell won't run away once they're immortal ghost-spirits.

I am very interested to see the defenses of Sereni's gate, as all the others have focused around magical protection, while hers is apparently a more physical focus. It'll make for a significant change in dynamic, especially after Girard's.

As kish pointed out, I was referring to the army. or even the living paladins. the ghost martyrs are not really mooks.
However, they still have the major disadvantage of being unable to leave the room.
So just come in, blast something, come out, get some healing, repeat the process. Maybe get some archers with magical arrows to pelt Soon down without risks.
Anyway, Xykon survived several minutes in a room full of ghost martyrs, with soon there. I think if he went there again, after having killed all the other paladins, after having healed and regained the spell slots, and after having all the appropriate buffs casted, Soon would have been no problem for him.

As ways comparing the gates, we can try this: none of the gates could fall to someone not epic.
And none of the gates could survive against someone epic.

I''m not really sure what can stop an epic character. they are pretty much gamebreakers.

[skaddix]

Besides other Epics?

Still best gate defense is probably several epics.

[suzaliscious]

I'm not sure why everyone's beating on Lirian's Gate THIS much. Sure, it fell, but that's only because RedCloak was immune to the Guardian Virus due to the literal Deus Ex Machina he wears as a cloak. If not for the Crimson Plot Devi - er, Mantle, Lirian had Xykon and RedCloak completely against the ropes. Imprisoned, with no way of escaping. If RedCloak hadn't done what he did to Xykon, Team Evil was done for right there.

Yeah, Lirian wasn't dumb or bad at defending her gate. She fell to a combination of HIGHLY unforeseen circumstances and the power of plot. Remember, not even RedCloak knew that the Mantle would protect him from something like the Guardian Virus, and if it hadn't, Sayonara Team Evil.

[SavageWombat]

Because the number of creatures in D&D immune to disease is quite high. Lirian was almost tailor-made for a lich to beat up. I mean, a blue dragon? Really?

[eulmanis12]

"how would you defend a gate?"

Depending on the size i'd try a version 2.0 of the Azure City method. Do the same thing, but also build a Large fake gate in a large, ominous looking, mountain fort a few miles from the city. This fort would have extreemly impressive (and highly visible) defenses, garrisons, even more so than the actual gate. Also I'd make sure that there were an abundance of "Top Secret" documents in storage within my various government organizations detailing the importance of protecting the "Gate" in the mountains. I may also tell the MITD that he should never tell anyone about the "Gate" in the mountains, (he would either do the exact opposite, or question the existance of the gate).
Underneath the decoy gate I would rig the most powerfull explosives I could get my hands on so that when the BBEG shows up, eats the garrison, and prepares to use the gate I can blow him sky high.

[Acanous]

How to defend a gate? High level traps, an order of arcane spellcasters, a fortress made of Wall of Force, and at least one epic wizard at a time. (That is, send a few wizards off adventuring, have them hit epic level.)
As we all know, the only thing more powerful than one spellcaster is more spellcasters. So have more spellcasters.
Hell, take control of the gate/snarl yourself if you can. Use it against anyone who tries to take it.

[t209]

Depending on the size i'd try a version 2.0 of the Azure City method. Do the same thing, but also build a Large fake gate in a large, ominous looking, mountain fort a few miles from the city. This fort would have extreemly impressive (and highly visible) defenses, garrisons, even more so than the actual gate. Also I'd make sure that there were an abundance of "Top Secret" documents in storage within my various government organizations detailing the importance of protecting the "Gate" in the mountains. I may also tell the MITD that he should never tell anyone about the "Gate" in the mountains, (he would either do the exact opposite, or question the existance of the gate).
Underneath the decoy gate I would rig the most powerfull explosives I could get my hands on so that when the BBEG shows up, eats the garrison, and prepares to use the gate I can blow him sky high.

I was thinking about it too! What about landmines?

[B. Dandelion]

It seems to me that Soon's gate was clearly the most strongly defended. It required not only epic level characters, but also a huge army, to take control of it. Not only that, but there were active defenses that people haven't considered. The Sapphire Guard had seers that could actively search for potential enemies that might try to seize the gate, and also had crusaders to search out and destroy those enemies. Without the antigoblin crusades, it seems likely that the dark one would have managed to bring an army against Azure City or one of the other gate locations decades earlier. The crusades allowed Soon to help defend Kraagor's and Dorukan's gates in a way that didn't break the noninterference promise.

That's a claim I think you could argue that from the opposing perspective as well: that Soon's crusades engendered such bad feeling among the goblins that they worsened, or even created, a greater threat to the Gates than would have existed otherwise. The whole notion of attacking before you are actually attacked, in "pre-emptive self-defense", is perceived as simple aggression and persecution by the survivors, who must then retaliate in the belief their survival depends on it. Redcloak's first army recruited entirely among goblins who had been driven from their homes and lost family to a seemingly senseless crusade. With them, and Xykon, Lirian's Gate was overcome and destroyed. Furthermore, the Crimson Mantle and his allies had not been a threat to any Gate but Lirian's prior to that point.

(Not to mention, storywise, it's pretty apparent we're not supposed to infer the crusades were a good or justifiable thing, and Redcloak is outright named a villain of Azure City's creation and his victory a form of karmic retribution.)

That said, in all other respects I think Soon's appears to have been the most effectively defended Gate thus far. But I'm not sure we can fairly rate Girard's setup, because Familicide does not in any way seem to have been a reasonably foreseeable threat: a custom-made, utterly broken spell designed by an epic level mage dead for who even knows how long, which wasn't even intended as an assault on the Draketooths in the first place -- that is just plain bad luck. And we haven't been able to see how the defenses would have functioned under less extraordinary circumstances.

[Hironomus]

I personally think that Soon's gate had the best defenses.
Building a fortress city around the gate and manning it with powerful and devoted soldiers? Not to mention the failsafe of the elite paladin ghost martyrs. I think most people would have no idea how to approach that particular problem. I would much rather just raid a dungeon. No matter how challenging it is.
The biggest criticism of his system I can see is the little exploitable, predictable gaps in Azure cities defenses. The Warning beacons all being on the same floor being the best examples of this. I guess this sums up a typical paladins disposition.
It's too bad the Scribblers didn't see eye to eye. A combination of all of their efforts working together, particular a combo of Soon's sheer unbreakable defense backed up by Girard's more covert methods would have been quite effective I think.

[factotum]

Anyway, Xykon survived several minutes in a room full of ghost martyrs, with soon there. I think if he went there again, after having killed all the other paladins, after having healed and regained the spell slots, and after having all the appropriate buffs casted, Soon would have been no problem for him.


Well, firstly, he barely used any spells before going in to the throne room--Overland Flight, the Meteor Swarm that took out Roy, a fire spell and some sort of death spell in #446, plus another Meteor Swarm that fizzled in #448. He was also entirely healed at that point thanks to Tsukiko. In any case, no matter how many spells he went in there with, he was still stuck with the problem that the only spell he had which was fully effective against the Ghost Martyrs was Magic Missile, his weakest one.

[veti]

So far, we've seen Team Evil in action at three gates.

Lirian's gate defeated them. They were saved by having an artifact with them, and by the fact that Lirian herself was too softhearted to do the obvious thing and just kill them, or even take that damn' cloak off RC. (Really, that's one that should be on the Evil Mastermind list: "If you capture your enemy and for some reason you don't want to kill them, for pity's sake at least take their equipment away."

Dorukan's gate stymied them, but didn't entirely defeat them. It needed the help of a bunch of low-to-mid level adventurers to do that.

Soon's gate defeated them. They were saved by a truly amazing string of coincidences named Miko.

So I say, all three gates so far have done a pretty good job - Dorukan's slightly less so than the other two, but its defences were still impressive. It's only by the grace of Plot that Team Evil is still going at this point.

[LuPuWei]

Ok, so here's my take:

1. The least well-defended Gate so far has been Lirian's.

Her magic-inhibitting virus and initial defeat of Xykon was very impressive. However, in the second round- unprepared and up against an unnatural horror- she was defeated very quickly. Unless she had further defenses, the only thing that kept Xykon from taking control of the gate was Redcloak setting the gate on fire.

Evil was close to controlling this gate, but it was destroyed by mistake was made on Evil's side.

2. The best defended gate, I'd say, was Dorukan's. From what I recall of SoD, as long as Dorukan stayed inside the dungeon, Xykon didn't have many options. I personally don't feel that having a girlfriend outside of his fort was a true tactical error, though in this case it was the unfortunate circumstance that led to his defeat. Of course, this is subjective.

But regardless of the above, what makes Dorukan's gate the best is that even when Xykon had killed Dorukan and taken over his dungeon, he could do nothing with the gate. Xykon was basically reduced to sitting around and waiting for some good guys to show up. When they did, of course, he was defeated (the heroes foiled his plan without significant help from outside the team) and he would have thus been thwarted with the gate intact, if not for Elan.

Evil had no way to control this Gate, but it was destroyed by a mistake made by a third party on Good's side.

3. In between these two, I'd put Soon's gate. Soon's gate was extremely well defended and was the only gate to almost kill Xykon. It was destroyed, however, before this could be achieved, by Miko. Since Miko was part of Soon's system of defense, this means the system essentially did itself in, which is why I place Soon's Gate second, where otherwise it would be at par with Dorukan (ie, if the Order had been the one's to destroy Soon's Gate)

To sum up, Evil was unable to control this Gate on it's own, but it was destroyed by it's own defenses.

As for Girard's gate, we haven't really seen much, so I think it's too early to take a call on how well it was defended. As with Dorukan's, I don't think vulnerability to Familicide is a true tactical error. Other than that, all we know is that the initial deception didn't work very well.

[Jay R]

In at least one very important sense, a gate's defense has only two values:
0: Gate is destroyed, or
1: Gate stills stands.

Lirian's gate, Dorukan's gate, Soon's gate: Defense value is 0.

Girard's gate: Defense value is 1 (but not for long, I fear).

Kraagor's gate: Defense value is 1.

[Mordar]

Unfortunately, the OOTS exudes an aura of idiocy and failure; the moment they enter an equation a gate seems to be doomed.

I knew there was something strangely familiar about all of this...The OotS is Groo! Picture OotS, standing in the ruins of yet another destroyed Gate.

:roy: Why does everything we do seem to result in disaster?
:durkon: Lad, is nae yer fault. As any fool kin plainly see, Belkar stabbed the wrong rogue!
:elan: I can plainly see that!
:belkar: (wiping blood from his dagger) Did I.....err?
:haley: (Prying large eye-shaped ruby from statue) This'll get me a lotta cheese dip...er, what, Roy?

-M (Does not stand for Mulch or Mulching, which happens to be a process of inbred fertilization which employs certain decomposed organic materials-- including, but not limited to animal sediment-- to blanket an area in which vegetation is desired. The procedure enriches the soil for stimulated plant development while, at the same time, preventing erosion and decreasing the evaporation of moisture from the ground)

[Hironomus]

3. In between these two, I'd put Soon's gate. Soon's gate was extremely well defended and was the only gate to almost kill Xykon.

Lirian's gate DID kill Xykon :smalltongue:

[Forbiddenwar]

In at least one very important sense, a gate's defense has only two values:
0: Gate is destroyed, or
1: Gate stills stands.

Lirian's gate, Dorukan's gate, Soon's gate: Defense value is 0.

Girard's gate: Defense value is 1 (but not for long, I fear).

Kraagor's gate: Defense value is 1.

Actually the values are
0: Gate is corrupted
1: Gate still stands

Since the destruction of the gate is a key part of each of their defenses. Which means all the gates are at 1, and all defenses have succeeded.

[Jay R]

In at least one very important sense, a gate's defense has only two values:
0: Gate is destroyed, or
1: Gate stills stands.

Lirian's gate, Dorukan's gate, Soon's gate: Defense value is 0.

Girard's gate: Defense value is 1 (but not for long, I fear).

Kraagor's gate: Defense value is 1.Actually the values are
0: Gate is corrupted
1: Gate still stands

Since the destruction of the gate is a key part of each of their defenses. Which means all the gates are at 1, and all defenses have succeeded.

Is it an ordinary part of the defense, or is it a last-ditch contingency because even a lack of gate is somewhat better than a controlled gate?

I look at the sky above Azure City Gobbotopia, and conclude that the value of the defense is not technically quite as high as when the gate stood, protected by ghost-martyr paladins.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

From what we've seen, exploding is just as bad as not having one in the first place, possibly worse since it seems to tear the rifts open further in the process. They all open gradually when left unattended, though apparently they have some function that will continue to at least hold the world together as long as at least one of the gates stands.

As such:

Gate is intact: state 1 (yay!)
Gate is exploded, but at least one other gate is around: state 2 (crud!)
Gate is exploded, and also all of the other gates are exploded: <crashes>

So really, I guess you just need two gates each with a means of getting from state 2 back to state 1 reliably in case of a successful attack. The OOTS doesn't have that, but our thought exercise might.

Vulnerabilities include coordinates assaults on multiple locations, the Holey Brotherhood taking a rift and just staying put, and generally lousy timing.

[MyNameIsSecret]

...though apparently they have some function that will continue to at least hold the world together as long as at least one of the gates stands.

Where is this stated? :smallconfused: I was always under the impression that just one tear could still destroy the world.

[Jaros]

Where is this stated? :smallconfused: I was always under the impression that just one tear could still destroy the world.

I believe that's referring to the fact that the Snarl hasn't reached out of the Azure City Gobbotopia rift, despite accounts saying it was attacking those outside of it before the Gates.

[Kish]

Why that is is a mystery. "The Snarl is biding its time until all five Gates are destroyed" is one possible theory...if, in light of what Blackwing saw in the rift he looked into, not a theory I would support personally.

[MReav]

Yeah, Lirian wasn't dumb or bad at defending her gate. She fell to a combination of HIGHLY unforeseen circumstances and the power of plot. Remember, not even RedCloak knew that the Mantle would protect him from something like the Guardian Virus, and if it hadn't, Sayonara Team Evil.

You know, I wonder... given how much Xykon likes to spam high-yield explosive spells, why DIDN'T Lirian's Gate get burned down in Team Evil's initial push? He burned down the entire forest with a single Flame Strike, which given Redcloak's level at the time, was at best 5d6 worth of fire (the rest would have been non-fiery divine damage). Xykon would have been chucking Fireballs, Meteor Swarms, Lightning Bolts, and all sorts of other flashy evocations.

Or was Redcloak's assessment that they'd be casting fire resistance true, and Lirian simply had several days worth of preparation given how long it took Redcloak's army to reach her glade, which she didn't have the second time around (because she stupidly didn't have someone checking in on them, say, once a week).

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

((In response to MyNameIsSecret))

I believe that's referring to the fact that the Snarl hasn't reached out of the Azure City Gobbotopia rift, despite accounts saying it was attacking those outside of it before the Gates.

Yeah, I was going along with Redcloak's speculation that The Snarl would not notice the open rifts as long as the other gates were around. I forget though, did he ever get around to tossing anything through it, or were the prisoners going to be his first experiment?