Why do wizards hate sorcerers?

[Chaotic Queen]

I get that sorcerers are born with magic and wizards have to learn it, but why do wizards act like they're the top of the foodchain? They should be praising/fearing sorcerers who reach their level without even trying!

In real life, I'm a good fighter because I trained myself to be like that. If I ever met a gifted figher, I'd be incredibly honored to meet them!

Frankly, being a sorcerer seems like a gift and deserves far more respect than a wizard. And there's also the fact that Xykon (a sorcerer) completely trampled Vaarsuvius (a wizard) without even trying.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0653.html

[Chaotic Queen]

PS: Whatever happened to Banjulhu?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0085.html

[factotum]

What makes you think wizards *do* hate sorcerers? Everything in the comic indicates that wizards consider themselves to be superior to sorcerers, but that doesn't imply or require hate. As for why that might be, wizards have intelligence as their main casting stat while sorcerers use charisma, so it's entirely possible to be a total idiot and still be a powerful sorcerer--this is probably why wizards in the setting don't consider sorcerers to be proper opponents.

[B. Dandelion]

Well, you can't spell "learn" without "earn". They see their magic as "worth more" as a result of the effort they had to put into it.

Imagine a self-made rich person meeting a lottery winner. The one had to study hard, work long hours, build things up from scratch, take risks, suffer setbacks, etc. The other... picked some numbers and got lucky. Does the self-made rich person admire and feel honored to meet the lotto winner because of their wealth?

[Emperordaniel]

PS: Whatever happened to Banjulhu?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0085.html

He still slumbers away, forgotten by all but a few forumers. Centuries from now, a secret society of dark priests from the underworld of the morally justified threads will seek to awaken his unholy power, and when He returns, all will hear His call...the call of BANJULHU!

There's your answer. :smallwink:

[Anarion]

Hate isn't really the right word. I think it's more like resentment, and maybe even jealously at some level, though most wizards would never admit that to themselves.

If a wizard were making the argument, she would point out a few things
1) Magic is dangerous, and without long hours of study and care to learn to wield it properly, sorcerers are likely to be reckless and foolhardy.
2) Sorcerer magic is highly limited in known spells. Wizard power is limited only by what the wizard can find to study. This allows wizards to better prepare for any encounter compared to sorcerers.
3) Sorcerers are quite often less intelligent than wizards (thanks to having mechanically different casting stats).

All this adds up, for most wizards in the OoTS 'verse at any rate, to a feeling among wizards that sorcerers don't deserve their powers.

Of course, from the sorcerer perspective, the wizards are a bunch of elitists who want to keep everyone out of the club that hasn't gone through the proper hazing rituals.

[Winter]

I think the end of the story is "They got for free what I sacrificed my life for!"

[SoC175]

Hate isn't really the right word. I think it's more like resentment, and maybe even jealously at some level, though most wizards would never admit that to themselves.

If a wizard were making the argument, she would point out a few things
1) Magic is dangerous, and without long hours of study and care to learn to wield it properly, sorcerers are likely to be reckless and foolhardy.
2) Sorcerer magic is highly limited in known spells. Wizard power is limited only by what the wizard can find to study. This allows wizards to better prepare for any encounter compared to sorcerers.
3) Sorcerers are quite often less intelligent than wizards (thanks to having mechanically different casting stats).
4. Wizards know what they are doing on the broader scale. Sorcerers, due to the their typical stats, are just not good at understanding magic. They can cast those spell that came to them naturally, but they're not able to understand complex magic, solve magical problems or create new magic due to their lower spell-craft and knowledge (arcana) skills.

While the wizard might be able to solve the magical riddle preventing your party from venturing deeper into the ancient ruin, a sorcerer can stand before it just as clueless as the fighter if it's not just happen that one of his known spells can be used to blast through.

[Winter]

While the wizard might be able to solve the magical riddle preventing your party from venturing deeper into the ancient ruin, a sorcerer can stand before it just as clueless as the fighter if it's not just happen that one of his known spells can be used to blast through.

That cannot be it for the general case: Sorcerers also have spellcraft and knowledge(arcana) as class skill.

It should also be pointed out that this "rivalry" is something we are seeing in Rich's interpretation of the rules. The rules as written do not mention this.

I think the rivalry makes sense due to all(!) the stuff outlined above. There's a lot reasons for "academic" wizards to look down upon those arcane Rainmans (who in turn have the right to feel looked down upon).
I always saw Rich's interpretation of Wizards as elitist university professors.

[Chaotic Queen]

He still slumbers away, forgotten by all but a few forumers. Centuries from now, a secret society of dark priests from the underworld of the morally justified threads will seek to awaken his unholy power, and when He returns, all will hear His call...the call of BANJULHU!

There's your answer. :smallwink:



Most awesome response ever! V(^.^)^

[Chaotic Queen]

Hey, I just noticed something about Banjulhu! For two years I thought he pulled a second puppet out of his pocket, sort of like with Giggles. I just barely noticed that he actually casted a spell to transform the puppet! It's interesting what you can notice when you look at something a few times.

Also, we must prepare ourselves for the battle against the Cult of Giggulhu!

[SoC175]

That cannot be it for the general case: Sorcerers also have spellcraft and knowledge(arcana) as class skill. Yes, but wizards have the higher ability mod on it. And with the higher number of skillpoints that comes along with it are able to cover a broader field.

A sorcerer might have spellcraft and knowledge (arcana) with lower mods in both than the wizard, but the wizard can have knowledge (the planes) and knowledge (religion) and a host of other skills related to work out planar portals, magical bindings, etc.

[Darkfyre99]

That cannot be it for the general case: Sorcerers also have spellcraft and knowledge(arcana) as class skill.

True, but a Sorcerer's most important Stat is Charisma, while a Wizard's most important stat is Intelligence, which means that the average wizard is going to be better at those skills (being intelligence based) than the average sorcerer, especially given that the intelligence skill may not be a priority for a sorcerer, given the value of Dexterity and Constitution to a class that only gets d4 hit points and doesn't wear armor. Even Wisdom may be a higher priority for a combat oriented Sorcerer than Intelligence, just as Charisma may be a low priority for a Wizard.

Furthermore, the number of ranks a character gets is based on Intelligence. And there are more magical branches of knowledge besides arcana, as well as the Decipher Script skill, which are class skills for a Wizard, but not a Sorcerer. Finally, there is the fact that there are other skills that may compete with the limited number of skill ranks available to both classes, such as Craft (Alchemy), Concentration, or for the Sorcerer, Bluff.

All in all, a Wizard will have more ranks in those skills than a Sorcerer will, and also gets a larger bonus. If a riddle requiring Knowledge (arcana) has a high DC, a Wizard will have a much higher chance of success than a Sorcerer of the same level would.

[Winter]

True, but a Sorcerer's most important Stat is Charisma, while a Wizard's most important stat is Intelligence, which means that the average wizard is going to be better at those skills (being intelligence based) than the average sorcerer, especially given that the intelligence skill may not be a priority for a sorcerer, given the value of Dexterity and Constitution to a class that only gets d4 hit points and doesn't wear armor.

Obviously, yes. But the point still stands: judging from the rules, the difference is not the knowledge here.

That classes that get two points per level + int are broken in regard to RP and development of more than "I can do one thing" in 3.x is another matter.

[Chaotic Queen]

But what about the fact that Xykon mopped the floor with Vaarsuvius while she was pumped up on wizard steroids? I think it all depends on the dedication.

[Winter]

But what about the fact that Xykon mopped the floor with Vaarsuvius while she was pumped up on wizard steroids? I think it all depends on the dedication.

It was a Power That Does Not Compare To Normal Rules. It also happened within a story, not a real game. And even more important, the point here was explicitly that the casting-power of a character does not tell anything about what it actually can achive.
It's about the "sum of the things", level, skills, saves, dedication, extra stuff, eq, it all adds up. So if anything, the "what does Xykon's win tell us?" supports anything I wrote (e.g. that sorcs in general are broken in the sense of rules and power because they get casting, but basically nothing else).

[Gift Jeraff]

They're envious of their "charisma," if you know what I mean.

[Anarion]

Obviously, yes. But the point still stands: judging from the rules, the difference is not the knowledge here.

That classes that get two points per level + int are broken in regard to RP and development of more than "I can do one thing" in 3.x is another matter.

While saying 3.x is broken is a valid point, part of the interpretation here is related to that brokenness. Wizards, due to the mechanics, are actually smarter than sorcerers. That means that even with the same skills, wizards are better at interpreting magic and solving puzzles than sorcerers. If you want to use that as a reason to call the system broken, you can, but in context, it's also a reason for wizards to be elitist and say that they're better than sorcerers.

Also, I suspect that being bookish nerds, many wizards are particularly resentful that sorcerers can be so sociable and make friends so easily.

They're envious of their "charisma," if you know what I mean.

And that. :smallamused:

[Andre]

Why, is there someone who doesn't hate sorcerers? :smallconfused:

[Chaotic Queen]

Why, is there someone who doesn't hate sorcerers? :smallconfused:

I think sorcerers are awesome! It's like in Skyrim, how anyone can learn to shout with years of practice, but the Dragonborn can learn instantly!

[recluso]

Xykon feels every wizard looks down on him.

It is start of darkness, where the "Wizard >>> Sorceror" idea is consistedly presented; as a very common yet still personal opinion, and it is always said in the presence of Xykon, so in all cases it could be meant to insult the specific sorceror Xykon.

Maybe it is just a lot of wizards overestimate themselves; With few contact you don't learn to appreciate others well.

V is happy with Jephton being spliced upon her. Jephton, Haerta and Ganonron seem to work together well and respect each other.

V is very hostile to but not condescending towards Samatha and the Black Dragon, at least not due to their sorcerer levels.
In oots 677, The drawmij messenger tried to find and use anti-sorceror prejudice in V. That didn't work. He had to resort to the warlock-insult.

[theNater]

I think sorcerers are awesome! It's like in Skyrim, how anyone can learn to shout with years of practice, but the Dragonborn can learn instantly!
This is actually generally really frightening. You'll note that many of the shouts can destroy objects and kill people. Because they don't know what they can do, a careless Dragonborn can cause a lot of harm to people who really can't defend themselves. A person who studies the effects before learning such abilities may cause trouble on purpose, but someone who just up and has them is an accident waiting to happen.

Also note that sorcerer powers don't care who gets them. Bullies, people bent on petty revenge, and psychopaths are just as likely to be sorcerers as anybody else. It is commonly believed that training as a wizard will include steps taken on the part of the teacher to ensure that such individuals do not progress far enough to become dangerous.

[snikrept]

I imagine a wizard looks at a sorcerer like he would any other kind of magical beast with spell-like abilities. Sorcerer has a human form, is all.

[Andre]

I think sorcerers are awesome! It's like in Skyrim, how anyone can learn to shout with years of practice, but the Dragonborn can learn instantly!

I agree with neither. :smallwink:

At any rate, previously I was joking as usual, so it's all good.

[IW Judicator]

Originally Posted by Gift Jeraff
They're envious of their "charisma," if you know what I mean.

Possible, but probably not the most likely scenario. As we are shown in Start of Darkness Fyron suggested that Sorcerers were compensating for that, even though their Charisma should give them something pretty impressive under the hood (per Haley's statement when Elan was running around naked) Jealousy? Perhaps. But to me it feels a bit more like a Wizard's arrogance rearing its ugly head again.

That being said, if you think about it a little, Wizards are also rather hypocritical. In order to be a half-way competent magic user, a Wizard needs a decent start up Intelligence, something that doesn't come by particularly often. While Intelligence can certainly be improved through years of hard study and training, there's a limit to how much the average person could accomplish with average Intelligence (by the rules, they would by lucky to figure out how to cast cantrips). Wizardry, much like Sorcery, requires a certain level of innate talent. Otherwise you're watching half your life run by, only to then be able to start doing what others could do after only a few years because of their innate talent (be it Intelligence or Charisma).

[Eldariel]

Mostly Wizards just consider Sorcerers inferior. Like was said before, Sorcerers are limited and they can never learn more than their restricted list of spells. They also don't understand Magic nearly on the same level (yes, K: Arcana is a class skill for both but it's Int-based so Wizards have a natural advantage and Sorcerers don't automatically even have enough skill points to take ranks in it; generally Concentration and Spellcraft take their 2 points per level) and they are just plain dumb by comparison.

Sorcerers have the gift but to Wizards they seem like kids dabbling with toys they don't understand; they have the ability to use magic but they lack everything else associated to it. Of course, it's not universal for Wizards; Wizards are individuals too after all, just like Sorcerers. But generally, if Wizards do overlook Sorcerers, the reasons tend to draw to the Sorcerers' restrictions and lack of intellect.

[malloyd]

They're envious of their "charisma," if you know what I mean.

In a lot of ways, that's the big logic hole. Successful sorcerors are likeable, that's pretty much what having a high charisma means. You wouldn't know that from the way people are said to react to them, or to be fair, from the way they are usually played.

[The Pilgrim]

"So, that imbecile who is barely literated enough to read common, has got for free what it has taken me years of hard work and study, and also CHICKS DIG HIM MORE!!!"

I think the above pretty much settles the issue. Specialy the chick thing (Sorcerers have CHA as primary attribute and Bluff as a class skill, while for a Wizard it's a dump stat and a cross-class skill).

[Sorator]

To be fair, I don't know that there's always hatred involved. But otherwise, yeah, the person who intensively studied for decades to wield magical power will generally look down upon those who were gifted with it at birth, don't entirely know how it works, and are generally not as intelligent or as skilled (be they sorcerers or warlocks, either).

I want to know what the occasional Ultimate Magus (sorcerer/wizard) thinks on the subject.

[Marthian]

Something to note: Sorcerers make better Liches :P

No really, if you don't know them, Liches are undead, and from my understanding: the undead use charisma instead of constitution, which really is a big deal.

[Sorator]

Something to note: Sorcerers make better Liches :P

No really, if you don't know them, Liches are undead, and from my understanding: the undead use charisma instead of constitution, which really is a big deal.

Valid point, in that aspect, but wizards are better at protecting phylacteries due to greater access to obscure spells.

[factotum]

Successful sorcerors are likeable, that's pretty much what having a high charisma means.

No it doesn't. A high Charisma means they have a major influence on people, but that doesn't have to be through being likeable--they might take the Xykon approach and use their charisma to simply terrify everyone around them into doing what they want.

[Winter]

Something to note: Sorcerers make better Liches :P

No really, if you don't know them, Liches are undead, and from my understanding: the undead use charisma instead of constitution, which really is a big deal.

What have Wizards to do with Constitution? In that regard, they are the very same as Sorcerers.
And the undead use Charisma for what exactly?


Valid point, in that aspect, but wizards are better at protecting phylacteries due to greater access to obscure spells.

If you play by the rules, you usually can get any spell in the book as scroll. So Sorcerers cannot "learn" a spell for re-use, but they have full access (for gold) to them as well.
That might make a difference in a fight or in any "closed" setting, like a dungeon where time is an issue. For warding a home or an item with all the time required it makes no difference at all.

[AlaskaOOTSFan]

What have Wizards to do with Constitution? In that regard, they are the very same as Sorcerers.
And the undead use Charisma for what exactly?


Undead use Charisma as their Constitution score:


Constitution (Con)

Constitution represents your character’s health and stamina. A Constitution bonus increases a character’s hit points, so the ability is important for all classes.

You apply your character’s Constitution modifier to:

Each roll of a Hit Die (though a penalty can never drop a result below 1—that is, a character always gains at least 1 hit point each time he or she advances in level).
Fortitude saving throws, for resisting poison and similar threats.
Concentration checks. Concentration is a skill, important to spellcasters, that has Constitution as its key ability.

If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or decrease accordingly.

So a "nice to have" stat becomes equal to thier highest stat.

More HP, better Concentration check, and I am sure other bonuses.

[Water_Bear]

With the Sorcerer/Wizard rivalry, it seems pretty natural to me for two groups of casters working off of the same list but in such a different way.

Sorcerers have raw power in terms of their number of spells and spontaneous casting, but they are highly constrained in using it. They have a tiny number of spells known, which is almost impossible (bless you, Knowstones) to increase, and they get their spells a full level after a Wizard would. Without Feats or ACFs they are also pretty poor at using Metamagic, which flies in the face of the whole concept of the Sorcerer but whatever.

Wizards are more versatile overall; Wizards can easily accumulate huge numbers of spells in their spell-books, through research scrolls or paying to copy spells from other wizards, and can prepare new spells every day. They are also smarter, with a corresponding increase in access to skills, and get free bonus feats related to magic and magic item creation.

So it makes sense for a Sorcerer to resent a Wizard, the same way a Paladin might resent a Cleric; they're playing at a clear disadvantage doing pretty much the same things. At the same time, Wizards might see Sorcerers as incompetents or just envy the lack of book-keeping which plagues Wizards.


Undead use Charisma as their Constitution score:

<SRD Definition of Constitution>

So a "nice to have" stat becomes equal to thier highest stat.

More HP, better Concentration check, and I am sure other bonuses.

The problem is that, as the SRD says (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#undeadType), Undead only use Charisma in place of Constitution for Constitution checks. No extra HP, no bonuses to Constitution-based skills like Concentration, no increase to Fortitude saves. It is, in every way, a negligible bonus.

[factotum]

Not that Xykon needs much in the way of extra HP anyway, given he has d12 hit dice due to his undead status.

[Doug Lampert]

Not that Xykon needs much in the way of extra HP anyway, given he has d12 hit dice due to his undead status.

Eh? High level intelligent undead have FEWER HP than live wizards.

Consider a level 20 wizard PC. He started with a 14 in Con, and did nothing to improve it other than a single item he can make for himself. At high level he averages 7.5 HP/level (151.5 including the max for level 1), undead he'd average 6.5 HP/level (135 if he still gets max for level 1).

So by the time you can afford +6 con items (which the wizard can make himself) the undead character has fewer HP than any non likely non-undead PC. Then there's the LA for being undead so you have fewer HD in the first place.

[Anarion]

I'm wondering if some people might have gotten mixed up between 3.5e and Pathfinder. One of the changes they made in Pathfinder is that undead gain their charisma bonus to HP in place of their con score. In 3.5e they don't, charisma only matters for con checks, most of which undead ignore anyway.

[Lord Raziere]

eh, I prefer it to think that Sorcerers are more street smart and people-savy while Wizards are book-smart specialists….

but that still doesn't stop my sorcerer from using Spellcraft and Use Magic Device like a hacker :smallcool:

and please keep in mind…this sort of spellcasting elitism can work both ways….



She said with a mischievous smile and even more mischievous twinkle in her eyes. she walked right up to the wizard and imitated a noblewoman's voice.

"My word, Natasha! How dare he insult the Ancient and Proud Lineages of the Sorcerous Bloodlines! Is it not sad, that the world has reduced spellcasting from its noble high art to mere trickery that pops out of odd little books carried around by commoners? I mean really, them with their drab and dull language, their overly technical approach of incantation, it simply has no life or art to it darling, no art at all! Unlike us sorcerers who are cultured and wise to the ways of the world outside dusty tomes, who are in tune with magic is in its natural state, ohohohohoho…."

She continued showing how a sorcerer can be a cultured, refined jerk using flowery language and demonstrating how elitism can work both ways, all with a smile on her face about how she knew everything she was saying was like, half garbage.


I mean really, the whole conflict is silly. Wizards are more useful for some things, Sorcerers are more useful for other things, they aren't that different anyways, and you take what spellcaster you can get for the most part...

[Weimann]

Do we know that Wizards hate and/or despise Sorcerers? We know that some Wizards do, but that's very unlikely to be neither ubiquitous nor Wizard-specific. Is it actually stated in the comic that there's a class-wide tension?

[SaintRidley]

Do we know that Wizards hate and/or despise Sorcerers? We know that some Wizards do, but that's very unlikely to be neither ubiquitous nor Wizard-specific. Is it actually stated in the comic that there's a class-wide tension?

Best I can give you is that every Wizard in the comic who has had occasion to comment upon Sorcerers has commented upon the inferiority of Sorcerers to Wizards.

[MReav]

One of the things that probably frustrates high-level sorcerers is that while the Wizard complaint is more valid at low levels, you don't get to be high level just by coasting through life. It's like a music student complaining about how another music student got into a prestigious music school on natural talent alone while the first one had to work his ass off, while completely ignoring the fact that to graduate, the naturally talented student has to practice just as much as the other student, and the other student constantly rubs it in to the naturally talented music student.

[Grimsage Matt]

On the undead and Cha thing, there is a feat that lets them use Cha for bonus HP.So ya, feat tax, but undead Sorcerer can use it.

[SaintRidley]

On the undead and Cha thing, there is a feat that lets them use Cha for bonus HP.So ya, feat tax, but undead Sorcerer can use it.

No, there actually isn't. It's a special ability that got liberally applied to Undead in later books because the designers realized that Undead actually came out behind on HP, but it never got made a feat.

Unholy Toughness would be a reasonable thing to make into a feat, though.

[Joe the Rat]

I want to know what the occasional Ultimate Magus (sorcerer/wizard) thinks on the subject.

My Guess, they'd find the wizards are having issues with someone else being more "gifted" magically - but are feeling intellectually superior. And they'd appreciate the sorcerer's talents, but find their lack of intellectual curiosity about what they do disappointing (or lazy). This is the combination of talent and training that Chaos Queen alluded to initially - a gifted fighter is one with potential. A gifted fighter who hones his skill and shows a greater understanding is one who is truly impressive.

It kind of falls apart when you bring it back to the rules, but it sounds good on paper.

[Sorator]

If you play by the rules, you usually can get any spell in the book as scroll. So Sorcerers cannot "learn" a spell for re-use, but they have full access (for gold) to them as well.
That might make a difference in a fight or in any "closed" setting, like a dungeon where time is an issue. For warding a home or an item with all the time required it makes no difference at all.
Which is why I said wizards have greater access to those spells - and on the off chance they have to cast them again, well, they're in their book still. While a sorcerer has to go hunt down scrolls of all these various obscure spells again. It's annoying enough to have to do that for the divine-only spells you want on your phylactery, not to mention half the arcane ones too. (And wizards probably have greater traffic in scrolls & spellbook swapping than sorcerers, too, so it'll be easier for them to obtain those in the first place.)

This is, of course, assuming you don't have an uber-magic-mart where you can just as easily get a scroll of sepia snake sigil as you can a scroll of dispel magic or summon monster III.


I mean really, the whole conflict is silly.
Definitely.


It kind of falls apart when you bring it back to the rules, but it sounds good on paper.
I think this is true about almost every aspect of D&D, heh.

[JSSheridan]

Wizards fear sorcerers because the latter threatens to take the former's role in a party and make them obsolete. Even though it's a baseless fear, wizards can be irrational in spite of their intelligence. The contempt the former shows toward the latter is just how they try to justify their superiority.

[iTookUrNick]

Also, Wizard are tier-1, Sorcerers are tier-s (source (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0)). I would not even bring this up, but the tier system has ben referenced in-comic (Small Talk (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0764.html): tier envy, panel 5) and thus should be considered a valid argument from the characters' perspective as well.

[librisrouge]

Because they'r inferior genetic deviations who don't understand the awesome power mistakenly bestowed upon their pinky since they didn't have to work for their misbegotten power.

...I'm just saying.

[Dr.Epic]

Think of it like this: You've spent your entire life just to master cantrips, and this guy never had to open a single book to cast magic missile. What you had to work countless hours, nay, years to obtain, they didn't have to do anything. You think wizards are going to think that's fair?

[Winter]

Undead use Charisma as their Constitution score: [...]

I fear we need to call your GM and tell him your Liche does not work as you told him it would. :smallsmile:

On the other hand: Hist Big Bad Lich also now has much less HPs.

In general, Undead lose their Con, but that does not matter as they are immune to most things they need to make a Con (fort) check anyway.

They use Charisma for Concentration-checks now, which is actually nice for Sorcerer-Lichs (but usually truly ugly for Wizard-Lichs).

If they have to make a fort-check (against some damaging spell as, for example), the modifier is considered to be 0.

[ti'esar]

"Truly ugly". Heh.

[Asta Kask]

Best I can give you is that every Wizard in the comic who has had occasion to comment upon Sorcerers has commented upon the inferiority of Sorcerers to Wizards.

Has V done it?

[Sorator]

Has V done it?

Not commented on, but reacted in a way that supports it, yes.

[Jay R]

But what about the fact that Xykon mopped the floor with Vaarsuvius while she was pumped up on wizard steroids? I think it all depends on the dedication.

That wasn't about Wizard vs. Sorcerer; it was about levels of power. And for at least part of it, power took the form of a +8 racial bonus to Listen skill checks (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0657.html).

[Wardog]

I know its mentioned in the official rules, but I really don't like the idea that "sorcerers don't need to study or train, and cannot be taught - they just do magic" (and presumably suddenly and randomly get new spells for no reason when they level up).

Just because they are not scholars needn't mean they can't learn or practice or be taught - any more than a fighter or rogue (or even barbarian or bard).

I don't see anything wrong (conceptually) with the idea of a sorcerer who is naturally able to channel magic and cast spells spontaneously, but needs to be mentored in how to do so by a more experienced sorcerer, followed by practicing in doing so (and in aiming their spells, etc).

Whether your character is like that, or is self-taught, or (as per the rules) gets all his abilities handed to him for free while sitting in the tavern ought to be a role-playing choice, not dictated by the rules.

[Winter]

I know its mentioned in the official rules, but I really don't like the idea that "sorcerers don't need to study or train, and cannot be taught - they just do magic" (and presumably suddenly and randomly get new spells for no reason when they level up).

I think here comes in your personal flavor of roleplaying the character. How exactly does your powers develop? Are you just partying between adventures and are happy you get power by heritage or are you studying and training harder than any wizard to find out more about you? That is only your own (as player) choice.

And no matter which one you chose: the character does learn by using his abilities, which is reflected in the levels he gains. So just getting superpowerful as sorcerer is not what happens by sitting around.

[factotum]

Just because they are not scholars needn't mean they can't learn or practice or be taught - any more than a fighter or rogue (or even barbarian or bard).


Charisma is their primary casting stat, though, which means it's entirely possible to have a fully functional sorcerer with barely-above-animal-level intelligence. This is what the rules mean when they talk about a sorcerer's casting being instinctive--it's as natural to them as their arms or legs, and a baby doesn't usually need a lot of coaching to be able to walk!

[joe]

Wizards generally view magic as a science that is to be studied and generally spend a large portion of their lives doing so. Sorcerers generally have magic as a gift and can use it without any sort of real training. While this is mostly just fluff in terms of the D&D game, it can be used as a tool to create a sort of resentment between the two classes.

Wizards would view Sorcerers as someone who essentially does well, if not haphazardly something they have dedicated their lives to with very minimal effort. It's like if you study for months on some test and find out some 8 year old just walked in and did the test as well as you due to some natural talent. A bit of resentment could easily follow on that.

Sorcerers are however specialized to a very specific set of spells, and could be resentful at the fact that Wizards are capable to learning a vast array of magics while they are stuck with the small amount of power they are gifted with. So the dislike can go both ways.

Keep in mind this is all pretty much flavor text, but as far as any situation in the comic that implies Wiz vs Sorc rivalry, I would chalk it up to this.

[FireJustice]

Sorcies get all the magic by genetics and not study.
Also, since they are Char based, they get all the girls/guys

Its like a geek (Wizard) and a Jock (sorcerer), and the jock is so lucky he get a better job in nerdy things than the geek

[MReav]

Think of it like this: You've spent your entire life just to master cantrips, and this guy never had to open a single book to cast magic missile. What you had to work countless hours, nay, years to obtain, they didn't have to do anything. You think wizards are going to think that's fair?

And the sorcerers resent this attitude because that's only true at first level at most. Experience comes through practice, and while Sorcerers instinctively learn what they know, they don't learn it by sitting on their asses. They do it through lots and lots of practice, but Wizards like to believe they just get their magic and won't shut up about it.

Another analogy would be the self-made millionaire complaining that the other guy inherited his fortune. While true, at higher levels the analogy would be like the inheritor getting resentful at the fact that the self-made guy is still complaining despite the fact that the inheritor quintupled his worth on his own initiative.

[Gitman00]

TV Tropes has an entire article on this phenomenon: Unequal Rites (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnequalRites)

[the_tick_rules]

I remember it coming up in SoD. Wizards think that since they can cast a wider range of spells and change them each day to suit any situation they are awesomer, more or less. Kinda reflecting the general gaming attitude, which was the point.

[eulmanis12]

the way I see it its like the difference between a physicist and an engineer

The wizard is like a physicist, he/she has a near perfect understanding of the theory behind how the world works, but can put less of it into practice at a given time (fewer spells per day, more spells overall). In addition to this, wizards spend long amounts of time in their Ivory Tower (possibly literal) and don't tend to have a good deal of practical knowledge about how the world works.(low charisma high int)

The engineer is the sorceror. He/she tends to have a decent general knowledge of the theory behind the work, but focuses more on the practical application of it (less spells but more uses per day and more flexible use of known spells). The sorcerour does not need to focus as hard on the theoy, though a working knowledge of it is still important, as the wizard and thus is able to spend more time out in the world learning practical things and learning to work with people (high Charisma)


*disclaimer, no offence intended to physicists, out there, I am an engineer. I tried to be unbiased but probably did not succeed.

[Blue Lantern]

the way I see it its like the difference between a physicist and an engineer

The wizard is like a physicist, he/she has a near perfect understanding of the theory behind how the world works, but can put less of it into practice at a given time (fewer spells per day, more spells overall). In addition to this, wizards spend long amounts of time in their Ivory Tower (possibly literal) and don't tend to have a good deal of practical knowledge about how the world works.(low charisma high int)

The engineer is the sorceror. He/she tends to have a decent general knowledge of the theory behind the work, but focuses more on the practical application of it (less spells but more uses per day and more flexible use of known spells). The sorcerour does not need to focus as hard on the theoy, though a working knowledge of it is still important, as the wizard and thus is able to spend more time out in the world learning practical things and learning to work with people (high Charisma)


*disclaimer, no offence intended to physicists, out there, I am an engineer. I tried to be unbiased but probably did not succeed.

Why would they be offendend, you just claimed that they are better. :smallsmile:

[Asta Kask]

He also said engineers are well known for their high Charisma, which makes me wonder which planet he comes from.

[eulmanis12]

He also said engineers are well known for their high Charisma, which makes me wonder which planet he comes from.

no, I said that engineers had more practical knowledge while phisicists had more theoretical knowledge, I said this was similar, not the same thing to int and cha. I understand that its not a perfect comparison but no comparison between real world and fantasy will be perfect. the point I was driving at was that a sorceror is better able to apply magic to any given situation while a wizard is more able to understand exactly what is happening but will have more difficulty applying this knowlege.

(though I could claim that I live in a world where as an engineer I have to coordinate the actions of over a hundred people of varying levels of skill, from several different branches of engineering, in order to first design, then construct, then impliment the various projects I am a part of, a job that in addition to drawing upon my knowledge of engineering requires me to be able to get people to follow my orders when necesary, and work together at all times, things that one might use a cha stat for in D&D:smallcool:)

I said this was similar to the PhysicistvsEngineer scenario, a physicist will have a better understanding than I do of why the electrons do what they do in a radio for example, but I would do a better job actually designing and building said radio.

[King of Nowhere]

It comes to me now that it would make more sense the opposite: for sorcerers to be dismissive of wizards. They cast spells istinctively, while wizards need years of studies to do the same. from the sorcerors point of view, wizards must look like retarded who need years to figure out what's obvious to them. Plus, they can learn and memorize all the tricks but they don't really understand magic. they even need their books to cast spells, and are incapable of high magic without them.

I say this because am an acccomplished chessplayer who never studied any book, and I often felt like that towards players who studied a lot and were still weaker than me; there is a close similarity betweeen the two situations. Xykon apparently feels so, given his speech to dorukan. I know it's not pretty, but it's a natural feeling. my friends, who also were not he studious kind, felt the same. if you are talented it feels easy for you, and you don't understand how other people have so much troubles understanding it.
Plus, there's the fact that people who studied tend to know by memory all the openings, so they will always play the best moves at he beginning of the game, but then they will squander their advantage because they don't know what to do. In fact, if you play a wrong move, they often don''t know the proper answer to it and can't find it on the chessboard, with the paradoxal result that against such players it can be convenient to intentionally play bad moves. From my point of view that is not understanding the game at all. Sorcerors probably feel the same towards wizards.
From the point of view of a studious player, on the other hand, I probably don't understand chess because I often have no idea if a certain endgame can be won or not, and base my choice only on previous experience of similar positions, possibly biased by my mistakes or by those of the opponent. That would be the wozard's pow.

Last, it has to be mentioned that while I never studied chess on books, I didn't really receive my skill as a gift. For 10 years I've been playing at the chess club everytime it was open, and I did every tournament within a 100 km range from my house, so I spent practicing all the time that other people spent studying. Another similarity to the wizard/sorceror situation.

[Mike Havran]

The parallel with chess players also occured to me and I think it's pretty good. On less prestige tournaments (average FIDE rating up to 2100 or so) the difference can be seen quite often. There are the sorcerer-like players who have the natural insight into the game, but are uninterested in theory and only gain experience by playing. Then there are the wizards - those who analyze the games, study textbook openings, work with databases and engines, most of the time they even prepare for their opponent by studying his/her older games etc.

Generally, the wizard-players take the game much more seriously and can sometimes be envious of the sorcerer's talent. Also, they tend to make mistakes more often when the playing environment is not optimal (little time left, noise etc). Sorcerers, on the other hand, are sometimes impatient, may get bored with the game and can easily underestimate their opponent. So it's somehow balanced.

Of course, to ascend to the highest echelons of chess playing one needs both natural talent and serious theoretical background.

[zimmerwald1915]

What we learn from this thread is that anyone can justify their chauvinism to themselves if they try hard enough. And maybe if they're lucky they'll convince others too!

[Winter]

What we learn from this thread is that anyone can justify their chauvinism to themselves if they try hard enough. And maybe if they're lucky they'll convince others too!

Yes, that is usually what happens in the real world (of OotS, of course). Not everyone does it, but a lot of people do it.
"My group vs. theirs". Engineers vs. Physicists, Upper Class vs. Lower, White Skin vs. Green Skin, People who wear Green Boots vs. People who wear Black ones, North vs. South, Sword vs. Sorcery, Motorcycle vs. Car, City vs. Land, etc etc etc etc etc.

Be it profession, philosophy, religion (of OotS, of course), taste, birthmarks, ... you pick your choice and you will always find people who draw (sometimes arbitrary, sometimes silly) lines and borders and find reasons why this might be better than that. It's pretty universal behaviour and probably has to do with that "you can trust your tribe but not anyone from any other".

[Blue Lantern]

@King of Nowere

Looking from a purely objective point of view (ie. look at the RAW and don't consider anything else) is hard for sorcerer to be dismissive of wizard since the latter are usually better at what they do.
To reuse your chess paragon it's like if someone who spent the same number of years you practiced at chess just reading about the rules and the best moves, and manages to beat you 7 or 8 times out of 10.


@eulmanis12
First, I was kidding at the comparison (I am an engineer too) I kinda liked it.
Second the problem I have with your comparison is that I don't think describes well the situation, see phisicist and engineers, despite the rivalry, don't do the same job, the former are theoreticist that try to explain how thing works, the latter are practicist that, once know how a thing work try to figure out what can be used for; the wizard and the sorcerer on the other hand do the same job, the arcane caster.
The distinction I picture is the sorcerer is the (worker, phisicist, engineer, take your pick) specialized in a narrow field, the wizard the generalist one who can work in any field, if we are in the particular field the sorcerer specialize he can resolve problems faster an better, otherwise he struggles; the wizard instead given enough time, can solve the problems in any possible field almost as better as the sorcerer.


Originally Posted by zimmerwald1915
What we learn from this thread is that anyone can justify their chauvinism to themselves if they try hard enough. And maybe if they're lucky they'll convince others too!
Ain't that the truth.

[King of Nowhere]

What we learn from this thread is that anyone can justify their chauvinism to themselves if they try hard enough. And maybe if they're lucky they'll convince others too!

Yep, that's a common trait of mankind.

And it's partially justified in people being used to being themselves. People have different skills, and with time they get used to them and learn to use them to the best while compensating for their flaws in some way. So after a while it comes naturla to consider our skillset to be the best one.
An engineer will learn to use his practical ability in a way that is not hampered by his lower theoretical knowledge. A scientist learn to use his teoretical skill without being hampered by his lower practical ability. neither would exchange position, because both learned to get the best out of what they have.
Sorcerers and wizards have different advantages. a sorcerer will use lots of times the same spell in a day and would never do with being able to cast it only once. a wizard will be used to variety and preparing for every occurrrence. if a sorcerer would get the powers of a wizard, he would learn 3 fireballs and 3 lighting bolts as his 3rd level spells and complain he can't dela as much damage as he used to do. or he would complain that after spending some spells in an encounter, he don't have them anymore and is out of good spells shall a similar encounter arise again. A wizard getting sorcerous powers would go crazy because he cann't prepare different spells in the morning if he want to pull out some strange combo. He probably would not think on casting the same spell 6 times in a row could be a good idea. Both adapted to use their powers at the best.

in the end, as xykon said, power is power. it don't matter much what form it takes, be it the chance to prepare different spells for each encounter or to cast the same spells multiuple times.

[MReav]

You know, now that I think about it, wizards look down on pretty much every other class. I think their contempt for sorcerers mainly comes from them seeing sorcerers treading on their shoes, so they get extra personal with that.

I am curious though, what would be the relationship between wizards and psions, since they too require intense amount of study (not necessarily books, but still).

[St Fan]

There’s another aspect of that debate that should be considered, but I haven’t seen it yet in the discussion:

Class.

No, not character classes. Social classes.

To become a wizard, one needs lengthy and costly studies. The wizard’s starting age is one of the highest, and just the most vital tool of their trade, the spellbook, is pricey, not to mention all the other costs of learning.

A wizard needs to be well-educated from the start, and certainly have no time for any other “honest” work during his or her studies. Whether you become a wizard through apprenticeship with a more experienced master, or some wizarding schools exists, it is certainly something reserved for the upper crusts.

An exceptionnaly intelligent individual coming from a lower income background might become a wizard, but only if he receives some sponsoring, or have extremely dedicated parents ready to sacrifice a lot for their child’s sake. Most often, he or she will rather be oriented toward some more immediately lucrative job.

This means that a majority of wizards will come from the wealthy portions of society. By contrast, sorcerers can appear within every social class. They can perfectly come from a “two-horse town” just like Xykon. All they need is the proper ancestry. It doesn’t matter that their parents were just peasants or craftsmen, and that they were expected to take over the family’s craft; their powers manifest naturally, and at a much younger age than wizards.

Sure, you can have the occasional sorcerer born from a wealthy family too, but they are more the exception than the norm. (Those are, IMO, the more likely to becomes Ultimate Magus anyway.)

Even as they rise in power, wizards are more expected to serve nobilities or royalties as counselors. Their trade being extremely costly, they favor having a wealthy patron.

Though sorcerors may vary widely, those that aren’t chased away from their modest communities are most likely to stay on the fringe of it as a local witchdoctor or potion maker, a bit feared by their peers but called upon when the people need some magical help.

Hence the wizard/sorcerer opposition is likely to double as a social clash between classes. Wizards are elitists not just because of their powers, but also from the natural snobbery of their birth. Sorcerers are more lickely to be country hicks or from the unwashed masses. This certainly will add some fuel to the issue.

[Narren]

TV Tropes has an entire article on this phenomenon: Unequal Rites (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnequalRites)

My favorite part about that article is that it quotes a poster on this forum (SPoD) and provides a link to the post. And the sig in the linked post is blasting on TV Tropes.

[ti'esar]

In fairness, that "blasting" is based on a misunderstanding.

[DougTheHead]

I tend to think of the issue more as a nerd vs. jock conflict. The wizard (nerd) knows the principles behind what he's doing, he's studied it extensively, and this extensive learning gives him a wide range of options. The sorcerer (jock) knows what he's doing intuitively, which gives him less of a range, but also gives him more firing power- more spells per day, no need to study spells before equipping them, powers that tend toward the "blaster" type.

The wizards' disdain for the sorcerers is due to a combination of intelligence and insecurity: their learning allows them to find multiple possible solutions to a puzzle, so they tend to value that multi-faceted quality in magic, but they have to know that if they ever go toe-to-toe with a sorcerer, they stand a chance of being overwhelmed with a barrage of spells, as one Master Fryon learned to his sorrow.

[factotum]

but they have to know that if they ever go toe-to-toe with a sorcerer, they stand a chance of being overwhelmed with a barrage of spells, as one Master Fryon learned to his sorrow.

I think you mean Dorukan. Fyron was not overwhelmed by a barrage of spells:


In fact, he won the *magical* duel, and then got his head smashed in by Xykon due to forgetting that a magically defeated enemy can still use their arms!

[zimmerwald1915]

I think you mean Dorukan. Fyron was not overwhelmed by a barrage of spells:


In fact, he won the *magical* duel, and then got his head smashed in by Xykon due to forgetting that a magically defeated enemy can still use their arms!

And what's more, Dorukan found joy in his defeat. These things have a way of working themselves out.

[Clistenes]

And what's more, Dorukan found joy in his defeat. These things have a way of working themselves out.

I can't understand how an epic-level wizard like Dorukan didn't bother having Death Ward casted on him before battling an undead sorcerer! He should have used planar binding to call a celestial and kept it at hand in order to make it cast the spell on him when he needed fight Xykon.

[factotum]

I can't understand how an epic-level wizard like Dorukan didn't bother having Death Ward casted on him before battling an undead sorcerer!

Energy Drain is a standard sorcerer spell--Xykon doesn't get it from being undead, so there's no way Dorukan could know that Death Ward would have helped him. The powers Xykon *does* get from being undead (high hit points, damage reduction, fear aura, paralysing touch) would be largely irrelevant in a high-level magic duel.

Even if Energy Drain *was* something Xykon got from being undead, however, there's no guarantee Dorukan would know that. Epic level does not mean omniscient--he has to make his Knowledge checks the same way a level 1 peasant has to, and if he never specialised in knowledge of the undead, he'd have a good chance of failing that check.

[Clistenes]

Energy Drain is a standard sorcerer spell--Xykon doesn't get it from being undead, so there's no way Dorukan could know that Death Ward would have helped him. The powers Xykon *does* get from being undead (high hit points, damage reduction, fear aura, paralysing touch) would be largely irrelevant in a high-level magic duel.

Even if Energy Drain *was* something Xykon got from being undead, however, there's no guarantee Dorukan would know that. Epic level does not mean omniscient--he has to make his Knowledge checks the same way a level 1 peasant has to, and if he never specialised in knowledge of the undead, he'd have a good chance of failing that check.

But the necromancers and undead use a lot of level-drain and negative energy spells and effects. Dorukan should have protected himself from those.
It's the same as fighting an Efreet: You are going to need protection against fire damage.
And Dorukan wouldn't have survived so long if he had some basic knowledge about the attacks he could expect from different kinds of creatures.

[Winter]

But the necromancers and undead use a lot of level-drain and negative energy spells and effects. Dorukan should have protected himself from those.

Again, Knowledge(Religion). Also WE know all that but this does not mean that all characters in the universe do know it.

But Durokans knowledge could have worked against him: He could have known that Xykon was a lich and that liches do not have a level drain ability. Therefore, he saw no need to protect against it, but just did what he'd do vs. any other Wizard or Sorcerer.

No matter how you turn it: In the end it makes perfect sense (for different reason) why Dorukan did not have that spell up*.

* For that matter, it seems he did not seem to have many spells up (no glowing etc). So provoking him into attacking and making mistakes** in that just worked as Xykon had hoped.

** Being epic does not mean you do not make mistakes.

[Blue Lantern]

I'm with Clistenes on this, even if Durokan knew next to nothing about undead he still knew Xykon was making use of necromancy and, by the sheer fact of him being an epic wizard he has an intelligence of at least 19, and a bazillion ranks in spellcraft and knowledge(arcana) so he had to know there was a chance of the enemy using energy drain effect, yet he did not put any protection, despite the fact he, by his own words, "was preparing for this fight since [Xykon] arrived on my doorstep" (ie. around an year) and despite the fact that he ad 4 rounds of preparation. (30 second countdown before the teleport), and I don't even want to get started on the tactics used even though intelligence IS the stats that should govern logic, rational thinking and planning.
The fight between Xykon and Durokan is entirely plot driven, don't get me wrong, it's still a more than enjoyable piece of story, but I consider a weak point in the overall story, hell the Varsavius fight was based on the same premises but was handled much more better.

JM2C

[Clistenes]

I'm with Clistenes on this, even if Durokan knew next to nothing about undead he still knew Xykon was making use of necromancy and, by the sheer fact of him being an epic wizard he has an intelligence of at least 19, and a bazillion ranks in spellcraft and knowledge(arcana) so he had to know there was a chance of the enemy using energy drain effect, yet he did not put any protection, despite the fact he, by his own words, "was preparing for this fight since [Xykon] arrived on my doorstep" (ie. around an year) and despite the fact that he ad 4 rounds of preparation. (30 second countdown before the teleport), and I don't even want to get started on the tactics used even though intelligence IS the stats that should govern logic, rational thinking and planning.
The fight between Xykon and Durokan is entirely plot driven, don't get me wrong, it's still a more than enjoyable piece of story, but I consider a weak point in the overall story, hell the Varsavius fight was based on the same premises but was handled much more better.

JM2C

Not only Energy Drain, there are a bajizillon necromantic negative energy attacks and death effects that can only be blocked by Death Ward or by very high Spell Resistance (which Dorukan apparently didn't have either).

I mean, a powerful undead spellcaster with an army of undead, able to cast Soul Bind? That screams "necromancer".

[MReav]

Knowledge Religion is a class skill of Wizards (knowledge any is one). He probably would have had a few ranks in it. V claims s/he's well versed in undead.

[Winter]

V claims s/he's well versed in undead.

Also, what is "well versed", especially if you count in that Vaarsuvius is known to brag. Is it 2 ranks? 5? 8? 12? I doubt the first numbers would be enough to reliable make knowledge check about "obscure" knowledge.
Every check that is <75% to succeed can reasonably be assumed to have simply not been made.

[Blue Lantern]

Also, what is "well versed", especially if you count in that Vaarsuvius is known to brag. Is it 2 ranks? 5? 8? 12? I doubt the first numbers would be enough to reliable make knowledge check about "obscure" knowledge.
Every check that is <75% to succeed can reasonably be assumed to have simply not been made.

You keep beating this point to death (:smalltongue:) but as already explained there was no need for Durokan to know about undead in general and lich in particular to know that putting up a fight with an epic sorcerer without any protection whatsoever is not a very smart move, quite the opposite.

[Winter]

You keep beating this point to death

No, people keep bringing it up. And in this case it was about Vaarsuvius, not Dorukan (who acted very stupid and rash, just as Xykon had planned).

[King of Nowhere]

what if dorukan just had no way of casting death ward?
Someone mentioned binding a celestial to cast it, but that is the kind of things that if I were the DM would make me say "ok, there, a couple of solars knoking on your door...". I mean, you don't want to inimicate yourself to those kind of powers, no matter how powerful you are.
another option would be to cast it from limited wish, but that would have required spending xp, something no adventurer is eager to do. especially since dorukan was confident he could win anyway.
or maybe he had it on a wand, but didn't have the wand handy when xykon challenged him and didn't want to wait the time needed to find it, out of concern for lirian.
maybe he just forgot it. he had a list of spells he had to cast before confronting xykon, and he just missed it. I am pretty sure there's no one here who never said "damn, I forgoto to take X" when coming home from the shopping mall or going to vacation.
maybe he didn't knew of the existence of the spell. it is a divine spell, and many arcane casters are dismissive of clerical spells to the point of being quite ignorant on them (see V not knowing about the casting time of resurrection).
maybe dorukan DID actually cast the spell somehow, but xykon dispelled it. that fight took long enough, and they cast many spells offpanel.
So there's plenty of acceptale reasons why dorukan didn't have a death ward on him. Yes, they are unlikely, but not so unlikely that they couldn't have happened. Some people just don't want to accept them.

Also, being a lich has many more advantages than just hit points and fear aura and paralizying touch. namely, immunity to death effects, mind affecting spells, level drain, cold, electricity and a few other minor things. it's basically like having death ward, mind blank, and two greater resist elements always active. And that's a powerful asset in a magical duel. especially because you can fit your gear to cover just the few weaknesses you have left, so you can have much greater magical protection in those areas that are not covered by lich immunities.

[Felyndiira]

I think we're getting into SoD spoiler territory, so:

Also, keep in mind that Dorukan never intended to fight Xykon in the first place. Him coming out in the first place is an act of snap judgment brought about by Xykon suddenly waving Lirian's soul gem in his face. For all that we know, Dorukan could have been planning to scry the lich first; or he might (and this is the most likely case) just be careless because he never planned to fight Xykon, and planning is a wizard's specialty.

Jumping out suddenly because of a moment of passion (and thus without appropriate protection) would probably have caused the death of a high-level wizard in any D&D, but Dorukan did snap, so judgment lapse isn't entirely implausible.

[Blue Lantern]

It's a long post so it'll split the answers


what if dorukan just had no way of casting death ward?
Someone mentioned binding a celestial to cast it, but that is the kind of things that if I were the DM would make me say "ok, there, a couple of solars knoking on your door...". I mean, you don't want to inimicate yourself to those kind of powers, no matter how powerful you are.

This refers SoD
Yet he had no problem calling a bunch of celestial later during the fight. Also I personally thing the higher spheres would be understanding if asked help against a menace of Xykon caliber.


another option would be to cast it from limited wish, but that would have required spending xp, something no adventurer is eager to do. especially since dorukan was confident he could win anyway.
or maybe he had it on a wand, but didn't have the wand handy when xykon challenged him and didn't want to wait the time needed to find it, out of concern for lirian.

There is a fine line between arrogance and stupidity, being confident of your superiority is arrogance, throwing yourself in a fight to death against an enemy you have strong suspicion was able to kill an epic level druid without preparation is stupidity.


maybe he just forgot it. he had a list of spells he had to cast before confronting xykon, and he just missed it. I am pretty sure there's no one here who never said "damn, I forgoto to take X" when coming home from the shopping mall or going to vacation.

Again, not an option that screams "high intelligence right here!"


maybe he didn't knew of the existence of the spell. it is a divine spell, and many arcane casters are dismissive of clerical spells to the point of being quite ignorant on them (see V not knowing about the casting time of resurrection).

Still there are plently of other difences he could have used, not as effective granted, but better than nothing, even remaining all in core we have mage armor, shield, mirror image, displacement, invisibility, basically anything that would make him harder to be hit.


maybe dorukan DID actually cast the spell somehow, but xykon dispelled it. that fight took long enough, and they cast many spells offpanel.

Maybe, but even so show don't tell should be in effect, and even if that was the case it does not excuse the dumb behaviour during the fight.
Again SoD spoiler
For instance after the first Energy drain, against which he had no defenses, he did nothing to prevent another, nor he tried to escape, and keeped doing nothing, not a smart move.
Even assuming he had his buffs dispelled (yet somehow maintaing his flight spell, what an amazing coincidence) even though the time frame make it a little difficult (We see Xykon using an energy drain right after finishing the angels and he clearly stated that Dorkukan used the time to buff himself), there are a numerous thing he could have done to help.
Even assuming the first energy drain hit for max (another amazing coincidence) and keeping count of the spell he cast, he should still have had all spells up to 6° level, he could have teleported or dimensioned door away, he could have used abjuration to increase his AC or used illusion to give him a miss chance, no he stood like a statue and keep being energy drained.
Yes there are a series of possibilities to include the scenario, even though all of them include a series of pretty dumb choices, but none is shown, and that's quite disappointing, for instance in the fight with Varsavius at least he tried to escape.


So there's plenty of acceptale reasons why dorukan didn't have a death ward on him. Yes, they are unlikely, but not so unlikely that they couldn't have happened. Some people just don't want to accept them.

The problem I have is not that they are unlikely, but that all of them involves an epic level wizard with certified 19 intelligence acting like an idiot.

[QUOTE=King of Nowere;14278816]Also, being a lich has many more advantages than just hit points and fear aura and paralizying touch. namely, immunity to death effects, mind affecting spells, level drain, cold, electricity and a few other minor things. it's basically like having death ward, mind blank, and two greater resist elements always active. And that's a powerful asset in a magical duel. especially because you can fit your gear to cover just the few weaknesses you have left, so you can have much greater magical protection in those areas that are not covered by lich immunities.

yes, but since Dorkukan, by his own admission, had the best part of a year to prepare for the fight, he should have done a better job, even assuming he rushed the confrontation.



I think we're getting into SoD spoiler territory, so:

Also, keep in mind that Dorukan never intended to fight Xykon in the first place. Him coming out in the first place is an act of snap judgment brought about by Xykon suddenly waving Lirian's soul gem in his face. For all that we know, Dorukan could have been planning to scry the lich first; or he might (and this is the most likely case) just be careless because he never planned to fight Xykon, and planning is a wizard's specialty.

Jumping out suddenly because of a moment of passion (and thus without appropriate protection) would probably have caused the death of a high-level wizard in any D&D, but Dorukan did snap, so judgment lapse isn't entirely implausible.

Actually his words implies that he was merely waiting for Xykon to show Lirian soul before acting, and that he was preparing for than, not particularly effectively I might add.

My point being it's not that I have difficulties accepting Dorkukan defeat, but I have problem with the fact that any scenario I can picture involves him acting like an idiot.

[Kish]

Yes, Dorukan acted like an idiot. He believed that being a wizard made him superior to a sorcerer. Not only did he say as much to Xykon, but it's the central theme of the Order of the Scribble: They split up because each of them believed his or her art to be far superior to all the others.

As for Xykon defeating Lirian before, well, I'm sure Dorukan respected her as much as he respected anyone who wasn't a wizard. Similarly, he respected Xykon enough to use ninth-level spells against him; what more could an inferior spellcaster hope for? It's not like he just spammed Magic Missile and laughed, "Die, sorcerer!"

[Blue Lantern]

Ok it seems that I can not manage to make my point come across. If you create or use a framework in which your characters act that has a certain set of rules it is expected that those rules should be followed, or at least it should be given an explanation when they are not.
In this settings Wizard are supposed to have high intelligence, with intelligence being the capacity to reason logically, identify and asses a situation and make plans. Dorkukan seemed to have done none of those things, despite caliming the opposite.
I have heard a lot of possible justifications, low wisdom, overconfidence, he was pissed, etc... but I believe those justifications:

1) Are weak: Wisdom is hindsight, Intelligence is Cunning, low wisdom explains his underestimating the enemy and getting goaded. Throwing himself in the fight without protection, having spent almost an year in preparations that did not result in any noticeable advantage, and using extremely poor tactics is the mark of a low intelligence, and that clashes with the rules of the settings.

2) Should not be needed: I believe there is a difference between a piece of story that could be interpreted in different ways and one that requires razionalization to work.

This for me breaks the suspension of disbelief and also completely undermines all the speech Xykon gives about overwhelming power being better than precise planification because their fight did not showed that at all, Xykon did not win because he was stronger, he won because his adversary was dumb, even though he should not have.

Varsavius is at least as arrogant as Dorkukan yet, when given the power, despite being barely coherent from trance deprivation, stress and two evil souls whispering in his ears managed to put up a smarter fight, at the very least he did not engage without some protection beforehand and, when things went shout, he tried to escape.

[MReav]

what if dorukan just had no way of casting death ward?

Xykon was able to snag an anti-positive energy ring off of EBay. One would assume there would be similar rings/magical items for negative energy, especially since Death Ward is a Core spell.

[Clistenes]

Xykon was able to snag an anti-positive energy ring off of EBay. One would assume there would be similar rings/magical items for negative energy, especially since Death Ward is a Core spell.

Ring of Death Ward, (Source:Dragon #342, Price 60,000 gp). Tsukiko had one so she could have sex with her wights without getting killed.

[Winter]

Look, people: The point of that entire scene is that Xykon goaded Dorukan into making stupid mistakes. Dorukan probably made many, many more than just forgetting Death Ward when he ran into that fight without thinking it through, but the Death Ward thing was what killed him.

If Xykon had spammed Meteor Swarms instead, Dorukan would have fallen as well and we'd be discussing now why he was not protected against that. Or lightning. Or acid. Or whatever.

The point is not that Dorukan was not wearing an item vs. this or that, but that he rushed into it (as Xykon had planned) and was ruthlessly killed for that.

[Blue Lantern]

Look, people: The point of that entire scene is that Xykon goaded Dorukan into making stupid mistakes. Dorukan probably made many, many more than just forgetting Death Ward when he ran into that fight without thinking it through, but the Death Ward thing was what killed him.

If Xykon had spammed Meteor Swarms instead, Dorukan would have fallen as well and we'd be discussing now why he was not protected against that. Or lightning. Or acid. Or whatever.

The point is not that Dorukan was not wearing an item vs. this or that, but that he rushed into it (as Xykon had planned) and was ruthlessly killed for that.

Yes and the problem of that point is that Dorkukan being goaded into the fight does not justify at all the fact that he acted like a moron; especially since he claimed he was well prepared for the fight and was just waiting the moment Xykon showed the soul gem.

[sims796]

Ring of Death Ward, (Source:Dragon #342, Price 60,000 gp). Tsukiko had one so she could have sex with her wights without getting killed.

Goddammit, man. There were so many ways you could have written that sentence so I could retain my lunch. You did that on purpose, didn't you?

[Kish]

Varsavius is at least as arrogant as Dorkukan yet, when given the power, despite being barely coherent from trance deprivation, stress and two evil souls whispering in his ears managed to put up a smarter fight, at the very least he did not engage without some protection beforehand and, when things went shout, he tried to escape.
Right, good thing Vaarsuvius totally summoned a Ring of Death Ward so that Xykon's Maximized Energy Drain didn't cost either spliced soul their epic-level slots, didn't lead with an element Xykon was completely immune to, and didn't, in general, act like the fact that s/he had Soul Splices should mean s/he could just overwhelm Xykon like a tenth-level wizard facing a goblin with no class levels. Other than the lack of Death Ward (a similarity, not a difference, between Vaarsuvius and Dorukan), I also wonder why you're so sure Dorukan didn't have protection spells in place. Vaarsuvius brought twice as much power and did worse than Dorukan.

[Blue Lantern]

Right, good thing Vaarsuvius totally summoned a Ring of Death Ward so that Xykon's Maximized Energy Drain didn't cost either spliced soul their epic-level slots, didn't lead with an element Xykon was completely immune to, and didn't, in general, act like the fact that s/he had Soul Splices should mean s/he could just overwhelm Xykon like a tenth-level wizard facing a goblin with no class levels. Other than the lack of Death Ward (a similarity, not a difference, between Vaarsuvius and Dorukan), I also wonder why you're so sure Dorukan didn't have protection spells in place. Vaarsuvius brought twice as much power and did worse than Dorukan.

At least there are story justifications for that, he was forbidden to replicate divine magic so he could not cast death ward himself, and creating a magical item even with wish requires XP wich he may not have availables.
And yes his battle strategy involving overwhelm the enemy with superior firepower was not the smartest one, but at least within this framework his action were not too dumb, he opened with Time Stop that was countered, then used chain lightning which, despite being ineffective against Xykon (and the fact that Varsavious does not know much about liches is consistent) destroyed the wards; after that he used spells like disintegrate and sunburst that are generally effective against undead, and spells like dimensional anchor and Crushing hand to reduce the other mobility, in the end, when his protection got dispelled he tried to escape, in this case you see that Xykon won because he fought better and was better prepared, not just because of plot exigences.
I am not arguing that a Wizard with high intelligence should always use the best possible strategy, but that they should at least avoid action that a 5 year old would find stupid.

By comparison the fight Dorkukan (SoD Spoilers)
- Had one year time of preparation, even if he spent one spell slot a week for divination he could have known what Xykon parents had for breakfast the day he was concieved.
- Had 30 seconds before actions, that means 1 to 3 rounds of preparation times that he did not seems to have used (depending if you count teleport and attack as a single round or invisibility, teleport and attack as three separate round), cosidering one round used casting flight.
- Used some direct attack spell that had effect, but that's ok.
- Called a bunch of angels with Gate, exluding the metagaming factor that using a single creature is better it was not a bad move, he got some time and forced Xykon to use some of his resources, exept during that time he either did nothing or as Xykon suggest used some buffs that had no noticeable effect.
- Between the kill of the last angel and the first energy drain we see
- Xykon starts using energy drain, Dorkukan does nothing, as I already explained, even after the first energy drain he should still have some spells available and there are some low levels spells that coul have helped him a little, if we had see him at least try to use a spell and failing, the whole thing would have been a lot better.

Also I already made my point about the "he could have had protection but they got dispelled" theory, the fact that he did not try to cast some other or tried to escape seems still pretty stupid to me.

Now I understand that the focus of the scene was with Redcloack and Righteye, and the fight was pretty much a glorified background event, but as I said it did undermine the speech about power Xykon made, if I were to judge him by Start of Darkness alone I would think, yeah he is a really cool villain, but he only won because of plot. Luckly things were fixed later.

[Clistenes]

Goddammit, man. There were so many ways you could have written that sentence so I could retain my lunch. You did that on purpose, didn't you?

Yes :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue:

[Winter]

especially since he claimed he was well prepared for the fight and was just waiting the moment Xykon showed the soul gem.

Would you not claim the same? Especially in rage?

Also, the comic pretty solidly is proof what to think about Dorukan's claims there: nothing.

[King of Nowhere]

I see many people just say "Dorukan is too smart to make a mistake", which is totally unreasonable. High intelligence do not make you immune to mistake.
I am a strong chessplayer, last time I checked I was ranked around 200 in italy, and yet I keep making mistakes that an amateur player would immediately spot. And once I won against a great master (ranked about 700th in the world) because he made a blunder and lost a knight in 2 moves. That's a mistake the weakest player in my chess club would have normally seen, and yet it was made by one of the strongest players in the world. And all those bad moves are made during long time games, after several minutes of carful thinking.

So, saying "he was to smart to do something that stupid" is nosense. Please stop arguing for it, very intelligent people making very stupid mistakes is something that happens daily.

[Winter]

Intelligence has nothing to do with doing stupid things. Very smart people occasionally do very dumb things once emotion gets involved. Don't believe me? Ask General Patraeus. Last I heard he now has lots of time now to answer all your question.

Can we please stop assuming that the number of dumb thing people do is declining with a rising IQ. Some of the dumb things someone with an IQ 130 does are different from those someone who just has one of 80 does; others are totally the same. And I would not say the dumb things one or the other person does are "fewer", just different.

Dorukan simply screwed up by acting too rash in that very moment.

[veti]

Very smart people occasionally do very dumb things once emotion gets involved.

And let's not forget Xykon's prime stat. With a CHA presumably in the mid-20s, he can goad like nobody's business. Not surprising people tend to lose their cool when dealing with him.

(Including Roy (twice), Miko, Tsukiko, Eugene - basically, most anyone who's come into personal contact with him has acted stupidly.)

[Blue Lantern]

Would you not claim the same? Especially in rage?

Also, the comic pretty solidly is proof what to think about Dorukan's claims there: nothing.

If I was so angry that my mental faculties are apparently impaired razionalizing hardly would cross my mind.
Also are you claiming he spent an year sitting in his fortress waiting for Xykon showing the soul gem and doing nothing to prepare himself? I would call that pretty solid proof that he is a moron.


I see many people just say "Dorukan is too smart to make a mistake", which is totally unreasonable. High intelligence do not make you immune to mistake.
I am a strong chessplayer, last time I checked I was ranked around 200 in italy, and yet I keep making mistakes that an amateur player would immediately spot. And once I won against a great master (ranked about 700th in the world) because he made a blunder and lost a knight in 2 moves. That's a mistake the weakest player in my chess club would have normally seen, and yet it was made by one of the strongest players in the world. And all those bad moves are made during long time games, after several minutes of carful thinking.

So, saying "he was to smart to do something that stupid" is nosense. Please stop arguing for it, very intelligent people making very stupid mistakes is something that happens daily.

Again, for the third time, I am not arguing smart people should never do any mistake, is the sheer magnitude of the stupid acts committed that I have trouble accepting.
To put your chess example in prospective is like the master lost his Knight, Bishop, Rook and Queen in 5 moves because of stupid blunder, while still believing his strategy was sound in a competition where the punishment for losing would mean having his head cut off...
Yes it does sound ridiculous but this is the benchmark we have here, Dorkukan throw himself in a fight without any protection, without any appreciable strategy, without backing down when things went bad and that got himself killed.
I am sorry but just saying sometimes a mistake is possible does not cut it for me, because it is much more than that.

ps- hello fellow italian. :smallsmile:


Intelligence has nothing to do with doing stupid things. Very smart people occasionally do very dumb things once emotion gets involved. Don't believe me? Ask General Patraeus. Last I heard he now has lots of time now to answer all your question.

Can we please stop assuming that the number of dumb thing people do is declining with a rising IQ. Some of the dumb things someone with an IQ 130 does are different from those someone who just has one of 80 does; others are totally the same. And I would not say the dumb things one or the other person does are "fewer", just different.

Dorukan simply screwed up by acting too rash in that very moment.

Forgive me but I have no idea who General Patraeus is, I am not from US, but at the risk of sounding stupid myself unless he:
1) Was considered a genius
2) Got himself killed because of his mistake
I fail to see the paragon, one I would use to keep the military theme (I assume) is if a renowned and highly decorated field commander suddenly decided to make a infantry charge against a fortified artillery position on high ground while outnumbered and didn't even tried to retreat so got everyone killed, just because the enemy commander goaded him, would you consider him smart?

I would really like to see a possible example of someone who would make use of such poor judgement in a life and death situation and still be considered intelligent.

I really hope this time I made my position more clear but to reassume, for me there is a limit of stupid things I can accept from a person before stopping to consider him intelligent.

[Incom]

^Just google his name. Don't want to break real-world politics rules while explaining it to you.

[King of Nowhere]

Again, for the third time, I am not arguing smart people should never do any mistake, is the sheer magnitude of the stupid acts committed that I have trouble accepting.


And what I was trying to argue is just that, that even intelligent people can make mistakes of very sheer magnitude.
But I see my chess example didn't work well, probably because not many people know much about chess.
So let's see if I can explain how big the magnitude of the great master's mistake.
That great master who lost a piece in 2 with several minutes to think was rated 2450. he can expect to perform a score of 90% against a player rated 2100. the player ranked 2100 can expect to perform 90% against a 1750. THAT player could score a 90% against a 1400. And a chessplayer rated 1400 would generally NOT make that mistake, not even when playing in a pub, half drunk, with few seconds to think and people shouting in his ears. It was something of such a sheer magnitude that it could be compared to a formula1 professional racer hitting the wall when parking the car. I don't know if I can convey the meaning more than that.


And let's not forget Xykon's prime stat. With a CHA presumably in the mid-20s, he can goad like nobody's business. Not surprising people tend to lose their cool when dealing with him.

You know, that is a very good explanation of why people tend to act dumb around xykon. Now that I think about it, the behaviour of all those who confronted him makes much more sense.

[Math_Mage]

And what I was trying to argue is just that, that even intelligent people can make mistakes of very sheer magnitude.
But I see my chess example didn't work well, probably because not many people know much about chess.
So let's see if I can explain how big the magnitude of the great master's mistake.
That great master who lost a piece in 2 with several minutes to think was rated 2450. he can expect to perform a score of 90% against a player rated 2100. the player ranked 2100 can expect to perform 90% against a 1750. THAT player could score a 90% against a 1400. And a chessplayer rated 1400 would generally NOT make that mistake, not even when playing in a pub, half drunk, with few seconds to think and people shouting in his ears. It was something of such a sheer magnitude that it could be compared to a formula1 professional racer hitting the wall when parking the car. I don't know if I can convey the meaning more than that.

It's probably easier to just reference the time Kramnik missed mate in 1 against Deep Fritz after playing to a drawn position. (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3509) Point is, people should stop nitpicking the chess details and acknowledge the basic point that even the most brilliant people make dumb mistakes. (And by "people" I mean just one person.)

That said, it still bothers me that Dorukan has known about the threat at his door for months, apparently considers himself prepared by the standards of an Epic-level wizard, and yet only really demonstrates how completely unprepared he is. *shrug*

[lio45]

You know, that is a very good explanation of why people tend to act dumb around xykon. Now that I think about it, the behaviour of all those who confronted him makes much more sense.

So the conclusion is that your personal CHA is so high it will cause such things as having a chess master lose a knight to you in 2 moves? :P

[Dr.Epic]

Sorcies get all the magic by genetics and not study.
Also, since they are Char based, they get all the girls/guys

Its like a geek (Wizard) and a Jock (sorcerer), and the jock is so lucky he get a better job in nerdy things than the geek

I'd watch a movie that was basically Revenge of the Nerd except with wizards and sorcerers.

[ReaderAt2046]

That said, it still bothers me that Dorukan has known about the threat at his door for months, apparently considers himself prepared by the standards of an Epic-level wizard, and yet only really demonstrates how completely unprepared he is. *shrug*

What exactly could he do to prepare during those months? Buff spells don't last for weeks or even days, so there's no point casting them until necessary. He had already raised his dungeon defenses as high as he could get them to go, so nothing much to do there. And I'm not sure he could have scored magic items even if he'd thought of that, since he's essentially under seige and might not have the correct crafting feats.

[MReav]

I'd watch a movie that was basically Revenge of the Nerd except with wizards and sorcerers.

Wait, who would be the nerds and who would be the jocks?

[Koo Rehtorb]

So the conclusion is that your personal CHA is so high it will cause such things as having a chess master lose a knight to you in 2 moves? :P

If you were a chess grandmaster playing chess with a famous celebrity you might not be able to concentrate on the game as well as you normally would.

[zimmerwald1915]

Yes it does sound ridiculous but this is the benchmark we have here, Dorkukan throw himself in a fight without any protection, without any appreciable strategy, without backing down when things went bad and that got himself killed.
Just so we're clear, just where could Dorukan have retreated? He couldn't have gone back into his dungeon. The Cloister he had raised prevented him from entering by any means other than passing the barrier physically, and Xykon could simply have followed him (or blasted him out of the sky) if he tried. He couldn't have teleported anywhere else, since then Xykon would have been able to seize the dungeon and the Gate for himself and the point of Dorukan being there at all was to ensure that that would never happen. True, the Cloister would have gone down in a month or so without Dorukan being around to cast it, but ceding the Gate to the enemy for a month so they can work on opening it with impunity is even less intelligent than trying to defend it. The way Dorukan chose to fight, retreat was not an option.

That said, this argument merely pushes Dorukan's foolishness back a step. He couldn't retreat once he'd put himself in the position he did, but he chose to put himself into a position from which he couldn't retreat in the first place.


Forgive me but I have no idea who General Patraeus is, I am not from US, but at the risk of sounding stupid myself unless he:
1) Was considered a genius
2) Got himself killed because of his mistake
I fail to see the paragon, one I would use to keep the military theme (I assume) is if a renowned and highly decorated field commander suddenly decided to make a infantry charge against a fortified artillery position on high ground while outnumbered and didn't even tried to retreat so got everyone killed, just because the enemy commander goaded him, would you consider him smart?
The scenario you're describing is a pretty much 1:1 description of the Battle of Gettysburg, and there exist whole schools of historians dedicated to debating whether the conduct and result of that battle really has any bearing on whether Lee should be considered a military genius or not. The debate's been going for over two hundred years.

[Dr.Epic]

Wait, who would be the nerds and who would be the jocks?

:smallconfused:

I'd think it be pretty obvious the wizards are the nerds, and the sorcerers are the jocks.

[MReav]

:smallconfused:

I'd think it be pretty obvious the wizards are the nerds, and the sorcerers are the jocks.

But it's the sorcerers who are the underdogs in this sort of thing. Since the nerds are the underdogs, doesn't that make them the sorcerers?

[Blue Lantern]

And what I was trying to argue is just that, that even intelligent people can make mistakes of very sheer magnitude.
But I see my chess example didn't work well, probably because not many people know much about chess.
So let's see if I can explain how big the magnitude of the great master's mistake.
That great master who lost a piece in 2 with several minutes to think was rated 2450. he can expect to perform a score of 90% against a player rated 2100. the player ranked 2100 can expect to perform 90% against a 1750. THAT player could score a 90% against a 1400. And a chessplayer rated 1400 would generally NOT make that mistake, not even when playing in a pub, half drunk, with few seconds to think and people shouting in his ears. It was something of such a sheer magnitude that it could be compared to a formula1 professional racer hitting the wall when parking the car. I don't know if I can convey the meaning more than that.

Nope, once again I could non make my point clear, let's try again.

To reuse your chess example, after that 10 megaton blunder, what did that masted do?
1) He realized his mistake and tried to recover from it, albeit uselessly.
2) he kept going with a foolish strategy without even bothering to correct his play, maybe not even noticing it was a bad one?
If the answer is 1, I say ok, it's a mistake, it can happen, if the answer is two then I will probably start having some doubt how he got ranked so high in the first place.

Now what Dorkukan did that bothers me is not one single mistake, but a series of really stupid mistakes even when he saw his action where not working in a situation when his very life was at stake.
To put it more clearly (hopefully) SoD spoilers

1) He got goaded into a fight in an unfavorable position because of an emoctional reaction - Stupid mistake but acceptable.
2) He threw himself in the fight without any protection despite having the time to get some - hard to swallow but ok.
3) He spent an year being besieged and apparently not doing much to prepare himself if not putting up some defences in the dungeon - at this point my theet starts to cringe.
4) Fighting without any appreciable strategy, without any protactions nor contingecies (and I don't mean the spell) and with, frankly, not particularly good tactics - my head shakes, we are pushing the boundaries of credibility.
5) When the fight started going extremely badly for him he stood still, did nothing, and got killed - At this point we are past any justification.



What exactly could he do to prepare during those months? Buff spells don't last for weeks or even days, so there's no point casting them until necessary. He had already raised his dungeon defenses as high as he could get them to go, so nothing much to do there. And I'm not sure he could have scored magic items even if he'd thought of that, since he's essentially under seige and might not have the correct crafting feats.

Where do I even start, he could have used divination to learn everything about Xykon, his spells, his defences, his items and tailored his prepared spells and equipment to become basically immune to everything Xykon had.
Even if he had no crafting feats he could have sent a called creature or a sumulacrum, or one of his employees to go shopping.
He could have called a bunch of outsider and/or created a bunch of simulacra to help him.
Depending on how much xp had to spare he could even have spent the time to create an epic spell specific for the fight.


Just so we're clear, just where could Dorukan have retreated? He couldn't have gone back into his dungeon. The Cloister he had raised prevented him from entering by any means other than passing the barrier physically, and Xykon could simply have followed him (or blasted him out of the sky) if he tried. He couldn't have teleported anywhere else, since then Xykon would have been able to seize the dungeon and the Gate for himself and the point of Dorukan being there at all was to ensure that that would never happen. True, the Cloister would have gone down in a month or so without Dorukan being around to cast it, but ceding the Gate to the enemy for a month so they can work on opening it with impunity is even less intelligent than trying to defend it. The way Dorukan chose to fight, retreat was not an option.

That said, this argument merely pushes Dorukan's foolishness back a step. He couldn't retreat once he'd put himself in the position he did, but he chose to put himself into a position from which he couldn't retreat in the first place.

He could not have teleported back inside his dungeon, ok, but he could have teleported on the other side, and gotten inside before Xykon reached him, he could have tried escaping becoming invisibile, he could have tried to lure Xykon in a place where he had some defences in the hope of stopping him, he could have tried some low level defensive spell like mirror image or displacement to get some miss chance, hell he coul have tried attacking back. I am not claiming that any of those action would have made a difference in the end, but at that point anything is better than doing nothing and getting mauled to death.


The scenario you're describing is a pretty much 1:1 description of the Battle of Gettysburg, and there exist whole schools of historians dedicated to debating whether the conduct and result of that battle really has any bearing on whether Lee should be considered a military genius or not. The debate's been going for over two hundred years.

I didn't really knew that, I'm guessing that also proves people can argue about everything, now I am not an history expert (america history even less) but at least Lee retreated when is assault failed.

At this point it is I who ask you (in general), what do you consider the difference between an average person and a very smart one, and in a life and death situation, even considering pressure and emotional baggage, what do you believe are the things that the two would do differently, if the answer to that is none, then I believe there is no point in dragging this discussion further, because I think intelligence mean something more than being able to learn to perform integral calculus in your sleep.

[Skaven]

ICly: They got awesome power for free without having to work years for it, apprenticing themselves to crotchety old men and paying a fortune to get new spells.

OOCly: Probably the same reason the sorcerer got nothing for class abilities AND got their spell level shunted back one level.

Some guy at wotc hated them.

[Winter]

Forgive me but I have no idea who General Patraeus is, I am not from US, but at the risk of sounding stupid myself unless he:

Admitting you have no idea what the example is about and then, without second thought, going on disregarding what someone else said is not what I would call a "founded opinion". You just stand on your position and claim "Because I say so!"



I fail to see the paragon, one I would use to keep the military theme

To stay in this theme but without discussing RL: Yes, I think he was considered that as far as a real being can be considered that. This is why I used him.

Also, you said he must be considered a genius. Sorry, where was Dorukan considered that? He was an epic Wizard but all the Int stat tells us he was very able to remember books.
And the point here is: Even if he was a genius, he still screwed up in a way no lowly army sergeant from Azure City worth his salt would have. It was an utterly stupid move and it was obvious it was one, but emotion and arrogance made Dorukan fail.

Smart people, even those of genius level, fail all the time. They are lazy, not informed of a specific field, arrogant. Richard Feynman was one of the smartest people in the world but he kept failing a social situations all the time (partly due to his genius, partly because he was just lazy in some regards).
Smarts are no protection from making mistakes. Which is what Doruklan learned from Colonel Xykon the hard way.

[Blue Lantern]

Admitting you have no idea what the example is about and then, without second thought, going on disregarding what someone else said is not what I would call a "founded opinion". You just stand on your position and claim "Because I say so!"

You misjudge me, I wasn't trying to disregard your paragon, but trying to estabilish a benchmark of how big I apologize if I ended up sounding offensive; and I am trying to explain my position but for some reason I do not seem to manage to.
I will try to sum it up again with a single phrase:

"There is a limit of how many and how big stupid mistakes a person can make before I can no longer consider him smart."


To stay in this theme but without discussing RL: Yes, I think he was considered that as far as a real being can be considered that. This is why I used him.

Also, you said he must be considered a genius. Sorry, where was Dorukan considered that? He was an epic Wizard but all the Int stat tells us he was very able to remember books.
And the point here is: Even if he was a genius, he still screwed up in a way no lowly army sergeant from Azure City worth his salt would have. It was an utterly stupid move and it was obvious it was one, but emotion and arrogance made Dorukan fail.

Smart people, even those of genius level, fail all the time. They are lazy, not informed of a specific field, arrogant. Richard Feynman was one of the smartest people in the world but he kept failing a social situations all the time (partly due to his genius, partly because he was just lazy in some regards).
Smarts are no protection from making mistakes. Which is what Doruklan learned from Colonel Xykon the hard way.

Excuse me, but the how you define genius, and intelligence in D&D does not govern just learning skill, it also govern logical reasoning, ability to asses and judge and the ability to plan.
Also by the rules Dorkukan had at least 19 INT (he could cast 9th level spells) and again by the rules this makes hit near the top of possible human intelligence.

Also there is a difference in failing in a field that is not your own, even for a genius, and failing at one you should be an expert into, that is also what I am trying to explain with my paragons.
For instance you say Richard Feynman failed at social situations, but as far as I know he was not a world renowed diplomat, the example I would use if he went at a conference and started fumbling basic math, in several separate occasions AND kept going on even when the results started showing him wrong.
Dorkukan was an epic wizard with an adventurer past, that means that killing things with spells and defending against dangerous opponent with spells is basically is day job, yet he did a very poor one; and I do not consider it realistic.

And since I would really have an answer to my previous question:

At this point it is I who ask you (in general), what do you consider the difference between an average person and a very smart one, and in a life and death situation, even considering pressure and emotional baggage, what do you believe are the things that the two would do differently, if the answer to that is none, then I believe there is no point in dragging this discussion further, because I think intelligence mean something more than being able to learn to perform integral calculus in your sleep.

[lio45]

He couldn't have teleported anywhere else, since then Xykon would have been able to seize the dungeon and the Gate for himself and the point of Dorukan being there at all was to ensure that that would never happen. True, the Cloister would have gone down in a month or so without Dorukan being around to cast it, but ceding the Gate to the enemy for a month so they can work on opening it with impunity is even less intelligent than trying to defend it. The way Dorukan chose to fight, retreat was not an option.

I disagree with you there. Letting the dungeon temporarily fall into Xykon's hands wouldn't have been a catastrophe -- you can see the proof in the story, Xykon's been doing long-term camping in there, sitting on that unopened Gate forever.

Escaping to live to fight another day would've been a LOT smarter than just dying there... esp. since the only argument against escaping ("can't let Xykon get the Gate") also applies directly against dying there and then... not only does the latter also lets Xykon get the Gate, but it also prevents you from putting spokes in Xykon's wheels while Xykon's figuring out how to open said Gate.

[Winter]

"There is a limit of how many and how big stupid mistakes a person can make before I can no longer consider him smart."

You could argue: in the case of Dorukan, it was one. Pretty big blunder he commited there for being emotional.
Wait a second: We know the rules of the universe state he has "lots of smarts"? Ok, then Smarts cannot be tied to "makes no mistakes".
You either claim Dorukan somehow lost 10 or even 20 points of Int or Int and "Doing stupid things" is not that related.



Excuse me, but the how you define genius

I think that does not really matter. Dorukan has lots of it, Dorukan acted stupid.


Also by the rules Dorkukan had at least 19 INT (he could cast 9th level spells) and again by the rules this makes hit near the top of possible human intelligence.

Top of human starting intelligence. Genius level is probably higher than 18 (18 + the int from levels, at least). But it still does not matter: No matter what you consider Dorukan, he was pretty smart (who cares how smart) and he made a stupid mistake out of arrogance and emotion.


Also there is a difference in failing in a field that is not your own, even for a genius, and failing at one you should be an expert into, that is also what I am trying to explain with my paragons.

I think here is were you run into the wrong direction: Real persons are no paragons, they simply do not exist. That translated to fiction as well, where the author tries to draw believable characters. Dorukan is no paragon, Rich tried to make him human. And as such, he made an emotional mistake. And died for it.
That is what makes Rich's writing in very general good, he creates good characters that are more than their Int-stat.

I also find the claim odd that every character with a high mental stat becomes an "unfailable paragon". Wuh?


For instance you say Richard Feynman failed at social situations, [...] the example I would use if he went at a conference and started fumbling basic math, in several separate occasions AND kept going on even when the results started showing him wrong.

Funny that you mention it: He just did that once. He was with all the high-tier physicis of his time and calculated something on the blackboard. Then made the "slight" mistake to forget the most important discovery of that time (the Pauli Principle) - and someone else (also nobel prize winner) too the chalk from his hand (and then they all laughed at him).
He did not make that mistake because he was stupid, but because he was too lazy to care about formal math. Smarts had nothing at all to do with that massive blunder (that today you would not make if you were in the 1st semester of quantum physics).


Dorkukan was an epic wizard with an adventurer past, that means that killing things with spells and defending against dangerous opponent with spells is basically is day job, yet he did a very poor one; and I do not consider it realistic.

That is where we differ. Your line of reasoning is the following:
"The result is impossible given what I expect from that character, therefore, the character cannot be realistic."

My line of reasoning is:
"Given what we see in the comic, what would the character have to be like (in this very situation) so it makes sense?"
As it turns out, I can just take a D&D Wizard and add emotion, arrogance and a second of bad judgment to get a well rounded character.

My characterisation is that I look at the comic and characterise the character based on that. Your's is that you have an idea how the character is supposed to be and scream "BLUNDER" when the comic does not follow what you assume.

I think you are making a horrible mistake, like someone who runs and then smashes into the wall and then blaming the wall for being there. But given that your position could be considered valid if you do not like "characters with emotion" I do not see a further use to argue.
Our differences, as I understand now, are not rooted in a wrong (or not understood) line of arguments by one side or the other or a different interpretation of what we see, but of very different and totally incompatible premises on how to read stories.


At this point it is I who ask you (in general), what do you consider the difference between an average person and a very smart one, and in a life and death situation, even considering pressure and emotional baggage, what do you believe are the things that the two would do differently, if the answer to that is none, then I believe there is no point in dragging this discussion further, because I think intelligence mean something more than being able to learn to perform integral calculus in your sleep.

I think there is none. But not because your example would support this or that, but because you misunderstand what "smart means". I explain this:
Imagine a university professor, he is very, VERY smart. He is top of his field.
You know throw him into your life and death situation.
Then there is some average Joe Soldier, who has three rounds in Afga... Gobbotopia on his back who gets thrown in the very same situation.

Both do not know this specific situation, it is new for both. Some serial killer who chops up people for fun is running at them with a knife, screaming "I just beheaded your wife! MUHAHA!"

Who do you think will handle himself better? You argue the professor, because he is much, much smarter than Joe. I argue that what happens now has nothing to do with being smart, but that Joe is going to have a much higher chance of survival.

Now you come and claim "Wait, there is experience". To that I reply "correct", but we already are not on the position anymore that "being smart" is the determining factor.

Now you are going to argue that Dorukan was BOTH experienced and smart to that I reply: Correct, but he was in a very exceptional situation that he did not encounter before.
He had an army encamped before his gates for a year. He had a lich teasing him. He had the high priest of a dark god doing whatever. They where there to do whatever he was afraid of.
He knew something they did must have done to the other gate and his gf was gone since then.
Now he learns that lich killed her. Trapped her soul. Laughed at him. Mocked him. Is it so extremely impossible to assume he made a mistake in that friction of a second he decided to "Teleport out there and smoke this punk with my epic levels"?

Especially if you consider that you are disregarding what the comic very bluntly tells you about a character (Dorukan -> Screws up) but prefer the bland rules of D&D that tell you "High Int = smart = cannot make mistakes" (they don't, but you seem to think they do).
It is up to the players/DM/author to fill those rules with colour and emotion. Rich just did that with Dorukan.

If you do not believe me: read how Rich builds characters on the left side of this website.

[veti]

The scenario you're describing is a pretty much 1:1 description of the Battle of Gettysburg, and there exist whole schools of historians dedicated to debating whether the conduct and result of that battle really has any bearing on whether Lee should be considered a military genius or not. The debate's been going for over two hundred years.

Nitpick: the Battle of Gettysburg was in 1863, so for at least the first 51 of those years the debate must have been conducted entirely by psychics...

You could try Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, but even that was only 197 years ago.

[Math_Mage]

What exactly could he do to prepare during those months? Buff spells don't last for weeks or even days, so there's no point casting them until necessary. He had already raised his dungeon defenses as high as he could get them to go, so nothing much to do there. And I'm not sure he could have scored magic items even if he'd thought of that, since he's essentially under seige and might not have the correct crafting feats.

With months of lead time, divination, and epic magic, Dorukan could have prepared himself in pretty much any way we can imagine, and probably in several ways we can't. To answer your immediate claims: casting buff spells wasn't as important as determining which buff spells he needed to cast immediately before going into battle; raising HIS defenses (such as touch AC, or Death Ward) was more important than raising his dungeon defenses if he was planning to go out and fight; and he could have abused the loophole in Cloister to obtain magic items from elsewhere, even without speculating about crafting feats.

That's not even the point I was trying to make, though. The point is that Dorukan's error isn't some kind of emotional heat-of-the-moment failure, but an intellectual failure to properly prepare during those months for a situation he claims he was waiting for. That's why it irritates me.

[GunnDancer]

Nitpick: the Battle of Gettysburg was in 1863, so for at least the first 51 of those years the debate must have been conducted entirely by psychics...

You could try Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, but even that was only 197 years ago.

BAHAHAHAHA!! Okay I"m glad I could post this now... I was reading these at work and your comment literally made me laugh out loud.

[ReaderAt2046]

With months of lead time, divination, and epic magic, Dorukan could have prepared himself in pretty much any way we can imagine, and probably in several ways we can't. To answer your immediate claims: casting buff spells wasn't as important as determining which buff spells he needed to cast immediately before going into battle; raising HIS defenses (such as touch AC, or Death Ward) was more important than raising his dungeon defenses if he was planning to go out and fight; and he could have abused the loophole in Cloister to obtain magic items from elsewhere, even without speculating about crafting feats.

That's not even the point I was trying to make, though. The point is that Dorukan's error isn't some kind of emotional heat-of-the-moment failure, but an intellectual failure to properly prepare during those months for a situation he claims he was waiting for. That's why it irritates me.

How exactly do you raise your touch AC while holed up in your fortress under siege? And i'm not sure Dorukan's loophole allows for summoning of objects.

I suppose my point is that nearly every kind of preperation seems to divide into 1) stuff he had probably already done while setting up his dungeon and 2) stuff that there's no point in doing until the acutal battle.

[JennTora]

How exactly do you raise your touch AC while holed up in your fortress under siege? And i'm not sure Dorukan's loophole allows for summoning of objects.

But maybe it allows for employees to be sent to buy magic items?

Also couldn't he have epically researched some epic spells to epically raise his dexterity, and epically give himself an epic deflection bonus, epically of course, while epically making said epic spell last an epic amount of time?

[Winter_Wolf]

Regarding "why do wizards hate sorcerers", I just thought of this (admittedly bad) example: Wizards are like Frank "Grimey" Grimes from the Simpsons, and sorcerers are like Homer. Grimey had to struggle for everything he got, but he kept plugging along and working hard to get where he was. Then he met Homer, who despite being, well Homer, always landed (more or less) on his feet no matter how ridiculous or illogical the situation.

Finally after having his nose rubbed in it for so long (from Grimey's point of view, but Grimey seemed kind of like the ticking-time bomb psycho anyway) he just lost his crap and flipped out on Homer who hadn't really done anything specifically wrong, except to exist in the first place.

Replace all instances of Grimey with 'wizard' and most of the Homer with 'sorcerer', and that's pretty much how it seems to me.

To pull from real world, I see a LOT of people who work hard and struggle to get what they've got, then along comes Johnny who just seems to have everything in life handed to him with no struggle. That just really pisses off a lot of people, apparently. Johnny is the sorcerer.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I think it's more like the lottery winner vs the self made millionaire. Sure there made be an edge of resentment to it, but I think a larger portion is contempt.

The businessman had to work for what he had, and as a result he understands it much better. He can keep using and growing his fortune through wise business decisions where the lottery winner will probably blow most of that money in a few years and end up just as poor as he was before.

[Math_Mage]

How exactly do you raise your touch AC while holed up in your fortress under siege? And i'm not sure Dorukan's loophole allows for summoning of objects.
I wasn't suggesting using the months of prep to raise touch AC, but to use divination (which he can cast at epic levels) to investigate Xykon and determine the sort of buffs that would be needed when he was finally ready to fight, which (as it turned out) should have included buffs to touch AC, or Death Ward. However, again, we are dealing with epic magic here, and it's entirely possible for him to gin up his AC if that's what he feels is the best use of his time (it isn't).

The loophole allows for him to acquire magic objects via summoned servants.


I suppose my point is that nearly every kind of preperation seems to divide into 1) stuff he had probably already done while setting up his dungeon and 2) stuff that there's no point in doing until the acutal battle.

There's also
3) stuff that should be done just before going into battle;
4) stuff that should be done to determine what to do before and in battle;
5) layers of long-term personal protection that wouldn't be relevant while setting up the dungeon, but would be relevant to a magic duel;
etc.

The main point is that Dorukan did a bad job of not only 2), which can be written off as emotions overcoming wits, but also 4), where his wits have had months to assert themselves.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Wouldn't severe overconfidence leading to an epic level wizard badly underestimating a sorcerer to the point where he felt comfortable in his ability to destroy him half-cocked fall under the category of low wisdom not intelligence?

[Blue Lantern]

You could argue: in the case of Dorukan, it was one. Pretty big blunder he commited there for being emotional.
Wait a second: We know the rules of the universe state he has "lots of smarts"? Ok, then Smarts cannot be tied to "makes no mistakes".
You either claim Dorukan somehow lost 10 or even 20 points of Int or Int and "Doing stupid things" is not that related.

Actually I argue:
1) It was more than one, it was at least five one after another, each one big in his own way:

To put it more clearly (hopefully) SoD spoilers

1) He got goaded into a fight in an unfavorable position because of an emoctional reaction - Stupid mistake but acceptable.
2) He threw himself in the fight without any protection despite having the time to get some - hard to swallow but ok.
3) He spent an year being besieged and apparently not doing much to prepare himself if not putting up some defences in the dungeon - at this point my theet starts to cringe.
4) Fighting without any appreciable strategy, without any protactions nor contingecies (and I don't mean the spell) and with, frankly, not particularly good tactics - my head shakes, we are pushing the boundaries of credibility.
5) When the fight started going extremely badly for him he stood still, did nothing, and got killed - At this point we are past any justification.

2) With all those mistake I have difficultuies considering him smart.
3) Him being not smart clashes with the supposed rules of the setting in which the story takes place.


I think that does not really matter. Dorukan has lots of it, Dorukan acted stupid.
Top of human starting intelligence. Genius level is probably higher than 18 (18 + the int from levels, at least). But it still does not matter: No matter what you consider Dorukan, he was pretty smart (who cares how smart) and he made a stupid mistake out of arrogance and emotion.

Actually it does matter since it is the very base around this entire discussion, if Dorkukan had a lot of INT then I would like to know your definition of intelligence that allows him to make all the stupid things he made (again, more than one) and still be considered smart.
If you want to consider intelligence just the ability to learn new stuff, fine, it would in fact solve the issue entirely, but either in D&D and in real life that is only one aspect of intelligence, there is also cunning, reasoning, logic, planning abilities, all things that Dorkukan had not showed at all.


I think here is were you run into the wrong direction: Real persons are no paragons, they simply do not exist. That translated to fiction as well, where the author tries to draw believable characters. Dorukan is no paragon, Rich tried to make him human. And as such, he made an emotional mistake. And died for it.
That is what makes Rich's writing in very general good, he creates good characters that are more than their Int-stat.

I used the wrong term there, I did not mean paragon as a "model of excellence" but as a synonym of example, it is so in my language and I forgot to correct.


I also find the claim odd that every character with a high mental stat becomes an "unfailable paragon". Wuh?

Hun? When exactly would I have said that?


Funny that you mention it: He just did that once. He was with all the high-tier physicis of his time and calculated something on the blackboard. Then made the "slight" mistake to forget the most important discovery of that time (the Pauli Principle) - and someone else (also nobel prize winner) too the chalk from his hand (and then they all laughed at him).
He did not make that mistake because he was stupid, but because he was too lazy to care about formal math. Smarts had nothing at all to do with that massive blunder (that today you would not make if you were in the 1st semester of quantum physics).

Ok, and what did he do after that? Did he kept doing the mistake again? And by basic math I did not mean did he not take into account a recenty (at the time) discovered principle, but he put a 2+2=5 (for sufficiently small amount of 2) in an equation that lead in a result that he should have known it was wrong whitout correctin himself; because that is the magniture of the mistake I see Dorkukan doing.


That is where we differ. Your line of reasoning is the following:
"The result is impossible given what I expect from that character, therefore, the character cannot be realistic."

My line of reasoning is:
"Given what we see in the comic, what would the character have to be like (in this very situation) so it makes sense?"
As it turns out, I can just take a D&D Wizard and add emotion, arrogance and a second of bad judgment to get a well rounded character.

My characterisation is that I look at the comic and characterise the character based on that. Your's is that you have an idea how the character is supposed to be and scream "BLUNDER" when the comic does not follow what you assume.

I think you are making a horrible mistake, like someone who runs and then smashes into the wall and then blaming the wall for being there. But given that your position could be considered valid if you do not like "characters with emotion" I do not see a further use to argue.
Our differences, as I understand now, are not rooted in a wrong (or not understood) line of arguments by one side or the other or a different interpretation of what we see, but of very different and totally incompatible premises on how to read stories.


If you create or use a framework in which your characters act that has a certain set of rules it is expected that those rules should be followed, or at least it should be given an explanation when they are not.

Well glad there is someone so bright and knowledgeable about storymaking a interpretation.
My line of reasoning is that I look at the character in a story, look at how things are supposed to work within the framework that story uses, and if there is any unexplaied or unacknowledged discrepancy between the two I took notice.

Now what you seems to argue is that if a story is enjoiable and believable enough it does not matter if it has internal consistency, I agree with that, but I add that a story that is enjoiable and believable but has internal consistency is superior.


I think there is none. But not because your example would support this or that, but because you misunderstand what "smart means". I explain this:
Imagine a university professor, he is very, VERY smart. He is top of his field.
You know throw him into your life and death situation.
Then there is some average Joe Soldier, who has three rounds in Afga... Gobbotopia on his back who gets thrown in the very same situation.

Both do not know this specific situation, it is new for both. Some serial killer who chops up people for fun is running at them with a knife, screaming "I just beheaded your wife! MUHAHA!"

Who do you think will handle himself better? You argue the professor, because he is much, much smarter than Joe. I argue that what happens now has nothing to do with being smart, but that Joe is going to have a much higher chance of survival.

I would not claim such a thing, I really don't know if you don't understand my argument or are misinterpreting it on purpose, what I would claim is that the university professor in that situation should not do something so obviously and monumentally stupid like throwing himself against the killer barehanded and after recieving a non fatal knife wound staying there being gutted, intead of chosing a more sensible course of action like running or hiding. Would that make a difference in the long run? Not likely, but one is more consistent with a "smart" person that the other.


Now you are going to argue that Dorukan was BOTH experienced and smart to that I reply: Correct, but he was in a very exceptional situation that he did not encounter before.
He had an army encamped before his gates for a year. He had a lich teasing him. He had the high priest of a dark god doing whatever. They where there to do whatever he was afraid of.
He knew something they did must have done to the other gate and his gf was gone since then.
Now he learns that lich killed her. Trapped her soul. Laughed at him. Mocked him. Is it so extremely impossible to assume he made a mistake in that friction of a second he decided to "Teleport out there and smoke this punk with my epic levels"?

Especially if you consider that you are disregarding what the comic very bluntly tells you about a character (Dorukan -> Screws up) but prefer the bland rules of D&D that tell you "High Int = smart = cannot make mistakes" (they don't, but you seem to think they do).
It is up to the players/DM/author to fill those rules with colour and emotion. Rich just did that with Dorukan.

If you do not believe me: read how Rich builds characters on the left side of this website.

1) Again I never said that, can you please stop putting word in my mouth and start reading the entirety of my argument, so maybe we could actually move forward in the discussion.


Yes and the problem of that point is that Dorkukan being goaded into the fight does not justify at all the fact that he acted like a moron.


I am not arguing that a Wizard with high intelligence should always use the best possible strategy, but that they should at least avoid action that a 5 year old would find stupid.


Again, for the third time, I am not arguing smart people should never do any mistake, is the sheer magnitude of the stupid acts committed that I have trouble accepting.

2) Dorkukan did not act in the spur of a second, he actually employed amost 30 second before his first strike, also even assuming it was a situation he did not encounter before he had one year to think of a strategy, who apparently amounted to nothing. And considering that he knew (as you aknowleged) about Lirian demise and knew or suspected that it was at the hand of the same enemy at his doorstep it puts an even bigger dent in his supposed strategy, or lack thereof.

3) I am not disregarding what the comics talls, I am disagreeing with it because it runs contrary to the supposed rules the comic itself is supposed to follow.

Also Roy screwed up when facing Xykon at Azure City, Varsavius screwed up when fighting Xykon during the soul splice, yet I have no problem believing they have a decent intelligence score, because within the limits of their errors they still acted with a reasonale amount of competence, and that does not mean they did the best possible choice but that did not made action obviously stupid, AND tried to fall back when realized their plans were not working.
The reason Dorkukan fights bugs me (especially at the time I read it) is because it would have taken so little to make it one of the most epic of the entire story and cemented Xykon as a really big villain. Instead is an entirely plot hammered event that, at that point, undermined his very phylosophy about power.



That's not even the point I was trying to make, though. The point is that Dorukan's error isn't some kind of emotional heat-of-the-moment failure, but an intellectual failure to properly prepare during those months for a situation he claims he was waiting for. That's why it irritates me.

Thank you, that is exacltly one of the points I was trying to make, but you did it much more clearly.


Wouldn't severe overconfidence leading to an epic level wizard badly underestimating a sorcerer to the point where he felt comfortable in his ability to destroy him half-cocked fall under the category of low wisdom not intelligence?

As I see it:

Wisdom is hindsight, Intelligence is Cunning, low wisdom explains his underestimating the enemy and getting goaded. Throwing himself in the fight without protection, having spent almost an year in preparations that did not result in any noticeable advantage, and using extremely poor tactics is the mark of a low intelligence.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Okay, how about this? Maybe he did spend a year planning the perfect fight but Xykon's threat that drew him out was more effective than he let on. Maybe he decided that if he spent a minute or two casting all the buffs he planned on on himself (or even spending eight hours preparing all the correct buffs for the fight) would let Xykon follow through on that threat.

Just maybe low wisdom (and wizard arrogance regarding sorcerers) told him that acting now and skipping all that preparation work would both save the body and let him triumph over the stupid sorcerer with an acceptable chance of success. (And to be fair he would have been almost correct in that, as indicated it was a very close fight.)

As for not running away or fighting back, that's the sort of behavior you'd expect out of something with, like 2 intelligence, so obviously there has to be something going on here. So, how about this? The first energy drain was a doozy. Let's say the first energy drain he got hit with was a maximum damage crit that knocked sixteen levels off him and all the other ones were minimum rolls that drained two. He could have been knocked straight down to level 7 at minimum and losing nearly every spell he were relying on to fight the battle is just the sort of thing that might make him lose a round while he tries to figure out what the heck he's even going to do next. It would also remove the ability to cast any sort of escape spell except Dimension Door (which he might not have had prepared in favor of things like Greater Teleport). And after that he might have realized that it was hopeless, what is he going to do, fire a few magic missiles at Xykon?

I don't think it was intended that way, of course, but I think it's a more realistic explanation than him being literally as smart as a deer caught in the headlights.

[ti'esar]

To be honest, I think Xykon's point winds up undercut no matter what. Whether you believe he was justified in it or not, Dorukan did act fairly stupidly, and while that nicely sets up the conclusion of the running wizards-underestimating-sorcerers theme, it also means that the big "with enough power, who needs tactics" speech is really more like "with enough power, and with your opponent making big mistakes, who needs tactics".

[VanIsleKnight]

Alright, has the battle itself been detailed somewhere that I'm not aware of? Because I really would like to see the fight between Xykon and Dorukan, that would be freakin' awesome to watch. :D

If it's not though, then why are people saying that Dorukan was stupid?

[Kish]

Alright, has the battle itself been detailed somewhere that I'm not aware of?
Start of Darkness.

[King of Nowhere]

To be honest, I think Xykon's point winds up undercut no matter what. Whether you believe he was justified in it or not, Dorukan did act fairly stupidly, and while that nicely sets up the conclusion of the running wizards-underestimating-sorcerers theme, it also means that the big "with enough power, who needs tactics" speech is really more like "with enough power, and with your opponent making big mistakes, who needs tactics".

but what xykon said is true no matter what.
for example, in every strategic game there's a point where the enemy has so big an army that he can just throw it all at you and you can do nothing to stop it. Or in any rpg, a point where just doing basic attacks every turn is going to accomplish the task. In cryptography you can think of "brute force" as maybe "trying all possible combination with enough computational power" and that is also going to work eventually. And throwing a special kind of experimental brute force at a problem is what combinatorial chemistry is about - automated analysis of tens of thouands of different potential medicines until you find one that works. The examples are endless

So, in the case of xykon vs dorukan, dorukan using bad strategy certainly lowered the power treeshold needed for xykon to best him. maybe people would have been more satisfied if xykon had just cast a dispel on him first; that would not have changed the point of the fight and would have avoided all the angst some people are throwing at it.

[Clistenes]

So, in the case of xykon vs dorukan, dorukan using bad strategy certainly lowered the power treeshold needed for xykon to best him. maybe people would have been more satisfied if xykon had just cast a dispel on him first; that would not have changed the point of the fight and would have avoided all the angst some people are throwing at it.

A single casting of Superb Dispel (Xykon's own epic spell) would have fixed all the problems we are discussing here.

[Blue Lantern]

but what xykon said is true no matter what.
for example, in every strategic game there's a point where the enemy has so big an army that he can just throw it all at you and you can do nothing to stop it. Or in any rpg, a point where just doing basic attacks every turn is going to accomplish the task. In cryptography you can think of "brute force" as maybe "trying all possible combination with enough computational power" and that is also going to work eventually. And throwing a special kind of experimental brute force at a problem is what combinatorial chemistry is about - automated analysis of tens of thouands of different potential medicines until you find one that works. The examples are endless

That may be true in theory, but in practice the brute force approach is considered one of the weakest way of problem solving because the power and time requirements makes it highly impractical, and it is usually used only when there is no other way known, or for a problem either much simpler or not particularly urgent where there is no desire to consume resources to find a better ways, an that only if the brute force can be painlessly automated.
Even in war, where having superior firepower is a good thing, there are numerous example of battles won against superior forces by the use of extremely good tactics, Cannae and Azincourt comes to mind, and having a military force so big that you can completely forget about tactics and strategy is something that, to my knowledge at least, has never been considered a realistic approach to warfare.
If Xykon had the kind of overwhelming power that could have won the battle indipendently from any strategy from Dorkukan he SoD spoiler
could have avoided waiting for an entire year and just steamrolled the wizard defenses.


So, in the case of xykon vs dorukan, dorukan using bad strategy certainly lowered the power treeshold needed for xykon to best him. maybe people would have been more satisfied if xykon had just cast a dispel on him first; that would not have changed the point of the fight and would have avoided all the angst some people are throwing at it.


A single casting of Superb Dispel (Xykon's own epic spell) would have fixed all the problems we are discussing here.

No it wouldn't, arguably it would make thing worse, even if showing a dispel would have meant that Dorkukan has made some preparation, which would not have included preparations against dispelling itself, it would also make his battle action even stupider.
The point is, as long as his buff are in effect his continuing the fight might be overconfidence, that could, almost, be attributed to low wisdom, at least to a point, continuing the battle even after having your buff removed is suicidal overconfidence at the 11th degree, and lot less excusable.

[Clistenes]

No it wouldn't, arguably it would make thing worse, even if showing a dispel would have meant that Dorkukan has made some preparation, which would not have included preparations against dispelling itself, it would also make his battle action even stupider.

Superb Dispel is an epic spell, and it's very difficult to counter that. Even if Dorukan had an anti-dispelling epic spell he still would have to make a casting check.


The point is, as long as his buff are in effect his continuing the fight might be overconfidence, that could, almost, be attributed to low wisdom, at least to a point, continuing the battle even after having your buff removed is suicidal overconfidence at the 11th degree, and lot less excusable.

Well, once he had no defenses the first Energy Drain spell could have lowered his level enough that he lost all his prepared "emergency exit spells" (say quickened Teleport, Ethereal Jaunt, Greater Teleport or Plane Shift; if Dorukan lost 8 levels he could very well be unable to cast them), and the Superb Dispel could have destroyed or rended useless any magical item or contingencies he could have prepared in order to escape if he lost

[Blue Lantern]

Superb Dispel is an epic spell, and it's very difficult to counter that. Even if Dorukan had an anti-dispelling epic spell he still would have to make a casting check.

Yes, but it does not prevents you from casting other spells.
And loosing all his buffs and items except flight seems a bit of a stretch


Well, once he had no defenses the first Energy Drain spell could have lowered his level enough that he lost all his prepared "emergency exit spells" (say quickened Teleport, Ethereal Jaunt, Greater Teleport or Plane Shift; if Dorukan lost 8 levels he could very well be unable to cast them), and the Superb Dispel could have destroyed or rended useless any magical item or contingencies he could have prepared in order to escape if he lost

That's not how negative levels works, you lose one spell prepared of the highest level you have, we see him cast 2 9th level spell and 2 7th level spells (assuming he casted greater teleport ), plus a couple of unidentified ones (his first attack, and the jet of flames). Even assuming he used all his spell slots of 7th levels of higher, including his epic ones, (and if that was true and his enemy was still standing he should have seriously consider retreating, because what he could have remaining was hardly able to have better results) and assuming the first energy drain hit for max he should still have available all spells from 1th to 4th level, among them there are expeditious retreat, invisibility, mirror image, displacement, dimension door, etc. all could have been useful as a last ditch defense and escape strategy, especially considering that by that level those slots are hardly useful for offensive spells.

[Clistenes]

Yes, but it does not prevents you from casting other spells.
And loosing all his buffs and items except flight seems a bit of a stretch

I'm not saying Xykon casted Superb Dispel, I'm saying that, if he had done that, the fight would have made sense.



That's not how negative levels works, you lose one spell prepared of the highest level you have, we see him cast 2 9th level spell and 2 7th level spells (assuming he casted greater teleport ), plus a couple of unidentified ones (his first attack, and the jet of flames). Even assuming he used all his spell slots of 7th levels of higher, including his epic ones, (and if that was true and his enemy was still standing he should have seriously consider retreating, because what he could have remaining was hardly able to have better results) and assuming the first energy drain hit for max he should still have available all spells from 1th to 4th level, among them there are expeditious retreat, invisibility, mirror image, displacement, dimension door, etc. all could have been useful as a last ditch defense and escape strategy, especially considering that by that level those slots are hardly useful for offensive spells.


Again, I'm not saying Xykon casted Superb Dispel, I'm saying that, if he had done that, and Dorukan's "emergency escape" spell were a quickened teleport (9th level spell), or a quickened greater teleport (12th level), or a Silent Still Plane Shift (9th spell level), Dorukan could have lost it after suffering the Energy Drain, being unable to escape. The spells we see Dorukan cast are irrelevant, since I'm speaking of an hypothetical fight were Dorukan fought more cleverly

[Blue Lantern]

Yes but in your hypothetical scenario, what does he used his lower spells slots for?

[Clistenes]

Yes but in your hypothetical scenario, what does he used his lower spells slots for?

If he had prepared invisibility, or even Dimension Door, or even Mirror Image, he would have a chance to escape. If not, he would have been able to cast a couple more spells before being killed

[Koo Rehtorb]

Also, again, Energy Drain can crit, which could theoretically remove up to sixteen levels.

[Scowling Dragon]

I would have tied my death to the gate. So if I died (Of Unnatural causes, or heck since as a wizard Im pretty sure I have the right to make up my own spells I would make it that it monitors the danger levels.) I would have the gate and the whole castle explode in a massive explosion (5 minutes after I died). Killing/ Destroying everything in a two mile radius.

[King of Nowhere]

That may be true in theory, but in practice the brute force approach is considered one of the weakest way of problem solving because the power and time requirements makes it highly impractical.
Yes, true. brute force is generally not the best solution, however it is a solution that works for almost everything if you can gather the resources necessary.

I would have tied my death to the gate. So if I died (Of Unnatural causes, or heck since as a wizard Im pretty sure I have the right to make up my own spells I would make it that it monitors the danger levels.) I would have the gate and the whole castle explode in a massive explosion (5 minutes after I died). Killing/ Destroying everything in a two mile radius.
That would have included killing ccelia and her coworkers and a bunch of other innocent creatures likely, and was unlikely to harm anyone that had the power to kill dorukan.
What I would have done would have been to set a message to all the other defenders of the gates to inform them of what happened to me, so that they would have had some information on the nature of the threath to the gates.

But we are way off topic from the discussion, which was already off topic from the argument of the thread. Unfortunately, it seems you can't mention wizards and sorcerors in this forum without the discussion being soon deranged on a dorukan vs xykon argument.

[willpell]

Wizards have to invest in their powers. They take longer to learn them, have to work harder at it, and need to pay money for nearly every spell they learn (plus possibly having to buy a spellbook, although 15gp isn't terribly expensive compared to the cost of armor or magic items). They've struggled and sacrificed for the power they wield, and then some doofus waltzes in whistling and casts a spell as if it were no harder than scratching his butt. Naturally the wizard seethes with spite and envy at someone being so lacksadaisacal and disrespectful of something he's sweated and struggled to achieve.

Conversely, Wizards are noticeably more powerful under most circumstances (the distinction between spontaneous and prepared casting is a lot like the distinction between warrior talent and magic; in theory a Sorcerer or even a Fighter might be balanced with a wizard because they're better able to function in non-ideal circumstances, but nothing stops the Wizard from making his circumstances ideal the vast majority of the time, so the balance isn't really balanced), and that means they have a dominant position. Which means that just like in any other hierarchy, while they might want to train disciples to follow after them in time, they certainly do not want people nipping at their heels before they're ready to give up their position. Thusly, sorcerers are rivals, brash young talents threatening to usurp the wizard's mastery of the arcane. They don't want the competition, and they act quickly to squash it, much the way McDonalds would react if a new burger chain "O'Tolley's" was opening up and trying to weasel in on their market: they'd pour money into an advertising blitz and try to remind the buying public who the best burger-maker in town is, and spellcasters are in the same boat (since their services are also for sale).

Between the perceived challenge to their dominance and the insult of someone else having it easier, if not as good, it's perfectly natural that the wizards would be cheesed off and bitterly determined to squash the upstart. Though it's a bit surprising that the sorcerers don't return the favor more often; I figure it may imply that they're more analogous to the Young Turks than the Old Guard, being more proactive and positive focused, trying mostly to make a name for themselves and thus only indirectly interested in defeating the competition.

[PlusSixPelican]

In my opinion, it probably boils down to the fact that Sorcerers get that one hour in the morning to do whatever they want, whereas Wizards gotta study the spellbook AGAIN to refresh their spells.

All sillies aside, wizards work for it, and sorcerers are born with an intuitive skill at magic, which is coupled with a degree of personal gravity, whereas most wizards lack a bit the charisma department. It's a bit of envy, and a bit of superiority complex (which seems to be a common characteristic among wizards), leading them to envy their understanding of magic, but mock their lack of depth of ability.

The comparison I'll make is the difference between Superman and Batman. Superman is like a Sorcerer because he has a natural talent (being empowered by the radiation of a yellow sun), whereas Batman studies EVERYTHING, and usually gets his butt handed to him when faced with a threat he hasn't seen before, like a Wizard would if we're being honest. Superman has the advantage at any given moment, due to his natural gifts, but with sufficient prep-time, Batman, like the Wizard, is able to be more well-set to handle a foe he's studied for a week than Supes would be.

[Incom]

As someone said earlier though, that's not exactly true after level 1. Sorcerers have to earn every other level through experience.