So, tarquin vs. team Xykon...

[krossbow]

What do you think the end results would be?


Tarquin is genre savvy, and knows that villain vs. villain fights NEVER end well for either side; he wants to stay out of fighting Xykon directly.


But If the two sides ended up trying to stop each other, Tarquin's Group of adventurers and Xykon and Redcloak, how do you think it would end up going down?

[Demolator]

:redcloak: "Screw it. Implosion."

[Bulldog Psion]

If Nale could kill Malack, I'm reasonably sure that Xykon and Redcloak together could take out the rest of the team. They'd probably be badly banged up, but I think they'd be standing amid the shredded, broken remains of Tarquin's group.

[NerdyKris]

Nale didn't really beat Malack in a fair fight. He exploited Malack's greatest weakness during a one in a million chance. Malack was alone, distracted, off guard, and wasn't expecting Nale to throw his staff several hundred feet away. There was literally no fight.

We've seen Xykon trouncing single high level characters, usually magic users. He's never faced a full complement of high level characters that can back eachother up.

But on the flip side, we don't really know Tarquin's teams levels. Malack was lower level than Durkon. The others might be similar. We don't really know their abilities or tactics. Malack was not experienced in combat with anyone mid to high level. We don't know if this applies to the other characters as well.

I'd say we would need to see more of Tarquin's group and their abilities before we can say who would win.

[GSFB]

Malack was killed by the sun, not the son.

Hey... wait a second... is there a... SYMBOL there?!?!?!

Seriously though, Malack deserved to die because he forgot the #1 cardinal rule for vamps: always have an escape plan in case of sun. Just because you have a protection spell, that's never an assurance of safety - dispel magic is hardly a high-level, rare threat. He deserved to die for not having something like a word of recall or any other emergency "bug out" spell prepared.

As for team T vs team X: team T is down a cleric, which is the most important tool against a necromantic epic sorcerer lich. Also, team T's psion is not as powerful against a lich as she would be against other high level foes, because the lich is immune to mind controlling effects. T may have many powerful magic items, but X has superb dispelling - and we don't yet know what other epic spells. Plus X has MitD. And while team T, at the moment, has an army - team X has 80,000 goblins who could easily be mustered -- so I'd call that aspect a wash.

Overall, team X would wipe team T off the plane, although T himself would surely be genre-savvy enough to always be the one evil guy who gets away (like Vader in his TIE fighter when the first Death Star was destroyed).

[AstralFire]

I'd like to point out that we don't know what kind of Psion Laurin is, and psionics' relative strength compared to other caster types is that they're pretty much the best blasters in the business (outdoing Xykon at his own game.)

Have no opinion on the topic overall. Simply don't know enough about TT to feel confident making a prediction. Frankly, Malack's struck me as being phenomenally weak, and I don't normally engage my (now very rusty) optimization brain on this comic, so I am not sure he's a good gauge for the rest of his team.

[TaiLiu]

Seriously though, Malack deserved to die because he forgot the #1 cardinal rule for vamps: always have an escape plan in case of sun. Just because you have a protection spell, that's never an assurance of safety - dispel magic is hardly a high-level, rare threat. He deserved to die for not having something like a word of recall or any other emergency "bug out" spell prepared.
Malack didn't just have a singular protection spell prepared, though - he had two. He also had a magic staff that left him cast it even more. He was destroyed because he used his second spell for Durkon, was disarmed of his staff, and had his protection dispelled.

If he had prepared Word of Recall, he would have used one of his precious sixth level spell slots, which would have reduced his utility greatly.

Also, just because one is stupid or foolish is no reason for one to die. Being stupid or foolish might lead to one's demise, but stupidity and foolhardiness does not mean that one "deserves" it.

[Arcanist]

He deserved to die for not having something like a word of recall or any other emergency "bug out" spell prepared.

It is far more likely that Z would have simply counterspelled such an attempt meaning that magic was not going to save him. Regardless, The Giant stated that it was for character reasons that Malack used his final moments the way he did. He HATED Nale and he wanted his final moments to show it.


As for team T vs team X: team T is down a cleric, which is the most important tool against a necromantic epic sorcerer lich. Also, team T's psion is not as powerful against a lich as she would be against other high level foes, because the lich is immune to mind controlling effects. T may have many powerful magic items, but X has superb dispelling - and we don't yet know what other epic spells. Plus X has MitD. And while team T, at the moment, has an army - team X has 80,000 goblins who could easily be mustered -- so I'd call that aspect a wash.

Overall, team X would wipe team T off the plane, although T himself would surely be genre-savvy enough to always be the one evil guy who gets away (like Vader in his TIE fighter when the first Death Star was destroyed).

I am in slight agreement and disagreement with this statement. Xykon obtains magical items and resources from gods know where so the limits of his abilities, beyond what we already know, are unknown. We do know not Laurin's powers known and therefore cannot make the assumption of what she can and cannot do (hell, we don't even know what specialization she is). We do not know the entire make-up of Tarquin's team (only that they are down a member), however if the Simulacrum theory has any basis for it, it would most definitely be a very close encounter to say the absolute least if push comes to shove with Xykon and Tarquin fighting each other.

[Eji1700]

Various thoughts-

1. I feel team tarquin is a little underrated sometimes. Especially tarquin himself. We haven't seen them really fight, but they do essentially run the largest and most powerful evil nation on the planet, and they've done so successfully for years. I'm guessing that for as much cunning as they have, there's some serious battle skills to back that up(remember their cover is mercenary work)

2. The way I see it, if Xykon just kicks down the door out of the blue and starts blasting away, he wins. They'd lose a lot(maybe...depends on who fights and how) but he'd win. The more prep time you give tarquin, the more likely he wins. I wonder just how aware of Xykon tarquin is, and the more aware of him he is the more prepared for him he will be(or willing to assist say a plucky band of adventurers who are trying to kill him)

[Valanarch]

Nale didn't really beat Malack in a fair fight. He exploited Malack's greatest weakness during a one in a million chance. Malack was alone, distracted, off guard, and wasn't expecting Nale to throw his staff several hundred feet away. There was literally no fight.

We've seen Xykon trouncing single high level characters, usually magic users. He's never faced a full complement of high level characters that can back eachother up.

But on the flip side, we don't really know Tarquin's teams levels. Malack was lower level than Durkon. The others might be similar. We don't really know their abilities or tactics. Malack was not experienced in combat with anyone mid to high level. We don't know if this applies to the other characters as well.

I'd say we would need to see more of Tarquin's group and their abilities before we can say who would win.

While Tarquin's team is probably at a lower level than Xykon, they still are at really high levels. Laurin could cast a psionic version of Gate, meaning that she is at least 17th level. Tarquin took on the entire order-V almost effortlessly. Theonly reason Malak was at such a low level was because of the vampire template's level adjustment.

[angry_bear]

Considering Redcloak and Xykon's history with melee, and how capable Tarquin alone is; I'm guessing it wouldn't go the way most people would expect. Still, like Tarquin has said, it'd be a toss up about who'd win.

[Baron Pineapple]

Too many people in these gaming forums have a habit of vastly underestimating a properly designed high-level fighter, thinking that optimized conditions 'tier ratings' are the be-all and end-all of determining lethality.

In my three plus decades of running D&D basic, AD&D, and 3/3.5 Ed, followed by Pathfinder, I've discovered it really is a toss-up that evenly ends up with victory on a coin toss and that the determined fighter/warrior classes can really @#$% up a "tier 1 caster's" day. This holds especially true when the benefit of prep/no prep is equally assigned to both characters. A savvy and forewarned fighter can do a LOT to prepare for an impending battle with a wizard, just as much as a pre-warned wizard can prepare for a battle. Take away the warning and planning and all of a sudden the fighter tends to have the edge because his abilities are less condition specific.

But for those who will will no doubt insist on contradicting my opinion, I'll also add that the aforementioned people tend get into biased and slanted predictions to set up such battles with the fighter starting at range in his underwear with no level-appropriate gear and the wizard being completely aware of his opposition and armed with level-appropriate magical items.

Anyhow, my main point in answering on this thread is that Team X has given up the bulk of their gobbo army and left it behind, lost their back-up caster (Tsukiko), and has no real dedicated fighting specialist. What they have is one epic level lich sorcerer with the attention span of a ferret on crystal meth, and a favored priest/cleric type. The MITD is a non-issue simply because he seems to only act when someone he genuinely values is threatened- which is neither party of Team X or Team T.

Team T has lost their high-ECL/mid-level vampire cleric, but has demonstrated a high level/pre-epic psion, a high level/possibly low epic fighter, and the associated implied rogue/ninja, multiclass or alternate class caster (face-scarf guy), and a possible multiclass warrior type (shoulder pads guy), all of whom are implied to be of similar level to Malack and Tarquin. They also have a mobilized and rapidly deployable dino-army.

Psions typically tend to be strongest when built as direct damage and utility support. We've witnessed some utility at work with the gate-like portal. They also have some capable back-up healing abilities. So perhaps the loss of Malack won't cripple the endurance factor of Team T. We really don't know until we see some more of the psion at work.

But the combination of focused aggregate power and the tactical savvy of Tarquin means that Team T is hardly at the power disadvantage that many would-be experts claim they are at. In my opinion it comes down to the power of script immunity.

If all other factors were RAW, Team T would hold their own so long as Xykon was not surprise attacking. If Tarquin has any opportunity to preplan and continue applying battlefield pressure while improvising his battle plans on the fly, Team T wins. Xykon is the hardest nut to crack but Team T's biggest weakness is the overall vulnerability of Redcloak to concentrated attack. This doesn't even require any special knowledge of his plans, simply the truism in D&D of "Everyone take down the cleric now!" Once Redcloak goes down, the victory is assured. In that manner he is like the chess queen, powerful but an obvious hinge-piece.

Anyhow, that's my two-cents.

[137beth]

I'd like to point out that we don't know what kind of Psion Laurin is, and psionics' relative strength compared to other caster types is that they're pretty much the best blasters in the business (outdoing Xykon at his own game.)

Have no opinion on the topic overall. Simply don't know enough about TT to feel confident making a prediction. Frankly, Malack's struck me as being phenomenally weak, and I don't normally engage my (now very rusty) optimization brain on this comic, so I am not sure he's a good gauge for the rest of his team.
Nope, the real strength of Psions is that they are the best at breaking the action economy.


Too many people in these gaming forums have a habit of vastly underestimating a properly designed high-level fighter, thinking that optimized conditions 'tier ratings' are the be-all and end-all of determining lethality.



Tiers are not related in any way, shape, or form, to direct conflict between characters with different classes. If someone tries to use tiers to justify why class X would win in a fight against class Y, then they do not understand the tier system at all. By the same token, if someone tries to use a class X vs class Y duel to argue that the tier system is somehow wrong, then they also don't understand it at all, because that's not what it is measuring. Tiers represent versatility. Nothing more, nothing less. "who would win in a fight between X and Y" has virtually nothing to do with tiers.

Now, in the specific case of Team Tarquin fighting Xykon, it has nothing to do with mechanics at all. Even Tarquin knows that when villains fight villains, it's a toss up. And the main villain wins, and that's Xykon.

[Synesthesy]

I think that simply Team X would be outnumbered by team T. We know that a good party can defeat very very more powerfull enemy. It's the base of the game.

But I have to say one think: everyone here is saying about 'Tarquin ability to prepare the fight', becouse we all know that Tarquin is so smart, he's a great strategist, etc.
But aren't we understimate Redcloak? I think that Reddy can be even smarter then Tarquin. If Reddy has time, he can create powerfull undeads to fight with. He can summon powerfull elementals to enlarge his numbers. He can found monsters to use. He can set magical traps. Reddy can have a plan to use against Tarquin's plan.

It would be a Mastermind fight, Redcloak vs Tarquin. And then, Reddy can unleash MitD.

[Branco]

Now, if we are supposing that Team Evil (Big X, Reddi and MitD)would have to fight against the entirety of the Western Continent Conspirators (Tarquin, Lauren and those other three), there's no way we can come to a conclusion. I know all this is for fun but seriously: four of those (including Lauren) are complete wildcards, we can only suppose a class and at least a moderate level; hell, even Tarquin could be counted as one. Also, lumping all of them together is a highly unlikely scenario. Remember, the WCC works in cells of two.

Another thing I noticed is that ppl seem to overestimate Tarquins power level. Now I'm not saying he's a 17th level fighter. For all I care, he could very well already be an epic level fighter. He manhandled the Order like almost none have before (maybe Miko) and Malack got mad at him for OBVIOUSLY playing around. But there's still an important point that needs to be emphasized: Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards. I am aware fighters can pack a punch, consistently. However, Big X's and Reddi's spellcasting prowess makes the holy **** quotient go through the roof. On top of that is Reddi's extraordinary competence (still amazed he instantly recognized the soul splice) and ability to control Xykon not just subtle and in the long run, but Xykon actually acknowledges Redcloak's tactical advice and is totally willing to follow it word for word if necessary (again the soul splice V fight). Even without Redcloak's intelligence, Xykon is more than capaple in his own way (Roy said that himself before the soul splice V fight, again).

I know I haven't even mentioned Lauren and I must admit she looks scary and competent as ****. I just wanted to make the point that in a fight including her he'd have to take a backseat.

Tarquin's genre savviness or knowledge of narrative conventions wouldnt all be that useful cause when he's fighting two full blown villains that have a no bull**** policy when it comes to a serious fight. Now I know I totally discredited Tarquin more than I made it sound like at the start of my essay but that what it boils down to. Constructing scenarios were Team Evil wanna whoop Tarquin's ass and he incidentally has his whole army or group with him or he has this special place he cleverly leads them to to trick them and it will be so cool and tarquinish and stuff and that's how he beats them. No, I won'd bother with the countless possibilities.

Against either of them, Tarquin loses out.

[Thunderfire]

I'd like to point out that we don't know what kind of Psion Laurin is, and psionics' relative strength compared to other caster types is that they're pretty much the best blasters in the business (outdoing Xykon at his own game.)


She used wormhole a pychoportive science from will and the way(2nd Edition Darksun Universe). A wormhole default size is 10x10 feet. Her wormhole is much bigger. Only very powerfull psychoporters are able to create a wormhole big enough to move tarquins army. They fight could be very onesided if she has access to other overpowered psionic sciences from the will and the way. e.g. Time Travel,Subjective Reality, Supress Magic...

[Baron Pineapple]

Another thing I noticed is that ppl seem to overestimate Tarquins power level....On top of that is Reddi's extraordinary competence (still amazed he instantly recognized the soul splice) and ability to control Xykon not just subtle and in the long run, but Xykon actually acknowledges Redcloak's tactical advice and is totally willing to follow it word for word if necessary (again the soul splice V fight). Even without Redcloak's intelligence, Xykon is more than capaple in his own way (Roy said that himself before the soul splice V fight, again).

Oh don't get me wrong, I already said script immunity is the power that will determine who wins.

But from a RAW POV with just mechanics determining things, I don't feel the Team Evil (whom I like immensely) would be a guaranteed win.

First off, while I think that Redcloak has class and mechanics savvy, he has not struck me as a mastermind personality. He's the archetype of the canny player who knows his class abilities and spells inside and out. He definitely has mad skillz.

But is he a tactical genius? Not really, in fact if you look at his taking of Azure City he was relying for the most part on pure attrition and brute force. Nothing really super-clever there. He just knows what combinations of spells and abilities get the best results. Even his 'clever' use of summoning is to some degree a meta-cheat based off of our real-world periodic table and knowledge of chemistry.

Both Tarquin and Redcloak are meta-characters, by no means am I saying they're not, but I recognize what Redcloak's strengths are and what Tarquin's strengths are. And I believe that Redcloak is at a slight disadvantage, similarly to how at the gaming table a canny rules-optimized player is at a slight disadvantage with the canny veteran player who also happens to be the synergistic tactical war-gamer. One is great in one-on-one conflict. The other will own you once he is allowed to make use of aggregate assets like... other party-members for example.

I also don't feel that Xykon is a tactical genius either. He's extraordinarily powerful, but look at his fight with the Sapphire Guard and Soon's ghost. He has a box and he doesn't tend to think outside of it. He was ready to throw in the towel and accept defeat with Redcloak saying "We really had a shot at the prize there for a minute, didn't we?" before Miko made her contribution to the fight. That right there doesn't strike me as being the attitude of a mastermind with redundancies and plans within plans.

Anyhow, it's all moot given that as we have both admitted, the story takes precedence and the story will determine who fights whom, and who will emerge clawing victory from the hands of defeat. Since Xykon is the established antagonist, it's most like going to be him. But it's it's not entirely out of bounds for Tarquin to have a "Spit my last breath at thee" moment, grinning like an idiot cause he did something to help Elan and the Order.

[Synesthesy]

Oh don't get me wrong, I already said script immunity is the power that will determine who wins.

But from a RAW POV with just mechanics determining things, I don't feel the Team Evil (whom I like immensely) would be a guaranteed win.

First off, while I think that Redcloak has class and mechanics savvy, he has not struck me as a mastermind personality. He's the archetype of the canny player who knows his class abilities and spells inside and out. He definitely has mad skillz.

But is he a tactical genius? Not really, in fact if you look at his taking of Azure City he was relying for the most part on pure attrition and brute force. Nothing really super-clever there. He just knows what combinations of spells and abilities get the best results. Even his 'clever' use of summoning is to some degree a meta-cheat based off of our real-world periodic table and knowledge of chemistry.

Both Tarquin and Redcloak are meta-characters, by no means am I saying they're not, but I recognize what Redcloak's strengths are and what Tarquin's strengths are. And I believe that Redcloak is at a slight disadvantage, similarly to how at the gaming table a canny rules-optimized player is at a slight disadvantage with the canny veteran player who also happens to be the synergistic tactical war-gamer. One is great in one-on-one conflict. The other will own you once he is allowed to make use of aggregate assets like... other party-members for example.

I also don't feel that Xykon is a tactical genius either. He's extraordinarily powerful, but look at his fight with the Sapphire Guard and Soon's ghost. He has a box and he doesn't tend to think outside of it. He was ready to throw in the towel and accept defeat with Redcloak saying "We really had a shot at the prize there for a minute, didn't we?" before Miko made her contribution to the fight. That right there doesn't strike me as being the attitude of a mastermind with redundancies and plans within plans.

Anyhow, it's all moot given that as we have both admitted, the story takes precedence and the story will determine who fights whom, and who will emerge clawing victory from the hands of defeat. Since Xykon is the established antagonist, it's most like going to be him. But it's it's not entirely out of bounds for Tarquin to have a "Spit my last breath at thee" moment, grinning like an idiot cause he did something to help Elan and the Order.

I think that Redcloak is a mastermind becouse he made Xykon is own puppet (even with the highest price of his brother life). And Reddy was able to kill Tsukiko without a fight; and he was able to destroy the Resistance.

However, Azure City's strategy was better then you thought. First of all, the brute force tattic of reddy was, in fact, a tattic. He knew that the goblins' army could outnumber the paladins, and he did it. In that moment, he didn't care about his soldiers' life and he used a direct attack (a tattic many army used in history: the d-day wasn't like that? But what other tattics could be used in that time and place?), BUT with the use of 3 Xykon etc, becouse what he really wanted was to divide the high level charapter (even the PCs) in different place vs different enemies.

Then he turned, he started to CARE about goblins' lifes, and then he won the battle without many loses. The only mistakes he did was to understimate the protection of the Gate.

I think he fought well that battle.

[GSFB]

Lots of comments about what people are forgetting - but here is what everyone is REALLY forgetting: the power of plot.

Xykon is the principal bad guy. He is THE big bad here. He will defeat ALL other bad guys in order to be THE bad guy in the final showdown against the protagonists. If Tarquin methodically plotted the most on-paper superior assault on an unsuspecting Xykon, bringing in his entire adventuring crew, the dragon queen, and a 100,000 solider army all riding dinosaurs - Xykon would still win, Redcloak would survive with him, and the two of them would still make it to the final showdown vs. OotS.

And Tarquin knows it. As he already stated, he is genre-savvy enough to know better than to battle another bad guy in the same story.