Elan Vs Haley

[Teapot Salty]

Hey guys. Next in the series. Starting 50 feet away from each other, armed and leveled as they are in the last comic. NO FEELINGS FOR EACH OTHER. Both want the other dead. No buffs. Who would win? Realistically and mechanically. (Realistically means, that numbers and the like don't matter, but spells still exist)

Realistically, I have to put my vote for Haley, arrow to the eye, done.

Mechanically, if Elan closes the distance or uses illusions properly (yes, he only uses them properly when he's told to, but he might think of it now) it would be interesting, but advantageous for him. But Haley should win initiative, is smart, and isn't awful in melee combat. (If not as good as Elan) It should be closer, but still Haley.

It should be interesting, and hopefully there isn't an overwhelming majority in either direction. And as always, go nuts.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Definitely Haley, as far as the "realistic" approach goes. I don't know about mechanically, since I don't know the abilities of a bard that well. Of course, if Elan acts like he usually does, Haley still wins. I don't really want to toss out their personalities and turn this into "Rogue vs. Bard", so whatever abilities Bards get won't save Elan, since he hardly uses them well.

[oppyu]

Haley is smarter, better at range, and wears armour. Elan can (sort of) cast and pun.

Haley wins in a straight up close or ranged fight, and Gods help Elan if she manages to get a Sneak Attack at any point.

[Nerd-o-rama]

In game mechanical terms, all the advantages of this scenario (mostly lack of buffs) go to the Rogue, so of course the Rogue wins, unless she botches her initiative check and Elan suddenly sprouts the ability to use spells effectively in combat.

[SavageWombat]

Leaving aside the obvious points about Haley's initiative advantage - Will is probably her worst saving throw. Surely Elan can do something with that.

[KillianHawkeye]

The most likely scenario is that Haley wins initiative and introduces Elan to her friends SNEAK ATTACK, SNEAK ATTACK, SNEAK ATTACK, and SNEAK ATTACK.


On the off chance she doesn't win initiative and can't sneak attack, her superior number of attacks still gives her the advantage in a straight up fight. She can tumble away from Elan and still shoot multiple arrows with Multi-Shot while Elan can only make a single attack after moving to catch her. Elan cannot win with his rapier alone.

Can his spells make the difference? As pointed out, Haley doesn't have the best Will save, but what could Elan cast that would actually enable him to defeat Haley? He could use illusions to escape, or maybe distract Haley for a couple of rounds. He could just charm her and avoid the fight entirely, but if we're taking the assumption that he really wants her dead, it won't help much. He'd have to trick her into drinking poison or something like that, and that's not really something Elan would do even to his worst enemy. Maybe Elan's ability to heal his own wounds would keep him alive long enough, but spending an action healing when Haley can just attack again is just going to be futile. Perhaps in combination with a distracting illusion, but that's a lot of magic being spent just to stay in the fight when it doesn't cost Haley a thing to fire her bow. Without some actual offensive magic, this strategy won't work. Plus Haley won't fall for the same tricks twice, so distracting her isn't going to work for long.

Even with all the boosts of competency he's gotten over the course of the comic, Elan's magic just isn't well suited for this kind of encounter. He's a bonafide support character. He just doesn't do very well on his own. And going first doesn't help him so much as stop Haley from killing him in one turn. Haley, on the other hand, is a stealthy, trap-finding damage machine. She took on 80% of the Greysky thieves' guild more-or-less by herself.


Yeah, I think I have to give this one to Haley.

[Jay R]

Once Elan abandons all his knowledge of Haley and determines that she is a female bad guy, he still won't try to kill her. It's his solemn duty to seduce female bad guys. It's like, in the bard charter or something. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0160.html)

[factotum]

Yeah, the problem I have with this matchup is that there isn't really any reason for the two of them to fight to the death. As Jay R points out, Elan's first instinct on meeting an attractive female bad guy is to seduce, not to kill, and Haley doesn't kill people without good reason. They'd have to actively hate each other to do this, not just "have no feelings".

[Nilehus]

Haley.

Unless Elan has Banjo. Then Elan.

[MagicalMeat]

Is there any question whatsoever as to who would win? What I am interested in is what a Rogue with Haley's level and feats vs a Bard of Elan's level and feats would fight like. Of course, Dashing Swordsman kinda screws this up, but from what we have seen, what would be the likely outcome of a fight between a Haley being played optimally vs an Elan being played optimally. Gut feeling still says the Rogue.

[butterbow]

Because you didn't exclude tropes from "realistic" I'd say I'd probably be a tie with friendship ensueing. That if both of them are still on the "good" side. If one or both or them were suddenly evil, either the eviler one dies; or the better one, which makes the other one change their attitude. Because that would make the story more interesting.
(But from a story standpoint I'd think, Elan still migth be the one to die more probably - just to subvert Woman in Refrigerators.)

I don't think Elan would kill any girl, his "bardic seducing" even works without him knowing (him being kidnapped by an female bad guy, then the whole story with Therkla...)

[Amphiox]

Well, *realistically* speaking, and with hitpoints disregarded due to not being realistic, with a good bow and a good set of armor-piercing arrows, at 50 feet Haley would be at least even against Roy, let alone Elan....

In real life, range>melee if melee can't close the gap in less time than it takes to get off 2 or more shots, most of the time.

[The Pilgrim]

Mechanically:

Start of combat, Haley probably wins Initiative:
- Haley can't sneak attack as target is beyond 30 feet, and she can't flank Elan or take him by surprise anyway. Still gets to nail Elan with some arrows. Not enough to deplete his HP total.

- Elan depends a lot on what spells he knows. His cheapest shot is to use his bard music to Fascinate Haley (1st level bard ability, good chance of being effective against Haley's low will save), then slowly move towards her and get into melee range.

Apart from that cheap shot, the Bard's Spell List has a lot of spells that would help Elan come into close contact. Most of them would also give him a free attack on Haley: Charm Person, Confusion, Dominate Person, Dimension Door, Invisibility, Greater Invisibility... We don't know how many of those, if any, Elan knows, but just one would suffice.

Once in Meleé Range:
- Both have equal BAB, but Elan's Dashing Swordsman features, plus the fact that he gets a free round while Haley has to swap her longbow for a meleé weapon, means he will make sush-kebab with her.

So, basically, the fate of the combat depends on how long can Haley hold against Elan's spells with her subpar Will Save. If she can hold long enough, she can turn him into a porcupine. But once Elan manages to get her once, he can cure himself (with magic or potions), then engage at close range and rip her.

['Neath the Moon]

The most likely scenario is that Haley wins initiative and introduces Elan to her friends SNEAK ATTACK, SNEAK ATTACK, SNEAK ATTACK, and SNEAK ATTACK.


You forgot "BITCH."
(I'm guessing that's allowed. I seem to recall the forums rules using "what's used in OotS" as the profanity baseline.)

Edit: also, Haley. Elan doesn't even wear armor anymore, so real-world archer beats rapier and magic.

[Greatmoustache]

really? haley? come on people, how can you not see that elan will be victorious?

he's the underdog. he's a bard (read: genre savvy). do the math.

actually don't. 'cause that's how he rolls. :smallamused:

[Jaxzan Proditor]

really? haley? come on people, how can you not see that elan will be victorious?

he's the underdog. he's a bard (read: genre savvy). do the math.

actually don't. 'cause that's how he rolls. :smallamused:

Or don't do the math because Elan frequently likes showing how things like probability don't have final say on the outcome of the story.

[Amphiox]

really? haley? come on people, how can you not see that elan will be victorious?

he's the underdog. he's a bard (read: genre savvy). do the math.

actually don't. 'cause that's how he rolls. :smallamused:

But if the fight occurs *outside* of a narrative, Elan's hosed....

[wyrmhole]

"You cannot defeat me, Haley Who Has Inexplicably Turned Evil Yet I Can't Seduce For Some Reason. For you see... I'm both the hero and the underdog in this story! I'm invincible!"

"Ah, that is where you are wrong, Elan Who I Inexplicably Want To Kill Due To Circumstances Too Convoluted To Explain Right Now. I am going to kill you with my next arrow."

"No way! You don't think you're the hero here, do you?"

"Of course not. But it doesn't matter. Because this is not a story. This... is an internet forum argument!"

"Noooo!"

Haley fires her arrow.

Elan dies.

[Jay R]

"You cannot defeat me, Haley Who Has Inexplicably Turned Evil Yet I Can't Seduce For Some Reason. For you see... I'm both the hero and the underdog in this story! I'm invincible!"

"Ah, that is where you are wrong, Elan Who I Inexplicably Want To Kill Due To Circumstances Too Convoluted To Explain Right Now. I am going to kill you with my next arrow."

"No way! You don't think you're the hero here, do you?"

"Of course not. But it doesn't matter. Because this is not a story. This... is an internet forum argument!"

"Noooo!"

Haley fires her arrow.

Elan dies.

But because it is an internet forum argument, no answer is final. So they are still fighting.

[DaveMcW]

NO FEELINGS FOR EACH OTHER. Both want the other dead.

That is not possible.

Haley could potentially want Elan dead enough to ignore his 18 charisma.

But Elan wanting someone dead? Not a chance.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Mechanically:

Start of combat, Haley probably wins Initiative:
- Haley can't sneak attack as target is beyond 30 feet, and she can't flank Elan or take him by surprise anyway. Still gets to nail Elan with some arrows. Not enough to deplete his HP total.

- Elan depends a lot on what spells he knows. His cheapest shot is to use his bard music to Fascinate Haley (1st level bard ability, good chance of being effective against Haley's low will save), then slowly move towards her and get into melee range.

Apart from that cheap shot, the Bard's Spell List has a lot of spells that would help Elan come into close contact. Most of them would also give him a free attack on Haley: Charm Person, Confusion, Dominate Person, Dimension Door, Invisibility, Greater Invisibility... We don't know how many of those, if any, Elan knows, but just one would suffice.

Once in Meleé Range:
- Both have equal BAB, but Elan's Dashing Swordsman features, plus the fact that he gets a free round while Haley has to swap her longbow for a meleé weapon, means he will make sush-kebab with her.

So, basically, the fate of the combat depends on how long can Haley hold against Elan's spells with her subpar Will Save. If she can hold long enough, she can turn him into a porcupine. But once Elan manages to get her once, he can cure himself (with magic or potions), then engage at close range and rip her.

You're missing move 20' closer+Manyshot as an option for Haley's first round. If Haley has Greater Manyshot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#greaterManyshot) (and she really should, otherwise her takedown of Tarquin and her insane badassery in general makes even less rules sense than it already does), she could potentially chunky-salsa Elan on her first round, since I'm pretty sure that's more d6's than Elan has hit dice.

Really, that's her best option, since shooting at an enemy denied his Dex bonus is the only way to get ranged sneak attack, and Haley's options for that are basically win initiative and pile on damage in the first round, or abuse a Bluff check. Or flash him, but this is a family webcomic.

[Greatmoustache]

the narrative isn't non-existent here. "the narrative" says that elan the bard is weaker in a duel with this conditions. therefore he's the underdog. and being the underdog, using his bardic savvyness, he wins.

(inb4 "if the underdog who happens to be elan wins, doesn't that make haley the underdog? omg paradox")

edit: i'm the first one to post after the forums got back online! woot! :smallsmile:

[Sunken Valley]

Haley, hands down

[Ghost Nappa]

If Elan and Haley fought 1v1 under those conditions, I'd have to say that Belkar would win.

[The Pilgrim]

You're missing move 20' closer+Manyshot as an option for Haley's first round. If Haley has Greater Manyshot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#greaterManyshot) (and she really should, otherwise her takedown of Tarquin and her insane badassery in general makes even less rules sense than it already does), she could potentially chunky-salsa Elan on her first round, since I'm pretty sure that's more d6's than Elan has hit dice.

Really, that's her best option, since shooting at an enemy denied his Dex bonus is the only way to get ranged sneak attack, and Haley's options for that are basically win initiative and pile on damage in the first round, or abuse a Bluff check. Or flash him, but this is a family webcomic.

Greater Manyshot works for multiple targets, so it's useless in an one-vs-one fight.

Manyshot lets Haley fire up to five arrows - many of them with quite hard negative modifiers. Elan has like 15d6 hp. So no, I don't think Haley can chunk Elan in one shot.

I know Haley is very popular and written as a very competent character, while Elan is written as fairy incompetent. But we aren't talking story-wise, we are talking realistically and mechanically.

Mechanically, a high lever spellcaster trumps a high lever non-spellcaster. All Elan needs to do is score a spell through Haley's weakest save.

Realistically, there is magic because the OP said so, but there are no unrealistically initiative rules, neither cultural bias towards bows. Elan can take cover while Haley tenses her bow*. Once behind cover, Elan overcomes her with magic.

*This is one of the many reasons why, in real life, crossbows trumped bows. Because they are ready for firing at any moment, while a bow must still be tensed.

[konradknox]

Elan will win, provided he survives the first sneak attack, which he should, because of the dashing swordsman class features.
On his turn he will use illusions to conjure up 20 of Haley's insecurity versions of herself, probably stunning/dazing/confusing her, because she has confidence issues. This will probably leave her unable to fight for a few rounds, which gives Elan time for healing and even more control/illusions. After that, it's melee, where Chaos Sabre goes against Crystal's Assassin Knife. I bet on the +5 Chaos Sabre.

[Jay R]

Haley, hands down

Haley, hands all over Elan.

[riaierb]

the both die.

[Cuthalion]

Haley all the way of course.

[Jpw1218]

Because of his knowledge of drama Elan would make a glorious charge get shot Haley would suddenly feel sad because even though they don't have feelings Elan has to seduce females he's up against then Haley would run over and Elan would sit up and say APRIL FOOLS!!!!!!

[Dycedarg]

Greater Manyshot works for multiple targets, so it's useless in an one-vs-one fight.

Manyshot lets Haley fire up to five arrows - many of them with quite hard negative modifiers. Elan has like 15d6 hp. So no, I don't think Haley can chunk Elan in one shot.

I know Haley is very popular and written as a very competent character, while Elan is written as fairy incompetent. But we aren't talking story-wise, we are talking realistically and mechanically.

Mechanically, a high lever spellcaster trumps a high lever non-spellcaster. All Elan needs to do is score a spell through Haley's weakest save.

Realistically, there is magic because the OP said so, but there are no unrealistically initiative rules, neither cultural bias towards bows. Elan can take cover while Haley tenses her bow*. Once behind cover, Elan overcomes her with magic.

*This is one of the many reasons why, in real life, crossbows trumped bows. Because they are ready for firing at any moment, while a bow must still be tensed.

Actually, while Greater Manyshot allows you to attack multiple foes, it also has several other advantageous effects that apply whether you are attacking one or more targets. In this case though, I doubt she'd use it, as she's got boots of speed. Pop those into action, and with improved rapid shot she's got five arrows at full attack bonus with no penalties every round for ten rounds. With the movement speed bonus from the boots she'd have little difficulty staying out of melee range long enough to finish him.

His only chance is spells. Being a bard, he has a fairly low number of known spells, and we've seen most of them. He hasn't used anything particularly useful for closing with a ranged character except possibly Lesser Confusion, but that only has a one in five chance of allowing him to close distance, and only lasts one round. While theoretically the spells we don't know about could be anything, I highly doubt that he has either invisibility or dimension door given how many times he's been cornered lately and failed to do anything about it. Further given his actions in the throne room when running from Enor I think we can rule out most of the other mind control spells. I can't imagine he'd have bothered with Lesser Confusion if he could have just controlled him outright.

So in this fight I'd definitely go with Haley. Sure, spellcasters are overpowered, but he's a bard, and a bard who focuses on support. Mechanically speaking, a spontaneous caster who hasn't tailored his build to one on one fighting with people at range is going to suck at it, and Elan has never demonstrated any effectiveness whatsoever in this sort of situation.

[wumpus]

For a bard, any 1v1 should be a loss. Any character/class that can't beat a bard 1v1 should presumably be a better buffbot or have similar party utility or be haplessly outclassed on the tier chart (by bards, no less). The basic strategy of a solo bard is to mosey into a tavern, sing a bunch of rousing songs, and recruit up a posse. Let posse defeat enemy, Huzzah!

For a ranged rogue, defeating a single enemy should be trivial. As mentioned above, all she needs is a full [sneak] attack and return to concealment for maximum damage. Even attacking a single member of a full party shouldn't be a problem: she has "infinite" daily sneak attacks, bards and other support characters have finite daily sneak attacks. As long as she maintains the initiative, our bard is doomed.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Greater Manyshot works for multiple targets, so it's useless in an one-vs-one fight.

Not how I read it. Maybe there was a CustServ ruling (HA!) or Errata on this that I'm not aware of, but here's what the feat says:


When you use the Manyshot feat, you can fire each arrow at a different target instead of firing all of them at the same target. You make a separate attack roll for each arrow, regardless of whether you fire them at separate targets or the same target. Your precision-based damage applies to each arrow fired, and, if you score a critical hit with more than one of the arrows, each critical hit deals critical damage.

Emphasis added, naturally. To me, that says that the extra precision damage applies to each attack whether or not you take advantage of the first sentence of the feat or not, since you can explicitly use Greater Manyshot on multiple targets or just one. The tradeoff is making separate heavily-penalized attack rolls instead of it being all-or-nothing on one roll, in addition to needing to spend the extra feat.


For a bard, any 1v1 should be a loss. Any character/class that can't beat a bard 1v1 should presumably be a better buffbot or have similar party utility or be haplessly outclassed on the tier chart (by bards, no less). The basic strategy of a solo bard is to mosey into a tavern, sing a bunch of rousing songs, and recruit up a posse. Let posse defeat enemy, Huzzah!

For a ranged rogue, defeating a single enemy should be trivial. As mentioned above, all she needs is a full [sneak] attack and return to concealment for maximum damage. Even attacking a single member of a full party shouldn't be a problem: she has "infinite" daily sneak attacks, bards and other support characters have finite daily sneak attacks. As long as she maintains the initiative, our bard is doomed.

The issue here is that the arena is set up specifically to remove all of a ranged rogue's advantages, because there's no cover or concealment, and we don't have any evidence that Haley carries concealment-granting magic items (though her Hide is probably good enough to snipe Elan if she did have cover or concealment).

A flat featureless plain and 50 feet of distance are the only reasons Elan stands any chance at all, really.

EDIT: Actually wait, that wasn't specified, I just assumed because that's how vs. concepts normally work. If Haley's got concealment to work with, or even just rough terrain, forget it. Can't enchant or use your Dex bonus to AC against what you can't see.

[Crusher]

If Haley can nuke Elan down on the first round she obviously wins, otherwise Elan (well, not-Elan, rather an optimally constructed Bard) will bomb her with Will-save spells which she'll almost certainly fail. Can he coup de grace her after that? If so obviously its over.

If not... hmm, do Bard's get sneak-attack bonuses in 3.5? I don't think they do, but I don't honestly remember how Bards work anymore. In the unlikely event he does, then he can probably work her over pretty hard himself. And even in the more likely event that he doesn't, they're a more even match in melee than at ranged. While in sheer combat I'd still give the edge to Haley, her problem is that Elan can keep disabling her with low level Will-save spells and use the break to heal himself, adjust his position and then get free attacks on her whenever he likes.

She still has a chance in that Rogues are pretty crafty and she might win initiative and pull of something tricky before he can cast a follow-up spell. She probably can't Sap him in melee combat but she might be able to throw dirt into his eyes or some other temporarily incapacitating move, allowing her to get back out into range and annihilate him before he can recover.

If she doesn't win the first round *OR* get lucky and successfully save on that first spell, I think its Elan's fight to lose, but Haley could still pull it out. I would probably bet on Haley to win, but I wouldn't give better than 1-2 odds.