Roy's Hit rate with spellsplinter+greenpower speculation

[torugo]

This is pure speculation as hit dices depends on probability.

If you see the first momments of Roy's fight you can see he hits and fails in a reasonable fashion for fighting a priest on the same level.

One would expect that after so many level drains Roy should be hitting much less but instead in the last panels he didnt miss a single hit.

Possibilities I see for that :

1- Spellsplinter took off any protections Durkon used before the fight. This is consistent with Hel's might disapearing after the first green slash if it was a spellsplinter in action.
2- The sword somehow protected Roy from drains or just restored all drains at one turn.

and the worse:
3- Lots of lucky rolls in a row.

[torugo]

Moreover....

I re-read the entire fight against durkula and Roy were having really big problem to pass Durkulas's defence (Armor) before the first spellsplinter.

Then he doesnt miss a single hit even after negative levels.
Clear indication that Spellsplinter probably removed some of durkula's AC

[Nalix]

I think rule of drama is in full play as well, though that can be conveniently lampshaded by the fact that his sword has special buffs against undead and we even saw those buffs activate, and the fact that spell-splinter's effects aren't precisely defined, meaning it can probably do anything vaguely anti-magic that the plot requires.

[dtilque]

Durkula seems to cast a buff spell of some sort just before the fight started in strip 1000. I've assumed it was Divine Power, which doesn't improve AC, but it could have been some other buff spell that did. Or he could have cast one earlier, if there's any that last a long time. The Green Power™ probably dispelled any such buffs, since it clearly dispelled the Hel's Might. Or it could be that it's just due to undoing the negative levels, which it also seems to have done.

One impression I got was that when the SpellSplinter feat is used, there doesn't seem to be much damage done. No more than half damage, perhaps none at all. That would make sense if he has to attack in a certain way that reduces the total impact of his hit.

[Snails]

I think rule of drama is in full play as well, though that can be conveniently lampshaded by the fact that his sword has special buffs against undead and we even saw those buffs activate, and the fact that spell-splinter's effects aren't precisely defined, meaning it can probably do anything vaguely anti-magic that the plot requires.

I agree. If Spellsplinter Maneuver were just the known (to us) 3e splatbook feat Mageslayer, then Wrecan declaring it is a famous feat that no known fighter alive possesses does not make all that much sense. Yes, it is possible that most splatbook material is "almost epic" in the OotSverse, but that is not particularly satisfying IMO.

As for Roy's hit rate, I think it is fair to guestimate that Roy was 100% on target smacking Xykon while his sword was glowing green as well. So, as far as we can tell, the green glow has never ever missed undead.

[tomaO2]

Meh, Spellsplinter probably got forgotten due to not being that great. Maybe they were surprised because they couldn't believe someone would want to waste a slot on it.

Mageslayer at least, doesn't allow any defensive casting. Roy hasn't even used it 10 times and it already had a failure. I suppose a fort roll is made at some negative to disrupt the spell.

[Kantaki]

Meh, Spellsplinter probably got forgotten due to not being that great. Maybe they were surprised because they couldn't believe someone would want to waste a slot on it.

Mageslayer at least, doesn't allow any defensive casting. Roy hasn't even used it 10 times and it already had a failure. I suppose a fort roll is made at some negative to disrupt the spell.

Theexpression (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1003.html) on the faces of the bodyguards and their wordchoice don't scream "What a idiot" to me. More something along the lines of "Wow, where did he learn to do that? That move is something I only heard legends about and this guy can use it. Awesome."

Maybe Spellsplinter has a higher failure rate than some real D&D feat, but for all we know it has other advantages like being useable against any spellcasting and/or dealing more damage.
Another possibility is that it failed that one time because Durkula didn't cast defensively or that the Giant decided it wouldn't always work to keep the story interesting.

[Snails]

Meh, Spellsplinter probably got forgotten due to not being that great. Maybe they were surprised because they couldn't believe someone would want to waste a slot on it.

Mageslayer at least, doesn't allow any defensive casting. Roy hasn't even used it 10 times and it already had a failure. I suppose a fort roll is made at some negative to disrupt the spell.

In actual play Mageslayer is unreliable because the intended target can often take a 5 step away. I do not think the claim that Spellsplinter is inferior to Mageslayer can be supported by examination of the rules and the actions in comic.

[ReaderAt2046]

Meh, Spellsplinter probably got forgotten due to not being that great. Maybe they were surprised because they couldn't believe someone would want to waste a slot on it.

Mageslayer at least, doesn't allow any defensive casting. Roy hasn't even used it 10 times and it already had a failure. I suppose a fort roll is made at some negative to disrupt the spell.

Even if Spellsplinter makes defensive casting impossible, Durkon could have simply made the Concentration check not to have the spell disrupted by the damage from the AoO.

[JBiddles]

It's possible that Roy wasn't actually using Spellsplinter when Durkula got a Harm through. Perhaps he made an ordinary attack, hoping to be able to drop Durkula, but got unlucky: he rolled low and Durkula just ate the damage and made his check to cast.

[paddyfool]

I wonder if one of the more sneaky clerics may have been using concealed casting to buff Roy a tad. Loki's high cleric, perhaps?

[Quild]

Even if Spellsplinter makes defensive casting impossible, Durkon could have simply made the Concentration check not to have the spell disrupted by the damage from the AoO.

Roy has a medium Greatsword, that's 2d6 damages per hit.
Roy has 24+ STR. His weapon is 2 handed, that's a +10 damage per hit.
Roy has a +5 sword, that's +5 damages per hit.
Roy has weapon specialization, that's +2 damages per hit.

A vampire has DR 10/Silver and Magic.

That means that if Roy's rolled 1s on his two dice and did not use Power Attack (which is likely here), Roy still did 9 damage.

Harm is a level 6 spell. So HPoH must make a concentration check of 10+9+6 = 25

Now I'm not used with concentration check in 3.5, but I believe it's d20+CON modifier. For Undead, it would be d20+CHA modifier.
HPoH has poor Cha modifier even taking into account the +4 from being a vampire. Durkon had a Charisma below 10, so HPoH's CHA modifier is 1 at most.

HPoH needs some bonuses to even have a chance to make this check.

[Shpadoinkle]

HPoH needs some bonuses to even have a chance to make this check.

Any caster who doesn't invest skill points in Concentration is doing a horribly, horribly piss-poor job. Assuming he's level 16, skill ranks (and modifiers from feats, any magic gadgets that would raise his check, and any other bonuses he might have) give him a +19 to the check.

[Quartz]

Now I'm not used with concentration check in 3.5, but I believe it's d20+CON modifier. For Undead, it would be d20+CHA modifier.

Concentration is a skill in 3.5E, so the roll is d20 + CON/CHA + Skill. We don't know how many points Durkula has in it, though. Clerics only get 2 points per level (plus Int bonus) and the Int bonus from being a vampire isn't retro-active.

[Rift_Wolf]

Another possibility is Durkon was using total defence at the start of the fight, only lowering it when he attempted domination (which he thought would one-shot Roy). After that he was running, climbing and fighting. Spellsplinter may be to hit the spell, not the caster, so Durkon's AC wouldn't really matter. As for Roy 'failing' to Spellsplinter the Harm; Durkon had switched tactics to slam attacks. It looked to me like Roy had readied an attack and didn't have chance to prep a Spellsplinter (if it's a readied action or similar), so just swung as hard as he could. Given that Durkon had been using slams as well as spells, that might've been the most sensible action (if he slams, I get a full attack and he only gets one; if he casts, well hopefully the damage is enough to have him fail the concentration check)