Quote Originally Posted by TooSoon View Post
So to focus on some of the replies I've seen:
1) Even the author is admitting the fight didn't follow the rules satisfactorily, someone quoted him saying as much. If people don't care, that's cool, but I disagree that there was no more satisfying way of showing it. By showing it in an obviously rules incorrect way it actually undermines "emergent philosophy" Xykon is presenting, because it's not proving his point at all; it's proving if the guy he fights is jobbed then you win because you're cool no matter what point you think you're making. In fact while I'm very partial to the advantages of the sorcerer class it's actually convincing me of the opposite point, because all Dorukan has to do is teleport away and come back with better prep, and Xykon's counter to that is... nothing. He doesn't have dimensional anchor, so he has to just to hope every strong wizard he fights is railroaded by the plot basically. This leads me to the next point.
Yeah and Tsukiko wouldnt have lost against Redcloak if she had checked for the magic wards in Redclaok´s room. And Roy might have beaten Xykon ages ago if he was a wozard like his father. And Belkar wouldnt be constantly losing for failing will saves if he had taken measures earlier. And I could go on and on with examples. A lot of things might happen differently if a character had taken an optimal decision but that is not how life works. People make mistakes all the time, circumstances change, something goes wrong or we make the wrong assumptions.

Its a really flawed premise, you are presenting here. Why would he have to prepare teleport at all? He has some of the best defenses out there. They had even kept Xykon at bay And I dont think there was any establishment of him needing to leave his dungeon that day. So, tell me why would this EPIC person who spent most of later life holed up in a dungeon with nearly unbreakable defenses need to prepare teleportation in his every day situation? What could someone of his level be a big enough threat for him to really need such defensive measure?

Even with the previous knowledge of Xykon being there, Dorukan never actually saw him as an actual threat. He jumped pretty confidently at Xykon probably thinking anything he had prepared that day would be enough to deal with Xykon. I will add that he didnt prepare for the fight with Xykon, he jumped into a fight when he heard about his loved one. It was a fight on an impulse and he wasnt prepared to face one.

2) I think some people on here misunderstand how energy drain works. There's basically no way the first energy drain could have taken his teleport spells, and if Dorukan didn't prepare any other teleport spells are we to be satisfied with that explanation? Sorcerer trumps the Wizard class because the Wizard teleports out to fight without any way of getting back? The moral I'd take from that would be "if the wizard acts like an idiot and engages in suicidal behavior, sorcerer is the better class", because look at all the things that need to go right for the sorcerer to win:
- The Wizard needs to not prepare using scrying, etc
- The Wizard needs to not protect from negative energy even though this is easy and goes hand in hand with lichs
- The Wizard needs to teleport out to fight you with the wrong spells, and teleports left to bail
- The Wizard needs to fight foolishly
- The Wizard needs to stand there like a dummy while you get 5 spells to 1 of his own.
To me the takeaway would be the sorcerer is the fool, who was bailed by plot armour, not that Wizards are arrogantly overlooking something by underestimating the sorcerer. If you're a moron you're a moron, no matter what class you have.
My takeaway from your takeaway is, be perfect, always have the perfect condition in your favor, and always be omniscient and paranoic.

For me the real takeaway from the battle is that sorcerer can beat wizard because different strenghts mean different advantages and disadvantages. Wizard wont always lose but it can lose.

4) V has less power than Hearta, even with all 3 splices, cos he's operating off his crap base stats and the other 2 splices add nothing except diversity since they're so far below Hearta. It would be like me saying a level 10 wizard is more powerful than an Epic Wizard because of a prestige class that grants him more cantrips; he'd have "more" spells, but it wouldn't make him more powerful. As I said, I believe the author made a lot of revisions to the story to sell this fight, and it ended up much better than it was looking like it'd shape up, but for me it's a cop out from the actual ultimate and complete arcane power that dwarfs any caster to ever live promise. I mean, there were casters who ascended to godhood, never mind Hearta. I think the originaly way the splice was going to work would have lived up to all of this; namely having the levels stack. Unfortunately the revised version is pretty unsatisfying to me.
He has the combined spell lists of three epic spellcasters and can even cast them spontaneously. Isnt that enough? One of the two "weaker" wizards has epic teleportation, that one spell above the one that you seem to value so much that you are arguing on the stupidity of another caster for not using. It even gave access to the two barred schools that V has. How is that not amazing enough?