OOTS #650 - The Discussion Thread

[David Argall]

I would think Xykon would be very learned in the history and practices of these three (now 2) epic evil casters. Most evil wizards, sorcerors or necromancers in stories get there power from pursuing and researching great spellcasters of the past.

Go back and check D&D rules. Sorcerers, like Xykon, are born with the power. They don't need to know a thing about anything, in particular about past spellcasters. V is the more likely to know about these souls.

Its the usual RP backstory for why wizards or sorcerors join parties and then go into spooky dungeons. I would think Xykon being as strong as he is must have come across some of the arcane data these souls left behind simply because if they were so powerful they must have lived on in legends,

Ganonron is described as conquering world after world. Our three souls may well have never set foot on the OOTS world. [The idea that the OOTS world is the only world is distinctly suspect once you consider the idea. For example, where did those 4 sets of gods come from? The presumption is they came from 4 different places, and there is no reason to make 4 any sort of upper limit. Since the OOTS world has produced additional gods, the idea naturally follows that these places were additional worlds with an oversupply of gods and parties left those worlds to find/create new homes/worlds.]

You missed my point.

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"Turn Undead. (sorta)."
V even looks undeadish with those fangs.

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Assuming that V qualified as undead, she has in excess of 60 HD, and is effective immune to any turning/rebuking.

We know he lied - or at least used serious equivocation and word-twisting, which in my books counts as lying* - about the other two, and we know he did it in order to avoid dying at Belkar's hands. However, that doesn't mean that he would have continued to lie about V - the sentence he didn't get to finish might have ended up being the most straightforward and honest thing he ever said. We have no way of knowing.

We have ways of making a durn good guess. Since the Oracle was trying to avoid getting knifed, he started with his best case, and was weaker with each case. V being last in line had to be the weakest case of all.
Belkar, by the very fact of existing, will contribute in some way to V's death, but the link will not be obvious, nor particularly direct. In fact, we should presume the link will be so weak that we can't see it without very close examination. In effect, it is worthless to try to predict V's death based on Belkar's actions or inactions.
Actually, we can predict the reverse. Belkar will not be obviously involved in any death of V. Any theory that involves Belkar killing V should be rejected out of hand. Any theory where Belkar is a moderately direct cause of V's death is highly suspect.
And any attempt to bolster the possibility of V dying, due to some involvement by Belkar and referring to the prediction, is to be ignored as wrong on its face.

[Shatteredtower]

I'm quite surprised to see how many people assume that V should wipe the floor with Xykon. Those who've read Start of Darkness should know just how much trouble this should be for the elf. Even those who haven't ought to recognize that the "some restrictions apply" clause in the soul splice puts V at a disadvantage in the fight.

The short version is this:

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V has no defense against energy drain. Death ward, the standard protection, is a cleric spell. The splice doesn't allow for cleric spell effects to be cast or imitated.

To elaborate a bit:

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V's epic level spellcasting does not make the elf an epic level character. It makes the elf what a friend used to call a fireball goblin: a fragile opponent that can strike for a lot more damage than it could survive taking. Access to the spells of two epic level characters doesn't change the fact that V is a 14th level character with 14d4 hit points (plus those granted by bear's endurace). On average, it will take only three castings of energy drain to drop the elf, but a single casting could cause more than enough trouble.

First, there's the fact that a single casting of the spell reduces the target's saving throw by 2 to 8 points. Assuming an average result, we're looking at a -5 penalty on the saving throw against finger of death, a 7th level spell. Even with bear's endurance (+2 on Fort saves) and protection from spells (+8 on all saves), V's modifier on Fort saves will be +9 against a difficulty check of at least 25 (10 + 7th level spell +8 for a 26 Charisma, the minimum we'd expect for a 20th+ level sorcerer lich that lived to old age).

Now it's possible that there are a few more modifiers involved, such as a cloak of resistance for V and a cloak of charisma or Spell Focus for Xykon, but those should pretty well balance out. The end result is a 75% chance of the spell killing V outright, and a 25% chance of being reduced to a dangerously low hit point total (once we factor in the 25 already lost to energy drain). Heck, without energy drain, Xykon would have a chance of scoring a one-hit kill.

Power word kill would be an even better follow-up to energy drain in this particular case, since V's one of the few members of the group that couldn't reliably hope to survive the latter spell at full health. We don't know that Xykon has the latter spell, but it hardly matters: we know he's perfectly content to just keep hammering away with one spell over and over for as long as it remains effective.

V could always get lucky, sure, but still has the more vulnerable Achilles' heel, and we haven't even discussed the adverse effect energy drain has on Concentration effects.

Or, simplest of all:

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Xykon takes V down the same way he did O'Chul, without ever having to cast a single spell. Free action is another divine-only spell V can't use, and the paralysis has a permanent duration.

At least V would be able to perform purely mental actions, such as releasing the splice. Then again, what are the odds that the V would maintain it indefinitely in hope of an eventual release and chance to put it to good use?

The elf is just so much roadkill looking for the highway, the overstretched balloon in a mosh pit full of porcupines. All the evidence for that can be found in the author's work to date.

On the subject of fulfilling the prediction made to Belkar, we run into a paradox if the only reason the Oracle had for answering, "Yes," was because Belkar killed him. The only reason he'd have for giving Belkar the incentive was if Belkar was going to cause someone else's death, otherwise he could have just answered, "No."

Admittedly, it's likely Belkar would have tried to test the theory, but it's at least as likely that Roy would have put a stop to such efforts.

[The MunchKING]

That whole arguement falls appart when you examine her fight with the Black Dragon again.

She took a Dragon's full attack, 6 shots in a single round and cam out looking none the worse for the wear. 14d4 would have be seriously close to deaded after one of those, much less still without a scratch.

EDIT: Granted that's right after she casts Stoneskin, but my point still stands. She's got massave HP.

[Otomodachi]

Prediction

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This all started visually with V reliving the shame he felt at failing the azurites; many pages ago in this post, the Resistance in Azure City were mentioned. I say V won't make it to Xykon, but will instead end up bringing the Resistance out of the city to the New Azure City, hilarious hijinx ensue as he tries to convince them he's not evil but prolly only two comics worth. Then, V realizes something new about his soul splice; personally it suspiscious that V asked if the 3 fiends would get his soul when he died and they said no no no, blah blah blah, custody equal to duration of each fiend's splice per fiend, order of custody to be determined at a later date, and none of THEM mention ANYTHING about him being dead when his soul is... uh... custodized. V's story arc starting with feelings of guilt, and I think he will resolve those feelings of guilt by doing something actually good instead of something impressive; plus, we already know that he can epic teleport and my gut is screaming, "Chekov's Gun!"

Rich isn't really that sadistic a writer, he seems to bad things to his protagonists so they grow from them, and that's the difference between him and a ancient greek tragedy writer; let's face it, OotS is more comic than it is tragic, although like most good fiction it has elements of both.

[Doug Lampert]

You act like V is teleporting to a battlefield, where he will fight his way through the whole army, before taking on all the best bad guys at once. In reality he is going to teleport right to Xykon (at least as I understand how Teleport works), with perhaps the head level bad guys with him. Only the MITD is a difference maker. If he can hurt V, then fine, but Redcloak and the others are just meaningless. How helpful was redcloak v.s Soon? Exactly.

What version of teleport goes to a person rather than a place?

EVERY version in the SRD goes to a location, none go to a person. Unless Epic Teleport has a built in epic scrying component V will show up somewhere in Azure city, and then can START looking for Xykon.

[tyckspoon]

What version of teleport goes to a person rather than a place?

EVERY version in the SRD goes to a location, none go to a person. Unless Epic Teleport has a built in epic scrying component V will show up somewhere in Azure city, and then can START looking for Xykon.

Well, sure, but the whole purpose of Epic spells and the seed construction system is that they are not pre-written spells. You also will not find any written Teleport spell that is capable of transporting an entire fleet of people + everything they own + the ships they were travelling on, but Ganonron's Epic Teleport did just that. Is it that inconceivable that it could also be used to teleport to the location of a sufficiently well-identified person or object (ie, "the lich Sorcerer Xykon) in addition to a location?

[Wormwood74]

Rich Burlew has read every fantasy thing out there. This plot line reeks of Stephen R. Donaldson and the end of The Illearth War when Elena summons the dead High Lord Kevin Landwaster to battle Lord Foul the Despiser.

It was a horrific decision, and the reader knew that it would end badly. The protagonist (Thomas Covenant) begged Elena not to and howled when Elena used the word of command to force Kevin to attack Foul. It went pretty much as expected. Foul defeated Kevin, broke the law of death, and warped Lord Kevin into his servant. Charaters in the series have been paying the price for this decision even 5 books later.

Forget the hard core gaming "how many HD does he have?" kinds of questions. Even Burlew admits the OOTS has no character sheets. This is just a riff on an existing fantasy motif, and the outcome is pretty predictable.

Edit: Not to say that I don't enjoy OOTS. I think it's brilliant, particularly the characterizations.

[Dilvish]

Definitely a possibility. Note the spirits' comments on the second-to-last panel? "Nothing I can't - nnnh - handle" are definitely one of the most famous last words.

If the teleport succeeds, however, I'm curious whether Xykon & co are able to see the spirits/separate them from V. 'Cause if they do, THEN it will be bad.

I noticed the very end of 650 too. Seems most people haven't. V. is having problems. Epic Teleport, the Splice, and Cloister may not mix in a good way.

[AkodoKoji]

You know, if Haerta has to fuse with someone, why not Tsukiko?

That is a deliciously sexy idea. Two hot necroladies in one body. I need to go write this fan fiction now.

[(name here)]

Even the epic seed transport has no clause for going to an unknown destination, and there is absolutely no reason to suspect that this iteration of epic teleport has a scrying component, and some reasons not to.

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My bet is on a telefrag by going to a place where there is now a wall. Failing that, there is still an extensive list of ways an arcane caster going in blind can die horribly. Xykon could cast Nailed to The Sky, for instance, or some lower-level rock-paper-scissors style effect. V didn't even give himself fire immunity, a lack of foresight that could cost him dearly.

[NakedCelt]

Look, seriously, if you have homework to do, and your mom asks "Did you do your homework?" and you say "Yes" meaning "Sometime last week, homework got done" but not "I did today's homework", you may *technically* be telling the truth, but she's still gonna ground you. And if the electric company calls threatening to shut off your service, and you tell them "The check's in the mail" meaning that SOMEBODY has sent a check to SOMEONE and that check is in the mail, again, you're technically telling the truth but you'll still be in the dark.

That's the level of linguistic games the Oracle is pulling here. He's using the literal truth to lie and weasel his way out of what he *knows* is gonna happen - and it doesn't work any better than when you lie to your mom or the people at conEd.

Absolutely traditional behaviour for oracles. Legend has it the Delphic Oracle did the same to Croesus (Google it).

[mskkid]

My Theory:

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I believe that within these next few strips V will be in Azure City looking for Xykon and casting various buffs on hirself and then have to fight Redcloak and Mitd before getting to Xykon who is a "final boss" and beats one of the remaining souls out of V forcing V into a retreat.

[Conuly]

I don't need to Google it. The Oracle of Delphi was such a hassle. Either her predictions came true only because you bothered to ask for them, or they were clearly so ambiguous as to be *bound* to come true no matter what!

The OotS Oracle, by contrast, has come up with some that are sounder in advice than Delphi managed. Haley's prediction was useful to her, and V's was spot on (even if it wasn't very helpful).

...

I had a point.

[Xacal]

With sorcerers of that power, though, the winner of the duel between V and Xykon could be simply a matter of who wins initiative....
This is, I think, due mainly to the inverse variation of Wizard/Sorcerer hp and damage dealing...

[Dagren]

With sorcerers of that power, though, the winner of the duel between V and Xykon could be simply a matter of who wins initiative....
This is, I think, due mainly to the inverse variation of Wizard/Sorcerer hp and damage dealing...

Probably. If V just blasts Xykon, she probably wins. If she makes a big show over it (letting him make the first move), she probably loses. Just like the rest of the things she's done while spliced.

[JeptCloak]

With sorcerers of that power, though, the winner of the duel between V and Xykon could be simply a matter of who wins initiative....
This is, I think, due mainly to the inverse variation of Wizard/Sorcerer hp and damage dealing...

I'm not even convinced Xykon is significantly stronger than the Black Dragon was. Stronger yes, but not by a significant margin. How did that fight go... I mean, am I mireading the stats an Ancient Black Dragon with spell casting of that level has? To cast Finger of Death even once the Dragon would need a caster lvl of 13, and that means at a minimum it would be a "Wyrm", which has some pretty badass stats.

[BriarHobbit]

I think that V. is going to get healthy serving of humility and a better understanding of why it is good to be part of a team when facing TEAM EVIL. I would not be surprised if the spirit of the Necromancer makes an appearance.

I'm not sure why the two spliced spirits are so supportive of the fight. If V is killed or soul trapped, he is not going to be of any use for the Evil Three.

[JeptCloak]

I think that V. is going to get healthy serving of humility and a better understanding of why it is good to be part of a team when facing TEAM EVIL. I would not be surprised if the spirit of the Necromancer makes an appearance.

I'm not sure why the two spliced spirits are so supportive of the fight. If V is killed or soul trapped, he is not going to be of any use for the Evil Three.

Hmm, maybe because they are 2 of the most powerful arcane users of all time, and Xykon is a lvl 21-22 Lich who has, among other things, been owned by Soon & Roy, then a Fighter of about 10th lvl tops...

[(name here)]

Hmm, maybe because they are 2 of the most powerful arcane users of all time, and Xykon is a lvl 21-22 Lich who has, among other things, been owned by Soon & Roy, then a Fighter of about 10th lvl tops...

Alternatly, they know that between their talking and xykon's 22+ charisma, they can get free

[Ossian]

Perhaps it has already been said, but it does not take THAT much for V to lose her grip on the grafted souls. Just an emotional shock, and one, or both, epic spellcasters are gone. That leaves V. as just a magic using monkey with pointy ears.

She can easily own Xykon and Team Evil, right now, but only if she can keep hold on the splice. Plus the MITD might eventually be used as the trump card he's supposed to be.

Xykon is nasty, and a lot smarter than V....

[Trixie]

This puts Ganeron in what, the 30s lvl wise? I mean, his Dragon is clearly superior to the ABD in size (which correlates to power). I don't know anything about Purple (psychic?) dragons, but it seems like high 30s minimum to rip through an ABD unharmed, and be bigger and more impressive than it.

Actually, nope. Blacks are one of the smallest dragons, the only ones definitely smaller than them are Whites. Other dragons, even with the same amount of HD can (and are) larger, so the size alone doesn't tell us anything. Gold and Red dragons can be larger even with a smaller amount of HD, so that dragon can be actually weaker in terms of HD (not necessarily strength).

That, and we don't know if V hadn't shapechanged into a small (fitting into Black's stomach) dragon, then buffed it with some size enhancement.

[Omegonthesane]

Perhaps it has already been said, but it does not take THAT much for V to lose her grip on the grafted souls. Just an emotional shock, and one, or both, epic spellcasters are gone. That leaves V. as just a magic using monkey with pointy ears.

She can easily own Xykon and Team Evil, right now, but only if she can keep hold on the splice. Plus the MITD might eventually be used as the trump card he's supposed to be.

Xykon is nasty, and a lot smarter than V....

...It took an EXTREME emotional shock to boot out Haerta, and she's the strongest of the three, and at the time V had three splices to hold onto instead of only two. Only if Xykon has managed to capture and torment Inkyrius and the kids will V be up against a shock of nearly that magnitude.

[Snake-Aes]

That, and we don't know if V hadn't shapechanged into a small (fitting into Black's stomach) dragon, then buffed it with some size enhancement.

Wouldn't that overgrowth be a strength check? I thought polymorphs were entitled to that together with the Enlarge spells.

[Trixie]

Forget the hard core gaming "how many HD does he have?" kinds of questions. Even Burlew admits the OOTS has no character sheets. This is just a riff on an existing fantasy motif, and the outcome is pretty predictable.

Of course they do. It's just that Rich left a few white spots on them to fill later as needed.

[Kaytara]

I'm quite surprised to see how many people assume that V should wipe the floor with Xykon. Those who've read Start of Darkness should know just how much trouble this should be for the elf. Even those who haven't ought to recognize that the "some restrictions apply" clause in the soul splice puts V at a disadvantage in the fight.

The short version is this:

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V has no defense against energy drain. Death ward, the standard protection, is a cleric spell. The splice doesn't allow for cleric spell effects to be cast or imitated.

To elaborate a bit:

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V's epic level spellcasting does not make the elf an epic level character. It makes the elf what a friend used to call a fireball goblin: a fragile opponent that can strike for a lot more damage than it could survive taking. Access to the spells of two epic level characters doesn't change the fact that V is a 14th level character with 14d4 hit points (plus those granted by bear's endurace). On average, it will take only three castings of energy drain to drop the elf, but a single casting could cause more than enough trouble.

First, there's the fact that a single casting of the spell reduces the target's saving throw by 2 to 8 points. Assuming an average result, we're looking at a -5 penalty on the saving throw against finger of death, a 7th level spell. Even with bear's endurance (+2 on Fort saves) and protection from spells (+8 on all saves), V's modifier on Fort saves will be +9 against a difficulty check of at least 25 (10 + 7th level spell +8 for a 26 Charisma, the minimum we'd expect for a 20th+ level sorcerer lich that lived to old age).

Now it's possible that there are a few more modifiers involved, such as a cloak of resistance for V and a cloak of charisma or Spell Focus for Xykon, but those should pretty well balance out. The end result is a 75% chance of the spell killing V outright, and a 25% chance of being reduced to a dangerously low hit point total (once we factor in the 25 already lost to energy drain). Heck, without energy drain, Xykon would have a chance of scoring a one-hit kill.

Power word kill would be an even better follow-up to energy drain in this particular case, since V's one of the few members of the group that couldn't reliably hope to survive the latter spell at full health. We don't know that Xykon has the latter spell, but it hardly matters: we know he's perfectly content to just keep hammering away with one spell over and over for as long as it remains effective.

V could always get lucky, sure, but still has the more vulnerable Achilles' heel, and we haven't even discussed the adverse effect energy drain has on Concentration effects.

Or, simplest of all:

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Xykon takes V down the same way he did O'Chul, without ever having to cast a single spell. Free action is another divine-only spell V can't use, and the paralysis has a permanent duration.

At least V would be able to perform purely mental actions, such as releasing the splice. Then again, what are the odds that the V would maintain it indefinitely in hope of an eventual release and chance to put it to good use?

The elf is just so much roadkill looking for the highway, the overstretched balloon in a mosh pit full of porcupines. All the evidence for that can be found in the author's work to date.

On the subject of fulfilling the prediction made to Belkar, we run into a paradox if the only reason the Oracle had for answering, "Yes," was because Belkar killed him. The only reason he'd have for giving Belkar the incentive was if Belkar was going to cause someone else's death, otherwise he could have just answered, "No."

Admittedly, it's likely Belkar would have tried to test the theory, but it's at least as likely that Roy would have put a stop to such efforts.

One point, though. If Ganonron or Jephton can cast Energy Drain, Vaarsuvius should be able to Counterspell anything Xykon throws at him.

[Tharianor]

Wooha! Those who predicted V going to kill Xykon, basing themselves on belkar final joke, were right! I bow to you!
Many have alredy predicted this, but I will say it nonetheless because it was my first thought:

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For me V defeats Xykon, destroys the phylactery and becomes the new BBEG under the control of the three fiends. Someone takes his/her place in the order. My first thought was Celia, but those who said O'Chul are probably right

The duel of the millennium is coming! Let's see what happens!

[Carteeg_Struve]

I predict:

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That V will appear and kill Xykon easily and swiftly, destroy the phylactery, and save the day thus ending the major quest and storyline. And we will finally discover V's gender in the process.

I also believe that no matter what I predict, I would likely be wrong anyway... So I figured "What the hell. I'll go with this."

[B.I.T.T.]

Nooooooo!!!! Vaarsuvius!

Good comic. Can't wait 'til the next one.

[Darkhands]

...and you'd be hard pressed to make the argument that an angry spouse creates an equal Will Save DC to a 9th level spell from an epic level sorcerer.

I take it you've never been married, then?

[Shatteredtower]

That whole arguement falls appart when you examine her fight with the Black Dragon again.

Not at all. With stoneskin in place, bear's endurance would have absorbed the average damage taken from the seven attacks (including the second bite) for as long as the latter spell lasted, and still left the wizard with extra hit points. Even if the dragon was ancient, the average damage would have come out to 10 hp per bite, 2 per claw, and 0 for the wings, which is less than the 28 a 13th or 14th level wizard would get from bear's endurance, but it's more likely that she's of old or mature adult age based on the Monster Manual's description of dragon society, when the average would drop to either 18 or 14 (0 damage from claws as well as wings) hp. Meanwhile, the dragon takes 1d6+15 hp of fire damage for each attack, even those that cause no damage to V, for an average total of 129 hp -- a healthy chunk out of even an ancient dragon with a few sorcerer levels (cutting the average mature adult's total roughly in half). All of this assumes the standard ability score array, which seems unlikely for a dragon with class levels, but it's unlikely that she had higher than average Strength in any case. (That doesn't necessarily mean it was her dump stat either.)

As for dragon breath, we've yet to see acid breath leave a mark on its target. You might feel that 25 hp would hardly register on Roy, yet that's probably more than Miko was doing with either of her blades (especially the wakizashi), yet both left marks on him. Odds are that it's just an easy way to indicate that the target saved against the breath weapon. (I know, the odds are sorely against it in V's case, where the Reflex save's DC was 26 or higher, but there you go. It's not like V would have shrugged a failed save off even with double the normal hit point total.)

Unless the soul splice's description explicitly stated that V would gain the highest hit point and saves total among those spliced (or be treated for all purposes, including hp and saves, as a spellcaster whose level equalled the combined total of all parties involved -- not likely, if I may understate it so), then we default to the standards the game has already laid out for possession. By those standards, you use the possessed creature's hit points, armor class, Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, but the dominant psyche's saving throws, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Since V is both the possessed creature and the dominant psyche in the soul splice, we'd be using V's statistics for all of the above.

That covers all of the points. What's left for the counterargument?

...ah, Kaytara. Okay, yes, counterspelling might be an option, which could offer V the edge if the splice still affords him any quickened spells. If the remaining wizard was the one with quickened spells and has some offensive ones left and the sorcerer knows energy drain, it might be bad for Xykon. If only the wizard knows that spell, the likelihood of "bad for Xykon" decreases significantly. If neither know the spell (likely, since they weren't the ones with the focus on necromancy), we're back to V being a ceramic vase in the path of a cattle stampede.

Nevertheless, I concede that there are possible combinations of powers that would let V triumph easily over Xykon (with or without his allies) if the lich spams energy drain. We don't know that V has them. We do know that without them, V's chances are poor. Based only on what we know, Xykon has the advantage. If we assume V can effectively counterspell this strategy, however, Xykon still has one ace up his sleeve:

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V has no means of countering or negating Xykon's paralyzing touch.

Okay, no means of doing so directly. It might be possible to cast dominate person on either Tsukiko or Redcloak and get them to cast death ward on V, assuming a) they have the spell prepared (not unlikely) and b) they fail their Will saving throws (a reasonable possibility, but risky). The reason I consider this strategy unlikely is because V has not done a very good job of thinking ahead thus far. For example, V didn't prepare any means of countering the dragon's breath weapon until it was used, in spite of having seen her son use the same weapon. Taking the same approach to what's effectively a save-or-die attack (one that bypasses the benefits of spell immunity, as it's a supernatural effect) is likely to turn out badly. If V saves against the first attempt when one of the other casters is present and manages the domination trick, then V's survival would come down to nothing more than what amounts to luck. I'm okay with that, but the abilities and behaviour we've seen to date do not bode at all well for V.

Then again, Start of Darkness does suggest one possibility for V, one more likely to trouble Xykon when there's colour on the page. The odds still favour the lich.