What's Redcloak's 2nd Level-9-Spell

[StrykerX]

Er, no. The purpose was to keep bad guys from entering the area magically. You can walk into and out of it with ease; Cloister was not designed to prevent all entry. Celia and her girlfriends left the Cloister all the time to go to Serfway.

With the loophole you describe, any bad guy could walk in and summon an extraplanar army.

Technically, the Cloister was designed to keep enemies from magically entering the area or magically spying on it. Dorukan's home was a fortified dungeon... he had plenty of protection against bad guys just walking in physically. What he needed was a way to keep them from magically bypassing his defenses, which is what Cloister does. By blocking scrying it forces enemies to locate the dungeon through mundane means (or indirectly through magic, like reading someone's mind who knows where it is) and also ensures that an invading enemy will not know the internal layout (which interferes with point to point teleports / dimension doors within the Cloistered area). Once an enemy breaches the outer defenses they can presumably use any magic they want except maybe scrying (since Cloister's anti-scrying effect works on each individual creature, object, and location in its radius) and could indeed call / gate in extraplanar beings. However, they'd have to get in first, and Dorukan could call up his own extraplanar allies if he wanted. For that matter an invader could freely teleport around the dungeon once they got in, but without scrying that would only let them safely move around the parts they had already seen.

As far as the 2nd 9th level spell goes, it depends on what his domains are. I'm assuming he almost certainly has Evil, so if Implosion is his standard spell then Summon Monster IX from the Evil domain is likely. If his second domain is Destruction (quite possible, but not certain) then Implosion could be his domain spell and in that case I suspect Gate was the standard one. It all depends on whether his domains are Evil + Destruction, Evil + Law, or Evil + Death (or something else, though I consider those three the most likely choices).

[factotum]

Once an enemy breaches the outer defenses they can presumably use any magic they want except maybe scrying (since Cloister's anti-scrying effect works on each individual creature, object, and location in its radius) and could indeed call / gate in extraplanar beings.

It was explicitly stated by Celia in #532 that the Cloister spell had an exception built into it for summoning spells, and the accompanying panel showed that Dorukan did that so he could transport Lirian to his bedchamber when they wanted to meet up. (Presumably he could also send her back again, so outgoing teleports wouldn't be prohibited either).

[Kish]

It was explicitly stated by Celia in #532 that the Cloister spell had an exception built into it for summoning spells, and the accompanying panel showed that Dorukan did that so he could transport Lirian to his bedchamber when they wanted to meet up. (Presumably he could also send her back again, so outgoing teleports wouldn't be prohibited either).

No need to presume; Celia said outright that the Cloister doesn't bar teleportation (a word which the board's spellchecker oddly doesn't know) from inside to anywhere, just from outside to inside.

[Trixie]

Well... I might remember wrong, but isn't this whole discussion pointless as Dorukan used Gate to battle Xykon while inside Cloister anyway?

[Ancalagon]

He was far outside of his dungeon. He himself was still under the effect but he had left the area of the Cloister by a lot.

He first teleported to Xykon's cliff, then casted his Gate.

[Trixie]

Was he?

I was working under assumption that, if Cloister was able to cover all of Gobbotopia, it would also cover the area where Dorukan fought, too. After all, why invent protective spell than do battle outside the area it covers robbing yourself of that advantage?

But, as I said, it was some time since I have read that part.

[zimmerwald1915]

Was he?

I was working under assumption that, if Cloister was able to cover all of Gobbotopia, it would also cover the area where Dorukan fought, too. After all, why invent protective spell than do battle outside the area it covers robbing yourself of that advantage?

But, as I said, it was some time since I have read that part.

I think it's been pretty well established that, INT score notwithstanding, Dorukan was a bit thick.

[Zevox]

Er, no. The purpose was to keep bad guys from entering the area magically. You can walk into and out of it with ease; Cloister was not designed to prevent all entry. Celia and her girlfriends left the Cloister all the time to go to Serfway.

With the loophole you describe, any bad guy could walk in and summon an extraplanar army.

Yes, I didn't think I needed to specify that. The part which keeps the bad guys from just walking in is the dungeon fortress that Dorukon had constructed, not the spell.

And I see that we actually attracted a response from the Giant here. So, debate settled. Thank you very much Giant.

Well... I might remember wrong, but isn't this whole discussion pointless as Dorukan used Gate to battle Xykon while inside Cloister anyway?

I thought of that as well, but when Celia describes the spell in comic 532, she says that it covers an area "up to several miles wide" (emphasis mine), so it doesn't necessarily cover the same size area every time its cast, and the image that accompanies her exposition shows Dorukon casting it and just his dungeon glowing with the spell's aura, so it's distinctly possible that he limited it just to the dungeon itself. Which makes sense - if he encompassed a larger area then people could enter the cloister effect while still outside the dungeon, and teleport in/scy/whatever from there. The combination of the dungeon and the cloister spell were supposed to make it nigh impossible to enter, so leaving a gaping gap in his defenses like that would be kind of dumb.

Zevox

[Ancalagon]

The distance also seemed pretty far to me, it could very well be outside of the cloister.

[AlfredAmeoba]

Also in the graphic of Dorukon casting cloister it only includes his castle/dungeon. Also, SoD spoiler with the battle description...?

Any point of the cloister's caster (or his allies) seemingly breaking the rules of the cloister seem moot, however. As I was saying earlier, Dorukon almost certainly had a password so he could bypass his own defenses.

SoD spoiler

Spoiler

Show

He almost certainly would have left that as an escape route to get back behind his own defenses when he teleported out to fight Xykon

Xykon, having power of the cloister, could give any passcode to the spell's effects to Redcloak to use.

Also, I think we can assume that Redcloak has the destruction domain as I think it is the only way for a cleric to get disintegrate (comic 480 on Hinjo).

[DaveMcW]

There is no passcode. If there was, he would have used it to hunt down O-Chul.