Class and Level Geekery XVIII - Everyone's an Expert

[Kornaki]

There are no rules about missing a foot anyway. Sounds cosmetic to me.

[Ephemera]

I don't think we know that--she did say that troll parts regenerate even when they're attached to a halfling, which could very well imply that she's gained some sort of regeneration powers, or it could be that the trolls did the equivalent of a home-brew regeneration using their blood with a side effect of making her look half troll.

I do think we can say that we have no evidence of powers gained so we shouldn't do anything beyond noting that she has some sort of troll graft at this point.

I think there's a pretty good chance we get to see her in action further, however, so we may get some further evidence one way or another for sure.

[dps]

Regeneration exists, so no. Even if it is a different variant that doesn't follow exactly the rules for regeneration, the fact that the effect is available without it means it could be "just" cosmetic.

I'm not sure that I agree with the logic here, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your point. You seem to be saying that even if Serini now has regeneration as an inherent ability, we don't need to list it because Regeneration exists as a spell and is therefore available without it as an inherent ability. If that's a case, I have to disagree, because otherwise we wouldn't list anyone as having, say, healing potions because Healing is available without them.

[RMS Oceanic]

It may not be enough to officially add it, but the #1227 discussion thread found a good candidate for the spell Xykon used on Serini: Blackfire, a Level 8 Necromancy spell from Complete Arcane

A ray of necromantic black energy springs from your hand, and on a successful ranged touch attack, a living target is engulfed in chill black flames that feed on the fuel of their victim’s life force. A creature engulfed in blackfire must make a successful Fortitude save each round that the spell is in effect or take 1d4 points of Constitution damage and become nauseated. A creature that makes its save takes no damage for that round and is sickened instead.

I think I hear a duck quacking

[danielxcutter]

...What do ducks have to do with anything?

[RMS Oceanic]

...What do ducks have to do with anything?

The old saying, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..."

[danielxcutter]

The old saying, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..."

I'll say what I did in the comic thread; while I have a nitpick in that Blackfire being a ray while the unknown spell is more a cone, it works better than other options.

It also has the "nice" side effect of making it incredibly hard for someone to revive you; you need True Res or Wish by default and you need to make a DC 30 caster level check. Dorukan was likely capable of doing that, but even he wouldn't be guaranteed to succeed without a Moment of Prescience or something and Xykon likely didn't even know Dorukan existed until he got her diary.

[InvisibleBison]

It may not be enough to officially add it, but the #1227 discussion thread found a good candidate for the spell Xykon used on Serini: Blackfire, a Level 8 Necromancy spell from Complete Arcane



I think I hear a duck quacking

Is there some way to turn Blackfire into a cone? Because the spell Xykon used is clearly a cone; compare it to Cone of Cold and Ray of Frost in #950.

[danielxcutter]

Is there some way to turn Blackfire into a cone? Because the spell Xykon used is clearly a cone; compare it to Cone of Cold and Ray of Frost in #950.

...Nnnnno, not to my knowledge.

[Metastachydium]

Also: how does ability damage burn away half of a person's body?

[danielxcutter]

Also: how does ability damage burn away half of a person's body?

I mean, if it kills the target they burn to black ash. It's better than Horrid Wilting or Energy Drain that's for sure, but I suppose it's too early to say what spell that actually was.

[Emanick]

Also: how does ability damage burn away half of a person's body?

Constitution damage degrades your body severely, so if Serini somehow got to 1 or 0 Constitution, I could see that roughly corresponding with what we see on-panel. It's a bit of a stretch, sure - but much less of one than, say, Dex or Int damage.

[Yanisa]

I like the suggestion, but it still leaves me with some criticisms:

Regeneration does not heal ability score damage. So it's makes it harder to fit the troll blood healing within the rules.

There is no visual effect for the nauseating effect. Like Horrid Wilthting's wilting effect, it could have been not depicted.

I also find the spell rather slow (with 10 con it would take at least 3 rounds) and the scenario really feels like a magic drive-by, but that's a personal take.

[Red.Tide]

Sorry if this has been hashed out before - I'm new to this and I wasn't able to find it with a quick search.

It's canon that Roy's will save is notably higher than Elan's, putting him decidedly in the "Good Will Saves" half of the party along with Durkon and V.

Durkon has a Will save of 14+ (13+ cleric, 22+ Wis)
Vaarsuvius has a Will save of 10+ (16 wizard)

Haley is considered to be in the "Poor Will Saves" half of the party, but unless she has a penalty (seems unlikely based on how she's treated as a character) she has a Will save of 5+ without items.

Elan certainly has a Wisdom penalty, but being a 14+ Bard bumps up his Will save by 9. This means that even if his Wisdom is as low as 4 (are there rules for how low a human's natural ability score might be?), he still has a +6 without items. More realistically, a Wisdom of 7 would give him a +7.

So Roy's no-magic-item* Will save should be in the 10-14 range without magic items rather than the 5-7 range.

Level 14 Fighters get +4 to Will, and level 15-18 Fighters get +5 to Will. Even if we assume Roy is 15+, he needs an additional +5 to get to the "Vaarsuvius-Durkon" range. If his Wisdom is 14, his Will saves would be about the same as Elan's. Wisdom 20 would get him to Vaarsuvius' level. However, his Wisdom has been described as "halfway decent," which seems a bit mild for Wis 20+**.

Therefore, I think it's likely that Roy has the Iron Will feat as the only way to be consistent with the following:
- Will saves comparable to V and Durkon, and noticeably better than Elan's
- "Halfway-decent" as opposed to "high" Wisdom
- Implied by the narrative that Roy's Will save aptitude is inherent and not based on some magic item*

Iron Will + 16 Wis would be consistent with the language used while giving him the same +10 Will save as Vaarsuvius (assuming that Roy is level 15+; if level 14 it would only be a +9).

* It's not impossible that Roy's high Will saves come from a magic item that he has, but such a magic item has never been mentioned or hinted at in the comic. On the other hand, Cloaks of Resistance are canonically common items for the protagonists, so it's more reasonable is that all the protagonists have similarly-leveled Cloaks of Resistance (or something comparable, because only Belkar actually wears a cloak).

** To be fair, the Giant also describes Roy's Int and Wis as "very good," - to me, this would imply that Roy's Wis is likely high for "halfway decent" and low for "very good", which still doesn't fit an un-boosted Wisdom of 20+.

[danielxcutter]

I assume Roy has Steadfast Determination, which would allow him to use his Constitution for Will saves instead of Wisdom.

[Gurgeh]

Steadfast Determination is a poor fit for Roy, since we have no reason to believe his constitution is particularly good (in fact, the current thread estimate is 12+ con vs 14+ wis).

[danielxcutter]

Steadfast Determination is a poor fit for Roy, since we have no reason to believe his constitution is particularly good (in fact, the current thread estimate is 12+ con vs 14+ wis).

12+ is a minimum, not "exact score unless proved otherwise". I find it highly unlikely that he's actually got less Con than Wis.

[Dr.Zero]

Also: how does ability damage burn away half of a person's body?

With an evil GM who wants to start another campaign!

Spoiler

Show

GM: "Oh, come on, all the other players have left, I can't go on playing only with you. Let's start a new campaign with new people."
Player of Serini: "As long as this character is alive, I'll keep playing it. I managed to reach epic levels for the first time in my life, and I'm not going to abandon this campaign."

Some sessions later...

PoS: "Whoa, isn't that spell a little op? It could obliterate my character in a single shot!"
GM: "Hehe... your character is epic and it must face epic threats. And epic lich sorcerers are no jokes."
PoS: "Luckily I can evade it." (fails the st) "Damn it!"
GM: "Well, that's it! Are you going to roll another character?"
PoS: "Hey, calm down, I've improved evasion, even if I failed the st, I get only half of that damage! So my next move is..."
GM: "Very well, you get half obliterated."
PoS: "Wait, what?"
GM: "Yeah, you know. Evasion. Physically, it means you move away to avoid damage. But you managed to move away only to avoid half the damage. So that logically means half of you is safe and half didn't moved out of the spell range and that half takes full damage, being obliterated, while you, in total, take only half damage. Perfectly coherent with the rules and perfectly coherent with real world logic."
PoS: "Since when do we use real world logic when playing D&D?"
GM: "Since I decided that I got tired of a campaign with a single remaining player. But listen, if you go along with it, I'll let you play this character as a major guest star in the next campaign."
PoS: "And if I don't?"
GM: "The lich will notice that your character isn't completely dead and will cast a second spell."
PoS: "Sigh... agreed."

On a more serious not, I don't know, maybe it is really a gag at how Rich thinks Improved evasion should work on the "you take half damage".

[b_jonas]

On a more serious not, I don't know, maybe it is really a gag at how Rich thinks Improved evasion should work on the "you take half damage".

Yeah, I should have posted the thing about half damage here too.

She did save for half damage, which is why only half of his body is discolored. See Casey and Andy #225 and #226.

[Dr.Zero]

Yeah, I should have posted the thing about half damage here too.

So I wasn't the first to think about it.
On a side note, interestingly in that comic the idea is ridiculed, here it would be more like "reality ensues".

[Wildstag]

Steadfast Determination is a poor fit for Roy, since we have no reason to believe his constitution is particularly good (in fact, the current thread estimate is 12+ con vs 14+ wis).

Steadfast Determination would actually be a good feat for him even if his Constitution is equal to or greater than Wisdom. While it wouldn't give as much a bonus to Will saves as Iron Will would, it would give him greater utility in the Fortitude department. We already treat him as having Endurance, so he fulfills the prerequisites.

Lastly, the wording of SD says "you can use" (emphasis mine). So if he takes Constitution damage or Wisdom damage, and the scores are equal, he gets the option of using the better undamaged score.

Granted, it would really ONLY be useful if his Constitution was higher than his Wisdom by at least a +1 modifier, but that would put him into a demigodly stat array with only Dexterity and Charisma not being phenomenal.

P.S. By demigodly I merely mean it'd only be possible with rolled stats well above the average; a score minimum of 12 is just ridiculous, and we have knowledge of only one stat being amplified by items.

[danielxcutter]

Didn't he read the manual for the Con bonus? I wouldn't be shocked if his stat array is that impressive because he's boosted his physical stats with inherent bonuses considering how high they must be, but unless his Con bonus was REALLY bad it wouldn't be too hard to get it over 15, especially since he'd have no real reason to invest in Wisdom boosts rather than Constitution boosts.

[Yanisa]

As far as I quickly find, Roy read a Manual of Gainful Exercise in Snip, Snails and Dragon Tales. (Just in case, that book increases strength. Manual of Bodily Health is the one that increases constitution.)

[danielxcutter]

Actually, is SSDT part of the main continuity?

[Yanisa]

Dubiously yes. I don't think there is anything in the main comic that references or breaks SSDT, but there is also no real place on the timeline. (But I haven't read SSDT in a while.)

This thread at least treats it is cannon and it said manual is a really easy to explain Roy's 29 strength.

[Wildstag]

Didn't he read the manual for the Con bonus? I wouldn't be shocked if his stat array is that impressive because he's boosted his physical stats with inherent bonuses considering how high they must be, but unless his Con bonus was REALLY bad it wouldn't be too hard to get it over 15, especially since he'd have no real reason to invest in Wisdom boosts rather than Constitution boosts.

Ah yes, you are right that he read a book, and as another pointed out, it is the Gainful Exercise one, which increases Strength. The last sentence of my postscript remains true.

[Yanisa]

P.S. By demigodly I merely mean it'd only be possible with rolled stats well above the average; a score minimum of 12 is just ridiculous, and we have knowledge of only one stat being amplified by items.

I do am curious what the math says. There is really detailed posts here about 5e, but they still seem to be using 4d6 drop lowest.

It seems that when we take Roy's at the minimal values listen, his stats would be within the top ~10% of all possible rolls. However a con score lower then mental stats doesn't seem to fit a world in which characters can choose their stats. So if we bump that con score to 14, it puts in the top ~5%.

Yeah, mathematically impressive. My favorite kind.

[ebarde]

My current character used the 4d6 method, and now I have 3 dex lol so ig it's not impossible

[b_jonas]

From what we know through the rules and that one post by the Giant, Roy has impressive stats for a typical adventurer. But this is probably a selection effect: he became the main character of OotS partly because his impressive stats helped him survive and become the main character. He probably has even more impressive stats, as in a high Dex and Con too, we just can't prove them for the rules geekery thread.

I still maintain my wild guess that he wasn't born with those impressive stats, he gained them in the magical explosion that killed his brother Eric. Roy probably suspects this and it's part of why he feels guilt about the explosion.

[DaOldeWolf]

Dubiously yes. I don't think there is anything in the main comic that references or breaks SSDT, but there is also no real place on the timeline. (But I haven't read SSDT in a while.)

This thread at least treats it is cannon and it said manual is a really easy to explain Roy's 29 strength.

There is also Belkar´s cooking skill for whatever that is worth. The first time it is mentioned, it references that book.