Talk How colossally dumb Dorukan was [Untagged SoD spoilers]

[Hurkyl]

I thought force effects can’t be destroyed by physical damage. Only effects like Disintegrate, spells that specifically destroy force effects, and abilities that actively dispel or destroy spell effects. Is the Hand series an exception?

Interposing hand has language that the "large magic hand" "takes damage as a normal creature", and grasping hand and crushing hand say they function like that spell.

But now that I'm reading that spell more closely, I notice it says that it "makes saving throws as its caster", so the actual damage it would take is 8d6 (no save) and four instances of 6d6 each with a chance to make a reflex save for half damage. It's nonobvious if the hand gets to benefit from V's protection from spells. But given the actual circumstances (the hand is wrapped around the origin point for the spheres and ensuing explosion and singlemindedly grasping), I imagine it should take a pretty hefty penalty to the roll; I would not fault Giant for denying the reflex save entirely.

(I guess I'm assuming Xykon is making his ranged touch attack, but again given the circumstances I would not fault Giant for making it automatically succeed)

[Riftwolf]

Random nit pick: I think 30 int is pretty reasonable at epic level and 36+ is generous. All the different random buffs add up. Even if you’re smart about magic items and don’t just dump a huge amount in one stat, a +4 or +6 item is reasonable at epic level and you get 5+ from level ups alone. So 24 is a bare minimum for a vanilla NPC using only the NPC array and 26 is still low-ish if anything.

Ya many slots are burned in the morning on buffs, wards and so on. Heck the dungeon may have had a few daily wards that couldn’t be made permanent. Also probably where a lot of Dorukon’s WBL went.

26 (18+5 from levelling+3 from ageing) sounded reasonable to me as Dorukan isn't an adventuring wizard anymore and I took 'spending his wealth on the dungeons defences' to mean he had a yard sale for his adventuring kit (his WBL wouldn't be affected because he's sunk it into real estate. Whether this is a terrible idea in d&d is a matter for a different thread. Kinda like the Darth V thing should) because he wasn't on the road much anymore and a second hand Headband of Intellect could fund an ogre clan to relocate and get paid for defending the Dungeon for a hundred years.
But I'll run the numbers with 30 INT. Its still very easy to use up spell slots on buffs and lose high level ones when Energy Drain hits 2-8 of them each turn no save.

[danielxcutter]

Since Xykon's detonating them right away, I don't think he's adding the impact damage. Not that he'd need to, of course...

[Lacuna Caster]

So, imma just gonna butt in without reading the whole thread.

Also, and I can't state this boldly enough, Optimised play isn't dramatically compelling

I actually rather object to the notion that tactically competent people can't be interesting and even dramatic to watch, even when neither side is really making obvious mistakes within the constraints of available information. It's just harder to write because competence in general is harder to emulate.

I can buy the notion that Dorukan was baited into a fight he wasn't fully prepared for when Xykon trotted out Zombie Lirian to taunt him, but what I find strange is that none of Dorukan's presumable followers opted to blow up the Gate before evacuating (that being the original purpose of the self-destruct rune.) Xykon still has no method of circumventing cloister, so he'd have had no obvious source of information about the internal layout of the keep.

[danielxcutter]

So, imma just gonna butt in without reading the whole thread.


I actually rather object to the notion that tactically competent people can't be interesting and even dramatic to watch, even when neither side is really making obvious mistakes within the constraints of available information. It's just harder to write because competence in general is harder to emulate.

I can buy the notion that Dorukan was baited into a fight he wasn't fully prepared for when Xykon trotted out Zombie Lirian to taunt him, but what I find strange is that none of Dorukan's presumable followers opted to blow up the Gate before evacuating (that being the original purpose of the self-destruct rune.) Xykon still has no method of circumventing cloister, so he'd have had no obvious source of information about the internal layout of the keep.

Optimized D&D can be kinda boring because it’s basically rocket tag.

[Lacuna Caster]

Optimized D&D can be kinda boring because it’s basically rocket tag.

The same kinds of shenanigans go on all the time in the Potterverse and while I won't say everything the characters do is tactically optimal I don't think anyone finds it intrinsically boring.

[danielxcutter]

The same kinds of shenanigans go on all the time in the Potterverse and while I won't say everything the characters do is tactically optimal I don't think anyone finds it intrinsically boring.

The Potterverse lets you block them. In epic level D&D you drop a Quickened Greater Dispel Magic on them and half a dozen Delayed Blast Fireballs.

[Lacuna Caster]

The Potterverse lets you block them. In epic level D&D you drop a Quickened Greater Dispel Magic on them and half a dozen Delayed Blast Fireballs.

I'm not intimately familiar with epic-level play, but I'm reasonably sure counterspelling is a standard combat option in D&D?

[danielxcutter]

I'm not intimately familiar with epic-level play, but I'm reasonably sure counterspelling is a standard combat option in D&D?

Oh sure - if you don’t want to do anything else. And if you get the initiative you start with Time Stop.

[Lacuna Caster]

Oh sure - if you don’t want to do anything else. And if you get the initiative you start with Time Stop.

Your contention would be that standard D&D rules hand automatic victory to competent high-level casters who gain the initiative?

[danielxcutter]

Your contention would be that standard D&D rules hand automatic victory to competent high-level casters who gain the initiative?

At the levels they fight at? …Actually, yeah.

[Lacuna Caster]

At the levels they fight at? …Actually, yeah.

Very well then. I concede your point.

[danielxcutter]

Very well then. I concede your point.

I may be exaggerating a bit, but initiative really is that important and the more you optimize the crazier stuff gets. Dorukan honestly had the resources to drop a small army of celestials right on Xykon's pelvis and buffed to the gills.

I mean, caster OPness is so strong that Rich literally removes V from the plot most of the time so they don't godmod the entire fight.

[Lacuna Caster]

I may be exaggerating a bit, but initiative really is that important and the more you optimize the crazier stuff gets. Dorukan honestly had the resources to drop a small army of celestials right on Xykon's pelvis and buffed to the gills.

I would suggest that maybe Time Stop doesn't exist in this 'verse, but V explicitly tries to cast it in Xykon's tower, so that doesn't really hold up. I do recall that Dorukan *did* summon a bunch of celestials using Gate, but I suppose with the benefit of 1d4+1 bonus rounds he could have done a lot more.

[TooSoon]

I would suggest that maybe Time Stop doesn't exist in this 'verse, but V explicitly tries to cast it in Xykon's tower, so that doesn't really hold up. I do recall that Dorukan *did* summon a bunch of celestials using Gate, but I suppose with the benefit of 1d4+1 bonus rounds he could have done a lot more.

V casts time stop against the dragon, so we know it exists (and would assume it did until proven otherwise anyway).

Dorukan's fight was so unoptimised it actually was frustrating, which is the opposite end of the "don't make them too optimized it will be boring" spectrum. I don't really want to see a fight where Xykon just fires off 6 attacks to 1 while an Epic Wizard with 6 months to prepare has done nothing to prep for an undead opponent (no energy protection, no making sure to use spells that work against undead, etc).

Of course if V were optimized the plot would be tough to pull off (while still making the other characters relevant). The story would need to reposition itself so V was the all-powerful character who was bored or trying not to overshine their colleagues (so something like One Punch Man maybe). Why else do you think V is always turned into a lizard, or busy fighting elementals, or leaving the party, or knocked out, or has their soul removed, or off doing anything but helping the party fight.

[Morty]

The same kinds of shenanigans go on all the time in the Potterverse and while I won't say everything the characters do is tactically optimal I don't think anyone finds it intrinsically boring.

Harry Potter's protagonist is someone who will go for a disarming spell instead of a lethal/disabling one even when up against people who want to kill him; I don't know about "tactically optimal". Moreover, Rowling had the luxury of making everything up as she went along, instead of operating in a pre-established (terrible) ruleset. Of all the works of fiction to use as an example of tactically optimal actions being optimal, Harry Potter strikes me as odd. At least in OotS we know how the magic works, unless the Giant decides to ignore it. Harry Potter magic has the internal consistency of pudding.

[RatElemental]

Harry Potter magic has the internal consistency of pudding.

Wouldn't pudding be very consistent? It tends to be rather homogeneous, at least around where I am.

[Morty]

Wouldn't pudding be very consistent? It tends to be rather homogeneous, at least around where I am.

It might not have been the best metaphor, but it was the first foodstuff I could think of.

[georgie_leech]

It might not have been the best metaphor, but it was the first foodstuff I could think of.

Perhaps "firmness" of pudding

[Lacuna Caster]

Harry Potter's protagonist is someone who will go for a disarming spell instead of a lethal/disabling one even when up against people who want to kill him; I don't know about "tactically optimal"...

The same kinds of shenanigans go on all the time in the Potterverse and while I won't say everything the characters do is tactically optimal I don't think anyone finds it intrinsically boring.

It is helpful to read the person you are quoting, you know. (I won't say that using disarming spells is irrational if your objective is to avoid killing people, as it happens, but that's a separate discussion.)

My point is simply that danielxcutter was alleging that 'rocket tag' combat between competent agonists would be inherently boring to watch, which I don't think it is, and I don't see that having a fully consistent/detailed ruleset would inherently be a problem either. What both you and daniel seem to be alleging is that D&D's high-level magic system is both worked out consistently in detail and still wildly unbalanced.

And I mean... if that's the case, fine, it's impossible to write interesting combat scenes involving epic-level D&D magic being used by competent agonists. But that seems like a broader problem with epic-level D&D magic being... broken in general? At least in 3e? It's not that there's some specific tradeoff between drama and optimisation, it's more like 'the game doesn't work'.

.

[Kish]

I can buy the notion that Dorukan was baited into a fight he wasn't fully prepared for when Xykon trotted out Zombie Lirian to taunt him, but what I find strange is that none of Dorukan's presumable followers opted to blow up the Gate before evacuating (that being the original purpose of the self-destruct rune.)

I think you're presuming too much in thinking that he had followers who knew about the rune or were allowed anywhere near the Gate. Dorukan believed magic was supreme. The only* minions he's shown as having are, appropriately, summoned by spells.

*This hinges on the assumption that Celia and her friends were introduced to Dorukan by a Summon Planar Ally spell, but even if I'm entirely wrong there, they weren't anywhere near the Gate and never even knew that Dorukan had been killed.

Edited to add: The problem with "optimized" storytelling is that power is not a moral trait. So you're left with either: the heroes and the villains are equivalent in power and you flip a coin to determine whether you're writing a happy ending or a tragedy. Or, the villains are significantly weaker than the heroes, which is a power dimension, in my opinion, fit only for relatively low-quality Saturday morning cartoons. ("Watch Superman beat up these goons who don't know bullets will bounce off him!...Darkseid? What a goofy idea!")

That's without getting into what Rich has said about every developed character's death being the result of their choices, which is a writing philosophy wholly incompatible with expecting or wanting none of the characters to make mistakes.

[danielxcutter]

I would suggest that maybe Time Stop doesn't exist in this 'verse, but V explicitly tries to cast it in Xykon's tower, so that doesn't really hold up. I do recall that Dorukan *did* summon a bunch of celestials using Gate, but I suppose with the benefit of 1d4+1 bonus rounds he could have done a lot more.

I was thinking Planar Ally before the fight and such. Rushing in like that was a tactical blunder, though given what he’d just seen Xykon do I’m not entirely inclined to blame him.

[Elenian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it is consistent with what little we know for Dorukan to have banned transmutation? Without Shapechange and Time Stop, some of the most absurd feats of wizardry are unavailable, at least.

Of course, Wish and Gate are quite enough reality-breaking power to go on with. Without anything outright degenerate (Wish-loops and such), you can still unleash Solars and Uvuudaums and Abominations [depending on whether they count as 'deity enough' for Gate's 'deity or unique being' clause, of course] on your enemies*. You can Transport Travelers them into deathtraps (or to the feet of hostile gods, or whatever) from the other side of reality. There's no particular reason that an epic wizard, even if goaded, would need to personally intervene in battle. Even if for some reason you did feel the need to personally oversee the foe's destruction, you should probably have at least a respectable suite of defenses active all the time, and you can probably make yourself delay vengeance by, like, 18 seconds to Gate in something nasty, throw up a choice short-term buff or two**, grab your magic items, and so forth before you take the field in the flesh.

*a single Solar, even with its default spells and without doing nonsense with a spell-like Wish, is a credible (though not instantly deadly) threat to a low-epic lich sorcerer with dubious spell selection. One of the epic monsters would probably force an immediate retreat - I don't think Xykon has any realistic way of defeating something like an Infernal.

**there are many, many ways to get immunity to death effects and energy drain. Death Ward is available to lots of summonable things (and can be duplicated with a limited Wish). Shapechange (if available) can turn you into things with all sorts of immunities. The real threat is just dispels - Superb Dispelling is annoying enough to work around at short notice that I think you really shouldn't risk it, but if you ignore my advice and fight the lich in-person, the deck can still be stacked well in your favor.

[Lacuna Caster]

I think you're presuming too much in thinking that he had followers who knew about the rune or were allowed anywhere near the Gate. Dorukan believed magic was supreme. The only* minions he's shown as having are, appropriately, summoned by spells.

*This hinges on the assumption that Celia and her friends were introduced to Dorukan by a Summon Planar Ally spell, but even if I'm entirely wrong there, they weren't anywhere near the Gate and never even knew that Dorukan had been killed.

Yeah... which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Celia & Co. are somewhat flippantly shown going out for subway sandwiches, and presumably need to get food more generally, so unless there are Create Food & Water Traps installed along the walls they'd be more-or-less obliged to venture out into either the dungeon and/or the wider countryside to survive, which means they're going to notice the goblins around the place. (I mean, if we're being really technical about it there's a strip where Haley is sharing a queue at the bathroom with a dozen other female monsters.) News would get around, is what I'm saying.

It also doesn't really make a lot of sense for Dorukan to install a self-destruct rune that only he is going to be allowed to use. In ~90% of likely scenarios, either Dorukan is alive and the Gate is safe or Dorukan is dead and the Gate is in danger. Either way, he's not going to be the one flipping the switch. (Also, if he really did intend for no-one else to use the rune, he should have... made it impossible for anyone else to use the rune. Warning label notwithstanding, it was clearly intended to be usable by just about anyone under emergency conditions.)

(There's no direct confirmation of this either way, but the good-aligned monsters who occupied Xykon's tower probably make the most sense if they were (summoned?) allies of Dorukan who either retreated from the keep or arrived too late to save the day and were trying to ambush the lich. But I digress.)

Edited to add: The problem with "optimized" storytelling is that power is not a moral trait. So you're left with either: the heroes and the villains are equivalent in power and you flip a coin to determine whether you're writing a happy ending or a tragedy... ...That's without getting into what Rich has said about every developed character's death being the result of their choices, which is a writing philosophy wholly incompatible with expecting or wanting none of the characters to make mistakes.

I think this is a strawman. Mistakes in the tactical sense are distinct from luck or chance, the effects of attrition, divergence in goals and ethics, or lack of omniscience. You can't foresee everything, but it's reasonable to expect a competent agonist to foresee the obvious. Nor is it impossible for an agent to consciously choose actions that could result in their death as a means to other ends.

(Random example- Enemy at the Gates has it's problems, but I don't recall that either side in the film was ever behaving stupidly, per se. Characters still die as a result of their choices, either directly or indirectly.)

I was thinking Planar Ally before the fight and such. Rushing in like that was a tactical blunder, though given what he’d just seen Xykon do I’m not entirely inclined to blame him.

I'm not sure. My impression going by what yourself, TooSoon and Elenian have been saying is that Dorukan's tactics were so badly sub-optimal that even being goaded into anger wouldn't be enough to easily explain it. It would be something like an epic-level fighter being goaded into bursting out of his fortress to fight buck naked without any weapons or armour.

I mean, if the explanation here is "optimal combat leads to Dorukan ROFLstomping Xykon within three rounds, so we're not going to do that", so be it, but... again, maybe that doesn't speak well of the underlying ruleset.

[Hurkyl]

I'm not sure. My impression going by what yourself, TooSoon and Elenian have been saying is that Dorukan's tactics were so badly sub-optimal that even being goaded into anger wouldn't be enough to easily explain it. It would be something like an epic-level fighter being goaded into bursting out of his fortress to fight buck naked without any weapons or armour.

What does the epic-level fighter think he's fighting? How much pre-battle preparation will he make if, for example, those darned goblins that were being a nuisance but not worth the effort to swat away suddenly, I dunno, kidnapped his girlfriend or something to provoke him into action?

I haven't read the strip myself, but the sentiment I get from hearing the forum describe it is that Dorukan never thought Xykon was a serious threat. Surely not as badly as my extreme counter-example, but the idea is that Xykon was just a nuisance not worth the effort to get rid of. And then Xykon suddenly made it very, very much worth the effort to do so promptly.

I guess this "not worth the effort" point of view actually specifically counters the idea of using Gate. Is he really going to bother otherplanar allies if he thinks the threat is insignificant?

[danielxcutter]

High-end Monster Manual outsiders seem okay... but I dunno about Abominations. Those are kinda of a really big thing.

I think Dorukan did underestimate Xykon greatly, but the general lack of optimization in OotS combat and his recklessness due to Lirian being tortured are still major factors. What did Dorukan do against Xykon specifically? I don't have SoD, but I've heard enough spoilers to get the general idea - still, I'm not sure if there's something I've missed. I didn't know about the celestials until fairly recently, for example.

But seriously, Dorukan probably wasn't fighting that unoptimally by the standards of this comic. Some of the build choices taken seem to explicitly be for the purpose of crippling someone's capabilities to keep them in line.

[TooSoon]

What does the epic-level fighter think he's fighting? How much pre-battle preparation will he make if, for example, those darned goblins that were being a nuisance but not worth the effort to swat away suddenly, I dunno, kidnapped his girlfriend or something to provoke him into action?

I haven't read the strip myself, but the sentiment I get from hearing the forum describe it is that Dorukan never thought Xykon was a serious threat. Surely not as badly as my extreme counter-example, but the idea is that Xykon was just a nuisance not worth the effort to get rid of. And then Xykon suddenly made it very, very much worth the effort to do so promptly.

I guess this "not worth the effort" point of view actually specifically counters the idea of using Gate. Is he really going to bother otherplanar allies if he thinks the threat is insignificant?

Well, unlike the last few posters I have read SoD, and I can tell you the fight is just badly written. The final sequence between Dorukan and Xykon encapsulates the terrible depiction of the fight. Xykon hits Dorukan with six consecutive spells, while Dorukan is allowed to fire back one (unnamed) spell. If the moral was supposed to be that Dorukan lost because he was arrogant, that fight undermined the point the author wanted to make completely. The moral I got was "Xykon won because he is badass... really badass, and the rules don't apply to badasses", and Dorukan got nerfed and an idiot ball, so we can watch him flail helplessly against Xykon's badassery. Dorukan had 6 months to prepare while Xykon was besieging him. It is beyond credibility that during that 6 months he apparently made no real preparations at all, even of the "gee, he's undead, should I prepare something to protect/be effective against this undead and his undead army?" Nor did he do anything to prepare for the possibility of losing (e.g. setting up a contingency spell, telling someone in his base "hey, there's a Lich besieging us, keep an eye out about that, and if he gets in XYZ".

It also makes Xykon look dumber too, and I don't say that lightly. The guy knew he had no ability to scry on Dorukan, so he had no intel on him or his defences. For all he knew Dorukan was making crazy great preparations against him... and he still just sat in front of his fortress for 6 whole months, only to be saved because for some reason Dorukan made no preparations at all. It basically means Xykon would be dead, if the plot didn't protect him no matter how incompetent he was. Assume Dorukan makes the elementary decision to pack an item that protects from negative energy against an undead, who uses negative energy. What is Xykon's next move after Energy drain? How is he planning to beat him? What if Dorukan makes the elementary decision to teleport back when he's in trouble, and come back better prepared, knowing Xykon cannot follow him into the cloister? Again, we will never know, because the plot demanded he not do that.

[Peelee]

I thought the fight was very well-written, from a thematic and action perspective. It wasn't very good from a pure D&D rules accuracy perspective, but the author has explicitly said that anyone looking for that is going to be constantly frustrated, so I don't look for that.

[TooSoon]

I thought the fight was very well-written, from a thematic and action perspective. It wasn't very good from a pure D&D rules accuracy perspective, but the author has explicitly said that anyone looking for that is going to be constantly frustrated, so I don't look for that.

1) This is a D&D comic. The author has admitted he wishes he hadn't made it one, because now he's bound to some extent by that framework... but he did, and it is, and it failed in that respect. The author saying he didn't try to do that doesn't make it any less a failure, by his own admissions the comic has to be driven by the rules to some degree.

Rich is a fine writer and I hate to sound so negative because of some minor things that annoy me, but the message you and others are selling when you say stuff like this is "I know you think it was badly written because it ignored the rules, but it isn't... because Rich said so". Rich can tell us what he was trying to do, but not whether what he does or does not do is good or bad. That is for the readers to determine. Rich has said many times, including in quotes we've cited in the last week on these forums, that he understands reader's will be rightly annoyed when he snubs the rules (which is why he does stuff like sideline V all the time). This is one of those times, regardless of whether Rich says "no it isn't, because I say so".

2) How is it well written from a thematic point of view? The point Xykon is supposedly trying to make is something to the effect of Wizards underestimate sorcerers because they're less diverse, but being more diverse isn't always better than being a specialst. Xykon's point is he's less diverse, but because he can spam out the stuff he specializes in he can overpower the generalist... except his point is not proven in the fight, because the generalist fights like an idiot and stands there doing nothing while he is pummeled for much of the fight. The takes the moral from "specialization wins over generalists" to "a vague degree of competence wins out over utter foolishness and a railroad plot".

There are ways you can illustrate the point Xykon is trying to make. That is not it.

3) It's also not even true. Maybe you can be better by specializing as a sorcerer, but Xykon's build is not such a specialization. His spell selection sucks frankly. If his opponents had a basic protection from negative energy item, perhaps coupled with a few other basics like protection from fire, over half his known ways of winning fights are suddenly gone. The comic opened with Xykon losing to a level 9 fighter. He almost lost to Soon. He almost lost to a Silver Dragon. He should have lost to spliced V. Xykon is not a proof of concept for any such thesis. His victories are plot driven, and that's the moral. He beat an archmagi by hitting him on the head with a trophy in the same book he beat Dorukan. Was that supposed to teach us something profound to?

[Peelee]

1) This is a D&D comic. The author has admitted he wishes he hadn't made it one, because now he's bound to some extent by that framework...

I agree. "To some extent". That extent has, by the authors own very open admission numerous times, changed. He has directly stated that if you dislike that change of extent, then you will be dissatisfied with the strip. You appear to be dissatisfied with the strip. If nothing else, I hope that this has not been a surprise.

2) How is it well written from a thematic point of view? The point Xykon is supposedly trying to make is something to the effect of Wizards underestimate sorcerers because they're less diverse, but being more diverse isn't always better than being a specialst.

I agree here as well, but it doesn't need to be always better. It just needs to be better when fighting someone who places the absolute importance and arrogance on inherent superiority (Dorukan, most wizards we have seen in Stickworld) and underestimating others as well as dismissing their strengths. Which just happens to be most of the wizards Xykon has fought.