Roy Greenhilt is useless?

[hungrycrow]

A fair point, although Roy's dad was an adventurer at one point in his life.

True, but Roy's dad also only got to play one character. As did everyone else in OotS. The amount of information and understanding that gets passed down from adventurers that reach high level is probably less than that getting passed around by thousands of dnd players on internet forums.

Except when the Giant throws in anachronistic things like Macebook or Roy playing Ad&d.

[woweedd]

V actually uses quite a few SoD spells. Disintegrate - arguably their signature spell - certainly is, and Prismatic Spray is a 4 out of 7 SoD that V casts in almost every combat - it just never works that way against anyone important.

In general, the spell selection by characters in OOTS is all over the place, including heroes, villains, and random third party characters. There's a massive bias towards what the author considers an exciting fantasy fight scene and fights his narrative purpose. This creates a conflict with the underlying system because fighting efficiently in high-level D&D is neither visually interesting nor does it lead to exciting fight scenes. One of the central problems is that HP inflation at high levels is so massive that unless damage output is incredibly optimized killing people with damage just isn't very effective. A back and forth exchange of blows with each side gaining and losing advantage due to various ploys/positioning/pluck represents both sides acting extremely sub-optimally. A 'great fight' like Roy v Thog is bad high-level 3.5 D&D play.

Essentially, in order to produce exciting fights the author has to make everyone bad at fighting according to the rules of their world. This is fine when played for laughs or used in meta-jokes as it consistently was during the first half of the strip, but fights now have the 'fate of the world' at stake literally every time the Order throws down and the fact that everyone is bumbling around makes things less compelling than they might otherwise be.

There is no good solution. 3.5 D&D is broken at high levels and produces broken worlds. Any Watsonian answer will always have gaping holes in it.

Now, the importance of this issue with the comic varies widely from one member of the audience to the next, but it definitely exists. The author is aware of it, has commented on it, and has even expressed that had he the chance to do it all again he wouldn't have bound the story to D&D 3.5.

To be fair, they haven't used Disintegrate much since their development.

True, but Roy's dad also only got to play one character. As did everyone else in OotS. The amount of information and understanding that gets passed down from adventurers that reach high level is probably less than that getting passed around by thousands of dnd players on internet forums.

Except when the Giant throws in anachronistic things like Macebook or Roy playing Ad&d.

Plus, Roy's dad did advise him on how to "Build his character" or in real-world terms, "belited his son's dreams and career aspirations for not being like his". Like, it's a recurring theme that Eugene tried to get Roy to follow in his footsteps as a Wizard, despite the fact that he didn't really want to.

[TooSoon]

I mean, Roy would be much better off saving the world as a Wizard. His dad wasn't wrong about that.

[Dion]

As I have explained many times…

Sorry, I deleted my post before you replied because I realized I wasn’t contributing anything useful to the discussion.

[TooSoon]

Sorry, I deleted my post before you replied because I realized I wasn’t contributing anything useful to the discussion.

{scrubbed}

To touch on what was said briefly.

I don’t believe that’s true.

If you go back a few books, there’s a big story arc where V is the most powerful wizard in the history of the world (it’s complicated. You just have to go back and read it).

Anyhow, V tries to rocket tag Xykon using epic spells

It turns out V is nearly killed. Just being an epic wizard doesn’t make an instant win in OotS universe.

In fact, nearly the exact opposite.

It’s probably worth going back and reading, the past strips, because the comic has addressed every one of your points already, far better than I ever could ever hope to.

As I have explained many times, that is not an example of casters not being more powerful because:
1) Xykon IS a caster
2) That story was a plot railroad where V got the idiot ball and Xykon got plot armour.

No method can defeat Xykon if the author gives him plot armour. Practically speaking though a caster has far more chance of defeating Xykon, for the reasons explained in great depth on this thread. Casters are just more powerful.

[Liquor Box]

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

To touch on what was said briefly.

As I have explained many times, that is not an example of casters not being more powerful because:
1) Xykon IS a caster
2) That story was a plot railroad where V got the idiot ball and Xykon got plot armour.

No method can defeat Xykon if the author gives him plot armour. Practically speaking though a caster has far more chance of defeating Xykon, for the reasons explained in great depth on this thread. Casters are just more powerful.

You have indeed explained it several times. And each time, someone has replied explaining why what you're saying is not accurate.

1. V has lost to several non-casters (eg Miko, an Owlbear and Serini). Party members who are non-casters have defeated caster enemies (eg Roy vs Xykon, Belkar vs the the hag who transformed V, Roy vs Vampire Durkon).

2. As a caster V is sub-optimal in terms of build and tactics. As a fighter Roy is sub-optimal in terms of build and tactics. So is the rest of the party. As for Xykon, he is simply more powerful than the others, yet despite this he's lost once (and I suspect will lose again), he's not getting special protection.

You are correct that a high level wizard can be built to be more powerful than most or all non-casters. But that does not mean that V is more powerful than others, or should be.

[Mechalich]

2. As a caster V is sub-optimal in terms of build and tactics. As a fighter Roy is sub-optimal in terms of build and tactics. So is the rest of the party. As for Xykon, he is simply more powerful than the others, yet despite this he's lost once (and I suspect will lose again), he's not getting special protection.

Xykon's 'loss' is extremely dubious in terms of the rules. In comic #114 Roy punches Xykon's head off, something that simply is not possible by any interpretation of D&D 3.5 rules, since even with a critical hit and max damage Roy should be completely unable to penetrate Xykon's DR, and in any case Xykon was at full health up to that point (I don't know what his hp total is supposed to be, but even 20d12 puts him over 100 at a bare minimum). Xykon then proceeds to do absolutely nothing while Roy grapples him (I guess Xykon missed with his AoO touch attack), picks him up, and throws him into the gate. The the gate destroys his body by apparently dealing some massive quantity of untyped damage to him. It also notable that while Xykon does attack other members of the Order during the fight - notably using a Symbol of Pain to disable Haley and Elan - he make exactly one move against Roy, specifically he casters Shatter to destroy his sword.

Xykon spends that entire first fight fooling around. Truthfully he's not actually fighting at all, he's playing a game between the goblins and the Order for his own amusement confident that he's not actually under any threat. And that assessment is entirely correct except for the gate. If Roy throws Xykon in literally any other direction that directly at the gate - and there's no evidence he picked it deliberately - the result is a TPK.

Roy hulking out and punching Xykon's head off is certainly amusing, but it only serves as evidence that in order to make the story work the author has to violate D&D rules all over the place.

[Hurkyl]

While Xykon was putting on a show, recall that Team Evil's goal for that encounter is to capture the Order or somesuch, so they can be used to get past Dorukan's protections on the gate.

[TooSoon]

You have indeed explained it several times. And each time, someone has replied explaining why what you're saying is not accurate.

1. V has lost to several non-casters (eg Miko, an Owlbear and Serini). Party members who are non-casters have defeated caster enemies (eg Roy vs Xykon, Belkar vs the the hag who transformed V, Roy vs Vampire Durkon).

2. As a caster V is sub-optimal in terms of build and tactics. As a fighter Roy is sub-optimal in terms of build and tactics. So is the rest of the party. As for Xykon, he is simply more powerful than the others, yet despite this he's lost once (and I suspect will lose again), he's not getting special protection.

You are correct that a high level wizard can be built to be more powerful than most or all non-casters. But that does not mean that V is more powerful than others, or should be.

Trying to refute the point that V is the most powerful by pointing out losses they have had in the actual comic is meaningless. The author can write the story so every single powerful character loses every fight. The author wrote Roy as beating Xykon is book 1, which as the poster above explained is basically BS. V losing to X or Y in the comic because the plot demanded it doesn't mean he was not more powerful than X and Y. Such argumentation is not persuasive. It is like saying that Joe Bloggs, ordinary human, is more powerful than Superman, because just when they were about to face off superman was hit by a kryptonite bullet out of nowhere and went into cardiac arrest, enabling Joe Bloggs to beat him up. With plot contrivance you can have anyone beat anyone else. We're talking about who is the strongest objectively.

[RatElemental]

Tier disparity isn't even about whether or not a higher tier class will never, ever under any circumstances lose to a lower tier one. It's about what things a class is able to do. Wizards can do anything, that's what it means to be tier 1. Fighters have a limited amount of things they are able to do. In fact, there's only really one thing they can do, which is to hit stuff with weapons, anything else falls outside of their class abilities. Tier 5 means you can only do one thing, and you're not even exceptional at it, which is where non-dungeoncrasher fighters fall.

Or at least, those are the original definitions, people might be using different ones nowadays.

[Liquor Box]

Xykon's 'loss' is extremely dubious in terms of the rules. In comic #114 Roy punches Xykon's head off, something that simply is not possible by any interpretation of D&D 3.5 rules, since even with a critical hit and max damage Roy should be completely unable to penetrate Xykon's DR, and in any case Xykon was at full health up to that point (I don't know what his hp total is supposed to be, but even 20d12 puts him over 100 at a bare minimum). Xykon then proceeds to do absolutely nothing while Roy grapples him (I guess Xykon missed with his AoO touch attack), picks him up, and throws him into the gate. The the gate destroys his body by apparently dealing some massive quantity of untyped damage to him. It also notable that while Xykon does attack other members of the Order during the fight - notably using a Symbol of Pain to disable Haley and Elan - he make exactly one move against Roy, specifically he casters Shatter to destroy his sword.

Xykon spends that entire first fight fooling around. Truthfully he's not actually fighting at all, he's playing a game between the goblins and the Order for his own amusement confident that he's not actually under any threat. And that assessment is entirely correct except for the gate. If Roy throws Xykon in literally any other direction that directly at the gate - and there's no evidence he picked it deliberately - the result is a TPK.

Roy hulking out and punching Xykon's head off is certainly amusing, but it only serves as evidence that in order to make the story work the author has to violate D&D rules all over the place.

Other than the head falling off thing, what happened is possible under the rules isn't it? You could treat the throwing part as a bull rush. Sure the gate does the actual damage, but is that different from bull rushing someone off a cliff - the fall does the damage, but you'd still get credited with the win. I grant you that Xykon was just mucking around instead of really fighting back, and it probably isn't very instructive.

Putting aside the fact that Xykon;s loss was a bit silly, I don't think any of his victories were similarly silly such that you'd think he had plot armour.

Trying to refute the point that V is the most powerful by pointing out losses they have had in the actual comic is meaningless. The author can write the story so every single powerful character loses every fight. V losing to X or Y in the comic because the plot demanded it doesn't mean he was not more powerful than X and Y. Such argumentation is not persuasive.

No. What happens in the comic absolutely trumps what V could theoretically do in terms of determining how powerful he is. He is a character, not just a collection of numbers, and how he actually performs is the only way of determining his power.

If the author writes V as not very powerful, then V is not very powerful. The author can write whatever story he wants and that story determines V's power level. Just because you head-canon V as using all his powers differently (or having additional spells), doesn't make it so in the comic.

Just to be clear, it is not just in plot critical fights that V does poorly in. He loses in non plot critical battles (eg the Hag, the Owlbear), he is ineffective in fights that other party members rescue him (eg Serini fight). V loses plenty in situations which are not plot critical.

The author wrote Roy as beating Xykon is book 1, which as the poster above explained is basically BS.

Interesting that you say that. Why then did you say "that time a level 8 fighter beat him" as evidence of Xykon's weakness, when you were arguing V was more powerful than him?

It is like saying that Joe Bloggs, ordinary human, is more powerful than Superman, because just when they were about to face off superman was hit by a kryptonite bullet out of nowhere and went into cardiac arrest, enabling Joe Bloggs to beat him up. With plot contrivance you can have anyone beat anyone else. We're talking about who is the strongest objectively.

No, it's different from that. In you example, Joe Bloggs had absolutely nothing to do with Superman losing - it was wherever the kryptonite bullet came from that beat him. What it would actually be like, is Superman (with all his powers intact) frequently losing to a variety of other creatures, instead of consistently beating them (like he actually does. In the alternative universe where superman did lose like that, it would suggest he was less powerful. Because is it the story that determines his power.

Objectively, there is no other evidence of how powerful a character from a story is, than how powerful the story portrays them as being.

[TooSoon]

Other than the head falling off thing, what happened is possible under the rules isn't it? You could treat the throwing part as a bull rush. Sure the gate does the actual damage, but is that different from bull rushing someone off a cliff - the fall does the damage, but you'd still get credited with the win. I grant you that Xykon was just mucking around instead of really fighting back, and it probably isn't very instructive.

Putting aside the fact that Xykon;s loss was a bit silly, I don't think any of his victories were similarly silly such that you'd think he had plot armour.



No. What happens in the comic absolutely trumps what V could theoretically do in terms of determining how powerful he is. He is a character, not just a collection of numbers, and how he actually performs is the only way of determining his power.

If the author writes V as not very powerful, then V is not very powerful. The author can write whatever story he wants and that story determines V's power level. Just because you head-canon V as using all his powers differently (or having additional spells), doesn't make it so in the comic.

Just to be clear, it is not just in plot critical fights that V does poorly in. He loses in non plot critical battles (eg the Hag, the Owlbear), he is ineffective in fights that other party members rescue him (eg Serini fight). V loses plenty in situations which are not plot critical.



Interesting that you say that. Why then did you say "that time a level 8 fighter beat him" as evidence of Xykon's weakness, when you were arguing V was more powerful than him?



No, it's different from that. In you example, Joe Bloggs had absolutely nothing to do with Superman losing - it was wherever the kryptonite bullet came from that beat him. What it would actually be like, is Superman (with all his powers intact) frequently losing to a variety of other creatures, instead of consistently beating them (like he actually does. In the alternative universe where superman did lose like that, it would suggest he was less powerful. Because is it the story that determines his power.

Objectively, there is no other evidence of how powerful a character from a story is, than how powerful the story portrays them as being.

Like the guy above you just explained, being stronger doesn't mean you will win every fight, which in turn means that in theory the author can make the weaker being win every single team. In real life a Lion is more deadly than a horse, but it is theoretically possible for a horse to kick a Lion to death through pure blind luck. It might be statistically near impossible, but if a writer tells a story in which a 0.005% chance happens 8 times out of 8, it wouldn't make the reality any different. A lion is still more deadly than a horse.

V is still more powerful than the rest of the order; the writer just keeps need to nerfing/railroading things so it's not so obvious.

[Liquor Box]

Tier disparity isn't even about whether or not a higher tier class will never, ever under any circumstances lose to a lower tier one. It's about what things a class is able to do. Wizards can do anything, that's what it means to be tier 1. Fighters have a limited amount of things they are able to do. In fact, there's only really one thing they can do, which is to hit stuff with weapons, anything else falls outside of their class abilities. Tier 5 means you can only do one thing, and you're not even exceptional at it, which is where non-dungeoncrasher fighters fall.

Or at least, those are the original definitions, people might be using different ones nowadays.

Completely agree. Wizards will not always be stronger than a fighter in combat, although they certainly can be at high level.

Like the guy above you just explained, being stronger doesn't mean you will win every fight, which in turn means that in theory the author can make the weaker being win every single team. In real life a Lion is more deadly than a horse, but it is theoretically possible for a horse to kick a Lion to death through pure blind luck. It might be statistically near impossible, but if a writer tells a story in which a 0.005% chance happens 8 times out of 8, it wouldn't make the reality any different. A lion is still more deadly than a horse.

Sure, it's not just hypothetical. Zebras have killed lions.

You point applies well to Xykon - he did lose to Roy, but it seemed very lucky, the sort of thing that might only happen 1% of the time. We know it's not normal, because Xykon has consistently beaten a wide variety of other opponents.

V is different - V loses often, including to weak opponents.

If a character loses 8/8, I suppose it's possible that they are actually super powerful and just got terribly unlucky eight times in a row. But a much more reasonable conclusion is that the character is less powerful than those they are facing.

V is still more powerful than the rest of the order; the writer just keeps need to nerfing/railroading things so it's not so obvious.

Nope. The story determines how powerful V is - it is the only objective source as to how powerful V is.

Fine to make the point that V could be built better, fine to make the point that a character with V's point could be used more effectively. But that does not mean the V that is in the story is any more powerful than he appears to be.

[TooSoon]

Completely agree. Wizards will not always be stronger than a fighter in combat, although they certainly can be at high level.



Sure, it's not just hypothetical. Zebras have killed lions.

You point applies well to Xykon - he did lose to Roy, but it seemed very lucky, the sort of thing that might only happen 1% of the time. We know it's not normal, because Xykon has consistently beaten a wide variety of other opponents.

V is different - V loses often, including to weak opponents.

If a character loses 8/8, I suppose it's possible that they are actually super powerful and just got terribly unlucky eight times in a row. But a much more reasonable conclusion is that the character is less powerful than those they are facing.



Nope. The story determines how powerful V is - it is the only objective source as to how powerful V is.

Fine to make the point that V could be built better, fine to make the point that a character with V's point could be used more effectively. But that does not mean the V that is in the story is any more powerful than he appears to be.

Except the comic operates in a D&D framework, and objectively the casters are just more powerful in said framework; and V is a caster. V isn't as optimized as they could be obviously, but none of his team mates are either. In that framework, V is the strongest character objectively, in the same way 9 is a higher number than 2. A Pikachu could in theory just get lucky and hit critical on every turn, while their much stronger opponent misses every attack, and thus gets the win; but that statistical outlier doesn't make the Pikachu stronger than the Dragonite it fluked a win against, anymore than a horse is more deadly than a Lion because it fluked a win.

The story teller can have implausible events happen 100 times out of 100, but it doesn't change the objective reality of the characters. It's just plot contrivance. The story does not determine what reality is; objective reality does that, and the math that underlies it in a game with set rules, all of which massively favour V. Your point is also not logical because the very guy writing said story has out and out said he has to constantly find ways to keep V out of the story to stop him from unbalancing it. So the guy who is writing this story understands V is stronger, and has out and out told us as much. That is the mic drop.

[RatElemental]

Nope. The story determines how powerful V is - it is the only objective source as to how powerful V is.

Fine to make the point that V could be built better, fine to make the point that a character with V's point could be used more effectively. But that does not mean the V that is in the story is any more powerful than he appears to be.

The story is only the objective source of how effective V is. Even with V's build and the spells we know they have they could probably trounce the rest of the order sans Durkon. Given how often basically all of them fail will saves just a few castings of dominate person would do, even.

Let's try to look at some other examples. In Princess Bride when Inigo was wielding his sword left handed, was he less powerful just because he was intentionally fighting poorly? In Dragon Ball Z, when Goku doesn't go all out out of the gate is he less powerful overall as a character? Does Xykon not taking the first fight with the Order of the Stick seriously and getting dusted because of it make him less powerful?

I think the answer is no.

[Liquor Box]

Except the comic operates in a D&D framework, and objectively the casters are just more powerful in said framework; and V is a caster. V isn't as optimized as they could be obviously, but none of his team mates are either. In that framework, V is the strongest character objectively, in the same way 9 is a higher number than 2. A Pikachu could in theory just get lucky and hit critical on every turn, while their much stronger opponent misses every attack, and thus gets the win; but that statistical outlier doesn't make the Pikachu stronger than the Dragonite it fluked a win against, anymore than a horse is more deadly than a Lion because it fluked a win.

Every story operates within a framework. A set of rules that govern how things work in universe. Most stories are set in the real world, and use real world rules.

It is not the framework of DnD that high level wizards will always be more powerful than high level fighters. The class tier list is about how powerful a class might potentially be, not that it will always be that powerful. It may be that a wizard can achieve higher power or even that they usually will, but a wizard could be built with no combat spells at all. They could be played poorly.

Build and playstyle matters too. The only evidence we have as to V's build, and how well V uses it comes from the story. V chooses not to cast stoneskin before every fight, even though that might be the more optimal decision. The V we are judging is the V who plays suboptimally.

As to your pokemon point - yes, I've already agreed that outlier results happen. V's losses are not outliers, they are too frequent.

The story teller can have implausible events happen 100 times out of 100, but it doesn't change the objective reality of the characters. It's just plot contrivance. The story does not determine what reality is; objective reality does that, and the math that underlies it in a game with set rules, all of which massively favour V. Your point is also not logical because the very guy writing said story has out and out said he has to constantly find ways to keep V out of the story to stop him from unbalancing it. So the guy who is writing this story understands V is stronger, and has out and out told us as much. That is the mic drop.

Yes, it absolutely does change the objective reality of the characters. The story defines the objective reality of the characters. The story doesn't determine reality because V is not real, it does determine the canon of V's strength.

If you think the story is manipulating the game rules or maths to make V lose, please point it out. Because it seems to me that the story is not doing that, instead is just that V's build and playstyle doesn't do as well as some other wizard build/playstyles might.

If you're relying on anything the Giant said, you should link it or quote it. Not just post your own paraphrasing or editorialising. Especially if you want to call it a mike drop.

The story is only the objective source of how effective V is. Even with V's build and the spells we know they have they could probably trounce the rest of the order sans Durkon. Given how often basically all of them fail will saves just a few castings of dominate person would do, even.

Let's try to look at some other examples. In Princess Bride when Inigo was wielding his sword left handed, was he less powerful just because he was intentionally fighting poorly? In Dragon Ball Z, when Goku doesn't go all out out of the gate is he less powerful overall as a character? Does Xykon not taking the first fight with the Order of the Stick seriously and getting dusted because of it make him less powerful?

I think the answer is no.

I agree with you that the story only shows how effective V is. I understand that V's theoretical power, if played with a skilled player, would be higher.

I don't think your examples are helpful though, because in each case they are deliberately holding back. V is not deliberately holding back, that's just how V fights.

[woweedd]

Yeah, Soon, I feel you’re missing what is a major point of the story: power comes in many forms. Yes, V has a lot of power, but they are, or were for most of the run, pretty bad at using it, and, in a real world…Well, it’s like if you built the best tank ever, then immediately crashed it into a ditch. Power means nothing if mis-applied. And V spent a lot of the comic mis-applying it. That’s not an idiot ball, that’s just…What the character is.

[TooSoon]

V is the strongest member of the party, that is just objectively true, and the author agrees and has said as much, and makes story decisions to account for it. There is just nothing to debate here.

[Dion]

V is the strongest member of the party

No. Your claim is factually wrong.

Roy is the leader of a party of five adventurers.

V is the leader of an insolent bird.

Roy objectively has five times as much power.

[brian 333]

V was not built as a level 17 wizard optomized to defeat Xykon. He was built by leveling up in game one level at a time over two decades of gameplay.

Early decisions about feats, spell selections, magic item aquisitions and other aspects of his character build may not make as much sense now, but how was he supposed to know that then?

It is easy to say an unoptimized character is flawed. But it is hard to take a character from level 1 to 20 following a template. Especially when the DM keeps exploiting that template's weaknesses.

(And every template I've ever seen has glaring weaknesses. For example, what does your ultimate summoner do when faced with an ultimate banisher?)

A mage is also constrained by spell availability. The PHB may have Leomund's Tiny Chest in it, but when your DM declares that Leomund never lived in his campaign world, your wizard is in a pickle. Does he miss out on the next adventure or two (and the gp and exp they offer) to research the spell, or does he choose another? Or does the player demand that time stop while her character does the research?

Which option is fair?

Many build concepts simply fail when doing them one level at a time, no matter how good they look on paper, because the realities of the campaign force the character to make choices that do not fit the intended build. As an example, summoning a solar to be a meatshield, in my campaign world, might result in weeks or months of payback service to the solar, during which time the rest of the party continues to level up. The wizard may just end up the weakest, poorest, and least optimized character in the party because in his goal to achieve ultimate arcane power, he failed to consider the drawbacks to his perfect plan.

Oh. Wait. That seems familiar. Where have I seen that playing out?

[Squire Doodad]

An idealized V would be undeniably the most powerful character.
However, V is terrible at coordination (only over the last few weeks in-universe starting to properly plan with Roy and other party members) and makes poor use of their abilities. This is just from a tactical perspective - they literally burned a time stop after teleporting in so they could buff up, instead of laying buffs ahead of time. As they say themselves, they used their great power as a cudgel. They have a much smaller tool now, but they have spent precious little time wielding it as anything other than a cudgel.
In contrast, Roy and the others have a similarly suboptimal layout, but actively make the most of their abilities.

The tank in a ditch analogy is pretty on point - V is a tank that runs into a ditch.

[Dion]

An idealized V would be undeniably the most powerful character.

I disagree.

V has the ability to apply a lot more “force” on a melee battlefield. V can detect what their opening is doing, limit the opponents options, increase their allies options, and put out more damage, and do all of that at a range before the opponent may even be able to react. An idealized V could be even more effective.

But “force” isn’t power.

Power is applied force. Power is the ability to actually change the world.

Roy has it. V does not.

When Roy was dead, and V had the opportunity to do anything, V did nothing. Without Roy directing V’s force toward a goal, V was absolutely powerless.

I think the author explained it very well with Andi and Bandana. Andi is smarter, Andi studied harder, Andi knows every inch of the ship from front to back. Andi can apply more “force”.

Andi is smarter and “stronger”, but Bandana gets stuff done.

Bandana is more powerful than Andi, just like Roy is much, much more powerful than V.

[Hurkyl]

they literally burned a time stop after teleporting in so they could buff up,

While I am among those who criticize V for that, I did want to point out it's not entirely without merit. It did let him adjust for that instantaneous circumstance, namely Fire Shield to exploit the incoming full attack.

And to be fair to V, he was rather in a hurry.

That said, I'm expect the point the maneuver was little more than to toy with the dragon.

[Squire Doodad]

While I am among those who criticize V for that, I did want to point out it's not entirely without merit. It did let him adjust for that instantaneous circumstance, namely Fire Shield to exploit the incoming full attack.

And to be fair to V, he was rather in a hurry.

That said, I'm expect the point the maneuver was little more than to toy with the dragon.

I'm talking about the fight Xykon, where the only time constraint involved would be extending V's debt - and, frankly, spending 30 seconds more in hell so you get your buffs ahead of time would not be a serious issue. If V teleported in and Xykon had an Ancient White Dragon at his side, they could then have blown Time Stop and layered on additional situation-dependent buffs.
V mentions the Superb Dispelling removes their defenses and flight spell, but given the limits of Time Stop, I can only assume they had additional buffs to put on.

With the ABD, V was doing it to spite the dragon and to stroke their own ego - and, as you said, there was a time constraint. 30 seconds would have been enough time for V's family to have been killed. Xykon would most likely not vanish within a minute.

I think the author explained it very well with Andi and Bandana. Andi is smarter, Andi studied harder, Andi knows every inch of the ship from front to back. Andi can apply more “force”.

Andi is smarter and “stronger”, but Bandana gets stuff done.

Bandana is more powerful than Andi, just like Roy is much, much more powerful than V.

That's a good way to summarize it.

[Wraithfighter]

While I am among those who criticize V for that, I did want to point out it's not entirely without merit. It did let him adjust for that instantaneous circumstance, namely Fire Shield to exploit the incoming full attack.

And to be fair to V, he was rather in a hurry.

That said, I'm expect the point the maneuver was little more than to toy with the dragon.

I'd say that the point could also be seen as showing how wasteful they was using it. #667 spells it out pretty explicitly, they had supreme, unstoppable arcane power, nearly infinite in both power and flexibility, and they used it as skillfully as they would a cudgel.

Why bother wasting time before-battle buffing up? You've got a Time Stop spell you can burn! It's not like you're at any risk of losing, you're the most powerful non-divine or infernal being in the setting, what do you have to worry about?

[Dion]

In real life a Lion is more deadly than a horse,

Exactly. Now you get it.

A lion may be able to kill a horse, but horse is useful, while a lion is almost completely useless.

Just like Roy and V.

Roy is useful like a horse. V is useless like a lion.

Thanks for the perfect analogy.

[Empiar93]

Power is applied force. Power is the ability to actually change the world.

Roy has it. V does not.

When Roy was dead, and V had the opportunity to do anything, V did nothing. Without Roy directing V’s force toward a goal, V was absolutely powerless.

I dunno man, I’d say wiping out a quarter of the black dragon population and one of the gates’ defenses is “changing the world”.
But I also dislike this argument on the basis that you’re using a bit of a special definition. “If I use this word differently then you’re wrong and I’m right”. Well yeah, that’s all good and well but it misses the point of what’s really being discussed.

Would an ideal V be a walking nuke+swiss army knife capable of solving literally any problem? The answer is yes. It’s a useless discussion either way but changing the subject from being about power to being about one’s actual ability to POSITIVELY affect the world (Andi also had an effect on the world - she had the POWER to screw over the entire crew) makes it even even more pointless.

I might concede the idea that power isn’t just raw force, but I’ll still have to disagree that power is when raw force is used in a way that you, in particular, would like.

[Metastachydium]

I dunno man, I’d say wiping out a quarter of the black dragon population and one of the gates’ defenses is “changing the world”.
But I also dislike this argument on the basis that you’re using a bit of a special definition. “If I use this word differently then you’re wrong and I’m right”. Well yeah, that’s all good and well but it misses the point of what’s really being discussed.

Would an ideal V be a walking nuke+swiss army knife capable of solving literally any problem? The answer is yes. It’s a useless discussion either way but changing the subject from being about power to being about one’s actual ability to POSITIVELY affect the world (Andi also had an effect on the world - she had the POWER to screw over the entire crew) makes it even even more pointless.

I might concede the idea that power isn’t just raw force, but I’ll still have to disagree that power is when raw force is used in a way that you, in particular, would like.

I mean, there is a legit definition of power (as it manifests itself in interpersonal/societal relations) positing that one (be this conceptual one a person or an institution) has power over others insofar as one is capable of meaningfully influencing the behaviour of these others.

[Dion]

Would an ideal V be a walking nuke+swiss army knife capable of solving literally any problem? The answer is yes.

I’d say the author has explicitly said NO.

The author gave V ultimate arcane power. V did nothing to further the goals of the order.

[Hurkyl]

I’d say the author has explicitly said NO.

The author gave V ultimate arcane power. V did nothing to further the goals of the order.

To nitpick a bit, V did translocate the Azure City refugees to a stable location which served as the staging ground for them to ultimately regroup.