The Order of the Stick

I mean, I'm just thinking that 'Durkon just kind of stands there repeatedly throws his hammer at vampires who can't fight back' sounds like a much too easy way of resolving this.

That's true. We can never underestimate the way things can go wrong.

Look at the battle that just happened before hand: the Order had multiple advantages, but suddenly Hilgya gets dominated (even if the woman is too self centred and revenge oriented for her own good, you'd think she'd at least have the bare minimum high enough wisdom stat to avoid that) and they nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Oh, I don't expect that to be the whole fight.

Remember that this isn't the Godsmoot. It's a council meeting to decide which way their god will vote in the Godsmoot. We have not been told that there is any barrier prohibiting people inside the chamber from leaving it once the council meeting is in session.

I do expect Durkon to take advantage of the fact that there isn't a rule prohibiting people outside the barrier from lobbing violence into the barrier; just like how there isn't a rule prohibiting you from Dominating people outside the barrier and then having those people enter the barrier. But that's not going to win the day; that's just going to force Gontor and his people to come outside where they can retaliate.

Is my prediction, anyway.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 2nd 2019 at 5:33:48 AM

Am I understanding Durkon wrong, or should we be expecting a third level of magical defences to come after these two?

There could be, for example, a wall of force that only permits clan chiefs to stand on the council floor, with the vampires themselves forced to observe from a gallery. Presto: council is sensibly defended from ranged attacks from outside (with the "turn any attempted attackers inside the room to stone" part being a deliberately-redundant punitive measure), while the vampires are still vulnerable to certain kinds of attack.

There are two ways to see Durkon's words before he was interrupted.

The first is that there is a third line of defense after the blue barrier that we have not yet seen that will have an effect on the battle to come.

The second is that the third circle is the outside of the building, where the nightcrawler has been summoned.

Durkon's words?

"Aye, no sense hangin' back now. Let's go!"

Those words? 'Cause that's the only thing he's said in this scene.

Durkon's words here.

Didn't Gontor explain the three rings already?

Edit: nevermind, he only explains 1 and 2 here

I now also think the loophole everyone's expecting will be "the law doesn't prohibit talking". With everything else that's prime I Shall Taunt You setup

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 5th 2019 at 9:25:14 AM

Aha, gotcha.

Gontor mentions only two barriers, but he also refers to the area beyond orange as the "Middle Chamber" and the one past the blue as "Inner Chamber". So I think the third ring everyone's talking about is the big stone wall around what I assume from context would be the Outer Chamber, the area where the nightcrawler fight is presently taking place.

Outer, Middle, Inner. Three rings.

Then again, it's not out of the question that there would be a fourth, like, "Innermost Chamber", I suppose. It'd be a bit awkward phrasing for Chamber 2 of 4 to be the Middle Chamber, though.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 5th 2019 at 10:18:17 AM

"The council chamber's made up of three rings, each with its own set of..." what? Defences, presumably — maybe he was going to say something more specific like "magical barriers", but whatever it was, it's hard to imagine the end of that sentence not being some kind of defensive measure.

We haven't seen or had described to us any inherent "set of defences" in the outer chamber — Gontor just cast a standard spell to summon a monster to defend the area.

The other implication of that phrasing is that even an extra level of defence on the inner chamber doesn't satisfy it: that's still only two "rings with [their] own set of defences", even if one of them has more than one kind.

The two ways I can read that statement are that there's an extra ring within the council chamber — which, it's true, makes calling them the "middle chamber" and "inner chamber" very odd — or that the "outer chamber" has its own set of defences which haven't been mentioned. That might mean Gontor doesn't know about them, or that they're too extreme to mention: "the entire chamber collapses into a volcano if the council so votes" or something.

There were guards at least it seems.

Updoot.

Ah, it can never be easy, can it now...

Ugh. As if being a ton and a half of disgusting freudian nightmare wasn't enough it can also cast incredibly powerful spells.

I'll give Rich this much:

He knows how to make it hard for the heroes.

Just how long did Gontor expect to have? It may be that not being flexible enough to adapt to the reality that the Order knows all of his boss’s plans is what causes his downfall.

I kind of like this worm. It feels kind of weird for such a nightmarish creature to be intelligent, but I can imagine him chilling in a coffee shop in his off time.

Yes. Yes, it can. A brief list of the nightcrawler's available spell-like abilities. It can cast these "at will", which means however often it wants:

• Contagion - Touch-range infection of a disease. Fortitude DC 18 negates.
• Deeper Darkness - Magical darkness in a 60-foot radius that supercedes Light and Daylight spells.
• Detect Magic
• Greater Dispel Magic
• Haste
• Invisibility
• See Invisibility
• Unholy Blight - 20-foot AOE dealing 5d8 (median 22.5) damage to Good and Neutral characters in the field. Also causes those characters sickness, giving a -2 to their combat-relevant rolls for 1d4 rounds. Will DC 18 for half-damage and no sickness.

Three of these per day:

• Cone of Cold - 60-foot cone-shaped burst, dealing 15d6 (median 52.5) cold damage. Reflex DC 19 for half damage.
• Confusion - 15-foot radial burst centered on the nightcrawler. All targets become confused, forcing them to roll actions off a percentage chart. Will DC 18 negates.
• Hold Monster - Paralyzes and freezes a single target in place. It's an upgrade from Hold Person, capable of affecting not only people but any living creature. Will DC 19 negates.

And these once per day:

• Finger of Death - Instantly kill any one target within 85 feet. Fortitude DC 21 to survive the instant-death effect, instead taking 3d6+25 (median 35.5) damage.
• Mass Hold Monster - Hold Monster in an AOE field of 30 feet. Will DC 23 negates.
• Plane Shift - Transports the nightcrawler and up to 8 other people or creatures touching each other to another plane of existence. Will DC 21 to resist forcible transportation.

All of these abilities are cast with a Caster Level of 25.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 15th 2019 at 8:50:50 AM

Oh, sweet lord, this will not be easy.

Eh, a cleric can undo most of that can't he? And don't we have three?

IIRC, one active, one in reserve somewhere, and one mostly dead.

We have three? Durkon, Hylgia, and who else?

Minrah asked to be rezzed when Durkon was.

Would Minrah even be able to contribute much? It was clear that she was rather outclassed even against the vampire clerics, let alone higher-level Monsters.

She can dispel magic, and cast buffs. Clerics generally aren't there to deal damage, although Durkon has proved they absolutely can when called on