Class and Level Geekery XIV - We are the Geek Pantheon

[D.One]

With regard to Minrah, thanks to 1105 I think we can determine her minimum Strength. The warhammer does 1d8 and she breaches the DR 5 of the spawn (DR 10 if it's a full vampire). We have no evidence of her weapon being magical, so her minimum Str is 6 (-2) for hitting a spawn or 16 (+3) for a vampire. Per the SRD, there is no minimum Str requirement for her armour.

About this:

We've seem her hit a Vampire (possibly Spawn) and don't breach the DR, which means her Warhammer isn't silvered. Also, we can conclude that her Max STR is 19 (if it was a Spawn), or 29 (if it was a full Vampire) [Ok, we know it's unreasonable for her to be so strong. It's just an hypothetical maximum, and I really think it was a spawn, which brings her Max STR to 19]

Now we've seem her One-hit kill a Vampire (probably Spawn). Even if we consider that it had minimum result in its HD's, that would still be 7 hp, which means that, for a Spawn DR of 5, she would need to dish 12 points of damage. That means that the sum of her STR bonus and the (possible) magical bonus of her hammer should be at least +4. Which means that, even with an (really unlikely) +5 Warhammer, she would still need at least STR 8, bringing her to STR 8-19.

That said, the possibility of a critical strike (that multiplies the damage by 3) throws all those calculations through the window

[D.One]

Another way to see this is to consider the Vampire a regular Spawn, with its 29 hp, and to consider that she indeed had a critical hit.

For her strike to one hit kill the Spawn, she needs to dish 29+5 points of damage, which means 34, which means that she sould have an unmultiplied result of 12, bringing us back to (STR mod + Magical weapon bonus) = +4, for a minimum of STR 8, if we consider her to have a +5 Warhammer.

Or STR 10+ for a +4 Warhammer...

Or STR 12+ for a +3 Warhammer...

Or STR 14+ for a +2 Warhammer...

Or STR 16+ for a +1 Warhammer...

Or STR 18+ for a normal Warhammer...

And that's it, since she shouldn't have STR greater than 19.

[Quartz]

Now we've seem her One-hit kill a Vampire (probably Spawn).

Yes, but I'm referring to panel 2 of the second page of #1105.

And she has a Wisdom of 11+ as she casts a fist level spell, Protection from Evil.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Undead are immune to crits.

[D.One]

Undead are immune to crits.

Ow

mistake mine...

[D.One]

Yes, but I'm referring to panel 2 of the second page of #1105.

And she has a Wisdom of 11+ as she casts a fist level spell, Protection from Evil.

In fact, WIS 13+, since she cast Searing Light.

[Hecuba]

I've been very cautious with assuming Hilgya (and, even more, Loki) were not-Evil, but let's analyse this:

As far as we know, by RaW, for her to Turn undead, she should be good or neutral and worship a god that is good or neutral.

"A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) can turn or destroy undead creatures. An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships an evil deity) instead rebukes or commands such creatures. A neutral cleric of a neutral deity must choose whether his turning ability functions as that of a good cleric or an evil cleric. Once this choice is made, it cannot be reversed."

For all we've seen, it's possible for her to have changed toward CN, or to have always been CN.

As for Loki, he's been directly described "in story" as being evil. That said, it's possible that all of that was erroneous knowledge and he has always been CN. That said, I find it very unreasonable to suppose a god (as in, an embodyment of some concept and domain) has "changed alignment", so I vote against Loki going from CE to CN at some point. Either he's always been CE or CN.

The other possibility we have is the "Houserule Option", and that should not be used lightly...

Agreed. I did an extra run through of 3.5 to double check and I'm not finding any PRCs that grant TU and are available to evil characters.

At this point, we basically have 2 options:

• We flag Hilgya (and, implicitly Loki) as not Evil and take the "evil opposites" and "evil gods" attestations to be imprecise or superseded narration.
• We take the "evil opposite"/"evil gods" - in the context of her turning - as an incredibly round-about attestation of a house rule (far more indirect than we've taken before).

[D.One]

I've noticed something:

Why we've been considering "greater teleport: self plus 50 pounds of objects, plane shift and summon devil" as racial abilities for Qarr, since Imps seems to have lost such abilities in 3.5 SRD?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I've noticed something:

Why we've been considering "greater teleport: self plus 50 pounds of objects, plane shift and summon devil" as racial abilities for Qarr, since Imps seems to have lost such abilities in 3.5 SRD?

greater teleport: self plus 50 pounds of objects: the fiends said as much

He's used the other two. He plane shifted out of the desert when Z got killed and summoned the massive demon in the island.

GW

[Quartz]

Undead are immune to crits.

That makes things even more interesting. How can Minrah do 29 HP damage (after DR) in 1 round?

There's no spell effect glow so assume no magic. Minrah might have been able to make 3 attacks - we know she was a fighter first then a cleric - so likely has a BAB or +6/+1 at the very least - and if she is Ftr 7 / Cl 5 or Ftr 6 / Cl 6 she'll have a BAB of +11/+6/+1. We know she failed to penetrate DR on another vampire. Assuming that one was a vampire and not a spawn she has a max damage bonus of +9. Assume max damage on each of 3 hits on a spawn gives us damage of 8+9-5=12 for 36 HP damage. We can dial that back to +4 and she'll still do 30 HP in a round, because of Elan's Inspire Competence. If she only has 2 attacks then she needs to do 15 (20 before DR) damage a hit which is not possible with a +9 bonus absent feats but is possible as Elan is a 14th level Bard because she'd get +3 damage from Elan's Inspire Competence.

If the earlier vampire were a spawn, then we know her max damage bonus is +4, raised to +7 because of Elan. Three max attacks at +7 damage will dispose of a spawn nicely, doing 30 HP damage after DR.

TLDR: Elan makes a real difference! Minrah has a BAB of at least +6 or at least +11, being Ftr 1+ / Cl 5+, depending upon whether or not she faced a full vampire earlier.

[Reboot]

greater teleport: self plus 50 pounds of objects: the fiends said as much

So did he

[D.One]

greater teleport: self plus 50 pounds of objects: the fiends said as much

He's used the other two. He plane shifted out of the desert when Z got killed and summoned the massive demon in the island.

GW

Ok, I undestood why we list him as having those spells: he used them.

What I'm asking is mor in the lines of why they're listed as racial abilities. I remember some evil outsiders having such abilities in some edition, but, as far as I've seem in the 3.5 SRD, Imps don't have them.

[Flame of Anor]

Ok, I undestood why we list him as having those spells: he used them.

What I'm asking is mor in the lines of why they're listed as racial abilities. I remember some evil outsiders having such abilities in some edition, but, as far as I've seem in the 3.5 SRD, Imps don't have them.

Do you have a better idea? Even a summon monster IX couldn't bring in that guy, and the casting doesn't look like gate. So, what, Qarr is an epic-level sorcerer or something?

[Quartz]

Do you have a better idea? Even a summon monster IX couldn't bring in that guy, and the casting doesn't look like gate. So, what, Qarr is an epic-level sorcerer or something?

In #585 Qarr is noted as calling in his marker. So the devil gave him a means of summoning. A one-use magic item. As such I think it should be removed from the racial abilities section.

[zimmerwald1915]

In #585 Qarr is noted as calling in his marker. So the devil gave him a means of summoning. A one-use magic item. As such I think it should be removed from the racial abilities section.

"Calling in a marker" is a [Hollywood] gangsters' term for calling in a favor. What Qarr did with respect to the giant devil was exactly the same as what Tarquin did with respect to Miron at Girard's Rift, no invisible magic item involved.

[Quartz]

"Calling in a marker" is a [Hollywood] gangsters' term for calling in a favor. What Qarr did with respect to the giant devil was exactly the same as what Tarquin did with respect to Miron at Girard's Rift, no invisible magic item involved.

The two are not exclusive.

[wingedcatgirl]

Well, let's back up and look at it from this angle --

as of 3.5, what options, mechanically, exist to allow an imp to summon a particular devil on command?

[D.One]

Well, let's back up and look at it from this angle --

as of 3.5, what options, mechanically, exist to allow an imp to summon a particular devil on command?

Planar Ally spells allow for the summoner to try to conjure one specific creature, if he knows the name. The spell says that even with the name, other creature may come, and maybe the "marker" could be some sort of guarantee that the guy would answer the call.

The problem is that Planar Ally is a Clerical Spell, and Qarr is a Sorcerer.

Edited:

I went through the list of demons and devils from the SRD. Most of the powerful ones have the "50-pounds greater teleport" ability, and most of the powerful ones (and also the Dretch) have the summon demon/devil ability. I found only one, the Bebilith, with Plane Shift as an ability (which makes sense; if most demons/devils could just plane shift, they wouldn't need to be summoned by mortals).

Which means even Sabine is using a "racial ability" that isn't really a racial ability by 3.5 SRD. I've checked 3.0, and the ability wasn't there, either.

I know what they did. We're not denying it. My point is mostly in order for us to clarify that, if they indeed have such ablities as "racial", instead of casting the spell, for example, it's some form of houserule.

[Jasdoif]

Agreed. I did an extra run through of 3.5 to double check and I'm not finding any PRCs that grant TU and are available to evil characters.

In the interest of completeness, I found the inverse the other day: The Bone Knight prestige class (in Five Nations) is open to good characters, replaces turn undead with rebuke undead, and advances rebuke undead. (Note that while Five Nations is an Eberron supplement, and Eberron waives most alignment restrictions on clerics, turn/rebuke is still determined normally.)

[Reboot]

I went through the list of demons and devils from the SRD. Most of the powerful ones have the "50-pounds greater teleport" ability, and most of the powerful ones (and also the Dretch) have the summon demon/devil ability. I found only one, the Bebilith, with Plane Shift as an ability (which makes sense; if most demons/devils could just plane shift, they wouldn't need to be summoned by mortals).

Which means even Sabine is using a "racial ability" that isn't really a racial ability by 3.5 SRD. I've checked 3.0, and the ability wasn't there, either.

I know what they did. We're not denying it. My point is mostly in order for us to clarify that, if they indeed have such ablities as "racial", instead of casting the spell, for example, it's some form of houserule.

Also, please remember what V says in #584 page 2, up to and including the "copper piece harlot" line. Qarr being able to summon Big, Red And Angry Mildly-Put-Out is NOT within his expected capabilities, even within the OOTS world.

[unbeliever536]

Also, please remember what V says in #584 page 2, up to and including the "copper piece harlot" line. Qarr being able to summon Big, Red And Angry Mildly-Put-Out is NOT within his expected capabilities, even within the OOTS world.

V's line fits well the standard structure of the racial ability, even though the big fellow is almost certainly not a standard monster; devils/demons have a relatively low chance of successfully "summoning up" but can, in theory, do it (usually).

[D.One]

V's line fits well the standard structure of the racial ability, even though the big fellow is almost certainly not a standard monster; devils/demons have a relatively low chance of successfully "summoning up" but can, in theory, do it (usually).

OK, the abilities we're looking at are:

Greater Teleport (with a 50 pound load limit): usually a Spell-like Ability, Succubus has it, Imp doesn't. In comics, we've seen plenty of evidence of Qarr having it, and a strong evidence Sabine doesn't, or else she could simply use it at that point.

Summon Devil/Demon: usually a Spell-like Ability, Succubus has it, Imp doesn't. In comics, we've seen Qarr using it once, and never seen Sabine using it.

Plane Shift: Neither imp or succubus have it, and the one demon I found in the SRD who has it (Bebilith) uses it as a Supernatural ability. There's no reference to frequency of use in the Bebilith's description of the ability. We've seen both Qarr and Sabine using it, and Sabine specifically states she can use it once a day. Qarr hasn't stated anything about such limitations, but hasn't been a frequent user either.

Let's think about each of them:

Sabine: The lack of use of Summon isn't quite an evidence of not having it, so there's nothing to conclude here. As for the teleport, I believe the scene above is pretty much evidence she doesn't have it. On the other hand, she shouldn't have Plane Shift, but has demonstrated having it. Since she has not shown any evidence of being a spellcaster, I believe it's safe to houserule her as having Plane Shift. We can even think of her having traded the spell-like Teleport for a once a day Planeshift as a houserule.

Qarr: Qarr is a more difficult one, because he is far more powerful than an imp should be. In part, that's due to his sorcerer levels, but that shouldn't give him racial abilities. We could treat the Plane Shift and the Teleport as Sorcerer spells, but that would require making him a 14th level sorcerer at least, far more powerful than what his actions imply him to be. Moreover, his use of Teleport (with a 50 pound limit) matches the exact description of the Spell-like abiility used by other demons and devils, so I believe it's safe to mark them as "houseruled racial abilities". As for the summoning, we've seem him using it only once, so I'm inclined to believe it was an one-time gig and blame it on the "marker" the other devil gave him, since an Imp normally shouldn't be able to Summon other demons.

[Quartz]

Summon Devil/Demon: usually a Spell-like Ability, Succubus has it, Imp doesn't. In comics, we've seen Qarr using it once, and never seen Sabine using it.

But have we? We've seen him do something which V said was Summon Devil but are we sure V is correct? She could have failed her Spellcraft / Monster Lore skill roll.

[Jasdoif]

But have we? We've seen him do something which V said was Summon Devil but are we sure V is correct? She could have failed her Spellcraft / Monster Lore skill roll.

As mentioned in the spoiler way back in the first post....

Q: Is a character's statement about another character considered evidence?
Yes. We assume that when a character says something about another character's (or his own) ability scores, build, feats, and so forth, they are speaking the truth, except where this contradicts with other evidence or is clearly not possible within the rules.

[D.One]

But have we? We've seen him do something which V said was Summon Devil but are we sure V is correct? She could have failed her Spellcraft / Monster Lore skill roll.

As The Great Banana said, we take a character's statement as true and correct, unless proven otherwise.

[Quartz]

As mentioned in the spoiler way back in the first post....

Absolutely, but note the 'unless...' phrase. Qarr summoning a Pit Fiend is not possible within the rules, short of Qarr being an Epic level sorceror. Summon Devil is not part of an Imp's abilities in the SRD. Therefore we must entertain the possibility that V's pronouncement was not correct.

[Aquillion]

Absolutely, but note the 'unless...' phrase. Qarr summoning a Pit Fiend is not possible within the rules, short of Qarr being an Epic level sorceror. Summon Devil is not part of an Imp's abilities in the SRD. Therefore we must entertain the possibility that V's pronouncement was not correct.

But we know he summoned something, so a much simpler explanation is that V was correct and that's just how things work in OOTSverse.

The alternative is that V was wrong and the Imp has some other, unrelated house-ruled ability that looks a bit like Summon Demon but is not. I don't see any advantage to concluding that.

[unbeliever536]

Absolutely, but note the 'unless...' phrase. Qarr summoning a Pit Fiend is not possible within the rules, short of Qarr being an Epic level sorceror. Summon Devil is not part of an Imp's abilities in the SRD. Therefore we must entertain the possibility that V's pronouncement was not correct.

The creature summoned was not a pit fiend.

[Quartz]

But we know he summoned something,

Actually, no we don't. We know that Qarr did something and then the big devil appeared. V stated that Qarr was summoning. But maybe Qarr was using Sending, Contact Other Plane, or something else and then the big devil used its own abilities to arrive. Note that the big devil says, "WHO DARES TO-Oh hey, Qarr, what's up?"

[Quartz]

The creature summoned was not a pit fiend.

It looks suspiciously like one. Apart from size, of course.