Aarindarius

[Snails]

The IFCC never said Aarindarius could do anything besides "intercede", but Vaarsuvius thought meaningful intervention was plausible.

Sure. It is plausible to meaningfully intercede with not much more than DDoor, by getting the children or the children's corpses quickly away, and then employing a Rope Trick in a clever location where a Huge creature would never spot its invisible entrance.

I do not think anyone is doubting that Aarindarius is at least 7th level and V is certain of such.

The OP's query seems more along the lines of whether Aarindarius is at least someteenth level and if there is a reason the Order is not asking for help from that person. My answer is that there probably are other forces gathering, but the Order moving quickly under the radar is a good use of resources.

Afterall, they were probably hoping that some kind of arrangements could be made with Clan Draketooth for a combined effort, but they knew better than to boldly advertise such plans. As a weird group of adventurers, rather than some known Big Name powerful person, they were a bit less likely to spook the Draketooths. That effort blew up spectacularly, and shot off the starting gun to the final Gate. Rather than exploiting an ephemeral lead, they find themselves racing to catch up, chased by circumstances beyond their control. NOW it sure seems unfortunate that do not have a someteenth level Wizard to teleport them around. But before rather recently it was a bit less clear.

[Psyren]

It's worth noting that the last time V saw Aarindarius, V was capable of teleporting too, because it was a transmutation spell prior to #1. I seem to recall that red robes like V were intended to be transmutation specialists.

Ergo, while A may have once been capable of teleporting and V's sleep-deprived mind held onto that detail, I think it's possible, even likely, that A fell victim to the same edition change V did and had banned conjuration just like his pupil did - end result, no tele-pork.

[Kish]

It's worth noting that the last time V saw Aarindarius, V was capable of teleporting too, because it was a transmutation spell prior to #1. I seem to recall that red robes like V were intended to be transmutation specialists.

Other way around--Zz'dtri used "mostly transmutations" because he was a Green wizard.

(For the benefit of anyone who hasn't read all the books and is being mystified here, Rich commented in Dungeon Crawlin' Fools that he deliberately made Zz'dtri a green-robed wizard who focused on transmutations and shunned direct damage spells as an in-joke reference to the campaign world he created for his D&D games, in which there were two primary orders of arcane spellcasters, the flashy and evocation-focused Red Mages and the Green Mages.)

[Psyren]

Fair point - but either way, neither were conjuration specialists, and it seems plausible to me that if the student banned conjuration, he did so because the master thought it was a good idea.

[Keltest]

Fair point - but either way, neither were conjuration specialists, and it seems plausible to me that if the student banned conjuration, he did so because the master thought it was a good idea.

I'm reasonably certain that V banned conjuration because he was enamored with big, flashy and powerful magic that puts him at the center of attention, which conjuration, by and large, does not do.

[Murk]

It might be a good thing the Order hasn't rallied all high-level people in the world, come to think of it.

The Gods (of all pantheons) are clearly irked at all those people messing around with the Snarl, blowing up gates and all. If the Order had spread the word and managed to get a lot of help, dozens of people would now be swarming all around the gates, trying either to protect them or use them for their own gains. I'm pretty sure this would have irked the Gods even more. The Godsmoot might have turned out very differently if the existence of the gates was no longer a secret.

[SlashDash]

I'm reasonably certain that V banned conjuration because he was enamored with big, flashy and powerful magic that puts him at the center of attention, which conjuration, by and large, does not do.

I assumed since it requires you give commands to your creatures in combat - which would take V forever.





Either way, back to the op, the idea of not asking why doesn't a powerful ally intervene is sort of like asking why did Julio decided to leave the journey to Elan and his gang and not join up - even though he is epic level and could help out immensely.

It's a suspension of disbelief one has to go with.


Heck, you want to talk about teleporting helpers? Remember that Shojo had an NPC wizard that teleported them to Cliffport. One could ask why didn't Hinjo give them more help when he sent them to save the world.

Heck, if a wizard can cast teleport he is a minimum of level 9 which is enough to help in the fight against Nale even back then.

But that would take things off the main party, so we need to just accept they don't show up everytime to save the day.

[Quild]

Heck, you want to talk about teleporting helpers? Remember that Shojo had an NPC wizard that teleported them to Cliffport. One could ask why didn't Hinjo give them more help when he sent them to save the world.

Heck, if a wizard can cast teleport he is a minimum of level 9 which is enough to help in the fight against Nale even back then.

Members of the Order were around level 12 when they arrived in Cliffport.
That Wizard immediately went to a tavern after teleporting the Order.http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0340.html
So the next teleport didn't went well.
He probably was resurrected, but if he did, likely died again in AC's war.

One fun thing about this wizard is that he technically need CL 18 to teleport the whole Order with him. Or some kind of items/feats.

[Psyren]

I'm reasonably certain that V banned conjuration because he was enamored with big, flashy and powerful magic that puts him at the center of attention, which conjuration, by and large, does not do.

I don't disagree, but my larger point was that V did not actually try to ban teleportation. It just worked out that way when the world's metaphysics were revised and teleport was reassigned. So Aarindarius may have ended up similarly screwed.

[atemu1234]

If it helps, in 3.5 DMG II, they say that mentors are at least sixth level. For what it's worth, that seems like a worthwhile assumption.

And it is correct to say A doesn't even need to be that high to have saved V's kids and spouse. Or at least be enough of a diversion to prevent them from being removed from all of existence by the comic's metric.

[Gusion]

The IFCC never said Aarindarius could do anything besides "intercede", but Vaarsuvius thought meaningful intervention was plausible.

This is one of the disagreements people have had ever since that strip came out... I think Aarindarius is probably powerful enough to have had a meaningful intervention. I'm not saying he'd one shot Xykon. But I think he's probably in his high teens at least. V was crazy but he still knows magic enough to know what type of spells would be needed to handle the black dragon.

As to the original question, there could be lots of reasons. If A is one of the Elven nation's top wizards (which, granted, isn't explicitly said either), then he could very likely have some self imposed oath about not leaving his homeland defenseless. Part of why I think the Elves have some power is that Tarquin respects them, and power is about the only thing that Tarquin does respect. But regardless to his actual level, if he is one of their best he wouldn't want to leave because people like Tarquin are waiting for him to do so... so they can invade.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Another detail that's being left out is that we know from OOPCs that Aaridarius is Honorary Iron Mage Evocation. So he's a somebody in the wizarding world.

[Riftwolf]

Aarin is very, very high level if he could solo an ABD. You don't call on a high level wizard for any job which isn't worth their time. Killing a dragon would mean lots of xp and making the elven homeland safer. Being your apprentices teleport-monkey wouldn't be worth it.
And has there been any indication that Aarin, upon learning the material plane is doomed, wouldn't take the first Plane Shift he could prepare?

[Studoku]

I think he probably can cast Teleport, but I think it is very likely that, humorous scenes illustrating a ridiculous plan the IFCC rushed past Vaarsuvius aside, he's lower-level than the Order now, and Vaarsuvius realized it as soon as they regained some perspective and tranced.

I don't think "what's going on isn't anything special" is an intended or appropriate takeaway. "What's going on is actually a serious threat to the world and since it's not set in the Forgotten Realms the author can actually say no one but the heroes is able to stop it" is.

This is pretty reasonable, considering adventurers gain power significantly faster than anyone could through studying (as Haley explains in Origins).

[Gusion]

This is pretty reasonable, considering adventurers gain power significantly faster than anyone could through studying (as Haley explains in Origins).

This is true, although we have no idea if Aarindarius did adventuring during this time period or not, do we? Pretty much everything is just conjecture.

All we can say with reasonable certainty, I think, is that A. could "certainly" intercede before the dragon had time to perform a soul bind... which is only a standard action. So A. was only a few standard actions away at the time. But with teleport - and plane shift - that doesn't mean much. I mean technically they said "Your master could then" - not "would" then intercede.

We also don't even know for certain what "intercede" means. It has been a topic of argument for years... including how to interpret the black and white panels in 634. I doubt it will ever get resolved, which is fine. It even came up during my "Interview with Rich" thread that he participated in, but it was out of scope as we were only talking about out-of-strip issues.

So, yeah, it is just one of those things.

[Jay R]

NPCs in the PCs' backstory affect the plot only when the DM wants them to.

Rich does not want to make this a shorter, less interesting story generating a much smaller income stream. He really doesn't.