What if Darth V could wait ten frickin’ minutes? (OOTS vs Team Evil)

[Vrock_Summoner]

So, I had a fun little thought. Imagine the situation - Vaarsuvius is reunited with the Order (and Roy’s body) on the island they teleported the fleet to. Vaarsuvius hears that the Resurrection will take ten minutes and is fearful of allowing that time to lapse unproductively due to their growing debt to the fiends...

... But Haley is narrowly able to convince them that the Order should fight as a team, if only on the basis that they can deal with the other “distractions” while V fights Xykon.

Darth Vaarsuvius waits for the Resurrection to complete and for preparations to be made (to an extent; let’s not re-route the discussion to the previous thread about how V could have won alone if they’d just kitted themselves out with buffs first or whatever, and just assume V personally will go in with roughly the same capacity) and then teleports the entire party (and Lien if she wants to come, I guess?) to Xykon’s lair to defeat the lich once and for all.

We will need to make a couple of assumptions on account of things we don’t know and for the sake of the hypothetical. Some of these may be controversial, but I’m stipulating them as part of the scenario nonetheless.

1) Every factor not directly impacted by the Order’s actions should remain as it was, environmentally and in regards to Team Evil’s distribution. Xykon, Redcloak, and Jirix are in the room when the Order Epic Teleports in, Tsukiko is asleep and will take a few rounds to come out in response to all the racket, Xykon has his anti-arcane-caster wall runes (please do not open with an arcane spell, Elan, you might die), and O-Chul’s cage bar is cracked, allowing him to escape and assist.

2) The Monster in the Dark will not interfere except potentially to rescue O-Chul as presented in the strip (assuming that was his doing, which we technically can’t be certain about, yadda yadda). This may or may not be realistic, depending on the interplay between Xykon wanting to do his dramatic unveiling and Order-devouring versus MitD not wanting to hurt Mr. Stiffly and those people Mr. Stiffly likes, but it’s a necessary stipulation simply because we as the audience still have very little idea what his capabilities are. Just assume he’s paralyzed with indecision or something and that the Order ignores the non-threat.

3) Aside from the spells necessary to bring the Order together (Wind Walk, Resurrection, maybe a Sending?) Durkon prepared combat spells today.

4) This one’s tricky - do we assume Roy gained a level from the Thog, thus allowing him to nab a feat corresponding to what he learned in the afterlife? If not, then he can probably already use the Spellsplinter Maneuver now. If we do assume that feat requiring a level up, then be won’t have it. If you think this is going to affect the outcome a lot, go ahead and plug in both interpretations to talk about how they affect the scenario. I’m leaving this undecided.

5) Elan is having one of his good days in terms of combat productivity. And hey, he just got a bard level! He probably won’t need Neutralize Poison right now, but Mass Cure Light Wounds might help if Tsukiko brings wights, and Greater Dispel Magic might help against... Jirix and maybe Tsukiko? Definitely not gonna matter to Xykon and Redcloak, but hey, Elan’s best suited to fighting the B-side anyway.

And that’s about it! If we’re all being honest with ourselves, considering the data and narrative interests, the most likely outcome of this fight is “Team Evil TPKs the party” or “everything functionally goes the same way, with Xykon losing his phylactery and MitD porting people out” but humor me here and play it out. What sorts of interesting developments might occur? Think the rest of the Order could kill Redcloak and/or Tsukiko? Would Redcloak being too distracted to point out the soul splice keep V in the fight longer? Let me know your thoughts!

[martianmister]

It's V's soul, every minute matters too much to her/him. But Xykon would be done.

[Caerulea]

It's V's soul, every minute matters too much to her/him. But Xykon would be done.

Xykon was not taking that fight with Darth V seriously. I don't think that it is a clear cut win, while Redcloak and Tsuikko couldn't really affect Darth V, they could certainly kill, or seriously harm the rest of the order. Rekcloak could kill both Elan and Haley with implosion, and maybe Belkar as well. If V is still stuck in the "blast at a problem until it dies" method, they are screwed as Xykon will use similar tactics. Best case, Xykon is dead, Redcloak is dead, and most of the order are dead. Maybe V, Roy, and Durkon are alive. If so, they are stranded in the middle of Gobbotopia, and surrounded by hostile forces. Maybe they can meet up with the resistance, but probably not.

[Kish]

1) Redcloak didn't have ninth-level spells until some time later.
2) There was no such place as Gobbotopia until some time later. When Spliced-Vaarsuvius attacked Xykon, it was in occupied Azure City.

[Jasdoif]

4) This one’s tricky - do we assume Roy gained a level from the Thog, thus allowing him to nab a feat corresponding to what he learned in the afterlife? If not, then he can probably already use the Spellsplinter Maneuver now. If we do assume that feat requiring a level up, then be won’t have it. If you think this is going to affect the outcome a lot, go ahead and plug in both interpretations to talk about how they affect the scenario. I’m leaving this undecided.

Roy was down a level, due to being raised from the dead. He might have lost a feat or two, but he certainly wouldn't have another one.

[Caerulea]

1) Redcloak didn't have ninth-level spells until some time later.
2) There was no such place as Gobbotopia until some time later. When Spliced-Vaarsuvius attacked Xykon, it was in occupied Azure City.

1.) True. Still, 16th level cleric is tough to overcome.

2.) It is still a city full of hostile hobgoblins. Even if you call it East Runnymede, it is still going to be hard to get out of.

[Riftwolf]

Durkon might not have a battle load out for his spells. Plus he burnt a high level slot on Resurrection. Sending an unprepared cleric into an epic level fight is probably a bad idea.
However, let's assume the team got ported and it played out along the same vein. V still gets zapped by the traps, wasting their turn. Roy rushes Xykon, Durkon behind to heal. Belkar and Haley rush Redcloak to prevent him healing Xykon, Elan in reserve as backup healer and support.
They all still get brutally put down, even if O-Chul escapes, because the story isn't about brute force solving the problem. Let's remind ourselves the most significant thing V did to delay Xykon was to accidentally lose his phylactery. Everything else V did to Xykon pushed him out of his rut and got him on the hunt for Gates again.

Or if you prefer, the comic finishes X00 strips ago with an ultimately unsatisfactory ending.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Roy was down a level, due to being raised from the dead. He might have lost a feat or two, but he certainly wouldn't have another one.

Oh, no, the crux of my argument wasn’t “did Roy somehow have more feats,” it was “do you think the Giant actually cares enough about the feat system beyond making jokes about it for Roy to have to level up before he learns Spellsplinter?” I completely agree with you from the “if this mirrors 3.5 mechanics exactly” perspective, which would match Grandpa Greenhilt’s dialogue as well, but then again that line is easy to take as a joke, hence why I’m leaving it up to your collective decisions.

[SilverCacaobean]

Oh, no, the crux of my argument wasn’t “did Roy somehow have more feats,” it was “do you think the Giant actually cares enough about the feat system beyond making jokes about it for Roy to have to level up before he learns Spellsplinter?” I completely agree with you from the “if this mirrors 3.5 mechanics exactly” perspective, which would match Grandpa Greenhilt’s dialogue as well, but then again that line is easy to take as a joke, hence why I’m leaving it up to your collective decisions.

He does. There's a quote of the Giant saying that Roy has to spell a feat to learn Spellsplinter. I'll look for it.

Edit: Here.

[martianmister]

They all still get brutally put down, even if O-Chul escapes, because the story isn't about brute force solving the problem. Let's remind ourselves the most significant thing V did to delay Xykon was to accidentally lose his phylactery. Everything else V did to Xykon pushed him out of his rut and got him on the hunt for Gates again.

Or if you prefer, the comic finishes X00 strips ago with an ultimately unsatisfactory ending.

You're mixing up Doylist and Watsonian readings of text.

[Jasder]

I'm going to break the fight into several parts to better analyse how the order would have affected it.

Firstly, before V loses the soul splices. V is powerful enough that I feel most of Xykon's energy will be focused on them, his personality is such that I doubt he'd really worry about Redcloak and the others until he's done with his own problem. The affect of the order here would have been to distract Redcloak and Tsukiko, whether they could have taken them is no the main issue, because they're distraction would mean that Redcloak would have been unlikely to use a turn to cast Truesight to figure out what was going on with V, so wouldn't know about the Soul Splices. Additionally, distracting Tsukiko might prevent her using mind fog on V. I say might, because she might still have judged V to be the biggest threat and tried it anyway, but if she didn't then Redcloak wouldn't advise Xykon to dispel V. That was the turning point in that fight, so it's possible V could have beaten Xykon before Redcloak and Tsukiko could beat the others (if they could, I think the party could probably beat them, which I'll touch on in the next part).

Secondly, between V losing the soul splices and O-Chuul going down. This a short but important section. O-Chuul removes both Redcloak and Jirix from the equation (this is why I think the rest of the order could probably beat them, even if Tsukiko was there, the Order are pretty strong, I think we forget that sometimes, it's just Xykon is so powerful and has so many minions that makes them always seem like their about to lose) Anyway, the affect of the rest of Order at this point is twofold. For the sake of ease I'll assume Tsukiko is dead by this point, so that we don't have to imagine how she'd affect this situation further after she leaves in the comic. Now, one possibility is that they kill Jirix before he sees O-Chuul with the phylactery, seems pretty likely given Jirix is relatively low level. In this case Xykon might not notice and they'd have more time to figure out how to break it as well as some magic to help with that. The other possibility is that even if Xykon noticed O-Chuul had his Phylactery, the rest of the Order might have been enough to distract him long enough for O-Chuul to do something anyway.

Thirdly, from O-Chuul going down to O-Chuul and V being teleported away. A difficult one to imagine, but let's say Xykon can take down the rest of the Order at the same time as O-Chuul, not improbable with an area of effect spell. (If not, then the situation carries on as it was at the end of my second time frame, with the Order trying to distract Xykon enough to do something about the phylactery). So they're all down and V goes off invisibly to get healing potions. Now, firstly, who do they heal? Three main possibilities here for me, they seem to have two healing potions, so Roy and O-Chuul might make sense, the two main tanks, but the smarter move might be Elan and Durkon, to heal the rest of the party. Thirdly, they might choose just one of the people in either of the two previous examples and give them both healing potions. The third one I'm ignoring because it doesn't really change anything much. Roy and O-Chuul both also doesn't change much, accept for a slight chance Roy would be too far away for Mass Hold Person, or distract Xkyon more before that giving Blackwing more time to fly to the Snarl. This is pretty much the same if Elan and Durkon get everyone up. The main question is still can they distract Xykon enough for Blackwing to throw away the phylactery. I also don't know if Bards or Clerics might have any spells that could have got the phylactery to the rift, given that Blackwing was at the rift but stopped and we don't know how long it would have taken for them to get over their wonder at what was inside.

Anyway, that's my take on the possibilities. I see it as mainly a question of whether the rest of the Order are a good enough distraction to get the phylactery destroyed.

[SlashDash]

Well, for start, V teleports the gang and gets zapped in her surprise round.

The rest of the party can still act in the surprise round (assumption is that Elan will go for a bard song)


Funny thing is, since Roy never tested his Disruption Weapon on Xykon in the first dungeon, you'd think they go for that again, but they didn't use it in Azure City so maybe they actually learned the rules this time


puts up a bard song (though he could do that before the fight, the order isn't exactly known for thinking that much ahead - see Hilga)

sneak attack on Redcloak.
This should be more than enough to take Redcloak out of the battle if O-Chul managed to do that in one shot.

If she wins initiative in the following round, maybe she can possibly even kill him.


Holy Word. If they are making a surprise round, might as well cut communication for team evil.

Depends on how much he can actually affect Xykon since we don't know his exact Favorite Enemy bonuses. He can go against either Redcloak or Xykon

Rushes off near Xykon.



That alone puts a serious dent in team evil.

Now here is the deal here, if we're talking about optimization ? Then surely the order wins here.

Xykon can't cast spells next to Roy and even if he could, all V has to do is counterspell them.

Redcloak is out of the picture and considering Haley and Belkar managed to tackle Tsukiko on their own, I don't see how having Durkon, Elan and later O-Chul puts her as a challenge of any sorts.

Of course from a narrative point of view, V's ego wouldn't let Roy dominate the playing field and will go for the kill by themselves not to mention insist on doing active things rather than counterspelling.

[Kish]

Holy Word would no more affect Redcloak or Xykon than it did Tarquin. It might well have killed or at least paralyzed Jirix, for whatever that's worth.

[Peelee]

V still gets zapped by the traps, wasting their turn.

Well, for start, V teleports the gang and gets zapped in her surprise round.

Are there any reasons y'all assume that Durkon and Elan wouldn't cast any spells between V's Epic Teleport and Time Stop?

[Vrock_Summoner]

Are there any reasons y'all assume that Durkon and Elan wouldn't cast any spells between V's Epic Teleport and Time Stop?

The runes only affect arcane casters, so Durkon is safe, and most of Elan’s spell loadout is reactive rather than proactive.

[Peelee]

The runes only affect arcane casters, so Durkon is safe, and most of Elan’s spell loadout is reactive rather than proactive.

That's a pretty good reason, yeah.

[SlashDash]

Holy Word would no more affect Redcloak or Xykon than it did Tarquin. It might well have killed or at least paralyzed Jirix, for whatever that's worth.

Disrupting Weapon would also be unable to affect Xykon as his HD are higher than Durkon's caster level.

But they thought it was their secret weapon against him.
I was trying to guess how the OOTS would operate, not what the best optimal play would be.

As I said, the fact that Greg was caught completely off guard by the far superior tactics goes to show our main heroes aren't that good at planning ahead. It was Hilga's plan to scry and wouldn't surprise me if the summoned giraffes were her idea.

[Kish]

Disruption was their secret weapon against Xykon. Since it never actually touched him, whether it would have worked or not, you can't say without changing the name and going outside the comic to a D&D book.

Holy Word, also known as Holy Word, doesn't affect Tarquin because he's too strong and thus it doesn't affect people past a certain power threshold; no comic-external sources needed.

[D.One]

Disrupting Weapon would also be unable to affect Xykon as his HD are higher than Durkon's caster level.

On the other hand, with Roy's presence, "STR 29+ Starmetal Sword Bash" could have more effect on the phylactery than O-Chul had with a cage bar.

[zimmerwald1915]

The runes only affect arcane casters, so Durkon is safe, and most of Elan’s spell loadout is reactive rather than proactive.

Also, Elan tends not to cast any spells unless prompted, preferring to sing or to stab.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

On the other hand, with Roy's presence, "STR 29+ Starmetal Sword Bash" could have more effect on the phylactery than O-Chul had with a cage bar.

Roy's STR wasn't 29+ until he got the belt of frost giant strength 100 comics later.

[MartianInvader]

I got the sense that Xykon was toying with V, even before the loss of the soul splices. Maybe the rest of the order could jump Redcloak and bring him down while V and Xykon face off, but then again maybe not (Redcloak is likely to open with a couple big summons). It's more likely they could bring down Tsukiko when she entered the fray, particularly if Redcloak doesn't feel like healing her, but that's about as far as they get.

At the end of the day, Xykon is just unfairly powerful. We've never seen him in serious danger from anything short of epic, gate-related plot magic. I think he could solo the order even with Darth V.

[zimmerwald1915]

At the end of the day, Xykon is just unfairly powerful. We've never seen him in serious danger from anything short of epic, gate-related plot magic.

And Soon. And Lirian. And a silver dragon whose age category I don't remember.

[Caerulea]

And Soon. And Lirian. And a silver dragon whose age category I don't remember.

The only reason he had trouble with Lirian was because of her disease. Now, the does show that a clever person can beat him, but the second that was neutralised she stood no chance against him. He was scared of Soon, and Soon + the massive group of ghost paladins were the only ones who have had a serious shot to kill him in the series.

(Also, where is the silver dragon? I can't find it.)

[Kish]

Ancient. Appears in print-only content in No Cure for the Paladin Blues and nearly kills both Xykon and Redcloak; in the online comic, shows up only as Xykon's zombified mount.

Lirian wasn't a threat to Lich Xykon not because she lacked power, but because all her prepared spells were aimed places other than "undead strong enough that I can't simply crush them," and she didn't know things as basic as "liches are immune to electricity." The Guardian Virus was a display of epic power at least as great as Dorukan's ward or Soon's ghost-martyrs. Whether she could have defeated living Xykon in combat without using the virus will never be established; unlike Dorukan, she had Death Ward on her spell list, so if you're taking for granted that it would have gone the same way ("Energy Drain! Energy Drain! Energy Drain! Now you're dead," instead of "Energy Drain! Energy Drain! Energy Drain! Gah, why are you still as powerful as before I cast the first one?"), don't.

[zimmerwald1915]

Ancient. Appears in print-only content in No Cure for the Paladin Blues and nearly kills both Xykon and Redcloak; in the online comic, shows up only as Xykon's zombified mount.

It also shows up as a corpse in the online strip, before it is zombified.

[MartianInvader]

And Soon. And Lirian. And a silver dragon whose age category I don't remember.

I haven't read the silver dragon stuff, but I'd count both Soon and Lirian's gate wards as "epic, gate-related plot magic". Also the exploding Girard's gate, for what it's worth.

It's also worth noting that the *moment* Xykon says he's going to stop going easy on V, he absolutely crushes him in the next two rounds.