OOTS #1174 - The Discussion Thread

[Rogar Demonblud]

PfE and MCaE both would've been stripped away the moment the dwarves entered the structure through the orange barrier.

Actually, I can't remember. Is there a limit on how many people you can control with Dominate, either by number or by Hit Dice?

Oh, and Fyraltari? Open and Shut comes from a bit of legal theatrics. You open the law book, read the relevant statute, and shut the book, having just ended the case. Yes, sometimes it is that simple.

[Reaplay]

See Ya!

Funny thing is, if I'm reading the rules right, killing the council members wouldn't have even worked.
The rules stipulate that you need a representative from each clan in (I assume strong standing?).
So killing the current representatives would have just delayed the vote even more.

[Seward]

Ironically what Minrah did is what you normally do under vanilla rules once you stake the vampire. (staking it is one way to incapacitate without ultimately killing it in D&D 3.x)

Sunlight or running water, whatever is easier. The whole "holy wafer and decapitate" thing is harder to arrange since holy wafers aren't on any equipment list. But that was 1st ed, I am not sure it caried over into 3rd.

But yeah, what everybody else said about action economy and dominate, and action economy wasting Gontor's escape action on attacking Durkon's mom. You are 100% screwed in D&D if you act first and then a whole lot of folks get to go before you or any allies get to go again, unless your action ended the fight (either by winning or escaping). It's bad enough that a weird string of initiative rolls can swing a battle if all of one side "clumps up" and is a primary reason why some high level parties try to get everybody on a pretty high initiative check, encouraging spell selection, feat selection and item selection to try to get the entire party going first and ending the fight in before any opposition goes. (the term Rocket Tag applies). It is also why surprise is really dangerous - not only does the opposition get an action, their high init rollers get another action before anybody gets to react.

I saw nothing dodgy about any of that. In 3.5 grapping the d20 looms large and the more folks rolling a d20, the higher the odds that somebody will make a roll that Gontor won't beat with his die roll, unless he also lucks out, rolls high and is actually a better grappler than others who also rolled high.

With cleric BAB, a not terribly imposing physique for a dwarf, the strength bonus for being a vampire isn't going to give him a grapple check larger than a typical mid-level fighter, and you gotta know that the folks with decent grapple checks were in front of that crowd (right behind the Bull Rush woman). Including the first guy who established the grapple having the actual improved grapple feat, so Gontor didn't get an attack of opportunity to prevent it.

He'd need luck on the order of the die roll that dominated Hilgya to get out of that situation, and the dice (and author) didn't cooperate.

[Flint_A]

Vamps can't mist in the sunlight.

"Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape."

"As a standard action, a vampire can assume gaseous form at will..."

A standard action is not a move or attack action. It needs to move out of the sunlight before being able to mist.

If it spends that one action trying and failing to get out of a grapple...it's dead the next round. Easy peasy.

[Ascaloth]

I'm disappointed in this comic.

The Giant missed a trick, and went with FLING when he was all set up to go with YEET.

[Reboot]

Mind Blank's advantage over PfE is that it blocks a whole pile of things that are [Mind-Affecting] but not actually mind control (e.g. Power Word X, Phantasmal Killer, Sleep, Fear), as well as divination (it also lasts longer).

Also, there's the "supresses vs blocks" thing - you absolutely can get dominated before or during the duration of PfE, and it will (re)activate the round when it ends or is dispelled. [And remember that, even if Rich isn't following it, per RAW vampire domination doesn't end with the vamp being ended - you need to make a secondary saving throw, have Break Enchantment or similar cast on you or wait out potentially a couple of weeks following their last orders. Mind Blank actually prevents or ends it entirely.]

PfE and MCaE both would've been stripped away the moment the dwarves entered the structure through the orange barrier.

Not if they were cast between the barriers. They knew about that, and no vampire actually tried to dominate anyone outside it anyway.

[Aetius]

2: The suffering girl wasn't dominated when here clan leader was. She was, instead, killed in battle. We have no idea how many guards the vamps killed, because the domination failed. For that matter, we have no idea how many guards were dominated only after several attempts

The suffering girl wasn't dominated when her clan leader and the two bodyguards were. So three out of four were dominated instantly. And since I learned that domination can only target one person and there were only three vampires there every vampire managed to dominate it's target. So it's a 100% success rate. So all the examples we do have indicate a high success rate if no buffs are in place. Which - as someone pointed out - there couldn't have been due to the orange barrier.

We did see what happens. Greg did just that during the battle in the desert against Tarquin’s troops. And what do you know, when badly outnumbered, the dominated soldiers were taken down as fast as he could dominate them. Because it takes an entire vampire’s turn, and the enemy then gets 20 collective turns to take that one guy down.

And that is actually a good deal for the vampire, because everyone who uses his turn to take down the dominated guy can't use his turn to take down the vampire. That's why Greg kept using it in the desert. It worked. Might not have been the best possible strategy but it was an effective way to stall the army.

If Gontor did run away to the central chamber or used spells affecting multiple targets I would agree that it would have been stupid to waste time on attempted domination instead.

But he used harm (on Durkon), energy drain (on Sigdi) and blindness (on Logann). All of them use up your turn and leave all of the enemies to use their's. So the point about how that leaves the enemy to rush you with superior

Ecspecially blindness is bugging me. In what possible way is that any better than domination?
It still takes a standard action to do.
It takes a spell slot.
It's less likely to succeed. At least I think it is against Logann because as a fighter he should have a better chance to make his fortitude save against blindness than his will save against domination, no?
And what does it achieve? If Durkon sacrifices his standard action to simply dispels the condition it doesn't matter which one has been used.
If Loganns turn is before the condition is cured then domination is better.
If the condition is not cured and a bunch of dwaves gang up on Logann instead of storming the central chamber then domination is better.

[Schroeswald]

So... where is Gontor's soul going? His death was pretty clearly not honorable, but was his soul included in the past years worth of souls Thor prepared an argument for or not due to the whole still being on the world thing.

[St Fan]

Ecspecially blindness is bugging me. In what possible way is that any better than domination?
It still takes a standard action to do.
It takes a spell slot.
It's less likely to succeed. At least I think it is against Logann because as a fighter he should have a better chance to make his fortitude save against blindness than his will save against domination, no?
And what does it achieve? If Durkon sacrifices his standard action to simply dispels the condition it doesn't matter which one has been used.
If Loganns turn is before the condition is cured then domination is better.
If the condition is not cured and a bunch of dwaves gang up on Logann instead of storming the central chamber then domination is better.

Oh look, the characters in the comics are making subpar fighting decisions!

As if they were, you know, actual individuals with flaws unable to make the right choice in a split-second rather than players sitting at a table and taking minutes to make the most perfect tactical decision at the behest of characters that have only six seconds to think!

HOW CAN A WORLD WHERE NOT EVERYBODY IS A MINMAXER CAN BE REMOTELY REALISTIC?

[Kantaki]

Ecspecially blindness is bugging me. In what possible way is that any better than domination?
It still takes a standard action to do.
It takes a spell slot.
It's less likely to succeed. At least I think it is against Logann because as a fighter he should have a better chance to make his fortitude save against blindness than his will save against domination, no?
And what does it achieve? If Durkon sacrifices his standard action to simply dispels the condition it doesn't matter which one has been used.
If Loganns turn is before the condition is cured then domination is better.
If the condition is not cured and a bunch of dwaves gang up on Logann instead of storming the central chamber then domination is better.

Blindness is better because if it works it works.
Domination can be broken when the victim has to act against their core beliefs/nature/whatever you call it.
See Ho Than being confronted with a (fake) Shojo.
And I don't doubt fighting your own family would qualify for most dwarves and Clan Thundershield in particular.

Besides, I don't think it's fair to expect everyone to have as atrocious saves as some generic background NPCs and Belkar.

[Aetius]

Oh look, the characters in the comics are making subpar fighting decisions!

That's the question we're talking about, yes.

As if they were, you know, actual individuals with flaws unable to make the right choice in a split-second rather than players sitting at a table and taking minutes to make the most perfect tactical decision at the behest of characters that have only six seconds to think!

HOW CAN YOU A WORLD WHERE NOT EVERYBODY IS A MINMAXER CAN BE REMOTELY REALISTIC?

I was pondering whether or not domination would have been a good decision or not - which many people claimed it wouldn't have been.

I never claimed that the world was less realistic because Gontor didn't make that decision.

[Riftwolf]

So... where is Gontor's soul going? His death was pretty clearly not honorable, but was his soul included in the past years worth of souls Thor prepared an argument for or not due to the whole still being on the world thing.

Difficult to adjudicate. On one hand he didn't put up much of a fight against Durkon*, on the other, the fighting ability of the victim isn't a prerequisite to dying honorably.
Of course, being non-theistic, he doesn't have a God to argue his cause. So probably Hel, unless he can change venue to the Dragon Age games and return to the Stone.

[mjasghar]

Malack the vampire cant be resurrected because you can’t resurrect vampires. That vampire soul goes back to wherever it came from.

Malack, the long-dormant low-level lizard shaman from an extinct tribe might be resurrected, but if he died more than 170 years ago you’re going to have a hard time finding a cleric high enough level to do it. And he might not be interested.

Technically you can bring the vampire back but it’s a high level spell that the Giant has ruled out

[Schroeswald]

Difficult to adjudicate. On one hand he didn't put up much of a fight against Durkon*, on the other, the fighting ability of the victim isn't a prerequisite to dying honorably.
Of course, being non-theistic, he doesn't have a God to argue his cause. So probably Hel, unless he can change venue to the Dragon Age games and return to the Stone.

I imagine Thor would argue it, considering Loki was allowed to argue for a bunch of people who wouldn't go to him anyone is allowed (Thor just usually does it). My main question is whether or not he was included in all the souls Thor just got from Hel (I guess Sandy and Curly would be included there too).

[Grey_Wolf_c]

That's why Greg kept using it in the desert. It worked.

No he didn't. He kept using it because he was trying to ingratiate himself to Roy, who was the one ordering it.

Grey Wolf

[Schroeswald]

No he didn't. He kept using it because he was trying to ingratiate himself to Roy, who was the one ordering it.

Grey Wolf

Also because he lacked most of his spells, his hammer, and needed to defend a useless ally, it was useful in that specific situation but when you have all useful allies, and a mostly full spell list its not as useful.

[Peelee]

And that is actually a good deal for the vampire, because everyone who uses his turn to take down the dominated guy can't use his turn to take down the vampire. That's why Greg kept using it in the desert. It worked. Might not have been the best possible strategy but it was an effective way to stall the army.

I'm addition to what others have said, if one of your group is dominated, then one other could take the hit while everyone ignores the dominated member and killed the vampire, which also ends the domination. And, unlike the desert, the vampire here can be killed immediately with low risk to anyone else.

Also, Durkon laments his low-Wis teammates during the Malak fight, heavily indicating it is not a 100% successful tactic but relies on Wisdom saving throws.

[Aetius]

No he didn't. He kept using it because he was trying to ingratiate himself to Roy, who was the one ordering it.

Ingratiating himself to Roy is only worthwhile if both he and Roy make it out of that desert alive (or undead of course). So it wouldn't really make much sense to deliberately do something that doesn't actually further that goal - just to follow a request from someone about to die. So I can't imagine him keeping it up if he has something more effective in his mind.

And it's a distinction without much difference anyway. Regardless of what Greg was thinking - Roy ordered him to keep doing it because it worked (or at least worked better than anything else they could think of). Which was ultimately why Greg was doing it.

The "because it worked" part is actually the one I was going for - not Gregs motivation.

[Fyraltari]

Also, Durkon laments his low-Wis teammates during the Malak fight, heavily indicating it is not a 100% successful tactic but relies on Wisdom saving throws.

Also we've seen Roy shake it off. Twice even.

[a_flemish_guy]

Ironically what Minrah did is what you normally do under vanilla rules once you stake the vampire. (staking it is one way to incapacitate without ultimately killing it in D&D 3.x)

Sunlight or running water, whatever is easier. The whole "holy wafer and decapitate" thing is harder to arrange since holy wafers aren't on any equipment list. But that was 1st ed, I am not sure it caried over into 3rd.

But yeah, what everybody else said about action economy and dominate, and action economy wasting Gontor's escape action on attacking Durkon's mom. You are 100% screwed in D&D if you act first and then a whole lot of folks get to go before you or any allies get to go again, unless your action ended the fight (either by winning or escaping). It's bad enough that a weird string of initiative rolls can swing a battle if all of one side "clumps up" and is a primary reason why some high level parties try to get everybody on a pretty high initiative check, encouraging spell selection, feat selection and item selection to try to get the entire party going first and ending the fight in before any opposition goes. (the term Rocket Tag applies). It is also why surprise is really dangerous - not only does the opposition get an action, their high init rollers get another action before anybody gets to react.

I saw nothing dodgy about any of that. In 3.5 grapping the d20 looms large and the more folks rolling a d20, the higher the odds that somebody will make a roll that Gontor won't beat with his die roll, unless he also lucks out, rolls high and is actually a better grappler than others who also rolled high.

With cleric BAB, a not terribly imposing physique for a dwarf, the strength bonus for being a vampire isn't going to give him a grapple check larger than a typical mid-level fighter, and you gotta know that the folks with decent grapple checks were in front of that crowd (right behind the Bull Rush woman). Including the first guy who established the grapple having the actual improved grapple feat, so Gontor didn't get an attack of opportunity to prevent it.

He'd need luck on the order of the die roll that dominated Hilgya to get out of that situation, and the dice (and author) didn't cooperate.

also at least one of the dwarves has bull's strength cast upon him negating the vampire's strength advantage for at least that roll

[Aetius]

To be clear: I'm not at all claiming that the vampires would have won if they used domination. Fighting an enemy with superior numbers sucks no matter what you do.
Curly's strategy of running away was probably the best decision.
But some people have stated it would have been stupid to use domination and I simply don't see that.

I'm addition to what others have said, if one of your group is dominated, then one other could take the hit while everyone ignores the dominated member and killed the vampire, which also ends the domination. And, unlike the desert, the vampire here can be killed immediately with low risk to anyone else.

But still someone has to take that hit and the group ignoring that guy and attacking the vampire is missing at least one person (possibly more depending on the hit taken).
If one of your group is blind, harmed or energy drained then no one has to take a hit and the group still get's to attack the vampire without anyone missing.

And there seems to be a debate about whether or not killing the vampire actually end's the domination.

Also, Durkon laments his low-Wis teammates during the Malak fight, heavily indicating it is not a 100% successful tactic but relies on Wisdom saving throws.

Sorry for not being clear: I meant that the success rate on that particular instance was 100% so the suffering girl not beeing dominated is no indication to it's effectiveness.
Of course there isn't a 100% success guarantee to the tactic. But the success rate is consistantly high every time we see it used in the comics. The odds should be pretty good.

[SlashDash]

You know I love the fact that Durkon's statue pose can also be seen as if he is yelling to the rest of the dwarves: "Charge!"

Vamps can't mist in the sunlight.

"Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape."

"As a standard action, a vampire can assume gaseous form at will..."

A standard action is not a move or attack action. It needs to move out of the sunlight before being able to mist.

If it spends that one action trying and failing to get out of a grapple...it's dead the next round. Easy peasy.

But didn't Greg had more than a round when the psion dispelled his defenses using the password in the desert?

He attacked her to get the staff, then he would have needed another action to cast the spell from the staff.

So that's at least 2 rounds, isn't it?

[Peelee]

But still someone has to take that hit and the group ignoring that guy and attacking the vampire is missing at least one person (possibly more depending on the hit taken).
If one of your group is blind, harmed or energy drained then no one has to take a hit and the group still get's to attack the vampire without anyone missing.

I agree that the vampire had no good offensive options, even if he hadn't wasted his action on attacking Sigdi.

[Sylian]

But didn't Greg had more than a round when the psion dispelled his defenses using the password in the desert?

He attacked her to get the staff, then he would have needed another action to cast the spell from the staff.

So that's at least 2 rounds, isn't it?

If you look at the strip closely, you'll see that the airship was casting a shadow that saved Greg: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0931.html, and was thus able to act normally.

[Fish]

But some people have stated it would have been stupid to use domination and I simply don't see that.

I don’t think I said it was stupid. It just wasn’t the Win Now button it was presented as.

If one of your group is blind, harmed or energy drained then no one has to take a hit and the group still get's to attack the vampire without anyone missing.

This was explained in-comic. Gontor’s intent was to delay Durkon in the expectation that Durkon would stop to cure the blindness — in short, that Durkon, being Good, could be manipulated into stopping and helping his family. Had Gontor dominated a victim instead, it would have ... what? Given him an ally he couldn’t use inside the blue barrier. Given him a ally that couldn’t stop Durkon. If the assumption is that Durkon is Good, then Durkon wouldn’t have stopped to fight his family member, even if the domination had held. Durkon could have stepped into the blue barrier close at hand and been 100% safe from attack, and the dominated guy couldn’t have taken any further effective action.

Blindness was probably just a sign that Gontor hadn’t refreshed spells in a long time and was out of really good options. Wall of Stone would have been a much better idea than Domination: retreat to the meeting place and fill in the intervening ring with solid rock. At least, if he had the time and freedom and presence of mind to make perfect choices. The fact that Gontor stayed to gloat, summon a monster, and get drawn into a fight are just signals that Gontor was a person, not a CPU.

[Reboot]

And there seems to be a debate about whether or not killing the vampire actually end's the domination.

Not really. By RAW it absolutely doesn't - the only difference it makes is that (obviously) you can't get any new orders - but we have a direct counterexample from the strip, so in OOTS it absolutely does.

[Quebbster]

If you look at the strip closely, you'll see that the airship was casting a shadow that saved Greg: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0931.html, and was thus able to act normally.

I was going to point out how lucky it was that the Mechane showed up exactly that round... Then I remembered that's how the Mechane works.

[Squire Doodad]

I don’t think I said it was stupid. It just wasn’t the Win Now button it was presented as.

This was explained in-comic. Gontor’s intent was to delay Durkon in the expectation that Durkon would stop to cure the blindness — in short, that Durkon, being Good, could be manipulated into stopping and helping his family. Had Gontor dominated a victim instead, it would have ... what? Given him an ally he couldn’t use inside the blue barrier. Given him a ally that couldn’t stop Durkon. If the assumption is that Durkon is Good, then Durkon wouldn’t have stopped to fight his family member, even if the domination had held. Durkon could have stepped into the blue barrier close at hand and been 100% safe from attack, and the dominated guy couldn’t have taken any further effective action.

Blindness was probably just a sign that Gontor hadn’t refreshed spells in a long time and was out of really good options. Wall of Stone would have been a much better idea than Domination: retreat to the meeting place and fill in the intervening ring with solid rock. At least, if he had the time and freedom and presence of mind to make perfect choices. The fact that Gontor stayed to gloat, summon a monster, and get drawn into a fight are just signals that Gontor was a person, not a CPU.

Come to think of it, using Wall of Stone in a tight area like that (having it immediately block the path to the blue ring) could have stopped the Order right away.

[Messenger]

So... where is Gontor's soul going? His death was pretty clearly not honorable, but was his soul included in the past years worth of souls Thor prepared an argument for or not due to the whole still being on the world thing.

Your question made me realize that there's an advantage in Hel's favor regarding the bet: death from surprise attacks. AFAIK, "die with honor" means "die in battle/die fighting".

So did Gontor die without honor? He was attacked and killed too quickly for him to fight back. Or was his brief but vain struggle against a vampire's supernatural strength plus other supernatural abilities enough of a defense for Thor to try to save him from Hel? We have seen Thor argue to absurd (for comedic purposes) levels to save them from Hel, so non-vamp Gontor likely has a shot.

I imagine Thor would argue it, considering Loki was allowed to argue for a bunch of people who wouldn't go to him anyone is allowed (Thor just usually does it). My main question is whether or not he was included in all the souls Thor just got from Hel (I guess Sandy and Curly would be included there too).

I think Thor argues for any dwarf's soul against Hel regardless of whom they worship, even if they don't worship a god, like the Creed of Stone. I suspect the tug-of-war between Thor and Hel over dwarven souls as a result of their deific bet completely covers the dwarven race.

The bet stipulates that Hel has default dominion over all souls and- while not specified- includes souls of dwarves who worship other gods. Think about why high priests of other gods, being dwarven, would wish the Order's success against Hel's plot. These aren't just ordinary worshippers but high level clerics of those gods. It would mean that worshiping someone not involved with the Thor-Hel bet doesn't put a dwarf out of it. But, as such, it does mean they escape Hel via the "die with honor" stipulation that belongs to Thor.

---

BTW, to The Giant, can the dwarf who shield-bashed Gontor become a named character/be named/be given a name even if she's only a background character? 'Coz that shield bash was just beauitiful.

[Particle_Man]

I guess all the creed of stone vampires were showing their hosts how stupid it was to fill up their spell slots with stone spells and the law of irony took hold?

I am curious what Curly is going to do. She is the last of Hel’s agents not stuck at the gods moot and she is smarter than the average vampire when it comes to the tactic of “for now take flight to survive and maybe win another night”. She could make more vampires if she can sneak past Durkon’s family and the OOTS, but aside from that there is not much she can do to help end the world. Her best strategy might be to slowly build up worship of Hel in an isolated area and get Hel some worshippers (and this spiritual food).