Anubis vs. Upper_Krust (Referee: S'mon)

[Anubis]

Actually, if you weren't readying an attack action with your greataxe, then you had to be delaying, in which case I still would have gone before you and gotten my first round of attacks in before you could move. Besides, you can't tell when the Wall of Force goes down because it's invisible.

Remember, metagame thinking messes up the test. There is no way Incisor could know the potential coming his way, especially considering Gregory was so easily put down before. In fact, Incisor couldn't even know when the Wall of Force was gonna go down.

I had more to say here, but my third post in this string actually trumps all other arguments.

Anyway, either which way, I would still get my attacks in Round 27, even if I don't get the attacks in Round 28. I don't need Round 28 anyway, because Round 27 will be the end of it. I suppose in order to save time, I can go ahead and roll the dice.



Large Earth Elemental attacks Incisor, AC 33.

Large Earth Elemental attacks! (6 +14=20) Miss.

Gregory attacks Incisor, AC 33.

Gregory attacks! (9 +25=34) Hit for (4 +20) 24 points of damage, leaving Incisor at -4 hit points. Incisor goes down.

 

[Anubis]

Full Move 350 ft. Partial Action slings Greataxe.

There is no way you could have done this with any kind of action. If you would have done a delay action, you would have moved 280 feet at the most and been unable to do anything else. You never reactivated your Boots of Speed, remember?

One other thing - can you drop your Wall of Force from inside an Anti-Magic Field?

Yes. There is no rule saying that a spell can't be dropped from inside an Antimagic Field.

One more thing, had you been readying a move, I would have seen it as per page 71 of the DMG, and had I seen that, I would have had a different strategy, as follows:

Seeing you preparing to run, I would have still dropped the Wall of Force, but Incisor wouldn't have know because it's invisible. Gregory would ready a partial charge to activate as soon as Xun Huo moved into position. The Large Earth Elemental is a moot point here because there's not much he can do anyway. Thus, when Xun Huo moved, Gregory would have gotten the attack in anyway, before Incisor could have moved, and thus would have suffered the same fate. Basically, there would be NO WAY for you to avoid getting attacked at least once, and that one is all I needed.



I had a lot more in this post, but once I read Wall of Force again, I found something that trumps all other arguments. Never mind then.

 

[Anubis]

Actually, ya' know what, something just occured to me. I do, in fact, go first. I just read that Wall of Force is INVISIBLE! That means Incisor could not have SEEN it go down, but would have had to wait until he KNEW it went down in order to act, that is, he would have had to wait until the party came in after him in order to do anything.

In that case, all the previous points are moot because I would be going first because my party DID know the Wall of Force was going down and Incisor didn't.



That said, I believe I've taken the day and won the battle.

My party gains 3,300 XP for defeating Incisor.

It's just a game, and even though I have won, it doesn't mean a thing because our theories about this test were way off to begin with. I'll explain after this is over. Do you concede the battle now?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Anubis mate!

I don't agree with any of the recent rulings.

But I'll be happy to accept an impartial judgement on such matters. (I've asked Simon to drop by over the weekend)

As I see it you have Incisor surrounded by three opponents, each 11ft. away. As soon as one of them starts to move towards him he is away like a shot. Hes obviously waiting to act. Also you have a Halberd resting against the Wall of Force - again as soon as that starts to fall (which will be before either the Elemental or Troll reacts) Incisor can move.

Additionally I can't see you dropping the Wall of Force from within Anti-Magic. Any connection between Wizard and spell is inherantly magical.

Lastly, there is no way they are going to be able to react and catch Incisor in an AMF yet still gain all their magical bonuses.

As I see it, there should be a roll for initiative - with perhaps the Wizard gaining +4 (since he knows when the wall will drop*) and the others at best gaining +2. Though like I said I'll accept any impartial review of the situation.

*If we ignore the fact that I don't think they could drop the wall in an AMF.

 

[Anubis]

Hehehe, funny you should mention the halberd. I already told S'mon that what was REALLY going on with the halberd was that Xun Huo was still holding it, pretending the rest it against the wall, prepared to use it on you. I just figured that the halberd was a moot point by now because after the second time she went to the Wall of Force to try to use the halberd on you, you didn't bite at the bait, and she didn't use it anymore. It was never just left there.

To be honest, it slipped my mind after the last ten rounds because it was a moot point. If you wanna go with that line of reasoning, however, since Xun Huo knew the halberd was there (it was right in front of her), and she knew it was resting against the Wall of Force, on Round 23 in which she did nothing, she would kick the halberd to the ground.

I would (as a player) have done that had I thought you would try to use something I was using as a ready action against me 20 rounds later. My characters, however, would not have done that.

Either which way, Gregory was ready to charge you IMMEDIATELY upon dropping the Wall of Force, and since he knew it was coming, he would have been able to act before Incisor, who would have no such knowledge.

Besides, you didn't ready a move action, which makes it a moot point. Gregory would go before you because he was ready for it. There is no way Incisor would be even remotely able to react first, considering he had ZERO knowledge of what was going on. You're into metagame thinking again.

Any which way you try to spin it, Gregory should be able to get at least ONE attack on Incisor, which is all he needs.

 

[Anubis]

I'm just going by the book, plain and simple. You, on the other hand, have been using metagame thinking to slip past my offensive. I got you, and you just don't wanna accept it.

Honestly, at this point, one of us is gonna be upset with Simon's ruling. Perhaps it is best to consider this test a failure in that case. I was just trying to have fun here after I realized that the test means nothing anyway.

My reasoning is that since you didn't ready a move action, you can't act before my characters who KNOW what's going on. Anyway, I have a feeling Simon will rule against me either which way, as he did with the Necklace of Fireballs (Simon and I obviously have VERY different DMing styles), so I don't see any reason to continue. It's not fun anymore.

I'm disappointed that you're coming across as such a poor sport in this matter. If Simon rules for me, you'll object to it. If he rules for you, I know I'll object to it. Thus, this is pointless now. Game over.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Think of it as a chess match. Upper-Krust says that black has a clear win in the situation. Anubis says "Nonsenes, white is going to win!"

They start to play. Along the way one notices a mistake in play, and tries to take advantage of it. The other one says, "No, I wouldn't have done that!" (not quite accurate, of course- chess is much less ambiguous that PBEM DnD) and wants to make a different move instead.

In chess, this would be legitimate. If you are looking at which side has the best position, you have to try different things before you find the optimal line of play for each player.

Hard to do it with DnD. Especially when you are not face to face.
***

Anyway, if quasi-deities are CR +10, Anubis should have used up 1/4 of the party's resources. If they are CR +14, Anubis should have escaped by the skin of his teeth.

So... what percentage of Anubis's resources were used up? Could they handle another two or three encounters like this one before resting and recuperating?

 

[Anubis]

Anyway, if quasi-deities are CR +10, Anubis should have used up 1/4 of the party's resources. If they are CR +14, Anubis should have escaped by the skin of his teeth.

So... what percentage of Anubis's resources were used up? Could they handle another two or three encounters like this one before resting and recuperating?

The problem with the judging is that regardless of what ECL a Quasi-deity really is, he created the character as ECL +14 with the wealth of ECL +14. I barely won, but mainly because he had the equipment of a Level 15 character and a min-maxed smackdown at that. Had UK created a character that more closely resembled an actual character that would be played, and gone with the wealth of ECL +10, it would have been an easy enough win.

So you see, THAT is why the test is invalid. He created a character at ECL +14, so it played like one. Had he made it as ECL +10, it would have played like that instead. Basically, the equipment made all the difference. That and the ruling about the Necklace of Fireballs, which I feel is what made the entire challenge after a certain point.

Once I figured all this out, I was only playing for fun.

 

[S'mon]

Just skimmed the thread (no rulings from me - I've spent the past week marking Internet Law exam papers, still have 1/3 to do, *sigh*). Anubis is right that we have different GM styles - I tend to apply 'real world logic' first, 'spirit of the rules' second, & 'letter of the rules' third, a different priority list gives very different outcomes. And U_K is much more used to my DMing style, giving him an advantage.

Also, if this were a real encounter, the PCs would have thought "Oh look, a lone half-orc!" and Incisor would've thought "Oh look, some more puny adventurers to smush!" - ie the actions taken would surely have been different without metagame knowledge. The adventurers would surely have entered melee quicker, and Incisor would've been reluctant to use up his valuable one-shots.

My impression from the fight is that the quasi-deity resistances and immunities given are AT LEAST +15 ECL for my campaign - I don't have true striking weapons or energy substitution, Incisor as statted would be invulnerable to pretty much any 11th level PCs IMC. +10 ECL certainly seems too low. The extreme difficulty of hurting him seems more relevant than his relative lack of non-item attack options, and his extreme stats mack even mundane attacks from him noteworthy.

EDIT: BTW You could try facing 15th-level Incisor ECL 30 off (CR 25?) against a CR 25 party (eg 4 20th levellers is CR 24) and see if the result is different. I think using a 1st level quasi-deity is bound to cause problems like the over-reliance on stats. Also I think maybe 100' is a more plausible encounter distance, in retrospect.

 

[Impeesa]

Since you're trying to get a balanced ECL for player use, why not run 4 16th level quasi deities against 4 30th level mortals (sort of like Simon suggested). This would be two supposedly equal parties squaring off, and should give you a much better idea than the 4-on-1 (as well as giving the deities a much more rounded selection of abilities, not to mention hp ). Just a thought.

--Impeesa--