Oots 636

[DandD]

A roll of 20 always saves.

Unless you have some kind of special properties that makes it that the other won't save even on a 20.

Not that the +23 and more Fort Save of the Ancient Black Dragon will be of great help, when one is easily capable of disjuncting an anti-magic field with ease.

 

[PoeticJustice]

A roll of 20 always saves.

Unless you have some kind of special properties that makes it that the other won't save even on a 20.

Not that the +23 and more Fort Save of the Ancient Black Dragon will be of great help, when one is easily capable of disjuncting an anti-magic field with ease.

Thank you for pointing that out. Who cares what spell s/he casts? Hir caster level is over 9000!

 

[Celebrim]

Epic fail.

V is so focused on revenge, he forgot why he was here. He's gone all agressive when he should be focused on being defensive.

Time Stop would have been a better opening volley. It would have given him time to erect a Prismatic Sphere or Force Cage around his family, and give himself some appropriate defences at the same time.

Disjunction is fine, but following up with a distigrate rather than some quickened protection for his family is a very bad idea. What he really needs to avoid is giving the dragon oppurtunity to use its breathe weapon on his family just out of spite.

Taking down a dragon with evocation spells just seems to be the wrong way to go. Energy drain is a good attack here once V gets the defences up, because it takes care of pretty much all of the dragon's relevant spell ability immediately, lowers the dragon's defences and has no save. A Maze here would largely make up for the deficiency of not opening with a Time Stop. Irristable Dance is a good followup because it prevents the Dragon from closing to melee with either V or his family, and makes him really vunerable to V's normal evocation based strategies, and again has no save. Summoning a Leonal to act as a meat shield for his family and a source of healing isn't a bad idea either (assuming V can use spells with the good descriptor in his current state), because he's got to take down a dragon solo which is going to be a slog if the dragon doesn't roll badly on saves. After that, a combination of Polar Rays and Quickened Magic Missiles would be pretty darn effective at chewing up hit points.

If the dragon does kill his family, V's prohibition on emulating divine spells leaves V in a lurch where his power can't help him. In V's current mental state (willing to make a pact with fiends rather than admit failure), that could be bad.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Anyone notice that V's family's house is magic (ie it disappeared when V cast Disjunction)?



AR

 

[DaveMage]

Anyone notice that V's family's house is magic (ie it disappeared when V cast Disjunction)?



AR

The trees in the background disappeared as well. Oops.

 

[Fenes]

There's also a symmetry here - V disintegrated the son, so he might want to disintegrate the mother dragon too.

 

[F5]

I suspect the dragon survived the quickened disintegrate...but only just barely. He'll do something so evil, with such relish, to end the dragon, while his family watches, that if they do survive they will turn on him/her forever.

That, or tell him he's gone too far, and has to drop this whole "quest for arcane power" thing, which will throw Evil V into a rage and kill them.

As for the deal with the Trio, where they get his soul for the amount of time he had the splice running...it doesn't say what happens to the body, while they have the soul. It also doesn't say what happens to the evil souls after the fact. I suspect we'll see V's soul stripped out of his/her body, leaving the evil ones in charge. That, or the Trio won;t stake their claim on V's soul until later...sometime in the story when V is the only one that can stop them from opening a gate, say...

 

[PoeticJustice]

Can't help but feel like people are waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop, when I think it has already. I predict the battle's over, except for a little "but, how?" melodrama on the part of the dragon.

In the grand scope of the story, V's physical fight with the dragon is totally irrelevant compared to the psychological one s/he just lost with temptation. That's the point of this arc.

 

[Asmor]

I think V's going to end up becoming the big bad of the story. We might even see the OotS join forces with the Linear Guild and Ol' Bonehead to take V on.

Of course, the fact that V has to spend thrice it's spliced time in limbo is going to drive it to seek out immortality, and seeking out immortality is going to be a lot easier with four times the arcane power...

A vicious cycle, really.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I suspect the dragon survived the quickened disintegrate...but only just barely. He'll do something so evil, with such relish, to end the dragon, while his family watches, that if they do survive they will turn on him/her forever.

Average disintegrate damage: 140*.

Ancient black dragon hp: 387**.

This battle has just started; we're a long way from the dragon's end. That said, I agree that the real drama starts when New Varsuvius has his homecoming.



* Max 240, but on 40 dice the odds of deviating far from average are abysmal.

** Do we actually know the dragon's age? Could be a great wyrm (536 hp). Would have to be a young adult to be anywhere near death from a disintegrate.