Heal? So this is one of those positive/negative magic things like Red Cloak talks about where the effect is reversed for undead?
Yes.
Yep. Positive energy spells heal the living and damage the under. Negative energy spells damage the living and heal the undead. That’s why Redcloak sometimes casts Harm on Xykon: he’s healing him.
Yes.
Thanks for the quick answers, yellowjacketcoder and MegaBee.
Ha!
“I warded the cat, too, in case yer wonderin’.”
The interesting thing to me is that (assuming Heal does it’s full 150 points of damage, which seems likely), Malack with his d12 hit dice for being a vampire is probably right at 1 HP (as heal cannot reduce HP below 1).
So either Malack needs backup fast or a major villain is about to bite the dust.
I doubt it. Tarquin will arrive to save the day, or better yet, Nale. How conflicted would Malack be if his life was saved by someone he wants dead?
He first took a [Thor’s] lightning bolt to the chest, too.
The only thing to harm Durkon was the Flame Strike.
Heal for an undead acts like Harm, which allows a Will save for 1/2 damage. Clerics get really good Will saves as a rule. So, figure M makes his save, and loses 75 HP. (Edit: Aside, how does Damage Reduction figure in this? Do you take the 10 points off the 150, or what’s left after the save?) In any event, M isn’t taking the full 150 or 75.
Malack has at least 11 HD (minimum to cast 6th level spells), and those HD are d12, since he’s undead. Figure 6.5 as a mean roll, X 11 HD, and he’s got a minimum likely total of 72 HP or so. And probably a whole lot more. Add 11 HP to that at a minimum if M’s a Lord.
Nevertheless he’s not feeling O.K right now, especially after tasting Thor’s Lightning, whatever that is. (Either Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, or Call Lightning Storm, I guess. So either 3d6, 5d6, or 10d6, Reflex for 1/2)
OTOH, he’s regenerating a minimum of 5 (or 8, if a Lord) HP per round. And he probably can cast Inflicts on himself to speed up the process. And he probably moves a hell of a lot faster than Durkon, even if not a Lord. At least Durkon managed to get between him and Belkar. (No more running up to Belkar, and Word of Recalling them back to wherever. Though I’m not sure if being Held negates the prohibition on transporting unwilling creatures with WoR. I guess he could Dominate Belkar and then do it.)
Damage reduction doesn’t stop energy attacks unless it’s specified for that energy type; it protects against weapon strikes and natural attacks (e.g. claws). A vampire’s DR isn’t going to help against lightning, and definitely not against a positive energy spell. Unless he had some other sort of protective spell up, he took full damage from both of those attacks (though it looks like he’s regenerated whatever damage he took from getting bonked on the snout with Belkar’s Cranium of Hardness +1). Even with any temporary hit points he got from feeding on Belkar, he’s bound to be in pretty bad shape.
I would guess Thor’s lightening is an analog to Lightning Bolt, although possibly souped up since it’s a domain spell. Although it doesn’t look like Malack made his Reflex save there.
As far as DR, Damage Reduction does not apply to spells, so M is taking the full hit from whatever Durkon is throwing at him. Even if you give him the save on Heal, and assume he’s a Lord with the Extra HD, he’s a spell or so away from negative HP.
Of course, he could go gaseous form, or WoR, or bunch of other things to try and get out of the situation, but it’s certainly dire at this point.
What did Malack try to dispel? The Mass Death Ward?
I’m guessing his level wasn’t high enough? That was my take away from “less time studying, more time adventuring”, as in Malack never collected the xp points to level up and be successful.
According to what I gather from the official forums, Malack’s level bonus for becoming a vampire came at the penalty of cleric levels. Would that have made an impact?
Curiously, last time Durkon used Thor’s Lighting, it came from the sky (“Call Lightning”) rather than emanating from his war hammer (variant of “Lightning Bolt”).
Thanks, Balance and yellowjacketcoder. I didn’t realize that about DR (and I’d thought I’d read the whole description a few times through; go figure.) Can Malack, provided he has any 6th level spells left, simply reverse the process with a Harm on himself? Preferably while flying backwards away from Durkon at 50’. And while Durkon is having to fend off a Summoned Children of the Night swarm—I like the idea of the scarab beetles from the cafeteria playing a role.
Or does Durkon get an Attack of Opportunity or other spell against Malack first? Even an Inflict Critical Wounds is going to help out quite a bit, when coupled with Malack’s ridiculous regeneration rate. (I love the suggestion from one of the GITP posters that it’d be hilarious if Durkon had included Malack in the radius of the Mass Death Ward…, assuming such a thing was possible to cast on an Undead.)
A ballsy thing for Malack to do would be to try and grapple Durkon. +8 to Strength (+6 Vampire and +2 from being a lizardman) would help out. And all of the Cure/Heal spells require a somatic component to cast. Doing that instead of trying to poison a high-level dwarf(!) seems wiser. Or instead of trying to Dispel Magic from a caster that is probably several levels higher than you; and you know his level, since you’ve been trying to teach him some of your magic. Can we infer that Malack can cast 7th level (Burlew’s statement about the level of Mass Death Ward, instead of the 8th level it is in the SRD) spells, since he was able to assist Durkon in his research? Also, does Durkon’s size help or hinder him from being grappled? The Death Ward stomps on any Energy Drain, but Malack can still blood suck him for Constitution damage, right? Even if it takes awhile, given a Dwarf’s Con. And every round he slurps, he’s healing 5-8 HP from fast healing + 5 HP from the blood.
The author is getting a bit sensitive about tactics criticism, though. I will start taking his implied advice to sit back and enjoy the ride (and I have been.)
There’s been some discussion over at those same forums about the Evilness or evilness of Malack vampirizing Belkar. If Malack is a Lord, and they come with telepathy as a feature, how do we know that Malack didn’t ask Belkar if he wanted to be a vampire and that Belkar said, “Yes,”? I get that Count Belkula could no longer use garlic, he uses it in just about every strip that he cooks in, and cooking is one of the only two things he does well. Plus we know from Xykon that being Undead really cramps your hobby as a taster. But Belkar’s not exactly one to think through all of the implications of a course of action before he starts on it, is he? And the benefits from the undead template might be pretty attractive to Belkar. Plus the whole not dying thing. OTOH, Durkon would kill him on sight and if Belkar was going to leave the Order, he’d have done it by now.
The rest of the Order are going to show up any second though, I think. Hell, maybe the LG or Team Evil will show up too. It’s inexplicable that the Order sent Durkon by himself—in a heavily trapped labyrinth—to go fetch Belkar.
Perhaps Thor’s lightening is an amalgamated version of both? I could that being useful, and I imagine when outside a Cleric of Thor would prefer the traditional “smite from the skies”. Of course, better to have a useful version when you’re underground, as dwarves so often are.
I would assume that’s his goal, since that one spell is blocking many of his best attack options–which includes keeping him from doing unto Durkon what Durkon just did unto him. You don’t have to specify, though. If you don’t, you make dispel checks against each spell on your target, starting with the spell with the highest caster level, until you either succeed at dispelling one or fail at all of them.
According to the Greater Dispel Magic SRD entry, the check is 1d20 + your caster level, maximum +20, versus a DC of 11 + caster level for the target spell. We’ve established that Malack has at least 11 caster levels, so the worst-case check (from his point of view) would have been 1d20 + 11 versus DC26, which would mean he’d need a 15 or better on the die to bring down the spell. Not very good odds for burning a 6th-level spell slot–he can’t have more than one or two, plus a domain slot that’s probably taken up by Harm.
Oddly enough, if his caster level is 11, the Greater Dispel is kind of a waste, anyway–it only gains him 1 point of bonus versus the 3rd level Dispel (which is capped at +10 for caster level).
Call Lightning works underground, but it does more damage if used outdoors in stormy conditions. Both could be manifestations of the same spell. If so, it means he can keep tossing those bolts around for a while. (Call Lightning lets you call 1 bolt/caster level, up to 10 max.)
He could.
I think Durkon would get the AoO but I’m not positive. It depends on what Malack does: if he 5 foot steps, no AoO (but Durkon can close the distance next round). If he withdraws, he get 50 ft away, but cannot cast spells or take any other action. Merely running away will trigger an AoO, but that would be Melee only, and Durkon has a hard enough time hitting Malack (not to mention his DR would come into play). Unfortunately, Death Ward will only target living creatures, so Malack is immune.
Grappling would be ballsy but doesn’t really fit Malack’s personality. And trying to blood suck Durkon (who is in murder mode), is probably not good for Malack’s health (pun not intended)
Understandable on Burlew’s part. The PCs aren’t all min-maxing munchkins. They are there to tell a story, and are woefully underoptimized in many respects. Expecting them to be tactical geniuses is a bit silly. That means making your NPCs tactical geniuses would hurt the story telling - which is a sign of a bad DM.
Yea, one way or the other somebody other than D or M is showing up next strip.