It seems like Malack has the Sudden Quicken feat - otherwise his opening shot was a 5th level spell.
Why is Malack’s caster level put at 13? He only needs to be 11th level to cast Harm.
DR does not apply to damage from spells, spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities at all.
Unconscious creatures are assumed to be willing to be teleported away. Conscious creatures can refuse. Provided they realise it is happening, of course.
Belkar has been conscious throughout. He’s under Hold Person, not Sleep.
And why still the talk of vampire lords? The only reason they were brought up at all was to explain Malak walking around in the sunlight, but we now know the explanation for that: He researched a spell for it.
Which he WOULDN’T have to do if he were a VL.
But Malack is a master of deception (remember the “clerics of death are not necessarily evil” tea time conversation?). He could well have learned an anti-sunlight spell while a vampire, and then later have become a vampire lord. I know if I was a vampire lord, I would keep that fact secret from my opponents.
I admit that is weak evidence.
Belkar on one occasion got XP through character development, even dinging a level. I’m too lazy to try and find it, but I know it happened at least once.
I’m sort of ashamed I found it that easily.
I liked the VL idea because of its permanent Fly spell, ability to walk in sunlight, Control Weather as a special ability, and because I thought that it was the way to allowing a Lawful vampire. (I inferred that from the example the author of the VL template used: LN character gets vamped, goes to CE, becomes VL, and goes to LE.) However, the SRD for vampire characters just says they have to be “any evil.” We are agreed that Malack is Lawful, right? I still think he could be LN, if on the evil side of it, (Yeah, yeah, vampirizing someone is a hideously evil act; I get it. V’s still got a lot more reasons to be NE than TN.) but agree that he easily could be LE too.
We have alternate explanations for the daylight immunity (spell), and the control winds (scroll). He could be lying about both, though I think it’s unlikely. We still don’t know if he slithers or floats (like V often does, and why Belkar could have confused the two. Admittedly, V usually walks to get from A to B.). Clerics also don’t get Fly or Overland Flight (doubt the Travel domain applies here), so Malack would have had to have Z cast it on him or (more likely) his staff does it for him. He isn’t Wind Walking, the art work is different.
I’d think though that a VL would have annihilated Nale as he tried to kill Malack’s kids. Then again, I’m still trying to figure out how Nale managed to kill a couple of vampires/vampire spawns by himself. (By himself, because Malack seems to only be pissed at Nale, not any other members of the LG.) My only other guess as to how is that Malack was always an albino, Nale killed his non-vampire lizardman children, and Malack got vampirized sometime between then and now.
I get the DR restrictions now, thanks… (Lol.) Re willing/unwilling for purposes of Teleport/Word of Recall, I didn’t know whether it hinged on the subject’s mental state—which being Held wouldn’t change—or whether the subject needed to not struggle, in which case being Held makes the spell work just fine.
Thinking about Miller’s reply to my post, an AoO can’t be a new touch spell if the attacker has already cast that round, can it? I.e., Durkon casts Heal, hits Malack, Malack moves in to grapple, Durkon gets an AoO, but it must be a melee attack of some sort? He can’t smack Malack with another Cure/Heal spell for his AoO, even though that’s a touch to hit spell?
Example of Belkar gaming the system. As much as he gets hit by undead, he needs it. Edit: And ninja’d.
How much damage could Mr. Scruffy do with a scratch or a bite? I suppose 11 is too much to hope for?
Because that’s my current guess as to the highest cleric level he could be; he’s known to be at least 11th, because of Harm, and he would have little or no reason to use Bolster Undead if he were higher than 13th.
Durkon has a Charisma penalty, so his highest possible unbuffed Turn Undead roll is 19. That will turn undead at his level +3. Current analysis says that he’s level 15, so he should be able turn an undead with up to 18 hit dice. If Malack counts as a 19 HD undead for turning purposes, and he has a reasonable grasp of Durkon’s abilities from working with him, he has no reason to waste a precious round bolstering himself. That suggests he counts as no more than 18 HD. As a vampire, Malack has a +4 bonus against turning. He’s also lizardfolk, who start with two hit dice, so he’s got an extra there. 13 cleric levels + 1 extra racial hit die + 4 turn resistance = 18 HD. This suggests that his cleric level is no higher than 13.
Again, that assumes he knows how effective Durkon is at turning undead…but isn’t that something you’d expect a vampire to try to figure out about the lawful good cleric he’s working with? He’s certainly had the opportunity. There are other assumptions, too. Durkon could have Improved Turning (to go along with his Extra Turning and his general hatred of undead). He also has access to Eagle’s Splendor. There’s no supporting evidence for either, though.
Playing off of what Balance just wrote, Malack’s been helping Durkon back at the castle with a 7th Level spell (Burlew’s version of Mass Death Ward). Could Malack do that if he was incapable of casting 7th Level spells? Honest question, I don’t know. And we know that the minimum level to cast 7s is 13.
A point against that is that we haven’t seen Malack use a 7th level Cleric spell yet in the strip. There are points where it might have been useful for him to do so (Destruction against Nale, though the Harm/QIMW was pretty effective; Disintegrate against Nale, the wall in the sliding trap, or Durkon—assuming Malack has the Destruction Domain; QISW instead of QIMW, etc…)
I don’t see why not. Spell research is represented by a Spellcraft check*. A research assistant could certainly use the “aid another” action to support that check–all Malack has to do is hit a 10 or better, and he would add a +2 to Durkon’s attempt at the check.
*The Pathfinder research rules are more elaborate, and involve multiple Spellcraft and Knowledge (Religion) checks, but I think 3.5 just uses the single check against a DC of 10 + spell level.
Attacks of opportunity can only be standard melee attacks, so you can’t use a spell for one under any circumstance.
Has it already been established what the root cause of Durkon’s phobia of trees comes from?
I’m not sure that’s true:
It seems to me that if you cast a touch spell but don’t discharge it, you could make a melee touch attack as an attack of opportunity. Am I missing something?
Edit: I think this is even clearer:
Hey, elms can be vicious!
Now is definitely the time for Mr. Scruffy to show his stuff.
That would be radical to know.
A little bit of roots are evil to tunnelers, a little bit of if you ignore the fact that they’re generally incapable of attack, they’re pretty scary but mostly cuz it’s funny that dwarves hate trees.
You can, indeed, discharge a touch spell as part of an attack of opportunity. What you can not do, is cast a touch spell as part of an attack of opportunity. In the former case, the specific action being undertaken during the AoO is a standard attack - a touch attack is still a standard attack, it’s just one where it doesn’t matter if the attack roll exceeds the target’s total AC. Discharging the spell isn’t an action, it’s an automatic result of touching someone while you still have an undischarged touch spell active.
In this case, Durkon doesn’t have an undischarged touch spell ready, so if Malack tries to jump him right now, Durkon’s only option is to whack him with his hammer.