I’m not sure that matters in the RAW. It probably should, don’t get me wrong! I suppose if they have a line of “if the creature does not have full resources normally associated with it, lower its ECL” then maybe that’s covered. Anyone know?
XP received is on a sliding scale in 3.5. A level X character fighting a level X creature gets Y xp, where 13*Y ~= a new level. But fighting X+1 instead, it might only take 10 fights to go up a level.
Further, it can be complicated by other things. With Z helping, they would split the XP. Then, as asked above, does getting rid of Malack’s staff also lower his effective CR and reduce the XP gained? It’s tough to say for sure without knowing those things.
I would say that neutralizing the staff is part of the challenge. It doesn’t matter if you defeat a creature of a given CR by brute force or cunning, as far as I’m concerned. (In fact, I prefer cunning.)
I don’t think it actually matters, though. Nale is a nemesis, therefore his level is pegged to Elan’s. He advances when Elan does, regardless of what he’s doing to gain XP.
Reduction of XP due to opponents being wounded has been mentioned several times in Dungeon magazine.
Some game designers like to use creatures that would normally be too powerful for the party, but nerf them by having them start the encounter wounded or otherwise depowered, so the party stands a chance against them. Paizo, who published Dungeon towards the end of its life, and who now publish Pathfinder, do this a lot. Those creatures are usually worth fewer XP, because the party never faced them at full strength.
This is not what’s happening here. When the Order first encountered Z at the entrance to the pyramid, he was at full health, with all his spells and standard gear. Over the course of the next fifty strips, his hit points and spell selection were gradually decreased through the actions of the PCs: by direct combat, maneuvering the LG into triggering traps, and blowing up a pyramid at them. As such, he should still be worth full XP.
So when Durkon killed “Z”, was that a kill-steal? Given that Z was Vaarsuvius’ evil opposite/nemesis, was V invested in ganking Z? I’m sort of guessing that Vaarsuvius is generally above that kind of thing (and has other angsty things to worry about right now).
But I find it significant that it’s something that the evil Belkar would formerly have done.
It’s also interesting that this is about the first time that a member of the OOTS (besides Belkar) has actually ganked a member of the Linear Guild (Thog being in a state similar to Schrodinger’s cat, at the moment.)
I’m not sure that Z counts as a nemesis despite being V’s “opposite”. V never really gave two craps about Z aside from being forced to face off with him when the guilds met because, you know, wizards. It’s a bit different dynamic than Nale/Elan or Haley/Sabine (or Crystal).
Nobody besides Nale seems to give a crap about the “evil opposites” thing, so I don’t think this counts as a kill steal.
Belkar’s line about kill stealing was, I think, meta gaming humor. Realistically, would Haley care if someone else killed Crystal? No. Haley would just be glad she was dead. But, if there were a player controlling Haley, and they’d created an elaborate backstory involving a rival thief, and the jerk who always plays CE psychopaths up and whacked her while Haley wasn’t in the room? Most players would be super pissed about that, even if their characters, as established, would just be thankful.
I prefer cunning as well. Or the cunning use of flags. Either way. I think the tough part is deciding what does it mean to defeat the creature? In DND/PF, it usually meant killing them to get their XP gland.
Really? Do you remember which one?
The problem is that the CR system is still an art, not math. Remember when V did this? If V had cast monster summoning and pulled forth warriors and did that to him, they would not be worth any extra XP above defeating V. The same goes for all of the summoned creatures we have seen, from demons to elementals. Yet a few spells or potions will put those monsters on par with the party!
And, really, when you think about it, it adds to the confusion of rating monsters in the CR. In theory, any high level character with an average CON score, such as a (d4) wizard, might end up with sixteen hit points at thirteenth level. (Even a Paizo Wizard, with d6 hit points, could have eighteen hit points.) Doesn’t that imply they should be worth less XP because they have fewer hit points, even if it was rolled up by the RAW?
And this doesn’t even get into the confusion of casting spells on an equal CR party! Does stacking Bless, Divine Favor and Bull’s Strenth, and Cat’s Grace give them more XP? No. By the RAW, it’s using their resources and figured into their CR. It also means that if they fight after using those spells, they aren’t considered lower because they don’t have those resources.
However, sorry for the digression. As far as the comic goes, I think Miller is right in that Nale will be whatever level he needs to be to challenge Elan.
Good stuff! Thanks!
vislor
Not from Dungeon, but in the Pathfinder Adventure Path, Council of Thieves:
The climax of the fourth book involves a Pit Fiend who had been imprisoned in the city for centuries finally breaking free, and the players confronting it before it can destroy the city. At this point in the campaign, the party is supposed to be around ninth level. A Pit Fiend, of course, is normally a CR 20 encounter, and would annihilate a party of ninth level characters. However, this Pit Fiend had been weakened by his long imprisonment, and was significantly underpowered - he’s presented in the book as a CR 12 encounter, and awards experience accordingly.
The significant difference between that, and killing Z, are 1) there is no circumstance under which the party could encounter that monster when it was at full strength, and 2) it was at less than full strength due to factors entirely unrelated to any action of the PCs.
That Pit Fiend must also have been weakened in ways other than just decreasing its HP, since even a low-HP Pit Fiend could insta-kill an entire party of that level if it ever got a single standard action.
And if you’re going to account for Zzdtri being low on resources, then you need to likewise account for Durkon also being low.
Yeah, the big one was that it had the staggered condition, so it couldn’t make full round attacks. It was also lacking some of it’s more powerful abilities, like gate.
Pit Fiends don’t ordinarily have Gate. In fact, no fiend, as written, has any ability that would allow it to travel between planes, presumably to explain why hellish invasions of our world are so rare and usually require cooperation from insane cultists on this side. They do, however, have Blasphemy, which would kill any good character of 8th level or less, and paralyze any of 13th level or less for several minutes, leaving them as good as dead. No save in either case.
They have the ability to summon lesser devils, which is what was probably meant.
Any reason to assume Nale will tell Tarquin he killed Malack? He might just spin a story that they ran into Xykon and he killed the others with Nale being the only one who escaped.
Tarquin will obviously have his suspicions but would he have any way of knowing that Nale was lying?
I think Tarquin knew that Nale and Malack would not both finish the mission alive.
Back in the day, though (2e and prior) Pit Fiends could Gate in one Greater Devil per round with 100% chance of success. Including another Pit Fiend. No idea if the link is correct, or if they could only do that in the Nine Hells. Anyways, it sounds like Good Fun!
No, I never played where the DM allowed that. How could you win, for one thing? Especially when the Gated Devil gets to bring friends too?
Little Nemo, I really can’t see Nale willingly coming back to Tarquin at all. I’m going to borrow what someone at the OOTS forums wrote on the subject:
Like Jaws from the James Bond movies, we’ll meet Nale again in the next book, but I can’t see him rejoining Pops right now.
I think the jaws role is more Thog’s territory - and Thog’s is obviously still alive and will return some day. But otherwise I agree, Nale won’t be eager to see his dad anytime soon, but that was already the case before he cratered his party.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking of.
You’re right. That’s a much better fit for the metaphor. I was just trying to find some comparison to a guy that just keeps coming back, no matter how many times ago he should have rightfully been killed off. Back to the drawing board.
Yeah, their scene right before Tarquin leaves, where they’re ostensibly talking about the Malack/Durkula relationship but, you know, was a pretty big clue about how they view each other. “Hang it with all the others” Hah!