I’ve never figured out what Nale’s plan was, anyway. Tarquin indeed figured out how ill-conceived Nale’s actions were, but why didn’t this dawn on Nale himself, or any other LG members. Nale isn’t stupid.
ETA: No one’s talking about Malak yet…
Nale’s a good example of a character with a high int score, but a low wisdom score. He’s good at coming up with these intricate plans with tons of moving parts, which takes some smarts, but he has trouble recognizing when simple and direct would better. He’s like the cliche of the ivory tower intellectual who comes up with theories that look brilliant on paper, but anyone with a lick of sense can see would never work in the real world.
You’re going with that quote from #763 as a prediction about Nale? Interesting choice. But the quote context was about how the Hero (which Nale ain’t) might lose a hand or something (or get a big burn on his face) if he confronted the villain too early. Nale already has a burn on his face, so the prediction is already over, no? Shrug, I guess we’ll see; I can’t see Nale being more than temporarily removed from the story (although such temporary removal could well include death and later resurrection) while the OOTS moves to the next continent/gate.
Cite, please? Yeah, Nale thinks of himself as a super-genius, but he’s never actually shown it. Dusting Malack was the smartest thing he’s ever done, and he came up with that plan in collaboration with the demonstrably-intelligent Zz’dtri.
So how come Zz’dtri Never pointed out that Nale’s plan looked something like
1.) Seize Gate
2.)???
3.) Profit!
They aren’t interested in destroying it or keeping Xykon from Controlling it Like OOTS. They can’t control it themselves since only Xykon and Redcloak have the ritual. So what was their endgame? And yeah, Nale has low wisdom, but it’s not that low, so low he can’t see that he does not have an endgame. The only thing I can think of is it’s not about anything more than beating OOTS. That is his endgame. But why would the other LG guys go along with that? (OK Sabine is in love with him and Thog just likes to break stuff, but Zz’driti seems like he should have bailed on them a while ago.)
Sabine, besides being in love with Nale, is also still under the thumb of the Executives and they want gates opened (at least so far). Going along with Nale’s poor planning keeps her in the game while not especially risking anything.
Z, per his comment at the end, was in it for the money (“Pay’s good.”)
I think it really is that low. Nale does for Wis what Elan does for Int.
Actually, I like to think that if you looked at their character sheets, you’d find that their attributes are identical, except that they’ve swapped Int and Wis.
Although, it’s not like Elan’s Wis or Nale’s Int is all that great, either. And there’s some (admittedly weak) evidence that Elan’s Cha is higher than Nale’s, too (for instance, Julia thought Nale would be kind of cute if he shaved his beard).
Nale just gets obsessed with scheming for the sake of scheming. Tarquin schemes but he always keeps his focus on the goal. If his goal disappears or changes, he’ll drop the scheme without hesitation. Nale in the same situation would just keep following his original scheme even though it no longer had a purpose.
Maybe it was a meta-plan: seize it not for its own sake, but to solicit competing bids from the folks who actually care about the stuff in its own right?
(If you’re a non-smoker in prison, you probably try to acquire cigarettes anyway, right?)
The problem is that ruling the world is kind of a zero-sum game. More likely, Tarquin was planning on capturing the Gate and destroying it if necessary in order to prevent Xykon and Redcloak from capturing it and using its power against him.
And in the new “Haleo and Julelan” story, Haley says (about Elan) “He’s sweet and honest and funny. And oh my gods, gorgeous. It’s weird how much of a difference being able to see his chin makes.”
So if Tarquin was never invested in the Gate in the first place, * and * has confidence in Elan’s heroism to defeat the bad guys, then why did he participate in the LG in the first place? Not only did he risk his own life, but in the process he lost one of his most powerful allies (a loss he seems to be taking pretty well, provided he knows about it).
I imagine that Elan, at least, did get at least a level out of this Gate, if only because he's Nale's nemesis, and defeating a 200 year old high level vampire cleric must have bought Nale a whole bunch of XP.I think Tarquin wanted to see Nale and Elan in action. You might think that Tarquin might want to seize control of the gate and defend it himself. On paper his order–especially with Malak–would have as much if not more of a chance of defeating Xykon than OOTS. He has an army and Xykon now does not. However Tarquin also has many ranks in Knowledge (fourth wall) and feels that the heroes have a better chance of defeating the big bad than the lesser villains do. So it makes sense that Tarquin would send OOTS–maybe with supplies and assistance–out to fight Team Evil at the next gate.
But we’ll see. I imagine Rich has a number of surprises up his sleeve.
You know, Xykon loves using all those negative energy attacks. I wonder if he’ll get a surprise when he tries them on Durkula and gets no result.
If he hits a vampire or other powered-and-healed-by-negative-energy creature with a spell like Energy Drain, does it just do nothing? Or does it do some healing the way Harm and Inflict Wounds do?
I’m writing down the number of this post so I can gives you props when it happens, because I agree with you. I think that will be a key event in Xykon’s final defeat.
There are different stories to be told and Tarquin seems to try to direct events into the plot that holds the most benefits for him. He’s willing to accept the outcome of “hero achieves his objective” because their objectives coincide. But his initial plan was to have the story be “hero appears to win but the villain steals the victory away at the last minute”.
And Tarquin (like his son Nale) is a solipsist who sees himself as the central figure in the “story”. Something like the death of a close ally is just the loss of a supporting character in his mind.
[QUOTE=Enervation :: d20srd.org]
An undead creature struck by the ray gains 1d4×5 temporary hit points for 1 hour.
[/QUOTE]
Energy drain works the same way, except with 2d4.
Daddy looking out for himself and his little empire after all. Sending our gang into the next gate brewhaha, but what oh what is his plan for Nale?