That’s a beautiful user/comment combo*
*Beautifully ironic, of course
I don’t think Tarquin had any particular need to kill Nale himself. I think he genuinely loved him as a son, but you have to put that into the weird supervillain context in which they live. I mean, suppose you put them in a more grounded father son relationship. The father wants to help the son, support him with money, help him find a job, maybe get him to follow in the family business one day. But the son rebels, resents the father and rejects all those offers. Eventually the father has to relent and just let the kid live his own life, make his own mistakes and so forth. He still loves him, but he has to let him go. That’s the kind of melodrama you would find in a bunch of movies and TV shows.
And pretty much beat for beat that’s what happened. Except that in the crazy fucked up world of supervillainy they’re a part of, letting someone go means treating them like just anyone else. And Tarquin did just that.
I don’t really understand how Tarquin seeing Nale as a toy or thinking that he needs to be the one to kill him adds anything to the text. That just reduces Tarquin’s character to more of a sneering, manipulative sociopath, when what really makes him interesting is that he has so many relatable, sympathetic qualities while still being a hugely evil, pragmatic bastard.
Hoooo boy. Roy and Durkon might come out okay, but Belkar’s in real trouble.
(“Make a note about the bunny thing” was funny.)
Whelp, I guess we’re not done with this book yet…
I guess the rest of the OOTS is going for a swim in SnarlWorld. That’s the only way out I can see for them.
It’s about time V showed up, don’t you think?
I was just relieved there wasn’t a little note at the end saying “End of Book V. Taking a six month break.”
“Careful. You’re starting to sound like Nale.”
A nicely understated threat there.
Not sure V’s going to be able to do much against an army (and a high-level psion)
If V cast a solid-walled Forcecage or the like with them all inside it, and assuming the three high-level Bad Guys (especially the psion) stay out of it, would the regular soldiers and dinosaurs and arrows be able to hurt them at all?
Apparently my cat managed to post this when I foolishly left my computer sitting open on a partially-finished reply. D’oh!
V has a Mass Invisibility spell.
Durkon’s definitely fine - he’s got Damage Reduction 10 and Fast Healing 5 now.
A solid-walled Forcecage would only offer a temporary reprieve. It would put them no closer to escaping alive than before.
I just figured it was some internet abbreviation I wasn’t familiar with.
You know, I’m not one to jump to conclusions and I do believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but I really think Tarquin may, in the end, not be all that nice of a guy.
Sorry if I stepped on any toes.
What are the odds that the ground beneath them will give way and dump them into a cavern?
Well, we know that V was in a large room with thick walls and ceiling right under the room where the others were and that the fiends have assured V that V’s body is safe. How would they get there, though? Unless the extra weight of all those soldiers and dinosaurs causes them all to crash through into that large room. Still, there’s Chekov’s Rift with the water and possibly island right there beside them. I can’t see the story going in any other direction than Roy, Durkon, Belkar, and Mr. Scruffy ending up in the rift, while Haley and Elan stay on this side of things and go after her father. V could go with either group. Everyone reunites at Kraagor’s Gate.
But what the hell do I know? For all I can see, the Elemental Plane of Ranch Dressing will play a crucial role in the next part of the story.
That’s not a bad thought, but it does mirror Don’t Split the Party, so I’m thinking Rich won’t want a rehash of that. Perhaps Elan will do something heroic and decisive, and Tarquin will be sufficiently impressed to let the others go.
Does that mean that any number of arrows/swords can hit him and won’t hurt him? That’s how it seemed to work when Sabine got hit by Haley’s normal arrows in their very first battle – that, unless the arrows were made of cold iron, they couldn’t hurt her at all.
Right, but would it at least protect them while it lasted? Would they be absolutely safe from all the arrows and soldiers while inside it? (Again, assuming that the three higher-level bad guys don’t intervene, particularly the Disintegrate-capable psion?) Or would a huge number of attacks from all those soldiers and arrows be able to overwhelm it or something?
I just checked, and 3.5 does not have “chip damage”. In fact, it makes explicit reference to what happens when damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack. So yes, he is completely immune to any number of mundane attacks that each do less than 11 points of damage.
Walls of force are completely immune to mundane damage.
I don’t get it. Tarquin knows Elan is no fighter. He’s a Bard with a prestige class. Bards are support and backup. That’s what they do. What’s Tarquin up to here?