It would result in a slow, agonizing death over weeks, if not months or years, and would therefore be somewhat out of character for Durkon to cast. But when faced with enemies this vicious, Durkon might have no choice but to resort to the use of this evil spell.
Nope. Antilife Shell extends a dome 10 feet from its caster which moves along with him/her/it/ftaghn.
That said, as I’ve found out the hard way, Roy only needs a spear and some form of “get large” effect to defeat the spell completely. The spear he’s already got on hand nearby ; and it would not be that much of an asspull for him to happen to have a potion of Enlarge lying around - it’s practically standard Fighter kit at these levels.
Interesting combination of things… Might our favorite halfling appear via a “Raise Undead” spell by Redcloak? He’d have seen him… for some reason and learned, belatedly, about the Godsmoot. Then he’d bid him to attack Durkon whilst voting against the destruction of the world?
Hmm, I hadn’t actually thought about Cloaky’s position wrt the godsmoot. It’s the kind of thing that’d put his britches in a very, very tight wad, isn’t it ? Especially the part about not being invited or having a vote.
I still say that Redcloak is allowed there, and if he showed up, he’d be let in. He just has other things on his schedule right now.
(and he wrote them in ink, so he can’t change them).
Which pantheon is the dark one in? (Or not quite in, being a demigod or something.)
Maybe Roy will use his engineering ranks again, and bring down a pillar on Durkula.
Oh, it’s at least meant as a fake-out in the direction of a Chekov’s Gun. I don’t quite see how a dead-Belkar could do anything to Durkula, but the “self-sacrifice in order to save the world” thing is definitely there as a possibility.
In Start of Darkness, Redcloak describes him as a god “in a pantheon of one”. We know that the elven gods vote with the Western Pantheon, but no one’s said where Redcloak would have been sent to cast the Dark One’s vote. Also from SoD, the Dark One is shown to have allies within the other three pantheons (Loki, Tiamat, and Rat) so that’s no help.
At least at the moment the goblinoids are geographically with the Southern Pantheon though. However, the Twelve Gods seem to have their own thing down pretty well.
For some reason this reminds me of that scene where Bugs Bunny is reading aloud the list of critters Tazmanian Devils like to eat.
B B: [Looking up in the encyclopedia] Q… R… S… T, Tas, Tasmanian. Here it is. “A strong, murderous beast, jaws as powerful as a steel trap - has ravenous appetite - eats tigers, lions, elephants, buffaloes, donkeys, giraffes, octopuses, rhinoceroses, mooses, ducks…”
Taz: Rabbits.
B B: Rabbits? It doesn’t say rabbits here.
Taz[writing it in]: Especially rabbits.
So is Belkar a ranged weapon or a polearm?
Indeed, it is a significant question. My guess is that it’s Plan B in case the vote doesn’t go Hel’s way. And it involves Durkula going to the last gate and destroying it. Roy would definitely be a hinderance to that.
Doesn’t matter, even the rhino. They are living and the field is hemispherical, so they’d just slide off.
Now animals from the Bag of Tricks could be used to defeat this spell. Take out at least three of them and have them stand around the hemisphere at even intervals. Find something large (perhaps a chunk of the gallery that Durkula broke up in strip 1009) to throw at Durkula so that he dodges out of the way. AIUI, advancing on a living being collapses the spell. Dodging would require Durk to advance on at least one of the animals. Poof goes the field.
You wouldn’t even need the animals. Like-minded priests could just decide, of their own accord and certainly not with the intention of helping anyone, to loiter around near the field.
I’m ashamed that I didn’t think of that.
And I honestly hope that, at some point, we see a tree invasion, and Durkon was right all along. (If we haven’t already–it’s been a while.)
As for defeating the spell, I can’t imagine it happening right now, as the tension has been set up to go even higher. So it needs to be something they can’t do right this second. That’s why having Belkar involved is so appealing, since he’s not there right now.
I don’t think any ranged weapons are a good idea. Roy isn’t good with them, and Durkula would be an idiot to not heal up. Any attack must (re-)kill him. Forcing him to dismiss the spell to escape is a good idea, but that’s pretty heavy rules gaming, and I don’t think Roy is good enough for that. If it happens, that will be accidental.
This isn’t Harry Potter and the Natural 20, after all.
Roy is probably among the top ten or so archers in the world. He’s even better with his greatsword, of course, but just being a 15th-level fighter is enough to make him quite formidable even without any further specialization.
Then again, at the Battle of Azure City when V said that just because e was proficient with bows didn’t mean e was any good, e was probably a better archer than all but two of those actually wielding bows on the walls.
Aside from Belkar and Haley, the Order seriously underestimates their own combat prowess.
Ah. I just went by what he’s said before (I forget which comic). Still, is he good enough to take him out in one shot? Because I don’t think he gets a second.
Or, at least, he can only have as many shots as he does weapons (and he couldn’t figure out how to make arrows appear like Haley does) and no one in the room can help him.
Also, is using “e” as the pronoun for Varsuvius a comic thing? Or is that your just preferred gender neutral pronoun? Personally, since V doesn’t care either way, I go with my own mental version,and use she. Though I am planning on trying a reread where I intentionally assume V is male and see if I run into any mental contradictions.
‘E’ is my own preference-- It’s one of the Spivak pronouns. I can’t use “he” or “she” either one for Vaarsuvius, because my pet theory is that es gender is intermediate between the two (more precisely, I believe that Vaarsuvius’ and Inkaryius’ genders are mutually-orthogonal superpositions of male and female).
If Roy had a bow and a supply of arrows, then he’d be able to get off three shots per round, or four if I’m misjudging his level and he’s actually 16th. Drawing the arrows quickly enough to fire them is something anyone with a bow can do; any special capabilities Haley has in this regard is just a joke about the art not showing her quiver.
Indeed. V was 15th level at the time IIRC. That means a BAB of +7. Give her a modest Dex penalty and she’s still better than a first level fighter with Weapon Focus.
Yes.
I don’t understand this – Stick World is full of adventurers – what makes our little group of heroes so special? We’ve already met a handful of characters of equal or greater level – Tarquin’s band, Miko, Redcloak and Xykon. Not to mention the original Order of the Scribble party. Tarquin was certainly of the opinion that Roy and Durkon could be easily replaced if he forced Elan to become leader of the OOTS.
Also, if level 15 is so powerful, how did our adventurers get there? I think we’ve seen them do two, maybe three dungeon crawls and a handful of side quests.
Which is true, but it doesn’t mean that those high-level characters would exist if Elan didn’t ditch the others to lead his own party. That’s an example of the laws of dramatic necessity re-shaping reality, like Probability sneaking into a back alley to service Drama as would a copper-piece harlot.