Can’t Roy pull another Rhino out of his magic bag?
Ooh, good call! I can’t find stats for an allosaur–supposedly it’s in MMII (the stats that come up on D&DWiki appear pretty off and I don’t think are official). Might work to toss him in there with a dispel magic thrown on for kicks.
In theory. In practice, since he doesn’t get to decide, he’ll throw out two voles and a bat before it’s out of charges for the day.
As I recall from the Tarquin Dinosaur Battle, an allosaurus would have no way of getting past a vampire’s innate damage resistance so while Bloodfeast could soak the death symbol damage, he’d ultimately be taking one for the team since he wouldn’t be able to do anything afterwards.
Only when it serves a humorous purpose.
As for using 50 or so small woodland creatures as disposable fodder, I don’t expect Roy will do that. We’ll leave that to someone from the deeper end of the alignment pool.
The Symbol of Death could be removed by someone casting a GDM, but they would have to get within view of it. Which ideally would be from more than its range (60 feet), and that may be part of the reason Durkula inscribed it on the ceiling. The caster would have to get inside the room to be within view, which would put them closer than the range. Well that plus the fact that Durkon* expects it to be triggered when the Order looks up to see the spawn dropping down on them.
Anyway, I expect the Symbol to not be a problem as much as whatever other preparations Team Vamp has come up with.
Shouldn’t it be “hardiness” (implying a generally strong constitution and good state of health), rather than “heartiness” (which connotes a generalized feeling of goodwill and friendliness)?
(panel 5, Vaarsuvius’s speech bubble)
Scrying it puts them within view of it, doesn’t it? Have Elan cast GDM from the other side of the scrying pool.
There was this. Those four creatures were clearly going to fall to their deaths. And their deaths didn’t serve any purpose. Roy was just tossing them out in hopes of finding the creature he wanted.
Looking at the SRD for Dispel Magic, there’s not any explicit requirement for the target to be within view. Some spells do have that requirement, and I’m somewhat surprised this one doesn’t. However, there is a range limit and currently the Order is probably not within that. So in theory, Elan could cast a GDM from outside the hall, but I don’t expect that.
Neither the Symbol nor GDM work through Greater Scrying.
Virtually every spell requires a line of effect, and a targeted spell (such as a GDM cast on a specific spell) requires line of sight.
Nice Spellcraft (?) check by Minrah to understand that she was looking at a Death Symbol.
Anyway, I think silenus is on the right track with his question about Bloodfeast. If the hall is big enough for a full-sized Bloodfeast to fit, is it reasonable to infer that we’ll see Bloodfeast within it in all his/her glory? Moreover, a full-sized Bloodfeast will be that much closer to the ceiling where the Symbol is inscribed, and that much more likely to get within 60 feet and set the thing off.
My thoughts on how this’ll likely happen is that one of the vampire spellcasters will lead with some form of Dispel Magic against the Order, while Bloodfeast is out of the bag. Mainly to try and get rid of any high level buffs, especially Fire-Protection ones, in order to dissuade V from just flambeeing the entire room. If that happens, and the Dispel is of the area effect type, then, from the SRD, it:
I am guessing that Miron, who cast the Polymorph on Bloodfeast, was a higher level than V or Hilgya, so whatever buffs V/Hilgya/Minrah cast, the Polymorph will be the first thing to go. Assuming the Dispel check works.
So, Bloodfeast gets hit with a Dispel, regains its form, which triggers the Symbol: now what? Assuming adult Allosaurs are close enough to T. Rexes in stats, Bloodfeast will have 180 hp or so and 18 hit dice. Too many for the Symbol to affect. However, if Bloodfeast takes a few slam attacks—with two negative levels per attack (and 5 HP loss per negative level), plus whatever physical damage caused by the slam—it’s not too hard to imagine the Extreme-inator getting below 150 HP in a hurry, and thus being susceptible to the Symbol.
An interesting question, borrowed from the GITP forums, is what counts as “it has affected 150 hit points’ worth of creatures,” for the Symbol. Do creatures forced to make a Fortitude save count as creatures affected by the Symbol, given that the spell description says “Fortitude negates”, and the spell Saving Throw description says,
Does a spell affect a creature when the spell had no effect on them? I can see it going both ways.
I really like Johnny Bravo’s suggestion on how to handle it too. A bonus over spending an action just Dispelling the Symbol is that an Insect Swarm/Plague is going have more than 150 hp of critters in it and the overflow could affect other opponents. Damage reduction and a lack of susceptibility to nausea and poison are going to mean that the Swarm won’t do anything to vampires, but it’s a neat trick if the other opponents weren’t undead.
Isn’t it great to again have updates we can discuss?
Barring errata that says otherwise, my armchair ruling would be that the symbol would still count the vampires towards its 150 hit point total.
My reasoning is the wording of the Finger of Death spell, which specifies that it may **only **targets living creatures.
Symbol of Death has no such stipulation. It only says “150 hit points worth of creatures.”
Undead are immune to death magic, but being immune to something and being immune to being targeted by that something are two different things. The death symbol would target the vampires, bounce off of them, and those hitpoints would count against its total.
That’s my outsider rule lawyer analysis. If I were running a game and wanted a vampire ambush to include a Symbol of Death, I wouldn’t let the above interpretation stop me from finding a way (custom metamagic, custom version of the spell, whatever) to make it happen.
When you cast Symbol you can attune it so that it doesn’t affect nominated people.
Yes, my post is assuming we’re talking about unattuned undead.
That’s what I thought, but I’m not a player and wasn’t sure. And wasn’t sure where in the rules to look it up.
As for Bloodfeast, he’s in a BoH. If the Polymorph on him gets dispelled, won’t he have some major problem? Or will it only affect him if he’s out of the Bag?
Something I only just noticed: That bowl they’re using? It’s Minrah’s helmet.
I can’t imagine that she’s too pleased about her helmet being used to hold a bunch of Anarchic Water.
Am I correct in understanding that Baleful Polymorph is a permanent spell? It’s not a spell that wears off after a certain amount of time? I’m assuming Bloodfeast isn’t going to autmatically revert back to his full size at some point.
You are correct, sir.
Can it be disspelled or otherwise reversed?
I don’t play 3.5, and haven’t played D&D other than CPRGs for about a dozen years now, but I thought that, since Baleful Polymorph was a permanent effect, and not an instantaneous one like Flesh to Stone, that Dispel Magic would work to get rid of it. Dispel Magic gets rid of ongoing spells, which Polymorph would be among.
Break Enchantment would work too, since BP is a Transmutation (like the Flesh to Stone spell that Haley got zapped with in the last book), but Break Enchantment takes 10 minutes to cast. And a higher level spell than Dispel Magic to boot.
I don’t think Bloodfeast could be affected by any spells while in the Bag of Holding, given, IIRC, the contents are on another (micro)-plane of existence entirely. Then again, I see the Order throwing him out of the bag in a large room like the banquet hall, and using all the help they can get.
Interestingly, I wonder if, should Bloodfeast die, whether Belkar will have a Red Screen of Death, get Enraged, and whether such added rage will give enough of a boost to his Will save that he could ignore attempts to Dominate him. I think the death would also develop his character some, by showing him how it feels to have something he loves/likes taken away from him permanently. And in comparison, what all of his victims’ friends and families must have felt while he was racking up those kiloNazi evil scores.
I don’t think he’s had that feeling before, besides loosing his ability to kill while under the Justice Mark, or even when Mr. Scruffy got shot.