Just to confirm: Bloodfeast’s condition won’t go away on its own, but he would easily be restored via Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, or a variety of other related spells. Or at least, they’d have a chance of restoring him, depending on what spell was used and the power of the dispelling caster compared to Miron’s. But even if a Dispel or the like didn’t work, you could just try again. Heck, Elan could do it without even using a spell, via a Song of Freedom (which works like Break Enchantment). I assume that the only reason that the Order hasn’t already is because dire allosauri aren’t very airship-portable anyway.
Problem is, one of the Narrative Laws is that, if you explain the plan on screen (or on panel), it will go wrong.
We’ve just seen the group using a scrye spell to see what the vampires are doing. This makes me wonder if the vampires are doing the same. Taunt Roy into making an attack and then immediately cast a scrye spell to listen in as they plan that attack.
If that’s the case, Elan’s line serves as foreshadowing. The vampires will have a counter ready for the planned attack. So the real attack will end up being whatever the group is able to improvise after their pre-planned attack falls apart.
Sounds good, but… wouldn’t they see the vampires scrying, too?
Though I suppose that it needn’t be not-Durkon doing the scrying. Not-Gontor is probably high enough level for that, too, and he could be deliberately staying far enough away from not-Durkon to be out of the field of view on him. Meanwhile, the party is foolishly leaving Mr. Scruffy quite near to them, so anyone scrying on Mr. Scruffy (who has almost no chance of making the Will save) will see all of them.
Also, there’s no reason why Durkevil wouldn’t attempt overkill. He’s had ample prep time after all. Why not cast 2 death symbols for example?
It had not occurred to me until now that Roy was the only lawful member of Oots. It makes him a good comic foil.
5k gold pieces apiece of powdered diamond and opal for each Death Symbol. Greg* had the powdered diamond that the Order was saving to Rez Durkon, and I guess taking over a Dwarven kingdom has its benefits when it comes to finding powdered gemstones, but 10 grand is 10 grand.
Curious to see how Burlew subverts Roy’s planning. And I was expecting some sort of “Get on my level” pun to go along with the ‘if he knows that we know he knows…’ bit. Maybe the ‘levelling’ term for that sort of mental jousting is just used in poker, I dunno.
Well, currently he is. Durkon is also Lawful (both before & after undeath otherwise the wand wouldn’t do any good)
At the risk of being boring, I don’t see much planning to subvert so far. Tapping the party with the wand mainly means that we don’t have to watch Haley and Elan fight with their eyes closed the whole time and Death Warding V means V can actually be in the fight instead of getting rush-ganked on Round One. From a narrative standpoint, this seems more like “Explain how the whole party can actually be in the fight” than a fine clockwork plan like, say, when the Order successfully routed Tarquin & Co.
According to the good folks at GitP, “Protection from ___” spells ward you against mind control no matter what the alignment of your opponent is.
[Carson]I did not know that[/Carson]
I suppose it was just bad coincidence for Belkar that his amulet is Protection from Evil then. I naturally assumed that the “…from Evil” part was mandatory and thus why Belkar accepted the ouchies for the protection.
However, Durkon was (at least) Lawful in life, even if he isn’t now.
I liked that Blackwing made sure to mention that V needed some restoration. Looking out for his HP sugar-parent.
Protection from _____ has a few effects. The anti-mind-control is the most important, and that works regardless of alignment, but it will also prevent bodily contact by non-chaotic creature summoned creatures (both clerics and vampires have some summoning ability), as well as giving a +2 to saves and AC vs. lawful opponents, which will also come in handy. And while it’s never been explicitly stated that not-Durkon is still Lawful, it’s pretty strongly implied, so both of those last two benefits will be relevant.
The biggest limitation is that it only lasts for one minute per level, and wands are usually made at the lowest level possible for a spell. This one might have been made at a higher level, just to get a more useful duration, but it wouldn’t be out of the question for not-Durkon and his crew to just stall for the few minutes needed. Oh, and being cast from a low-level wand also means that it’d be really easy to dispel it. And it’d be pretty much standard tactics for a cleric to lead off with an area dispel against his opponents, in a situation like this.
Perhaps the storekeeper assumed that Evil folk would be the ones most likely to be messing with your mind? And then Belkar didn’t want to admit being Evil in front of her, so he was stuck with it.
Overwhelmingly Protection from Evil is the one that good folk want, given Evil’s disproportionate tendency to attack people minding their own business :).
Also, current issue reminded me that extinguishing Oots is not the primary goal. Serving Mistress Hel’s evil plan is. And that has many obstacles and moving parts, of which Oots is only one.
The pieces are set, and battle is about to begin. Will the Order spot that two are missing?
Some on the other forum were thinking that strip 1111 would be something special. So much for that idea.
I don’t get the final punchline.
It’s been a running joke in the series that important characters get names and background characters are just identified by their role.