Why doesn’t the Chaos Hammer affect V? Supposedly it affects the lawful, and I think V is. Is it an “enemies only” spell? Also, no one was trying to debuff the mage? As I recall from Baldur’s Gate, the first thing you do when you’re up against an enemy mage is to spam various counterspells against the buffs until you get to the soft chewy center.
I like that the chaos hammer has a rainbow sound effect. Just how effective might it have been? The vamps say it hurt, but how much?
So were the animals from the bag of tricks likewise teleported away or just plain snuffed?
V’s True Neutral by Word of God. The spell only does 5d8 against the Lawful, Will save for 1/2. It does half damage if you’re Neutral. So, probably about 6 points of damage.
What I thought was interesting, until I looked at the math, was that Stoneskin was as effective as it was in tanking damage from 6 Spawn laying Slam attacks on V. 10 points per attack DR, when the Spawn can only do something like 1d6 damage, soaks up a lot of pain. It certainly helps being Warded against the negative levels the Spawn can inflict.
That said, yeah, a successful Dispel against V and s/he’ll be in a world of hurt. But I guess it’s a lot harder to get one to work against a 15th level (16 caster level with the Ioun stone) Invoker in 3.5 that it was in Baldur’s Gate. SCS/Tactics running or not.
Yeah, Xykon was really effective against the upgraded V once Red Cloak told him to use dispells.
Failed Edit: EDIT: As the Dwarves are all Lawful, and vamping only adds “Evil” to their alignment, Chaos Hammer is a decent spell to bring the pain. Especially if you know they’re Protected against Fire. 5d8 against them deals on average 22-23 HP of damage, with a failed Will save, and Spawn only have 29 on average. Plus they get Slowed for 1-6 rounds. Belkar should be able to dice them up like sushi, or Roy could burn a round Great Cleaving them a la the mummies in the pyramid.
EDIT: The summoned critters all got wiped. And I guess go then back to whichever plane was their original home. I did like the forum theory that one or more of the riders was a disguised/polymorphed/illusionary Elan or Haley, but that would have been really silly.
It is good strategy to keep her as much under wraps as possible until you have to fully reveal. Introducing an unknown factor as low-to-moderate level is intriguing and confusing, but still leaves the opportunity to surprise with the big guns later for full impact.
V is Neutral.
Edit: Ninjaed, dammit! 
It may have been a 5th level spell - there is some debate. But she’s already used at least one of her big gun 7th level spells, Restoration.
Restoration is only fourth-- You’re thinking of Greater Restoration. Greater Scrying, however, is a 7th.
And Gray Ghost is referring to the Chaos Hammer, not to the Summon Giraffes.
Huh. I wonder what the debate is? It’s level 4, Chaos domain in the SRD. Is there some sort of metamagic hijinks going on? EDIT: Or, what Chronos said, above. Yeah, I remember the forum debate about just what Summon Monster that was, and what it meant about her alignment, and so on for 15 pages…(shudder.)
I’d forgotten about the Restoration. So V’s 16th, casting as a 17th level caster. And Hilgya’s been throwing around summons, Greater Scrying, probably a bunch of buffs including Death Wards, and other stuff off screen. But still. I’d be surprised if Greg can’t see her walk into the doorway when she casted the Hammer, so the jigs up that the Order have a new divine caster. And if the surprise is gone, I’m just wondering why something a little meatier wasn’t used, but what she did wasn’t bad at all.
I guess my thought is a holdover from playing games like Baldur’s Gate where dog-piling the casters/bosses early and often with big stuff, lest they do it to you, was often the smart play. Total glass cannons, per the trope, but ouch! What a cannon if you didn’t disable them. And often the computer would just summon an infinite number of mooks in if you tried dealing with them instead of the boss to begin with.
Well, dogpiling the caster is exactly what Not-Durkon and his cronies are trying to do, but it isn’t working out too well for them. But yeah, not leading off with some dispelling is pretty inexcusable for them.
Just assume that the ceiling hangers all rolled high for initiative, so they get the first crack at V. None of them are casters, so they can’t dispel.
In fact, there’s a new “minor damage scuff” on V’s gown between the hammer panel and the next.
I’m ashamed to admit it took me two readings to get the “Limbo” joke.
Last panel notwithstanding, it does seem that given time to plan and knowledge of what they’re planning for, the Order can be quite effective. When was the last time they had both going into a battle?
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” – Helmuth von Moltke
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson
Oh, and V offering himself as bait reminds me of Heimlich. V’s attempt works out better, though.
This is the only one I can think of. Maybe the fight in the desert.
Uber-Geeky: initiative may have been rolled while folks heard one another but didn’t see.
Greg delays.
Ceiling-vamps ready to pounce on V.
V. readies to enter the room when the symbol is depleted.
The giraffes are summoned and go into the room. As soon as they die, V’s readied action goes off. As soon as he enters the room, the ceiling vamps’ readied actions go off.
Greg’s delay was the smart move, because it allows him to respond flexibly to the OOTS’s actions. Maybe he’ll undelay in the next comic and act.
EDIT: And this is a nice explanation for why Elan, per the GITP Forum’s speculation, didn’t just lead with Mass Cure Light Wounds to snuff outright the swarm of Vampire Spawn.
Don’t harsh their vibe, man…