Hilgya would have gotten a second saving throw when ordered to hand over the kid, and she failed again? That’s seriously stretching the odds.
I’m guessing this whole sequence is going to require putting your D&D rules brain away and just accepting it for the narrative.
Elan should have gotten a save attempt when commanded to attack Roy (who he idolizes) although Elan blowing a Will save is a lot more probable 
Is that what we’re calling explosive diarrhea and/or vomit? We know Durkevil has an aversion to biological byproducts and their odors.
He doesn’t breathe (except when he’s trying to fool a blindfolded cleric). How is he supposed to notice how anything smells?
Meh. I’ve seen games with 4 crits in a row. When dealing with a game like this, even the improbable is going to happen.
I’d bet on something wonky with the app (it happens to me too, playing the Baldur’s Gate series of games. Sometimes, the RNG gets into a snit.)
Someone at the GITP forums pointed out that, even if you accept that a high level cleric can blow a Will save, why on Earth would you waste a standard action trying to Dominate them? A rational opponent would never waste the time trying to do it, if you needed the subject to roll a 1 or a 2 for your attempt to work.
I’m just going with it at this point: Burlew needed the action to go this way, in order for Greg’s inner dialogue with Durkon to have any meaning. I mean, from a strictly D&D tactics discussion, shouldn’t the Order absolutely roll a bunch of vampires at their level? Even if a lot of the vampires have cleric levels, and as horribly unoptimized as the Order is? V at least should have been wrecking shop with Disintegrate and Quickened Fireballs or Quickened Dispels, and Hilgya should have been able to send most of the vamp spawn running back at the vampires with a well-timed Rebuke/Turn. Or Firestorm the area, I’m not picky. The Order are what? 15-16 levels each, with one of their number packing a plus-infinity sword made for whacking undead? And they’re currently beaten down to the point where authorial fiat is going to be what likely keeps them around?
So we’re clearly at a point in the story where the rules are at best, kinda sorta guiding the plot, but certainly don’t mandate a given course of action. I agree with Chronos: giving your kid to the guy you hate, who is also a vampire, seems like it’d trigger a new save against the effect.
Hopefully the new update won’t also take almost three weeks to post.
Missed the Edit. I think I may have said it before, but AIUI the strip isn’t mean to be a faithful re-telling of D&D 3.5 rules. Even if the way the DM was screwing you in the game might have caused you to quit, or at least do a whole lot of eyerolling, if this were a tabletop campaign.
Well, in a world where a Will Save is an acknowledged thing, it seems legitimate to wonder about it in this context.
So, if we’re going by the rules (and clearly we’re not), how long do you figure Hilgya and Kudzu would have to live inside that Anti-Life Shell?
I can see Hilgya resisting the initial casting of the spell when she regarded Durkula as an enemy. But once she failed her will check and the spell took effect, she no longer saw him as an enemy. So when he asked her to hand over Kudzu to him, would she have resisted it? If he had asked her to throw Kudzu down a flight of stairs, she would have resisted; that’s an act you’d resist even if a trusted person asked you to do it. But if that trusted person (even if the trust is imposed) asks to hold your child, you’d accept that as a harmless request.
Indefinitely. It just blocks living things from passing through it but it doesn’t actively harm living things inside it. It’s usually cast by living priests after all.
Unless this is Part One of a three part plan based around the Shell, I guess Durkon is just using Kudzu as a human (dwarven) shield from the sword throws and keeping anyone from removing Kudzu by blocking them the Shell.
We’ve already seen how Hilgya reacts to allies trying to take away her baby. She really doesn’t like it. And domination doesn’t make you like the caster; that’s charm. Domination makes how you feel about the caster irrelevant (except when you get to situations like forcing new saves).
Okay then. I’ll admit I’m not up on D&D lore. I was going by the things Elan is saying: he seems convinced that Durkula is a great guy.
So, this donation of 25,00 GP… that’s the price of a rez, right? She was trying to have her husband brought back?
Elan was no doubt ordered to convince Roy to stop fighting the vampires, so you can assume everything he says is false. Hilarious, but don’t believe a word of it.
That’s the cost of the diamonds used in a True Resurrection spell. Those are destroyed when it’s cast, so if that’s what the 25,000 gp was for, it shouldn’t be considered a donation. Clerics usually charge a fee for that spell which I’m given to understand is over 1300 gp.
Ordinarily, the cost to have a spell cast is 10 GP * the spell’s level * the caster’s level, plus the cost of any expensive components. True Resurrection is a 9th-level spell which requires a 17th-level caster, so that would be 1530 GP for the service, plus the diamonds. With as well-respected as Sidgi and her husband were, the cleric would probably waive the 1530, but you can’t waive the diamonds.
But I don’t think that’s it. Rich is on record as strongly disliking the True Resurrection spell, as it ruins narratives by making death too easy to reverse (and not just deaths of the main characters: Why not bring back all of the greatest heroes of the past two centuries to help you save the world?).
So this is a reach, but:
a) Durkon’s choosing this memory to show;
b) True resurrection works on those turned into undead and then destroyed; and
c) Durkon’s the subject of prophecies, and maybe his mom interpreted the prophecies correctly and made preparations.
In 1123. Durkula gave a general command “Now Roy. Take him down.” Haley, Hilgya, and Elan all attacked Roy at that point.
For those who complain that the story wanders around and there’s a lot of pointless padding, I’ll point out that what appeared to be a throwaway scene is now shown to have had an important plot point.
I wonder if anyone’s found the runic font the Giant used in that panel, and transcribed the names.