I figured it out - the fire effect is a protection from evil clasp Belkar got back in 969. It’s hurting him because he’s evil, but it probably hurts less than whatever Durkula was going to do.
So it looks like Durkula is about to turn another dwarf. He must be planning to hide his thralls until an opportune moment, since he would call a lot of attention to himself if a bunch of people started turning into vampires shortly after the vampire dwarf showed up.
This still supports my “Wait until the Creed folk get their spells back and then turn the building back into a mountain with everyone inside” theory - the more of the Creed he can turn, the more chance this has of happening and the fewer unturned people to stop it.
I assume there’s a benefit to Hel to murdering the high priests of all the other gods but who knows. Mind you, my wild speculations have thus far largely been way off base, so I wouldn’t put any money on this one happening.
Well, we don’t know that Durkon turned the first Exarch guy. Also… where’s Durkon’s staff?
The fiery aura is from that amulet of Protection vs Evil that Belkar bought.
Which was supposed to block Durkon’s Domination but Durkon attacked as a wolf form (losing his Dominate ability) anyway.
Would it be safe to guess that Durkon went wolf for a faster movement rate to catch up with Belkar? Or do vampires move preternaturally fast on their own?
It’s the amulet he bought 969 It's Only His SECOND Favorite Cuisine - Giant in the Playground Games
Notice in the current comic in the 4th panel he’s touching his neck/cloak and that’s where the flame effect originates.
Wow…apparently I type really slowly.
No, vampires retain the speed of their base species.
But he’d move faster as a dire wolf? I’m just guessing since his lumbering, armored self caught up with lightly armored (and head start) Belkar.
High level cleric vampires are pretty terrifying. Belkar’s usually pretty good in a fight, and, at least in theory, has been preparing for a fight with a vampire, but Durkin thrashed him without even breaking stride.
Yeah, when you shape change, you get the movement speed of the thing you change into. Dwarves (and halflings) have a speed of 20’. (Humans and most other human-sized bipeds move at 30’.) Dire wolves have a speed of 50’.
In game mechanic terms, a character’s speed is how far they can move in one action, and each character gets two actions per turn. In one turn, Belkar can move a total of forty feet for every hundred feet the shape-changed Durkon moves.
Dire Wolves also get a free trip attack with their bite, so that helps with the pursuing too.
Oh and thanks for clarifying the Prot. Evil ammy guys, I’d clean forgotten about that.
Most dangerous monster templates with class levels quickly become ridiculous - if only because class levels in general are pretty beefy. But stuff like Illithids, vamps, various kinds of demons (free teleport at will ? Sure, why not), liches or gods help you dragons… I think the most unfair bullshit you could do to a party in the world would be a high dragon/monk X. Flurry of flying, high reach, colossal unarmed attacks with ludicrous AC that also catches your puny arrows… Put it in an antimagic zone, and that kinda spells “because no but seriously fuck all o’ y’all, that’s why”.
I’m only disagreeing in that Durkula did defeat Belkar by throwing him out the window. Assuming Belkar got something to deal with undead on his weapons? I’m sure it would have been a tough fight, given how optimized for fighting Belkar is. Of course, I haven’t looked at the numbers thread in a while.
Halflings have a speed of 20’, but Belkar specifically has a speed of 30’, due to his dip in barbarian.
mmmm… barbarian dip.
Rich has already nodded at the fact that D&D falling rules aren’t especially realistic: Elan’s Dad survived a fall from a blimp after all. So I would expect Belkar to survive.
That’s ok, since the strip is partly a parody of D&D conventions. But I’m curious: what do D&D players think about this silly game mechanic? Is it a good thing since you don’t want a 12th level character dying in a mundane fashion? Or is it bad since it extends the game beyond cinematic reality and into a cartoonish realm? (Usually: Jaws in one of the Bond films survived a fall from a large height, as did Ironman. Also there’s nothing wrong with cartoons: Bugs Bunny is high art. :D)
I’m guessing that most find the treatment a little endearing.
I think by the time you can survive a 20d6 fall consistently, there’s already plenty of shit you’re doing on a daily basis that defy even cinematic reality :). At that point, the Rogue can pretty much hide behind a blade of grass, the monk can leap 50 feet up from a standing start, the druid can chug arsenic, the ranger can track across solid, plane-flat rock… and the bard can kill people by singing at them.
I usually have a house rule that, after a certain point, falling is just instant death, with no dice rolls required, unless the player has something that could plausibly (and I have a pretty flexible definition of plausible) allow them to survive. A fall like the one Belkar just took would generally not be survivable in my games, regardless of how many hit points the character has.
I have a similar rule for falling into lava.
What’s up with Belkar in panel #9? He seems to be tripping or stumbling. Artistic license with the Protection from Evil amulet? While I can see it causing discomfort, nothing in the spell description indicates that it actually incapacitates or wounds evil creatures who are in contact with the effect.