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Rennej posted:Except for the fact that he intentionally killed all of those dragons. The examples you posed were accidental kills or incidental kills, not direct "I'm going to murder every single member of your family." kills. Yeah. It's more like loosing a cloudkill spell into a primary school than it is setting off an avalanche; it's a direct extension of her magical prowess that has killed these things, not an immediate (albeit planned) side effect of something else. The difference in power here is probably also like cloudkilling a bunch of grade school kids, come to think it.
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Mar 20, 2009 20:21
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In nethack you don't get any XP for genociding a species, so I think the same rule applies here. I'm pretty sure the spell is called "Familycide" because genocide is not a very good word to use and implies horrible things.
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Mar 20, 2009 20:22
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tripwood posted:In nethack you don't get any XP for genociding a species, so I think the same rule applies here. I'm pretty sure the spell is called "Familycide" because genocide is not a very good word to use and implies horrible things. ...no, I'm pretty sure the spell is called "Familycide" because it kills the target's family.
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Mar 20, 2009 20:24
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Shavnir posted:Really just depends. Normal levels go 1-20 but epic rules allow for 21 and onwards. Right now V is rocking like 70+ levels worth of spellcasters which is to say on par with the combat (but not divine) potential of a lot of lesser gods. Depending on how you read the splice description, he may have had all of their daily spells, feats, skills and caster levels added to his own. That's gamebreakingly powerful, even for a level 70+ character. Pierson posted:How powerful is a level 16 PC in comparison to your average adventuring dude in any other setting?
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Mar 20, 2009 20:51
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Level 16, appropriately enough, is about the level where non-spellcasters stop contributing to the party success in any meaningful manner. Note that the only thing that was a meaningful challenge to Suvie pre-splice was not a dragon, but a spellcasting dragon. Remember all those monsters giving all those paladins and that bard such trouble? A spellcaster regarded them as, at worst, a momentary distraction from their studies. Then all the melee types run off to the Character Optimization boards to catch up in power, spellcasters follow them to see what they're all talking about, and the problem exacerbates.
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Mar 20, 2009 21:02
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Jesus Christ. This story started out boring with people saying they'd skip it in the trades to quite possibly the single most awesome story I've seen in this or any comic
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Mar 20, 2009 21:07
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Mystic Mongol posted:
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Mar 20, 2009 21:10
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Nilbop posted:This always fell apart for me when I considered that the universe contained a narrative law that meant evil creatures will grow up to be evil creatures due to their alignment. Otherwise what's the point of the alignment? Goblins don't have the alignment "Always Chaotic Evil", so they aren't guaranteed to grow up that way. They're "Often Chaotic Evil", which means about 60% of them are or so. Pretty much no intelligent humanoid creature in D&D has anything more than "Often" in their alignment line in 3.5.
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Mar 20, 2009 21:39
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Ashenai posted:...no, I'm pretty sure the spell is called "Familycide" because it kills the target's family. So define a "family" then. If taken broad enough, it means the entire race and/or subrace. It's only a spellname anyway, he could have named it "Varsuvius' major rear end-loving" and the same thing would have happened.
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Mar 20, 2009 21:56
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If by broadly you mean not according to its actual definition, yes.
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Mar 20, 2009 22:10
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Halloween Jack posted:If by broadly you mean not according to its actual definition, yes. The dragon said the one V originally killed was her "only son," so either it's got one hell of an extended family or that spell used "family" in the biological sense, i.e., the entire subdivision of dragons.
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Mar 20, 2009 22:38
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Oxxidation posted:The dragon said the one V originally killed was her "only son," so either it's got one hell of an extended family or that spell used "family" in the biological sense, i.e., the entire subdivision of dragons. Maybe all the dragons that just died were her daughters. Did you think of that, smarty-pants? 
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Mar 20, 2009 22:45
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I'd say my dad is part of my family and his brother too and his son aswell..
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Mar 20, 2009 22:46
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I think the phrase "Family Tree" is appropriate for the target, here. Edit: Also, considering how long dragons live (and that they become more competent, durable, and healthy with age), I would say they very likely would have a hell of an extended family.
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Mar 20, 2009 22:47
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tripwood posted:So define a "family" then. If taken broad enough, it means the entire race and/or subrace. It's only a spellname anyway, he could have named it "Varsuvius' major rear end-loving" and the same thing would have happened. You don't think the Giant might have named it "Familicide" partly to give readers an idea about how it worked? No I bet that's too easy, I think we definitely need to debate whether it's actually a genocide spell but he just didn't want to use the word "Genocide." Also I have a new theory, I think V's delay blast fireball spell was actually a radioactive nuclear strike and it was only called Delayed Blast Fireball because the Giant wanted to be sensistive to the families of Hiroshima victims. I'm really starting to understand why the Giant hates his fanbase. I think I'll go back to enjoying the comics and not reading threads about them. You guys scare me a little bit.
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Mar 20, 2009 22:51
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It's actually a fair question. We tend to think of families being limited in size, but a large part of that is because its really hard to backtrack and follow all the extended branches. If you're a dragon, you live thousands of years and you have a pretty dizzying intellect. It's possible that dragons would be able to track their entire family lines, particularly if you're in some kind of campaign setting where they have a common origin (Tiamat). In game terms I'd probably just say that whenever the spell kills someone, it jumps to their direct relations (parent/child/sibling). Every time it jumps the DC drops by some amount, and when someone saves versus the spell, it prevents it jumping any further. Seems like it would handle the issue without getting too philosophical.
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Mar 20, 2009 22:54
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Oxxidation posted:The dragon said the one V originally killed was her "only son," so either it's got one hell of an extended family or that spell used "family" in the biological sense, i.e., the entire subdivision of dragons.
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Mar 21, 2009 00:21
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Ashenai posted:I'm really starting to understand why the Giant hates his fanbase. I think I'll go back to enjoying the comics and not reading threads about them. You guys scare me a little bit. Lighten the gently caress up, I'm just trying to entertain myself here. Your post made me laugh, which is pretty much what's best expected in these threads. Thanks for posting.
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Mar 21, 2009 01:31
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You know it's a good strip when you come back after half a day and theres like 64 new posts. I really hope they don't go the Fallout way as in "Oh V you saved us but because of what you became we can't take you back. Sorry"
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Mar 21, 2009 02:05
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ShadowCatboy posted:I want to see the Kobold oracle's reaction to this. He gets his powers from Tiamat, so she should be losing her poo poo and as the world's major precog he may be taking the brunt of her rage. Given how the Kobold Oracle was trying to hint Roy into changing his question over Xykon, I can see him trying at least as hard, if not harder, to do the same for the dragon. "...Are you sure you want to ask that question? You'll get your vengeance, but it will go badly for you. Extremely, unbelievably badly for you..." "If I get my vengeance, nothing else matters. Answer my question." What I suspect will happen is that an Epic-level use of Necromancy over an Elven Village will draw a boatload of attention (even without the worldwide pink lightning), and a number of reasonably-powerful First Responders will show up in short order, probably including V's master. V will probably kill them in front of his family, have a Moment of Doubt as he sees their horrified faces, and flee. I'm probably wrong, but I'd like to see a resolution to this that leaves Vaarsuvius' family alive, both as people he can never see again thanks to his deal, and because in this strip it is written across the sky that family members are acceptable targets in the pursuit of the continuing vendetta. Edit: Also, this seems like it would be an infamous spell. I wonder if there are Elves (or others) still alive who have witnessed this spell cast by its original caster, and might show up in short order? maltesh fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Mar 21, 2009 |
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Mar 21, 2009 02:08
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Ehh, I'm sorta expecting V to use her new-found magicks to achieve the goal that he has been spending the last few months trying to achieve - the reuniting of the party.
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Mar 21, 2009 05:20
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Cabbit posted:The thought occurs to me that if there is a wizard who can erase my whole bloodline with one spell, and he comes in pulling that poo poo on my next door neighbor, I'm probably going to not go picking a fight with him next! I dunno, but i'm pretty sure Tiamat is going to be pissed as hell. Maybe i'm wrong but it would be kinda retarded if she wasn't.
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Mar 21, 2009 06:38
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What's bugging me is that I can't figure out if it's pronounced FAM-ill-ih-side or fam-ILL-ih-side.
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Mar 21, 2009 06:44
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come to think of it, in the OLLLD D&D lore Tiamat actually guards the uppermost level of the abyss. I wonder if that's relevant to these dudes trying to stop the blood war.
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Mar 21, 2009 06:49
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Blobone posted:What's bugging me is that I can't figure out if it's pronounced FAM-ill-ih-side or fam-ILL-ih-side. I'd say fa-MILL-ih-side, because that uses the same enunciation pattern as "familiar".
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Mar 21, 2009 06:50
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happyelf posted:come to think of it, in the OLLLD D&D lore Tiamat actually guards the uppermost level of the abyss. I wonder if that's relevant to these dudes trying to stop the blood war. You mean Baator? Or did she used to guard the Abyss and they moved her there?
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Mar 21, 2009 08:00
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Idran posted:You mean Baator? Or did she used to guard the Abyss and they moved her there? In the oldest D&D Lore, Tiamat was just a big ugly named dragon to be found in a deep dungeon, just like many of the other named-but-basically-kibble monsters... Lloth springs to mind, as well as several Slaad lords that I kind of wish had been promoted to later editions of D&D. All this was before Baator, I believe.
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Mar 21, 2009 08:46
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Hmmh. If this Tiamat character actually is the direct ancestor of all black dragons, wouldn't this spell actually strike at her directly as well?
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Mar 21, 2009 11:49
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V. Illych L. posted:Hmmh. If this Tiamat character actually is the direct ancestor of all black dragons, wouldn't this spell actually strike at her directly as well? God, not ancestor.
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Mar 21, 2009 13:24
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Even if she is susceptible, she has like twice the fort save of any black dragon and is probably just immune to things like this.
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Mar 21, 2009 14:02
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Nilbop posted:God, not ancestor. Depends on what you're using for your creation myth. In DragonLance, she (there called Takhisis) and Paladine effectively made them. In generic D&D, was originally just a big, bad dragon. Later became a god.
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Mar 21, 2009 14:03
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Caerulius posted:Even if she is susceptible, she has like twice the fort save of any black dragon and is probably just immune to things like this. Epic spells can potentially circumvent immunities like that, but yeah, even then she could probably shrug it off. Even assuming not especially extended families there are probably only so many black dragons in a given setting. Not hard to think that V just slaughtered a decent percentage of this world's population of them. I personally would say that killing half a dozen or more dragons would be enough to start raising divine patron eyebrows, this seems like something that would pretty much have to catch Tiamat's attention.
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Mar 21, 2009 14:33
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Is it bad that I just noticed this? Varsuvius
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Mar 21, 2009 14:40
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Donraj posted:Even assuming not especially extended families there are probably only so many black dragons in a given setting. Not hard to think that V just slaughtered a decent percentage of this world's population of them. I personally would say that killing half a dozen or more dragons would be enough to start raising divine patron eyebrows, this seems like something that would pretty much have to catch Tiamat's attention. Yeah. Even just taking that strip into account, the number of dragons being shown getting struck dead on panel is roughly equal to the number of total dragons in some settings. The sheer number of possible consequences for this is pretty staggering, particularly after the soul splice ends. While V is still rocking the Triforce there, he's probably capable of handling anything short of a god, but once it ends...
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Mar 21, 2009 15:21
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I'm just going to invoke Occams +3 Vorpal Razor here and assume that this wasn't genocide, and just hit this dragons immediate family and their descendents. Given that this dragon WAS full grown, and thus very old, that probably encompasses a very large number. I doubt it'd go back infinitely and wipe out all black dragons, merely this particular branch of the family tree. Maybe prune some twigs off adjacent ones as well. Still, while this was an evil act, they were also inherently evil creatures that got bumped off. If this was Eberron or some other less vanilla setting, there's be more chance of some of those dragons being good, but this seems to be a pretty classic-style setting. Dragons, being highly magical creatures, are inherently locked into their alignments. Unless defined otherwise that is. Which, seeing this storyline, they may well be.
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Mar 21, 2009 16:21
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Dominic White posted:Occams +3 Vorpal Razor Vorpal requires at least +5.
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Mar 21, 2009 16:22
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Commissar Lord posted:Vorpal requires at least +5. The funny thing is, I had typed +5 then second-guessed myself and nerfed it to +3. And this is why I'd be a terrible DM.
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Mar 21, 2009 16:23
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Dominic White posted:Unless defined otherwise that is. Which, seeing this storyline, they may well be. Well, it has been stated that dragons are "color coded for your convenience!", so I guess the colored=evil shiny=good chart still applies.
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Mar 21, 2009 17:08
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Now here's a tough D&D moral question - if it's bad to kill black dragons en-masse with a spell, even if they're inherently evil, would it be equally evil to destroy all demons currently existing on the mortal plane in a similar fashion? In both cases, you're merely destroying the physical form in one plane, and letting them reside on another in spectral form (afterlife for dragons, whichever of the hells it is for the demons). Unless you're utterly destroying them outright, in which case... Yeah, it's messy. D&D morality is so full of pure good and pure evil actions/creatures that it creates a lot of bizarre grey areas of its own.
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Mar 21, 2009 17:15
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Dominic White posted:Now here's a tough D&D moral question - if it's bad to kill black dragons en-masse with a spell, even if they're inherently evil, would it be equally evil to destroy all demons currently existing on the mortal plane in a similar fashion? In both cases, you're merely destroying the physical form in one plane, and letting them reside on another in spectral form (afterlife for dragons, whichever of the hells it is for the demons). Unless you're utterly destroying them outright, in which case... It depends. In some cases if you destroy a demon, it just goes back to the Abyss then can planeshift to the mortal realm again whenever it wants. In some fiction the demon can't come back for 100 years. Either way, destroying all Demons on the mortal plane would be without a doubt one of the greater good acts one could pull off. Demons don't have kids or anything close to feelings of love or care for other beings as even Black Dragons show some compassion for their children. If somebody somehow pulled off a mass kill spell on all or a lot of the black dragons in the world, I say it was good or evil depending on the reason they did it. V obviously did it to make sure her/his family is protected from further revenge. I'm sure some genocidial glee was latched onto though. end sperg rant. e: i haven't played d&d in like 2 years 
crime fighting hog fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Mar 21, 2009 |
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Mar 21, 2009 17:46
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