The Order of the Stick Megathread

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Odjn

Vampire doesn't, half dragon doesn't, and sea trolls according to memory are just aquatic trolls, who take damage from non fire and acid and need to be in water to regenerate.

Hint: Being a vampire gives you undead type. Double hint: Undead are immune to subdual.
Also sea trolls are just trolls with swim speed. this is important as vampires with a swim speed don't have the water restrictions of normal vampires. These last two bits don't apply in 3.5 but 3.5 also didn't have a cr 8 creature with dc 36 poison that does 2d6 dex drain on a +23 bite attack that also does 4d6+10 damage so fuck 3.5

[Odjn]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Hint: Being a vampire gives you undead type.
Also sea trolls are just trolls with swim speed. this is important as vampires with a swim speed don't have the water restrictions of normal vampires.

That's just cheese. But to be fair, they should get a disruption weapon and rape your silly undead vampire ass.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Odjn

That's just cheese. But to be fair, they should get a disruption weapon and rape your silly undead vampire ass.

With that many templates all your saves are out the wazooo.
And it was supposed to be a stupid creature. But no more stupid that Colossal centipedes!

Back on topic: Blade Barrier is such an inherentely ridiculous spell. Like you're hurting someone with magic, why does it need to make swords? Surely there is a lot of wasted effort there tomake all these physical objects.

[Osterbaum]

But it's way cooler than "Barrier of colourless, inanimate energy that hurts you".

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by Odjn

What granted the subdual immunity? Vampire doesn't...

This is what I was wondering, but I think he's reading it that the Undead status grants immunity to subdual damage. According to Pg 317 MM (3.5) Undead grants immunity to non-lethal damage, and since anything other than acid and fire aren't viable, and it's immune to fire, that pretty much just leaves acid. It's a kind of creature (using RAW) that is a kill-only. Undead are immune to mind-affecting affects and subdual damage. That said:

Scrag (Sea Troll) - can only regenerate "if mostly immersed" in water
Vampire - can't enter running water or sunlight or else it is destroyed

The vampire weaknesses mean that the Troll's regneration is virtually worthless outside of the ocean, a lake, pond, or self-made water container and, if the GM is literal and understands oceanography, even the ocean and large lakes can be dangerous (leaving small ponds and self-made water containers). The vampy could accidentally swim into any sort of underwater flow (including tidal surges and pulls, undertow, etc) and lose its rather tremendous regeneration to three-round imminant distruction.

Really, if you force it into its (presumably underwater) coffin and hit it with a Control Water spell to create the whirlpool effect I think you can - I'd have to look it up - you've got it in three rounds. Destroying its coffin, heck even summoning and trapping it in a daylight-infused area, turning it, rebuking it, all are valid means of ending its menace forever. By the way, I hope that water (where the coffin presumably is) doesn't get turned into Holy Water by a cleric or something while you're away. Now that it's undead it's even subject to the Command (or Control, I can't remember right now) Undead spells, not to mention all its other stuff it has to worry about now, like holy symbols. Vampire is a mixed blessing at best in 3.X. A regular troll would usually be better for that build, and better still an ogre mage. Far more than vampire, however, I'd've recommended lichdom... like Xykonthis totally on-topic reference I made!

EDIT: Hey, ninja'd by both Smarty and Odjin!

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

With that many templates all your saves are out the wazooo.

Why? Good stats rarely make up for exceedingly heavy Leval Adjustment Penalties and with that many templates its CR should be very, very high compared to its HD anyway.

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Back on topic: Blade Barrier is such an inherentely ridiculous spell. Like you're hurting someone with magic, why does it need to make swords? Surely there is a lot of wasted effort there tomake all these physical objects.

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

But it's way cooler than "Barrier of colourless, inanimate energy that hurts you".

Yeah, but also it could have had color, or really been called anything except a bunch of limited-duration physical objects that are conjured into a form imitating spinning whirling stab/slash weapons which have no wielder and don't function in any way like the weapons they are physically imitating. It's just kinda stupid, as spells go. Why not call upon divine force, or really anything that fills a similar function but doesn't create highly inefficient pointless weapons. Similarly: Spiritual Weapon.I mean seriously - what's the justification for a deity to waste that much energy to create a similulcrum of a weapon instead of actually granting the cleric a divinely focused repeatable assault? "Because I like to hit things this way"? 3.X had some strange hold-overs from previous editions (favored weapons being one)...

[Professor Smarmiarty]

It was made in 3.0 where aquatic trolls were just trolls with swim speed (they regenerate everywhere and it's still fire and acid) and having a natural swim speed on a vampire meant the vampire didn't have its water traits.

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

But it's way cooler than "Barrier of colourless, inanimate energy that hurts you".

If by way cooler you mean more stupid! It's a wall made of swords- that's so dumb!

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

But it's way cooler than "Barrier of colourless, inanimate energy that hurts you".

I disagree, I think a whirling field of magical energy that shreds anything that goes through it is cooler.

Of course both are stupid when if you really dont want someone to go through it you should just make an actual barrier/wall

[Jagos]

I thought that required more prereqs...

[Loyal]

Does it really take so much more energy to summon up a four-inch thick slab of concrete than it takes to summon four dozen magically animated blades?

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by Aerozord

I disagree, I think a whirling field of magical energy that shreds anything that goes through it is cooler.

Of course both are stupid when if you really dont want someone to go through it you should just make an actual barrier/wall

I agree with your disagreement! Also, it's probably more effective, but not necessarily easier than creating that whirling field of magical energy. Since "Magic", in DnD seems to be a nigh-omnipresent ever-ready hard-to-nigh-impossible-to-drain energy field, it seems that simply transfering small parcels of that energy to barely unified destructive impulses would be far easier (and more effective) than summoning whirling blades).

Originally Posted by Loyal

Does it really take so much more energy to summon up a four-inch thick slab of concrete than it takes to summon four dozen magically animated blades?

Yes and no. Technically a solid slab of concrete would take more initial energy (to convert to more mass) than spontaneously creating a bunch of spinning blades, however maintaining that spin in air-friction environment and continuing to fight the forces of gravity whilst keeping them in a relatively geosynchranous orbit in the same aerospace coordinates (relatively speaking) while ensuring that they do their intended purpose is far, far too much calculation and probably a larger energy out-put in the end. No, a stone (or force) wall is much more efficient. And a lower level spell too, I think.

EDIT: 'Course, as Xykon proved, arcane power is highly arbitrary.