Class and Level Geekery XVIII - Everyone's an Expert

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Originally Posted by TooSoon

The Giant has not said anything definitive about how this works, and in addressing the Hel souls issue was extremely vauge. If you can point me to a quote from him that says "Souls from every domain all fade and cannot be preserved" I will gladly recant, but I think we both know there is no such quote.

I agree, Xykon could have scrolls... which is why I said so. How he'd do it under his own power is unclear, since he has no level 7 or 9 spells available to learn the necessary spells. It could be argued that, since Xykon has five spells instead of 3 for 4th and 5th level, perhaps Xykon has bonuses or whatever to get a 4th known spell in 7th level spells, but there's no evidence to that effect. At any rate, even if he had such a spell as Plane Shift it could as easily be he just doesn't use it for acquiring XP on other planes.

To conclude: there is no reason Haerta can't be level 80 or whatever, and the assertion to the contrary was wrong.

Postscript:
The fact 1 poster added it in his stat block as "some kind of planar travel spell" means nothing. We haven't seen him do it, so it could as easily be a scroll. That entry should frankly be removed from his bio.

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Originally Posted by The giant

Because I am saying that is specifically what the afterlife does. It makes you into a cookie-cutter clone of everyone of the same alignment. It may take centuries to do so, but all the people at the top of the mountain? Completely indistinguishable from one another. Arguably, that is the purpose of the D&D afterlife—to turn flawed mortal souls into perfect alignment-batteries, through various methodologies. In the Nine Hells, they torture you until you forget everything else. In Celestia, you meditate until you renounce all worldly concerns. In Valhalla, you party until you can't remember your own name. In Limbo, the chaos drives you mad. In Mechanus, you sit in grey cubicle stamping paperwork until you are bored into oblivion. And so on and so forth.

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See this post

So the giant did say something about this. All souls decay, regardless of alignment. That's the way the afterlife works.

So please stop pretending you know the absolute truth. You don't.
If you want to prove something, give us evidence. If you want to state you opinion, mark it as an opinion.

Buying scrolls is part of WBL, which is part of the power of a character. But since I trust the curated knowledge of this thread more than you, I don't assume he needs them. He has a spell on his own.

I dunno, unless we explicitly saw him casting an interplanar travel spell on his own power, it seems legit that he used a scroll or something for his own planar travels. He should be able to afford them by the crateloads anyways.

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Originally Posted by Rogan

See this post

So the giant did say something about this. All souls decay, regardless of alignment. That's the way the afterlife works.

So please stop pretending you know the absolute truth. You don't.
If you want to prove something, give us evidence. If you want to state you opinion, mark it as an opinion.

Buying scrolls is part of WBL, which is part of the power of a character. But since I trust the curated knowledge of this thread more than you, I don't assume he needs them. He has a spell on his own.

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That quote by the Giant doesn't rule out anything I said. It could be if Gods want to preserve souls for longer than normal they don't sent them to Limbo or Valhalla, etc. It could be, since it takes "centuries", that Haerta lived thousands of years through immortality or extended lifespan, traversing planes at will, before finally being killed on the Plane of Epic Dragons "centuries" ago by an Army of the most Epic Dragons to ever live. There are plenty of possibilities that allow for her (and the other 2) to have excessive amounts of XP.

As for Xykon, we never saw him cast the spell on his own. I am amazed at the continuing double standards, based on whether an argument suits a posters position at any given time. When we literally see someone do something, people are willing to throw doubt on it as being caused by some external effect (or due to rule breaking), yet here we don't even see Xykon cast a spell, any spell, to go to another plane, but you "assume" he must have done it himself and support it being in his stat bio. Mere pages ago people were using the absolute reverse reason to claim the ABD couldn't plane shift under their own power, and it made a heck of a lot less sense for her not to be able to because she'd be stranded, but I was still like "well, look, that's my view but I admit we can't prove it". Yet here you are happy to assume the opposite. There's literally no reason it couldn't be scrolls.

We're getting to the point where one of my favorite quotes comes into play:

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Originally Posted by The Giant

It's a fictional story. It works because I say it works, and the rest of the story will be written as if it works. I, the author of the comic, am telling you that the math works out in Hel's favor no matter how you try to calculate it.

...

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

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You can assume Hareta was functionally immortal prior to her death and was one of the first souls in the world, and you can assume she was a level 35 pinnacle of arcane power if you want. However, two things are inescapably true, as per word of Giant and the bounds of DnD on a fundamental level:
1) Souls are limited in lifespan, however long that is. If energy reserves can run out during the time between worlds, then any one individual soul will lack any semblance to its original self by the end of it, if it even is distinguishable at that point.
2) There are hard limits to meaningful leveling in DnD. Going after plane after plane can land you some massive exp points, but eventually you cannot gain meaningful experience for that. Before level 30, Xykon is astonished to find a dungeon with things strong enough to give him exp. By so much as level 40, it would likely be borderline impossible to get exp on any plane we can reasonably expect exists within the OotS world we are aware of.
Thus:
None of the splices can be souls from previous worlds within what we have seen and heard from the Giant.
The splices can have ludicrous, insane levels by DnD standards, but cannot plausibly be "level 80".


Unrelated, is there a template or statblock that would enable a foe to always give exp, or some mechanism by which one could find level-appropriate foes? Because iirc, even actual end-game foes for Epic players won't give any exp at level 50.

I think the ABD would be fine not coming back to the Material for a very long time; most divinations aren’t interplanar and the entire point of leaving it was to prevent V from finding their children’s souls. Plus, she’d still have more of her life left than V would unless they became a lich or something. Besides, what did she have left that she couldn’t take along with her? Her family?

I still don’t think there’s any sort of proof that Xykon has an interplanar travel spell he can cast on his own power, though. There are loads of other ways for a caster of his level to do it anyways.

Edit: About Epic encounters, there’s actually a lot of monsters. Abominations, for starters.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

I still don’t think there’s any sort of proof that Xykon has an interplanar travel spell he can cast on his own power, though. There are loads of other ways for a caster of his level to do it anyways.

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Maybe the conversation that had it added brings up a relevant point? May have been a long time ago
Regardless, Xykon clearly has some means of Planar Travel, just not necessarily a spell learned to do so.

Well yeah nobody's disagreeing with that. But I don't think it's worth putting into his spell list.

Should we add a Misc. section for things we don't know what it counts as?

You can repeat that it is "not plausible" for someone to be level 80, but you have not provided any real rebuttal to that effect. It might be unlikely, sure, but it is very much possible, despite assertions to the contrary. I explained some ways it could be pretty clearly, and to claim there are "hard limits" that prevent it is frankly just what you would like to be the truth, not what we have evidence of. If you have access to unlimited planes and near unlimited theoretical foes, then any level is in theory possible, regardless of "how likely" it is. I mean, if you're one of the most powerful casters in the history of the multiverse it's a given you are already an outlier and your end level was "unlikely".

Considering level 80 is actually past the point where fighting gods is feasible, I don't think that's terribly likely - by that point she'd probably become a god or archfiend herself when she died.

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Originally Posted by Squire Doodad

Maybe the conversation that had it added brings up a relevant point? May have been a long time ago
Regardless, Xykon clearly has some means of Planar Travel, just not necessarily a spell learned to do so.

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I don't know about the original conversation, sorry.
But I think, a spell known is the simplest explanation for the scene and as long as there is no evidence to the contrary, that's enough for me at the moment. Keep it short and simple, after all.
If someone would give actual evidence that X has more spells known for a given level, it would be anther thing.

Spoiler: Why is this not a double standard

Show

X having a spell known is an easy explanation for this scene. No rules broken, no invisible items. So that's the go to explanation.
There are alternatives, like scrolls. But until now, it doesn't seem like there was a reason to see them as more likely.
Everybody can give (new?) Evidence to attack or strengthen the claim. If there is evidence, it can be used to change the OP.

Using TB as evidence for level 17 would require a broken rule. Other explanations are complex or break other rules. So there is no single easy way to read this. And therefore, there is no consensus. The scene is not used to determine Vs level at all.
If there is new evidence, you can go back to the question of Vs level to change the OP.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Well yeah nobody's disagreeing with that. But I don't think it's worth putting into his spell list.

Should we add a Misc. section for things we don't know what it counts as?

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That's a thing I can get behind as well.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Considering level 80 is actually past the point where fighting gods is feasible, I don't think that's terribly likely - by that point she'd probably become a god or archfiend herself when she died.

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I could write a lengthy explanation, but honestly just what danielxcutter said.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Should we add a Misc. section for things we don't know what it counts as?

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Would Xykon's fire resistant item count as that, or would it just be "an unspecified item"? I think his Maximized ability would though

Xykon literally does not have room for an interplanar travel spell with the current assumption we go with regarding his spell list. Without outside help or items, the lowest level spell for that would be the 7th-level(for Sorc/Wiz) Plane Shift. And Sorcerers using scrolls, wands, staffs, and whatnot is very on-brand.

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Originally Posted by Squire Doodad

I could write a lengthy explanation, but honestly just what danielxcutter said.

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Thanks! Can I sig that?

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Would Xykon's fire resistant item count as that, or would it just be "an unspecified item"? I think his Maximized ability would though

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The fire resistance/immunity/whatever is almost certainly an item yes. His Maximized and especially Stilled abilities do count though; while in terms of storytelling I'm positive that the Maximized Energy Drain was just flat-out a 12th-level slot we don't know whether his casting as a standard action is a case of Rich forgetting, the Metamagic Specialist ACF, Rapid Spellcasting, or something else entirely.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Xykon literally does not have room for an interplanar travel spell with the current assumption we go with regarding his spell list. Without outside help or items, the lowest level spell for that would be the 7th-level(for Sorc/Wiz) Plane Shift. And Sorcerers using scrolls, wands, staffs, and whatnot is very on-brand.

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Agree. We haven't even seen him cast it. It should not be on his stat block, and I say that as someone who wants very inclusive stat blocks.

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Originally Posted by TooSoon

You can repeat that it is "not plausible" for someone to be level 80, but you have not provided any real rebuttal to that effect. It might be unlikely, sure, but it is very much possible, despite assertions to the contrary. I explained some ways it could be pretty clearly, and to claim there are "hard limits" that prevent it is frankly just what you would like to be the truth, not what we have evidence of. If you have access to unlimited planes and near unlimited theoretical foes, then any level is in theory possible, regardless of "how likely" it is. I mean, if you're one of the most powerful casters in the history of the multiverse it's a given you are already an outlier and your end level was "unlikely".

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You need to get a majority to agree with your points. That's from the rules of curated threads.
This means your suggestions should not only be possible, they should be plausible. Or even better yet, backed up with undeniable evidence.

I am very sure, you will never get a majority for a level 80 char. Repeatedly saying that nobody can prove you wrong won't change this. It's simply to unlikely to be taken seriously.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Xykon literally does not have room for an interplanar travel spell with the current assumption we go with regarding his spell list. Without outside help or items, the lowest level spell for that would be the 7th-level(for Sorc/Wiz) Plane Shift. And Sorcerers using scrolls, wands, staffs, and whatnot is very on-brand.

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Oh, so you checked this? Great! Do you by any chance have a list of his spells sorted by level at hand?

Since we now have evidence against X having a spell known dedicated for planar travel, it should be moved to another section. Item or misc sounds good.

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Originally Posted by Rogan

You need to get a majority to agree with your points. That's from the rules of curated threads.
This means your suggestions should not only be possible, they should be plausible. Or even better yet, backed up with undeniable evidence.

I am very sure, you will never get a majority for a level 80 char. Repeatedly saying that nobody can prove you wrong won't change this. It's simply to unlikely to be taken seriously.



Oh, so you checked this? Great! Do you by any chance have a list of his spells sorted by level at hand?

Since we now have evidence against X having a spell known dedicated for planar travel, it should be moved to another section. Item or misc sounds good.

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I don't need to get a majority for something which nobody here is suggesting is added to anyone's stat block, and which is purely a speculative matter. I speculated the 3 splices could be well above level 35, and for all we know Ganonron was level 50 and Haerta was level 70-80. You said that was "not possible" due to the "hard limits of D&D", and that claim is simply untrue. You're the one who has set yourself an (unmeetable) burden, not me. I never claimed to know Haerta, etc's, level. I just said "well it could be that high, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was".

NB: I literally already told you what Danielcutter did, that Xykon had no room on his 7th or 9th level spell list for such a spell.

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Originally Posted by TooSoon

I don't need to get a majority for something which nobody here is suggesting is added to anyone's stat block, and which is purely a speculative matter. I speculated the 3 splices could be well above level 35, and for all we know Ganonron was level 50 and Haerta was level 70-80. You said that was "not possible" due to the "hard limits of D&D", and that claim is simply untrue. You're the one who has set yourself an (unmeetable) burden, not me. I never claimed to know Haerta, etc's, level. I just said "well it could be that high, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was".

NB: I literally already told you what Danielcutter did, that Xykon had no room on his 7th or 9th level spell list for such a spell.

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I don't think I said impossible, but that's semantics. I though you wanted to prove some kind of point, so I gave you arguments against your point. If you didn't actually wanted to seriously suggest this level, why did you mention it at all?

Yeah, you did. And I asked you to prove your claim, which you failed to do.
Now someone else said the same thing so I assumed they checked it and I still asked if they have a list to double check.

By the way, the list O-Chul gave has an 8th level spell as unknown. This could be a lower level spell, if necessary. Do you know more than the paladin? (Yes, this is a serious question. If you know all of X 8th level spells, that's fine)

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Thanks! Can I sig that?

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Haha, sure

On the misc: it sounds like Interplanar Travel Spell/Item or Other would be a good way to put it, then, with notes that Xykon's unknown 8th level spell could be a 7th level slot used for Plane Shift?

Yeah, O-Chul got most of his spell list, remember? It's the basis of even more of his spell list here than the entire rest of the comic I think.

I still don't think Haerta was like level 80 or so. Even if you consider the demon lords in Fiendish Codex I to be more like unique aspects(which is what Savage Tide went with incidentally; it's stupid that the archdevils get to have epic CR aspects while some demon lords are weaker than generic demons), the assumptions made in adventure paths and BoVD/BoED indicate that the designers at least considered low~mid-20s at the least to low 30s at most for them. And the IFCC aren't nearly at the top - er, bottom - of the fiendish food chain. I don't think they'd be able to get hold of an epic wizard's soul stronger than most gods.

Also while Greater Plane Shift would work - 8th-level spell, it was first printed in the Planar Handbook and reprinted in the Spell Compendium - I don't think that's actual proof that he can do that on his own power. Remember he took Redcloak and the MitD to the astral fortress? If he could do it on his own, he'd just cast the spell himself. That's what he does with teleportation. Instead, he gave Redcloak the coordinates, who opened a Gate for that.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Also while Greater Plane Shift would work - 8th-level spell, it was first printed in the Planar Handbook and reprinted in the Spell Compendium - I don't think that's actual proof that he can do that on his own power. Remember he took Redcloak and the MitD to the astral fortress? If he could do it on his own, he'd just cast the spell himself. That's what he does with teleportation. Instead, he gave Redcloak the coordinates, who opened a Gate for that.

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Well, keep in mind that he needed Redcloak to fire off some spells, and Xykon likely had a massive slew of spells of his own to fire off.
He may well have only had his most important daily spells queued, and then everything else was for the fortress. Gate is high-level, which means getting Redcloak to cast it for him can open up quite a bit of room.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Yeah, O-Chul got most of his spell list, remember? It's the basis of even more of his spell list here than the entire rest of the comic I think.

Also while Greater Plane Shift would work - 8th-level spell, it was first printed in the Planar Handbook and reprinted in the Spell Compendium - I don't think that's actual proof that he can do that on his own power. Remember he took Redcloak and the MitD to the astral fortress? If he could do it on his own, he'd just cast the spell himself. That's what he does with teleportation. Instead, he gave Redcloak the coordinates, who opened a Gate for that.

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Yeah, I remembered this list after a while. I was curious if you had another one.

It doesn't need to be greater plane shift, it could be a regular 7th level spell. He is allowed to take lower level spells, after all.

And yeah, Red opened the gate there. But X was in his fortress before, alone, to create it.
I think, X can't move his team there at once, so he needed Red for this. Oh right... plane shift allowes multiple travelers... But he definitely had means to get to the Astral before, without Red knowing anything.

Edit: Is there a lower level personal planar travel spell in some other book?

Edit 2: If X has plane shift, he might have opted for the gate by Red to avoid the random location problem.

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Originally Posted by Squire Doodad

Well, keep in mind that he needed Redcloak to fire off some spells, and Xykon likely had a massive slew of spells of his own to fire off.
He may well have only had his most important daily spells queued, and then everything else was for the fortress. Gate is high-level, which means getting Redcloak to cast it for him can open up quite a bit of room.

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I mean, spamming spells is kind of a Sorcerer's thing. And I'd say an 8th-level slot, even one of Xykon's, isn't worth as much as a 9th-level slot from Redcloak. Especially not a Gate.

Do you think that, as Xykon could have just had a scroll, it might have been an artistic choice? Showing off Redcloak's power a bit more and also letting Jirix talk a little before they went through the gate
With our past examples of Plane Shift, it's a much quicker spell, so to speak.

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Originally Posted by Rogan

If X has plane shift, he might have opted for the gate by Red to avoid the random location problem.

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That seems like a likely scenario, given that time was of the essence.

Greater Plane Shift explicitly drops you on the exact spot if you've been there, so Xykon probably doesn't have that or a similar power like Gate.

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Originally Posted by danielxcutter

Greater Plane Shift explicitly drops you on the exact spot if you've been there, so Xykon probably doesn't have that or a similar power like Gate.

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Regardless of whether he could have it or not, there is no direct evidence he does; so it should be taken off his stat block. It's just as possible it was a scroll or something.

What's in Xykon's statblock is "planar travel spell" without specifying which one.

We know Xykon got to the Astral Plane and back, to construct the fortress, without Redcloak's help.

So the presumption is that Xykon knows the "unspecified planar travel spell", until evidence crops up that proves otherwise.

I don't remember any instances of scrolls not being visible while being used. There also isn't an instance of him actually doing something for his interplanar travel in the linked comic either, just a statement that he was on the Astral Plane. And as I said, if he could do that on his own power why would he have Redcloak take them? Xykon's more than capable of taking the entire team.

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Originally Posted by hamishspence

What's in Xykon's statblock is "planar travel spell" without specifying which one.

We know Xykon got to the Astral Plane and back, to construct the fortress, without Redcloak's help.

So the presumption is that Xykon knows the "unspecified planar travel spell", until evidence crops up that proves otherwise.

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This sort of circumstantial evidence would never be considered good enough if I was trying to use it to level up V. Not only did we not see Xykon case the spell, but we don't even see him say that he can cast such a spell (nor does anyone else say it). It's amazing to me that some of the same people saying we couldn't infer the ABD had a plane shift spell, despite her whole plan hinging on it, are not arguing Xykon has such a spell with even weaker evidence.

All we know is Xykon was on the Astral Plane. How he got there and whether he did it under his own power is unknown. Maybe he knows a place that has a portal there. Maybe he got someone else to send him there. Maybe he used a scroll. There is no evidence clear enough to merit adding it to his stat block. He has a way to the Astral plane, but what it is we just don't know.

I disagree with the V thing. I very much agree that there's no evidence whatsoever that X can Plane Shift et. al on his own power though.

Rogan and Squire Doodad: I agree that it's hard to see how the soul splices could be from previous worlds because of how souls turn into perfect representations of their alignment.

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Originally Posted by The Giant

"Spiritual enlightenment" in this case means giving up attachments to the world and accepting that you are no longer part of it. If anything, it is essentially unlearning things; becoming less of an individual with a unique perspective and more of a pure embodiment of alignment. Horace is a little further on that path than Sarah because he's not still engaging in things like random hook-ups, because he understands that nothing matters anymore when you're dead. It is not some sort of eternal learning experience; it's letting go of everything you learned because you don't need it anymore. That is the only change available to dead souls.
[…]
Because I am saying that is specifically what the afterlife does. It makes you into a cookie-cutter clone of everyone of the same alignment. It may take centuries to do so, but all the people at the top of the mountain? Completely indistinguishable from one another. Arguably, that is the purpose of the D&D afterlife—to turn flawed mortal souls into perfect alignment-batteries, through various methodologies. In the Nine Hells, they torture you until you forget everything else. In Celestia, you meditate until you renounce all worldly concerns. In Valhalla, you party until you can't remember your own name. In Limbo, the chaos drives you mad. In Mechanus, you sit in grey cubicle stamping paperwork until you are bored into oblivion. And so on and so forth.

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This world is thousands of years old, and there's a long pause between the worlds (so that the Snarl calms down), so for any souls that lived in a previous world, there'd be enough left of them to still be these uniquely powerful wizards and sorcerer.

However, the Giant apparently might otherwise.
In one of the Patreon FAQ answers, he says that the splices might be from previous worlds.

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Originally Posted by The Giant

20.) Michael Curley: Are the three souls that were spliced to V when V fought the dragon from previous versions of the world?

Rich: I don’t know. Maybe? It’s a reasonable explanation, but I hesitate to declare it to be true in case it becomes important later that they not be. Certainly it was not my intent at the time.

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That answer is from 2020-03, whereas the quote about souls is from 2015-08, so this isn't a case of the Patreon answer getting cancelled by a later reveal.

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Originally Posted by Squire Doodad

Unrelated, is there a template or statblock that would enable a foe to always give exp, or some mechanism by which one could find level-appropriate foes? Because iirc, even actual end-game foes for Epic players won't give any exp at level 50.

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The answer, as always in the stickiverse, is half-dragons. Breed dragons with each other for many generations, to give them more and more half-dragon templates. Each instance of the templates gives +3 effective level to the creature.

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Originally Posted by b_jonas

Rogan and Squire Doodad: I agree that it's hard to see how the soul splices could be from previous worlds because of how souls turn into perfect representations of their alignment.

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It's actually incredibly easy to see how that could be the case. For instance:

1) The casters in question could have booked to another plane before the World bit it, messed around there for a while, and then returned to the new world later (or just died after decades, or centuries, of adventures on another plane, then been resurrected to the new plane of existence). If a nobody like Hilgya can bail on this world and live in another plane, I'm pretty sure the GOAT casters of all time can. Heck, Ganonron is introduced as a multiversal warlord who conquered "world after world". It seems like it'd be good money he wouldn't be on earth in the first place when it carked it, even assuming he was there to begin with.

2) There could be some means for the gods to preserve select souls without using their energy, for later use. The gods need the souls to survive, but do the fiends? Wholly unclear. Even if they do, just because that's why souls in general are sent to Limbo or Valhalla, it doesn't mean every soul has to end up that way if the gods will it otherwise (or perhaps there are some beings so powerful they can retain their individuality in spite of it all, who knows).

3) It could be an old world was destroyed, then the new one was build before the "centuries or however long" pass and the soul loses its individuality. The caster is then resurrected for whatever reason and maybe their individuality starts back at 100. They now need the centuries long process to start all over again. Heck, maybe that's a side-effect of soul bonding also; you retain your individuality much longer, and maybe this isn't the first time this was done with these guys. Maybe they're used once a century just to keep them fresh. Who knows.

The point is the claim it was "hard to see" or "not possible" is wrong. It's easy to imagine ways it could be possible, and some vague comments by the Giant here (which even say "who knows" as a direct answer) are far from the definitive evidence you'd need to refute this possibility.