OOTS #1302 - The Discussion Thread

[Emperor Time]

I doubt Calder will weaken the party very much but even if it only by ten percent or so, it can still lead to devasting losses during the final battle. Also worried about Bloodfeast since this battle could lead to his death if it lasts much longer.

[Psyren]

Poor Calder, he thinks he's the last boss, but he's very clearly shaping up to be the mid dungeon boss that burns resources ahead of the last boss.

I doubt Calder will weaken the party very much but even if it only by ten percent or so, it can still lead to devasting losses during the final battle.

I forgot this earlier but we have additional confirmation (panel 7) that the Order will likely have a night to get ready. As long as that remains the case, the resources they burn on Calder won't matter as much.

[danielxcutter]

Also, bluntly speaking I don't think the Order has a snowball's chance in Baator without being at 100%. Xykon is optimized to the point where he can probably be used for the final boss of actual 3.5e games compared to the entire rest of the comic and has high resistance or immunity to about 70% of the Order's capabilities.

[Naysmith]

Also, bluntly speaking I don't think the Order has a snowball's chance in Baator without being at 100%. Xykon is optimized to the point where he can probably be used for the final boss of actual 3.5e games compared to the entire rest of the comic and has high resistance or immunity to about 70% of the Order's capabilities.

Roy has Spellsplinter and a +5 Undead-Bane (sort of) Weapon of Legacy. His build is an anti-Xykon build. And if the order isn't at 100%, then Xykon hasn't had time to rest either, so neither side would be at 100% of capacity.

[danielxcutter]

Roy has Spellsplinter and a +5 Undead-Bane (sort of) Weapon of Legacy. His build is an anti-Xykon build. And if the order isn't at 100%, then Xykon hasn't had time to rest either, so neither side would be at 100% of capacity.

Not quite. Xykon has DR 15/magic and bludgeoning from being a lich, while a greatsword does slashing, so that's still a significant reduction of damage. And undead use Charisma for their Concentration checks - guess what the epic sorcerer lich probably boosted into the low stratosphere? And that's against Roy, with the anti-Xykon build - being undead and having that much DR reduces Belkar, Elan, and Haley's damage to near-negligible levels, while his immunity to fire, cold, and electricity means that most of V's evocation spells do even less.

Plus, the Calder fight has been burning through the Order's resources, while Team Evil hasn't been expending all that much of theirs. It'd be more like Team Evil being at 70% and the Order at 7%.

[Psepha]

Not quite. Xykon has DR 15/magic and bludgeoning from being a lich, while a greatsword does slashing, so that's still a significant reduction of damage. And undead use Charisma for their Concentration checks - guess what the epic sorcerer lich probably boosted into the low stratosphere? And that's against Roy, with the anti-Xykon build - being undead and having that much DR reduces Belkar, Elan, and Haley's damage to near-negligible levels, while his immunity to fire, cold, and electricity means that most of V's evocation spells do even less.

Plus, the Calder fight has been burning through the Order's resources, while Team Evil hasn't been expending all that much of theirs. It'd be more like Team Evil being at 70% and the Order at 7%.

Does the Spellsplinter maneuver force a concentration check? I've always worked under the impression that it was more like a dispel/counterspell type of thing that disrupted the spell itself, but I'm not sure now that I think about it... It did work against Xykon even when he was casting defensively, but that was part of Girard's phantasm, so maybe that was just Roy's idealised version of what should happen.

[danielxcutter]

Does the Spellsplinter maneuver force a concentration check? I've always worked under the impression that it was more like a dispel/counterspell type of thing that disrupted the spell itself, but I'm not sure now that I think about it... It did work against Xykon even when he was casting defensively, but that was part of Girard's phantasm, so maybe that was just Roy's idealised version of what should happen.

Well, admittedly it's more or less headcanon, but there's an extremely similar feat in official D&D 3.5e called Mage Slayer that acts very similar.

Basically if a spellcaster gets attacked while casting they have to make a Concentration roll that gets penalized from the damage you take, and dedicated martials can hit very, very hard. Casting defensively is a DC 15 Concentration check to not provoke an Attack of Opportunity, but Mage Slayer makes someone with the feat automatically fail that check, thus allowing them to always be capable of making an AoO if they still can and forcing them to make the "roll to not have the spell fizzle from the damage you took" check rather than the "roll to meet the incredibly easy-to-achieve DC to cast defensively" check.

If this headcanon is more or less correct, it's still theoretically possible to make the check if you have a high enough bonus to Concentration and you get a decent roll. And since Xykon is an epic (and thus potentially 24+ ranks in Concentration) undead (so uses Charisma instead of Constitution for the stat bonus) sorcerer (insanely high Charisma) he's going to have a very high bonus, and we've seen Roy's Spellsplinter Maneuver fail to disrupt Durkula's Harm casting despite Durkon having a Charisma penalty.

I'm not going to say that the Spellsplinter Maneuver is worthless against him if it does more or less work like Mage Slayer because Roy does have very high damage per hit, between sinking a lot of feats into the Weapon Focus line for greatswords, high BAB and Strength, and the damage of the sword itself. And it'd be pretty disappointing if Roy's super secret move was useless against the entire reason he learned it. But Xykon's got a high enough bonus for it not to be a guarantee for him to blow the check.

The good news is that the Order is much higher level than the Battle of Azure City and they also know most of his spell list, so a Meteor Swarm or two getting through the Spellsplinter Maneuver won't be a TPK.

[Peelee]

Well, admittedly it's more or less headcanon, but there's an extremely similar feat in official D&D 3.5e called Mage Slayer that acts very similar.

Here's the thing, though: give that many, many other feats (and other mechanics) from 3.5 have been used with their 3.5 names, wouldn't the biggest reason to specifically name this ability something else be because it functions differently from Mage Slayer?

[Tzardok]

If this headcanon is more or less correct, it's still theoretically possible to make the check if you have a high enough bonus to Concentration and you get a decent roll. And since Xykon is an epic (and thus potentially 24+ ranks in Concentration) undead (so uses Charisma instead of Constitution for the stat bonus) sorcerer (insanely high Charisma) he's going to have a very high bonus, and we've seen Roy's Spellsplinter Maneuver fail to disrupt Durkula's Harm casting despite Durkon having a Charisma penalty.

A) Durkon probably has a Charisma modifier of +0 (reasoning: Durkon uses Turn Undead three times in a row in an earliy strip. Daily uses of Turn Undead are 3 + Cha-Mod. Unless he took the Extra Turning feat, he couldn't have done that if he had an outright Cha penalty.)
B) Vampires get +4 to their Charisma. Durkula's Cha-Mod. is probably +2.

[danielxcutter]

Here's the thing, though: give that many, many other feats (and other mechanics) from 3.5 have been used with their 3.5 names, wouldn't the biggest reason to specifically name this ability something else be because it functions differently from Mage Slayer?

Probably either because "Spellsplinter Maneuver" sounds cooler, or the same reason as why the comic keeps avoiding saying what Sunny is. Possibly both.

A) Durkon probably has a Charisma modifier of +0 (reasoning: Durkon uses Turn Undead three times in a row in an earliy strip. Daily uses of Turn Undead are 3 + Cha-Mod. Unless he took the Extra Turning feat, he couldn't have done that if he had an outright Cha penalty.)
B) Vampires get +4 to their Charisma. Durkula's Cha-Mod. is probably +2.

Okay fair, but he's still going to have had a far lower Concentration bonus than Xykon.

[Peelee]

Probably either because "Spellsplinter Maneuver" sounds cooler, or the same reason as why the comic keeps avoiding saying what Sunny is. Possibly both.

A.) Mage Slayer sounds cooler
2.) Sunny is different from standard Beholders (ie 2 fewer eyestalks)

[arimareiji]

On a gut level, I have a hard time believing the Giant intends for Xykon to be nearly impossible to beat. Difficult or extremely difficult, for sure. But not nearly impossible, because that needlessly makes a relatively good ending too difficult to make believable.

I will admit that the Oracle's answer to Elan worries me, and I don't really buy that he already got it three strips later (last panel). But on a gut level, I still can't see this coming out with most of the party dead.

[danielxcutter]

A.) Mage Slayer sounds cooler

Wrong.

2.) Sunny is different from standard Beholders (ie 2 fewer eyestalks)

Yeah but the obvious dancing around the name gives me the impression that's not the issue.

[Psepha]

we've seen Roy's Spellsplinter Maneuver fail to disrupt Durkula's Harm casting

I was thinking about that too, but I realised I'm not actually certain that Roy used Spellsplinter there. In all instances where I'm certain that he used it, there were a couple of factors - he was facing them head on, and he was ready for the strike - specifically in #886 it looks a lot like Roy is using it as a readied action (much like a counterspell), and he's not striking until Xykon tries to cast - he's definitely got extra attacks to spend, but instead he's holding fire until Xykon casts.

In #1003 when he uses it against vamped Durkon, he can see Durkon coming and he's ready for the attack, so it could well be a readied action... granted he follows it up with another attack, but that looks like it might be a combat maneuver... not sure lol.

But then in #1006, it looks like Durkon slightly got the drop on him with his gaseous form - Durkon appeared behind Roy, who noticed him start casting and then reacted - so that's plausibly an attack of opportunity, rather than a readied action.

Now this is all total speculation of course, since we haven't really had too much detail on how Spellsplinter actually works - it could be all attacks of opportunity, and it's not like we get a clear indication of the types of actions characters are using (especially since a lot of that is going to be based on things like combat pacing, making it look awesome, etc. rather than actual combat rules)... So I'm almost certainly reading way too much into the art choices and such - but we're all guilty of that here sometimes, right?

[Provengreil]

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

Show

Well, admittedly it's more or less headcanon, but there's an extremely similar feat in official D&D 3.5e called Mage Slayer that acts very similar.

Basically if a spellcaster gets attacked while casting they have to make a Concentration roll that gets penalized from the damage you take, and dedicated martials can hit very, very hard. Casting defensively is a DC 15 Concentration check to not provoke an Attack of Opportunity, but Mage Slayer makes someone with the feat automatically fail that check, thus allowing them to always be capable of making an AoO if they still can and forcing them to make the "roll to not have the spell fizzle from the damage you took" check rather than the "roll to meet the incredibly easy-to-achieve DC to cast defensively" check.

If this headcanon is more or less correct, it's still theoretically possible to make the check if you have a high enough bonus to Concentration and you get a decent roll. And since Xykon is an epic (and thus potentially 24+ ranks in Concentration) undead (so uses Charisma instead of Constitution for the stat bonus) sorcerer (insanely high Charisma) he's going to have a very high bonus, and we've seen Roy's Spellsplinter Maneuver fail to disrupt Durkula's Harm casting despite Durkon having a Charisma penalty.

I'm not going to say that the Spellsplinter Maneuver is worthless against him if it does more or less work like Mage Slayer because Roy does have very high damage per hit, between sinking a lot of feats into the Weapon Focus line for greatswords, high BAB and Strength, and the damage of the sword itself. And it'd be pretty disappointing if Roy's super secret move was useless against the entire reason he learned it. But Xykon's got a high enough bonus for it not to be a guarantee for him to blow the check.

The good news is that the Order is much higher level than the Battle of Azure City and they also know most of his spell list, so a Meteor Swarm or two getting through the Spellsplinter Maneuver won't be a TPK.

You've forgotten one very important factor in reaching the Concentration DC, and that's the green anti-undead fire. While I realize we don't have a specific damage for it, it was responsible for one of the most vicious looking individual wounds we've seen, right up there with Miko killing Shojo.

We can even take a rough guess at how likely it is he'd make the check:

Spoiler: Guess filled math

Show

The way I see it, Xykon may have a lot of defenses, but a particularly high armor class won't be one of them, so. Power Attack, probably to a significant degree(Roy is smart enough to know that overcoming DR on one or two hits is worth missing the rest here): I'd guess 10 or so, so 20 damage. Per the geekery thread Roy's current strength is 29, so 21 from that. 5 from the weapon's +5 magic. The fire is said to be "particularly dangerous" to undead, so 2, maybe 3d6. I'll go with 2, add it to the weapon's actual roll, that's 4d6 for an average of about 13.

That's a DC of 43 after DR, assuming the fire doesn't outright negate it somehow and no further buffs from the party that apply.

For his part, Xykon's check is 24 or so from skill points. However, I'm not clear on where you're getting the rules that Sorcerors use charisma for concentration: that rule may not be in play in OOTSverse. If it is, his Charisma is 28+, so +14 from there. If it isn't, then he may have some items that help but otherwise he's stuck.

So on average damage, Roy has either a 25% chance or a 90% chance of stopping a spell with his feat, depending on a certain rule.

[danielxcutter]

I was thinking about that too, but I realised I'm not actually certain that Roy used Spellsplinter there. In all instances where I'm certain that he used it, there were a couple of factors - he was facing them head on, and he was ready for the strike - specifically in #886 it looks a lot like Roy is using it as a readied action (much like a counterspell), and he's not striking until Xykon tries to cast - he's definitely got extra attacks to spend, but instead he's holding fire until Xykon casts.

In #1003 when he uses it against vamped Durkon, he can see Durkon coming and he's ready for the attack, so it could well be a readied action... granted he follows it up with another attack, but that looks like it might be a combat maneuver... not sure lol.

But then in #1006, it looks like Durkon slightly got the drop on him with his gaseous form - Durkon appeared behind Roy, who noticed him start casting and then reacted - so that's plausibly an attack of opportunity, rather than a readied action.

Now this is all total speculation of course, since we haven't really had too much detail on how Spellsplinter actually works - it could be all attacks of opportunity, and it's not like we get a clear indication of the types of actions characters are using (especially since a lot of that is going to be based on things like combat pacing, making it look awesome, etc. rather than actual combat rules)... So I'm almost certainly reading way too much into the art choices and such - but we're all guilty of that here sometimes, right?

Mage Slayer works on basis of denying casters the mechanic that lets them avoid provoking AoOs due to casting a spell. If Spellsplinter works that way it makes sense for that to happen with Durkula. Although we did see him make a charge attack to disrupt Miron's Horrid Wilting, so maybe it's not, now that I think about it.

[Peelee]

Yeah but the obvious dancing around the name gives me the impression that's not the issue.

That's circular reasoning.

[danielxcutter]

You've forgotten one very important factor in reaching the Concentration DC, and that's the green anti-undead fire. While I realize we don't have a specific damage for it, it was responsible for one of the most vicious looking individual wounds we've seen, right up there with Miko killing Shojo.

We can even take a rough guess at how likely it is he'd make the check:

Spoiler: Guess filled math

Show

The way I see it, Xykon may have a lot of defenses, but a particularly high armor class won't be one of them, so. Power Attack, probably to a significant degree(Roy is smart enough to know that overcoming DR on one or two hits is worth missing the rest here): I'd guess 10 or so, so 20 damage. Per the geekery thread Roy's current strength is 29, so 21 from that. 5 from the weapon's +5 magic. The fire is said to be "particularly dangerous" to undead, so 2, maybe 3d6. I'll go with 2, add it to the weapon's actual roll, that's 4d6 for an average of about 13.

That's a DC of 43 after DR, assuming the fire doesn't outright negate it somehow and no further buffs from the party that apply.

For his part, Xykon's check is 24 or so from skill points. However, I'm not clear on where you're getting the rules that Sorcerors use charisma for concentration: that rule may not be in play in OOTSverse. If it is, his Charisma is 28+, so +14 from there. If it isn't, then he may have some items that help but otherwise he's stuck.

So on average damage, Roy has either a 25% chance or a 90% chance of stopping a spell with his feat, depending on a certain rule.

The rule that undead use Charisma for Concentration check is in the undead type rules. Also, according to the list that O-Chul got, one of Xykon's epic spells is Epic Mage Armor (which gives a whopping +20 armor bonus for 24 hours), as a lich he gets +5 natural armor, and during the Darth V fight there was a "deflect!" unsound effect so he has a deflection bonus to AC as well. Unless he has a Dexterity penalty that's at least an AC of 36.

I wasn't kidding when I said Xykon's optimized to the point that he'd work in an actual 3.5e game and not just the very unoptimized world of OotS.

That's circular reasoning.

I don't really see how me saying that Sunny not having the same number of eyestalks is unrelated to the obvious "uh what's the name oh it doesn't matter" in-comic jokes that imply that the Giant is trying to avoid breaching copyright is circular reasoning.

[brian 333]

What resources are The Order and allies consuming?

I saw V use a potion. (Heroism, if it is one of the dozens he bought from the financially challenged alchemists.)

Haley, shooting her infinite supply of arrows.

Serini shooting one crossbow bolt.

The spells they are casting don't count unless TE fast-tracks the dungeons and arrives in the Final Dungeon™ at least a day sooner than expected. With eight hours of rest and 2-1/4 hours of study/prayer, The Order and Allies can be fully recharged even if they use up every spell slot they have in this fight. Which leaves another whole day before TE arrives at the entrance, plus however long it takes to get through it.

[Peelee]

I don't really see how me saying that Sunny not having the same number of eyestalks is unrelated to the obvious "uh what's the name oh it doesn't matter" in-comic jokes that imply that the Giant is trying to avoid breaching copyright is circular reasoning.

I thought you were talking about Mage Slayer, effectively saying "it's the same thing with a different name, and that's supported by the fact that it's called something else".

Also, trademark, not copyright.

[danielxcutter]

What resources are The Order and allies consuming?

I saw V use a potion. (Heroism, if it is one of the dozens he bought from the financially challenged alchemists.)

Haley, shooting her infinite supply of arrows.

Serini shooting one crossbow bolt.

The spells they are casting don't count unless TE fast-tracks the dungeons and arrives in the Final Dungeon™ at least a day sooner than expected. With eight hours of rest and 2-1/4 hours of study/prayer, The Order and Allies can be fully recharged even if they use up every spell slot they have in this fight. Which leaves another whole day before TE arrives at the entrance, plus however long it takes to get through it.

When I brought up this fight consuming resources, it was to rebut the "Calder Kool-Aid Manning through a wall that lets Team Evil immediately waltz in and bypass all the traps, when the Order just got into a fight with a high-CR dragon already" speculation that keeps popping up.

If that doesn't happen, which it probably won't because Calder doesn't have much of a realistic chance of doing that before the Order kills him unless the walls of this dungeon are made out of tissue paper and the physical location is right next to the gauntlet cliff face, then that's not an issue. The problem is that's essentially the premise that argument hinges on.

[Doug Lampert]

[SPOILER=Guess filled math]The way I see it, Xykon may have a lot of defenses, but a particularly high armor class won't be one of them, so. Power Attack, probably to a significant degree(Roy is smart enough to know that overcoming DR on one or two hits is worth missing the rest here): I'd guess 10 or so, so 20 damage. Per the geekery thread Roy's current strength is 29, so 21 from that. 5 from the weapon's +5 magic. The fire is said to be "particularly dangerous" to undead, so 2, maybe 3d6. I'll go with 2, add it to the weapon's actual roll, that's 4d6 for an average of about 13.

As pointed out, X has 36+ AC, that's one of the highest they've encountered. Roy knows X has Epic Mage Armor, and should not power attack for much.
29 strength is a +9 strength bonus for +14 damage, you forgot to subtract ten prior to dividing by 2 and gave him an extra 7 damage.
+5 from magic is correct.
4d6 is an average of 14, but X is immune to both fire and positive energy so there's a good chance that X is immune to that half of that.

Total of about 33 damage rather than the 59 you give him.

[danielxcutter]

To be fair I'm pretty sure that the green fire effect isn't actually fire and probably isn't positive energy either, considering positive energy heals most non-undead.

[Shining Wrath]

Pretty sure we've seen positive energy just now (the healing magic Durkon and Minrah are passing out) and the art doesn't resemble the green flame from the legacy weapon.

There is a 5e spell, Green Flame Blade, but it's not that, either (plus this effect predates Tasha's Cauldron of Everything).

I think the green flame is "hurts undead like they've never been hurt before no matter what protections they have", because that's just cool and this is a unique weapon that is a central plot McGuffin. Xykon is a monster in terms of combat; the legacy weapon is specifically the plot device that lets a mere fighter take Xykon on. It's Chekov's Flame; if it doesn't go off and shoot Xykon in his bony face we've been seriously mislead.

Also, when Roy threw Xykon into the first Gate back in Durukon's Dungeon, it was because he was angry. That is, we have a "rule" in the OotSverse that if someone is very angry, they can do more damage than expected. I'm guessing that Xykon is going to successfully make Roy angry during the final battle, probably by killing someone he cares about (Durkon? O Chul?). That will throw all calculations out the window, because we don't know how many "dice" the Giant's "Fighter Rage" rule adds.

Finally, we still don't know exactly what MitD is, or is capable of, but I think we all know that he's going to switch sides during the final battle. He may have some way to dispel some of Xykon's defenses.

[KorvinStarmast]

As an aside, this is exactly how monsters worked in combat in the classic but now largely forgotten Tunnels and Trolls.

I played some 5e deluxe a few years ago.

Once you got the advantage, you were almost assured of victory (and you'd take minimal additional damage doing it). But PCs didn't work that way. They were a lot more fragile but their capabilities were much less affected by taking damage.

Yes.

So, the way fights generally worked was the monsters started out a lot stronger than the PCs. The PCs then tried desperately to hang on, blowing resources (poisoned weapons were a big thing, plus spells and anything else you had) at the start to whittle the monsters down to the point it was an even fight. After that, as long as the PCs were still standing, they could generally wrap things up via attrition. Fights started scary, but all the excitement was over quickly as you'd either lost or it became boring within a couple rounds, and then you'd have 4-6 boring rounds to go of just mopping up.

The dice can be fickle, and the exploding ones, and soaking up damage with various armor took a little bookkeeping. Wish we could have played more, the group broke up due to RL Scheduling.

Here's the thing, though: give that many, many other feats (and other mechanics) from 3.5 have been used with their 3.5 names, wouldn't the biggest reason to specifically name this ability something else be because it functions differently from Mage Slayer?

Makes sense to me.

There is a 5e spell, Green Flame Blade, but it's not that, either (plus this effect predates Tasha's Cauldron of Everything).

GFB came out in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, about four years before Tasha's, as did Booming Blade and Lightning Lure.

[danielxcutter]

Pretty sure we've seen positive energy just now (the healing magic Durkon and Minrah are passing out) and the art doesn't resemble the green flame from the legacy weapon.

There is a 5e spell, Green Flame Blade, but it's not that, either (plus this effect predates Tasha's Cauldron of Everything).

I think the green flame is "hurts undead like they've never been hurt before no matter what protections they have", because that's just cool and this is a unique weapon that is a central plot McGuffin. Xykon is a monster in terms of combat; the legacy weapon is specifically the plot device that lets a mere fighter take Xykon on. It's Chekov's Flame; if it doesn't go off and shoot Xykon in his bony face we've been seriously mislead.

Also, when Roy threw Xykon into the first Gate back in Durukon's Dungeon, it was because he was angry. That is, we have a "rule" in the OotSverse that if someone is very angry, they can do more damage than expected. I'm guessing that Xykon is going to successfully make Roy angry during the final battle, probably by killing someone he cares about (Durkon? O Chul?). That will throw all calculations out the window, because we don't know how many "dice" the Giant's "Fighter Rage" rule adds.

Finally, we still don't know exactly what MitD is, or is capable of, but I think we all know that he's going to switch sides during the final battle. He may have some way to dispel some of Xykon's defenses.

I just thought the Dorukan’s Dungeon fight was because Roy had a way higher Grapple modifier than Xykon.

[bunsen_h]

we've seen Roy's Spellsplinter Maneuver fail to disrupt Durkula's Harm casting despite Durkon having a Charisma penalty.

When CHA is used for its mundane reaction-to-others checks, the penalty doesn't apply to others of one's own kind. Is the penalty applied when the CHA stat is used for other purposes? EDIT: Or is Durkon's unmodified CHA so low that he gets a penalty even with respect to other Dwarves?

2.) Sunny is different from standard Beholders (ie 2 fewer eyestalks)

Sunny was from their mother's side untimely ripped. That might have led to some developmental issues. It's possible that the eyestalks grow in incrementally, and that Sunny would have grown a couple more before budding off.

Also, when Roy threw Xykon into the first Gate back in Durukon's Dungeon, it was because he was angry. That is, we have a "rule" in the OotSverse that if someone is very angry, they can do more damage than expected. I'm guessing that Xykon is going to successfully make Roy angry during the final battle, probably by killing someone he cares about (Durkon? O Chul?).

As I suggested earlier, it could be something as simple as Xykon refusing to take him seriously, and being unable to remember Roy's name. Though I'm not convinced that this "rule of angry" exists. In that particular case, it wasn't being thrown that caused Xykon all that damage, but the effects of Dorukan's wards.

[Quizatzhaderac]

A) Durkon probably has a Charisma modifier of +0 ....

Durkon's charisma modifier is irrelevant; an undead cleric uses it's wisdom for concentration checks. Greg's wisdom modifier is undoubtedly good, but not as good as Xykon's charisma modifier.

The spells they are casting don't count unless TE fast-tracks the dungeons and arrives in the Final Dungeon™ at least a day sooner than expected. With eight hours of rest and 2-1/4 hours of study/prayer, The Order and Allies can be fully recharged even if they use up every spell slot they have in this fight.

Plans A & B were to fight Team evil today. A plan to wait for a long rest may be colorable, but there are a few factors against it now.

1. The order didn't see the cut away scenes and thus doesn't know Team evil's exact itinerary. Even Team Evil and the audience have limited knowledge of where Team Evil will be in 8 hours.
2. Taking a long rest raises the possibility the encounter beings during the long rest.
3. If both sides get a long rest that may be disadvantageous as Team evil was spent spells on clearing the dungeon.

That's circular reasoning.

Lots of dances are circular.

[Peelee]

Sunny was from their mother's side untimely ripped. That might have led to some developmental issues. It's possible that the eyestalks grow in incrementally, and that Sunny would have grown a couple more before budding off.

My good bunsen, I know you wouldn't make more assumptions to cover weak spots of prior assumptions in chemistry!

It was either that or a chemistry/biology joke and I figure you've already got that area monopolized.

[danielxcutter]

When CHA is used for its mundane reaction-to-others checks, the penalty doesn't apply to others of one's own kind. Is the penalty applied when the CHA stat is used for other purposes? EDIT: Or is Durkon's unmodified CHA so low that he gets a penalty even with respect to other Dwarves?

I have literally never heard of any such rule like this. Your attributes just give a modifier to relevant rolls equal to (Attribute-10)/2 rounded down in 3.5e.

Durkon's charisma modifier is irrelevant; an undead cleric uses it's wisdom for concentration checks.

Yeah uh, dead wrong mate:

Uses its Charisma modifier for Concentration checks.