DeepShadow of FoS wrote:Maybe it's a special doppelganger, a rare species with crazy new abilities, that used two out of the three wishes in a luck blade to make itself utterly impossible to detect. Maybe it's saving the third wish for the last possible moment, all while preparing to enlist its doppelganger allies in replacing the entire adventuring group.
Or maybe it's just exploiting the hell out of the fact that True Seeing doesn't expose natural shapechangers in Ravenloft, and these uppity outlanders all keep right on trusting that spell to work.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
Well, correct me if I'm wrong on either of these first conclusions, but isn't Elminster a magic-user by definition, and doesn't all magic malfunction for the outlander magic-user the minute s/he find themselves in Ravenloft or at the very least become disfunctional. In this sense, is Elminster not at least half-screwed the minute he steps alone through the mists. He may still be able to work magic to a certain extent, but those unpredictable results are going bite him in the a-s HARD!
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!
So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
Manofevil wrote:Well, correct me if I'm wrong on either of these first conclusions, but isn't Elminster a magic-user by definition, and doesn't all magic malfunction for the outlander magic-user the minute s/he find themselves in Ravenloft or at the very least become disfunctional. In this sense, is Elminster not at least half-screwed the minute he steps alone through the mists. He may still be able to work magic to a certain extent, but those unpredictable results are going bite him in the a-s HARD!
I believe even the most "Innocuous" necromantic spells have power checks...
"When they open the door and see a ten foot cockroach, they sigh in relief and mutter 'glad it's not a twenty-foot tall cockroach" - or something like that, Stephen King, Danse Macabre
RShini wrote:The Big E used to be a bit of a lech, isn't he? Play on that, and play on that he's used to being the big badass of the area so even with his Chosen of Mystra abilities stripped away, keep his ego up high until the crushing blow.
Rotipher of the FoS wrote:Or maybe it's just exploiting the hell out of the fact that True Seeing doesn't expose natural shapechangers in Ravenloft, and these uppity outlanders all keep right on trusting that spell to work.
Doesn't Harkon Lukas have a female form? Talk about coyote ugly...
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Manofevil wrote:Well, correct me if I'm wrong on either of these first conclusions, but isn't Elminster a magic-user by definition, and doesn't all magic malfunction for the outlander magic-user the minute s/he find themselves in Ravenloft or at the very least become disfunctional. In this sense, is Elminster not at least half-screwed the minute he steps alone through the mists. He may still be able to work magic to a certain extent, but those unpredictable results are going bite him in the a-s HARD!
I believe even the most "Innocuous" necromantic spells have power checks...
And Mystra help him if he ever casts Wish, limited or not.
"A full set of (game) rules is so massively complicated that the only time they were all bound together in a single volume, they underwent gravitational collapse and became a black hole" (Adams)
Yeah, I suppose it would be easy enough to have a scenario like this:
Elminster gets transported into RL and deposited in the mountains of Lamordia. He invokes his silver fire to act as a Ring of Warmth and goes looking for civilization. On the way, he runs across a traveler stuck in the snow, clinging to life, and sticks the fellow on a floating disc to get him to shelter. Upon reaching civilization, the locals have more than enough cause to act uncivilized--he's glowing and dragging a wounded person via magic--and they quickly turn into an angry mob. Elminster's reactions to such situations are rarely entirely nonmagical, so even his most pacifistic responses, such as his lesser ironguard special ability, are only going to make him appear more demonic.
Eventually Elminster will have two choices: flee or get dangerous. Despite his crotchety nature, he's still a good guy, so he's got teleport and invisibility and polymorph to get him out of there, all of which are only going to cement the hostility in his absence. Finally, the more spells he casts, the greater the chance of encountering the Smothering of Reason. At that point he's going to start really getting worried, and he's more likely to start pulling out the big spells to figure out what's going on. Bigger spells mean bigger consequences, and Elminster is going to find out a lot of unsettling information without anything good to come of it. As one warlord has commented, it's like knowing the exact size and speed of the rhino that is charging you--not very helpful.
So in the course of this investigation, Elminster casts Contact Other Plane to talk to Mystra about this--and gets a wrong number. Assuming he's still in Lamordia, that's Adam he's mind-jamming with, which prompts a Madness save DC 18, 20 if Adam is feeling malicious. Now Elminster has a +17 to Will saves, assuming the Smothering hasn't suppressed the relevant magic items, but his Luck of Heroes feat doesn't apply to F/H/M saves, so that's +16 on a DC 20 save. Good, but still a 1 in 5 chance of failure. Assuming he makes it, I'd still call for a Horror check at being cut off from his beloved goddess.
(And this is all assuming he's still in Lamordia. His other options for mental contact in nearby domains include Azalin...and Dominic. Dominic would probably be quite accommodating, the better to get as many Dominate attempts in as possible. +17 Will save or not, the odds are drastically in favor of Elminster being an Obedient in short order)
On top of this, Adam gets a pretty accurate mental picture of where Elminster is, and sets off to investigate. I have no doubt that Elminster would win this fight--that is, in the short term--but it would probably exhaust some of his better spells and unnerve him some more. Even without an obsession-like Madness/Horror effect from Adam, Elminster would probably be curious as to where the creature came from, which would mean a Legend Lore spell, which would inflame him with righteous indignation against Elise's suffering...which fits him snugly up against the DP's agenda.
Elminster is now better than dead: he's Sisyphus, continually working against Mordenheim and Adam, both of whom return when killed ad infinitum. Mordenheim can clone his wife from the smallest piece and start work over again, so a strong argument can be made that Elminster can't really make a dent in this curse at all. Add to that the slow smothering of all his magic items, right down to his eversmoking pipe, and I'd give him a week before he casts Wish. If the blowback from that doesn't kill him, it'll probably be the final straw that causes him to scream at the Dark Powers in frustration and earn a Mist Claimer, and now the fun really begins.
Folks, Elminster is easy once you can get him into position.
Send him into Borca and make sure Ivana Boritsi crosses his path with intent to kill.
Elminster has a weakness for the ladies, as I understand it, and is not likely to think anything of 'one little kiss' (especially if he hasn't figured out that detect evil) doesn't work in Ravenloft). Ivana's poison is unblockable unless your immunity to poison is natural, rather than acquired. And that thrice-cursed Elminster's Evasion spell that activates whenever he's in trouble won't work in Ravenloft.
Here's one: What happens to Elminster AFTER he's dead. Would he just quietly pass away or would the DPs bring him back as... something else?
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!
So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
Matthew L. Martin wrote:Folks, Elminster is easy once you can get him into position.
Of course. That's true of any of them. For all their hype, they really aren't that powerful stat-wise. Drizzt is 16th level (ECL 18) as of 3.0; Mirt is 10th. Elminster and the Seven Sisters are about the only heroes with epic levels.
There are plenty of DL's who are about that level without their gifts. I betcha Drakov could take on Drizzt alone if it came to it, and considering Drakov's resources, I doubt that would be necessary. Storm Silverhand is a bad build for an epic character (mostly Brd/Sor); she gets huge amounts of small spells, and would be hard pressed to fight a straight wizard of half her levels, like, say, Hazlik. The Simbul would go through the same process as Elminster, only faster; everyone knows she's crazy from the word go. For that matter, leave her in the Realms while Elminster gets Mist-napped. It says in her bio that he's the one keeping her level-headed. If she isn't level, someplace will be!
The thing is, we all know the Mists can chew them up and spit out the bones. What's this all prove, except to express some people's deep-seated hatred of the Realms?
Manofevil wrote:Here's one: What happens to Elminster AFTER he's dead. Would he just quietly pass away or would the DPs bring him back as... something else?
That's why I'd like to see him hit the Shroud. It'd be like Marvel Zombies!
DeepShadow of FoS wrote:
The thing is, we all know the Mists can chew them up and spit out the bones. What's this all prove, except to express some people's deep-seated hatred of the Realms?
Isn't that good enogh reason? I remember back on the mailing list that someone suggested Leonard D'Capprio to play the role of Azalin's son in a hypothetical RL movie, just to see him beheaded...
If you ask me, as the one who started this thread, what I wanted to see is not an arena fight between our champions and the Realms'. I wanted to see creativity, scenarios that would be good not only for the tables, but also for a story or a movie. I said it several times: putting a skull beetle in El's boot is really not that difficult, and neither is confronting him with Gwydion/Vecna/God Brain etc. The trick is to the work with as much brain and as little brawn as possible- something along the lines of the Blair Witch scenario that I described. Some of the ideas broght here were very satisfying from this aspect.
And this, after all, what makes us so much better than the FR guys!
It is nice to be reminded of unique features of Ravenloft that could trip up even the most powerful outlander or incautious native, for example that True See is useless against natural lycanthopes, doppelgangers, etc. (well, actually, I have to go look up the exact wording).
It is also interesting to reminded of the degree to which there is a home field of advantage to be exploited.
The question of how Ravenloft would square with a high level campaign is always interesting.
And although I have nothing against the dark elf and his friends, and adore cats, the story of them facing out and losing to Harkon Lukas was very entertaining and insightful.
I saw Shandril mentioned in the OP and after reading the Spellfire Chronicles I never thought of her as overpowered or obnoxious. She goes through a LOT of hard times and I don't recall her Mary Sue-ing her way out of trouble the way Elminster is prone to do. Granted it's been about 10 years since I read those books but I think it still holds. I do recall she gets beaten, kicked around, burned, spellblasted, and all sorts of other things before she actually calls out her spellfire.
She also displays very human traits and flaws and I found it easy to sympathize with her. She's got people she doesn't know after her for a power she didn't ask for, they're trying to kill or capture her or her husband or her friends or anything else. Several times she gets herself into situations where someone else has to pull her fat out of the fryer.
Sure, I don't think she's perfectly executed but I think putting her up there on Elminster's level of silly is unfair to Shandril.
That being said...
Spoilers:She kills herself out of despair at the end of the series. Her husband's been killed and she feels it's all her fault because of the spellfire.
Her life is already pretty hellish in the books. I certainly wouldn't want it. I imagine Ravenloft would be more of the same for her until she's finally driven over the edge of despair.
cure wrote:The question of how Ravenloft would square with a high level campaign is always interesting.
I did my best to answer this in the Reckonings game, but then I wasn't trying to be a killer DM. I kept the Mist Claimers out of it, though there were times that I was sorely tempted....
I'm always in favor of creativity, if not of slaughtering Realmsians.
