Culbert and Luz can be killed and looted!!!

First of all, I really appreciate the help I received from reading the wonderful party building threads in this forum, as well as the great co8 4.0 mod that I have installed!

Following up the thread that there would be a special end-slide where Prince Thrommel would be acknowledged to have killed Zugg with our party if he remained as an NPC to the end fight, I strung Thrommel early in the game as soon as I managed to breach ito the temple via the bandits tower and then heading down the secret stairway.

Everything progressed well into the last level where Hendrack's final stand with my party of 5 PCs, Troll Chief, Prscilla and Thrommel as NPCs. As we bashed Hendrack to 10 hitpoints left, he summoned Luz as expected, by a freak stroke of luck and some tactful improved combat tripping done by my lvl 8 fighter, Luz was bashed to 50+ hitpoints when Culbert pops out as per usual scripted. Luz then spoke...Hendrack...why did you summon me thus?...By then Hendrack was already dead, and Luz continue to remain hostile to my party instead of the usual parley with Culbert.

Here is the funny part, as Culbert was a neutral target to my party he did not attack me although he did not lift a finger to help me in the fight against Luz as well. Piqued and chargined, I blasted Culbert with just 5 magic missles, i was think that if he had spell resistance, he wouldn't take any damage and thus would not turn hostile, all in the name of fun anway. However, *laughs* he DID took the full damage from all the magic missiles and oh dear...a 500hitpoint 17foot giant bearing a huge blue mace was bashing my party next minute.

Damn it, Culbert wouldn't die much less even getting a scratch and my healing spells ran out, desperate, I tried the 'Trip the Luz' method on that crazy giant saint and he tipped! Woohoo! Seems like only the Thrommel bastard sword could hit him without fail, p.s Wha's the full enchantment of his sword anyway? So trip, chop, get up, chop, trip chop, within 30+ turns, Culbert was killed finally! By then Luz was already dead too, lucky strike by Thrommel cleave and attack of opportunity too early. I quickly checked my ego chart and geesh...I got both demi-gods on my CR chart! Now I know why Culbert was totally immune to all melee attacks. Check out his Armour class bonus in the pictures below!
Strange to know that Luz got a higher CR than Culbert too!

Anyway, I looted both demi-gods and Hendrack and left them naked on the temple floor, the pictures below will show them in thier birthday suits! Hehehehe. I then dressed Thrommel in full Hendrack wargear and had him pose with Pscrilla and Troll Chief standing proudly among the carnage!!! Of course, Prscilla can always be Thrommel's exotic slave now! Who needs Paida and that ugly princess Jolene anyway?

 

St. Cuthbert didn't have any outsider hit dice and was short some levels. That's been fixed in my new protos.tab.

Maybe I should make him untripable too? (A pc shouldn't be able to consistently trip a large creature that has a 30-something strength. Once in awhile, sure, but not repeatedly. Something is wrong there.)

 

Well, on the flipside, a 10th level priest shouldn't be able to summon his deity for direct support, either.

For Cuthbert, I gave him the stats of one of his Avatars in my protos.tab overhaul, minus all his spells and the two dozen divine powers he should have but aren't coded in the game. I doubt he'd show up in person when an avatar would suffice.

 

Hmm actually i don't know about the greyhawk cosmology but in the FR i don't think he even could show up in person, definitely not on such short notice. I believe it's quite non-trivial for a god to actually in person show up some place. Nevertheless a 10th level priest most probbably shouldn't be able to summon even a lowly avatar. On the other hand if there is a banishment from the prime material involved (as i understood there is for Iuz) i would have thought he must appear in person since i don't think killing a god's avatar has that nasty reprecussions. I will check the Deities and demigods rulebook to make sure.
Rawel

 

Iuz lives in Greyhawk, and comes to the call of his Chief henchman in this part of Oerth...Hedrack. Because it's in his best interest to do so. St. Cuthbert shows up 'cause he's interested in thwarting Iuz. How long it takes Cuthbert to show up is another matter. That depends on the party...he's only mildly interested in saving them. Iuz only has a slight chance of showing up in the module...but if he does, St. Cuthbert is guaranteed to arrive...but after some delay. More delay if the party isn't made up of his followers, of course. It makes for a more colorful & interesting CRPG to have deities involved; but they shouldn't be able to be defeated much less killed by adventurers, especially at this level.

 

Yeah you're right it turns out i'm too warped by FR. It seems that deities in other cosmologies ave no trouble coming in person. In that case though i would think they should be nigh unbeatable it's one thing to kill an avatar and quite another to kill (read banish) a god. I would though figure they would have equipment and leave it behind. Getting banished from a world takes it out of one i would think. Actually i just looked at the greyhawk gazeteer from 3rd edition and it turns out Iuz is actually only a demigod. But i have no idea what that actually means in greyhawk terms as it seems this setting is very far removed from the FR. If anyone would care to enlighten me i'd be very gratefull. It does seem odd though that Iuz is CR 52 and St. Cuthbert only 50 given that St. Cuthbert is an intermediate diety.
Anyhow just my 2 cents worth
Rawel

Edit: Ahh found the right place in the living greyhawk. It does seem that St. Cuthbert was allowed to come to the Prime on a case by case basis (almost) to fight Iuz. Iuz can come to the Prime since he is of Demigod status only. I'd quote it but i'm affraid it's not SRD and i don't want to get into any trouble. Anyhow guessing from this I'd think that St. Cuthbert would probabbly be the one recalling his items and would definitely be much much tougher then Iuz. After all he must be at least divine rank 11 whereas Iuz is at most divine rank 5.

 

There's more than a few folks around this place who have an interest in seeing things put to rights...Kalshane in particular, who's fixing things to be more in line with a sensible D&D philosophy...not to mention the rules. Some of the super tough & really weak things that shouldn't-have-been will no longer be.

:evil_laug

 

Thanks, Spike. Unfortunately, there's no way to give any deity justice within the limitations of the ToEE engine. The divine powers just aren't there and the number of higher-level spells we have right now is extremely limited. Divine Blast, in particular, would be fun to have and would end the fight pretty quick. (Ranged touch attack, does 1d12 points of damage per point of Charisma bonus and Divine Rank the deity has. No save, no way to resist outside of the Divine Shield ability. St. Cuthbert's Divine Blast would do 24d12 points of damage at +62 to hit or only 16d12 at +54 to hit if his Avatar did it.)

St. Cuthbert's Divine Rank is 15. His Avatars are Rank 7. I unfortunately don't have Iuz's 3rd/3.5 Ed stats.

 

Kalshane- could you offset the inability to give the "Gods" their rightful powers by upping thier HPs?

Maybe give them so many as to be nearly impossible to kill, and give them better attacks and AC?

Just an idea.

 

Well, a natural 20 always hits, regardless of the AC. But really, it's Scather and Fragarach that are the problem, since they always hit and with Power Attack you can get ludicrous amounts of damage out of them.

I'm seriously thinking about making both deities untrippable, beyond that, their HP and resistances should be enough to make them close to invincible. (St. Cuthbert has 1,000 hp in the new protos.)

 

OK- that is what I was suggesting, 1000 HP!

I was unaware of the already high AC (hmm, maybe it should be LOWERED-to maybe a paltry 50?). I was just trying to suggest something to "beef" them up, but yeah, sounds like Scather and Fragarach are the main problem. Definitely making them Untrippable is the right thing!! Anyway to (in the same way as making them untrippable) make them unhittable by a certain weapon type, say, Oh I don't know, slashing? THAT'D fix Scather and FraggleRock, right?

 

Fragarach & Scather would not hit St. Cuthbert, cause they are aligned & would not allow it. They would be hurting the wielder who was trying to hit the Saint with them instead.