Drizzt Downgrade

[EsotericDichotomy]

Hello VsBattle,


I am writing my request for a revision of Drizzt Do'Urden's page and the debunking of this blog post: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:ThePerpetual/An_Apocalypse_From_The_Sky about the D&D spell, Apocalypse from the Sky.

I found these pages when I was looking to create some OC pages for my own fictional characters who are based on D&D characters, on another wiki. I wanted to glean some basics so I looked up the famous D&D character, Drizzt. However, I became exceedingly skeptical when I saw his stats. Specifically his tier, combat speed/reaction speed, striking strength and durability.

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He is Statted as:

Tier: At least 7-C

Speed: Subsonic+ with Massively Hypersonic+ reactions and combat speed (On par with high-tier demons; Mach 1986.3 - 3688.9 in combat speed, significantly higher in reactions), likely Sub-Relativistic with The Hunter state

Striking Strength: Class TJ

Durability: At least Town level (Can take direct, point-blank hits from the breath of top-tier dragons), higher with The Hunter state

---

Many of these stats come from this https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:ThePerpetual/An_Apocalypse_From_The_Sky post.

I am going to attempt to debunk several points [7 points] from this post.

Since this post attempts to use game mechanics such as damage, caster level, metamagic feats and the like, I will also be using them to explain how this blog post strays from the canon of the setting and rulebooks themselves.


1) Empower Spell and Maximize Spell do not stack.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#empowerSpell

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#maximizeSpell

Emphasis: An empowered, maximized spell gains the separate benefits of each feat: the maximum result plus one-half the normally rolled result.

This means that an Empowered Maximized Apocalypse from the Sky is going take 10d6 (avg 35) and turn it into 10d6(Max)= 60 + 10d6(50%)=17.5 for a total of 77.5 damage, as opposed to the Original Poster's 90 damage.


2) If we are going to be using D&D damage (the 20d6 of a D&D dragon's fire breath) we will have to look at the rules for energy attacks vs objects as well as the stats of those objects in D&D so we can see just how much damage these attacks do.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#energyAttacks

Fire attacks deal Half damage to objects before even interacting with the object's hardness.

This means a Dragons Fire Breath, which does 20d6 (avg 70) in this example, is only dealing 35 damage. Stone has hardness 8 and 15 hp per inch. Wood has Hardness 5 and 10 hp per inch. This means that our hypothetical dragon's breath is dealing 27 damage to Stone and 30 damage to Wood. This equates to burning through 1.8 inches of Stone and 3 inches of Wood.

These numbers come from the game and are not speculation. And since we are analyzing a spell taken from the game, we must stick to game statistics before converting them to real life terms, rather than speculated statistics.


3) Point #2 affects the calculation of Dragon's breath significantly. This dragon has a cone breath weapon, which is as wide as it is long. 60 ft. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm "A cone is as high and wide as its length."

However cover, blocks damage, so you cannot calculate the entire volume of the breath weapon since should the dragon attempt to burn down a castle, the outer wall protects everything behind it, even if the dragon's breath weapon would otherwise extend its range past that object. That means that the maximum scope of this dragon's breath weapon is a circle with a diameter of 60 feet or 720 inches. A circle with a surface area of 1,630,000 in^2 We also know that this dragon can melt through 1.8 inches of Stone. Which gives it a volume of stone melted equal to 2,934,000 cubic inches. This converts to 48,079,645.78cc

We do have a valid vaporization of Stone energy requirement, so this calculation comes out to a total maximum energy output of 1,235,646,896,546 joules of energy. This is about 0.3 kilotons of TNT.

Mind you though this is spread out, and so any human-sized being, like Drizzt, is only going to be hit by as much as his surface area can be hit by. A human sized being has a rough surface area of 2 meters squared. That is 2,000,000 cm^2. The fire breath is directional though so only one side is taking the brunt of the damage. so 1,000,000 cm^2 vs 10,516,108 cm^2 for the total area of the circle being blasted. It's roughly 10x more. So Drizzt if tanking this attack and surviving is surviving about 123,564,689,655 joules of energy. This in scientific notation is 1.2356x10^11 Which makes him firmly City Block Durability, not Town Durability, if his durability feat is tanking a D&D dragon's breath weapon.


4) Point #2 also casts doubt on the claim that D&D dragons can demolish large structures since in game they can melt large but not deep swathes of stone.

Here is the Actual Spell:

(Book of Vile Darkness, p. 85)

Conjuration (Creation) [Evil]

Level: Corrupt 9

Components: V, S, M, Corrupt,

Casting Time: 1 day

Range: Personal

Area: 10-mile radius/level, centered on caster

Duration: Instantaneous

Saving Throw: None

Spell Resistance: Yes

The caster calls upon the darkest forces in all existence to rain destruction down upon the land. All creatures and objects in the spell's area take 10d6 points of fire, acid, or sonic damage (caster's choice).

This damage typically levels forests, sends mountains tumbling, and wipes out entire populations of living creatures. The caster is subject to the damage as well as the corruption cost.

Material Component: An artifact, usually one of good perverted to this corrupt use.

Corruption Cost: 3d6 points of Constitution damage and 4d6 points of Wisdom drain. Just preparing this spell deals 1d3 points of Wisdom damage, with another 1d3 points of Wisdom damage for each day it remains among the caster's prepared spells.


5) Since the revised damage of the Empowered Maximized Apocalypse from the Sky spell is 77.5 and is within 10% of the Dragon we calculated, it is reasonable to believe that the Apocalypse from the Sky spell completely demolishes any creature that isn't City Block level and is unprotected and lacking spell resistance. However, since objects do not need vital organs and the like to be functional they sustain damage differently than creatures in D&D. Thus the spell is much less damaging to them. Dealing enough to break melt 2 inches of stone. This leads into point #6


6) Dungeons and Dragons spells often give what is called "Flavor text" or "Fluff" in the spell descriptions, alongside the mechanical, tangible effects the spell grants.

"The Mountain Tumbling" feat, is a literal interpretation of the flavor text. Something that isn't literal, it's more of an imagery conjuring description than an explanation of the spells powers.

Since the whole original blog post was a literal interpretation of something that is not meant to be taken literally is a bit of a stretch to use it as the basis of a character's calculated statistics, which was done for Drizzt's Speed.


7) Drizzt's speed is based on flawed premises manifold. The spell is not within Drizzt's canon so it should not be used to calculated his statistics. Secondly, the statistics that were calculated were derived from the flavor text of the spell rather than the actual mechanics and workings of what the spell does. And thirdly, the spell lacks a Saving throw [Fortitude, Reflex, Will] http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#savingThrows, meaning even if the spell did hurl chunks of mountain at foes, there would be no way to dodge them. It does not give that option. And thus the spell cannot in any way be used to calculate the ability of demons or Drizzt to dodge or react. This spell isn't reacted to, one simply takes damage unless they have magic or energy resistance or suitable cover.

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

Was told to try bumping this thread. So... -Bumps-

 

[Reppuzan]

Unfortunately, my knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons does not extend past the Neverwinter MMO, but I'll try to help out as much as I can.

Firstly, your calculation would have to be reviewed by the calculation group. Please copy it to a blog post along with some brief explanations as to why this is the case. You may then link that blog post to this forum thread for evaluatio.

Second, do you recall anything that could possibly rate the dragons as town level? I don't think we have a large DnD fanbase here, but if there's anything that could possibly get them that high we need to know it. From my experiences in playing Neverwinter, powerful Dragons should be at least on par with powerful mages like Valindra, who went to great lengths to obtain a Dracolich.

Third, we try not to incorporate game mechanics like the amount of damage dealt into character stats, but the fact that those abilities don't stack should be added. That said, damage dealt relative to other attacks should be noted, but certainly not numerical values (which are purely non-diagetic and thus only relevant to the game and not the story).

Fourth, is there a particularly reason why flavor text shouldn't be taken at face value?

Fifth, canon stats are encouraged here, so do you have anything that might be used to estimate Drizzt's speed?

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

Hello Reppuzan, Thank you for commenting on my post here.

1) I'm not a calculator by any stretch xD I don't have much faith in my calc and would not be surprised if it was invalid. It was mostly made to show that the previous post was very unrealistic given the circumstances.

2) Dragons at the level of gods could possibly. The problem is D&D while full of fantasy and magic, in game (which is where the spell comes from) attempts to be balanced and playable. Even at Drizzt's level, Dragons aren't destroying towns in one fell swoop like some folklore dragons do. D&D mechanically (which is what the Spell comes from and argues) is very different than D&D thematically. I just think we should cut all the details from the Spell out of Drizzt's profile since it never occurs in the story and the numbers gathered from it are bonkers.

3) I brought up game mechanics because the author of the original blog attempted to use game mechanics to shoehorn inflated stats to the character. That spell should never be used to calculate stats that characters can scale from.

4) Flavor text is text that embellishes with imagery. It is not always accurate and in general is much more powerful than what the spell actually does. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/callLightning.html This spell claims that the caster can call down lightning... but it does 3d6 damage average (10.5) per bolt. Which is just a tad over a Human with a Greatsword 2d6 (7 average). It cannot be considered true lightning as it is orders of magnitude weaker. Thus if someone can tank that 10 damage, it doesn't mean they could tank real lightning.

5) I am unfortunately not familiar with the Drizzt novels, I have one of them, but have not read it. I am not knowledgeable enough about his stats. Though I would bet he is Subsonic to Supersonic if I had to Guess. Maybe Supersonic+ in the Hunter State. But I have no evidence just a hunch.

Pretty much all my issues arose from the use of the Spell in question, being used to glean information for D&D characters in a real world setting. I think that it requires leaps of logic and faulty reasoning and thus should be removed from the profile.

 

[Reppuzan]

Unfortunately, I can't comment on the validity of the calc either, and if the grounds are shaky we can't use it to disprove a rating.

You're also bringing up damage values again and I don't think we should use those for scaling either as I mentioned previously. Otherwise we'd get things like regular Pokemon being more powerful than Arceus since they can do more damage than he can.

According to the page's history, Administrator ThePerpetual created that page. However, according to his wall he's currently quite sick and busy and is thus otherwise out of commission for the time being. Once he's up and running again, I can try to talk it out with him.

Is that alright with you?

Edit: After rereading his message wall, he's apparently almost done with finals. I'll leave him a message and get back to you.

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

Okie dokie. I can sit tight until he's back.

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

Hum, I came across another character that uses the Apocalypse from the Sky Calculation:

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Elminster.

While he is truly a powerful character in his setting. I'd really like to see calculations that are actually from his setting. Nowhere in the book does he have Hypersonic speeds aside teleportation and the like. Again the Apocalypse from the Sky calculation is using some wonky interpretation of game mechanics that don't really apply even within the game, and attaching those numbers to characters that have books written about them and perfectly valid feats in their books that should be used instead.

The Main issues are the Attack Potency, Durability, and Speed gleaned from the game mechanics applied in a very strange way as well as major assumptions that are actually incorrect even with the lore of the setting and game.

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

As for bringing up damage values, that is exactly the point. ThePerpetual uses game mechanic damage values in his fan calc to reach some pretty strange numbers. I think they should be toned down to either fit with the lore of the setting, or removed entirely.

 

[Antvasima]

I have asked ThePerpetual for input.

 

[Antvasima]

His computer monitor has died, so he won't be able to contribute for a while yet.

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

Since ThePerpetual is MIA for a while, what happens now?

 

[Antvasima]

I do not know. Sorry. I can ask him again, however.

 

[ThePerpetual]

Back, finally. Let's begin.

1: Fair enough.

2: This is where I would argue gameplay mechanics. Hardness is there to represent durability, and greater hit points for the structural integrity, right? What actually is the purpose of this rule? I see no reason a hypothetical chunk of flesh that is as tough and durable as metal would magically take half as many hits to destroy with say, an aether blast or an acid burn. It seems more in place to prevent casters from cheesing dungeons by just jacking their caster levels up to ludicrous levels and just blowing through the areas with spell spam.

Unfortunately, Tabletop games in general communicate all of their narrative via gameplay, so picking out what mechanics are intended to simulate realism, and which are intended to preserve the game balance, is something that has to be tackled on a case-by-case basis.

For instance, if there's a bee flitting around 100 feet away and some guy has never taken an archery class in his life, you can't expect him to pick up a bow and have a 5% chance (nat 20) to nail the small, moving target. Similarly, if someone slits someone else's throat, you can't give them a 5% chance to make the Fortitude save to survive coup de grace in a realistic setting.

Going back to your "Call Lightning" example, that's hardly an instance of the game somehow being "wrong": just a demonstration, again, of gameplay mechanics at work. Call Lightning doesn't deal more damage than it would otherwise because that would quite simply be too powerful for the balance of the game to warrant, at least in WotC's eyes. Whether the damage is realisitic or not is irrelevant, as it is literally stated by the game itself to be bolts of natural lightning from the sky. That's the sort of thing they figured 5th level Druids ought to be able to do.

At any rate, people have actually survived lightning strikes before, so...

...what's your point...?

What I'm getting at, essentially, is that D&D isn't Realism Simulator, nor has it ever pretended to be. There's GURPS for that.

3: "Cover blocks damage"

Yes, but never is it stated that it magically absorbs it. That comes down to individual DM rulings, another part of what makes these sorts of series' so tricky.

Using your own example of proximity to the source and amount of the energy the individual body is exposed to, in fact? The fact that anything in the cone can get hit by this, rather than just whatever is closest, seems pretty damning evidence to me that dragon fire (and breath weapons in general) really don't work the way you're making them out to work.

"I brought up game mechanics because the author of the original blog attempted to use game mechanics to shoehorn inflated stats to the character."

Or, you know, I got to be an administrator on this site by believing what I've said for literally years. Just maybe.

If you want to argue I'm using gameplay mechanics for the instance immediately above this, well, go ahead I guess... I just don't really see why a magical/supernatural fire has to function like a real one to the letter.

Of course, while there are a lot of things I could argue here, I feel like it'd be a waste of time, given that at any rate I have a new standard by which to judge surviving spell damage (Disintegrate, which I'll cover... soonish?). So, uhh, moving on.

4: ...eh? The book was rather explicitly designed to be compatible with any setting by Monte Cook himself, as a way of demonstrating what sorts of things that evils of this caliber were capable of. In fact, it's quite literally an in-game item available to you (It's literally right there in the Dungeon Master's Guide, which one would use when running in any setting), so I don't see the argument that the potential for that sort of thing isn't still around.

There's a big difference, basically, between "has not" and "could not".

At any rate, given it can currently generate the equivalent of a full-body bath in molten lava (avg. 20d6 = 70 damage), I can't really see it logically producing any less than sufficient to completely submerge an average person (I.e. ~6 feet). That would be a safe low-end, I bet.

I mean, if you need another example of a generic use of a 9th level spell to stop/generate a Large Country level effect... try Miracle? If you burn some XP, you can reverse/halt natural disasters entirely, basically without any stated limit. No, I'm not going to pull some NLF nonsense in that regard, but given the term "natural disasters" seems to imply anything that could happen to the world that the caster resides on specifically? Using our own world as a reference point, at least, since everyone always does, there's the meteor that ended the dinosaurs. Seems to fall under the intended effects of the spell.

5: The same thing as before.

6: And what evidence is there that this is "just" fluff? If it's in the flavor text, I'd consider it more canon than rolled damage dice if at all possible: look again to your Call Lightning example to get what I mean.

7: You've... never even read the Dark Elf Chronicles, or any other books with the guy in it... and you act like an authority on the topic?

...okay...

Well, at any rate, a Reflex save doesn't solely represent a reflex, per se. If you're using it to dodge something, you would need somewhere to dodge to, something that Apocalypse (since that's what we're going with for now) doesn't offer (yeah, try dodging 200 miles to the right and immediately phasing back to where you were.) It's the ability to react to that with a readied action that gives the stat in the first place, not the notion that somehow characters can phase out of an attack they clearly cannot.

At any rate, being able to Evasion out of natural lightning at point-blank range would qualify basically anyone for lightning-timing, assuming they had no way of aim-dodging (for instance, if it comes from above and thus they wouldn't see it, though in that case it's likely only to net a Hypersonic+ rating anyhow: see Lightning Dodging Feats.)

TL,DR: Yes there's a few problems with our current stats, but I'd still say you're underselling the guy (and the verse in general). Just because it doesn't "fit the tone" does not necessarliy make it an outlier: in fact, most characters' best feats are well above what their authors intended them to be. Rather than just scrap everything we have altogether, I would redo what we have now, and use it elsewhere, and also implement a few other calcs to reinforce the stats. I'll run a few basic spell calcs, I guess...?

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you for the evaluation.

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

Thank you for Responding ThePerpetual!

Also sorry for some of the aggressiveness that may have been in my first post here on the wiki, I didn't mean anything against you, I was just having trouble finding a way to describe my confusion and dissatisfaction with how I interpreted D&D being statted.

As for your response specifically. I think I will rebuttal each point one by one like you responded to mine.

1) No rebuttal needed.

2) Actually I think Flesh is less durable than unfeeling metal or stone. Because flesh generally has weak points such as blood vessels and veins and other structures that can be damaged and stop the flesh from being healthy. To kill an organic being you only need to deal enough damage to stop their organs and systems from functioning. To kill raw metal or stone, you have to fragment it entirely, something that energy attacks don't immediately do, but physical attacks tend to which is why energy attacks are halved and physical attacks are not.

I get the 5% success or fail on a 20 or a 1 is problematic for realism... I struggle with trying to see how that would look in a realistic world as well. In fact I don't really have any comments on it aside wondering how to automatic hits and misses in other franchises fair? Like How does the accuracy of a move in Pokemon get explained on VsBattles. If it is written off as simply mechanics then that is how it should be treated for D&D too.

I do however have an issue with Call Lightning being real lightning. Because it would mean that really low level humans, like commoners and stuff could potentially be Building level for surviving its measly 3d6. It deals 10.5 damage on average 3-18... meaning a 4th level Expert, like say a normal blacksmith in town, is building level. It would make the entire D&Dverse much much higher level than real life, while at the same time, those individuals being weak enough that a 30 foot drop also 3d6 damage... can do the same to them. I would rather consider it a magical attack, given that the spell CAN BE CAST UNDERGROUND

"This spell functions indoors or underground but not underwater." (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/callLightning.htm)

... and not actual natural lightning. I will relent that it mentions 3d10 if you are in stormy conditions, but I see that more as channeling a little extra oomph from the conditions rather than becoming wholly natural lightning.

My point is, Call Lightning isn't a very good spell to assume people to be Massively Hypersonic or Building Level durability... unless your average commoner in D&D is... in which case why can't they survive a 30+ foot drop.

3) Please please please do not use Disintegrate without considering that the spell has two specific effects. One that affects living creatures and one that affects objects. D&D has a very specific separation between Creatures and Objects, to the point that some spells can only affect creatures and some only affect objects. Disintegrate can instantly destroy a cube of object matter, but deals damage to creatures. It is not the same effect and cannot be scaled as such. Disintegrate only turns a creature to dust if it can deal enough to make that creature become a corpse, which is an object and thus is instantly destroyed.

When thinking about my own scaling for D&D I tried using disintegrate but found this very phenomenon to make answers really hard to justify.

4) No Apocalypse from the Sky is not just your usual spell... not only does it take 24 hours to cast, and consume an artifact in the process it is from the Book of Vile Darkness which is not generally in play in D&D at all, let alone relevant to a character like Drizzt.

It is still a spell produced by Wizard of the Coast as official material though... but scaling off of it seems disingenuous and outlier-ish to say the least, as no other spell has that much range... bar unique haxy reality warping usages of Miracle and Wish.

I think equating Miracle to stopping the Chicxulub... is very NLF in the application of what constitutes a natural disaster? You could stretch it to Supernovae too I suppose or Black Holes and Gamma Ray Bursts... I honestly think it is DM Fiat and should be unquantifiable since it depends on what you can get away with DM permission.

5) Hum...

6) D&D isn't about the fluff text though... it's about the very real damage done to characters calcuated by the dice rolls. If it were just fluff falling in Lava would immediately evaporate a person's flesh... but it doesn't it deals 20d6 damage... just like Apocalypse from the Sky deals 10d6 to everyone and everything in miles.

This is my main point. Fluff text is irrelevant to this universe, it is a tabletop game with mechanics that define the universe much like our laws of physics. Take enough damage, you die. And each attack spell does a certain amount of it. You can see examples of this since some spells completely lack fluff text entirely and others have so much of it as to create a nice little narrative.

7) I see myself as an authority on D&D 3.5, not on Drizzt, so you have me there. But you are using a D&D spell to define Drizzt rather than a feat from his own books so that is the major issue.

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

Long story short... I dunno...

I've been working on trying to make a D&D 3.5 conversion to VsBattle for four months now to no avail. I've gotten discouraged a lot with most of my calculations being Wall Level and nothing more.

Surviving exposure to Lava is a Wall Level Feat afterall... I think... I don't even remember anymore...

But I think I might be more open to your other calculations using spells more common, than Apocalyse from the Sky. So I'll wait for those I guess...

 

[ThePerpetual]

2) Gameplay mechanics is the phrase of the day, here, that you'll be seeing a lot of. A commoner wouldn't be Building level for surviving an in-game Building level attack, the attacker would simply remain Building level for generating the bolt or storm with their own magical energy.

Hell, this instance in particular is bad to argue, as there are lots of real-life instances of people surviving lightning strikes: one man, even, survived seven lightning strikes over the years.

It being cast underground just lends more credence to the idea that the caster is Building Level, since it is obvious in this case that the lightning is actively being generated, rather than just manipulated. It gaining a boost, too, seems to lend itself naturally to the idea that nature is what is being channeled, and favorable conditions allow nature to truly shine.

What I'm getting at: an attack can still be magical and have the properties of the naturally occuring thing. Especially if, you know, they're druids, whose whole shtick as characters are being attuned to nature and channeling its will and such.

Minor note, a verse being stronger than real life is extremely ordinary in fiction. Remember, this is the same verse where monks at 2nd level can just take Deflect Arrows, and start swatting arrows, crossbow bolts, firearm bullets, etc. out of the air with their bare hands...

3) It has one effect, and that's damaging/disintegrating whatever it hits. The end result varies based on the fortitude of whatever it hits: inanimate objects/beings of insufficient fortitude get obliterated, and sufficiently tough beings tank the hit. The Disintegrate spell doesn't magically become thousands of times weaker to accomodate for fragile human flesh if that's what it hits, there's literally no reason to assume that at all.

The ability to tank a Disintegrate, which would be considered "canon" for anything/one that's supposed to be fighting stuff on that level (Of an appropriate CR, literally a power level measure), is then a legitimate feat. It's really easy to justify, really: he didn't die, so that guy there who just ate a Disintegrate to the face is probably a pretty tough dude.

4) ...maybe? It being ambiguous is why I moved on to natural disasters in the first place.

Speaking of, what would you recommend I use in place of Chicxulub?

I mean, the definition of Natural disaster at Merriam Webster is as follows:

a sudden and terrible event in nature (such as a hurricane, tornado, or flood) that usually results in serious damage and many deaths

And if we're to use Wikipedia,

a major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the Earth; examples include floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other geologic processes

Meteors and the like are generally considered natural disasters... would you rather me use something solely rooted within Earth? Say, Yellowstone? If this is anything to go by, the last eruption of Yellowstone was 875 Teratons of TNT equivalent, about...

As for the GM Fiat thing? Well, yeah, the limits would be defined by a GM, perhaps. There is, however, an intended effect listed right there in the book, and for lack of anything better that's what needs to be used here.

6) "It would evaporate a person's flesh"

Unless they were abnormally durable. If anything, the fact that this is possible even with gameplay mechanics in effect demonstrates to me that this is supposed to be the case to whatever degree.

Narrative always goes over gameplay mechanics, 100% of the time. That's the one, singular golden rule I go by when dealing with games of any genre, these included, and one I insist everyone else follow as well. The mechanics of the gameplay in no way "define" the universe within a contained context, that would be incredibly intellectually dishonest to the stories the verse and its creator have to tell.

7) His own source material is rooted in D&D, so much so that, if they were to claim indepedent copyright they'd be sued for for theft of intellectual property (See; The Mind Flayers and the Remorhaz... and the Figurine of Wondrous Power... and hell, the drow/elves/etc. as a whole). On top of that he was prominent in the central story of both the Neverwinter story arc and (shudders in GM) 4th edition in general. The Dark Elf Trilogy is not even close to the only source material he has to work with.

Final Analysis: I think the chief issue you have is with using high-ends when there are low-end feats present that might contradict them. All I can really tell you is that this thought process runs counter to the core philosophy this site in general runs on when cataloging feats/power, which is that the greatest displays (sans any outliers and the like, of course) are the characters' true limits, and that anything below that is either the general inconsistency found in fiction, the author's contradictory ideas as to the character's capabilities/identity as it relates to the narrative, or: most likely: simply to move the narrative along in instances where it can be accomplished without ruining the suspension of disbelief.

There are other sites, of course, that tend to prefer the "least common multiple", so to speak. They prefer heavy consistency to the greatest displays a given character can put on, generally believing them (to my understanding, at least) to be illogical and unreconciliable with the author's vision of the novel. I have frequented this site above the others because I disagree with the notion that the author is the only person capable of interpreting their work properly, that feats suddenly become invalid because the story goes a certain way (I believe in narrative before realism, since fiction is fiction after all)... and other, various more personal reasons as an aspiring content creator.

My point is this, Dichotomy. Yes, I get that a lot of the core concepts that Vs Battles runs on don't "make sense" on paper to people unfamiliar with this place. You're probably used to thinking on a lower scale, especially, coming from a fantasy background, I'd bet? I know I was once. I'm not unused to friends being surprised how high many of things are rated here. I'm just saying, there's a reason that someone like me stuck around for some odd year and a half, and that's because I've been given reason to believe in this place's commitment to getting it right above it being right, which I can't personally say I've found elsewhere.

You have every right to not like Town, Wall, Universe, whatever-the-hell-he-may-be-rated Driz'zt at any given point in time, I get that, but I'll repeat what I said earlier, which is that I believe in story and narrative over the game software (or dice, as the case may be) used to tell them. Higher feats near-always trump lesser ones, in regards to what takes precedence on a stat sheet, and that, if you want to argue any points I've made, is the cornerstone that all of it is based on. Have at it.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

 

[EsotericDichotomy]

2) I suppose I do tend to prefer more down-to-earth showings rather than crazy high-level stuff, mostly for consistency sake. You say a commoner isn't building level, while a 3-4th level commoner or expert, could indeed consistently survive the lightning bolt from Call Lightning. That doesn't make any sense. I know that damage doesn't directly translate to X amount of Joules, the game wasn't designed for that. But if a Fall from 30 feet (3d6 falling damage) isn't considered the same energy level as the Call Lightning Bolt (3d6 Electricity damage) then you start to have a very very bizarre game/universe.

Humans don't survive direct lightning though, it is generally nearby strikes or the discharge of the energy that hurts people. A direct strike would kill anyone. Unless real life humans can be building level (-_-).

[[Immersion in Lava is 20d6 per round... average 70... about 10x as much damage as Call Lightning. What level is surviving a dip in lava? I don't have exact numbers, but I've been told it is Wall Level... which is problematic for scaling. Needs more data crunching...]]

Deflect Arrows is a feat yes... that Monks can get at 2nd level or even 1st if they want to waste a feat... in fact anyone can get it since its only requirements are Dexterity 13 (mildly above human average) and Improved Unarmed Strike (Hand to Hand combat training). The thing is it can only be used once per round (six seconds). Someone who can deflect a projectile once per six seconds, isn't suddenly a supersonic warrior capable of attacking multiple times per second. It's simply an hax ability with no limits since you could shoot a projectile at the speed of light and they would still block it. It shouldn't be used to calculate their speed. If that's the case, then even commoners, since a 1-3rd level commoner can still meaningfully brawl with a 2nd level monk... is similar in speed. Is everyone in the D&Dverse Building Level, Supersonic... while at the same time able to be killed by a 50 foot fall relatively consistently?

3) Disintegrate I will vehemently disagree with you on. It has two effects. One for objects and one for living creatures. D&D specifically treats objects and creatures very very differently. Some spells only affect objects some affect creatures, and some affect both. Disintegrate even lists what happens when you use it on a creature vs using on non-magical objects. Else you could just take the most dense material known to man and then make some ridiculous calculation that surviving a disintegrate is equal to surviving what it takes to vaporize a 10 foot cube of gold or something... That's just silly.

Disintegrate's description from the SRD http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm

A thin, green ray springs from your pointing finger. You must make a successful ranged touch attack to hit. Any creature struck by the ray takes 2d6 points of damage per caster level (to a maximum of 40d6). Any creature reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by this spell is entirely disintegrated, leaving behind only a trace of fine dust. A disintegrated creature's equipment is unaffected.

When used against an object, the ray simply disintegrates as much as one 10-foot cube of nonliving matter. Thus, the spell disintegrates only part of any very large object or structure targeted. The ray affects even objects constructed entirely of force, such as forceful hand or a wall of force, but not magical effects such as a globe of invulnerability or an antimagic field.

A creature or object that makes a successful Fortitude save is partially affected, taking only 5d6 points of damage. If this damage reduces the creature or object to 0 or fewer hit points, it is entirely disintegrated.

Only the first creature or object struck can be affected; that is, the ray affects only one target per casting.

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You can clearly see it has two different effects. When used against a creature it does damage only turning them to dust if it can knock them unconscious (0 hp) and "When used against an object, the ray..."

You can also see the creature targetted version is different because it doesn't affect gear only the being in question. Now that's hard to argue it as an all encompassing beam of disintegration.

4) I'm looking over both Wish http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm and Miracle http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/miracle.htm

Wish doesn't reference natural disaster level things... only a 6 second temporal redo or such... as far as I can see. Miracle does, but is mentions protecting a city... which in the D&Dverse is a medieval city which is tiny. Specifically in D&D a metropolis maxes out around 25,000 population. So it's not something like Los Angelas.

I can see Town to City Level with Miracle, because it's literally the intervention of a Deity...

6) "Narrative always goes over gameplay mechanics, 100% of the time."

Then please use feats from Drizzt's narrative rather than a random (most powerful wide-ranging spell you could cherry pick) to describe his abilities.

7) I'm not arguing the books take place in a world that is entirely separate from Wizard of the Coast intellectual property. I'm saying that much like the Pokemon Franchise the Game Mechanics and the Lore of the verse do not match up.

"I've been given reason to believe in this place's commitment to getting it right above it being right," I don't see this... I just see people wanting upgrades and easily accepting them at that, while fighting tooth and nail against any downgrades in the slightest. You literally have people cheering for upgrades and loathing downgrades to their favorite verses. This place while I think it has amazing potential does not look to me (just my little perspective) as striving for accuracy but following heavy systemic bias and desire for maximum numbers on their personal favorite settings.

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"Higher feats near-always trump lesser ones, in regards to what takes precedence on a stat sheet" Super frustrating... but if that is the core of this site, then I guess it is futile to argue against it.