Strahd von Zarovich vs Vlad von Carstein

[DaReaperMan]

Speed equal

Start 10 meters away

Battle takes place in a grand, ornate but abandoned castle.

Strahd von Zarovich: 0

Vlad Von Carstein: 0

Inconclusive: 0

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Are we to assume this guy also has Low 1-C stuff?

Also, I have a question. Is the Low 1-C stuff considered Low 1-C due to a Low 1-C power source? If so that's mighty sus.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Are we to assume this guy also has Low 1-C stuff?

Also, I have a question. Is the Low 1-C stuff considered Low 1-C due to a Low 1-C power source? If so that's mighty sus.

Vlad does not have Low 1-C shit. Only Kroak, Mazdamundi, Murghur, Nagash's third key, third key Sigmar, and Archaon have Low 1-C shit from memory.

It comes from the feats each character has, otherwise literally every Mage would have Low 1-C shit besides a soul that far away

 

[DaReaperMan]

Least for the people that aren't actually Low 1-C

 

[DaReaperMan]

Anyways how likely is Strahd to just hax the piss out of Vlad? Since Vlad prefers to start with sword fighting but will go for his magic if he realizes sword fighting is a bad idea

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Well. I think Strahd would forego his usual soulhax/deathhax stuff since most powerful undead in his verse (vampires and liches and the like) resist by default. As the fight goes on he may use it, but ultimately it won't be his usual move. Which means his next most likely thing is to just send summons at him to observe and then move from there- if he rinses the summons easily, the response will most likely be more severe. If he struggles (he shouldn't, the worst of them is a Shadow or Spectre while most of them are just buffed up rats, wolves, and bats) then Strahd is more likely to open with his casual suite (things like basic open combat).

Since I'm following the assumption that Carstein will fairly easily nuke the summons, Strahd will almost certainly first try to divine the location of his coffin or wherever he returns to in order to regenerate (this may include any items used to return to life, since Strahd is aware of vampires who rely on items and such rather than typical means of resurrection). After that, various spells are likely the go to- the soul sealing thing isn't terribly unlikely, since it works on most undead just fine, but mindhax related stuff is certainly outta the question since 99% of that outright will not affect an undead.

So: Clairvoyance, Sealing, BFR, Causality Manip, and Sense Manip are the most likely. Sealing works on souls comprised of Negative Energy, which sounds like Dhar based on his profile, so for now I'm following the assumption that still works. This does mean Strahd's death manip, statistics reduction, etc isn't likely to function.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Well. I think Strahd would forego his usual soulhax/deathhax stuff since most powerful undead in his verse (vampires and liches and the like) resist by default. As the fight goes on he may use it, but ultimately it won't be his usual move. Which means his next most likely thing is to just send summons at him to observe and then move from there- if he rinses the summons easily, the response will most likely be more severe. If he struggles (he shouldn't, the worst of them is a Shadow or Spectre while most of them are just buffed up rats, wolves, and bats) then Strahd is more likely to open with his casual suite (things like basic open combat).

Since I'm following the assumption that Carstein will fairly easily nuke the summons, Strahd will almost certainly first try to divine the location of his coffin or wherever he returns to in order to regenerate (this may include any items used to return to life, since Strahd is aware of vampires who rely on items and such rather than typical means of resurrection). After that, various spells are likely the go to- the soul sealing thing isn't terribly unlikely, since it works on most undead just fine, but mindhax related stuff is certainly outta the question since 99% of that outright will not affect an undead.

So: Clairvoyance, Sealing, BFR, Causality Manip, and Sense Manip are the most likely. Sealing works on souls comprised of Negative Energy, which sounds like Dhar based on his profile, so for now I'm following the assumption that still works. This does mean Strahd's death manip, statistics reduction, etc isn't likely to function.

Vlad will sweep them casually, maybe throwing his own summons which consist of thinking an army of 9-Bs into existence

Then he is going to at least try to find the Carstein ring, which will bring Vlad's regen down to Mid if destroyed and will deny Vlad just popping back up at dusk

Does this sealing work on something a Low 1-C distance away(Every soul in Warhammer Fantasy is like this) and comprised of NEP 2 and AE 1 stuff? Dhar is like pure, uncontrolled, and wild Aethyr, which is chaos stuff and consists the warp(I think), so kind of negative energy? But Vlad would use magic after realizing a sword fight wouldn't cut it which probably would happen once any spell comes out from Strahd. Though I'd have to ask specifically what lore of magic Vlad uses the most on the Warhammer Fantasy discord

Implying Death Manipulation was working on someone with type 5 immortality regardless...

 

[DaReaperMan]

Alright so Vlad prefers the Lore of Undeath but will bring out other lores if undeath/sword play doesn't work, which I doubt it will get to that point honestly, one way or another

 

[Mr. Bambu]

NEP and AE aren't a problem, but Low 1-C distance is. So Sealing won't do it.

I literally implied Death Manip didn't work though

Yeah I dunno how long this fight plays out but at some point Strahd is going to reach into his bag of tricks and use something that works, most likely sooner rather than later.

 

[DaReaperMan]

NEP and AE aren't a problem, but Low 1-C distance is. So Sealing won't do it.

I literally implied Death Manip didn't work though

Yeah I dunno how long this fight plays out but at some point Strahd is going to reach into his bag of tricks and use something that works, most likely sooner rather than later.

BFR if it comes from dark magic would be countered by Vlad's page not having everything which would include a resistance to Dhar, which basically is dark magic. Causality manip is a problem however, since Vlad needs to incap or BFR, the ladder of which is indeed possible with the lore of Undeath, which I'd once again have to ask how the BFR works

As for destroying the Carstein ring it no-sold an attack that turned Vlad into paste, so it isn't getting destroyed any time this century by Strahd

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I... what is Dark Magic? BFR is just normal magic in D&D. Strahd is a caster.

 

[DaReaperMan]

I... what is Dark Magic? BFR is just normal magic in D&D. Strahd is a caster.

Basically what Dhar is, which is basically pure Warp Stuff, negative energy, Aethyr with no "form".

Basically what you would call powered by negative energy.

 

[DaReaperMan]

As I said before, Vlad is missing shit, so he doesn't have the resistance here and BFR should work regardless

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Then no. The more you describe it, I don't think Negative Energy and Dhar are quite equatable, but Strahd's magic isn't reliant on that- it uses the Weave, just like the majority of other casters.

 

[DaReaperMan]

As for Vlad's own BFR, we'd have to find it since it isn't under any of the tabletop spells and what Blackcurrant has found so far is Nagash opening a portal under someone, but that's more Dhar.

Then no. The more you describe it, I don't think Negative Energy and Dhar are quite equatable, but Strahd's magic isn't reliant on that- it uses the Weave, just like the majority of other casters.

Yeah, I didn't think so either. Strahd's shit should work, but someone who resists all of Aethyr Manipulation kind of resists "yes" in terms of supernatural...

 

[DaReaperMan]

Soma_King will formulate an educated post once he gets home.

BFR comes from the spell Banish Undead, which sucks one into a magic vortex that also consumes the magic that animated the Undead in the first place.

 

[SomaKing13]

Okay so basically, Vlad's bread and butter moves is utilizing the Lore of Shadows, especially after becoming Nagash's Mortarch of Shadow (he's missing some extra little bits this would give him, but nothing that'd factor into this fight) Vlad is a strategist first and foremost above anything else, he usually starts by sending out hordes of undead to test out defences and techniques while mixing in his own melee abilties, while adapting his strategies to his enemy, usually using Witchsight to gain as much information on his opponent as he can, from his emotions and his use of magic to current mindset, and intentions. Once he realizes minions and melee aren't going to work, he's going quickly make use of the Lore of Ulgu/Shadows to manipulate the battle to his favour, with this specific lore of magic being capable of even fooling those with the most developed Witchsight. He has a ton of super powerful illusions that both keep him alive during the fight, and even potentially giving him loads of incap options, including but not limited to;

"Ribauld's Retroactive Illusion" which sends a fully constructed illusion back in time, so that the victim was always locked in the illusion from the beginning. "Randald's Mischief" which lets him select and switch one of his allies' abilities for one of his enemy's. He can literally banish Strahd to the shadow realm via "Pit of Shades" which sends the victim to another dimension. "Confound Foe" would be insanely useful here, as it's basically Izanagi, as instead of casting the illusion on the enemy, he casts it on himself, negating any damage he has taken, even his own death, this spell can even be activated if the caster was killed before casting the spell, treating it as if the death never happened in the first place...because technically it didn't..."Mindslip" completely erases the memories of the caster from his opponents mind, forcing them to actively forget him and all knowledge they had on him, and finally "Complete Illusion" which would let Vlad put Strahd into a Aizen-esque self perpetuating infinite illusion that lasts as long as Vlad wishes, and and let's Vlad force any experience he wishes Strahd to experience, from living his perfect dream world to his worst nightmares, Vlad doesn't even have to be around anymore once he casts the illusion, it carries on by itself from then on until he chooses to turn it off.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

• Disbelief lets Strahd ignore Illusions, even ones that are "real" as far as illusions go
• Strahd resists BFR and such, the full list of D&D resistances we have proof cited for is here right now (wildly incomplete but hey, nobody else is helping me smh)
• Unless this army he can summon is also comparable to Strahd then I imagine its just a rather large waste of time for both parties as their summons fight

 

[DaReaperMan]

• Disbelief lets Strahd ignore Illusions, even ones that are "real" as far as illusions go
• Strahd resists BFR and such, the full list of D&D resistances we have proof cited for is here right now (wildly incomplete but hey, nobody else is helping me smh)
• Unless this army he can summon is also comparable to Strahd then I imagine its just a rather large waste of time for both parties as their summons fight

Considering Aethyr Manipulation by default is also conceptual manipulation in literally every use I'd like to know how good the resistance is to both Concept Manip and BFR and such

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Concept Manip Type 2 is on the list, if that's what you mean.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Aethyr manip is type 1

Concept manipulation had the old type 1 removed, in case you haven't noticed.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Oh, right, that did happen

Then yeah, Type 1 is the actual thing now, that's my bad. Threads about concepts tend to go in one ear and out the other.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Yeah, i didn't even know until I read people having type 1 that I knew weren't 1-A smurfs

 

[SomaKing13]

Sorry where does Disbelief come from? I can't find it anywhere on his profile or on resistances sandbox. Also how does he gain the resistances of that page? Like is there a specific reasoning, because none of the pages are specifically explaining the resistances. As for the summons, yeah, they are basically fodder, with stronger ones being very strong High 8-C's, though he can summon thousands at a time, while simultaneously doing other things.

Also how far are we to assume Strahd reaches in Durability? I know he's far stronger than low 7-B but i'm mainly asking because Vlad is already a decent way into 7-B (being far superior to beings who are ultra casually 19 megatons) and can massively amp all of his stats super high via various spell stacking, with the more notable ones just straight up doubling his stats, both AP, durability and speed, and his sword Blooddrinker is a magic weapon which can harm Strahd (Strahd does have the Heart of Sorrow which let's him take a couple blows as it basically takes the damage for him, but if Vlad is too strong he might just oneshot the Heart of Sorrow) Strahd still his regen of course but what is his regeneration scale to combat wise? As i know if he is reduced to "0 hp" or takes to much damage he turns to mist and self BFRs to his coffin to properly heal.

Sorry for all the questions just need some clearing up on things.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Disbelief is a mechanic of D&D in general, or was, from the editions Strahd is originally from- I believe 5e supplanted it for "Intelligence saving throws", which I suspect we can both agree sounds less flashy. I can try to dig up the specifics of it if absolutely needed but the abstract of it is an individual can perform a Will save to negate the effects of an illusion. Obviously this isn't proof but it does show I'm not talking out of my ass- it is a real thing.

As for your bit about "explaining the resistances", what would you like explained about them, specifically? Strahd resists those abilities based on the abilities listed that perform said abilities. Strahd in particular resists a dozen or so layers of said hax above baseline, but I don't think that's what you're asking.

Then yeah the summons mean nothing in this.

I... really don't know what you're asking for in regards to durability lol. You said it yourself, he upscales wildly from Low 7-B+. We don't have an exact value, otherwise we wouldn't need to upscale. 's the whole point. I don't think AP particularly matters- Bloodthirsters seem to scale to 9.6 Megatons, Vlad here is > that, Strahd is > 4.86 Megatons, which is a fairly small gap as far as matches go.

Strahd's regen and Immortality Type 8 are combat applicable, since the former requires an hour of resting in his coffin and the latter is literally just the Ravenloft gods not letting him die too early before his sentence is served (hence why his module keeps coming back). I think you may be reading too much into the mechanics of the game, which is causing the confusion.

I should note that physical combat really doesn't seem to be the way this one goes, since Strahd hardly has all those spells to not use them. I see no reason for him to remain in physical combat once he has gauged this enemy as being one that can contend with him.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Shouldn't Strahd be 7-B considering the amount of upscaling he does?

 

[SomaKing13]

Yeah, I figured as much, just wanted to cover all bases, so this basically seems to come down to both of them sitting back for a while with summons dishing it out for a bit and getting no where before they start to throw their weight around where, honestly it doesn't seem like Vlad can really do anything, all of his stuff is resisted as far as i can tell, especially since "Ribauld's Retroactive Illusion" is kind of one of his big winning moves (cause you know making it so your enemy was always under an illusion from before the fight even began is kind of handy), though he should still be able to negate his death with the "Confound Foe" spell, since he casts it on himself, (even if he's already dead) not on Strahd, I'm pretty sure that plus his ring would be able to counter all of Strahd's lethal stuff until he eventually goes for something like Limited Wish and basically just stops for Vlad to stop doing that LMFAO, so all in all it'd be a hell of a long fight with no real progress but Strahd wins in the end... not sure if it's decisive or a stomp tho...considering I don't think Vlad actually has any wincons

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Shouldn't Strahd be 7-B considering the amount of upscaling he does?

Likely. Not provable.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Yeah, I figured as much, just wanted to cover all bases, so this basically seems to come down to both of them sitting back for a while with summons dishing it out for a bit and getting no where before they start to throw their weight around where, honestly it doesn't seem like Vlad can really do anything, all of his stuff is resisted as far as i can tell, especially since "Ribauld's Retroactive Illusion" is kind of one of his big winning moves (cause you know making it so your enemy was always under an illusion from before the fight even began is kind of handy), though he should still be able to negate his death with the "Confound Foe" spell, since he casts it on himself, (even if he's already dead) not on Strahd, I'm pretty sure that plus his ring would be able to counter all of Strahd's lethal stuff until he eventually goes for something like Limited Wish and basically just stops for Vlad to stop doing that LMFAO, so all in all it'd be a hell of a long fight with no real progress but Strahd wins in the end... not sure if it's decisive or a stomp tho...considering I don't think Vlad actually has any wincons

Tbf nothing actually stops Vlad from hunting down the coffin and playing keep away, I suppose, but it does seem a bit ridiculous to have him do that.

 

[SomaKing13]

Actually yeah I guess that is A option he can go for, and witchsight would definitely help him track that down, so i guess that is a wincon so it isn't a stomp per say.