Clash of the titans

[Sator]

I admit that the title is a bit clichéd and not entirely accurate, as the Titans are actually monsters in the D&D world..

*Warning IWD2 adn BG2 spoliers in the WHOLE pos!*


What i wanted to theorize, was a clash between our beloved John Irenicus and his sister Bodhi vs the charming Isair and (again) sister Madae. Let's examine the "contestants".

First we must point out that the two games use significantly different rulesets, and thus a direct comparison is somewhat pointelss and impossible. If anyone cares to convert John and Bodhi to 3rd edition rules (the set used by IWD2 as we all know), or better yet, not give the cambion twins the advantage of home turf, seeing how they were designed for that ruleset, and just convert the whole lot of them to 3.5 rules (the most recent D&D ruleset) I suppose i could do it myself, if i were provided with the stats of each character. Of course, fountains and giant elven trees that make you immortal are forbidden in this match

I am too lazy to install IWD2 now, so if anyone can give us a list of the abilities, spells, equipment and stats the cambions possess i would appreciate it. I also am not sure of the BG team's stats, as there are several versions of the characters, so a smiple Ctr+Q might not give me the accurate ifno. Plus i don't know any creature code, spare for "bodhi".

Based on memory and wikipedia (information might be innacurate):

Joneleth Irenicus:
Homeland - Suldanessellar
Gender - Male
Race - Elf
Age - ?
Class - Mage (lvl?)
Alignment - Neutral Evil
stats unavailable so far, help please
Possesses two unique spells:

"Rapture of the Father," a death spell that appears to be able to instantly kill six enemies with no regard to magic resistance or saving throws.

? cloning spell with which he clones the main character and his parry (this is almost certainly script based)

Bodhi (Irenicus? ) *based on the CLUAConsole:CreateCreature "bodhi") this might differ severely from the Bodhi we get to face in the tombs*

Homeland - Suldanessellar
Gender - Female
Race - Elf
Age - ?
Class - n/a, Vampire
Alignment - Chaotic Evil
Stats:
STR 24
DEX 24
CON 20
INT 15
WIS 15
CHA 14

hp 102
ac -7
THAC0 -4
Number of attacks 3
All saving throws 5
Resistances:
Cold 100
Electricity 100
Magic 75
Magic Cold 100
Poison 100

Special Abilities - Level drain. (? lvls per hit)

Isair

Homeland - Kuldahar
Gender - Male
Race - Daemonfey (Elven Tiefling)
Age - ?
Class - Sorcerer/Rogue
Alignment - Chaotic Evil
Resistances:
Spell Resistance (%?), Immune to fire (?), Acid ressistance, Physical Damage

Sapecial Abilities: Sneak Attack, lvl 9 spells, dual-wields scimitars "the chaotic good drow" way, his weapons doing poison/stun/disease on hit.


Madae

Homeland - Kuldahar
Gender - Female
Race - Daemonfey (Elven Tiefling)
Age - ?
Class - Fighter/Cleric of Xvim (former cleric of Ilmater)
Alignment - Chaotic Evil
Resistances:
Spell Resistance (%?), Immune to fire (?), Acid ressistance, Physical Damage

Sapecial Abilities: Acid damgae of her mace, uses high level priest spells and summons legions of monsters, undead and gates in throngs of demons.

A fight between the BG champions and the IWD cambions would be a sight to see indeed But as of now my information is lacking and i can only speculate as to who the winner might be. I would assume that the fight would proceed like this (both groups controlled by equally skilled gamers, or equally dumb AI ) :

John and Isair buff up.
Madae buffs and/or starts spamming summons.

Bodhi rushes Madae, since she is the weaker of the two and does not posses the means of becoming invisible and stoneskined. And Bodhi, of course, does not need to buff up.

John stars blasting away at full throttle,

Isair protects himself from magic and rushes John in melee.

Madae casts undead ward and either:

splatters Bodhi with Turn Undead

or if Bodhi is immune to it (which i believe she is), goes on to casting spells.

I suppose that since Isair could become immune to magic, he should easily
gain the upper hand on John in melee. Bodhi would either rip Madae apart trough sheer brutal strength or trough level drain, if Madae's protections wear off, or Bodhi manages to inerrupt the cambion's spellcastiong. Overall, we would have Isair VS Bodhi in the end. And, to nobody's surprise, he will beat her to an undead pulp, or better yet, just nuke the undead nightlights out of her. All of that, of course, assuming that one of the cambions doesn't drag the other one when he/she dies like it happens in the actual game.

So for now, the estimated winners and champions are the IWD Cambions! Congratulations Isair, now go and ressurect your sis.

Side note: Please contribute with info, so i can change this to become more detailed and accurate. Also, if a thread like this exists already i'm sorry, but i couldn't find it.

[Sator]

Aww come on guys no one has any info on the 4 major villains in out favorite games? Well... I can give you an alternative ending, if you'd like:

Isair, Madae, Bodhi and Irenicus are battling, spells flying and wreaking havoc, scimitars and claws flashing... Suddennly a party of 6 level 30 Chaotic Good Drow Sorcerers walk in and obliterate both groups.

Happy Hollidays from me! See you all next year.

[Sator]

I am seriously confused.. Does no one have the stats of at least *one* of these characters? Or at least have a theory on who will beat who? I guess I'm the only one that finds this amusing

[Jedi_Sauraus]

well 2E mages are alot better than 3E mages, Imagine what Johnny could do if he summoned up a planetar army (doable under 2E rules) or just Imagine that he was actually intelligent I'd go with the BG2 team. Bodhi would be next to uselss in this fight mages pwn vamps can be killed in so many ways.

[VonDondu]

It's difficult to answer a question like this, not because it doesn't appeal to the geek inside me, but because the "titans" you are talking about are difficult to represent in an RPG game. They are extraordinary creatures who are used in two different games in such a way that the player faces a significant but satisfying challenge. That's all. Beyond that, I don't think they are represented fairly at all.

Take Jon Irenicus, for instance. He has phenomenal skills that aren't really represented in his stats. In the cutscenes, he uses spells that were specially created for him, including one that is sort of like permanent improved alacrity. No attention was paid to his stats because they don't make any difference. The designers used the standard character template as a starting point (all stats are 9) and only changed what they felt like changing (race, class, level, hit points, AC, etc.). He completely outclasses the Cowled Wizards like the demigod you're supposed to think he is. If you tried to fight him when he was in one of those incarnations, you'd be toast.

When you fight Irenicus, he is specially tailored to suit your level and provide a balanced challenge. When you fight him in Spellhold (PPIRENI2), the game forces you to bring an "army" with you that, in effect, weakens him so that you have a chance to kill him. He is much more powerful when you meet him on the Tree of Life (SUJON). But even there he is weaker than he normally is because he is in the middle of a big project that is consuming much of his energy and Ellisime adds extra interference. When you face him in Hell (HELLJON), he has just died (along with you) and hasn't had a chance to rest and recover, and it's safe to assume that he is not bringing the same amount of power to bear against you that he unleashed on the Shadow Thieves and the Cowled Wizards. Do you really think that you and your party would stand a chance against him at the height of his power? I can't tell, because the game tinkers with his abilities so that an average player with an average party can win the game. "Reality" is tossed out the window for the sake of the game.

This is demonstrated even more dramatically in the two confrontations you have with Bodhi. In Chapter Three, she can drain two levels per hit. In Chapter Six, she can drain five levels per hit. Why is there such a big difference? Obviously, because the game designers wanted to balance the game. It has nothing to do with "reality".

If you want to have some fun, try using the Ctrl-Q cheat key to add any creature you meet to your party. I once summoned Bodhi with the CLUAConsole and added her to my party and let her do all of the fighting in the Irenicus encounters. The designers weren't expecting Irenicus to face an extremely powerful vampire, so they didn't prepare him for it and he died rather quickly. But I didn't think that was "realistic" at all.

The main advantage that Bodhi has over the others is her level drain attack. If the others don't have any protection against level drain, then inside the parameters of these two particular games, they are toast. But unfortunately, I think that such speculation cheapens the epic nature of those individuals. I don't think we should look at them in terms of stats and abilities, which are too limited in scope to accurately represent them. Instead, we should look at them as extraordinary characters.

[Sator]

Damn that has got to be the most intelligent reply I've ever gotten in a forum Aye i do agree with you, i actually did the Ctrl+Q for all the Bodhi and Irenicus incarnations listed in Dan Simpson's BG monster list.. They are virtually the same in stats an level (there is however, a Jon that is Neutral GOOD???). Yes the stats are mediocre, he has just a few memorized spells and basically, his whole power is demonstrated trough script based action in the cut scenes. But your analysis on why and how the BG2 party ever got a chance against him brought some new light on the situation. So, putting stats aside, i suppose we could just role play the whole thing. Just assuming that all of the chars are at their peak of power (something the average party would not be able to take, so toss game realism aside ). And furthermore, i think that Bodhi is or at least should be immune to normal undead-splattering methods. Actually she is immune to turn undead, but not to the mace of disruption. And i disagree with her being useless in the fight
Well, in conclusion i agree that Jon's intended character profile was meant to represent a being of great power and in a hypothetical encounter he would be far superior to the other three.The hundreds of years he spent researching magic and using his godly intellect to finding ways, to dig deeper in the mysteries of the universe make him one of the most-powerful beings that ever walked Faerun. He is the cold, intelligent and efficient one, drawing his power from the vast arcane lore he has accumulated over time. His sister is supposed to be the vicious and blood thirsty one, her power coming from her superhuman pysical abilities and her being an undead vampire queen, who has slayed thousands just for the sake of pleasure.
I think the lack of storyline in IWD2 makes role playing the Isair and Madae characters much more difficult. They are the children of Belhifet, and have risen trough the rabble of the inhuman races to form the Legion of the Chimera. Isair's power comes naturally to him, as he is a powerful sorcerer. He also uses stealth and agility to backstab and in general rend things apart with his dual scimitars (how very original). Madae is a fighter priestess of the evil deity Xvim, capable of drawing power directly from her god.

I must go now, but i will continue this later on.. Thanks for the interest you showed guys!

[Domi_Ash]

sorry about being inane, Isair and Madae are cambions, not tieflings. 1/2 demon blood = cambion. Less than 1/2 = tiefling.

[Sator]

i think they are Daemonfey (Elven Tiefling) but @ 1/2 daemon blood.

[VonDondu]

From what I understand, cambions are half-demon/half-human. Isair and Madae are the children of Belhifet (the balor from Icewind Dale 1) and the elven maiden Ilmedia. That makes them half-demon/half-elf. That means they're not cambions, but I'm not sure if that makes them daemonfey. The article on daemonfey at Wikipedia makes a distinction between tieflings and daemonfey when it says that daemonfey "are the elven equivalent to tieflings". It describes daemonfey as an entire race that was deliberately created rather than the chance offspring of a couple here and a couple there. I think what we need here is a half-elven equivalent of "cambion", but I'm not sure what that is.

[Crenshinibon]

Actually, I think the term "Daemonfey" is a mix of demonic and elven blood, but for a subrace. The Fey'ri, who are Daemonfey, are a product of four noble houses of sun elves breeding with demons to boost their power.

"
The result of four noble houses of sun elves breeding with demons in an attempt to strengthen their bloodlines, fey'ri are a type of planetouched that breeds true among their kind. Marked by their fiendish blood, fey'ri are rare among most planetouched in that they have a self-sustaining community, so they are raised among their kind. In general form they resemble sun elves, although all have large bat-like wings. They have one or more unusual features: fiery red eyes, long pointed tail, bat-like ears or deep red skin."

It does kind of sound like the brother and sister, doesn't it?

I'm surprised you didn't include Amelissan, Demogorgon, Icasaracht or Behlifet.

[Pellinore]

Demogorgon was a demi-god in 1st edition AD&D...I don't think any of the ones mentioned are really in his class. He was toned down for BG2. I remember many years back playing a PnP game with a 21 level bard (whole party of 6 was around that experience) and Demogorgon was the most difficult opponent we had ever encountered...until we fought Orcus.

[Crenshinibon]

Yes! Bards rule. XD No one appreciates them anymore and few did back then.

Even after he was toned down, I had more trouble with him than I did with Jon or any Bhaalspawn, during my first few runs of ToB.

Now I can solo him. Yep.

I'd say that Icasarcht is tougher than Isair AND Madae

[Sator]

Well i included the cambion twins (as they are called by the npc's in IWD2) and Jon and Bodi since they are the main villain figures in the games.. Demogorgon for example, while mighty, could be completely ignored by the player. And i really dislike Amelyssan, i suppose because the ToB storyline doesn't reveal enough about her to make her and intriguing character. For all i know, Noober could have tapped in all that Bhaal essence and provide an equally challenging fight... Which does bring a question - What if Noober was a child of Bhaal, and was pretending to be and annoyng peasant so he could survive the troublesome times
Hah, back on topic - during my 5 month visit to the States this summer i finally had the chance to see The Book of Vile darkness and all the other D&D books IRL. You see, living in Bulgaria has it's downsides.. In any case, Demogorgon is the ruler of lvl 66 of the Abyss and is said to be one of the most powerful Ta'nari (Abysmal Chaotic demons). His stats, as listed in the book, were something along 500+hp and various 3 ed abilities that mean nothing to me But the point is he was on par with Asmodeus and the other High-Ranking demons from the Nine Hells.. To me a normal group should not be able to even *look* at one of those demon lords without getting disintegrated.. So much for BG2 realism
Actually, the most powerfull being on Faerun (excluding the avatars of various deities) is an ancient red dragon. You know, the one that is said that could possibly kill the Tarrasque, if he really wanted to He had something like 2500 hp and a 8d80 attack or whatnot... So why was i saying this again? Ah yes, i know that Jon/Bodhi and Isair/Madae are not the ultimate challange one could face on Faerun. But i like them and they seem realistic and actually tackable with 20 lvl chars.