some musing on past dnd campaigns...

yeah-- i'm talking to you lordchaos359

...specifically, the one with dharinel trying to take over the world, the really screwed up fight that was barely winable as it was and the demon should have won, especially after the party's paladin finally broke under the mage's harassment and turned against them mid-battle.

i was telling one of my current dnd group about that campaign. it started as just telling him about pcs who betrayed their party: the many antics of patrick and your and my characters killing him for it, yeti, drosera (my dark elf, since it's been long enough that i think you've probably forgotten her name) walking off right before the the fight with dhar.

that last led to an explanation of that entire campaign, the fact that winning that campaign left the demons with a permanent foot hold on the world and in charge of two continents, the party's paladin's betrayal--or rather, the paladin getting pushed over the edge and into the trap of the magic item that had been subverting your mind turning him to a demonic anti-paladin--and an explanation of dhar himself. his plans, his goals, his past, his weapon, his stats and special abilities.

we came to the conclusion that dhar is chaotic neutral with heavy evil tendencies, smarter than most villains, impossible to kill under 2.0 rules, and under 3.5 rules would require seven wish spells cast all in the same round by the same mage (because the spells would all build off the previous ones, so can't be cast by different people).

this would require a level forty mage, under the effects of a haste spell, with at least six of those spells quickened. for comparison, i know you're not familiar with the forgotten realms, but ellmeister (probably spelled wrong) is the realm's ubermage and is level 29. an on top of that, each of those wishes are the standard "the dm now has license to freely fuck with you if they aren't worded right" wishes.

now, when i created dhar, i was just trying to make him powerful enough that it would be reasonable that the combined empires of the paladins and the dragons had decided that imprisonment was easier, evil enough to be a major threat to the world, and still uber enough that our other two party members would follow my campaign plot and retrieve the trap item to re-imprison him rather than decide it would be easier to kill him.

i suppose i succeeded on that front, didn't i?

and two seconds ago, i figured out a way for one mage, with one wish spell could undo the the level forty mage's work to kill the demon. it all has to do with wordings of the wishes. thus i could, even after all that effort, resurrect dhar and have him once again trying to turn the world into the uber dictatorship.

i'm evil.