ecn-ec:ecn-pc:ecn-ed:leer@pur-ee.UUCP (09/22/83)
The following is an interesting problem our GM dreamed up: You have been stripped of all levels and gear. You have been placed in the Abyss. Youe suddenly realize Orcus himself is coming down the hallway to where you are. You now have the following options: 1) Pick any 5 magic items from the DMG (INCLUDING artifacts). 2) You will have a surprise attack the first round, and you will have initiative the second round. After that, he gets to do whtever he sees fit. 3) You can pick yourself to be a first level anything. WHAT DO YOU DO ??? Points were awarded with regard to : 1) Escape and survival. Orcus is dead. 2) Escape, but Orcus still lives. 3) You die, and Orcus dies. 4) You die, Orcus lives. 5) Style... did you make Orcus look bad in front of the hometown fans??? (This is the most important). Later, I'll submit some of the results of our attempts (two successes !). Eromedeus
hammy@mit-eddie.UUCP (J. Scott Hamilton) (09/26/83)
Another solution which does not kill Orcus, but could cause great amounts of amusement uses the following item: Helm of Opposite Alignment You get it on his head the during the surprise round, and then with a cubic gate and spell (ring of storing, scroll, whatever) of teleport without error, you pop to your favorite bar with the old Devil to have a few rounds. Does wonders to the home team's moral. -- J. Scott Hamilton !genrad!mit-eddie!hammy
tim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) (09/26/83)
I'll assume that if you are reading this, you've read the article
that I am responding to.
First, do NOT get any artifact and expect to use it against Orcus.
Orcus is a deity, and thus immune to most artifact prime powers.
However, the Wand of Orcus would be extremely helpful in bargaining
with him. Take that as your first magic item.
Second, what is it that you want to do? Survival is clearly your
first priority. The only ways to survive an encounter with Orcus in
the Abyss is to escape or bragain with him, unless your DM is idiotic
enough to have him appear without his retainers. The best way to do
this is to take two Rings of Three Wishes. Have a trustworthy party
member wish himself completely invisible to all beings for an hour,
including those who can see invisible. (This is certainly a
reasonable use of a Wish, and the DM will probably not mess with it,
but still be careful.) He should stand away from the party. Give him
the second Ring -- he is your way home if things go awry.
Next, wish for the safe delivery of a bunch of platinum, say a
ton. Again, be extremely careful. Using your third wish from the
first ring, wish that the platinum should irrevocably decay to shit in
an hour unless the party is alive and well, and speaks in unison a
certain word.
The next step is to get a Rod of Cancellation and use one of your
three remaining Wishes to guarantee that it will be at +15 to drain
the item it hits. Again, this certainly seems a reasonable use of a
Wish, since the Rod is a one-shot item. This will give the Wand of
Orcus a save of 17 against the Rod.
You are now ready to bargain on good terms with Orcus, but you
will probably want to take your other magic item. It is up to you
whether to take it as an additional bargaining chip, or as defensive
magic. I would probably take the best possible magic-user scroll.
Use your surprise segment to explain the deal with the platinum,
the Wand, and the Rod. You can work out the details, but I'm sure he
won't be willing to jeapordize the Wand. Make your requests
reasonable, and get some safeguards. When you are content, your
hidden player character should wish you all back to the Prime Material
Plane. Speak the word that saves the platinum only after you get
back.
There are a variety of variants on this, of course, but I'll leave
that to you. The coward's option requires only a Ring of One Wish,
and allows you to avoid the confrontation altogether by wishing
yourselves back home. The ultra-heroic option has you taking the Iron
Flask of Tuerny the Merciless and attempting to trap Orcus within.
Whatever you do, don't fight him. He will win, or else you have the
world's worst DM. He will teleport back to his lair, pick up a lich
or three, and trounce you from there. Your best bet is to become, if
not his friend, at least a well-respected enemy. Deal with him
honestly, but do not expect honesty in return.
___________
Tim Maroney
duke!unc!tim (USENET)
tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hilllaura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (09/28/83)
i thought that this was an interesting problem, so I thought about it. I have not read what the other people did about this, so I may be duplicating somebody else' answer. if so, sorry. Also, if the original question was ill-formed and there has been long discussion on 'what is an artifact', 'what is magic', or 'what is magic resistance' then I missed all of these. On to Orcus. Right, the first thing that you have to realise about this creature is that there is no way in hell (where you are, right?) that he is not going to be with his retainers. and if you fight him you are either going to have to kill him in your first blow, or be prepared to get teleported to a particularily nasty nether reagion populated by litches and other nasties. Now there is no way that I can see that you are going to to kill Orcus unless you are a God (which i presume you are not). If you view artifacts as Gods then you might get away with using one, but I wouldn't count on it. I (if I were the DM) would play Orcus as immune from Artifact magic. And offensive magic is useless. So unless you can summon a lot of Gods who want to kill Orcus on his home plane, I think that it is time to forget killing him. What you ought to be worried about is survival. There are 2 ways to survive. Either not be found at all, or to bargain with Orcus. Wish yourself back home safe and sound. Keep the other artifacts or magic items. This should work. If you wish yourself back home soon enough there is the chance that Orcus will not some after you. Waste some more wishes making sure that you will not be found, or wish yourself to some plane where Orcus is not likely to want to travel. the other way is to bargain. If you are going to bargain with Orcus, I suggest that you bring the wand of Orcus. You can bring any other collection of items that you think that Orcus might be interested in. Also it is necesary to know what sort of a player you are. if you are a Paladin, you may have no choice but to fight Orcus, even if it kills you (and He will unless your DM is awfully lenient in my opinion) and you cannot bargain with him. But if you are a evil priest of Orcus, then it is likely that Orcus will not kill you, seeing as you are useful to him. If you are going to bargain with Orcus it will be necessary to know how binding oaths are in this world. I would not allow Orcus (or any player, of course) to break a solemn oath without the most dire of consequences. Thus the idea is to get Orcus to swear to let you go while you swear to give him the wand of Orcus. if oaths are binding, then you will escape with your life. Now the trick is to get Orcus into a bargaining mood, rather than a killing one. This may be some trick, depending on how the DM plays Orcus. I would start with a huge ceremony to honour Orcus. I might slaughter some paladins, or anyone else that I thought that Orcus might want to get rid of (assuming, of course, that I was not a good character). If I pull of the ceremony with style, then I will probably win Orcus' respect. (if I don't win his respect than I am going to teleport out of there, remember.) I might even be willing to swear an oath of fealty to Orcus, depending on my alignment. or course, i will present my gift of the wand of Orcus, but since the oaths sweared will be mutual, i should be safe. (Unless I worded the oath badly, more fool me!) I don't know, but if i were playing Orcus I would be pretty leary of killing any first level character that could bring me the wand of Orcus. Something is decidely non-standard about this, so perhaps this seemingly first level character is more than he seems. By the way, you are going to have to get Orcus' true name if you are going to bargain with him, that will cost one wish. Now, of course, is the time for bonus points. If you pick the right oath you can make a fool out of Orcus without getting killed. Hand him the wand of Orcus which has the appearance of something foul or good. Say Heimdall's famous sword... Of course, Orcus will see through the illusion, but will the other inhabitants of hell? of course, something brilliant would be to give the wand of Orcus to Orcus all the while knowing that 4 hours later some bunch of Good Gods (say all of Asgard, for instance) was going to decide that THEY needed the wand of Orcus. Thus you get an oath from Orcus in exchange for which Orcus gets his wand for 4 hours. However, bargaining with the Gods is bound to be tough as well. Personally, i cannot think of any reason why a first level character would have a whole lot of magic and be meeting Orcus, unless they were on some God's business, in which case their options will be severely limited by the nature of the God in question and their relationship with Him. I am interested in what other people do. I get the distinct impression that people will be calling me a craven coward for many weeks, but I really think that "killing Orcus" is too big a task to set on any mortal. laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (09/29/83)
No luck at all using wishes against Orcus on his own plane. He grants the wishes there. Besides, if you play according to Gygax, no Diety will do anything to interfere with another diety if possible, and this is the story on wishes, so you can't use wish magic against them. Another method to kill poor old Orcus (Aside from the mirrors of opposition) is with an Iron Flask. For your magic items, choose iron flasks full of people like Demogorgon and Asmodeus. The two together could make quick work of Orcus while you sit behind your scrolls of protection. There is another method witha 48% chance. I'll save that for later. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304
mek@pyuxss.UUCP (09/29/83)
I've noticed a common thread in all the articles regarding killing or minimizing Orcus - Everyone has ignored his Psionic abilities - unless you take precautions, you're a vegetable after the 1st round - and you won't get any spells off! I don't see any chance of killing Orcus with his magic resistance on his plane, especially considering that many magic items only work on the Prime Material Plane, and the ruler of the Plane usually grants all wishes therein. I offer 1 possible solution, given that 1) most high powered magic (e.g. wishes, antipathy/sympathy) works, 2) Most magic items (e.g., the bag of devouring) still work. During round 1, wish that, all else remaining the same, Orcus fails the next saving throw and magic resistance check he ordinarily might make. After he turns, cast an Antipathy/Sympathy spell at him to convince him that the object he desires most is in the bag, then give him the bag. He should get munched, despite his physical strength.
raz@mi-cec.UUCP (Robert A. Zimmermann) (10/04/83)
My solution?
Well, being the abject coward that I am, and knowing that there is no chance
in (this particular) hell that I can do anything to this beastie, I run.
Let's be honest, he has retainers, magical resistance, and psionics (though
I don't use them in my world). You get 2 actions before you die.
Therefore, take the five best magic items the party had, and utter my
'Word of Recall' (I cast it when I was a higher level Cleric). If it doesn't
work the first time (DM might disallow it cause I'm not the man I used to be),
I'll use up a wish.
Murry Wu, First Prophet of the
Lord Finagle (#6210310)
a.k.a. Robert A Zimmermann
{decvax!idis!mi-cec!} raztim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) (10/04/83)
Look, Brad, I never suggested that the wishes be used AGAINST Orcus. They are there purely for escape purposes in case bargaining fails. This is one of the "easy" uses of a Wish (look at the spell description in the Player's Handbook), and could be expected to work under any circumstances. The Iron Flask was suggested by me in my earlier article, but for Christ's sake don't have anything stuck in it! Use it to trap Orcus!!!! And what is this "get some Iron Flasks" bull? That's like saying "get a few Machines of Lum the Mad" or "take a few Swords of Kas". There is only ONE Iron Flask -- it is an artifact. I stick with my previous assertion that the task of killing Orcus on his home plane is impossible for the party as given, regardless of equipment. You cannot kill him in your surprise segment, and after that he uses his teleport at will to go back to his castle. It is then child's play for his servant liches to locate and annihilate you. (Cast Temporal Stasis, then teleport into a location within reach of you, is one good start. Another truly spiffy approach is the offensive use of Vanish, to bring your atoms and those of a rock into intimate contact, but the DM might disallow this in the Abyss.) Regardless of specifics, any DM who cannot trash you in this situation should not be running adventures that are this high-level. _________________________ Tim Maroney duke!unc!tim (USENET) tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA)