The wizard, seeing a spell cast and his Turning drops, is going to try and flee. He’s a bit of a coward, and having been targeted through his defenses, he’s looking to get out.
Initiative!
Alzar does not have his Ring of Quick Action. Just Free and the Spell Turning one. 2 for Alzar and 4 for the foes. Most of their enemies are moving out, trying to attack, and the goblins and wargs have left the Invisibility 10’ radius spell that was dropped. Alzar ignores them, and casts Power Word Stun on the mage. Does the mage have an immunity to paralysis? Nope. He is stunned for…2 rounds. The goblins break and fire, and keep running in formation. The simulacra and the dwarf are charging, and…the Bulette is up too and attacking, and another is burrowing up from the ground.
The Stalker is up and Alzar uses his Slippers to climb the walls to get him out of melee range so he can focus on more spells for hitting Tairdo, the conjurer. Init. 6 vs 8. Alzar casts Time Stop. Then he casts Mass Domination to deal with the goblins as he moves closer, and then Finger of Death and charges in to melee range…and that’s all he gets. The Mass Domination works on many and a bunch of goblins now force their worgs off, and the Finger of Death…15 rolled, save made. Alzar’s imp attacks the stunned Tairdo and….hits for…1 damage and….the mage rolled an 8 – and…a magic item helps him to win the save vs poison or die. Tairdo will be stunned for one more round. The dwarf and her simulacra attack Alzar and miss. The Bulette are in and attacking as well.
5 vs 7. Alzar takes 21 from the dwarf and one of the Bulette. A great axe carved him. Alzar tries to kill the mage the old fashioned way, with three attacks. Tairdo has an AC of -7. That’s right. That’s Bracers of Defense AC4, plus -3 for dex of 17 (AC1), Ring and Cloak of Protection each +3 (in my campaigns you can’t stack those, that’s too illegal, so I’m giving him a +3 ot hit bonus for a stunned character to make up for it). and a item that gives -2 to AC so he has an AC of -7. Now, Alzar needs:
13 ThACo
+7 for AC 17
17 with attack against a stunned creature
14 with Zoster
10 with Magical Axe
7 with strength
So he needs a 7 twice with the axe. 18 and 15 are rolled. That’s…6 and 3 damage rolled on d8s plus 6 and 4 and 3 times two for two hits – 35 damage. Then Alzar tries to hit with the Bright Barrier. Now he needs a 11 to hit with it. He rolls a 2. Unfortunately, he could not kill the mage this turn with melee attacks but…we still have an Azzil attack. The Imp rolls a 18 and hits. That’s 2 more damage. (3 from imp, 35 from axe – 38 damage – he has just 7 hp left, although Alzar doesn’t know that). Now, what about that poison save? He rolls a 5 and….I need to look that one up hold on….His poison save is a 10, so he gets +3 from the ring, and I’m ruling he doesn’t get two +3 saves from two protection items. (I just looked it up and the DM’s guide says this in the Ring of Protection section:
“2. Multiple Rings of protection operation on the same person, or in the same area, do not combine protection.”
Now just because you take the same magic, and put it on a cloak, a boot, a belt, or a condom doesn’t mean that the magic is different. There’s no line that specifically says that it will or won’t work in the Cloak or Ring descriptions, so hold on, let me check the later printings of those two items in the Encyclopedia.
Ring in Encyclopedia Magica says….the same description. What about the Cloak? Nope, nothing else there either. Hmmm…. What about the D&D magical items list? I searched for ten minutes and nothing. So I ate a Twinkie. And then I ate the other one in the pack. And no mystical guidance followed. I just think it’s cheesy and cheating to run that many +s to saves in order to cheat and win your saving throws.
So what do I do? Ignore my ruling from the past? Then the Imp’s poison doesn’t work and we go to the next turn. Or do I keep it and once again, Alzar has killed a big bad and changed the story early on.
Sigh.