Suggested by Guardianangel1911, AHEM and Commander Cross
For this battle Rahl does not get Orden for this one and Dresden has his Winter Knight armor and normal equipment.
Who wins?
Harry Dresden Vs Richard Rahl
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Author: Hitman H94 View all posts by Hitman H94
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Yes, it got posted. Okay well if no one can guess who I think is going to win then you haven’t paid much attention to the debates Dresden has been in.
So instead saying it I’m going to go straight into feats.
Dresden’s weakest shield tanking 75 024.3073 joules of energy and the calculations backing it up.
—-
Shield feat, and Reaction Time/Spellspeed feat:
TL;DR Version:
Shield Strength: 75.042 kilojoules of energy
Shield erected in less than 2.59177663 seconds
Book 1 Feat
Quote:
“There was a little groan from the elevator, and then it shuddered, and started sliding back down the shaft, no longer supported by the powerful but short-lived pillar of wind that had driven it up there. We were falling back down the way we had come, and I had the feeling that we weren’t going to have a much better time of it at the bottom than the scorpion had at the top.
Now was the time for the bracelet, and I didn’t waste a heartbeat grabbing Murphy close to me, and bringing the shield into being around us. I only had a couple of seconds to focus, to think – I couldn’t make the globe around us too brittle, too strong, or we’d just smash ourselves against the inside of it in the same way we would if we just rode the elevator down. There had to be some give to it, some flexibility, to distribute the tremendous force of the abrupt stop at the first floor.
It was dark, and there wasn’t much time. Murphy and I rose up to the center of the space of the elevator while I pushed the shield out all around us, filled up the space with layer after layer of flexible shielding, semicohesive molecules of air, patterns of force meant to spread the impact around. There was a sense of pressure all around me, as though I had been abruptly stuffed in Styrofoam packing peanuts.
We fell, faster and faster. I sensed the bottom of the shaft coming. There was an enormous sound, and I held on to the shield with all of my might.
When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting on the floor of the shattered, devastated elevator, holding a sagging, unconscious Murphy. The elevator doors gave a warped, gasping little ding, then shuddered open.”
Velocity Calculation
12 x 9 foot
9 feet = 0.3048 meters
0.3048 x 9= 2.7432 meters
2.7432 x 12 = 32.9184 meters
V(Final)=V(Initial)t + 1/2(a)(t)^2
=
Assuming V Initial is zero (at rest) we cross out Vinitial(t)
Vfinal=1/2(a)(t)^2
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We know acceleration is -9.8m/s/s, but we don’t know the exact time of the falling elevator.
–
Vfinal=1/2(-9.8)(t)^2
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Let’s throw another equation at this: Delta X (32.9184 m) = Vinitial (t) +1/2 (a)(t)^2
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Again, V initial being zero, Vinitial(t) is cancelled out
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32.9184=1/2 (-9.8)(t)^2
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Multiply both sides by two, and divide by -9.8
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65.8296m/-9.8m/s/s=t^2
-6.71730612 s^2=t^2
Square root both sides to isolate the variable
–
2.59177663s=t
–
Let’s look at the sum of our information now:
V0 (Vinitial)= 0m/s
A=-9.8m/s/s
T=2.5917763s
–
Going back to our initial equation:
Vf=V0(t)+1/2(a)(t)^2
Initial is again crossed out:
Vf=1/2(-9.8)(2.5917763)^2
–
If Google Calculator is anything to go by, final velocity is:
-32.9147915 m/s (ground being zero)
Energy Calculation
“The average mass of an adult human is 54–64 kg (120–140 lbs) for females and 76–83 kg (168–183 lbs) for males.” –Wikipedia’s Article on “Humans”
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For Murphy, let’s pick the median of the average data (59 kg) and for Dresden, let’s pick the median as well (79.5kg)
–
E=1/2mv^2
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59+79.5=138.5
E=1/2(138.5kg)(-32.9147915 m/s)^2
–
75 024.3073 joules of energy
———-
strength feat
“I reached the top and a half-breed jaguar warrior flung himself toward me. I snarled, batted his sword aside with mine, and lashed out with one foot, landing a stomping kick in the center of his chest.
His sternum cracked audibly, and he flew backward as if rammed by a truck. He hit the stone wall behind him hard enough to shake dust from the roof overhead, and crumpled like a broken toy. Which was exactly the kind of power the Winter Knight was supposed to have, and as I watched the poor idiot drop, I felt nothing but satisfaction.”
Changes, Chap 47
calcs for that came out around
“Low end: KE= 0.5*3500*31^2= 1,681,750 joules
Average: KE= 0.5*6000*31^2= 2,883,000 joules
High end: KE= 0.5*9000*31^2= 4,324,500 joules
Heh, so he’s capable of exerting megajoules of force now
To convert said values to tons:
1,681,750=0.0004 tons
2,883,000=0.0007 tons
4,324,500=0.001 tons
”
so decent physical strength.
————–
Dresden looking at the armor after going through a battle where he was hopelessly outnumbered by enough vampires that a Predator would have activated it’s wrist nuke.
—-
“As noon closed in, I sat up and stared at my godmother’s armor, which had stopped bullets and lightning bolts and maybe worse. I’d found several marks on the back and sides, but no corresponding memories matching them to any of the attacks I knew about. Evidently, it had handled a number of hits I hadn’t noticed, and I knew that without the ridiculously ornate stuff I’d be dead.”
Changes, Chap 49
————
more physical strength, matching the Red Court Vampire godking, your average Red Court vamp can easily flip a car with one hand.
—-
“I staggered, but I did not stop. I was hysterical. I was not well. I was invincible. My armor and my grandfather’s staff and the sight of my frightened child and the cold power flowing through my limbs allowed me to push forward one step, and another, and another, until I stood nearly toe-to-toe with him.
The Red King’s restored right hand snapped forward to bury the obsidian knife in my throat.
My left hand dropped the staff and intercepted his wrist. I stopped the knife an inch from my throat, and his eyes widened as he felt my strength.
His left hand shot out to clench my throat with crushing power.
I formed the thumb and forefinger of my right hand into a C-shape, ice crackling as it spread over them, rigid and crystal clear.
I plunged them into both of his black, black eyes.
And then I sent my will coursing down my arm, along with all the soulfire I could find as I screamed, “Fuego!”
Fire seared and split and cooked and steamed, and the king of the Red Court, the most ancient vampire of their kind, the father and creator of their race, screamed in anguish. The sound was so loud that it blew out my left eardrum, a novel new agony for my collection.
And when the Red King screamed, every single member of his Court screamed with him.
This close to him I could almost feel it, feel the power of his will calling them, drawing vampires to him with a summoning beyond self-interest, beyond reason. But even if I hadn’t been there touching him, the sudden storm of cries from outside would have told me the same story.
The vampires were coming toward us in a swarm, a storm, and nothing on earth would stop them from going to their king’s aid. His grip on my throat faltered, and he staggered back and away from me. My fingers came free of his head, and I grabbed his knife hand at the wrist with both hands. Then, screaming in rage, coating his arm with frost, I snapped his forearm in half – and caught the dagger before it could fall to the floor.”
Changes, Chap 48
———-
Winter Knight rejuvination/outpacing a half Vampire
—
“I guess I was getting pretty tired, too.
I narrowed my focus to Martin, to the stairs up, and tried to ignore the burning in my arms, my legs, my chest. I drew in a sharp breath, and it was like inhaling sudden cool, clean wind. I thought I heard someone whispering to me, something in a tongue I didn’t understand – but I knew my queen’s voice. I became aware that a cloud of white mist and vapor was gathering around me as I continued, a little faster, the humid air of the Yucat¨¢n boiling around the frost that had formed on my armor.
Then the cold washed away the hot fatigue, and I felt the ice flowing into me, implacable, merciless, relentless. My legs began to churn like the pistons of an engine. Suddenly one step per stride simply wasn’t enough, and I started flying up them two at a time, rapidly leaving Martin behind.”
Changes, Chap 47
—————-
redirecting lightning
—
“I suited action to my words and plunged toward the opening Ebenezar’s allies were cutting for us. There was a surge of magic and a flash of motion ahead of us, as another vampire noble tossed another flare of power at me. I caught a small stroke of lightning on my mentor’s staff – it was shorter, thicker, and heavier than mine – conducting the attack down my arm, across my shoulder, and out the tip of my newly acquired sword. The lightning bolt chewed a hole in the belly of the Red Court noble. He staggered as I closed on him. I spun the staff to the horizontal, and checked him in the nose as I went by, dropping him to the ground.”
Changes, Chap 47
————–
armor tanks modern assault rifle rounds, lots of them.
—
“Fuego!” shouted someone on the walls – and for a second I was hit with a little sting of insult. Someone was shouting “fuego” and it wasn’t me.
While I was feeling irrational pique, guns started barking, and they aimed at me first. Bullets rang sharply as they hit my armor, rebounding from it and barely leaving a mark. It was like getting hit with small hailstones: uncomfortable but not really dangerous – unless one of them managed a head shot.”
Changes, Chap 46
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sensing and blocking magic during a huge magic battle, so it’s like dodging/catching the one bullet meant for you when your standing in the middle of a massive military battle.
—
“The echo of my scream seemed to be a signal, sending the rest of us back to fighting for our lives. I blew a few more vampires away from my friends, and then sensed a rush of supernatural energy coming at me. I turned and caught a tide of ruinous Red power upon my shield, and hurled a blast of flame back at a Red Court noble in massive amounts of jewelry. Others in their ranks began to open up on the newly arrived Grey Council, who responded in kind, and the air was filled with a savage crisscross of exchanged energies.”
Changes, Chap 46
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maybe not useful here but a crowd control spell with wind and ice could make Richard fall on his ass if nothing else.
—
“The pressure of numbers increased, and Thomas started moving more swiftly, more desperately – until Mouse leapt in to help plug the leak in the dam of confusion that held the full power of the Red Court at bay.
I had my own side of the store to mind. Again I reached into the well of cold, ready power, and with a word blanketed the field before me in smooth, slick ice. Howling wind rose to greet any foe who stepped out onto the ice, forcing them to work around to the killing machine that was Sanya and Murphy, or else circle around to attempt an approach through Molly’s murderous light and sound show.”
Changes, Chap 46
————-
blasting a crater into the paved floor and the ground of Chichen Itza.
—
“She gasped a word I didn’t recognize, again and again. I didn’t know what language it was, but I knew what it meant: No, no, no, no.
I stood over her for a moment. She struggled to bring some other form of magic to bear against me, but the cruel torment of those frozen spears was a pain she had never experienced and did not know how to fight. I stared down at the creature that had taken my daughter and felt . . .
I felt only a cold, calm satisfaction, whirling like a blizzard of snow and sleet in the storm of my wrath.
She stared up at me with uncomprehending eyes, black blood staining her mouth. “Cattle. You are c-cattle.”
“Moo,” I said. And I lifted my right hand.
Her eyes widened further. She gasped a word I didn’t know.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the Red King rise from his distant throne.
I poured all that was left of my fury into my hand and snarled, “No one touches my little girl.”
The explosion of force and fire tore a crater in the ground seven feet across and half as deep.
Arianna’s broken, headless corpse lay sprawled within it.”
Changes, Chap 45
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creating ice spears, during a wizard vs superfast vampire duel.
—
“Instead of obliging her by standing in place, as I had last time she’d tried to give me the runaround, I darted forward, into the edges of the concealing steam. I got burned, and accepted it as the price of doing business. I clenched my teeth, focusing past my pain, and tracked Arianna’s energy with my Sight, waiting for my shot and hoping that she didn’t have the Sight as well.
Apparently she didn’t, or wasn’t bothering to use it, relying upon her superior senses instead. She got into position and seemed to realize that I’d gone into the steam. She began to advance cautiously, gathering more lightning to her cupped hands. I saw the instant in which she began to spot my outline, the way she drew a breath to speak the word to unleash the lightning upon me.
“Infriga,” I hissed, and threw both hands forward. “Infriga forzare!”
And the entire cloud bank of steam in the air around me congealed into needle-pointed spears of ice that flew at her as if fired from a gun.
They struck her just as she unleashed her lightning bolt, which shattered one of the spears and tore a two-foot furrow in the dirt some twenty feet to my side.
Arianna stood still for a moment, her black eyes wide with disbelief, staring down at the spears and shards of ice that had slammed deep into her flesh. She looked up at me for a second and opened her mouth.
A blob of black blood burst out and spilled down over her chin. Then she shuddered and fell, simply limp, to the ground.
From the far end of the ball court, I heard my godmother throw back her head and let out an eerie howl of excitement and triumph, bubbling with laughter and scorn.
I watched Arianna twisting upon the spears of ice. She’d been pierced in dozens of places. The worst hit came from an icicle as thick as my forearm, which had impaled her through the belly and come out the back, bursting the blood reservoir of the creature beneath Arianna’s flesh mask. The pure, crystalline-clear ice showed a glimpse of her insides, as if seen through a prism.”
Changes, Chap 45
———————
I’ll post more later on
two examples of bullet timing
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Proof of bullet timing?
“Murphy narrowed her eyes, peering down the shaking barrel of her gun. Flame blossomed from the barrel, reaching out toward me. She wasn’t twenty feet away from me. I didn’t think there was any way she could miss, and I thought, with a pang of sadness, that I wanted a chance to apologize to her before the end. For everything. “Vento servitas! ” I shouted and released the spell, the circle, and the amulet, as the sound of the shot hit me like a slap in the face.”
He used a spell as the bullet was coming toward him puts him around Mach 1.1-Mach 1.4
—-
first impressions
Harry using a variety of spells and magically enchanted items to confront a mafia boss and his lackys. including blocking a .38 caliber round which puts him around the same speed as the above feat for reactions. The other things are just some cool samples of what he was capable of at his third weakest in series.
” I walked past the windows and, sure enough, in a large, circular booth in the back I saw Johnny Marcone, the bull-necked Mr. Hendricks, Gimpy, and Spike, sitting together and talking. I ducked out of sight in a hurry, before one of them noticed me. Then walked back into the parking lot to consider exactly what I had at my disposal. A bracelet on each wrist. A ring. My blasting rod. My staff. I thought of all the subtle and devious means by which I might tilt the situation in my favor–clever illusions, convenient faltering of electricity or water, a sudden invasion of rats or cockroaches. I could have managed any of them. Not many people who use magic are that versatile, but very few have the kind of experience and training it takes to put such spells together on the fly. I shook my head, irritated. I didn’t have time to bother with subtlety. Power into the talismans, then. Power into the ring. I reached for the power in both the staff and rod, cool strength of wood and seething anger of fire, and stepped up to the front door of the Varsity. Then I blew it off its hinges. I blew it out, rather than in. Pieces flew toward me and bounced off the shield of air I held in front of me, while others rained back behind me, into the parking lot. It wouldn’t do to injure a bunch of innocent diners on the other side. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Once the door was off, I pointed my blasting rod inside and spoke a command. The jukebox slammed back against the wall as though a cannon ball had impacted it, and then melted into a puddle of liquid-plastic goo. The music squealed out the speakers and stopped. I stepped into the doorway and released a pent-up wave of energy from my ring. Starting at the door and then circling throughout the room, the lightbulbs began to explode with sharp little detonations and showers of powdered glass and glowing bits of filament. People at the bar and at all the wooden tables scattered around the room reacted as people tend to do in this sort of situation. They started screaming and shouting, rising to their feet or ducking beneath their tables in confusion. A few ducked out the fire door at the back of one side of the room. Then there was an abrupt and profound silence. Everyone stood stock-still and stared at the doorway–they stared at me. At the back table, Johnny Marcone regarded the doorway with his passionless, money-colored eyes. He was not smiling. Mr. Hendricks, beside him, was glaring at me, his single eyebrow lowered far enough to threaten him with blinding. Spike was tight-lipped and pale. Gimpy stared at me in pure horror. None of them made any moves or any sound. I guess seeing a wizard cut loose can do that to you. “Little pig, little pig, let me in,” I said, into the silence. I planted my staff on the ground and narrowed my eyes at Marcone. “I’d really like to talk to you for a minute, John.” Marcone stared at me for a moment, then his lips twitched up at the corners. “You have a singular manner of persuasion, Mr. Dresden.” He stood up and spoke aloud to the room without ever taking his eyes off me. He must have been angry, but the icy exterior concealed it. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Varsity is closing early, it would seem. Please make an orderly exit through the door nearest you. Don’t worry about your bills. Mr. Dresden, if you would step out of the doorway and allow my customers to leave?” I stepped out of the doorway. The place cleared out fast, customers and staff alike, leaving me alone in the room with Marcone, Hendricks, Spike, and Gimpy. None of them moved as they waited for the customers, the witnesses, to leave. Gimpy started sweating. Hendricks’s expression never changed. The big man was as patient as a mountain lion, ready to leap out on the unsuspecting deer. “I want my hair back,” I said, as soon as the last college-age couple had hustled out the door. “Beg pardon?” Marcone said. His head tilted to one side, and he seemed genuinely puzzled. “You heard me,” I said. “This piece of trash of yours”–I swung my blasting rod up and pointed it at Gimpy–“just jumped me outside a gas station across town and cut off some of my hair. I want it back. I’m not going to go out like Tommy Tomm did.” Marcone’s eyes abruptly shone with a terrible, cold, money-colored anger. He turned his head, deliberately, to Gimpy. Gimpy’s broad face went a bit more pasty. He blinked a trickle of sweat out of his eyes. “I don’t know what he’s talking about, boss.” Marcone’s gaze never wavered. “I presume, Mr. Dresden,” he said, “that you have some kind of proof?” “Look at his left wrist,” I said. “He’s got several fingernail marks on his skin where I grabbed him.” Marcone nodded, those cold, tiger’s eyes on Gimpy’s, and said, almost gently, “Well?” “He’s lying, boss,” Gimpy protested. He licked at his lips. “Hell, I got some fingernail marks from my girl. He knew that. You know what you said, he’s for real, he knows things.” The pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Whoever killed Tommy Tomm knows that I’m on his trail,” I said. “Your rival, whoever it is selling the ThreeEye, Gimpy here must have gotten a sweet deal from him to turn on you. He’s been providing your rival with information all along, running errands for him.” Gimpy couldn’t have played a game of poker to save his life. He stared at me in horror, shook his head in protest. “There’s an easy way to settle this,” Marcone said, his voice smooth and even. “Lawrence. Show me your wrist.” “He’s lying, boss,” Gimpy Lawrence said again, but his voice was shaking. “He’s just trying to mess with your head.” “Lawrence,” Marcone said, his tone the gentle reproof of parent to child. Gimpy Lawrence knew it was over. I saw the desperate decision in his face before he actually moved. “Liar!” he howled at me. He got up, lifting his hand from underneath the table. I had time to realize he held a revolver, virtually a twin to my own .38, in his fist, before he started shooting. Several things happened at the same time. I lifted my hand, focusing my will on the bracelet of tiny medieval-style shields around my left wrist, and hardened the protective energies around me. Bullets hammered against it with whining noises, striking sparks in the near dark of the restaurant. Spike leapt clear of the table, staying low, a small Uzi-style automatic now in his hand. Hendricks was more ruthless and direct, reacting with the mindlessly violent instincts of a savage. With one hand, the big bodyguard hauled Marcone back, putting his own bulk between the mob boss andGimpy Lawrence. With the other hand, he produced a compact semi automatic. Gimpy Lawrence turned his head and saw Hendricks and his gun. He panicked, turning his own weapon toward the larger man. Hendricks shot him with a ruthless efficiency, three sharp claps of sound, three flashes of muzzle light. The first two shots hit Gimpy in the middle of his chest, driving him back a pair of steps. The third hit him over the right eyebrow, jerked his head back, and toppled him to the ground. Gimpy Lawrence had dark eyes, like mine. I could see them. His head turned toward me as he lay there on the floor. I saw him blink, once. Then the lights went out of them, and he was gone. ”
—————
burning then ripping away heat to freeze solid
—
“Fuego!” I snarled, and threw a small comet of fire from my right hand. It sailed forth with a howling whistle of superheated air and smashed into the nearest of the shadowed forms, less than a dozen yards away. Fire leapt up, and a vampire screamed in rage and pain and began retreating through the trees.
“Infriga!” I barked, and made a ripping gesture with my left hand. I tore the fire from the stricken vampire – and then some. I sent the resulting fireball skipping over to the next form – and left the first target as a block of ice where the damp jungle air had emptied its water over the vampire’s body and locked it into place, rigid and very slightly luminous with the residue of the cold energy I felt in me, the gift of Queen Mab. Which was just as well – there were a dozen closing attackers in my immediate field of vision alone, which meant another fifty or sixty of them if they were circling in from all around us, plus the ones I couldn’t see, who may have employed more mundane techniques of stealth to avoid the eye.
I wanted them to see what I could do.
The second vampire fell as easily as the first, as did the third, and only then did I say quietly, “One bullet apiece, Martin.”
Martin’s silenced pistol coughed three times, and the slightly glowing forms of the ice-enclosed vampires shattered into several dozen pieces each, falling to the ground where the luminous energy of Winter began to bleed slowly away, along with the ice-riddled flesh.
They got the point. The vampires stopped advancing. The jungle became still.
“Fire and ice,” murmured the Leanansidhe. “Excellent, my godson. Anyone can play with an element. Few can manipulate opposites with such ease.”
Changes, Chap 42
note the last part where he is told few can manipulate opposites with such ease. Impressive because he hasn’t even been using ice for a day.
————–
tapping into a power source (specifically a well of the planets natural energy) to fuel a large spell.
—-
“Sanya’s battle roar was loudest. He leapt forward, drawing Esperacchius , and blazing light shone forth from the blade.
Murphy ran forward upon his right, letting out a scream of her own and holding the shining length of Fidelacchius in her hands. An aura of soft blue light had surrounded her. On Sanya’s left, Susan ran, Amoracchius held aloft and wreathed in white fire, and her scream was something primal and terrible. Thomas flanked Murphy. Martin ran next to Susan, and both of them charged forward with blade and pistol in hand.
I saw the front ranks of vampires hesitate as they saw the pure, terrible light of the three Swords coming toward them, but it wasn’t enough to stop the momentum of that horde. It swallowed all five valiant figures in a tidal wave of dark, flabby bodies, claws, fangs, and lashing tongues.
Suckers.
I still stood forward of everyone else, and the meeting of the two ranks of combatants brought the horde to a halt. A brief halt, true, something that lasted no more than a handful of seconds – but it was time enough for me to reach down to touch the slow, terrible power of the ley line flowing beneath my feet.
The temple atop the pyramid in the ruins was the center of the confluence, but ley lines, each one a vast, roaring current of magical energy, radiated out in all directions – and the one beneath us was an enormous current of raw earth magic. Earth magic wasn’t my forte, and I knew only a couple of applications well enough to use them in a fight.
But one of them was a doozy.
I reached out and touched the power of that ley line, desperately wishing I had my staff with me to assist with the effort. I could sense the earth magic in my mind, feel it flowing by with a power that vibrated up through the soles of the big, stompy, armor-plated boots my godmother had put on me. I took a deep breath, and then thrust my thoughts down into that power.
I was immediately overwhelmed with a rush of images and alien sensations, contacting a power so intense and coherent that it nearly had its own awareness. In a single moment, I saw the ponderous dance of continents clashing against one another to form mountains, felt the slow sleepiness of the earth, its dreaming shivers felt as disasters by the ephemeral things that lived upon its skin. I saw wealth and riches beyond petty mortal imagination, gold and silver flowing hot in rivers, precious gems by the millions being born and formed.
I fought to contain the images, to control them and channel them, focusing all of those sensations into a well I could see only in my imagination, a point deep below the gallery of crumbling old stone that rested next to the pitifully temporary mortal structure on the surface.
Once I had the raw magic I needed, I was able to pull my mind clear of the ley line, and I was suddenly holding a whirlwind of molten stone in my head, seething against the containment of my will until it felt like my skull would burst outward from the pressure, and realized as I did that the use to which I was putting this pure, raw energy was almost childish in its simplicity. I was a frail wisp of mortality beside that energy, which could, quite literally, have moved mountains, leveled cities, shifted the course of rivers, and stirred oceans in their beds.
I set that well of energy to spinning, and directed its power as it spiraled up, a tornado of magic that reached out to embrace simple gravity. With the enormous energy of the ley line, I focused the pull of the earth for miles around into a circle a couple of hundred yards across and spoke a single word as I unleashed the torrent of energy, bound only, firmly if imperfectly, by my will. The spell, start to finish, had taken me a good sixty seconds to put together, and tapping into the ley line had been the last part of the process – far too long and far too destructive to use in any of the faster and more furious fights that I’d found myself in over the years.
Perfect for tonight.
For a quarter of a second, gravity vanished from Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢, and the land for miles all around it, jerking everything that wasn’t fastened down, myself included, several inches into the air. For that time, all of that force was focused and concentrated into a circle perhaps two hundred yards across that embraced the entire gallery and every vampire inside it. There, the enormous power of that much focused gravity, nearly three hundred times normal, slammed everyone and everything straight down, as if crushed by a single, gigantic, invisible anvil.
The stone columns handled it better than I thought they would. Maybe half of them suddenly cracked, shattered, and fell into rubble, but the rest bore up under the strain as they had for centuries.
The assault force of the Red Court wasn’t nearly so resilient.
I could hear the bones breaking from where I stood, each snapping with hideously sharp pops and cracks. Down crashed the wave of vampires in a mass of shattered bones. Many of them were crushed beneath the falling stones of the weaker columns – each flabby black body smashed beneath a weight of scores of tons of stone, even if hit by only one piece from a single block.
The energy involved had been enormous, and as I was bounced up about a foot into the air, I was hit with the wave of exhaustion that came along with it. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Technically, I was only channeling and rearranging forces that were already in existence and motion, not creating them from my will, or I could never have managed to affect an area so big, and to do it so violently. But believe you me, it was still hard.
I was thrown several inches up along with everything and everyone else that wasn’t secured. I landed with only one foot beneath me, so I dropped to one knee, catching myself on my hands. Panting, I looked up to see the results of the spell.
A couple of acres of flat, dead, and a few horribly wounded and dying vampires lay strewn about like so many crushed ants, and standing over them, each in a combat pose, as if ready to keep on swinging, were the friends I had sent running ahead, entirely unaffected.
Changes, Chap 42
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enhanced durability and other stats with Winter Knight upgrade.
—–
“Again, the spells on my coat withstood the brute power of the Ick’s claws, but this hadn’t been a glancing blow, or incidental damage collected when it had tripped over me. This was a full-on sledgehammer slam of the kind that had probably tossed the Blue Beetle onto Thomas’s sports car du jour. It was exactly what I had dreaded, and as my body hit the ground, a kind of resolved calm washed over me, along with howls of goblin excitement.
I was a dead man. Simple as that. The only question was whether or not I would survive long enough to feel the pain that the shock of impact was delaying. And, of course, where to aim my death curse.
My limp arms and legs slowed my tumble and I wound up on my back with my hips twisted to one side as the Ick threw back its head and let out a burbling, teakettle scream. Its heart pounded like surreal thunder, and my body suddenly felt awash with cold, as if I’d landed in a pool of icy water. The Ick came at me, pain showing in its movements now. It howled and lifted both arms above its head, ready to smash them down onto my skull. I didn’t have much time to use my death curse, said the little sane voice in my head.
And then another voice in my head, one far louder and more furious, screamed denial. My few glimpses of Maggie whirled through my mind, along with images of her death – or worse – at Arianna’s hands. If I died here, there would be no one to take her out of darkness.
I had to try.
I thrust both fists at the Ick’s least injured leg and let go with every energy ring I had left.
I guess from the outside it must have looked like one of those kung fu-type double fist strikes, though the only thing my actual fists were doing was collecting a new round of bruises and little scars. The energy released from the rings, though, kicked the Ick’s leg so hard that it swept out parallel to the floor. The Ick toppled.
I rolled desperately, and escaped being crushed by its bulk by a hairbreadth. It landed in whistling agony.”
—then after preforming the portal shield thing—
“I closed the Way with a wave of my hand and an effort of will, and slowly stood up. As I did, I realized that I felt a bit creaky, and that I was shaking with fatigue. But what I didn’t feel was . . . pain.”
I tried to dust myself off and get a good look at my injuries. I should have broken ribs. Ruptured organs. I should be bleeding all over the place.
But as far as I could tell, I didn’t even have whiplash.
Was that Mab’s power, running through me, wrapped around me? I didn’t have any other explanation for it. Hell, when Susan and I had run from the FBI building, she had been the one to get winded first, while I felt no more need to breathe heavily than I would have had walking out to my mailbox. For that matter, I’d outrun the Devourer during this fight.
I thought I should probably feel disturbed by the sudden increase in my physical speed and toughness. But given what I’d had to pay for them, I couldn’t feel anything but a certain sense of satisfaction. I would need every advantage I could get when I went to take Maggie away from the Red Court.”
Changes, Chap 37
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portal shield could be good to BFR Richard if he tries to close in and melee, open it under him or in front of him, or move back get him off balance kick him and open it behind him. so many possibilities
—-
“It hit the far- above stalactite with a thunderous concussion. Beside me, the Ick rose up and reached for my skull with one enormous hand.
I threw up my hands, hissed, “Aparturum,” and, with the last of my will, ripped open the veil between the Erlking’s hall and the material world, tearing open a circular opening maybe four feet across – and floating three feet off the ground and parallel to the floor, oriented so that its entry point was on its upper side. Then I curled up into a fetal position beneath that opening and tried to cover my head with my arms.
Tons and tons of stone tumbled down with slow, deadly grace. The Devourer’s heartbeat redoubled its pace. Then there was an incredible noise, and the whole world was blotted away.
I lay there on my side for several moments, not daring to move. Stone fell for a while, maybe a couple of minutes, before the sounds of falling rocks slowly died away, like the pops from a pan of popcorn just before it starts to burn. Only, you know, rockier.
Only then did I allow myself to lift my head and look around.
I lay in a perfectly circular four-foot-across tomb that was maybe five feet deep. The sides of the tomb were perfectly smooth, though I could see from all the cracks and crevices that they were made from many mismatched pieces of rock, ranging from one the size of my fist to a boulder half as big as a car.
Above me, the open Way glowed slightly. All the stone that would have fallen on me had instead plunged through the open Way and back into the material world.
I took a deep breath and closed it again. I hoped that no one was hanging around wherever it was that Way emptied out. Maybe in the FBI cafeteria? No way to know, except to go through and look. I didn’t want to face the collateral damage of something like that.
My sane brain pointed out that there was every chance that we weren’t talking about falling stones at all. As matter from the spirit world, they would transform to simple ectoplasm when they reached the material world, unless ongoing energy was provided in order to preserve their solidity. I certainly hadn’t been trying to pump any energy into the stones as they hit the Way. So odds were that I just dumped several dozen tons of slime onto a random spot in the FBI building – and slime that would evaporate within moments. It would grossly reduce the chances of inflicting injuries on some hapless FBI staffer.
I decided that my sanity and I could live with that.
I closed the Way with a wave of my hand and an effort of will, and slowly stood up.”
Changes, Chap 37
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creating multiple illusions
—
“I closed my eyes and summoned up my will. Time for some real razzle-dazzle stuff.
Illusions are a fascinating branch of magic. There are two basic ways to manage them. One, you can create an image and put it in someone else’s head. There’s no actual visible object there, but their brain tells them that it’s there, big as life – a phantasm. It’s walking real close to the borders of the Laws of Magic to go that way, but it could be very effective.
The second method is the creation of an actual visible object or creature – a kind of hologram. Those things are much harder to produce, because you have to pour a lot more energy into them, and while a phantasm uses a foe’s own mind to create consistency within the illusion, you’ve got to do it the hard way with holomancy.
Murph’s image was easy to fix in mind, as was Rudolph’s, though I admit that I might have made him look a bit skinnier and slouchier than he might actually have been. My holomancy, my rules.
The hardest was Tilly. I kept getting the image of the actor from The X Files confabulated with the actual Tilly, and the final result was kinda marginal. But I was in a rush.
I pictured the images with as much clarity as I could and sent my will, including a tiny bit of soulfire, into creating the mirages.
Soulfire isn’t really a destructive force. It’s sort of the opposite, actually. And while I used it in fights to enhance my offensive spells, it really shone when creating things.
I whispered, “Lumen, camerus, factum!” and released energy into the mental images. The holograms of Murphy, Tilly, and Rudolph shimmered into existence, so absolutely real-looking that even I thought they might have been solid matter.
“They’re coming!” Susan said abruptly. She turned to me and practically jumped out of her shoes upon seeing the illusions. Then she waved a hand at Tilly’s image, and it flickered straight through. She let out a low whistle and said, “Time to go?”
The thunder of the Ick’s heart grew abruptly louder, a vibration I could feel through the soles of my shoes.
Vampires boiled out of the central stairwell, a sudden tide of flabby, rubbery black bodies and all-black eyes, of spotted pink tongues and gleaming fangs. At their center, in their flesh-masked forms, were Esteban and Esmerelda. And looming behind them was the Ick.
Susan and I turned and sprinted. The three illusions did the same thing, complete with the sounds of running footfalls and heavy breathing. With a group howl the vampires came after us.”
Changes, Chap 35
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while holding those illusions opening a portal and running.
—
ran as hard as I could, drawing up more of my will. I should have been feeling some of the strain by now, but I wasn’t. Go, go, Gadget Faustian bargain.
I gathered my will, shouted, “Aparturum!” and slashed at the air down the hallway with my right hand.
I’d used a lot of energy to open the Way, and it tore wide, a diagonal rip in the fabric of space, crooked and off center to the hallway. It hung there like some kind of oddly geometric cloud of mist, and I pointed at it, shouting wordlessly to Susan. She shouted something back, nodding, while behind us the vampires gained ground with every second.
We both screamed in a frenzy of wild fear and rampant adrenaline, and hit the Way moving at a dead run.
We plunged through – into empty air.
I let out a shriek as I fell, and figured I’d finally taken my last desperate gamble – but after less than a second, my flailing limbs hit solid stone and I dropped into a roll. I came back up to my feet and kept running through what appeared to be a spacious cavern of some kind, and Susan ran beside me.
Changes Chap 35
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fire cutting through walls and vampire(s) as well as battlefield awareness through genre savvy
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“I lifted the blasting rod, aimed it at the corner ahead of me, and poured my rage, my will, and my power into it as I snarled, “Fuego!”
Silver-white fire howled down the hallway and bit into the corner ahead, blowing through it as easily as a bullet through a paper target. I drew the line of fire to my left, and as quickly as that, the fire gouged an opening as big as my fist through several sections of studs and drywall, blasting through to the perpendicular hallway where I’d heard the vampires talking. The din was incredible. Wood tore and exploded. Drywall flew into clouds of dust. Pipes screamed as they were severed as neatly as if I’d used a cutter. Wires erupted into clouds of popping sparks.
And something entirely inhuman let out a piercing shriek of pain, pain driven by unnaturally powerful lungs into a scream that was louder than gunshots.
I screamed in answer, in challenge, in defiance, and pelted forward. The runes on my blasting rod shone with white-hot fire, throwing brilliant silver-white light out ahead of me into the darkened building as I ran.
As I rounded the corner a shape was already in motion, coming toward me. My shield bracelet was ready. I lifted my left hand, fingers contorted into a gesture that had nothing to do with magic but that was generally considered insulting. My will poured into the charm bracelet hung with multiple tiny shields, and in an instant my power spread from there into a quarter-dome shape of pure, invisible force in front of me. The black shape of the vampire hit the shield, sending up concentric circles of blue light and white sparks, and then rebounded from it.
I dropped the shield almost before he was done rebounding, leveled the blasting rod with a flick of my wrist, and ripped the vampire in half with a word and a beam of silver fire. The pieces flew off in different directions, still kicking and thrashing hideously.
In the middle of the hallway was a second bisected vampire, which I’d apparently hit when firing blindly through the wall. It was also dying messily. Because I’ve seen too many bad horror movies and know the rules for surviving them, the instant I’d made sure the hallway was empty of more threats, I swung the rod up to point above me.
A vampire clung to the ceiling not twenty feet away.”
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force blast launching a vampire through a wall.
—-
“There were two vampires in front of a door to an office. One of them was on the floor, thrashing and hissing in agony, clutching at its flabby belly. It was leaking blood all over the floor. Several dozen bullet holes – exit holes – in the door explained why. The injuries wouldn’t kill the vamp, but they were painful and robbed it of the source of its supernatural power – the blood it had devoured. The other was crouched to the side of the doorway, as if debating with itself whether or not it should try to rush the door as its companion apparently had.
My runner went by them, wailing in fear.
I slid to a stop on the rapidly moistening floor, lifted the rod, and cut loose with another blast. It howled down the hallway, and the running vamp seized the wounded one and pulled it up to intercept the shot I’d meant for it. The wounded vamp screamed and absorbed just enough of the energy to let the runner plunge through the drywall at the end of the hall. It vanished from sight, and a second later I heard the sound of glass breaking as it fled the building.
The luckless vampire was dead, or on the final approach to it, since the beam had sliced off almost everything to the left of its spine.”
———————-
shield bracelet protection.
—-
“I was braced for whatever would happen. Freezing cold. Searing heat. Crushing depth of water – even utter vacuum. The sphere of force around me was airtight, and would keep me alive even in someplace like outer space, at least for a few moments.”
—
(Quick Adjustment)
“as the invisible sphere of force around me slammed into –
- a rather lovely bed of daisies.
My shields mashed them flat. The entire bed, in its little white planter, immediately resembled a pressed-flower collection.
I looked around slowly, my body tight and ready, my senses focused.
I was in a garden.
It looked like an Italian number. Only a minority of the shrubs and flowers were planted in raised beds. The others had been laid out to give the impression that they had grown naturally into the space they occupied. Grassy paths wound through the irregularly shaped garden, twisting and turning this way and that. A hummingbird the size of a silver dollar darted down and tucked its beak into a particularly bright flower, and then vanished again. A bee buzzed by – just a regular old bumblebee, not some giant mutant monster thing.
Don’t laugh. I’ve seen them over there.
I adjusted the shielding spell to allow air to pass through it and took a suspicious, cautious sniff. It might look like a nice place, but for all I knew the atmosphere was laced with chlorine gas.
It smelled like autumn sunshine, where the days might be balmy but the nights could carry a heavy nip. Letting the air in meant that sound had an easier time getting past my shield. Birds chirped lazily. Somewhere nearby, there was running water.”
Changes, Chap 11
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will post more as the debate picks up.
Dat Text Wall TL;DR
it’s just lots of feats, to be honest I figured more people would have posted before the second post was up, I was surprised I was the first since I listed so many feats. At least their seperated though.
Anyway, I’ve been looking at Rand vs Richard and from what I can gather Richard has no magic shields. Meaning it will make it hard to doge a lot of Dreseden’s attacks, whereas Dresden has a shield of willpower energy and has shown the ability to redirect various magics. In fact he specializes in the manipulation of and redirection of energies.
I don’t know exactly how fast Richard is but Dresden should be able to handle him, in close range I have no illusion that Dresden could win a sword fight but unless Richard gets a decapitation fairly quickly it leaves Dresden able to unleash his force blasts or his fire blasts. Point blank like that it would be devastating.
I am always afraid of Dresden matches, I mean really, what is a good matchup for him, he seems as OP as Warhammer.. I am also guilty of suggesting matches against OP characters just to see what would happen, though, so I’ll be quiet.
We decided to do this match in Sword of Truth vs Alagaseia ironically, considering we decided to send Dresden against Rahl because Dresden beat Eragon.
I honestly don’t know what will happen in this fight.
Is anyone on this site a reader of the SCP Foundation, Cause I was thinking of a couple matchups.
I’ve personally not read it an no idea on anyone else.
@GuardianAngel1911
“Proof of bullet timing?
“Murphy narrowed her eyes, peering down the shaking barrel of her gun. Flame blossomed from the barrel, reaching out toward me. She wasn’t twenty feet away from me. I didn’t think there was any way she could miss, and I thought, with a pang of sadness, that I wanted a chance to apologize to her before the end. For everything. “Vento servitas! ” I shouted and released the spell, the circle, and the amulet, as the sound of the shot hit me like a slap in the face.”
He used a spell as the bullet was coming toward him puts him around Mach 1.1-Mach 1.4″
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Not doubting his bullet timing or anything, but…. Boy is that a clear cut example of “talking is a free action”.
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I mean, a wizard reacting to bullets is one thing, but shouting a spell in the time it takes for the bullet to get from the gun to them?
@Smeagol at #5
I hope you’re talking about Warhammer Fantasy, because if you don’t mean Fantasy, you might want to switch the example with Tenchi Muyo, actually.
Just Saying.
@Admiral
Do we have overall match-up locations agreed over?
I was thinking about a fully-evacuated Hogwarts being best-suited for this match’s purposes, which ought to happen sometime after Dresden manages to convince the Hogwarts Residents he’s actually on their side if Rahl + Kahlan are out to enthrall said residents out of mere disagreements with the above two’s philosophies, in fact.
You could try the Yokai Academy from Rosario + Vampire after it got evac’d, but Dresden would have to convince the Headmaster to consent for it, methinks, and evacuations would still have to happen.
I might have opted for Mount Othrys according to Camp Half-Blood, but make it clarified that 1st death wins, okay?
How will any dot hack universe arenas like Net Slum fare for match locations’ sake, for that matter?
Even somewhere like Alera wouldn’t be too shabby a place to fight at, I’m sure.
What about the Planet Jurai from Tenchi Muyo, for that matter?
Well I listed the options of kombat Arenas, its up to everyone else to try to pass a vote in there before the #50 Post count is there, okay?
Did you get the match scenario in mind, Admiral?
Wow, another Dresden match @_@
You know what we need? My Ezio vs the Joker match to be posted…
=
Well, Dresden’s feats are posted. Rahl supporters?
Whoa whoa quick to the trigger are we Guardian? It’s all well and good that you prepared for the information in advance, but chances are only small percentage will actually bother to read your posts and even less will have read it thoroughly.
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Try spreading the information over time when it seems convenient than just one large clump.
@Dr. Doctor
True that we need Ezio vs the Joker to get posted, but we need more people to vote out the match location by the time post #50 passes, and they’re the locations I stated at post #10 unless you got more nominated candidate locations with potential, okay?
Even Skyrim could work if you wish to add that in there.
So do we begin the voting on the match locations, everyone, or what?
@Sorrow
actually I didn’t have it ready which is why I was surprised no one had posted before or after my first post, I had assumed there’d be at least two or three comments.
@Dr. Doctor
Yeah, Ezio vs Joker should be put up next I really want to see that fight.
————
Right now I want to wait and see what is brought up for Richard so, any Rahl supporters come on down, Mike, or any of the others. Ready to debate this thing.
@TheSorrow
“Whoa whoa quick to the trigger are we Guardian? It’s all well and good that you prepared for the information in advance, but chances are only small percentage will actually bother to read your posts and even less will have read it thoroughly.
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Try spreading the information over time when it seems convenient than just one large clump.”
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QFT.
“actually I didn’t have it ready which is why I was surprised no one had posted before or after my first post, I had assumed there’d be at least two or three comments.”
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Ahh okay, I just assumed because of the massive wall of text. Usually people post before anyone has time to do so. Regardless, in my opinion the only time a wall of text is appropriate is when you are responding to another wall of text.
Well if you haven’t read some of the entries, the SCP Foundation has some really interesting creatures and artifacts. For instance, google SCP-096, SCP-173, SCP-106.
@Admiral
If I say that I might be willing to vote for fully-evac’d Hogwarts or the Planet Jurai at Universe!-Kagato’s Throne room as the overall best-suited match location, would it be acceptable unless you find Mount Othrys to be better-suited? 1+ for match location being either of the two?
@Sorrow & Shgon
yeah, my bad all round there. Wasn’t trying to overwhelm anyone. I had two hours before my first class started so I just started going through the respect thread and grabbing feats. Plus I was somewhat expecting to see a huge excerpt or two from Rahl defenders like can be seen in his fight against Rand.
“yeah, my bad all round there. Wasn’t trying to overwhelm anyone.”
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No worries at all.
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“Plus I was somewhat expecting to see a huge excerpt or two from Rahl defenders like can be seen in his fight against Rand.”
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No argument from me there.
@Admiral
Can we tally up the votes for the rest of the Pre-Post #50 posts going on?
So far all I got to recall was its Fully-evac’d Hogwarts or Planet Jurai having 1+ going for it from yours truly.
What about the other locations I named at #10?
@Cross
I’m going to just leave this a neutral battlefield rather than picking somewhere. although your one of the match suggesters but personally I don’t see a special battlefield needed.
——————————————
Right now based on what I’ve seen looking at Rand vs Richard. Richard has no way to avoid Dresdens various ranged powers aside from dodging. He’ll have to make a move eventually but I doubt he’ll be able to be unnafected by fire ice and wind being used against him for long. Even if he closes the distance gap Dresden has armor covering everything but his head and unless Rahl can swing faster than a .38 special, a .22 or a 9mm (the rounds we got the range of speed from) Dresden will be able to block with his shield or open that portal shield, instead of swing and hitting a wall of will power he swings and falls into a chasm of ice on the other side and splats on impact with the distant bottom. If he’s lucky anyway. There are things in the NeverNever far worse than death.
Plus one thing I want to point out.
“Once the door was off, I pointed my blasting rod inside and spoke a command. The jukebox slammed back against the wall as though a cannon ball had impacted it, and then melted into a puddle of liquid-plastic goo.” from the above under first impressions. He hit the Jukebox with a ball of force and it melted, no fire, no lightning, force. I don’t know what it takes to melt a Jukebox but that’s something to think about with Dresden’s force blasts.
@Commander
see 22
———————-
so anyone want to bring up an argument for Rahl or is this going to be like the first section of Rand vs Richard where no one had anything and then Mike showed up.
“so anyone want to bring up an argument for Rahl or is this going to be like the first section of Rand vs Richard where no one had anything and then Mike showed up.”
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Oh I would give it some time. Rahl fans are sure to come soon.
Okay just asking. So I know Rahl has some measure of super strength or something, is it enough he could flip a car or something of similar size with ease? Or did I misread a post and he doesnt’ have that.
I am also curious just how durable the Sword of Truth is, it’s indestructible to anything from his universe but in Dresden’s universe the only way to stop an Outsider (think Cthulhu) is to banish it becuase they are extremely resistant to magic. Dresden blew one’s physical body into tiny bits of charred abstract monster. So I don’t know how well we can garuntee the Sword of Truth not being turned into molten slag.
Also has it shown resistance to magnetism?
@Admiral on #25
I am quite doubtful on said resistances to magnetism, truth be told the Sword of Gryffindor has better odds of resisting magnetism than the Sword of Truth does, so does Callandor from Wheel of Time, for that matter.(Although that one’s not made of metal at all!)
“True that we need Ezio vs the Joker to get posted, but we need more people to vote out the match location by the time post #50 passes, and they’re the locations I stated at post #10 unless you got more nominated candidate locations with potential, okay?”
Back to my Ezio vs the Joker, I actually chose the Sionis Steel Mill that the Joker took in Arkham City as the field of the battle, and Ezio has all of Arkham City to gather resources and prepare.
=
Back to topic…
*uses Rahl debater bait*
@Dr. Doctor
“Back to topic…
*uses Rahl debater bait*”
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Now remember, you keep the AHEM’s, and throw back the Mike’s, as they still need time to mature.
@Dr. Doctor
If this will help draw the attention of some Rahl people, here I go:
Harry James Potter, with FPR stipulations consented and bloodlust activated, only needs to use Duro to petrify Rahl before incinerating Rahl with Fiendfyre, and he can’t even expect to do jack$hit against Pumpkin-headed Dresden at all!
Percy Jackson or his paternal 1st cousin in Jason can simply just punch Rahl’s head clean off like with what’s possible against Eragon, and on their own against Dresden?
Absolutely horrific the overall idea itself is, unless its a relatively ‘Pure’ Swordfight that they’d actually have a legitimate shot at winning at, otherwise Dresden outlasts the two above and all their half-human 1st cousins, siblings or half-siblings put together mono-a-mono!
Haseo(dot hack universe) can just shoot Rahl to death either with Data Drain or Freeze Shot, and then go to unleash bullet hell upon Rahl’s sorry skull, and he actually has the best odds out of all 3 I could list out against Dresden, mono-a-mono, sure his odds against Dresden are not at all guarenteed, but his odds are better than the above list’s own, for 1-vs-1, are they not?
There, I’m done, I always wanted to say such things.
“Even if he closes the distance gap Dresden has armor covering everything but his head and unless Rahl can swing faster than a .38 special, a .22 or a 9mm”
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not necessarily. kevlar is very capable of handling a .22, but cannot stop a blade. i know that not only is harry’s coat made of leather (already rudimentry armor without the spells,) but is enchanted out the wazoo. it can stop claw attacks from big beasties, but can it stop a nanometer wide cutting blade?
@Messmaker
At that point I meant reaction time, which I said slightly after that. Dresden has for sure reacted to a .38 special and we’re fairly certain the other was a 9mm. I was saying if Rahl can’t swing faster than that Dresden will block with his shield which can tank some pretty devastating blows. Unless Rahl’s blows carry more oomph than that elevator he isn’t getting past the shield. And Dresden’s armor tanked bullets swords claws and lightning
“Is anyone on this site a reader of the SCP Foundation, Cause I was thinking of a couple matchups.”
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I do! Honestly, SCP foundation is filled with unstoppable entities and NLF’s making it extremely hard to debate. Not to mention inconsistensies and all the [EXPLETIVE REDACTED]
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““Murphy narrowed her eyes, peering down the shaking barrel of her gun. Flame blossomed from the barrel, reaching out toward me. She wasn’t twenty feet away from me. I didn’t think there was any way she could miss, and I thought, with a pang of sadness, that I wanted a chance to apologize to her before the end. For everything. “Vento servitas! ” I shouted and released the spell, the circle, and the amulet, as the sound of the shot hit me like a slap in the face.””
This quote summarized:
Murphy aimed. She fired and I saw the gun flare. She was barely 20 feet away from me, I didn’t think she would miss.(as in she missed) I wanted to apologize. I used the spell as I heard the shot fire.
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So he should have around sonic reaction time, as he used his spell while he heard the gun fire. Bullets travel faster than sound so he’s not yet a bullet timer.
Then again, he could have just been hearing the echo of the gun fire, which would make him even slower than the speed of sound.
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“Harry using a variety of spells and magically enchanted items to confront a mafia boss and his lackys. including blocking a .38 caliber round which puts him around the same speed as the above feat for reactions. The other things are just some cool samples of what he was capable of at his third weakest in series.”
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The quote specifically:
” He got up, lifting his hand from underneath the table. I had time to realize he held a revolver, virtually a twin to my own .38, in his fist, before he started shooting. Several things happened at the same time. I lifted my hand, focusing my will on the bracelet of tiny medieval-style shields around my left wrist, and hardened the protective energies around me. Bullets hammered against it with whining noises, striking sparks in the near dark of the restaurant.”
This doesn’t show bullet timing, it could have easily meant Dresden noticed the guy taking out his gun with good detail before he set up his shield and blocked the bullets. Significantly slower than supersonic reactions.
“@Messmaker
At that point I meant reaction time, which I said slightly after that. Dresden has for sure reacted to a .38 special and we’re fairly certain the other was a 9mm. I was saying if Rahl can’t swing faster than that Dresden will block with his shield which can tank some pretty devastating blows. Unless Rahl’s blows carry more oomph than that elevator he isn’t getting past the shield. And Dresden’s armor tanked bullets swords claws and lightning”
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sry if i was unclear/didnt get it. i am in support of the uberwizard, but i am also trying to be fair
@MessMaker Marcone(yep, its the nickname that’s as blatant a shoutout to Johnny Marcone if there ever is/was/will be one, Marcone himself needs a match one of these days!)
From one would-be worthy opponent to another, any time you ask, I wonder how explosive will this match itself become, regardless of what arena settings we are going with(Neutral battlegrounds are obvious in here, but what sort of neutral battlegrounds would be best, exactly?)
You got any ideas for levels of explosions?
@Tarbel
The feat took place Pre-Winter Knightifications(meaning Pre-Changes events) for Dresden, actually.
Pumpkin-headed Dresden’s a lot more Uber than back then, now, kind of like when Sol Badguy(Guilty Gear) started to use the Firebrand Sword that now belongs to him when he left the Holy Orders, in a way.
Main difference thus far:
Dresden’s not(as far as what can be confirmed) a Magi-Tech Cyborg like Sol Badguy is, nor is it confirmed on Sol’s end if Sol had to fight with Magic as frequently as, if not moreso than, Dresden does.
But I digress.
no time now, but i’ll be back to read this apparent dresden respect thread soon.
Not a respect thread, just need some feats for Rahl.
I’m kinda feelin’ for Rahl here (gosh, never thought I’d say that). The SoT should probably be able to block most magics, and if he really is able to call up his magic at will, that gives subtractive lightning on his side. Sub. lightning gives balefire a run for its money, so there’s that. Richard also has something very akin to bullet-time, which should help him out/
Ok, I’m not really convinced either of those feats are bullet timed feats. First:
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“Murphy narrowed her eyes, peering down the shaking barrel of her gun. Flame blossomed from the barrel, reaching out toward me. She wasn’t twenty feet away from me. I didn’t think there was any way she could miss, and I thought, with a pang of sadness, that I wanted a chance to apologize to her before the end. For everything. “Vento servitas! ” I shouted and released the spell, the circle, and the amulet, as the sound of the shot hit me like a slap in the face.”
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My problem with this is basically context, he may have started a spell but did he finish it? And what I mean by that is what’s implied here is that she missed. So what was the spell he was doing and how is that is relation to the flight of the bullet?
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Second:
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”He got up, lifting his hand from underneath the table. I had time to realize he held a revolver, virtually a twin to my own .38, in his fist, before he started shooting. Several things happened at the same time. I lifted my hand, focusing my will on the bracelet of tiny medieval-style shields around my left wrist, and hardened the protective energies around me. Bullets hammered against it with whining noises, striking sparks in the near dark of the restaurant”
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The simple fact of the bolded part means he was reacting to that and not a bullet.
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Anyhow, I’m still reading the rest off and on at the moment.
*throws the Mike back so it can evolve into an AHEM*
Question why was the SoT unable to cut the sword forged from 100 bloody tips of the armory of the Palace of the Prophets. What’s so special about that sword that the SoT couldn’t cut it.
@Aelfinn
I’ve been looking it said it blocks wizard fire and magic lightning, how does it do with natural lightning and natural fire.
As for subtractive lightning would Dresden’s lightning and magic redirection do anything to defend against it.
On the Bullet Time things I asked about them whenever I originally posted on other fights no one said they weren’t.
“I’ve been looking it said it blocks wizard fire and magic lightning, how does it do with natural lightning and natural fire.”
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It probably wouldn’t do too well. I don’t think it would cancel them out.
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“As for subtractive lightning would Dresden’s lightning and magic redirection do anything to defend against it.”
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Magic Redirection? Maybe. Lightning redirection? No. Subtractive magic (and the lightning) is a spell that sends whatever it touches to the Underworld (effectively killing them with no chance to escape). It isn’t really lightning at all, it just looks like it. Of course, this is assuming that Richard can actually use his magic, as sources disagree as to whether he still needs “need” to use it.
”On the Bullet Time things I asked about them whenever I originally posted on other fights no one said they weren’t”
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Ok, I’m not really sure how that’s relevant because I’m drawing attention to them now.
“On the Bullet Time things I asked about them whenever I originally posted on other fights no one said they weren’t.”
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Sorry for the double post, but that’s because you haven’t encountered the WoT Triumvirate. Any piece of evidence can be dissected and debated when we take a crack at it.
@ptaine
I’m just saying thats the only reason I said they were bullet timing is when I asked there was no statements from anyone saying it wasn’t so as far as I could tell they were. I asked on this site, several people and no negatives were stated so I just went ahead and took them as fact.
@Aelfinn
okay but Magic Redirection should, and, would you say that Subtractive Magic is Anti-Life?
@Aelfinn
oh no, I’m glad I’m finally getting some more people to look at it, math is my Kryptonite so I always ask others to look at things like that.
”I’m just saying thats the only reason I said they were bullet timing is when I asked there was no statements from anyone saying it wasn’t so as far as I could tell they were. I asked on this site, several people and no negatives were stated so I just went ahead and took them as fact.”
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Soooo, I’m curious as to why you thought they were then. And, I’m guessing that isn’t a defense of them as such? In any event in order for it to be “bullet timing” he would have to react to an actual bullet in some fashion and you would be hard pressed to actually prove that was the case in either of those instances. Unless there is more context for the first quote which links the spell to the flight of the bullet somehow?
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Also, where exactly is the 12 x 9 foot coming from in your first post? I’m assuming it’s a 12 story building at 9 feet a story but where is that in the quote?
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”Sorry for the double post, but that’s because you haven’t encountered the WoT Triumvirate. Any piece of evidence can be dissected and debated when we take a crack at it.”
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This just made my day…
first one someone else said it might be so I asked and one of the asked people calculated it, the second one I was just uncertain of but same basic thing happened when I asked.
curious but does this sound similar to subtractive magic?
” “It’s from Outside. It’s … congealed antilife. A chip of this stuff
makes nuclear waste look like secondhand smoke. Being near it draws the
life off you bit by bit. If you touch it, it kills you. Period.” ”
not neccesarily the antilife and nuclear waste part but the kills on contact part.
”first one someone else said it might be so I asked and one of the asked people calculated it, the second one I was just uncertain of but same basic thing happened when I asked.”
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That’s not really what I mean. I get that you presented the information and nobody was capable of applying the context of the quote correctly. What I’m asking is why you specifically thought those quotes were indicative of bullet timing. But I guess if you aren’t interested in proving they are beyond “I thought so, and these people said so” it’s kind of irrelevant.
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“It’s from Outside. It’s … congealed antilife. A chip of this stuff makes nuclear waste look like secondhand smoke. Being near it draws the life off you bit by bit. If you touch it, it kills you. Period.”
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That’s closer to the Underworld in terms of it drawing the life away simply by being in it. The magic itself is based on intent, like when the Sorceress Nicci changed the color of the nightdress she had on from pink to off white by subtracting the dye elements from the cloth with magic. Or the Subtractive part of the Chainfire spell subtracting memories associated with the person involved in the Chainfire event. Being near those subtractive spells doesn’t drain life away while Subtractive Lightning will kill on contact though so it really depends.
@Admiral
Wouldn’t it be best-suited to get ready to explain the unfortunate implications involving the Laws of Magic that the White Council would adhere to, that Dresden is following on his own terms, at that?
Eh, I misread the first one somewhat, thought he reacted after the bullet was out of the chamber. The first one I wasn’t sure if it was or wasn’t and was hoping someone would look at it.
—————————-
As for the description I posted is that similar enough that elemental compatibility comes into play? Because that substance, Mordite/Deathstone is what it’s called in universe, is capable of being repelled with pure will. So I wanted to know if there was a similarity enough that it would be like Ki/chakra between DBZ and Naruto or something.
@Admiral
Do you or do you not have plans for if compatibility can be found?
@Cross,
no I’m just asking
Again, really? Didn’t he just go up against ganon? Give Harry a break.
Also where is dresden’s the picture from?
@Lowk
not like that match got debated very much this match has already gone past it in comments.
@Slayer Lowk
Ebenezer Mccoy could use a match, I might have an opponent or two in mind if you’d be interested back at the VMA.
Meantime don’t we have a 1-vs-1 war to fight?
@GA
Gotta go with ptaine. Do you have a better feat for bullet timing? Those are too flimsy.
@shgon
Who do you consider the WoT triumvirate?
“@shgon
Who do you consider the WoT triumvirate?”
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Lol, I’m Aelfinn. Anyway, the WoT Triumvirate was Ptaine, Galorian, and myself. I called us that because we were there for most of the WoT vs Sot and Rand vs Richard debates. Not that you and Shgon aren’t helpful and logical, you just haven’t been here as long. I mentioned our evidence-removing ability because in no other fight on FP have I seen the level of evidence-arguing that I did with us.
@Aelfinn
“Not that you and Shgon aren’t helpful and logical,”
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My ears are burning.
@Primus
understood, at least someone looked more in depth on them now.
I’ll see if I can find one though.
————–
still overall from what I saw on the Rand vs Richard fight aside from the sword Rahl doesn’t have much in the way of defense.
So does anyone know what would happen if 6,000 degree Fahrenheit flames hit the blade? Or if a magnetism spell was used would that pull it from his grasp?
@Primus
Its official…Gut hunch says we might have to expect a bad match coming in, later this week.
If Stealth suggests a dung bomb, best solution is to speak with Mata about it and pray the Lord General will avert this at all costs, okay?
Back to the matter at hand:
@Admiral
I know of cases who have better odds to resist the latter if I need be frank.
@aelfinn
Lol I could try to save face and claim I was asking who he thought they were, but I’ll not lol. No offense taken. If AHEM had held on I would’ve dubbed you the quartet as his knowledge on the matter is vast as well. I only hope to ascend to the ranks. Shgon is a trove of knowledge as well
@GA
no worries now every encounter is that much more well fought/earned. I’m not too sure on the enchantments of the sword other than knowledge of past owners, boosting one’s aggression and containing a portion of Orden. I’m sure this is half correct though so don’t quote me on it lol.
It’s what WoT buffs do.
@Cross
I’m sorry to hear that. I only hope I’ll one day see my match posted. One can dare to dream, though the price be steep. Also I started watching fate stay night. Don’t get of topic Cross but I’m enjoying it
@Primus
Thanks, sir.
I could only hope Judge Hitman is aware of the fact and if it happens, I can have the courage and the support to do what old Mad-Eye Negative Zero did and make sure it backfires massively on the spite-suggestor’s sorry ass before the site winds up paying for it!
Meantime, I hope you find the Fate/Stay Night universe to be a fun place to be at.
I kid you not when I say that to fight against anything from Wheel of Time is considered a major honor of sorts all in itself, and all the more when a faction one would either root for or back up outright is to face a segment of a Wheel of Time faction, you know this, right?
Meantime, shall we get started with regards to the White Council and the Laws of Magic with how they intend to follow said laws?
eh even half knowledge is knowledge and knowledge is power. And as for the bullet timing thing Rahl still has to get close and has no shield besides the sword itself. Not the best defense against someone throwing fire that works like natural fire, and lightning that works like natural lightning. It’s the kind of thing that can get you killed when you don’t know something is real fire or magic fire/real lightning magic lightning.
———————–
I don’t know if you know much about the Lovecraft mythos but Dresden killed a creature literally straight from it. Word of God supports the Lovecraft mythos thing.
The guys are supposed to be only able to be stopped by banishment’s, too tough to destroy their physical form magic resistant and what not. Dresden blew the most powerful Walker (soldier of the Old Ones) to bits. Beating an abstract being has to count for something.
————
Any idea what the deal with that one sword the SoT couldn’t cut, I know what it was made from but…why was it special? What was the reason it couldn’t be cut.
“Also for the record Dresden was in a twelve story building with an average of nine foot from floor to ceiling in each floor not sure of the exact kinetic energy your average steel elevator has falling from that height but yeah.”
~GuardianAngel1911, May 15, “Kratos vs Harry Dresden”, Post #480
==
That is where I got the information from for the calc.
I’ll post some more feats, least till I find some more bullet timing.
here’s an aoe wind attack plus fire and enhanced with soulfire (the power of archangels)
———
“Within seconds, both halves had focused on me, and then two of the freaking things rolled at me, jaws clashing and snapping, equally strong, equally as deadly as before. Only they were going to come rushing at me from multiple directions now.
“Wow,” Bob said, in a perfectly calm, matter-of-fact, conversational tone. “That is incredibly unfair.”
“Been that kind of day,” I said. I swapped my blasting rod for my staff. The rod was great for pitching fire around, but I needed to pull off something more complicated than it was really meant to handle, and my wizard’s staff was a great deal more versatile, meant for handling a broad range of possibilities. I called forth my will and laced it with the soulfire within me, then thrust the staff ahead and called, “Fuego murus! Fuego vellum!”
Energy rushed out of me, and silver-white fire rose up in a ring nearly sixty feet across, three feet thick, and three or four yards high. The roar of the flames seemed to be somehow intertwined with an odd tone that sounded like nothing so much as the voice of a great bell.
The centipedes (plural – Hell’s bells, I needed to stop being so arrogant) rose up onto their rearmost limbs, trying to bridge the wall in a living arch, but they recoiled from the flames even more violently than when I’d slammed the original head with a cannonball of fire.”
Changes Chap 12
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large area of effect, and it’s one thing to block a fireball it’s another thing to not get destroyed by walking into an inferno of white hot flames with holy silver accents.
@Admiral
I especially found it all the more Badass that Dresden managed to wipe out something like He-who-walks-behind, without even having to resort to Non-standard powers in the least.
The fact that even as a Teenager, Dresden’s Badass, says loads on what Dresden himself has on his side, does it not?
When did Rahl did anything anywhere near the Badassitude of Dresden in his teen years, I must ask?*
1.) (To specify, I’m asking if Rahl did anything remotely badass at all in his teen years!)
@Dr. Doctor
that one wasn’t in question it was the bullet timing thing.
Though, can Rahl put out more than 75000 joules of energy when he strikes with the sword?
@Admiral
With no offense intended to Ptaine or AHEM, unless Rahl can get enough of The Gift working, I suspect not, personally speaking.
But I’ll let the others make a statement as to what they’d think on the matter before we can do anything to start going concrete.
I have no idea what you just said Commander, I know little of the workings of SoT magic so using specific terms is pointless.
@Admiral
If I recalled right, this ‘Gift’ thing is a part of the reason why Rahl can use magic at all, did I hear right right, AHEM + Ptaine?
Dresden shows accuracy with his fire attacks
—-
“”All right,” Susan whispered, as she began clipping us a way in, cutting a wire only when the gusting wind reached a crescendo and covered the sound of the clippers at work, then waiting for the next gust. “Where’s that distraction?”
I winked at her, lifted my blasting rod, thrust it between links of fence in front of us, and aimed carefully. Then I checked the tower guard, to be sure he was looking away, and whispered, “Fuego, fuego, fuego, fuego.”
Tiny spheres of sullen red light flickered out across the compound and into the parking lot opposite. My aim had been good. The little spheres hissed and melted their way through the rear quarter panel of several vehicles and burned on into the fuel tanks beneath.
The results were predictable. A gas tank explosion isn’t as loud as an actual bomb going off, but when you’re standing a few yards away from it, it could be hard to tell. There were several hollow booming sounds, and light blazed up from the cars that had been hit as flames roared up and consumed them.”
Changes, Chap 17
”Question why was the SoT unable to cut the sword forged from 100 bloody tips of the armory of the Palace of the Prophets. What’s so special about that sword that the SoT couldn’t cut it”
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“Any idea what the deal with that one sword the SoT couldn’t cut, I know what it was made from but…why was it special? What was the reason it couldn’t be cut.”
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I’m still looking for that. I haven’t found it yet, but I don’t think it’s overly specific as to why beyond a similarity to the SoT.
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”And as for the bullet timing thing Rahl still has to get close and has no shield besides the sword itself.”
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That isn’t entirely true depending on the situation, but this does depend on how effectively Rahl can implement his magic.
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”that one wasn’t in question it was the bullet timing thing.
Though, can Rahl put out more than 75000 joules of energy when he strikes with the sword?”
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I did ask where it came from (should be quoted for the calcs in any event), and I don’t know about joules for the sword and I can’t say that I’m remotely interested in even trying to find out one way or the other in terms of trying to find a way to calc it out.
it’s in the first part of my first post in this fight
it’s in the first part of my first post in this fight
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It states he’s in a 12 story building in the quote?
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I’ve read it a few times now, and I admit I could’ve overlooked where that came from but I didn’t see it.
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I saw it in the calcs and assumed that’s what it was.
also do you mean he does have shields or he doesn’t have to get close?
I know he can do that wind shield but is wind really the best shield against fire?
oops misunderstood what you meant my bad. I’ll get the quote for building height.
He wouldn’t have to get close.
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And it’s a thickening of the air, not wind. A little different.
the wind pushed it up from the second floor but it fell from the twelfth
“The elevator hurtled up and up and up, and I could feel my face sagging down with the speed of it. My office building is twelve stories high. We’d started at the second floor, so assuming an average of nine feet per story, it was almost a hundred feet to the building’s roof.”
okay thickening of air, what kinds of things have been blocked with it?
“The elevator hurtled up and up and up, and I could feel my face sagging down with the speed of it. My office building is twelve stories high. We’d started at the second floor, so assuming an average of nine feet per story, it was almost a hundred feet to the building’s roof.”
Added to Dresden’s Respect thread so that is not in question any longer.
Rahl’s instinctively/subconsciously used magic to deflect/stop arrows.
However … Dresden has a gun (possibly two, depending), and Dresden matches should be delayed until after the release of Cold Days, especially if we’re going to include his Winter Knight capabilities, since we don’t really know what they are and what they include, nor do we know how well Dresden can utilize them.
-
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As for Rahl’s ability to utilize his magic, the potential to use it at will exists … and at some point, if Goodkind continues the series as it looks like it will from Omen Machine, Rahl will regain his control. The only (known) way to do that since apparently he didn’t do that when he was wielding Orden (which is just plain stupid to an extent that I can only attribute it to Plot, especially since the end of Confessor he says that (while under the influence of Orden) he figured out his Gift, don’t remember the exact phrasing but it certainly implied that he regained the knowledge and control of his Gift that he had acquired in the Temple of the Winds), would require him spending an indeterminate amount of time back in the Temple of the Winds, but once he did that, he’d have full control and knowledge.
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“Okay just asking. So I know Rahl has some measure of super strength or something, is it enough he could flip a car or something of similar size with ease? Or did I misread a post and he doesnt’ have that.”
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Richard having above normal strength is only shown once: In the fourth book, “Temple of the Winds,” he rips a man’s spine out through the stomach with his bare hands. How he did this was not explained.
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A possible explanation was the magic of the Sword of Truth enhancing him, as Kahlan’s strikes were described as having “speed and power he (Richard) could scarcely believe” when she used it. Richard did not have the SoT at the time, but he’s shown the ability to be aware of its location when he doesn’t have it and to keep the memories that he drew from it without using it.
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The rest of the time, Richard is consistently just a very muscular human, down to details like having difficulty carrying metal bars and feeling tired and worn out afterwards.
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“I am also curious just how durable the Sword of Truth is, it’s indestructible to anything from his universe but in Dresden’s universe the only way to stop an Outsider (think Cthulhu) is to banish it becuase they are extremely resistant to magic. Dresden blew one’s physical body into tiny bits of charred abstract monster. So I don’t know how well we can garuntee the Sword of Truth not being turned into molten slag.”
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The Sword of Truth is not entirely indestructible and can be destroyed with the right combination of magics. When he possessed the knowledge of the Temple of the Winds and was in full control of his gift, Richard created a duplicate Sword of Truth, and then destroyed it with his magic, suggesting its limits. However, he had the memories of the wizards who had created the original Sword of Truth, and thus intimate knowledge about the sword’s construction and nature.
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“Also has it shown resistance to magnetism?”
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I don’t believe so, but then, it’s never been tested against magnetism before.
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“So does anyone know what would happen if 6,000 degree Fahrenheit flames hit the blade? ”
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The Sword of Truth was capable of blocking large blasts of wizard’s fire without any difficulty, but a witch was able to force Richard to drop it by heating the Sword of Truth until he could no longer hold it. (Stone of Tears, chapter 12.) So if Richard wasn’t killed by the flames, it would likely force him to drop his sword.
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“Any idea what the deal with that one sword the SoT couldn’t cut, I know what it was made from but…why was it special? What was the reason it couldn’t be cut.”
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Well, it was created by a Sister of the Dark, who had both additive and subtractive magic, and she had some degree of assistance from a wizard who could also use both sides. (Though neither had the gift for subtractive magic; they just learned how to use it to a limited extent.) I suppose it would be classified as a sort of enchantment. That blade always seemed like an anomaly to me, given that immediately after Richard killed the person using it, he snapped it over his knee and it was destroyed just like that. (Stone of Tears, chapter 65.)
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“okay thickening of air, what kinds of things have been blocked with it?”
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Arrows. I don’t think Richard used it for anything else. Also, just to note, this isn’t a shield Richard has on all the time; he’s only used it when he sees an attack coming, and decides to raise the shield.
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“1.) (To specify, I’m asking if Rahl did anything remotely badass at all in his teen years!)”
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He was a woods guide who lived in a region of the world with no magic, and he had no combat training or experience, and we don’t really hear much about his past in Westland. I think the only thing of note he did that we hear about was driving off some bullies who were threatening a girl he liked or something. (It was mentioned in Temple of the Winds, but I’m not sure where.) So no, Richard did not get down to much badassery in his younger years.
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“If I recalled right, this ‘Gift’ thing is a part of the reason why Rahl can use magic at all, did I hear right right, AHEM + Ptaine?”
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To use magic in SoT, you need to have either the gift, or at least the calling. If you have the gift, like Richard or Zedd, then you’re born with magic and have to learn to control it, or it will kill you. If you just have the calling, then you have the aptitude and desire to learn magic, and a magic user could teach you to use it, though you won’t be as powerful as someone who actually has the gift. Richard has the gift with both additive and subtractive magic.
“The Sword of Truth was capable of blocking large blasts of wizard’s fire without any difficulty, but a witch was able to force Richard to drop it by heating the Sword of Truth until he could no longer hold it. (Stone of Tears, chapter 12.) So if Richard wasn’t killed by the flames, it would likely force him to drop his sword.”
I ask because well, Dresden Files magic doesn’t have “magic fire”
” Fire, once called, would behave exactly like fire unless you worked to make it
otherwise. Ditto lightning. ” So that would be real flames hurtling towards him yes but real flames nonetheless as opposed to “magic/wizard flames”
From what I know of Dresden, I’m quite sure that he would have no problem with this match if Richard had only the Sword of Truth. If he could consciously use his magic, which I doubt, then it would be more of a fight. However, I am firmly of the belief that Richard cannot use his magic unless he has sufficient need (that is, he has to advance the plot) or anger. The only statements about Richard being able to use his magic whenever he wants to only come from wide extrapolations and exaggerations of the texts and are not stated anywhere in the actual books.
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If Dresden is even remotely close to a bullet/sonic timer, then he’d have no problems with any version of Richard, since Richard’s only claim to superspeed is being able to perceive time in slow motion, and he’s never cast magic in this state or performed any motions that are beyond the natural speed of his body. That’s helpful if he has to do a difficult but possible task, like snatch an arrow out of mid-air, but it won’t do him any good against an opponent who is a real bullet-timer. He’ll just get to watch in agonizing slow-motion as Dresden kills him.
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But, I have a bad feeling that Mike is about to go to town, and tell us all that Richard can dilate time by a factor of +1 million, cast hundreds or thousands of spells in an instant, speedblitz Dresden, use his magic whenever he wants, cover himself with indestructible shields, cut through the strongest shields with one swing of the Sword of Truth, create gods and universes, etc. And then we’ll all have to give up on the actual debate and waste time and posts explaining to the wanker how Richard has actual limitations on his powers and is not an omnipotent god.
“So that would be real flames hurtling towards him yes but real flames nonetheless as opposed to “magic/wizard flames””
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Well, wizard’s fire in SoT isn’t all that different from ordinary fire, except that cannot be put out and continues burning down to the bone. More like flaming nepalm than a magical construct.
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It’s all a moot point if you ask me, because if Dresden can manipulate heat, all he has to do is heat up the Sword of Truth and Richard will be forced to drop it, leaving him defenseless even if the SoT could somehow deflect Dresden’s fire.
“Well, it was created by a Sister of the Dark, who had both additive and subtractive magic, and she had some degree of assistance from a wizard who could also use both sides. (Though neither had the gift for subtractive magic; they just learned how to use it to a limited extent.) I suppose it would be classified as a sort of enchantment. That blade always seemed like an anomaly to me, given that immediately after Richard killed the person using it, he snapped it over his knee and it was destroyed just like that. (Stone of Tears, chapter 65.)”
—————————-
so it was just enchanted, that’s it. I ask cause Dresden’s armor is magic armor, I know the SoT has the whole cut through enemies thing but Dresden’s armor tanked blows from vampires with swords, and again vampires easy car flipping, as well as bullets and lightning. He felt the bullets and lightning but not the sword strikes. Between Rahl being mortal strength, magic armor, and Dresden’s shield having such a high tolerance for damage it’s possible he won’t be able to get past Dresden’s defenses.
———————–
speaking of defenses, and anger, you said it blocks arrows but how would it do against…..
” I focused my rage, focused my anger, focused my hate and my denial and my pain. I
blocked away everything in the entire universe but the thought of my friend’s bloody body
hanging from that rope, and a spot two inches across in the center of Tessa’s chest.
Then I drew in a breath, whirling a hand over my head and bellowed through my ragged
throat, so loudly that it felt like something tore, “Fuego, pyrofuego!” I stabbed the first two
fingers of my right hand forward as I did, unleashing my fury and my will. “Burn!”
A bar of blue-white fire so dense that it was nearly a solid object lashed across the distance
from me to Tessa and slammed into her like an enormous spear.
The mantislike Denarian threw back her pretty face and screamed in agony as the shaft of
fire bored cleanly through her, melting a wide hole that burned wider still before searing
itself shut. She went down, howling and thrashing, burned by fire far deadlier and more
destructive than any I had ever called before, with a blasting rod or without one.
I sensed something moving toward me from the side and rolled out of the way just as one
of Rosanna’s cloven hooves slashed through the air where my thigh had been an instant
before. If she’d struck she would have opened the flesh to the bone. I whipped my staff at
her face, forcing her to duck away, and followed with a surge of will and a shout of,
“Forzare!” It wasn’t my best kinetic strike, but it was a blow heavy enough to throw her a
dozen feet through the air and into a tumble over the ground. “
Mike claims he’s a god eh, well he won’t be the first divine entity Dresden has faced, and I’m not counting Kratos.
I can post it but it’s a big chunk so I’ll only do it if it’s requested.
“Between Rahl being mortal strength, magic armor, and Dresden’s shield having such a high tolerance for damage it’s possible he won’t be able to get past Dresden’s defenses.”
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Very possible. The Sword of Truth cuts through mundane materials pretty well, but it doesn’t have the best track record against enchanted defenses. I seem to also recall that in the same fight as it was blocked by the Sister of the Dark’s enchanted blade, the same sorceress used some sort of magic shield to turn aside the blows of the Sword of Truth’s rage aspect (but not the stronger White Magic).
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“speaking of defenses, and anger, you said it blocks arrows but how would it do against…..”
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Unless Richard devises a much stronger shield, the air would simply be superheated and blasted out of the way before Richard himself is obliterated.
“Mike claims he’s a god eh, well he won’t be the first divine entity Dresden has faced, and I’m not counting Kratos.”
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Well, not so much a god, but he claimed before that Richard could create gods and universes and ascribed many other divine level powers to him. I’m probably exaggerating a bit, though, as I don’t think even Mike has claimed that Richard is omnipotent.
Okay good I really don’t want to drag that chunk of text that is his fight at sixteen against the Soldier of the Old Ones over here.
—————
before you say what that blast would do to Richard, I should show you what the chick Dresden blasted is capable of healing factor wise,
” I’d spent the last several years on the fringes of a supernatural war between the White
Council of the wizards and the Vampire Courts. In the most recent years, I’d gotten more
directly involved. Wizards who go to a fight without getting their act together tend not to
come home. Worse, the people depending on them for protection wind up getting hurt.
The second most important rule of combat wizardry is a simple one: Don’t let them touch
you.
Whether you’re talking about vampires or ogres or some other kind of monstrous nasty,
most of them can do hideous things to you if they get close enough to touch—as even a
lesser member of the gruff clan had demonstrated on my nose the night before.
The prime rule of combat wizardry is simple too: Be prepared.
Wizards can potentially wield tremendous power against just about anything that might
come along—if we’re ready to handle it. The problem is that the things that come after us
know that too, so the favored tactic is the sudden ambush. Wizards might live a long time,
but we aren’t rend-proof. You’ve got to think ahead in order to have enough time to act
when the heat is on.
I’d made myself ready and taught young wizards with even less experience than me how to
be ready too—for an occasion just such as this.
The coil of steel chain in my coat pocket came out smoothly as I drew it, because I’d
practiced the draw thousands of times, and I whipped one end at the mantis-thing’s face.
It was faster than me, of course. They usually are. Those two clamps seized the end of the
chain. The mantis’s jaws clamped down on it, and the creature ripped the chain from my
hands with a wrench of its head and upper body, quicker than thought.
That was a positive thing, really. The mantis hadn’t had time to notice two important
details about the chain: first, that the whole thing was coated in copper.
Second, that a standard electrical plug was attached to the other end.
I flipped my fingers at the nearest wall outlet and barked, “Galvineus!”
The plug shot toward the outlet like a striking snake and slammed home.
The lights flickered and went dim. The Denarian hopped abruptly into the air and then
came down, thrashing and twitching madly. The electricity had forced the muscles in its
jaws and clamps to contract, and it couldn’t release the chain. Acrid smoke began to drift
up from various points on its carapace.
“Wizard!” Gard gasped. She gripped the wooden handle of her ax and tossed it weakly
toward me. I heard shouting and the bellow of a shotgun coming from downstairs. It stayed
in the background, unimportant information. Everything that mattered to me was nearly
within an arm’s length.
The ax bounced and struck against my leg, but my duster prevented it from cutting into me.
I picked up the ax—Christ, was it heavy—hauled off, and brought it straight down on the
Denarian, as if I’d been splitting cordwood.
The ax crunched home, sinking to the eye somewhere in the Denarian’s thorax. The thing’s
convulsions ripped the weapon out of my hands—and the plug from the wall outlet.
The mantis’s head whipped toward me, and it screamed again. It ripped out the ax and
came to its feet in the same instant.
“Get clear!” Gard rasped.
I did, diving to the side and going prone.
The wounded woman emptied her assault rifle into the mantis in two or three seconds of
howling thunder, shooting from the hip from about three feet away.
Words cannot convey how messy that was. Suffice to say that it would probably cost more
to remove the ichor stains than it would to strip and refinish the walls, the floor, and the
ceiling.
Gard gasped, and the empty rifle slid from her fingers. She shuddered and pressed her
hands to her belly.
I moved to her side and picked her up, trying not to strain her stomach. She was heavy. Not
like a sumo wrestler or anything, but she was six feet tall in her bare feet and had more than
the usual amount of muscle. She felt at least as heavy as Thomas. I grunted with effort, got
her settled, and started for the door.
Gard let out a croaking little whimper, and more blood welled from her injury. Faint pangs
of sympathetic pain flickered through my own belly. Her eyes had rolled back in her head.
It had taken a lot to beat Gard’s apparent pain threshold, but it looked like the visit from the
Denarian—and the activity it had forced on her—had done it.
The day just couldn’t have gotten any more disturbing.
Until the splattered mass that had been the Denarian started quivering and moving.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” I shouted.
Where there had been one big bug thing, now there were thousands of little mantislike
creatures. They all began bounding toward the center of the room, piling up into two
mounds that gradually began to take on the shape of insectoid legs. “
chick doesn’t stay down easy even by Fallen Angel standards.
“before you say what that blast would do to Richard, I should show you what the chick Dresden blasted is capable of healing factor wise,”
.
She sounds much beyond Richard’s durability level. Richard can heal himself and others when he gets his magic working, but his injuries don’t heal by themselves unless he deliberately works the magic, and he’s not really beyond a tough human without his shields.
” Well, not so much a god, but he claimed before that Richard could create gods and universes and ascribed many other divine level powers to him. I’m probably exaggerating a bit, though, as I don’t think even Mike has claimed that Richard is omnipotent.”
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He did. Orden being the power of life, tapping into all people (han== life) and making universes,…. With orden omnipotent.
“He did. Orden being the power of life, tapping into all people (han== life) and making universes,…. With orden omnipotent.”
.
Oh, right. I guess that does sound like an argument for Richard being omnipotent after all.
.
*facepalm.* And I’d actually given Mike the benefit of the doubt, there!
Yeah … Richard has plenty of raw power and potential, and theoretical capabilities … but he doesn’t know how to get the best effect out of his magic most of the time – he knows very little about magic and has little conscious control (next to none). When he’s demonstrated any meaningful control, and the ability to use it, he’s absurdly powerful and dangerous – specifically in Pillars of Creation, which is one of the few times he’s demonstrated any conscious control in combat, he obliterates something like a thousand cavalrymen by way of a single spell without breaking stride.
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I think that the attribution of godlike powers was only when Rahl’s packing Orden – which was at the very end of the series in other words it was more or less his latest incarnation; that’s no longer true now with Omen Machine.
So that fire blast hits Rahl he’s fucked in other words.
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Wait is Orden the power of life?
Yes and no. Orden is life and death; Additive and Subtractive. It’s power can affect even the Pristinely Ungifted and the Chimes.
It is, more or less, effective omnipotence, so far as we know.
wow, okay then. Good thing I didn’t allow Orden.