Spoiler Clearance: Toll the Hounds
Apsal’ara attempted to back-stab Rake? Really?
Gods below!
Let’s check our old AD&D books, just for
fun. I am curious. Could she have done it? Kill Rake with a knife in the back?
Is it even possible?
In the Legends & Lore book, I searched
for a god that could be a good equivalent to Anomander Rake. The only one I
found was Quetzalcoatl. He is the leader of a pantheon, he transforms into a dragon, plus he is Lawful Neutral (pretty much like Rake I guess). Now, let’s assume Rake has
the exact same number of Hit Points as Quetzalcoatl: 400.
The closest I found to Apsal’ara was a
goddess from India: Ratri, “goddess of the night, thieves, and robbers”. Stats
say she’s a level 15 assassin. Players Handbook tells us
that assassins of levels 13+ do quintuple damage on successful back-stabs.
Scoring 400 points of damage? Apsal’ara
would need to roll a base 80 points of damage, in order to hit that 400-points
mark, with her “quintuple”. It is NOT easy rolling 80 points of damage with a
knife; in fact, I’ve never seen it. It would have to be a powerful magical
weapon dealing 8d10 points of damage, or 4d10 +40 (yes I wrote that), and then she’d still have to
roll her maximum...
So, Apsal’ara, you’re right – it was
a bad idea!
