Author Topic: Level Equivalencies for Servants  (Read 7864 times)

Offline Raineh Daze

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Level Equivalencies for Servants
« on: February 01, 2013, 12:02:27 PM »
Basically, for some time I've been trying to work out around what level Servants would fall in a D&D setting. Now, given that 5th level is normal human maximum and every last Servant is literally beyond that, it's certain that they're above level 5. The three highest-end abilities are 'destroy world by breaking reality, minimal power expenditure', 'complete invulnerability and perfect regeneration', and 'summon seemingly boundless army of Servants'. Two of those are tied to weapons, yes, but since they're literally unusable by anyone else they seem like they'd fall under the abilities section.


Now, the problem is that, aside from knowing the upper level cap they could be is 'very high', I'm... kind of lost on actually filling things in.  :-\


Now, starting with the 'base' 9, from Fate/Stay Night, I think I've got a rough idea of raw ability (assuming no-one's holding back or hampered in any way):

(click to show/hide)


So... does anyone have any ideas?


Notably, this entire thing has been banging around in my head because I was trying to work out what would happen if someone with Gilgamesh's abilities decided to conquer the Forgotten Realms pre 4e. XD

Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2013, 12:18:26 PM »
Prime's done some work statting out F/SN characters. That might be useful as a baseline to tweak.
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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2013, 12:30:01 PM »
... seeing that he's statted Rin out as level 16, that's going to need a lot of tweaking. She knows some martial arts, managed to store up enough power by the war to blow a building up, and (in conjunction with Shirou and Ilya) managed to wield and imperfect copy of a magical artefact. Gilgamesh's class choice is also... really, really weird.

Zero Berserker. Hmm... kind of... messy, really. XD

The problem there is that's statting out the Servants as if they are D&D characters, whilst this is an attempt to work out where their power falls against D&D characters. D&D characters have a lot more options (except over Gilgamesh), but on raw capabilities (which did come up in the thread--human physical capability? Less than E-rank. Only Servant that weak is Medea, Zero Caster can still crush skulls with on hand) probably drop behind them a lot.

I think it's also understating the difference in power between Saber, Zero Berserker, and Gilgamesh (respectively: one of the most powerful, greatest sword-wielder as admitted by the first, 3x stronger) whilst making Rin and Dark Sakura waaay too strong (being connected to the thing behind the wars and Angra Mainyu is a massive advantage against Servants) from sheer capability.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 12:37:36 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2013, 01:00:48 PM »
Well the problem here is that the servants are as unbalanced as it gets.

Saber is tecnically a blade specialist. She's beaten by a completely inexperienced knife user two times out of three. An unarmed human with some magic buffs will get her in her knees gasping for breath. She can't scratch berseker for the sake of anyone's life while even Shirou managed to chop off an arm from that one. Saber's only redeeming quality is that she can shoot uber nukes from Excalibur and uber Avalon Shield. Both which Shirou can replicate.

Berseker struggles to beat Archer, but Shirou with Archer's Arm wipes the floor with Zero berseker.

Then Shirou with Archer's arm (ARCHER) also goes out there and wipes the floor with Dark Saber in a blade match.

So yes, for a suposed sword user, Saber has a terrible record on blade fights. She beats who whitout her nuke again? Fake assassin? Depressed caster?

Meanwhile "Archer" doesn't only show excellent melee qualities, fighting close and personal against Lancer, but Archer can also replicate Excalibur and Avalon and whatnot.

Lancer's "insta kill" lance only works on himself. Oh, wait, Gilgamesh used it to finish off Berseker. So Gilgamesh and Archer can do Lancer's work better than he does.

Assassin is weak, but has the redeeming quality of super unbetable stealth aura. At least Gilgamesh and Archer can't replicate that one.


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« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 01:03:35 PM by oslecamo »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2013, 01:15:38 PM »
The only time Saber's ever at her real strength is during UBW, when Rin's her Master. When it's Shirou, she just doesn't have the power to fight properly. She also fails to damage Berserker from either not using Excalibur (Invisible Air is too low ranked) directly, or being drained from preceding events. Also worth noting is that Saber is the one Servant that, strictly speaking, isn't dead--she's literally grabbed from the aftermath of Camlann and healed. Finally, Saber Alter? That wrecks her speed (and Shirou's at Servant abilities by then) and lessons her actual abilities.

Berserker should never have been Berserker. The Einzbern REALLY messed up on that one. The power gains are minimal when you consider that it's Heracles; he could've been summoned as literally anything but Caster but they went and chose Berserker. Also, Shirou never fought Zero Berserker (since that happened when he was five-ish), he fought Heracles. Heracles without God Hand (so no invincibility), blind, and drastically weakened.

Umm... yes, Shirou channelling all of Archer's skill was able to beat a Saber that had her speed stripped and her combat ability lessened. Your point?

Archer is good with a sword? May I repeat the first line of Unlimited Blade Works? I am the bone of my sword. He is a good Archer as well, but he does a lot of swordfighting. He also can't replicate Excalibur (trying would kill him) and Avalon only works if Saber's around. Guess what happened to Shirou in the Normal End of Heaven's Feel and Fate.

Gae Bolg rewrites causality. There're two ways to defeat it: have luck that defies that (which still left Saber wrecked) or back out of range before he uses it (Interesting point: Archer has seen all this before).

Assassin is an assassin. That is the entire point of Assassin. Do not engage in direct confrontation with Servants (Fake Assassin, meanwhile, was a gatekeeper), take out the Masters. Assassin is, of course, going to lose in a fight to absolutely anyone but Caster.

Rin is actually irrelevant to the discussion since, unsurprisingly, she's not a Servant. Shirou is relevant insofar as he becomes Archer.



Anyway, going on about how Saber has a bad track record when 'just' slashing things doesn't help answer the question at all. Yes, she does a lot better when she uses it like a nuke/has Avalon because, well, that's kind of the point of Noble Phantasms. They're trump cards. Archer is constantly taking advantage of Unlimited Blade Works and having seen all the Servants fight before, Lancer is screwed over because Kirei doesn't want him to fight.

Overall, I'd rather look at their actual capabilities than how they perform in a story that would get rapidly boring if events conspired so that Saber was always at full strength or Lancer kept spamming Gae Bolg.


EDIT: Having checked with someone that remembers Heaven's Feel better than I do, it was also Shirou and Rider vs Saber Alter, rather than a straight fight. The odds are always stacked against her in this thing. XD


It's also a good idea to remember, if you include fighting Fake Assassin, that if she got within range to engage him properly, he got to use Tsubame Gaeshi, which she did manage to avoid... after damaging his sword so it wasn't working perfectly. It is undodgeable, after all.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 01:30:57 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline Quillwraith

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2013, 01:40:13 PM »
... The invulnerability thing. She doesn't have it most of the time, due to circumstances.
... So, if she was a D&D spellcaster, that's casting as a Free Action.
... Can crush your heart from a distance, though)
... He... can swing a normal, non-mythological sword so that it breaks reality.
These are all epic level abilities. If Gilgamesh is worth any 3 others, that makes him level 28 minimum.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2013, 01:45:59 PM »
I'm not so sure about Tsubame Gaeshi--whilst it does break reality, the mechanical effect is to be sliced in three ways. So long as his sword isn't broken, it's impossible to dodge because the slashes are literally simultaneous.

Gilgamesh's key ability list:
1) Sword that blows up the world
2) Treasury containing the overwhelming majority of mythological items (I know that it contains Gungnir off the top of my head and the aforementioned sword, as well as an ancient Hindu spaceship. It explicitly doesn't contain Excalibur or, following on from that, Avalon or Arondight) that can be either used properly, or launched at people as hypersonic mythological projectiles. Multiple at once.
3) Attract wealth to him. All wealth. It is literally impossible for him to be poor.
4) Chains that get stronger the more godly you are, can be shot out of said treasury to bind you.
5) Ludicrously strong armour (it outright nullifies a lot of attacks from these things, and even when Excalibur--the aforementioned nuke sword--is used, he's still in one piece to talk before dying).
6) Apparently, so charismatic it's more a curse than actual popularity.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #7 on: February 01, 2013, 01:47:23 PM »
Under Shirou's command, Saber still had enough power to nuke the hell out of Rider, Berseker and Gilgamesh. She's a pretty good nuker overall, she should definetely be summoned as Caster one of these days (since Caster herself doesn't seem to ever manage to nuke anything, damn magic resistance that Excalibur ignores, altough she's a damn impressive dagger fighter).

Grafted Shirou is also still alive. What Saber Alter lost in speed(which wasn't much by her stat changes) she more than gained in raw power. And Shirou had most of his brain fried by then.

Dunno if using Excalibur actually kills Shirou (with the Holy Grail exploding and he being at the verge of death already). However we know Shirou can replicate Avalon whitout geting himself killed.

Archer replicates that greek shield to stop Gae Bolg. That's quite a bit of exclusions for something that's suposed to be a one-hit kill.

Also Archer is simply much better with a sword than shooting stuff. Or did he ever manage to finish anyone with a ranged attack and I missed it? Again, Archer wins by stabbing close and personal and Saber wins by shooting from some distance away. There's something very wrong with that.

Dark Berseker was blind, but still had God Hand, and was being pumped full of power directly from the Dark Grail. Shirou simply replicated nine-lives to kill him nine times in a row.

Assassin isn't just weaker than other servants-he's weaker than trained humans like the knife monk. And knife monk got the tar beaten out of him by non-grafted Shirou.

EDIT: And you can have Shirou solo Dark Saber on Heaven's Feel. It just makes his brain fully fried and a bad end (but awesome custom music).
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 01:53:22 PM by oslecamo »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2013, 02:01:44 PM »
Saber has a minor issue with never getting a fair fight. The few times that does happen, the enemy has a trick on their side. Or it's the end of the story.

Caster knew that nuking most people was pointless. There was a reason her plan was 'get Saber onto my team, use Saber, Kouzuki, and Assassin to win the war'. She actually gets part of the way there in UBW.

Shirou and Rider beat Saber Alter. The last thing he could do was fight, though, since he was doing that up until he was dead. Then a bit longer, before stopping entirely.

Replicating Avalon is fine. The downside is that it doesn't function without Saber around. Literally. Hence, whilst Archer could project Avalon, it would be absolutely useless unless he was fighting Saber and bleeding to death.

Rho Aias stops projectile weapons. Gae Bolg has two functions. The first is a short-ranged technique that bends reality to stab you in the heart. The other is basically carpet bombing. It's the second thing that Rho Aias stops, not the first (that's unblockable, again: the cause is 'stabbed in the heart', the effect is 'doing the stabbing'--it turns causality backwards).

I think he uses Caladbolg II at one point? He fires it so that it doesn't actually kill Caster, though. He blows up a cemetery instead, for some reason, when using it on Berserker. Remember, though, that Unlimited Blade Works copies the history of everything it replicates, so as well as his own skill, he gets the skill of the original wielders of the weapon. Basically, instant proficiency.

Nope, Black Berserker was crippled.

Quote
In Heaven's Feel, after Berserker was devoured by Zōken's shadow, the shadow regurgitated him as Dark Berserker, a decrepit and blind version of his former self.
Dark Berserker, while distracted by Ilya, was finally killed by Shirou with a projected variation of his own weapon, Nine Lives.

It was more a coup de grace than any great fight.

If by Assassin you mean True Assassin, and by knife Monk you mean Kirei: he's trained to kill spirits. Servants are spirits with a magical body. That wasn't much of an advantage, but there was also the downside that by that point he had no heart for the insta-kill ability to affect. Seriously, he lost that in Fate/Zero.

Oh, and dying Kirei and Shirou with Archer's arm had a fight at the end of Heaven's Feel. It was a pretty close thing. The fight at the end of Fate? Umm... Shirou was by Saber and had Avalon. Kirei had no clue what was going on after Angra Mainyu failed to kill Shirou and didn't react in time.


EDIT: Saying it's Shirou vs Saber is probably where this is going wrong. It's not Shirou's abilities being used, it's Archer's. And Archer is capable of fighting a weakened Saber. Servant vs Servant tends to be either close or a curbstomp. No fun otherwise. XD


EDIT #2: I've checked and Archer did rain down swords to kill Caster in UBW, so he does do ranged stuff. The Servant classes aren't perfect descriptors, either (Zero Berserker is very berserk and very skilled, /Stay Night Rider doesn't do much riding, Zero Caster can't cast...)
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 02:08:09 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2013, 02:25:53 PM »
I get it, I get it, the old "none of the fights was actually fair and almost nobody remembers to use the right power in the right situation" argument >< (altough I'll point out that Caster does win the Holy Grail war in one of the bad ends when she gets Saber under her command). I give up, back on the main topic.

The problem there is that's statting out the Servants as if they are D&D characters, whilst this is an attempt to work out where their power falls against D&D characters. D&D characters have a lot more options (except over Gilgamesh), but on raw capabilities (which did come up in the thread--human physical capability? Less than E-rank. Only Servant that weak is Medea, Zero Caster can still crush skulls with on hand) probably drop behind them a lot.

I think it's also understating the difference in power between Saber, Zero Berserker, and Gilgamesh (respectively: one of the most powerful, greatest sword-wielder as admitted by the first, 3x stronger) whilst making Rin and Dark Sakura waaay too strong (being connected to the thing behind the wars and Angra Mainyu is a massive advantage against Servants) from sheer capability.

-No matter how strong each servant are, they are all weak enough to be binded and ordered around by mortal mages.
-Gilgamesh's "world breaker" is probably more an euphemism than anything since in no situation the destruction spreads beyond a single building. It can still wipe out a literal army of mooks tough so not too shabby.
-Caster isn't casting as a free action or Tokasahsa (or anyone) would've never been able to beat her as she would literally be able to instantly and completely saturate the field with danmaku and minions. You can't dodge if there's no room to dodge to after all. Even if you could she would then just teleport as a free action if you were still standing. So probably just free quicken spell (even a single word still takes time. Just ask the Power Word spells)


Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2013, 02:33:23 PM »
Ah, now you're misunderstanding fundamental concepts.

Rule #1 of True Magic: it breaks rules. For instance, it is impossible to normally summon a Heroic Spirit in any form at all, because they're so much more powerful than any magus.

What is behind the summoning of Servants? The Third Magic. That takes a Heroic Spirit from the Throne of Heroes, and puts them into a constructed body of mana. Why? Because a Heroic Spirit, at full strength is a literal force of nature that's too powerful to directly summon with their full ability; hence the class system. Command seals work because of this system--and even then, there's a finite amount.

Ea does indeed break worlds. He's holding back (for completely obvious reasons this time: he lives here).

Finally, Caster's casting:

Quote
High-Speed Divine Words (高速神言 , Kousoku Shingon?) is the power to activate thaumaturgy without the use of Magic Circuits. The language of the Age of Gods, back when words played a heavy role in spellcasting. To a user of Divine Words, actualization of mysteries is not done through a process, but more through a direct order. A power long lost by modern magi.
Due to her use of Divine Words, Caster’s spells do not work the same way that of those of modern Magecraft. For one, she can cast even High Thaumaturgy-level spells with the speed equivalent of Single-Action ones. Furthermore, while the majority of her spells fall under the One-Line category, their power-level is easily in par with Five-Line ones. Finally, due to the different dynamics, only a Servant with Magic Resistance ranked A or above is immune to her spells.

Single Action: you just activate it. One Line: one word, minimum. If you check her page on the wiki, it lists most of her spells (including an army of skeletal soldiers and a laser bombing run--so yes, she does use both minions and danmaku, Rin getting in close was hardly expected).

EDIT: Ah, here it is:

Quote
Her main offensive spell is Rain of Light (光弾雨, Koudanu?), which is a volley of rapidly fired beams of light each with an A rank power of attack. Each beam is a deadly spell on the level of High Thaumaturgy with three times Shirou's entire amount of prana, capable of destroying the body of a Servant with a direct hit. Just the use of one single beam would normally require a magic circle, ten count aria, and one minute of casting for a normal magus, and still thirty seconds with a High-Speed Aria. Caster's Divine Words allow her to shoot them in rapid succession without any preparation after simply targeting the enemy with her wand. She can fire them without pause when she has a supply of stored prana, and the result is something that resembles a bombing raid that leaves the ground scorching red.

(click to show/hide)

Servant Magic Resistance is the main reason she isn't as dangerous as all this suggests.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 03:20:48 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2013, 03:44:41 PM »
Ah, now you're misunderstanding fundamental concepts.

Rule #1 of True Magic: it breaks rules. For instance, it is impossible to normally summon a Heroic Spirit in any form at all, because they're so much more powerful than any magus.

What is behind the summoning of Servants? The Third Magic. That takes a Heroic Spirit from the Throne of Heroes, and puts them into a constructed body of mana. Why? Because a Heroic Spirit, at full strength is a literal force of nature that's too powerful to directly summon with their full ability; hence the class system. Command seals work because of this system--and even then, there's a finite amount.
Magic users break rules. It's their job description basically. A good example would be the gate spell that indeed allows a D&D mage to summon something a lot stronger than themselves and make them obey. It doesn't matter if you're using Third Magic or tortured souls of children or highschool students. At the end of the day it was mortal mages that decided to start the Grail War and found a way of making servants fight for them abusing Third Magic.

Ea does indeed break worlds. He's holding back (for completely obvious reasons this time: he lives here).
That was just the breaking of an artificial extradimensional space, which I had already mentioned.

Plus in the wiki description of that battle, it says what actually hapened was that Rider's reality is holded by his army of minor heroic spirits, and if enough of them get gibbed, it colapses.

Finally, Caster's casting:

Quote
High-Speed Divine Words (高速神言 , Kousoku Shingon?) is the power to activate thaumaturgy without the use of Magic Circuits. The language of the Age of Gods, back when words played a heavy role in spellcasting. To a user of Divine Words, actualization of mysteries is not done through a process, but more through a direct order. A power long lost by modern magi.
Due to her use of Divine Words, Caster’s spells do not work the same way that of those of modern Magecraft. For one, she can cast even High Thaumaturgy-level spells with the speed equivalent of Single-Action ones. Furthermore, while the majority of her spells fall under the One-Line category, their power-level is easily in par with Five-Line ones. Finally, due to the different dynamics, only a Servant with Magic Resistance ranked A or above is immune to her spells.

Single Action: you just activate it. One Line: one word, minimum. If you check her page on the wiki, it lists most of her spells (including an army of skeletal soldiers and a laser bombing run--so yes, she does use both minions and danmaku, Rin getting in close was hardly expected).

EDIT: Ah, here it is:

Quote
Her main offensive spell is Rain of Light (光弾雨, Koudanu?), which is a volley of rapidly fired beams of light each with an A rank power of attack. Each beam is a deadly spell on the level of High Thaumaturgy with three times Shirou's entire amount of prana, capable of destroying the body of a Servant with a direct hit. Just the use of one single beam would normally require a magic circle, ten count aria, and one minute of casting for a normal magus, and still thirty seconds with a High-Speed Aria. Caster's Divine Words allow her to shoot them in rapid succession without any preparation after simply targeting the enemy with her wand. She can fire them without pause when she has a supply of stored prana, and the result is something that resembles a bombing raid that leaves the ground scorching red.

(click to show/hide)

Servant Magic Resistance is the main reason she isn't as dangerous as all this suggests.
On the other hand the non-servant mages still around on Fate/Stay Night are all minor level. It's stated in the game that Caster being able to use teleport is OMGHAXXOR compared to most "modern" magic. Heck, a pegasus (CR 3) is considered a mighty magical beast that would've demanded multiple "modern" casters to summon!

So basically non servant mages are all cheesing the hell out of sanctuary spell and combined magic and whatnot to be able to churn out some medium-high level spells out. Servant Caster however is around mid-high levels and can actually cast high level spells whitout need of cheese, meaning she bring the cheese in the form of free quicken spells and celerity and whatnot.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 03:47:23 PM by oslecamo »

Offline Prime32

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2013, 03:56:15 PM »
On the other hand the non-servant mages still around on Fate/Stay Night are all minor level. It's stated in the game that Caster being able to use teleport is OMGHAXXOR compared to most "modern" magic. Heck, a pegasus (CR 3) is considered a mighty magical beast that would've demanded multiple "modern" casters to summon!
Rider's Pegasus is not the same thing as a D&D Pegasus. :ahem Standard Pegasi might be around the same level, but Rider's is an incredibly ancient specimen (compared to dragons in power), and is considered an Outsider-equivalent rather than a Magical-Beast-equivalent.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #13 on: February 01, 2013, 04:10:15 PM »
No! Magecraft obeys some rules. True Magic is that which doesn't obey those rules at all. The Third Magic is manifesting a soul, the Second Magic is the ability to travel between worlds (and got used to kill the moon). Only one family ever had it, and they lost the full measure of it. The Holy Grail War is their attempt to get the damn thing back--by using what's left to take seven forces of nature into comparatively fragile containers, and when said containers are broken, hold the Heroic Spirits for a little bit to power the Great Grail, which can and will do pretty much anything (well, until they corrupted it).


So, whilst there are Command Seals, they only work because they're built into the class system--as in, they're part of the fragile containers. The only reason people have enough power to use them is that they draw on the Servants' own magic--no human magus is of sufficient power to command a Servant.


Umm... that's why the Reality Marble collapsed, yes. But look what it was doing to the ground. Or if you want the poetic description of Ea at full power:


Quote
Preforming the miracle of genesis, the attack opens an abyss capable of crushing all of creation, and the center of the storm is not calm, but rather a hole to hell itself that returns all that enters its realm to the nothingness from which it originated. The wind pressure creates a vacuum that takes all things with form, the land, the atmosphere, and the sky into the whirling void. The tumult of genesis takes everything that was nothing more than chaos which could not form any meaning, and creates a new truth that divides and distinguishes Heaven, Sea, and Earth. Within the darkness where everything is returned to nothingness, only Ea is left to shine with brilliance like a star of creation amidst the destruction, the first thing illuminating the new world. The ability takes the entire world within the Reality Marble Ionioi Hetairoi, and cracks, shatters, and collapses it into the abyss like the ending of an hourglass. The entire world would have been completely destroyed had it not collapsed on its own due to a lack of energy.


Rider's Pegasus is probably the same one that sprang from her neck. As in, it's probably thousands of years old. It's also nigh invulnerable (Excalibur can blow it up, but that's hardly surprising. Specifically, it's a Phantasmal Beast so old that its existence is basically True Magic--by nature, it's every bit as reality-breaking as summoning Servants.


So... what sort of level range do you think we're looking at when not interpreting Servants as D&D characters proper? Doesn't need to be precise, just a rough equivalent.


EDIT: Thinking about it, the whole Holy Grail War is like a giant trick on reality. To work, it needs 7 Heroic Spirits in their raw form. It can't gain the power to summon them directly, but it can prepare vessels that they can be summoned into, but weakened. It then catches them on the way out to get at the full power.


And the guy behind the actual class system and seals is also one of the most disgustingly evil men in all fiction by the time of the Fourth War. @_@
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 04:15:20 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #14 on: February 01, 2013, 04:15:33 PM »
Second Magic's Traveling Around Worlds-Plane Shift.

Gilgamesh "Turns Out I don't have enough energy to destroy the world after all, just crack it"-earthquake.

Caster can summon minor undead, shoot some nukes and greater teleport.

Nobody seems to have reliable long-term flight.

It's pretty clear they're around levels 13-15, pretty higher than "mortal" lv 5.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 04:20:44 PM by oslecamo »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #15 on: February 01, 2013, 04:27:58 PM »
Second Magic is also infinite magical power and time travel, by the way, and the aforementioned three simultaneous slashes is creeping into it. There's more, but this is about Servants and not Zelretch.
(click to show/hide)

Ea is defined as anti-world, so yes, it can destroy the world (anti-unit weapons only hurt one person, anti-army weapons have area of effect stuff, anti-fortress is Excalibur there). I'm not sure why you think the world crumbling away into nothing and the sky being torn apart is an earthquake, though, but if you want to see what else can happen when it fires, then here, have the absolutely full description of what it does:

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Caster can also fly, has magical protection, can pin people down with air pressure, drain an entire town for energy, create stuff that grants limited immortality (no, I don't know what that is--I do know she managed to make Assassin into one of the best drivers ever in Carnival Phantasm and make Kuzuki win absolutely every possible prize and reward with a luck charm in the same. Despite its ludicrousness, it tends to keep power levels about right... except for Boomelancer), set up a defensive area that weakens everyone else's magic, and buff a normal (well, he could only do martial arts) man to the point he can take on Servants. Oh, and pervert the Grail War to summon a wraith as a Servant.

Caster has long term flight. Gilgamesh has (had, depends on which thing you're looking at) a physics-defying spaceship and probably has other stuff, Rider has pegasus there...


I... think you're understating things.


And this isn't even getting into the exact relationship between Servant parameters and human capability (basically? E-rank is around ten times better than mortal ability. It only gets worse from there).
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 10:18:41 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline Psyga315

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #16 on: February 01, 2013, 07:18:53 PM »
If you were to ask me personally... I guess somewhere in the Epic Tier, due to them being ascended to the Throne of Heroes, much like how certain Epic Destinies play out.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #17 on: February 02, 2013, 10:37:28 AM »
I... think you're understating things.


And this isn't even getting into the exact relationship between Servant parameters and human capability (basically? E-rank is around ten times better than mortal ability. It only gets worse from there).

I believe you're the one understating D&D. There's a saying in the CO boards that if you can't pull something with wizard 10, you're just not trying hard enough. You keep saying " X times than any mortal could ever be except nothing has enough power to fuel them", but we've already seen it- with the dark grail fueling them. Dark Saber status says she's more powerful than she's ever been in her entire existence. She's still beaten 1x1 by a brain-dead high-schooler that picked some magic tricks and a graft (yes, he beats her solo in a route option. It leaves him comatose but it's still his win. If shirou bring Rider to help, then Shirou also beats "I crushed Gilgamesh as an aftertought" Sakura and "I don't die when I'm killed" knife Monk and then still had energy for pulling out an Excalibur).

At the end of the day the servants are still twarthed around by simple high schoolers and mage aprentices. You call them "forces of nature", but  even Alexander, king of conquerors, admits he only managed to take over a minuscle portion of the world before biting it. Arturina was defeated by barbarians bands. Even Gilgamesh sees his entire treasury rendered useless when faced with faery trinkets, not to mention geting his ass pulverized by a mortal girl-Sakura. I don't care if she was channeling the dark grail. It was still simple mortal magic that empowered her like that, even if the power was being stolen from somewhere else. Possession is 9/10 of the law and stuff.

Meanwhile all you describe Caster as doing can be pulled by a wizard. Most of them at level 10 tops actually. She isn't stoping time. She isn't seting fully fledged teleportation circles. She isn't summoning elemental swarms. She can't pull an Astral projection, thus forcing her to risk her neck personally. She isn't calling down proper meteors. She has nothing that comes close to actual D&D 9th level magic.

I'm not saying they're weak. They're all pretty damn strong. But high level 3.X D&D is just crazy strong.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2013, 10:45:27 AM by oslecamo »

Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #18 on: February 02, 2013, 10:46:28 AM »
Quote
Dark Saber status says she's more powerful than she's ever been in her entire existence. She's still beaten 1x1 by a brain-dead high-schooler that picked some magic tricks and a graft (yes, he beats her solo in a route option. It leaves him comatose but it's still his win. If shirou bring Rider to help, then Shirou also beats "I crushed Gilgamesh as an aftertought" Sakura and "I don't die when I'm killed" knife Monk and then still had energy for pulling out an Excalibur).
The seemingly weaker protagonist wins his fights with the power of Plot(TM).

Quote
Meanwhile all you describe Caster as doing can be pulled by a wizard. Most of them at level 10 tops actually. She isn't stoping time. She isn't seting fully fledged teleportation circles. She isn't summoning elemental swarms. She can't pull an Astral projection, thus forcing her to risk her neck personally. She isn't calling down proper meteors. She has nothing that comes close to actual D&D 9th level magic.
I'm not very D&D or Fate savvy, but from what I remember seeing/reading, Caster looks more like a Warlock than a Wizard. She can't pull off as powerful spells as Wizards (well, maybe as rituals), but she can spam them, IIRC.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2013, 10:50:09 AM by ImperatorK »
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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Level Equivalencies for Servants
« Reply #19 on: February 02, 2013, 11:19:12 AM »
Hmm, so... because I don't think I specified abilities (and goal well enough), let's try this again. The aim is just to see what around what level Servants' abilities are, not their performance. Their performance fluctuates wildly regardless of who they are. So, from the top, going from the wiki and complete material:


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Now that's the generalities out of the way, specific Servants, starting with the 5th Grail War and then tacking Zero Berserker and Rider on at the end.


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Well, that's it for the F/SN Servants.


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@ Os: Fate/Stay Night is not the best showing. The power of the Holy Grail takes, except for some circumstances surrounding how the Fourth Grail War was broken, around sixty years to charge up. Angra Mainyu is a Heroic Spirit, as well, so Sakura isn't using mortal powers. As for beating Gilgamesh like that: Angra Mainyu gave him that body. Said body was the only thing anchoring him to the world. What, exactly, is so surprising that it could take it away?

Shirou, with Archer's arm, isn't fighting as a human. Also, Archer is Shirou in the future, so of all the possible humans to defeat Servants, it's one that got summoned into the war itself.

And, um, finally... Heroic Spirits, in death, are much stronger than they were in life. Also, Saber got defeated by civil war and her own clone. :|


EDIT: Bottom line? Ignore whatever Rin, Shirou, and Sakura did (dark Sakura is, again, basically Heroic Spirit powered, so that's not even giving you the right idea), because the setting makes it clear that they're outmatched. Don't look at history and expect that to accurately reflect things, since at no point in history did we have late medieval armour in ancient Babylon.


If you want to know what Servants fighting properly is, watch or read Fate/Zero.


And please don't start scaling everything against the most highly optimised characters you can think of. Because that doesn't give any sort of accurate picture of the sum totality of all possible D&D characters ever. Plotting against the normal, here, not the extremes. :/


EDIT 2: And if you want to get pedantic about normal humans beating Servants: in Fate, Shirou killed nobody. In UBW, Shirou got a moral victory over Archer, and weakened Gilgamesh to the point Archer could finish him off (If Archer hadn't stepped in, Shirou would've been kind of dead). In Heaven's Feel, Shirou is using Archer's abilities, effectively being a slightly weaker Servant. As for Sakura, when you're powered by all the world's evil and any Servants defeated in any way (coincidentally, Lancer died before Dark Sakura showed up), you are not a mortal mage. At no point did a human not drawing on a Servant's power defeat a Servant. >.>
« Last Edit: February 02, 2013, 12:32:59 PM by Raineh Daze »