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[Rolan7]

That's a tricky thing in 3.5e, sorta.  Durkula didn't "gain levels", only had Durkon's class levels presumably.  Except it has an especially powerful template applied *on top* of that level... 15 or whatever, cleric.

Here it is for reference: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm
But just off the bat (heh, unintended)
*all* HD are rerolled as d12
+6 natural armor (nearly half-plate, but stacks with real armor)
Deals 2 negative levels with each "slam attack", which heals the vampire

And other stuff (most notably, unlimited Dominate) which was well demonstrated in the comic.  New vampires are their victims, with all that simply added...
It adds 8 levels to their challenge rating, and for good reason.

[Blade Master Model 42]

Oh, it'll be a rough fight, doubtlessly, but at least they aren't all on Durkula's level.

[Akura]

Not a LITERAL zombie horde. Just a loose mob of newly-made and incompetent undead.

Actually, if you're going by the literal definition of zombie(a corpse come back to life), then yes, it's a zombie horde.

It adds 8 levels to their challenge rating, and for good reason.

According to d20srd.org, it's a +2 to challenge rating, and vampire spawn simply have a CR of 4.

[Greiger]

A spell that speeds up such an effect can't be a crazy low level spell though.  Certainly not low level enough for durkula to cast that many times in a short amount of time at least, that would have to be level 1 or cantrip level for him to cast it that many times.  I'm suspecting he cast it on those followers he had in the earlier panels but I can't imagine these are full vampires.   Even if he taught it to his new followers immediately upon raising them wouldn't they need to wait 8 hours to reset their spells?

[Arcvasti]

Clerics only need to pray for one hour to get their spells, but always get their spells at the same time. Clerics of Hel get theirs at midnight. So its at least possible that some of the new vampires helped make more.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The spell effect was custom made by a high-level vampire cleric. Minimal power is a desirable quality.

[Akura]

It's really hard to say. It sounds like a modified Create Undead, which is a 6th-level spell. However, since the vampirism disease/curse is already present in the corpse upon which the spell is cast, that could reduce the actual power required, since it just speeds up the transition. I'm guessing it could be a 5th-level spell for clerics. Also important to note was that the staff that originally held the spell also had Create Undead, since Malack used it to create mummies.

Assuming Durkon was around 17th-level when he died, he'd have a base of 4 5th-level spells. I don't know his Wisdom score, although it was probably pretty decent and being a vampire is another +2(meaning a +1 modifier, so one more spell). He'd have at least 8-9 castings of Accelerate Vamping(or whatever it's called), and there's 11 vampires visible in the last panel. Either he cast his limit, then got more from his midnight preparation, or he simply used his higher level spell slots.

[Rolan7]

I was going to talk about the mechanics, but Akura summed them up great.

Personally I don't think Durkula took a preparation break.  My theory is that the spell is AOE.  Or simply that it scribed scrolls offscreen and is using those.  It did have time to prepare for this.

[Reelya]

It did have time to prepare for this.

It? That's de-vampirizing. You should use their preferred pronoun, "ve". As in "ve vant to suck your blood!"

[TD1]

Oh-no-ve-didn't!

[Rolan7]

I cannot argue with that, wow.
I'm both glad that my disrespectful pronoun was noted, and also rebuffed.  "ve" is clearly the pronoun for disrespecting vampires.

[smjjames]

New comic up.

Looks like Vaarsuvius's OP'dness got themselves stuck. Hopefully he has some spells that can work outside the forcecage, or can get them out of one. Seems obvious that if you have a spell for forcecage, you'd likely have one to get out of it.

[pikachu17]

Can't a wizard just dispel their own spells at will? Or am I forgetting important rules?

[smjjames]

That seems plausible, depends on what rules OOTS is using. I know it uses 3.5 or something, but I don't know all that much about DnD rules.

[Criptfeind]

Level 17. Not too shabby.

A wizard can only dismiss Dismissible spells, which aren't all spells. But they are most spells, and that does include force cage. So yeah, should be easy to get out of.