The OotS Thread III

[Ted C]

I think that abandoning the your team mates (who are certainly counting on your assistance) during a crisis is an evil act. Not as evil as turning against them, but still pretty bad. That's what Malack was asking Durkon to do, and I don't see how Durkon could be expected to accept such a proposal.

Obviously Malack has no problem with the idea of abandoning Tarquin to go solve his own problems. It's not irrational for him to think other beings (like Durkon) would at least consider doing the same to avoid a costly battle they're likely to lose.

Oh, the offer makes perfect sense from Malack's perspective, but he obviously has "evil blinders" on if he thinks Durkon would seriously consider it.

[lance]

Heh. Heal hurts undead.

Malack was fighting pretty smart, up til his trying poison against a dwarf's constitution.

Actually poison uses an atypically scaling DC which makes it surprisingly hard to resist for its spell level

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

All it means is that the DC is the same as one of your highest level slots, regardless of the fact that it's a level 4 spell. Durkon still gets a +4 bonus to his best save backed by what is likely his second best stat (on top of any other buffs he might have).

[Crazedwraith]

874 is up

No bait and switch is present. Thought it would too soon after he last used it.

[FaxModem1]

Can Belkar break free of Malack's control if he rolls high enough? Of course, that assumes he's trying to fight it.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

It's the same effect as the Dominate spells, which we've seen used before. Belkar's just the worst target for the Order because not only does he have a miserable Will save in the first place, he's also the only one in the party who has a chance of not getting the bonus saves if ordered to attack the rest of them.

As to when he gets saves, every 12 days or whenever ordered to do a suicidal action or one against his nature. There's also probably spells that can remove it, but since Malack can keep doing it as many times as he likes, that's the issue.

[Vaporous]

Malack hanging from the ceiling with Hypno-eyes is probably the funniest panel the comic has had for a while.

[Alkaloid]

Im wouldnt call it one way or the other yet. Malak has the advanfage on paper but one of the things that keeps coming upin the comic is that being ,reative and using the skills you do have well is much more important than raw stats. We've already seen Durkon take down one bad guy who stacked the deck entirely in his favour, so i wouldnt rule out seeing it again. Malak is smart enough to know the same thing though, so it should be fun.

[Irbis]

No bait and switch is present. Thought it would too soon after he last used it.

Though, seeing how little he was damaged, he either had protection and/or saved against it, so it didn't ended up one hit kill people speculated it to be. Also, nice Malack actually started fighting smarter, Durkon lost 3 spells to one Dominate and he didn't even solved the problem that will strike again once Hold wears off.

Also, "half of the order"? Like who? By my count, 2/3 of them has Will save comparable to Belkar (or worse, seeing his Rage gives him Will save bonus), and while they might not attack themselves outright, Haley would likely fail "steal items from the others" command while Elan could be easily persuaded to go back to his old outright hampering uselessness. In fact, given V is absent, literally all of them are now potential threat to Durkon.

[Crazedwraith]

I was wonderig who he meant as well. Belkar and Elan are obviously weak willed but who's the third? I don't think Roy qualifies. But V has obviously yeilded to temptation alot and I guess Haley's a possibility.

[Imperial Overlord]

Haley. Greedy and impulsive with crappy Rogue Will saves. Not as bad as Elan or Belkar, but still a likely candidate to be brain blasted.

[Irbis]

I was wonderig who he meant as well. Belkar and Elan are obviously weak willed but who's the third? I don't think Roy qualifies. But V has obviously yeilded to temptation alot and I guess Haley's a possibility.

Haley. Greedy and impulsive with crappy Rogue Will saves. Not as bad as Elan or Belkar, but still a likely candidate to be brain blasted.

Except, Rogue has the exact same Will save as Ranger or Fighter, and while Roy and Haley most likely have a few more points of Wis than Belkar, his Rage largely negates it so any save he fails they are expected to fail, too. V, while also having Wis as a dump stat, at least has Will base save a bit higher than the rest, still, nothing that would stop high level threat.

Conclusion - unless someone somehow acquired a pile of +Wis, +Will items, Durkon is completely wrong in his assessment.

[Simon_Jester]

In an abstract general sense, V and Roy are both "strong-willed." They have personal intensity, are not easily distracted, and so on- V is easily tempted but that's not the same thing.

Also, V is quite likely to have Will-save boosters, and may have even enchanted some personal magic items with that effect. Roy is also likely to go out of his way to seek out such items. For a fighter he's pretty cerebral, and probably values the integrity of his own mind a great deal.

[Terralthra]

The party is six. Of those, Durkon considers three weak-willed, leaving three not weak-willed. Being a cleric himself, his wisdom score is clearly high-enough to count for one himself. V demonstrates quite a bit of will himself, and Roy has a high Wis (as demonstrated by someone (Hinjo?) wondering why he hadn't pursued Cleric-ship himself). Three strong-willed, three weak-willed. Half and half.

[Irbis]

The party is six. Of those, Durkon considers three weak-willed, leaving three not weak-willed. Being a cleric himself, his wisdom score is clearly high-enough to count for one himself. V demonstrates quite a bit of will himself, and Roy has a high Wis (as demonstrated by someone (Hinjo?) wondering why he hadn't pursued Cleric-ship himself). Three strong-willed, three weak-willed. Half and half.

Except, high Wis on Fighter is like putting lipstick on a pig - they won't make poor Will save more than 10-15% more likely to pass, and that's with massive bonuses in essentially dump stat.

Incidentally, new comic, Spoiler

Malack tries to rocketjump head first into Godwin's Law, it seems.

[Rogue 9]

Pwnt.

[Spekio]

Wow, burlew must be inspired.

[AniThyng]

I wonder if he'll be forced to back down on the death chambers reference. Personally I don't understand why people who read a comic that has already depicted mass murder, atrocity, implied rape and blasphemy against all that is good and holy suddenly get offended when that particular reference is made.

[Vaporous]

Because people are, as a rule, colossal morons.

I didn't realize you meant that people were actually angry until I read the comics forums.

[Kuja]

Wow, burlew must be inspired.

He's churning these out pretty fast, I imagine he must've spent his time away from drawing working up most of the dialogue.

Also damn. Malack didn't just kneecap himself, he practically blew his own leg off. Durkon might've been a little conflicted earlier but after that plotdump he's pissed. Malack may be the more intelligent of the two but Durkon was right, he keeps fouling up. First with the poison spell and now running his mouth, he keeps leaving himself open for Durkon to nail him. Though at the rate they're blowing through their spell slots they're both going to end up glorified fighters.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Wow, burlew must be inspired.

https://twitter.com/RichBurlew/status/3 ... 9637658624

Basically, he's been working on these for the past week and is doing them so fast because it was part of the Kickstarter goals. If he reached X amount he'd release 8 comics in a row, one per day. I don't expect this pace to keep up beyond that, though I imagine that right now he's feeling generally healthy and so updates will come at a quick pace relative to how they were prior to his thumb getting into a fight with a piece of glass.

[lance]

All it means is that the DC is the same as one of your highest level slots, regardless of the fact that it's a level 4 spell. Durkon still gets a +4 bonus to his best save backed by what is likely his second best stat (on top of any other buffs he might have).

Its only +2 over any other spell he could of used, and its at least on par with any other 4th level spell. There are better options, but that assumes Malack prepared them for the day. Any spell with a will save is likely going to have a worse chance of succeeding and he has a death ward on him blocking off a chunk of the other good options.

[Simon_Jester]

The party is six. Of those, Durkon considers three weak-willed, leaving three not weak-willed. Being a cleric himself, his wisdom score is clearly high-enough to count for one himself. V demonstrates quite a bit of will himself, and Roy has a high Wis (as demonstrated by someone (Hinjo?) wondering why he hadn't pursued Cleric-ship himself). Three strong-willed, three weak-willed. Half and half.

Except, high Wis on Fighter is like putting lipstick on a pig - they won't make poor Will save more than 10-15% more likely to pass, and that's with massive bonuses in essentially dump stat.

As I think I said, I can imagine Roy specifically investing in items to improve his Will save, just to avoid being mind-controlled or magically confused or anything of that nature. Sure, it's 'lipstick on a pig' from the point of view of building an optimal fighter, but Roy personally has his own set of worries and concerns. He places a lot of value on his own intelligence and ability to think clearly.

Wow, burlew must be inspired.

He's churning these out pretty fast, I imagine he must've spent his time away from drawing working up most of the dialogue.

Also damn. Malack didn't just kneecap himself, he practically blew his own leg off. Durkon might've been a little conflicted earlier but after that plotdump he's pissed. Malack may be the more intelligent of the two but Durkon was right, he keeps fouling up. First with the poison spell and now running his mouth, he keeps leaving himself open for Durkon to nail him. Though at the rate they're blowing through their spell slots they're both going to end up glorified fighters.

Speculatively- Malack may not be a very good tactician. Maybe there's a reason he lets Tarquin be in charge; Tarquin's the one who actually knows how to fight, in the broad sense. Malack cares more about his big-idea plans than he does about the details, so he's easily distracted into monologuing.

[Kuja]

Yeah, that's the kind of thing I was getting at.

Also something that belatedly occured to me-
Spoiler

We got a bait and switch on the prophecy about Belkar, but isn't there a prophecy that Durkon would bring ruin to his homelands? And also, the kobold prophesized that he would return posthumously...

Durkon better hope Malack doesn't end up making this a two-for-one deal.

[Straha]

876 is up

Damn.