That last comment really elevated Roy's position in my eyes. I've never disliked him, but not much of a fan either.
Printable View
That last comment really elevated Roy's position in my eyes. I've never disliked him, but not much of a fan either.
There's one thing I don't understand. Why can Nale cast spells and not Z?
20% chance of spell failure for deafness. Nale's dice like him better, at the moment, than Zz'dtri's dice like him.
It's possible, but I think unlikely. Qarr (note spelling -- there's no U in his name) probably has more things to do in upcoming strips. But there's also the line of effect rules that may come into play. You do not have to hear the Holy Word to be banished by it, but you probably have to be in the line of effect of the spell. In an actual game, that would be the DM's call.
Malack may not be Evil, but he's definitely not Good. So he'd be subject to the Holy Word if he could actually hear it. Unlikely that he can on the other side of that door. And even if he could, there's also the level effect. He could be the same level as Tarquin, so it wouldn't damage him at all.Quote:
Malack may also have been affected by the Holy Word, but that remains to be seen since the Giant seems to want us to keep guessing at his alignment. When the reveal finally comes, its going to be amazing.
Elan is taking a very extreme Good position that he might be encouraging Tarquin to make other evil acts by accepting the ring. It is an argument of ambiguous value, but it is not ridiculous in the least.
However, taking stuff from a defeated enemy is seizing and re-purposing the benefits the evildoer presumably intended only for himself. It is unlikely that the moral voices in OotS (Elan, Roy, Durkon) would bother to overthink to the point of "hey, what if this evil guy did evil to acquire this item, so we could loot it?"
I love it when a plan comes together.:smallbiggrin:
And seriously "It's not a bug, it's a feature" is now one of my favourite quotes.
The grin emoticon describes my state of being so well right now.:biggrin:
It's damn satisfying to see things go so well for the Order, it's been way too long since they had any meaningful successes (beating up desert raiders doesn't count). I'm fully aware that things will no doubt go belly up sooner than later, but still, I'm savouring every moment of it while it lasts. :D
I think it's also been more or less blatantly telegraphed that Tarquin and Malack intend to kill Nale as soon as he's outlived his usefulness to them -- they've had regular references to "the usual protocols", Tarquin telling Malack to look forward to the end of the mission, etc.
Nale has higher intelligence, but Sabine seems to have more wisdom (which is used for sense motive and such), so I wouldn't be surprised if she picked up on this and he didn't.
She might also be worried about having him alone with Quarr, given their last conversation. The imp could say all sorts of things to him.
Am I the only one seeing the humor in Belkar yelling to Roy about a supposed silence spell. If you were affected by silence, Roy would not be able hear you Belkar...
Sometimes our resident hafling psychopath fails to think things through :smallsmile:
...I think that this strip is the first time that Eugene Greenhilt would not have anything bad to say about Roy having an MBA.
True. Which is why the rule SHOULD be that ranged weapons have ranges appropriate to light scirmishing combat. AKA at most two increments for things like bows. It's simpler than the current rule, and gives better results.
I'd probably actually go for even shorter range than than, something like full effect up to 30' (sneak attack maximum range), and attack at a substantial penalty up to 100' or so (reasonable maximum for light skirmishers vs. other light skirmishers) and end up with 4th edition type ranges.
That way the ranged fast movers don't completely dominate in outdoor combat to the extent that it might as well be a different game.
Because the best practitioners are almost all flying monsters or teleporting outsiders who can strike from beyond the PCs maximum effective reach.
The problem is that if the monsters exist then they should completely dominate the world given that archery is effective against single targets at a third of a mile. Look at Erinyes for example.
If Belkar was hiding in the trapdoor and was affected by the Holy Word, where do you suppose the Order is keeping Mr. Scruffy? The cat has 4 1/2 HD at most, and that's instakill territory for Holy Word. Maybe he's with Elan.
Bag of Holding with a bottle of air?
Or maybe, maybe Mr. Scuffy is More Than He Appears.
That's what fly spells are for. Or break out a bow yourself. A good Strength bow is pretty cheap and a full BAB type who hasn't actually tanked his Dex should be able to hit things while not as good as a dedicated archer at least half decently. All that strength means it will hurt when it hits.
You're not playing to your strengths, but then neither is an archer in a crowded hall way, all those soft cover untyped bonuses to AC add up fast, or a Medium mounted character just about anywhere but an open plain.
I think the chances that Roy's plan resulted in Durkon accidentally killing Mr. Scruffy are very, very slim.
Best one in a while.
And y'know, I feel kinda bad for Sabine and Nale.
Don't post here often, but this was another really great strip.
In the movie playing in my mind, the deafness in this scene is similar to the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, where Captain Miller is temporarily dazed by an exploding shell. Wooziness, ears ringing, complete shellshock. No wonder Nale can't think straight.
Just my $0.02.
Fly! PLEASE try to fly! I mentioned Erinyes as a CR 8 example.
Waste those actions and spells! And it is pure waste, they have fast flight and GREATER TELEPORT at will. You will NEVER catch one in the open. And their default equipment includes a +5 strength bonus composite longbow +1 flaming. They do MORE damage with a bow than any but the most specialized archers at level 8, they are more mobile out of the box than is POSSIBLE for level 8, and they have DR/Good which you probably can't bypass with a ranged attack. And if your party is somehow "winning" they teleport away.
It shoots three arrows per turn for an average damage on a hit of 14 (without including crits).
I can find other examples at other levels. There are monsters that are BETTER at this than a PC, enough better to be a serious threat of a TPK EVEN if the party has a dedicated archer and is at the same level (so they actually nominally outgun it 4:1). Because the CR rather obviously expects the creature to have to close at some point, and on an open plain (common terrain in the real world) there's no reason to close and you outrange the casters.
DougL
The Order has had no indication of Tarquin's leadership abilities since he has not been shouting. They have no reason to suspect it is him yet.
He saw her disappear forecefully. She can only plane shift or teleport elsewhere. This was unlike either of those. He won't she abandoned him.Quote:
Nale may wonder if Sabine abandoned him; he didn't hear her say "I love you ... forever" nor his father's explanation of her banishment.
[/QUOTE]
@Doug Lampert:
OK, we're getting way off topic, so I'll drop it, but I don't see how Greater Teleport wouldn't stop it from getting away even if you reduced bows to 'skirmish range'.
We don't know if they have spotted Kilkil though. Before the smoke he was behind Nale, Sabine and Tarquin. Maybe they spotted him 50+ feet away, but we have no indication if they have or not. Nor do we know if Durkon caught Kilkil's voice among all the clamor when the smoke bomb went off.
There is a good chance they didn't recognize Kilkil and thus may not know about Tarquin yet.