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  1. - Top - End - #181
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    GnomeWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    On the plus side, Familicide never happens and the entire Draketooth clan is still there to defend the pyramid when Xykon shows up; unfortunately, because he knows exactly where it is, all their clever illusions and what-have-you completely fail to stop him, so he rips through them in pretty short order. The trap in the corridor wouldn't stop him because undead are immune to mind-affecting spells, so he goes right to the Gate and he and Redcloak do the ritual. Game over.
    Makes me actually wonder if Xykon, Redcloak or MitD can call double-bluff. The latter is unlikely because in this scenario there would probably be no O-Chul to unleash his cerebral potential, X is probably too lazy to even think about that and too angry that there is no Gate for him to see, but Redcloak perhaps has enough wisdom and knowledge of the elements to think about using a lead sheet.

  2. - Top - End - #182
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    SwashbucklerGuy

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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    Really? Xykon was in the throne room throwing lightning and fireballs around. The Ghost Martyrs only had a 50% chance of being hit by those, so they're fine. The Order and Hinjo don't have that advantage, so they get fried in pretty short order.
    Xykon was almost dead when Redcloak entered the scene and casted harm on him. After that, even with Redcloak rebuking the Ghost Martyrs, Soon was able to overpower both of them.

    So, the azurites needed just one small push to tip the balance there. And even if Xykon began blasting the Order away, we know Haley is pretty much inmune to any spell that grants a reflex saving throw.

    Anyway, Hinjo and the Order doesn't even need to get into the throne room, they just need to guard the entrance and make sure no one gets in there until Soon finishes Xykon.

    Now, let's say for the sake of argument that they somehow survive that and manage to defeat Xykon. They hold the throne room. Big whoop--the rest of the city still gets overrun with hobgoblins
    Xykon is destroyed, Redcloak is dead. The Order is not split and Roy can be resurrected the next day. Even if they can't just go around killing hobbos the following days, no lich means that Azure's allies are not afraid of coming to the rescue if requested.

    Anyway, my point is that the Azurites could still win the war at a point so advanced as #449. If smarter tactical choices had been made earlier (like recalling V after she cast the mass enlarge person, so she could help battle Xykon, Roy not facing Xykon alone, the Order rushing to the breach instead that fighting in the walls, etc...) they may have been able to contain the hobbos outside the city.
    Last edited by The Pilgrim; 2014-03-16 at 05:05 AM.

  3. - Top - End - #183
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by The Pilgrim View Post
    Anyway, my point is that the Azurites could still win the war at a point so advanced as #449. If smarter tactical choices had been made earlier (like recalling V after she cast the mass enlarge person, so she could help battle Xykon, Roy not facing Xykon alone, the Order rushing to the breach instead that fighting in the walls, etc...) they may have been able to contain the hobbos outside the city.
    Except for the fact that, y'know, they were scripted to lose the war so that the Giant could advance the story along the path he desired.

  4. - Top - End - #184
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    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by BenjCano View Post
    Except for the fact that, y'know, they were scripted to lose the war so that the Giant could advance the story along the path he desired.
    I wish people would stop saying that. Obviously its a comic therefore they were going to lose. That's not the point. Were discussing if Azure City could, with the resources we knew it had against the resources we knew the hobgoblins had, have survived the assault. Not would have, could have.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  5. - Top - End - #185
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    I wish people would stop saying that. Obviously its a comic therefore they were going to lose. That's not the point. Were discussing if Azure City could, with the resources we knew it had against the resources we knew the hobgoblins had, have survived the assault. Not would have, could have.
    Stop saying what, that this sort of speculation is ultimately useless because we aren't looking at a scenario in a war game or tabletop miniatures, but a visual representation of a fantasy narrative that takes place in a world based on the tropes and idioms of roll laying games?

    Because this sort if speculation is ultimately pointless because of the above reasons. The actors in the Stickverse don't have agency. They're not sports players you can Monday-morning quarterback and explain how they could have won a game, if only.

    This is a seven page thread dedicated to giving Jean Valjean advice about how he could have gotten away with stealing that loaf of bread without going to prison, despite the fact that going to prison was a neceassary catalyst for the story to progress as it did.
    Last edited by BenjCano; 2014-03-16 at 08:14 AM.

  6. - Top - End - #186
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by BenjCano View Post
    Stop saying what, that this sort of speculation is ultimately useless because we aren't looking at a scenario in a war game or tabletop miniatures, but a visual representation of a fantasy narrative that takes place in a world based on the tropes and idioms of roll laying games?

    Because this sort if speculation is ultimately pointless because of the above reasons. The actors in the Stickverse don't have agency. They're not sports players you can Monday-morning quarterback and explain how they could have won a game, if only.

    This is a seven page thread dedicated to giving Jean Valjean advice about how he could have gotten away with stealing that loaf of bread without going to prison, despite the fact that going to prison was a neceassary catalyst for the story to progress as it did.
    Yes, exactly that. You aren't required to enjoy the topic like we do, but decrying it as pointless only serves to antagonize people needlessly.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  7. - Top - End - #187
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by BenjCano View Post
    This is a seven page thread dedicated to giving Jean Valjean advice about how he could have gotten away with stealing that loaf of bread without going to prison, despite the fact that going to prison was a neceassary catalyst for the story to progress as it did.
    It's a seven page thread that treats the works as living and vibrant by suggesting that there were resources and alternate plans that could have led to a different story. It's a seven page thread that gives agency to the actions of individual characters like Miko, Hinjo, and Redcloak by directly attributing the success or failure of a massive undertaking to them.

    To suggest that it's useless because this is the only story The Giant wanted to tell is, imo, insulting to the Giant. The thread exists because in telling the story, he did such a good job that we can clearly identify the major turning points and imagine how things might have been different. That's critical to the creation of a feeling of drama.
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    Anarion's right on the money here.
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  8. - Top - End - #188
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    I say Jean Valjean's biggest mistake was trying to run. It clearly didn't work, and more than tripled his sentence. Also, why would he even need to steal? With his pipes, the dude could make enough cash to buy bread by singing in the street.

    Also, people speculate because it's fun. Pointless, but fun.

  9. - Top - End - #189
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by Anarion View Post
    It's a seven page thread that treats the works as living and vibrant by suggesting that there were resources and alternate plans that could have led to a different story.
    Yes, if Chris hadn't been revenge obsessed against Carrie, that prom would have gone very differently and the book would have turned out differently, likely to the detriment of Stephen King's writing career.

    But a more worthy question to debate is why did the Giant feel it necessary for Azure City to lose the war in the way it did? What was accomplished narratively that would have been lost if he'd had the characters act differently?

  10. - Top - End - #190
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by Anarion View Post
    It's a seven page thread that treats the works as living and vibrant by suggesting that there were resources and alternate plans that could have led to a different story. It's a seven page thread that gives agency to the actions of individual characters like Miko, Hinjo, and Redcloak by directly attributing the success or failure of a massive undertaking to them.

    To suggest that it's useless because this is the only story The Giant wanted to tell is, imo, insulting to the Giant. The thread exists because in telling the story, he did such a good job that we can clearly identify the major turning points and imagine how things might have been different. That's critical to the creation of a feeling of drama.
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    Also, as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself defending your inalienable right to make someone else feel like garbage, you're on the wrong side of the argument.
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    There is nothing more emblematic of this forum than three or four pages of debate between people who, as it turns out, pretty much agree with each other.


    Check this game out! Or at least give it a thumbs up.
    Why "because the plot said so" is not a good answer.

  11. - Top - End - #191
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    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by BenjCano View Post
    Stop saying what, that this sort of speculation is ultimately useless because we aren't looking at a scenario in a war game or tabletop miniatures, but a visual representation of a fantasy narrative that takes place in a world based on the tropes and idioms of roll laying games?

    Because this sort if speculation is ultimately pointless because of the above reasons. The actors in the Stickverse don't have agency. They're not sports players you can Monday-morning quarterback and explain how they could have won a game, if only.

    This is a seven page thread dedicated to giving Jean Valjean advice about how he could have gotten away with stealing that loaf of bread without going to prison, despite the fact that going to prison was a neceassary catalyst for the story to progress as it did.
    You play the Paladin class like Miko and Soon, don't you? Please try and remove the stick.

    Under your view, I'd say 95% of the threads on this forum are pointless. Which is true, but pointing it out is just as pointless because we already know that.

  12. - Top - End - #192
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by oppyu View Post
    I say Jean Valjean's biggest mistake was trying to run. It clearly didn't work, and more than tripled his sentence. Also, why would he even need to steal? With his pipes, the dude could make enough cash to buy bread by singing in the street.
    For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that was also illegal at the time.

  13. - Top - End - #193
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    BenjCano's Avatar

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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by orrion View Post
    You play the Paladin class like Miko and Soon, don't you? Please try and remove the stick.

    Under your view, I'd say 95% of the threads on this forum are pointless. Which is true, but pointing it out is just as pointless because we already know that.
    Can we avoid ad hominem attacks, please? K, thanks.

    Look, I have no problem with imagining how a story could be different. But this thread seems to miss the point. How would the narrative if the comic be different if Azure City had won? That's a hundred times more interesting than the precise combination if tactics and unit deployment that would have made such a victory possible.
    Last edited by BenjCano; 2014-03-16 at 11:30 AM.

  14. - Top - End - #194
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by ti'esar View Post
    Can I sig this?
    Sure, if you'd like.

    Quote Originally Posted by zimmerwald1915 View Post
    For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that was also illegal at the time.
    Yeah, likely any kind of vagrancy at the time would have gotten him arrested. Though singing on the streets would have been a much shorter sentence than theft.

    Quote Originally Posted by BenjCano View Post
    Can we avoid ad hominem attacks, please? K, thanks.

    Look, I have no problem with imagining how a story could be different. But this thread seems to miss the point. How would the narrative if the comic be different if Azure City had won? That's a hundred times more interesting than the precise combination if tactics and unit deployment that would have made such a victory possible.
    The thread doesn't miss the point, you just want to talk about something different.

    That said, the fall of Azure City has done at least 3 major things.

    1. It made the world a lot darker, creating a very real sense of threat that wasn't present when all we had was Xykon hanging out in a dungeon.
    2. It established that team evil is working on a level of power that should be getting worldwide notice and nobody is doing anything about it: don't expect any cavalry.
    3. It plausibly allowed for team evil to stay put while other stories were being told. Since Roy's death, and despite the teleport to the pyramid, Xykon and Co have not done anything directed towards pursuing the gates.
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    Anarion's right on the money here.
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  15. - Top - End - #195
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    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    {Scrubbed}
    Last edited by Roland St. Jude; 2014-03-16 at 06:50 PM.

  16. - Top - End - #196
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Sheriff: There's nothing wrong with this kind of speculation, but there are forum rules against, threadcrapping, vigilante modding, and flaming. Please keep it civil in this thread and drop the current line of discussion about whether this thread should exist.
    Forum Rules

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  17. - Top - End - #197
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by zimmerwald1915 View Post
    Is that how many can fit inside the volume of a fireball or how many fit within a great circle of the fireball drawn on the battlemat?
    The burst area of a fireball is specifically defined in 3.5. Hobgoblins can't (a) stack on top of each other or (b) fly, so it's one hob per square.

    Now, if you use a mob of hobgoblins, you could cram more technical creatures into a 3x3 space - but that's DMG2 rules and not in SRD.

  18. - Top - End - #198
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowere View Post
    I would say that they had a chance against the army, but they never had a chnce against xykon - except because xykon did a colossal mistake that almost costed him anything, namely putting both himself and his phylactery in range of the only enemy character capable of providing a credible treath to him, while he was low on spells.

    Face it, even if the azurites destroied the army, there was nothing stopping xykon from blasting a few hundred azurites, teleporting away, resting, and restarting the cycle. with time, xykon could have annihilated the whole azurite population himself.

    Oots seems a pretty low-level world: according to the dm manual, a "metropolis" (25000+ inhabitants) is likely to have a dozen npcs of level 17+, enough to pose a serious challenge to xykon together - and most of them would be willing to fight against him. azure city had half a million inhabitants, and as far as we know the highest level character there was miko, at level 16 or 15. shojo only had access to one wizard who would teleport people around. and tsukiko, a 15ish level character, could single-handedly defeat all the mid to high level people who were kept in rreserve at the castle.
    So, basically, there wasn't enough high level people there to challenge xykon. except soon, of course, but i have no doubt xxykon could have easily bested him if he had finished off the azurites first, while soon was bound to the throne room, then got redcloak to prepare the right buffs for the battle, maybe got some more from scrolls, and fight on his own terms.
    Except the biggest reason Soon was a problem who nearly killed Xykon was because they didn't know about him. Also why they spent so long researching the next gate, which also turned out to be a problem.

    The fight was looking pretty good for Azure at first even with Xykon among the enemies, but other unexpected powerful figures from both foes and traitors did turn the fight around quite a bit.
    Last edited by ericgrau; 2014-03-16 at 07:39 PM.
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  19. - Top - End - #199
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by ericgrau View Post
    Except the biggest reason Soon was a problem who nearly killed Xykon was because they didn't know about him. Also why they spent so long researching the next gate, which also turned out to be a problem.

    The fight was looking pretty good for Azure at first even with Xykon among the enemies, but other unexpected powerful figures from both foes and traitors did turn the fight around quite a bit.
    The fact that Xykon just made passes at the walls and then went to the throne room is a big part of this. The guy knows cloudkill and mass hold person. If he wanted, he could have taken the breach in the wall single-handedly.
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    Anarion's right on the money here.
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  20. - Top - End - #200
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by SavageWombat View Post
    The burst area of a fireball is specifically defined in 3.5. Hobgoblins can't (a) stack on top of each other or (b) fly, so it's one hob per square.

    Now, if you use a mob of hobgoblins, you could cram more technical creatures into a 3x3 space - but that's DMG2 rules and not in SRD.
    Normally I wouldn't get this technical, but since we're already in pretty technical territory...

    a) Medium-sized creatures can share spaces with friendly creatures of similar size, so you could, theoretically, have more than one hobgoblin per square.
    b) If there were, say, several vertical wooden floors stacked immediately above one another, with one hobgoblin on each floor, that could also lead to more hobgoblins within the blast radius.
    Last edited by Emanick; 2014-03-16 at 10:24 PM.
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  21. - Top - End - #201
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by Emanick View Post
    Normally I wouldn't get this technical, but since we're already in pretty technical territory...

    a) Medium-sized creatures can share spaces with friendly creatures of similar size, so you could, theoretically, have more than one hobgoblin per square.
    b) If there were, say, several vertical wooden floors stacked immediately above one another, with one hobgoblin on each floor, that could also lead to more hobgoblins within the blast radius.
    Ah but this is where it gets fun.

    a) I don't think they can share spaces - I think they can squeeze past one another. But I haven't played 3.5 in a while. Certainly they can't fight normally sharing a square.

    b) Wooden floors would block the expanding burst. We'd need to stack them on ladders, perhaps, or maybe hammocks. Someone check to see if the hobgoblins in the Death Knight's ramp are all dead.

  22. - Top - End - #202

    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    That said, the fall of Azure City has done at least 3 major things.

    1. It made the world a lot darker, creating a very real sense of threat that wasn't present when all we had was Xykon hanging out in a dungeon.
    2. It established that team evil is working on a level of power that should be getting worldwide notice and nobody is doing anything about it: don't expect any cavalry.
    3. It plausibly allowed for team evil to stay put while other stories were being told. Since Roy's death, and despite the teleport to the pyramid, Xykon and Co have not done anything directed towards pursuing the gates.
    4. It kept the Order from having access to kingdom level resources, putting them back more to the WBL guidelines.

  23. - Top - End - #203
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Have a few arcane casters with wands of True Strike in the throne room, then have the paladins all charge Xykon with Lay on Hands.

    Granted, the bouncy ball might have put a dent in that plan too.
    Last edited by Aasimar; 2014-03-17 at 10:25 AM.
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by SavageWombat View Post
    The burst area of a fireball is specifically defined in 3.5. Hobgoblins can't (a) stack on top of each other or (b) fly, so it's one hob per square.

    Now, if you use a mob of hobgoblins, you could cram more technical creatures into a 3x3 space - but that's DMG2 rules and not in SRD.
    Maybe they could have one hobgoblin sit on the shoulders of another one, and wear an overcoat, so they "count as" large creatures?
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  25. - Top - End - #205
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    Default Re: Did Azure city ever have a chance

    Quote Originally Posted by brionl View Post
    Maybe they could have one hobgoblin sit on the shoulders of another one, and wear an overcoat, so they "count as" large creatures?
    No, that would let them sneak into "R" movies as if they were Large creatures. They'd need some sort of feat to "count" as Large for RAW. But the overcoat should be required for the feat, so there's that.

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