Will Save World for Gold

[Metahuman1]

Noted.



And I can see the out for what just happened to Odivallus.

When healed in 4E, you first go to 0, THEN however much healing you got is auto applied. Further, you have to go half your total HP into negatives to actually die.

We know Ellie got him for +11. That brings him form negatives to positive +11. He's at least 3rd level right now, bare minimum. And between both Ardons hits after Ellie healed him, he only took 14 points of total damage. There's no way ANY character, no matter how bad there Con, can have less then seven HP total. 11-14=-3. Since he has to have more then 6 hp total, he can't be far enough into negatives to have died.


The rules make it impossible.



So here's my theory. He's in negatives, he's out cold, and what ever has been hitting him with mental attacks is now hitting Ardon and Eliie, and is making them THINK Ardon killed Odivallus in the hopes that Ellie will now try to kill Ardon for it. From there, it can just mop up whomever wins while there still worn down.

My other personal bet is that the hunter guy has a class after all and is holding a lot of the people hostage, including his sister, and in fact had something to do with the attack on the village and did all this to be rid of Odivallus. And the culmination of that plan is once he's removed Odivallus's party from the equation is to finish him off.





Either that, or this comic just lost me as a reader.

[Douglas]

Dropping to negative half your max is not the only way to die in 4e. If you drop to negatives at all, you have to start making saves, and if you fail 3 of them - total, among all times you drop to negatives - you die. The count of failed saves doesn't reset until you rest.

Granted, this would take at least 3 rounds of Odivallus being unconscious, but I don't think that would be all that much of a stretch for the combined total from this comic and the previous one.

In fact, death from failed saves fits the depiction much better than death from damage, as death from damage shouldn't have the delay shown between the final blow and the death.

[Metahuman1]

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Well, odds are I won't be reading this comic much longer then. Pity that. Though I do hope Ellie takes Ardon's head off in a literal fashion, with help from peanut for the irony and with 45 as a witness.

[Neoriceisgood]

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Well, odds are I won't be reading this comic much longer then. Pity that. Though I do hope Ellie takes Ardon's head off in a literal fashion, with help from peanut for the irony and with 45 as a witness.

Ardon's behaviour took this long to get to you?

[The Glyphstone]

For that matter, why is Odivallus dying a comic-ender for you? Do you not think he'll be back, and probably soon? All it takes is finding a level 8 character who knows the Raise Dead ritual.

Maybe Peanut. I'm still hoping for a reveal that he's Paragon-tier.

[Metahuman1]

Neoriceis: Oh no, I wanted Ardon to die before we even got to the best leader contest storyline. It's just that now if there's any chance of this comic redeeming itself for me, Either Odivallus isn't dead/comes back so fast he might as well not have died, or barring that that Ardon die, horribly, as a direct consequence of his actions and world view, optimally as I described in my last post.


Glyphstone: Actually, if he really is dead, since the closest thing we have to a precedent for him coming back is Ranger-girls comments that she's gonna get her party raised and then she's gonna be coming after Ardon, I'm not betting on it. ESPECIALLY if Ardon Survives and is thus allowed to be a factor in the equation.

[Douglas]

Ardon may be a terrible person, but he (and his particular brand of terribleness) is also the comic's primary source of jokes and punchlines. In anything approaching real life or consequences for real people, or in a completely serious and heavily drama-based story, I would be calling for his punishment quite enthusiastically. Keeping in mind that this is actually a comic with a major humor component, however, I'm willing to cut him a lot of slack for his comedy potential.

As for precedent for a character coming back, that's provided in quite thoroughly abundant measure by the simple fact that the comic explicitly uses D&D 4e rules. From a writing and storytelling perspective, I would be utterly astonished if the author really plans for Odivallus to be gone for an extended period. Given his current location and history, I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of plot-related resurrection from his Dragon status.

[The Glyphstone]

Why does there need to be any precedent beyond the fact that the comic runs on 4E rules, and there is a Raise Dead ritual in 4E? When you're in a story based on D&D, coming back from the dead is not something that needs to be foreshadowed.

[ThirdEmperor]

I don't get why people hate Ardon so much. He's not Black Mage-level horrid, heck, he's not even as bad as Belkar.

I suppose it might be because he's the 'leader', but I don't really get that. Largely because he's not the leader. Odi and Ellie have repeatedly disregarded his orders, although admittedly on a few occasions the plot has then forced them to go along for their own reasons. Heck, his delusions of authority are where most of the humor comes from.

[Metahuman1]

Didn't Roy stay dead for most of if not an entire story arch?





And near as I can tell both Black Mage and Belkar are higher level then Ardon at present. Thus, I expect them to be worse, having more power to do stuff and having had more time.

Also, Belkar at least spends most of his time directing his least pleasant factors at the actual bad guys. Black Mage directed less of his nastiness toward actual bad guys, but he was sorta forgivable simply because of the fact that he had Thief and at times Red Mage in the party, and he had Fighter, whom Actually liked him. And of course both of them actually loose rather alot.

[ThirdEmperor]

Except I wasn't talking about the magnitude of their crimes. Even putting aside Black Mage's various genocides and Belkar's mass slaughters, and I think you'll find both of them are still worse than Ardon.

Belkar kills a traveling salesman for a candybar and a horse, uses a sapient being as a toilet, murders people for pissing him off.

BM has never done a single good act in all his existence, routinely attempts to kill the one purely decent person in quite possibly the whole of his universe and at one point, fashioned a man's face into a pair of shoes.

Ardon treats people like dirt as much as he can get away with, is happy to steal from them and feigns an absolute lack of empathy towards everyone. But unlike Belkar and BM, he quite clearly actually does care about his party.

As for the matter of BM and Belkar being rendered humorous by their failures... BM, yes, Belkar not so much. Belkar only really gets beat down when the rest of the party turns on him.

Ardon is somewhere between the two. He never quite loses, but aside from escaping his ex-girlfriend, he never really fully succeeds except when he's acting in an unselfish manner.

I'm not saying he's nice, or that he couldn't benefit from some lessons in tact. He's evil and eminently despicable as person. But he's not half as evil as other examples of his archetype, nor that much more successful, so I don't really see why people hate him so if they don't hate Belkar or BM.

[Neoriceisgood]

Didn't Roy stay dead for most of if not an entire story arch?





And near as I can tell both Black Mage and Belkar are higher level then Ardon at present. Thus, I expect them to be worse, having more power to do stuff and having had more time.

Also, Belkar at least spends most of his time directing his least pleasant factors at the actual bad guys. Black Mage directed less of his nastiness toward actual bad guys, but he was sorta forgivable simply because of the fact that he had Thief and at times Red Mage in the party, and he had Fighter, whom Actually liked him. And of course both of them actually loose rather alot.

I'd also like to argue that the most reasonable characters in this team are genuinly nice and generally flawless "regular" characters/people.

A lot of ardon-esque characters are either part of a team of total halfwits who don't realise how evil they are, or in a relatively low position of power (like Belkar) where keeping them in check isn't too difficult.

It simply makes Ardon's (relatively mild) sociopathic behaviour seem much more horrible when contrasted to his teammates.

[Metahuman1]

Probably didn't get any XP for the Sexy shoeless god of war sequence, Failed his save vs. Nail's spells, failed his save vs. Malak, spent months only able to hurt undead while with the resistance for Azure City in order to level and then immediately lost that level, The whole Mark of Justice bit, having making Miko Fall knocked completely out of the equation.

He loses a whole heck of a lot more then Ardon, whom, to date, only seems to have truly lost up to this point at properly evading his ex-girl friend, and she has to have the entire freaking Feywild helping her And have him get the most convolutedly lucky break ever (Seriously, Peanut is the way he is and just happens to freaking land armed in his lap and able to actually cooperate and spam like three attacks in a row before the guard got to do anything and then he fled and then Ardon magically got him doing everything he wanted all of a sudden?) AND a betrayal form 45 AND outside the party interest form the last person outside his party that should have been helping him AND Favorable Intervention form a really big gold dragon to get that far, else she'd have had him on any of several occasions by now.


And presently, to the best of our knowledge, he's alive, and Odivallus isn't.

If I wanted to deal with people like Ardon constantly coming out on top and never having to suffer any negative consequences to do anything they please any time they please the rest of the multyverse be damned, I'd just go to were I work.


Though presently I'm kinda entertained with the idea that 45 will make contact with Ardon's Ex and stop Ellie form actually killing him only to personally had him over and get's them a ride off the Island when there done and a raise dead sans any level lose or XP or what ever draw backs there are to getting something like that for Odivallus, and then just goes his own way and Eliie, Peanut and Odivallus form there own party with another member or two.

[Neoriceisgood]

I'm morbidly curious where this'll go to be honest, revival-based things can be odd in D&D-like settings.

[Metahuman1]

Noted.



And I can see the out for what just happened to Odivallus.

When healed in 4E, you first go to 0, THEN however much healing you got is auto applied. Further, you have to go half your total HP into negatives to actually die.

We know Ellie got him for +11. That brings him form negatives to positive +11. He's at least 3rd level right now, bare minimum. And between both Ardons hits after Ellie healed him, he only took 14 points of total damage. There's no way ANY character, no matter how bad there Con, can have less then seven HP total. 11-14=-3. Since he has to have more then 6 hp total, he can't be far enough into negatives to have died.


The rules make it impossible.



So here's my theory. He's in negatives, he's out cold, and what ever has been hitting him with mental attacks is now hitting Ardon and Eliie, and is making them THINK Ardon killed Odivallus in the hopes that Ellie will now try to kill Ardon for it. From there, it can just mop up whomever wins while there still worn down.

My other personal bet is that the hunter guy has a class after all and is holding a lot of the people hostage, including his sister, and in fact had something to do with the attack on the village and did all this to be rid of Odivallus. And the culmination of that plan is once he's removed Odivallus's party from the equation is to finish him off.





Either that, or this comic just lost me as a reader.

And just like that, as long as Ardon's right, my theory holds up and comes into play.


I never though I'd actually hope that guy was right, but I hope he's right on this one.

[The Glyphstone]

Props to you.

[Douglas]

The characters are presumably aware of in game rounds passing, so Ardon should be right on this. My logic about how it could be real depended on not being sure exactly how many rounds passed in each of Odivallus's episodes of unconsciousness.

So, looks like you get to say "called it".

[Neoriceisgood]

Well this is an interesting turn of events.

[Metahuman1]

The level of gratification that gives me is probably getting into unhealthy levels.

Though now I'm curious as to weather it was something else attacking the Island or if it was Hunter Dude who's gone full scale to the darkside in his hatred for Odivallus and then DID manage to acquire a class or power comparable to a class and decided to use it to get rid of Odivallus.

[Neoriceisgood]

The level of gratification that gives me is probably getting into unhealthy levels.

Though now I'm curious as to weather it was something else attacking the Island or if it was Hunter Dude who's gone full scale to the darkside in his hatred for Odivallus and then DID manage to acquire a class or power comparable to a class and decided to use it to get rid of Odivallus.

There's probably more going on here, the giant ass dragon tells me so.

[ThirdEmperor]

Oh snap, I think they crashed on the Island from Lost!




@Metahuman- On the subject of Ardon, eh, I don't care to argue any further. I would say that by my estimation, you're exaggerating Ardon's wins and Belkar's losses, but, hey, you've got your way of looking at things and I've got mine.

[The Glyphstone]

I'd say either way it's a win for LoneStar, to have such an engaging comic and characters that bad things happening to them is traumatic enough for people to quit reading over.

[Metahuman1]

I'd agree with that Glyphstone.

[Draconi Redfir]

i'm thinking it might be the spiders that attacked them earlier, if you go to the vote incentive thing you get their stat cards, and there's a whole lot of "mind somethingorother" abilities that they have. Maybe they're still trapped in that web and halucinaiting? or slowly being poisioned while the spiders wait for them to just fall over for easy pickings?

[Neoriceisgood]

i'm thinking it might be the spiders that attacked them earlier, if you go to the vote incentive thing you get their stat cards, and there's a whole lot of "mind somethingorother" abilities that they have. Maybe they're still trapped in that web and halucinaiting? or slowly being poisioned while the spiders wait for them to just fall over for easy pickings?

Would that mean they woke up from one illusion and are still in another?

[Lizard Lord]

@New Comic:

Spoiler

Show

So the nightmare spirit is saying that they either need to kill Ell or they will never find out what happened to the people? I am sure that they will take a third option in not killing Ell and somehow find out what happened without the spirit's cooperation. On the other hand a good writer can always find a way to surprise you (without killing your interest, of course.)

[Metahuman1]

Yup, this is gonna be fun.

Maybe this will be were 45 rejoins or Peanut opts too do his big reveal?

Say, have we seen Peanut level since he was introduced? If not, I have a theory.....

Spoiler

Show

Peanut is actually a 30th lvl rogue with higher mental stats then the entire rest of the party COMBINED!!!!!!!

He's just super holding back to try and make them EARN there levels and items. And he wants to be entertained, and bailing them out with 30th lvl encounter powers when ever there in trouble is boring.

[ThirdEmperor]

Okay, barring a truly magnificent plan at work here, Ardon's just crossed the moral event horizon.

Kill him, Odie.

[Douglas]

Okay, barring a truly magnificent plan at work here, Ardon's just crossed the moral event horizon.

Kill him, Odie.

Ardon is just depending heavily on his deduction that they're actually still asleep. And being selfish, but that deduction is why he's just beating her down instead of trying to come up with an elaborate plan. He might also be going for a knockout instead of kill - in 4e, the procedure for each looks amazingly similar.

[ThirdEmperor]

Ah. I know next to nothing about 4E, so I sorta assumed the blood meant an attempt to kill, not incapacitate.