OOTS #1035 - The Discussion Thread

[Carl]

That was officially awesome...

[Oakianus]

Am I missing something with people asking about them surviving the cold? They both just got established as having protection from cold items. Lien's is the ring, but I can't imagine that the ring will be off any longer than the average member of the polar bear club spends in the water.

[BelgarathMTH]

I have a question. They appear to be wearing plate mail. How are they floating in the water, and not sinking to the bottom like rocks? I assume they plan to swim up and climb back on top of the ice once the threat is gone, but how are they swimming at all?

Did I miss something about magic armor enabling the wearer to swim in it?

[hamishspence]

Am I missing something with people asking about them surviving the cold? They both just got established as having protection from cold items. Lien's is the ring, but I can't imagine that the ring will be off any longer than the average member of the polar bear club spends in the water.

I could see it being a case of "Only 1 complete minute of no protection causes cold water damage" here - with the few seconds of exposure Lien experiences each time she's lending O-Chul the ring, not being enough to do the damage.

[Lvl45DM!]

I think the Giant is having some fun with the art these days.

Im no art critic, always been more about the words, but gadzooks there is some fantastic art in this.

Ill admit i found O-Chuls "Always" comment just a little weird.

[Great equalizer]

I't probably just snow, but the masked guy looks like he's crying in second-to-last frame.

[Raazan]

I seem to remember reading this as a theory as to what would happen next in the last thread. I thought the Giant didn't read past the first page in these things.

[Gift Jeraff]

Lean is DEAD and Elan is now an only child.

[Lordchoculla]

New comic is up.

Excellent play! Thanks yet again.

[Doug Lampert]

I have a question. They appear to be wearing plate mail. How are they floating in the water, and not sinking to the bottom like rocks? I assume they plan to swim up and climb back on top of the ice once the threat is gone, but how are they swimming at all?

Did I miss something about magic armor enabling the wearer to swim in it?

Armor is a penalty to AC equal to double the armor check penalty.

At their level that's fairly trivial if they've either buffed strength or trained swim.

I'd bet the girl from the docks with a shark as a mount has trained swim.

Also: IIRC actual real world knights could and did swim in full plate, which is heavier than what they're wearing, armor isn't nearly as heavy as most people think.

[Leirus]

Oh boy, the fanfiction sites must be having a fit with the ring-exchanging scene and the "always" line.

Not to mention the fact that they will be laying hands on each other pretty soon.

[Crusher]

So... Who gets xp from that encounter?

The rider just defeated a pair of high level paladins which should be gigantic xp unless she's already epic (even accounting for her mount)...

Unless the Paladins are considered to have "defeated" the rider by having simply evaded it. Would they get xp for having evaded the mount as well? Can *both* sides of an encounter get xp from it?

[Darth Tom]

Check out the heads on both Roy and Durkon* in these comics.

Indeed. I guess I passed Durkon's damage off as maybe not having blood (with his "cuts" showing up as purple for example) but it does look like it's giving more depth to the art. I like it.

[littlebum2002]

Armor is a penalty to AC equal to double the armor check penalty.

At their level that's fairly trivial if they've either buffed strength or trained swim.

I'd bet the girl from the docks with a shark as a mount has trained swim.

Also: IIRC actual real world knights could and did swim in full plate, which is heavier than what they're wearing, armor isn't nearly as heavy as most people think.

Apparently this is correct

So... Who gets xp from that encounter?

The rider just defeated a pair of high level paladins which should be gigantic xp unless she's already epic (even accounting for her mount)...

Unless the Paladins are considered to have "defeated" the rider by having simply evaded it. Would they get xp for having evaded the mount as well? Can *both* sides of an encounter get xp from it?

Totally metagaming here, but she had to have gotten XP from the encounter or else she would have realized they weren't defeated.

[Shining Wrath]

Good to see Lien be the wise one and figure out how to use her magic item successfully.

"Trust me".
"Always".

Paladin team FTW.

And disappointed Bugbear is disappointed. If the block of ice closest to the rider's feet is the same one O-Chul was standing on, the rider is about 4/3 to 3/2 the height of O-Chul, so I'm going with Bugbear.

As a quibble because hey, it's the Internet, the shattered ice should not disappear; why would it melt? There ought to be blocks of ice lying around the hole, or the hole should be mostly covered.

Also noted in panels 6 and 7: the yrthrak has diaphanous wings.

[Tobimaro]

O'Chul and Lien make a great team.

[snowblizz]

Totally metagaming here, but she had to have gotten XP from the encounter or else she would have realized they weren't defeated.

Being a clear antagonist and fighting NPCs at that why should they get any XPs at all? Another small way the universe screws NPC compared to PCs. No wonder Redclaok turned toa life of crime.

It can even be a problem for PCs, but one needs the DCF book for that comic apparently. Shrödinger's Ninja. You both get XP and not get XP being that the state of defeat is uncertain. Paraphrasing V.

[KillingAScarab]

So... Who gets xp from that encounter?

The rider just defeated a pair of high level paladins which should be gigantic xp unless she's already epic (even accounting for her mount)...

Unless the Paladins are considered to have "defeated" the rider by having simply evaded it. Would they get xp for having evaded the mount as well? Can *both* sides of an encounter get xp from it?

I shall turn this over to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

...many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.

Ultimately, whose story is it? Since the comic seems to stay at this great new fishing hole, it doesn't seem like it's the yrthak rider's story.

Also noted in panels 6 and 7: the yrthrak has diaphanous wings.

Translucent reptilian leathery wings have been appearing since since at least the pteradactyls (thought not on Sabine, as I recall).

[Peelee]

Am I missing something with people asking about them surviving the cold? They both just got established as having protection from cold items. Lien's is the ring, but I can't imagine that the ring will be off any longer than the average member of the polar bear club spends in the water.

Lien's ring protects against cold, but O-Chul only has his cloak.

I seem to remember reading this as a theory as to what would happen next in the last thread. I thought the Giant didn't read past the first page in these things.

He doesn't. Just because someone guessed what happened doesn't mean the author read it and decided, "welp, that sounds good, let's make that happen."

[Esprit15]

They'll be fine: it's water, not ice, so (assuming real-world physics) the temperature should be at least 0° C (32 °F? Non-SI units are not my strongest suit).

While true, salt water has a lower freezing point, somewhere in the mid-20's, depending on exact salinity. In addition, water saps heat far faster than air. I recall some rule about being soaked by cold water also inducing hypothermia, but I'm away from book right now. Personally, I would rule water to be one temperature band lower than its actual temperature for the purposes of hypothermia, or equal to the air temperature, whichever is warmer.

[Shining Wrath]

One of the things I love about this comic is Giant's mastery of storytelling.

He doesn't paste a text box that says "hours later..." but instead shows us three views with the snowstorm slowly ending. A brilliant way of showing how much time has passed, without shoving it in your face like so many lesser artists would.

Exactly. The snow slowly fades as the rider's hopes also fades.

Actually, about -2° C since it's salt water. In real world physics, that is cold enough to kill someone very quickly. Most of the Titanic fatalities froze to death in the water, they didn't drown.

Lucky D&D doesn't follow real world physics, isn't it?

Had O'Chul been on the Titanic he'd have swum to Newfoundland and towed several lifeboats behind him. That's what a CON of 25 gets you. If your world includes ythraks it should also include superhuman heroes.

If anyone wants a real-world thermodynamics discussion, the rate at which water transfers heat away from a warm object immersed in it is dozens of times higher than air of the same temperature. That's why you see armorers forging a sword plunge it into a barrel of water rather than a barrel of air.

Thermal Conductivity
Air: 0.0235
Water: 0.5551

Approximate values.

[ChillerInstinct]

Now, THAT is how to make an exit from a fight not meant for your class.

So with the rider bailing on us, and not unmasking in the process, speculation will be all we have for the foreseeable future. I have a feeling we'll see them again, at any rate.

Also, the sheer level of trust between the two, even if it's just a platonic relationship, gave me the fuzzies.

[kiapet]

Augh, this Paladin bromance is too much! My heart!

I am wondering what circumstance penalty that water will give them. In real life, they'd be as good as dead, but real life and D&D don't always match (This fire does, like, 2d6 a round. We'll have time to grab everything). If I had to guess, I'd say that O'Chul's super-Constitution may lead to him repaying Lien's saving of his life.

[Ron Miel]

I wasn't sure from the previous pages, but now it's pretty clear both Lien and O-Chul have a wound that shows up as black rather than red. Pretty sure Lien's is first visible after they get hit by the first EEEEEEEE and normal red ones only show up after the ice collapses on them. I don't think I've seen these before, but it looks a pretty cool way of portraying something like non-literal damage (sanity, or perhaps eardrums). Any thoughts?

The Giant says:
I often use a mixture of black marks and red ones in order to break up the visuals from being a mass of red lines. The black ones might represent scuffs, dirt, burns, bruises, or any injury that isn't bloody. This time, I had them appear when Durkon energy drained, because who knows what that would look like anyway?

[IndigoFenix]

So does anyone else think that the yrthak rider might be a wendigo?

Those ARE in D&D, right?

EDIT: It seems that D&D does have wendigo, but they don't have antlers (judging from a quick glance at a few online manuals, I'm not an expert in the game) but when I see a big hairy humanoid with deer antlers living in a snowy region that's generally my first guess...

[Basement Cat]

I just had a disturbing thought: It's good the OotS is in a 3.5 edition D&D world rather than the newer 5th edition because now we have attunement necessitating a magic item be in your keeping for a full hour before it becomes useful....well, you can see where that'd go in an emergency like this.

Also, I'm not at all surprised that Lien came up with this plan without hesitation given her experience working in the ocean. I wouldn't be surprised if she's passed her ring back and forth to others before.

"Trust me."
"Always."

Being two of the last surviving paladins from their Order these two have got to have some serious trust factors backing them up. It occurs to me that only they really understand each other. That's the sort of buddy-bonding stuff of legend.

[Elenna]

Yay for Good, not Dumb paladins!

With the time passage marked by the snow, the rider arrives at the conclusion that they went into the water, and will not be coming back up. A reasonable assessment for the rider to make, as she(??) does not know about the water breathing ring.

I hadn't realized that the rider probably thought they were dead. Nice catch!

Also: "Trust me." "Always." Awww...

[Cirin]

Her ring is non-standard, it was established as protecting against the cold.

I should have seen it coming as foreshadowing, because my thought at the time was "Wait, that's not a standard feature of that ring". . .then I didn't give it another thought.

[Lkctgo]

Is this a cheap way to show that every magic item has a purpose. Because... a ring of water breathing would become useless after she gains the ability to cast 3rd level spells (though that is quite a high level for paladins: 12th level).

[PallentisLunam]

Best win ever! An now we know why they were having a paladin off over who's righteous fire kept them warmer. Beautiful comic