Haley and Solt Lurkyurg

[Mightymosy]

Resurrection doesn't work if the creature's been dead longer than 10 years per caster level (quite a jump from raise dead's limit of one day per caster level). Since resurrection is a 7th-level spell, clerics first get access to it at level 13; I think 130 years should be enough of a buffer that having Celia rush around isn't necessary.

Oddly enough, we've never actually seen her planeshift or teleport under her own power, so it's not clear it's a personal ability she has (unlike Sabine). Further, Celia mentioned in adjacent sentences that plane shifting and teleporting would work from within the Cloister to outside of it, so I find it difficult to believe she wouldn't have recommended them if they were options she had available.

---

Not strategic, really, but:

Celia & Resurrection:
I see. So we don't need to rush to Resurrection. Still, I like the plan of Celia flying/teleporting to Cliffport better than what she actually did.
The fact that she doesn't suggest the planeshift plan doesn't mean much at all. The whole discussion we are having in this thread is about something that the characters failed to discuss, and we are wondering why.
So it's perfectly possible the planeshift plan would have been great, but Celia didn't think of it.
Maybe she thought Haley would know better where to find Resurrection the fastest way (something Celia doesn't have in her world)?

We see Celia planeshifting after Haley breaks the booty talisman.
The process is not shown in technical detail, but there is no suggestion of an outside force depicted in the comic.
When Celia mentions going back to law school, or to her family, or when she reappears during the Azure City trial, she never mentions needing external support for planeshifting. Also, she is a natural sorceress.
Bottom line: From what we see, the most likely explanation is that Celia can planeshift on her own powers.
(unless I missed important evidence)


Solt Lurkyurg:
Given that Haley expects to get filthy rich in the process of completing this whole adventure, and Resurrection appearantly being easily possible after years and only needing a small body part, it seems that taking a finger bone from Solt Lurkyurg would have really been a good thing...

Staffs:
Awesome! So when I wanted to play an arcane caster, I still could get Healing and Resurrection?
I always got the impression that these were reserved for divine casters only.

[SilverCacaobean]

...The fact that she doesn't suggest the planeshift plan doesn't mean much at all...

...We see Celia planeshifting after Haley breaks the booty talisman.
The process is not shown in technical detail, but there is no suggestion of an outside force depicted in the comic...
When Celia mentions going back to law school, or to her family, or when she reappears during the Azure City trial, she never mentions needing external support for planeshifting. Also, she is a natural sorceress.
Bottom line: From what we see, the most likely explanation is that Celia can planeshift on her own powers.
(unless I missed important evidence)

There's this. It suggests she can't do it on her own. I think she didn't planeshift, she was summoned by the talisman.

Solt Lurkyurg:
Given that Haley expects to get filthy rich in the process of completing this whole adventure, and Resurrection appearantly being easily possible after years and only needing a small body part, it seems that taking a finger bone from Solt Lurkyurg would have really been a good thing...

Maybe she did after all She just didn't tell us

[Mightymosy]

There's this. It suggests she can't do it on her own. I think she didn't planeshift, she was summoned by the talisman.



Maybe she did after all She just didn't tell us

Good find! It does indeed suggest that she was brought into OotS world by talisman magic.
I hope she and Roy thought of a way to summon her for their next date

[Peelee]

We see Celia planeshifting after Haley breaks the booty talisman.

We see Celia being summoned. She explicitly states that Cloister blocks plane shifting into it, and only summoning into it was possible. It's even called a summoning talisman.


There's no implication, there's outright explaining.

[Mightymosy]

We see Celia being summoned. She explicitly states that Cloister blocks plane shifting into it, and only summoning into it was possible. It's even called a summoning talisman.


There's no implication, there's outright explaining.

How does the comic you linked to explain that the talisman did the actual planeshifting?
Since Celia got the opportunity for maling a dramatic entrance (lightning show and all), I always thought the talisman "calls" her and then she planeshifted. Her eyes are even glowing in blue after she entered the OotS world, indicating magic usage on her part.

I don't mind it being otherwise, but citing this comic as an explanation seems farfetched to me

[Keltest]

How does the comic you linked to explain that the talisman did the actual planeshifting?
Since Celia got the opportunity for maling a dramatic entrance (lightning show and all), I always thought the talisman "calls" her and then she planeshifted. Her eyes are even glowing in blue after she entered the OotS world, indicating magic usage on her part.

I don't mind it being otherwise, but citing this comic as an explanation seems farfetched to me

The first comic explicitly says that Cloister blocks plane shifting, and only summoning effects can get through. Since haley is not a magic user and was not reading from a scroll, it had to be the talisman that cast the summoning spell.

[Peelee]

How does the comic you linked to explain that the talisman did the actual planeshifting?
Since Celia got the opportunity for maling a dramatic entrance (lightning show and all), I always thought the talisman "calls" her and then she planeshifted. Her eyes are even glowing in blue after she entered the OotS world, indicating magic usage on her part.

I don't mind it being otherwise, but citing this comic as an explanation seems farfetched to me

Summoning, in D&D, doesn't mean "i called for this creature, and they came on their own power." It means "i call this creature which is then magically coming towards me through a power not their own." If can be an item that is making the creature come, it can be the summoner's own powers, but it is not the summoned creature's power.

I linked 2 strips. In 529, Celia calls it a summoning talisman. In 532, Haley asks how they were able to summon Celia through Cloister, where she explains that everything from the outside coming in is blocked by Cloister, including Plane Shifting, and that there was a loophole built in to the spell that allowed Summoning. Also, Haley took "summoning talisman" to mean that the talisman summoned Celia, and asked how the talisman summoned her. Celia does not say the talisman didn't, but instead directly answers her question.

Her blue eyes are probably the result of her lighting ability, which she is also using at the time.

[Jasdoif]

We see Celia planeshifting after Haley breaks the booty talisman.
The process is not shown in technical detail, but there is no suggestion of an outside force depicted in the comic.

The summoning was an effect of the talisman. As has been mentioned, that's why it was able to bring her in from outside the cloister effect, since cloister specifically allows summoning effects (which admittedly can be a little confusing). It's also why Celia needs to be dismissed instead of simply leaving on her own.

When Celia mentions going back to law school, or to her family, or when she reappears during the Azure City trial, she never mentions needing external support for planeshifting.

She doesn't mention doing it herself, either. Kind of why this is such an odd question; the only case where it'd be important enough to matter happens to be this case, where we're not told one way or the other.

Also, she is a natural sorceress.

True, she is capable of having chosen plane shift or teleport as one of her limited number of spells known, assuming she's high enough level. Whether she did so (or is high enough level) is another question entirely....

Awesome! So when I wanted to play an arcane caster, I still could get Healing and Resurrection?
I always got the impression that these were reserved for divine casters only.

Well, you have to have the spell on your class spell list to use it in the staff, which normally excludes arcane casters....But there are ways around that. Offhand, a DC 20 Use Magic Device check will let you use a spell from a wand or staff as if you had the spell on your class spell list; it'd be kind of a pain with crossclass ranks, but since resurrection's ten-minute casting time kind of excludes its use in combat you can probably just keep trying until you succeed. Feats or prestige classes that add cleric domains to your spell list could also work, though I'm not aware offhand of any domains that have resurrection (the standard Healing domain has heal, though).

[Mightymosy]

Yeah, so I guess it is clear once you know what a "summoning spell" in terms of D&D is. Which I didn't.

But anyway, so are we now assuming that Celia can't planeshift with her own powers, and gets to law school, her family, or Roy with some other means that isn't mentioned?

If yes, this means option "planeshift to Cliffport" is off the table for now, which leaves regular flight. Which still beats going by horse, but then we have the possible obstacle of random encounters of the airborne type...

Still, keeping a fingerbone of Solt on the cart for the time when Haley became filthy rich would have been a nice courtesy

[Peelee]

Yeah, so I guess it is clear once you know what a "summoning spell" in terms of D&D is. Which I didn't.

I'm a bit relieved to hear that, since whenever it seems like I need to explain rules specific to D&D, I'm always slightly worried the person knows already and it'll come off as patronizing.

[Lacuna Caster]

C'mon what happened with Roy's corpse isn't that far-fetched. They lost a very important battle against an epic lich. The miracle is that they weren't all killed, not that they got separated. As for the 3-months of not getting Roy resurrected afterwards, in the book commentary it is stated that they were there to show how unmotivated the Order are without Roy.

Holy crap. The author was actively going out of his way to demonstrate how passive and myopic his protagonists were? Wow. Okay.

Anyway- I agree that a TPK would have been perfectly natural, and some form of magical radar-jamming isn't a major stretch, but the weird summoning-exception, and effect-persistence, and the oracle being this bizarre to usual caster rules, and grubwiggler, and Durkon failing to, for example, call a hound archon with teleport, scouting, stealth and diplomacy skills to physically look for Haley, and... *sigh*. I don't know, it's not exactly unusual for the strip, but it bothers me.

As for Shojo and Therkla. If Shojo came back Hinjo wouldn't let him keep the throne. His presence would only undermine Hinjo's authority and he was in heaven, too. Why come back? Therkla... kind of committed suicide over an infatuation... Sad but it happens.

Shojo would probably be facing a jail sentence, but he'd also have useful advice on handling the nobles, and for someone who claims 'everything I did was for my people', staying on cloud 9 is basically a selfish decision. (Conversely, Therkla is looking at an excellent chance of going to hell.)

Given that Haley expects to get filthy rich in the process of completing this whole adventure, and Resurrection appearantly being easily possible after years and only needing a small body part, it seems that taking a finger bone from Solt Lurkyurg would have really been a good thing...

That's a good point, now that you mention it.

But anyway, so are we now assuming that Celia can't planeshift with her own powers, and gets to law school, her family, or Roy with some other means that isn't mentioned?

The early strip is a bit wonky in several respects, but I think this was covered in the geekery thread. (Basically, a lot of stuff whose full importance wouldn't become apparent for hundreds of strips was either hand-waved or invented on a whim.)

[factotum]

but the weird summoning-exception

Um, what's weird about it? It even explains in a cutaway panel why that exception is there--namely, so that Dorukan could summon Lirian for a bit of hanky-panky. It's an epic spell, after all, he could have included an exception that would allow violet celestial lions to port through the Cloister if he'd wanted to, and as long as the reason for that was explained I'd call it justified.

[Lacuna Caster]

It's weird precisely because Lirian is another epic caster, and wouldn't need exceptions made for regular summoning/calling spells (which, in any case, don't apply to beings on the same plane- that's covered by teleportation.)

[Kish]

I'm not sure how you get from "Ganonron, the greatest evil conjurer to ever live, broke through the Cloister with an epic spell and apparent pain" to "Dorukan or Lirian, who were low-epic, could easily have simply ignored the Cloister's travel impediment without needing to build in any exceptions." This is only marginally better than declaring that Vaarsuvius would have been able to contact Haley in Azure City if they'd just wanted to enough.

[Lacuna Caster]

Then one could build in an exception specifically for:
* epic teleports (again, not summoning or calling, because Lirian isn't extraplanar)
* teleports cast by good-aligned wizards named Dorukan upon elven druids named Lirian
* teleports that require a secret password
* teleports from a permanent circle of teleportation between your two headquarters
* teleports based on an epic version of Tree Stride after you plant an oak in your courtyard

...Or any combination of the above. *shrugs* Just a thought.

[Kish]

Two of your proposals continue to hinge on "two low-epic characters who didn't specialize in teleportation in any way had otherwise-unmentioned epic teleportation spells which they were willing to use casually," one would effectively make conquering Lirian's Gate and wanting to also conquer Dorukan's Gate (which happened in the story) a BOGO as the conqueror could effortlessly teleport straight to Dorukan's Gate, and all five are more baroque approaches to "build in an exception for Lirian" than "allow summoning magic." The only one that doesn't strike me as leading to "Xykon conquered Dorukan's Gate significantly more easily than he actually did" is the Tree Stride one, and considering that I'm not seeing any interpretation of "an epic version of Tree Stride" that fits the story or the epic spellcasting rules, I'm pretty comfortable crossing that one off.

[Lacuna Caster]

Look, Kish, I don't mean to get your back up, but is this about the technical feasibility of cloister mechanics or is this about me expressing a dim view of certain aspects of the protagonists' development?

I apologise if I was lacking in tact, but I don't think the author was sitting down to extrapolate outcomes from a strict reading of spell-seed mechanics.

[Kish]

If your objection to the summoning exception was supposed to be hinting at something else as you now seem to be implying, I promise it's not that I'm objecting to that something else (though this is logical in an ironic way: if your complaint about the summoning objection isn't actually about the summoning objection, of course you wouldn't think my complaints about that complaint are actually about that complaint). I saw an argument that amounted to "I don't think it makes any sense that Dorukan didn't do something that it would be made substantially less sense for him to do instead" and responded to it.

Guessing at what's going on here based on one distressed-looking comment I can see in one of your earlier posts: I think "the Order is not remotely a functional group, nor even truly five functional individuals, without Roy" is entirely deliberate and very much an intended takeaway from Don't Split the Party*. Durkon was too passive to go out of his own way to look for Roy without someone specifically directing him to, Elan attached himself to Hinjo, Vaarsuvius' only solution to "my current hammer isn't working" was "get a bigger hammer," Haley got invested in the Resistance instead, and Belkar simply didn't care about anything but his own short-term problems (and, luckily for Haley and the Resistance, wasn't interested in spending five minutes actually planning out "how can I get rid of this Mark of Justice?" instead of feeling put-upon and waiting for it to go away on its own, as he did with being in jail and being watched by Roy).

*Which isn't a reason to like it, of course, but...yeah, that's the comic here. Six bumbling protagonists who (in the worlds of the blond bard who's smart enough to know that he's really stupid but would still like to know what clouds taste like), mostly run away or have mixed victories.

[Lacuna Caster]

If your objection to the summoning exception was supposed to be hinting at something else as you now seem to be implying, I promise it's not that I'm objecting to that something else...

...Well, thank for that measured and proportionate response. Alright then:

I'm not intimately familiar with the rules for epic spellcasting, but I don't think the cloister spell or the ghost-martyr defences of soon's gate are particularly based on D&D RAW, so on what basis could you rule out, e.g, super-tree-stride, or just twinned circles of teleportation with password-protection that only recognises two people? That doesn't seem like a stretch for two epic casters with decades of research time, one of whom is ostensibly so paranoid that his anti-scrying measures persist for weeks after any affected creature leaves his hidey-hole.

*Which isn't a reason to like it, of course, but...yeah, that's the comic here.

...I'm not certain what I'm supposed to make of this.

[Kish]

Oh, we're still discussing the Cloister, not an underlying implication? All right then.

You're continuing to presume "two low-epic characters who didn't specialize in teleportation in any way had otherwise-unmentioned epic teleportation spells which they were willing to use casually," and you're presenting that as somehow, unambiguously, less "weird" than simply building a loophole into the spell Dorukan wanted to summon Lirian through.

So I'm not quite sure what you're looking for from me now. My answer to any form of "they could have made up more epic spells to get through Cloister" is going to be "more epic spells is not a simpler or more logical approach."

[Jasdoif]

Then one could build in an exception specifically for:
* epic teleports (again, not summoning or calling, because Lirian isn't extraplanar)
* teleports cast by good-aligned wizards named Dorukan upon elven druids named Lirian
* teleports that require a secret password
* teleports from a permanent circle of teleportation between your two headquarters
* teleports based on an epic version of Tree Stride after you plant an oak in your courtyard

...Or any combination of the above. *shrugs* Just a thought.

Something like a non-epic spell with a variant of gate's calling function, which called a single willing creature on the same plane; wouldn't require a special exception for epic teleports (which are already capable of getting through anyway), preserves utility if there was ever cause to bring over someone other than Lirian (I wonder if it was a Dorukan^TM-brand summoning talisman Celia had?), and doesn't need routine expenditure of epic spell slots.

But really, the underlying difficulties here are largely conceptual: Whether solely for appearances, or because they truly planned to follow through with it at first, Dorukan and Lirian both had Gate-defense-systems intended to work standalone...which is why the non-obvious loophole in the regularly repeated Cloister spell was better for appearances than a means to more readily move them back and forth. If they'd actually designed their defenses to reinforce each other, permanent teleportation back and forth would be expected and a Cloister exploit wouldn't be necessary (offhand, an epic teleportation-circle-type effect that didn't use the Astral Plane as its medium would still function in an area that prevented normal teleportation; or pulling planar portals out of Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and having an extraplanar hotel hub...if it survived the 3.0-to-3.5 conversion in OotS, anyway).

[Lacuna Caster]

Oh, we're still discussing the Cloister, not an underlying implication? All right then.

My underlying point remains that the mechanics of cloister, along with several other plot-related speed-bumps, were probably invented to provide impediments to Roy getting raised. I was simply surprised by the apparent venom of your reaction.

Something like a non-epic spell with a variant of gate's calling function, which called a single willing creature on the same plane; wouldn't require a special exception for epic teleports (which are already capable of getting through anyway), preserves utility if there was ever cause to bring over someone other than Lirian (I wonder if it was a Dorukan^TM-brand summoning talisman Celia had?), and doesn't need routine expenditure of epic spell slots.

Yeah, that now that you mention it, it's possible Celia and other employees were special exceptions to what really was a blanket lock-down on summon/call effects. Celia herself might not have known it.

I'm not sure I understand your comments on 'conceptual difficulties' and appearance vs. following-through, though? Are you saying that the Gate defences were largely for show, or something?

[SilverCacaobean]

Holy crap. The author was actively going out of his way to demonstrate how passive and myopic his protagonists were? Wow. Okay.

Well, that's the premise of this strip. Dysfunctional Party. Up until recently anyway.

Anyway- I agree that a TPK would have been perfectly natural, and some form of magical radar-jamming isn't a major stretch, but the weird summoning-exception, and effect-persistence, and the oracle being this bizarre to usual caster rules, and grubwiggler, and Durkon failing to, for example, call a hound archon with teleport, scouting, stealth and diplomacy skills to physically look for Haley, and... *sigh*. I don't know, it's not exactly unusual for the strip, but it bothers me.

I'll try to take them one by one.
I don't think the summoning is particularly contrived. The point is, a certain amount of time would pass and something would upset the balance of their complacency sooner or later. Since the writer has limited space , and pacing to preserve (Narrative economy? Anyway, I mean efficiency.) it more or less had to happen the way it did. Roy stays in heaven a long time and at the point he realises he has stayed for too long, is also the point that something happens to start getting the order moving. That something has to happen efficiently, too.

More precisely, if Haley hadn't left azure city, V would have still left their companions and even if Haley was still in azure city by Darth V time, V would have united the party then and there. Rich apparently didn't want the falling out of V and Durkon to come out of nowhere. He wanted to have strips to prepare the ground. So the strips about Durkon,V,Elan were about the "friction" between V and Durkon (With the excuse* plot of Elan's adventures and Kubota). So we have stuff to show about that half of the party before they can get to the plot. Thus the strips with Haley had to appear to be moving the plot lest the strip stagnate. So she should be first to get moving. Furthermore, there where other ways for Haley to get moving and summon Celia on the road. Yet the most efficient was chosen. Why waste time on pointless exposition, when you can explain Celia's appearance there with a simple cute joke, that isn't too far-fetched either? From what I understand, summoning didn't really need to be an exception either because it's a spell cast from inside the cloister. I think he put it there to appease pedants... (I believe I read something along those lines in the commentary but I can't remember at all, so let's say I just think it.)

*not insultingly. As in "we have a reason to go see what they are doing".


The oracle, now. The Oracle not casting by the rules... Well, you made it look like he wrote himself to a corner, so he had to invent wonky new rules but he didn't really. After all, he didn't have to have the Oracle be closer than Cliffport and even if he did he could just say Haley forgot because of the memory charm. Reading again, maybe that's not what you mean. You see the Oracle as some kind of contrived obstacle instead, right?

I think the third problem is d&d and the readers' different degrees of familiarity with it... Do you play pen and paper d&d? I've played nwn1/2 and know a few rules but that's that. Yet, what you proposed with the hound archon would have looked completely outlandish to me... Rich can't introduce something like that out of the blue. It would have disconnected me greatly from the story. Conversely, I wasn't particularly startled when it turned out the Oracle was not a divine caster... I thought Haley's reasoning was a stretch, really.

I don't know if that's because I don't play the game, or not, though. I wonder if other people who don't play feel the same way.

If the lack of optimal choices and built optimization bother you, here are two things that can help.
1. OotS treats d&d rules the way action movies and comedies treat physics. Keep that in mind.
2. If you want to treat it kind of like a real campaign (which isn't really the premise): The OotS consists of first time players who have no idea what they're doing

Shojo would probably be facing a jail sentence, but he'd also have useful advice on handling the nobles, and for someone who claims 'everything I did was for my people', staying on cloud 9 is basically a selfish decision. (Conversely, Therkla is looking at an excellent chance of going to hell.)

Shojo: Advice that Hinjo would be unwilling to follow. Even worse, maybe he wouldn't have lost the throne at all. He tricked a secret order of paladins, not the city... It would have caused such a huge rift between the sapphire guard and the throne that Hinjo might renounce it and it would end up in the hands of some underhanded noble. Not to mention Hinjo would try him and as soon as the nobles learned that he tricked them he'd be in trouble.
Therkla: I'm not sure if you agreed with what I said earlier but I had a thought about that... Therkla died depressed so it's reasonable to assume that if you die like that, not wanting to get raised, your psychological condition doesn't change after you die. I mean, imagine being depressed and killing yourself until you get over it . Maybe people who go to heaven find peace eventually but in hell...

Anyway, Therkla's death is something I don't like. There are better ways of dealing with unrequited love than submitting to that grim fate. I'm not saying it wasn't realistic for her to want to stay dead. It's just that when she was introduced I was hoping she wouldn't be baggage to be killed upon the reunification of the party.

I was kind of hoping the message of that arc would be "It's not the end of the world if you get rejected" not "and after you get rejected, you'll go straight to hell but it'll be better than being alive".


Ok, that came out a bit long. Here's hoping it's coherent.

[Jasdoif]

I'm not sure I understand your comments on 'conceptual difficulties' and appearance vs. following-through, though? Are you saying that the Gate defences were largely for show, or something?

More like defending the Gates from outside threats wasn't the only thing they cared about.

The defenses were set up, presumably in accordance with the oath, on the assumption Dorukan and Lirian wouldn't see each other again. The Cloister loophole allowed them to bypass that assumption without visibly throwing the oath aside; and presumably the chance of someone else discovering the specific exploit was deemed an acceptable risk to them.

If they'd been unconcerned with the appearances and fully integrated the defenses of their Gates, they'd have a lot more direct options for meeting each other than a loophole of "let anybody summon people in".

[snowblizz]

Therkla: I'm not sure if you agreed with what I said earlier but I had a thought about that... Therkla died depressed so it's reasonable to assume that if you die like that, not wanting to get raised, your psychological condition doesn't change after you die. I mean, imagine being depressed and killing yourself until you get over it . Maybe people who go to heaven find peace eventually but in hell...

Anyway, Therkla's death is something I don't like. There are better ways of dealing with unrequited love than submitting to that grim fate. I'm not saying it wasn't realistic for her to want to stay dead. It's just that when she was introduced I was hoping she wouldn't be baggage to be killed upon the reunification of the party.

I was kind of hoping the message of that arc would be "It's not the end of the world if you get rejected" not "and after you get rejected, you'll go straight to hell but it'll be better than being alive".

Therkla is True Neutral and her actions will be judged by some avatar of Neutral to determine if she is neutral enough for the neutral afterlife. I'm thinking she will be. So she is not going straight to hell in any shape or form.

There may be better ways to deal with something, but the poitn of her character is that her character delas with it in this way. She is a tragic character whose flaws in personality means she interprets the world in a certain way. In her case teenage angsty. She is also immature. Her actions are entirely in character of someone with a very filtered life viewed through too much teenage romance litterature.

You bet on the wrong horse. She was introduced as a romantic foil for Haley, did you really think she would replace her? Really?

[SilverCacaobean]

You bet on the wrong horse. She was introduced as a romantic foil for Haley, did you really think she would replace her? Really?

Seriously?

[Lacuna Caster]

If they'd been unconcerned with the appearances and fully integrated the defenses of their Gates, they'd have a lot more direct options for meeting each other than a loophole of "let anybody summon people in".

Ah, I see what you mean. I don't think that would prevent adding password protection or epic-level exceptions or other loopholes that would be both less exploitable and harder to discover, but I agree it's plausible that Celia, specifically, was able to gate-crash as a former employee.

Well, that's the premise of this strip. Dysfunctional Party. Up until recently anyway.

I appreciate the detailed reply, which seems perfectly cogent, but I think it might be better if I answer in broad strokes.


I agree that OOTS tends to play fast-and-loose with both conventional physics and D&D mechanics (neither of which I would consider myself an expert of- heck, I consider D&D rules to be awful for storytelling purposes), and in itself, that's not something I have a problem with. In a similar vein, I don't have an inherent problem with 4th-wall pop-culture references and loopy coincidence regularly driving the plot. I don't even have an inherent problem with a gaggle of loveable idiots (plus Durkon) behaving like borderline sociopaths in a largely inconsequential world.

What I have a problem with- and I realise this is somewhat subjective, so please take this with the usual 'IMO' grain of salt- is that, as the stakes of the story and the grimness of consequences steadily escalated, a lot of these features lingered long past the point where they had stopped being funny. When Elan blows up Dorukan's Gate (which, realistically, would probably annihilate those helpful goblin teens), you can kinda shrug that off. It's a different matter when dopey miscalculations could spell death for billions.

So I'm in this awkward position where I like what the strip was, and I respect what the strip is trying to be (Cerebus Syndrome aside, I'd probably agree with the author on 80-90% of political topics), but I'm not sure there was ever really a clean transition between the two. And I'm afraid I completely divested myself of interest in the main characters some time ago.


Two other things that annoy me, specific to D&D rules:

(1) Elements of the fanbase that will argue, e.g, "O-Chul can totally survive being ejected from the throne-room, because he might barely have an adequate Con score and falling mechanics don't count horizontal distance", while totally ignoring that Overland Flight would never have let Xykon escape the Gate's blast radius.

(2) If we're evaluating OOTS not just as an independent story, but for it's hobby connotations, then a lot of these narrative manipulations reek of the Golden Rule and general illusionism. My take is that if you want rules in your story, then follow them to the bitter end.


Few final notes: I think Celia has been accounted for, I essentially agree on Therkla, and while I wouldn't see Shojo deliberately undermining his nephew in a time of war, given the lack evidence for actual altruism on his part, I guess it's not impossible.

[Peelee]

Therkla: I'm not sure if you agreed with what I said earlier but I had a thought about that... Therkla died depressed so it's reasonable to assume that if you die like that, not wanting to get raised, your psychological condition doesn't change after you die. I mean, imagine being depressed and killing yourself until you get over it . Maybe people who go to heaven find peace eventually but in hell...

Anyway, Therkla's death is something I don't like. There are better ways of dealing with unrequited love than submitting to that grim fate. I'm not saying it wasn't realistic for her to want to stay dead. It's just that when she was introduced I was hoping she wouldn't be baggage to be killed upon the reunification of the party.

I was kind of hoping the message of that arc would be "It's not the end of the world if you get rejected" not "and after you get rejected, you'll go straight to hell but it'll be better than being alive".

First, death in a world where confirmed afterlives exist is inherently different than death in a world where afterlives aren't confirmed to exist. Yes, life is still preferable, murder is still despicable, and death is still not sought out, but a dying person could certainly have more comfort and certainty.

Besides, where was it said she went to the Nine Hells?

[SilverCacaobean]

What I have a problem with- and I realise this is somewhat subjective, so please take this with the usual 'IMO' grain of salt- is that, as the stakes of the story and the grimness of consequences steadily escalated, a lot of these features lingered long past the point where they had stopped being funny. When Elan blows up Dorukan's Gate (which, realistically, would probably annihilate those helpful goblin teens), you can kinda shrug that off. It's a different matter when dopey miscalculations could spell death for billions.

So I'm in this awkward position where I like what the strip was, and I respect what the strip is trying to be (Cerebus Syndrome aside, I'd probably agree with the author on 80-90% of political topics), but I'm not sure there was ever really a clean transition between the two. And I'm afraid I completely divested myself of interest in the main characters some time ago.

Right. So from what I understand you're getting a minor case of cognitive dissonance by comparing the old strips with the new ones. It's a legitimate problem but more or less unavoidable consequence of writing something for ten years, publishing one page at a time so you can't go back and edit it...

I'm not sure if by "clean transition" you mean "unclear when it happened" or "didn't happen properly and wholy".

If it's the former, I think it's started happening slowly but steadily since Roy told his father that it was now his personal quest. With every character maturing the strip has been getting more serious (but not less light-hearted, I'd say) with Elan being the last, after accepting that the world isn't how he wants it and he doesn't want to be like his dad, doing everything for a good story(can't find the strip he says that..). Present Elan wouldn't blow up the first gate. So I think we are in the point of the story where the transition has happened. We still have Durkon to face his personal demons now (literally, too) and mature but Durkon was never a sociopath so his changing won't affect the tone of the strip in that regard.

If it's the latter, I suspect that we are at the part of the story that the features that bother you (in a serious work) are more or less gone. I'm not 100% sure but this last book (post art change) doesn't have them. I think the strip's not trying anymore; it's gotten there.

Of course, if what bothers you is the disconnect between now and the first strips, that won't help much... Or maybe you just disagree.


I haven't watched any Indiana Jones movies (I recently watched star wars and I liked it, though). He survived a nuke in a fridge?? And apparently George Lukas actually thought it was possible! I always thought that they got in the coffin because Girard's grave would be warded, or something... not as a pop culture reference.
EDIT: Hah, there's a little fridge with demonroaches getting out! I hadn't even seen that.

Two other things that annoy me, specific to D&D rules:

(1) Elements of the fanbase that will argue, e.g, "O-Chul can totally survive being ejected from the throne-room, because he might barely have an adequate Con score and falling mechanics don't count horizontal distance", while totally ignoring that Overland Flight would never have let Xykon escape the Gate's blast radius.

(2) If we're evaluating OOTS not just as an independent story, but for it's hobby connotations, then a lot of these narrative manipulations reek of the Golden Rule and general illusionism. My take is that if you want rules in your story, then follow them to the bitter end.


Few final notes: I think Celia has been accounted for, I essentially agree on Therkla, and while I wouldn't see Shojo deliberately undermining his nephew in a time of war, given the lack evidence for actual altruism on his part, I guess it's not impossible.

At this point, it's best to ignore the strip has much to do with d&d. Which is ironic since I came for d&d jokes. But I stayed for the story, tbh. Rules jokes couldn't have kept me for 1000+ pages.

For Shojo, I didn't really mean he would do it deliberately. His very presence could do all these things.

death in a world where confirmed afterlives exist is inherently different than death in a world where afterlives aren't confirmed to exist. Yes, life is still preferable, murder is still despicable, and death is still not sought out, but a dying person could certainly have more comfort and certainty.

Still, it's pointless to say much about such a world. So inevitably we compare it to our own. Besides, the Giant thinks fiction is only worth it if its lessons cannot be applied to our world. So he wrote her death with that in mind.

Besides, where was it said she went to the Nine Hells?

The post I was replying to had it as an assumption and I didn't dispute it. I don't know much about d&d cosmology but thought she was evil. Apparently she's true neutral. huh. Well, scratch that part about hell.

[Kish]

If it's the former, I think it's started happening slowly but steadily since Roy told his father that it was now his personal quest. With every character maturing the strip has been getting more serious (but not less light-hearted, I'd say) with Elan being the last, after accepting that the world isn't how he wants it and he doesn't want to be like his dad, doing everything for a good story(can't find the strip he says that..). Present Elan wouldn't blow up the first gate. So I think we are in the point of the story where the transition has happened. We still have Durkon to face his personal demons now (literally, too) and mature but Durkon was never a sociopath so his changing won't affect the tone of the strip in that regard.

If it's the latter, I suspect that we are at the part of the story that the features that bother you (in a serious work) are more or less gone. I'm not 100% sure but this last book (post art change) doesn't have them. I think the strip's not trying anymore; it's gotten there.

I should mention that I don't really agree with this. Durkon is passive even when it means not saying anything as his evil and ahem-neutral teammates torture a prisoner for laughs in front of him. Elan sees the moral problems with valuing stories over people but remains stupid to the point of being a danger to all around him (and, at the flip side from Lacuna Caster, I don't really see a problem precisely because I don't see a change, and if I was going to decide I didn't like the comic, it would have been at Dorukan's Dungeon blowing up at the latest, when I didn't write off the goblin teenagers but thought, "That's Elan: stupid to the point of being more dangerous to be around than the casually murderous Belkar"). Haley is greedy. Roy has a ridiculously oversized ego. Belkar is a semi-reformed serial killer and Vaarsuvius is a semi-reformed mass murderer (having gotten to this point, I also want to point out that for one of the characters, Rich explicitly went in the direction, not of discarding established negative traits to have a party of heroes, but of illustrating that the character who, ha-ha-funny, cast Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion on a throwaway villain and, ha-ha-the-punchline-is-that-everyone-never-agrees-with-Roy, openly [and LOUDLY] said that increasing their store of magical knowledge mattered more than whether an innocent dirt farmer got eaten by ogres [takes a breath] really was staggeringly, horrifyingly cruel, just as Vaarsuvius had been showing ever since the early strips in the Dungeon of Dorukan).

Still, it's pointless to say much about such a world. So inevitably we compare it to our own. Besides, the Giant thinks fiction is only worth it if its lessons cannot be applied to our world. So he wrote her death with that in mind.

Actually, he explicitly said that her death should be parsed more as "overdramatizing moving away" than what "choosing to die" would mean in the real world.

Inconsistent? Perhaps.