OOTS #1108 - The Discussion Thread

[TerrickTerran]

Fun one here but mostly I love Elan's comment in the end.

[Nomen]

You know when she's not irrationally hating someone for a perceived slight she's pretty dang smart.

[Dovetail]

Hilgya probably didn't try to scry on one of the team members because she wouldn't have been sure that Durkon would stay with the party. She projects a lot and thinks that Durkon is disloyal and hedonistic because that's what she was.

[Dire Ferret]

So, if Durkon can block scrying because he's Lawful, why didn't she try locating Belkar or Elan?

The party had left Durkon behind, she might have assumed he wouldn't join up with them again.

[hroþila]

So, if Durkon can block scrying because he's Lawful, why didn't she try locating Belkar or Elan?

It's not because he's Lawful, but because he has a decent Will save.

It's the same reason why Qarr advised Z to scry on Mr Scruffy in a bonus strip.

[Gift Jeraff]

Looks like Roy Is Archon is back and enacting Roy's plan in Panel 7.

[Sniffnoy]

I doubt it. Hilgya isn't really after starting up any sort of conversation with Durkon, though, so why would she Send anything to him? To her mind that would just warn him she's coming and give him time to prepare.

Ah, yeah, that makes more sense. A sensible person would send to him rather than just immediately concluding such negative things about him, but I guess that's not Hilgya's way. So she only tried scrying on him, was blocked by will save, and thus has seen nothing of him.

[oonker]

Looks like Roy Is Archon is back and enacting Roy's plan in Panel 7.

Would you care to elaborate? I really don't know what is Roy's plan for Roy's archon, and I didn't get anything from this strip.

[The_Weirdo]

So she DID try to contact and/or find Durkon before assuming he was shirking his duty towards her, which means she does have decent reasons to think he's a pretty crappy person, even though she's wrong!

Well, imagine that.

[Dragolord]

Would you care to elaborate? I really don't know what is Roy's plan for Roy's archon, and I didn't get anything from this strip.

Roy asked Roy's Archon to do something unknown, which even he won't remember at this point, due to his lack of memory of the afterlife. This is irrelevant, however, as the glowing orb illuminating the Order's surroundings is a Light spell, rather than a divine being.

So she DID try to contact and/or find Durkon before assuming he was shirking his duty towards her, which means she does have decent reasons to think he's a pretty crappy person, even though she's wrong!

Well, imagine that.

Except that she admits herself that he was unconsciously resisting the spell. That says nothing about his moral character that anybody even reasonably well-balanced would take as a reason to despise him.

[a1chemi]

Roy asked Roy's Archon to do something unknown, which even he won't remember at this point, due to his lack of memory of the afterlife. This is irrelevant, however, as the glowing orb illuminating the Order's surroundings is a Light spell, rather than a divine being.

Roy remembers what happened in the waiting area and when he was floating around down with the living.

He only doesn't remember what happened on the mountain with his mom, brother, and grandfather.

[Basement Cat]

This looks like a Chekhov's gun to me.

The fact that tracking spells no longer work on Undead Vampire Durkon may help the team clue in to the real nature of vampires in their world: i.e. that the original souls are there but subdued by evil spirits.

Maybe this will be important to the team "saving" Durkon by dusting Durkula then Resurrecting Durkon.

[Darth Paul]

Do dwarf babies have beards already?

Nale had a goatee as a baby, so why not?

Also, I don't think that's Roy's archon in the strip, I think it's the Light spell up near the ceiling.

[hroþila]

So she DID try to contact and/or find Durkon before assuming he was shirking his duty towards her, which means she does have decent reasons to think he's a pretty crappy person, even though she's wrong!

Well, imagine that.

"His Will save is too good" is not a decent reason to jump to any conclusions. She only tried to find him in a way that wouldn't reveal her involvement. She didn't try to Send to him, as far as we know (and since there's no reason why Sending would fail, it's safe to assume that nope, she didn't try). I think it's more likely that she made up her mind about Durkon long before she started looking for him, and I wouldn't be surprised if the reason she avoided Sending to him is that she wanted to catch him off his guard and unprepared when she finally came to teach him a little lesson.

[ellindsey]

I was under the impression that if you attempted to scry on someone, and they resisted the attempt via Will save, that they would be at the very least aware that they had resisted a spell being cast on them, and possibly that it was a scrying attempt. Is that a misunderstanding of the rules on my part?

[SilverCacaobean]

I was under the impression that if you attempted to scry on someone, and they resisted the attempt via Will save, that they would be at the very least aware that they had resisted a spell being cast on them, and possibly that it was a scrying attempt. Is that a misunderstanding of the rules on my part?

I don't know how it works on d&d, but I think that's how it works here since Hilgya says they resist it subconsiously.


Also loved the strip. Everybody who opened their mouth on this strip made me laugh

[Kantaki]

Narrative abhors a vacuum...

Elan still gets the best lines.

[JumboWheat01]

Stumbling onto plot really is an effective way of adventuring.

[Kish]

So she DID try to contact and/or find Durkon before assuming he was shirking his duty towards her, which means she does have decent reasons to think he's a pretty crappy person, even though she's wrong!

Well, imagine that.

Scry, not contact. Taking that to mean she wanted to talk to him, rather than that--as she's already stated--she's been looking for him with murderous intentions for a long time, is...kind of a big assumption.

[RolkFlameraven]

"Narrative abhors a vacuum"

Words to live by!



So planning to use that line!

Don't you mean words to Quest by?

[Psychronia]

Kudzu looks like he's just having a great time the whole strip and he is adorable.

It really is jarring to see someone judge stiff, uptight Durkon this harshly. I guess bias is inevitable, but you have to jump pretty far before most of those accusations would even feasibly apply to him.

Well, one way or another, their reunion promises to be...dramatic.

[Doug Lampert]

I was under the impression that if you attempted to scry on someone, and they resisted the attempt via Will save, that they would be at the very least aware that they had resisted a spell being cast on them, and possibly that it was a scrying attempt. Is that a misunderstanding of the rules on my part?

I don't know how it works on d&d, but I think that's how it works here since Hilgya says they resist it subconsiously.


Also loved the strip. Everybody who opened their mouth on this strip made me laugh

Under D&D rules a will save vs. scrying is automatic unless you actively choose not to take one, there's no penalty for being asleep or unaware of the spell. Thus subconscious resistance is an appropriate term. Under D&D rules you always know if you have succeeded at a will save after the save is rolled (if you fail you may never know).

But you don't get any special knowledge of what caused the will save without a spellcraft roll, specifically one use of Spellcraft is: "After rolling a saving throw against a spell targeted on you, determine what that spell was. No action required. No retry." The DC is 30 for Scrying cast by a Cleric. Remember that a roll of 20 is not an automatic success on a skill check and that Spellcraft is Int based. It's entirely possible that Greg or Durkon fails that check on a natural 20.

Ergo, Durkon may have once or twice at some point resisted a spell without any good idea of what spell he had just resisted or of who had cast it. Maybe he just assumed it was Nale or someone.

[Baelzar]

Durkon's Will save must be incredible. Considering Scrying is a Divine spell, I'd think having Durkon's lover and also his kid (if it is indeed such) would add a significant DC number.

Gods tend to factor in relations and blood. Loki especially.

Of course, even a successful Scrying or Locate Creature are of limited use. Limited sight and time.

[Lord Torath]

Ergo, Durkon may have once or twice at some point resisted a spell without any good idea of what spell he had just resisted or of who had cast it. Maybe he just assumed it was Nale or someone.

Hah! So THAT's why Durkon had to make a bunch of Will Saves and no one else did in Dragon Magazine!

(Or Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales if, like me, you do not have all the OotS-containing Dragon Magazines)

[elros]

If they want to improve the chance of successful scrying, someone has to say that they have no chance that it will work, because Elan has already proven that "a one-in-a-million chance is a sure thing!"

[SilverCacaobean]

If they want to improve the chance of successful scrying, someone has to say that they have no chance that it will work, because Elan has already proven that "a one-in-a-million chance is a sure thing!"

That strip also kind of justifies why Hilgya's attempts of scrying failed (barring Loki shenanigans). "A 10% is pretty unlikely." I'm not saying that her chance of success is 10%, just that she was much more likely to fail than succeed but her chance of success was much better than one-in-a-million. In this universe odds like that spell certain failure

[georgie_leech]

Explanation of why she couldn't find Durkon: he resisted the spell. Conclusion: Sending wouldn't work? Yeah, I know if I can't find someone over the Internet, calling them by cellphone is clearly not going to work when you know what number to dial. Sorry folks, word is still out on the reason for not sending. Could be malicious intent, could be projection, could be one of the character-driven poor choices that drive this story. Like jumping on a flying dragon with express intent to kill the flying thing in midair

[ellindsey]

She didn't want to talk to him.

She wanted to find out where he was, hunt him down, and kill him, without him knowing she was coming. Scrying would have let her know at the very least what his surroundings looked like, with him unaware that she was doing so. Sending would only have sent a message, and would have let him know she was looking for him.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Durkon's Will save must be incredible. Considering Scrying is a Divine spell, I'd think having Durkon's lover and also his kid (if it is indeed such) would add a significant DC number.

Nope. She met him briefly. That's a +0. So the DC is 15 plus Hilgya's WIS modifier (at least +3, as she needs a 15 to cast a fifth level spell), and Durkon's WILL save will be (depending on level at the time of scrying) +8 to +10, plus his WIS modifier (currently pegged at +11, see Geekery). So Durkon will make that save unless rolling a 1.

Anyway, Hilgya's being an idiot. If you don't know where someone is, going to where you know they need to go is the smartest option available generally. It's even a trope, called cutting them off at the pass.

[KillingAScarab]

I approve of this comic, but then, I approved of this comic just from reading the title. I cannot resist a Cure pun.