OOTS #1119 - The Discussion Thread

[Crœsos]

I'm sure this story isn't quite done yet, but I don't think any possible "surprise" is going to involve a combat victory. This is the last major conflict before the final battle with Xykon. It is better to build the Order up as competent combat threats rather than rely on the standby trope of them barely succeeding by the skin of their teeth. That way, when they do fight Xykon, we know that they're powerful, and when Xykon bask them into a corner, it will make him seem even more powerful. Any surprise Durkon pulls out at this point is going to involve guile and trickery.

Durkula doesn't have to pull a surprise to win this battle. This battle is useful for eliminating the Order of the Stick as potential spoilers, but his true goal involves fixing a vote by the Council of Elders. He's already dispatched the Ex-Exarch to take care of that (comic #1111), armed with a rulebook to procedurally rules-lawyer his own safety in the Council, doubtless in a similar to the way Durkula rules-lawyered his own safety at Godsmoot. Hel wins if the Order are dead, delayed long enough, or think they've won so they don't bother to check on the Council.

[Lord of Sporks]

My head canon for damage dealt by the Flame Strike:
Durkon^T took full damage (about 80) less 30 for Resistance, so he's down about 50 HP out of about 100 (15 D12 hit dice, no longer has a Constitution score as undead).
Ponchella made her save (not being knocked off her feet) so 40 less 30 makes about 10 points of damage out of slightly fewer HP than Durkon^T; unless someone targets her immediately, she'll just regenerate.

Reminder: half of Flame Strike's damage is divine, and not affected by Fire Resistance. So if Ponchella did make her save, she would have taken 20 damage out of 40, not 10.

[Crœsos]

Writing in the forums (and so not canon) I recall Rich saying way back that it incredibly obscure knowledge in the stickverse that vampires are negative energy spirits that control their hosts. Hilgya might have to max Knowledge: Religion to know this. We see from the godsmoot that Durkon* didn't expect too many clerics to know about him except for very high level ones.

Even if Hilgya knows it, she knows Durkon's in there, and so maybe she figures if she kills Durkon* he'll still feel it. The real question is whether she'll feel like rezzing him when its all over.

Obscure, but not unknowable. At least one out of four low-to-mid-level gnomish clerics (comic #968) seem to know this fact. Of course the skill set for gnomish temple cleric and dwarven adventurer cleric may be quite different.

[Jay R]

Even if Hilgya knows it, she knows Durkon's in there, and so maybe she figures if she kills Durkon* he'll still feel it. The real question is whether she'll feel like rezzing him when its all over.

It's not enough to feel like it. She has to feel like it 5,000 gp in diamonds worth.

[Wanderer]

FIRE FROM HEAVEN!

In other news, V should step in with a Cacophonic Burst or something, just to return the sonic damage favor.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Rich has the right emoticon for this thread.

Not actually the case. If they delayed until after Vaarsuvius acted then their initiatives, for the rest of the combat, are set to "just after Vaarsuvius."

I think GWc was thinking of a Held Action, which only applies to that round.

I'm looking forward to V's next turn. There's a lot she can do here for the Order. Hasting everyone would be fun. I wonder if she ever picked up Sunburst? She has Bigsby's Clenched Fist, Mind Blank and Dimensional Lock for 8ths, and we know she got Mind Blank in Tinkertown, so it's possible Sunburst was one of her choices for level 15/16. She's burned her normal 8th-level slots, but she'd have one more for Evocation, and that would be the obvious choice against vampires.

V already cast her Mind Blanks on herself and Roy, so the 8th she lost when level drained would've been the Evocation by default. And lost spells don't come back with Restoration.

[Shining Wrath]

I mean unless Hilgya also dumped Knowledge: Religion, she knows this is not the real Durkon. She has to kill the vampire, rez it, then kill Durkon

She seems unclear on whether or not Durkon^T is actually Durkon. For example, #1108 and #1109 where she thinks Durkon recently boinked Minrah and Haley, respectively.

Writing in the forums (and so not canon) I recall Rich saying way back that it incredibly obscure knowledge in the stickverse that vampires are negative energy spirits that control their hosts. Hilgya might have to max Knowledge: Religion to know this. We see from the godsmoot that Durkon* didn't expect too many clerics to know about him except for very high level ones.

Even if Hilgya knows it, she knows Durkon's in there, and so maybe she figures if she kills Durkon* he'll still feel it. The real question is whether she'll feel like rezzing him when its all over.

It's possible she'll think she's killed Durkon by killing his body (especially if she does so painfully), and then be willing to resurrect him as she's had her revenge. It might seem weird, but she's CHAOTIC, and random stuff like purple giraffes are her forte.

[Kish]

I think GWc was thinking of a Held Action, which only applies to that round.

There's no such thing as a "held action" in the SRD, as far as I can tell.

If you mean a readied action, just down the page from what I linked...

Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.

If not, can you link to the kind of action you mean? 'Cause it appears to me that if you act later than the initiative you rolled for any reason, that's your initiative from then on.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Writing in the forums (and so not canon) I recall Rich saying way back that it incredibly obscure knowledge in the stickverse that vampires are negative energy spirits that control their hosts. Hilgya might have to max Knowledge: Religion to know this. We see from the godsmoot that Durkon* didn't expect too many clerics to know about him except for very high level ones.

The exact quote you’re looking for is this one, although I’d argue forum statements can be part of the canon.

[Kish]

The exact quote you’re looking for is this one, although I’d argue forum statements can be part of the canon.

Got a Catch-22 there. One of Rich's forum statements is that things he says on the forum aren't canon.

(It was when someone pointed out that when the Unholy Blight strip had gone up, he'd said "You can see from this that all the Order members except Belkar are Good"--something he didn't want to be bound to for the obvious red-robed verbose elf reason.)

[warmachine]

For someone who didn't know the basic physics of healing, undead and positive/negative energy until a few seconds ago, Elan worked out a practical application very quickly.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Dammit, I never noticed they rewrote that when they did the revision. Actually, now it looks like there is no real difference between a Delay and a Ready.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Got a Catch-22 there. One of Rich's forum statements is that things he says on the forum aren't canon.

(It was when someone pointed out that when the Unholy Blight strip had gone up, he'd said "You can see from this that all the Order members except Belkar are Good"--something he didn't want to be bound to for the obvious red-robed verbose elf reason.)

This is somewhat awkward, so I’ll recover by saying “can” is doing a lot of work in my statement.

More seriously, I tend to view most canons as having different tiers, with the published work being the highest, and forum statements more towards the bottom. So, they can all be canon, just some are less accurate than others.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Actually, it's simpler. When Rich wants something said in the forums to be canon, he declares it so. For instance, Hinjo's color blindness.

[Anarion]

The color palette on that flamestrike is really cool. Conveys the washed out super bright flame effect really well. Also

[Sutremaine]

I like to think that V was just about Good early on in the comic, but going down to Belkar's level to feud with him nudged her alignment south.

[Jasdoif]

I'm reminded of the Burn Everything feat from 4e. I usually allow it in 3.5 games because, frankly, everyone and their grandmas resist fire and that's just no fun if you like to burn stuff.

So...it's a non-metamagic version of Searing Spell?

[Shining Wrath]

Reminder: half of Flame Strike's damage is divine, and not affected by Fire Resistance. So if Ponchella did make her save, she would have taken 20 damage out of 40, not 10.

I agree. 20 is still not significant unless someone puts some more hurt on Ponchella or Curls next round - but scathe is being dealt. The one Order member off-screen is Roy. Everyone but the clerics is in panel #2, Minrah shows up in panel #4, and then Hilgya burns it all down. I have to think that Roy is going to smack some vampires around with green flame next time we see him. That may not be strip #1120, as that might, possibly, be entirely a behind-the-eyes dialogue.

[Fyraltari]

MOUHAHAHAHAHAHA, YES! BURN, BURN! BY FIRE BE PURGED!

*Ahem*

Elan is as hilarious as ever, naturally.

Thanks for the reminder. It appears that it just saved him some lost HP. I suppose that makes it a good investment.

Nice one.

[LadyEowyn]

Okay, I'm starting to think Durkon was a pretty poor cleric, because Hilgya seems to be contributing a lot more to this fight that he typically did (with the exception of Holy Word in the pyramid fight).

[The MunchKING]

Which now makes me wonder if Hel can do something to prevent the resurrection of souls in her domain. A raid on literal hell could be an interesting last act for the book.

CAN?? Possibly. She's a Goddess of Death. WILL? Almost certainly not, her plans are hinging on everyone of the Gods following if not the spirit, the letter of the Rules.

That's not the time to start rocking the apple cart. Especially without significant gains for it. No way she's going to do it just to help a Cleric of Loki, unless the cleric casts one of the spells provided for that purpose.

[Rrmcklin]

Okay, I'm starting to think Durkon was a pretty poor cleric, because Hilgya seems to be contributing a lot more to this fight that he typically did (with the exception of Holy Word in the pyramid fight).

Not really a fair comparison when they knew what was coming in advance, and actually bothered to plan things out. They've emphasized that's why things are going this way, so I'm not sure why people keep forgetting it.

That, and this battle is seemingly just really plays to a cleric's strengths, and a chaotic (or chaos domain, whatever) strengths even more so.

[Jay R]

I get the feeling that Rich, who is a very knowledgeable D&D player, has been frustrated for years at the fact that he had to run the party incompetently for humor's sake, and is letting it all out now.

[Fyraltari]

I get the feeling that Rich, who is a very knowledgeable D&D player, has been frustrated for years at the fact that he had to run the party incompetently for humor's sake, and is letting it all out now.

Less for humour's sake and more for goodstorytelling's sake. There's no drama if the heroes win.

[tyckspoon]

Dammit, I never noticed they rewrote that when they did the revision. Actually, now it looks like there is no real difference between a Delay and a Ready.

Delay makes you hold until another initiative count, but you have freedom to decide when to act. Ready allows you to respond to and interrupt a specific other action, and doesn't go off until and unless the specified trigger happens. You can lose your turn entirely if you Ready for something that ends up never happening, where Delay will eventually end up with 'well, every other participant in this fight went, it's your turn now.'

Okay, I'm starting to think Durkon was a pretty poor cleric, because Hilgya seems to be contributing a lot more to this fight that he typically did (with the exception of Holy Word in the pyramid fight).

I dunno, that Mass Death Ward spell he researched would have been really handy here.. One of the things that keeps getting bought up in the story arc here is Durkon's passivity. Things tend to happen to him rather than him happening to other things; even in the situations where he's a key part of resolving it, he tends to be acting in support of another character (the Control Weather to blow up the treants, the 'My response is Giant Dwarf' scene in the battle for Azure City where he rescued Hinjo.. I'm sure there's other examples I'm not recalling right now.) So his style of cleric-ing is very traditional buff-and-healbot. Hilgya seems to be more a person who happens to other people, so her approach to combat and usage of her spellcasting is likewise more aggressive.

[Mandor]

Hm. I'm not clear on exactly how she gets to do a Pierce-Through-Protection-Flame-Strike, but Thor could not ignore Greg's Control Weather on the boat. Maybe Loki can get away with it because it's Cleric V Cleric, not Deity V Cleric?

We don't need that Domain Agreement being broken here though.....

[Yendor]

Hm. I'm not clear on exactly how she gets to do a Pierce-Through-Protection-Flame-Strike, but Thor could not ignore Greg's Control Weather on the boat. Maybe Loki can get away with it because it's Cleric V Cleric, not Deity V Cleric?

Because it's explicitly part of Flame Strike's effect?

A flame strike produces a vertical column of divine fire roaring downward. The spell deals 1d6 points of damage per caster level (maximum 15d6). Half the damage is fire damage, but the other half results directly from divine power and is therefore not subject to being reduced by resistance to fire-based attacks.

[Mandor]

It's not really all that surprising to me that the Order isn't having a lot of problems here. I mean, Roy by himself was pretty close to a match for Durkula and it wasn't until about half-way through that he took the fight completely seriously. With the buffing from V and Hilgya, this SHOULD be a bit of a cake-walk for the order, shouldn't it? What I'm wondering is how Rich is going to provide tension - gate in a couple of devils, maybe?

Do we know exactly where Durkon's da collapsed the tunnels to trap the Draconic Fire-Breathing Troll? Might they have unearthed it? And Vampirized it?

[Fyraltari]

Because it's explicitly part of Flame Strike's effect?

I assumed that was why the "empowered" part was for.

[Mandor]

Because it's explicitly part of Flame Strike's effect?

Ah. OK. Last time I dealt with sourcebooks for D&D was 1991, so .... yea. I suppose I should expect many things to have changed out from under me. Thanks for the link / correction.