Order of the Stick: September I

[Nikolai_II]

Excellent comic, as always, but...

Border on the Keep & The Silver Princess were D&D adventure, not AD&D.

But there was a little note that said:

"With minor modifications, is suitable for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons"

http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/ModPages/B1.html

And the Silver Princess has to be mentioned what with all the myths (and truths) surrounding that adventure.

-

And yes, it is funny anyway :)

[Sebastian]

Yet again something very strange in the world of D&D.

That's nothing.

In AD&D you were a better rider when you are ninety years old than 20. :)

[Lilly]

"Sorry Haley, I can't hear you. I'm intentionally failing my listen check." is the best quote ever.

[evileeyore]

A++.

I've been awaiting the "and we liked it line" for ever.

Ah now my life is complete.

[Tanikova]

Now really.... how realistic is it to hear that kind of dialoge in real life???? never mind in the Ad&D universe.... I can still hear that type of comments and delibertly tuning it out with me and my parental units....

[OldFart]

This comic was ... so ... d*mn ... funny.

I finally now know which OotS character I'm most like - the dirt farmers husband !!

BTW - it's not just wisdom. Your spot and listen checks go up with age because you actually begin to Pay Attention. ;)

[Devils_Advocate]

Perfect Explanation for the three arms:

Elan mistakingly cast a 3.0 spell in a 3.5 world! THis probalbly caused the problem.

The 3.5 spell Disguise Self appears to be identical to the 3.0 spell Change Self... except that Change Self was not a bard spell, at least according to the hypertext 3.0 SRD that I checked. Presumably, Elan found out that he could now cast a spell previously limited to sorcerers and wizards (and Clerics with the Trickery domain) without learning that its name had changed. So yeah, I guess that the improper somatic component could account for the oddity.

(I wonder if he swapped that in on one of the group's level ups or if it just replaced one of his old spells upon conversion to 3.5.)

Not only are old people better-sighted, they're SEX-AY!!!!!!

Ah, the beauty of aging in a magical fantasy land.

I think of gaining Charisma with age more as becoming a respected elder, someone who seems to know what he or she is talking about.

...I think I'll just keep thinking about it that way.

BTW - it's not just wisdom. Your spot and listen checks go up with age because you actually begin to Pay Attention. ;)

Ah, but paying attention is a part of being wise. That's why Spot and Listen are based on Wis. (Or is it "based off of", as the old man says? Curse this nonsensical language! Curse it, I say!)

I've been awaiting the "and we liked it line" for ever.

That one is truly a classic. (I think the bit originated on Saturday Night Live, as King Troll sugguested.)

I think I completely misinterpreted Haley's final comment at first. I thought that she was complaining that this wasn't very funny, probably because she's one of the people who have to put up with this guy (and thus was suggesting that Rich had "crafted" a "bad gag"). After rereading, I'm guessing that the intended meaning was different. So, what, she doesn't have any more of the gags they used on Nale and Thog? Presumably, they didn't make those from available materials on the spot if she doesn't already know the Craft DC. Maybe someone else has them, but that seems like the sort of thing the party rogue would be in charge of.

;D

[Sylvius]

Not only are old people better-sighted, they're SEX-AY!!!!!!

I don't know. I find I'm growing more crotchety with age.

[silvadel]

Yep Keep on the Borderlands -- I remember that one (Showing MY age again)...

It would REALLY be hard on the characters in the game if it was in real time -- I mean every 5 years major changes would happen -- I mean back in D&D ELF was a CLASS....

[Starbuck_II]

Does that mean 5 years ago V changed from Elf to Wizard?

I kinda liked it when you had 18 00's possible for Strength, I mean getting them was really a achievement. I got Str 18 95' last time I played AD&D.

now rolling an 18 is just an 18.

Is that dirt under his eyes supposed to be a mustache?
I notice he has ear hair too, eww.

[King_Troll]

ok, I found it. It was SNL - Weekend Update with Dennis Miller (when he was funny) and the Grumpy Old Man Character played by Dana Carvey.

Somebody is nice enough to archive it here:
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/89/89qupdate.phtml

<a snippet>
Life was a carnival! We entertained ourselves! We didn't need moooovin' pitchurrrres. In my day, there was only one show in town -- it was called "Stare at the sun!" ... That's right! You'd sit in the middle of an open field and stare up at the sun till your eyeballs burst into flames! And you thought, "Oh, no! Maybe I shouldn't've stared directly into the burning sun with my eyes wide open." But it was too late! Your head was on fire and people were roastin' chickens over it. ... And that's the way it was and we liked it!

Oh, and just in Case you need some visual aids for Grumpy Old Man...
http://snl.jt.org/char.php?i=241

[Eloco]

Oh yes the good ole days...

When miniatures were made out of lead.

When dice came in your choice of blue or blue.

When you had to bring food because they didnt deliver pizza and the only diet soda was Tab.

When you told your parents and friends you were playing poker so they didnt think you were wierd or joined a cult.

Oh yes, I remember it well..

[Lawful_Stupid]

"And we would walk uphill in the snow to OUR dungeons, both ways!"

Hehe, sounds just like my grandparents, only replace "dungeon" with "everything but dungeon". Now to figure out how you could go uphill to get somewhere, then go uphill again to return to your starting point...


Great comic as always Rich. It won't be long now until you accomplish your dream of crushing the world poltical order with your unstoppable army of zombie webcomic readers.

[Darasen]

Keep of the Borderland Yea !! fun dungeon. There were a couple incidents in that dungeon that have lived since. At least in my gaming circle.

[Jades]

Great comic, Giant. I bow to you for your genius.

Just as a side note, I go to and from school uphill both ways every day. This is because my school is on a (read: several) hills and I go uphill for class, then take a bus trip down hill to get to my second half of the day, and walk back up to my dorm. So, it is possible.

[Ilaun_Undil]

Well since everyone else is saying how good it is, I'm going to make up something else to say about it. How many Cliche's are we facing here? lol. Unfortuantely, I'm just a whippersnapper myself, but lead Miniatures do sound like fun!!!

[The_Shadow]

It just goes to show... Just when you think OoTS can't possibly get any better - IT DOES!

Rich, you're a genius! This one brought tears to my eyes!

[Winged One]

"I wonder what the Craft DC for a gag is." ;D

But wouldn't it be a Use Rope check?

[Jades]

Only if the gag was to be used to strangle the old man.

[Mad_Max]

"I wonder what the Craft DC for a gag is." ;D

But wouldn't it be a Use Rope check?

Most likely but, "Craft DC for a gag" just sounds better. ;)

[Slibs]

Bah. I remember when only thieves were allowed to climb. Anything. Walls, cliffs, trees. Sometimes if you ran into a tough DM your fighter wasn't even allowed to climb stairs.

[ybn1197]

Oh yes the good ole days...

When miniatures were made out of lead.

When dice came in your choice of blue or blue.

And you had to color in the numbers with a crayon otherwise you couldn't tell one sde of the die from another.
And the d4 had one number on each side so you had to either pick up the die to tell the result or look at the other three sides and figure out the missing number.

[Mercutio01]

I liked Non Weapon Proficiencies and percentile checks to pick pockets and bend bars... To hell with these skill things...

Bah.

[GreyRat]

Ah yes, the days when it was impossible for any PC to make most of the commonly used magical items. They all required 10,000 GP plus rare monster body-parts, and half of the descriptions began "this item appears to be a perfectly normal (whatever-it-is) of poor quality". ;D

I missed D&D, but I remember needing to roll good enough stats to qualify for a class, and being excited at the 10% 'good stat' EP bonus. Oooh, I remember getting my first dice set! Sigh... (Great, now I want to go dice shopping. ::) )

[Nivrim]

Bah. I remember when only thieves were allowed to climb. Anything. Walls, cliffs, trees. Sometimes if you ran into a tough DM your fighter wasn't even allowed to climb stairs.

My 1st ever AD&D character was a Ranger, whose name I've chosen as my board name. I was told to make DEX checks for every 10 feet of a perfectly ordinary tree I climbed. If I failed, I fell. All the way to the ground. I took 2 falls at 20 feet (15 Dex) and gave up while I had some HP left. :(

[maxon]

Is that dirt under his eyes supposed to be a mustache?

NO those are supposed to be bags under his eyes - he's O-L-D remember.

[Aeek]

Excellent comic, as always, but...

Border on the Keep & The Silver Princess were D&D adventure, not AD&D.
D&D had no NWP (correct me if I'm wrong), but something introduced in the gazeteers and creature crucibles called "Skills", which is a simplified form of NWP.

Haley's Dad is a D&D Thief, so why shouldn't the oldtimer have been D&D in his time?
As for NWP, so he's using modern terms, he is talking to young'ns after all.

[Chlodwig]

My 1st ever AD&D character was a Ranger, whose name I've chosen as my board name. I was told to make DEX checks for every 10 feet of a perfectly ordinary tree I climbed. If I failed, I fell. All the way to the ground. I took 2 falls at 20 feet (15 Dex) and gave up while I had some HP left. :(

Oh, I remember those. Climbing anything over 20 feet was more dangerous than beeing in a major battle even with an 18 dex.

But the worst thing happenening to me was building a 2 weapon specialised fighter and finding out the GM had a VISCIOUS home rule crit table which he used everytime you rolled a 1 on an attack roll. And with 4 to 6 attacks a round it usually took me all of 2 or 3 rounds of combat before my fighter crit failed himself out of the fight.

[Nihility]

I liked Non Weapon Proficiencies and percentile checks to pick pockets and bend bars... To hell with these skill things...Bah.

Switch to Lejendary Adventure. In case you don't know, it's a RPG system created by Gary Gygax (the man!) and it uses ability scores which each cover a variety of skills. The ability scores are each a certain percentage of your character's base ratings. Your top ability of course gets a high percentage of its governing base rating and each consecutive ability gets a progressively lower percentage. So when making an ability check to successfully use a certain skill, you roll D100 and try to roll under your score. I like it much more than any D20 system I've tried, and it's usually the only system my group plays.

[Techonce]

Oh yes the good ole days...

When miniatures were made out of lead.

When dice came in your choice of blue or blue.

I don't know about blue, but I have most of a set of old yellow dice from a D&D Basic set. The things are so beaten up the d12 is close to round and the plastic is starting to break down.

I definitly do not miss all of the tables and frigging saving throws. And lets not get started on THAC0. I only played a little bit of AD&D, with Shadowrun and a homegrown system filling the gap for most of the time. I have few complaints about d20.

I do miss the treasure tables from BD&D. Dragons were type I or H right? THen again, maybe I don't...