The Order Of The Stick: January

[Sundog]

" Atleast in Norwegian, Saturday (Lørdag) is from Bathing or Washing Day (Laugr-Dag.) Tuesday (Tirsdag) is quite clearly from Tyr's Dag.
(Tu? Never seen that spelling. Are we talking about the same god here?)"

Yeah, we are, but via a rather tortured linguistic history. The name entered english via the Danelaw, at the same time as there was a strong Celtic influence from both Welsh and Bretogne - thus the confusion as to where exactly "tuesday" comes from.

As for the Frigga possibility for Friday, I hadn't heard that one before, but it makes as much sense as anything else.

Regarding Lordag (sorry, I have no idea how to get accents from this keyboard), I think you might find that Nowegian changed the name due to the influence of the Catholic Church. The Norse Pantheon was never strongly worshipped in England, so the use of the names of those gods wouldn't have bothered the church there, but in areas where the Pantheon was once strong they would have deliberately attempted to eliminate any reference to it - at least, that is the pattern elsewhere.

[Wanderer]

That is kind of the problem about using animals as creative trap disarmaments/absoloutly insane dungeon clearance items.

IE: driving herds of sheep ahead of you in the dungeon. Detects traps, monsters, and gelatinous cubes.

:o I never thought of that! What a brilliant use of sheep! I mean, we polymorphed a hydra into a sheep once, and then later when we ran into a room full of Beholders, we tossed the sheep in and slammed the door quickly... (man were those Beholders surprised!) But we never thought of using animals as some sort of early warning system. That's perfect!

[DrSpoon]

:o I never thought of that! What a brilliant use of sheep! I mean, we polymorphed a hydra into a sheep once, and then later when we ran into a room full of Beholders, we tossed the sheep in and slammed the door quickly... (man were those Beholders surprised!) But we never thought of using animals as some sort of early warning system. That's perfect!

Well you could do that but then there is also the possibility of any Druids and/or Rangers taking offense at this and doing nasty things to you with pointy objects

[Knight13]

that's why you make sure that there is no one within a 10-mile radius before doing it.

[L_Opoponax]

my ex would roll an orc head down the dungeon corridor ahead of him. That works well, unless the DM has enough intellect (read, 'more than a flea,') and rules that the traps aren't triggered by something that small... or dead, or low-to-the-ground, or whatever.

[Wanderer]

Hmm... we tend to use the "Throw a copper piece in/on/at it and see what happens!" approach. Although sometimes we prefer the "Hmm... (insert name here) isn't here tonight. Let's let his character go first." ;D

[Aidan305]

Hmm... we tend to use the "Throw a copper piece in/on/at it and see what happens!" approach. Although sometimes we prefer the "Hmm... (insert name here) isn't here tonight. Let's let his character go first." ;D

Always a favourite ;D

[Woolysock]

Thor from the Asgardian pantheon is red haired. Both the classic Thor and the Thor from "Deities and Demigods".
The only Thor who's blonde is the Marvel variant.

I mean Odin is displayed with all his common features (one eyed, Huginn and Muninn around him, and Gungnir in his hand).
Thor's red beard is one of his most important features, one of his names even is "the red".

Come on! What the hell kind of good are GODLY powers if you can't change your hair colour?? If Zeus can change into a bull to better impregnate women, then I think Thor can manage to change the colour of his hair.
I'm sure even gods like to go incognito once in a while.

[Caledonian]

The word 'absolutely' is misspelled. The 'e' and the 'l' were transposed.

Nice work parodying the justifications for arbitrary parties to stick together, Giant. Or is it a parody...?

[Ashlock]

Another excellent episode. I love the "popping" in of Roy's depiction.

[Aidan305]

True. And Haley must have rolled pretty low on her sense motive check to believe that story. I mean, even Elan found holes in it.

[Marller]

Haley threw a natural 1. ;D

[Sundog]

Not to mention, the fact she's probably relying on her near supernatural ability to get more than the rest of the party when it comes to treasure...

[Circon]

-your arbitrary rules, like "don't kill Elan."

LOL! ;D

[GypsyThorn]

I'm back on my kick that OOTS is a reflection of an actual group of gamers playing a group of characters. (...but I recognize that what we have here is indeed a group of stick figures and speech/thought balloons drawn on a piece of paper that will do anything Rich or Keith tells them to...) (...while at the same time it conceivably could be a group of characters running an artist, depending on how firmly rooted in reality I happened to be at any particular time.)

In any case, IF there were an actual group of gamers, what happened today was the players running Haley and Belkar role-playing their character's natural reluctance to go on the side-trip, but looking for any reason whatsoever to justify their character's decision to go with. (Only NPCs need to roll 1s on a Sense Motive. Players can have their characters decide to ignore whatever they want.) Hey, given a choice as a player between going on a questionable side-quest or sitting off to the side and playing "Pirates" for six hours, I'd find a reason to go gaming any time.

[Tarlonniel]

Right on, GypsyThorn. Hmmmm.... I wonder if Haley and Belkar will ever "realize" what it is their players did to them?

[Knight13]

Roy probably needed that natural 20 to beat Haley's Sense Motive. Most of you people don't seem to realize that Haley didn't need to roll a 1, Roy got a 20, as long as Haley didn't get a 20 as well Roy automatically wins.

[Narfink]

No, if Haley has any Sense Motive Ranks and any charisma modifier she probably beats Roy.

Skills do not automatically succeed on a natural roll of 20.

Additionally (from the SRD):

Opposed Checks
An opposed check is a check whose success or failure is determined by comparing the check result to another character’s check result. In an opposed check, the higher result succeeds, while the lower result fails. In case of a tie, the higher skill modifier wins. If these scores are the same, roll again to break the tie.

[Freeman333]

Haley didn't need to have rolled a 1 to have failed her Sense Motive, though it wouldn't have hurt. If Roy got a natural 20 with no ranks, and no Cha modifier (he seems like a good candidate for a 10 Cha if I've ever seen one), his score is 20. Assuming Haley is a 10th-level character (which is also reasonable, since the party is originally listed as being 7-9th level, and she's gained at least two levels in the course of the comic) then the most ranks she could have in Sense Motive is 13 (her level, 10, +3 for a class skill). If she has Skill Focus (Sense Motive) and Investigator (I think that's the one that gives you a +2 to Sense Motive, though I could be wrong), that's an additional +5, but I can't imagine Haley would spend her feats on a skill she uses that infrequently. Assuming a Wis bonus of +1 or +2, which again seems reasonable given her behavior (I imagine any stats she had +3 or +4 on would have been put into Dex or Cha, and very few characters have more than two stats with bonuses of +3 or higher), her Sense Motive check is probably between 13-17 at the most.

Thus, a roll of 1, 2 or 3 would likely have failed to beat Roy's 20, and while such a roll isn't enormously likely (three out of twenty, maybe a more mathematically inclined person could give us an actual statistical value for that) there's still a moderately decent chance that Roy could have beaten Haley with his bluff purely mathematically, and no other motivation was involved.

So, in short, I've made a bunch of completley unsupported assumptions and spent waaaaay too much time over-analyzing a statement meant to be taken as a joke, and not seriously, in the first place.

Do I love this strip, or what?

[DrDoom]

Hm, I'd think she has a +0 in Wis, as you need all other attributes more (ok, maybe on same level as ST). And I suppose she has a level of 10 at max, so I'd assume an 8 or 9, which puts her Sense Motive to 11-12.

Otoh, the "world" they are in could have just houseruled in critical Successess in Skill checks...


P.S.: There is always this "Speed of Plot"-thingie around....

[bedbugsareyummy]

Who woulda thunk that Roy would ever tell Elan not to be reasonable? ;D
This comic made my day after a bad day at school. ;)

[Freeman333]

Yeah, Elan's reasonability seems to have kind of an on/off switch; see strip #50: "Aw, those stories don't match up at all!" *Smack*

Maybe all the switch needs is a swift smack upside the head. Boy, Roy would love it if that were true, eh? "Crap! Need smart Elan!" *Smack* "Crap! Smart Elan is going to expose my flimsy deception!" *Smack* "Okay, this one is just for fun." *Smack*

Also: Haley seems to have a slightly better-than-average Wis, by my standard; she saw through the Linear Guild pretty quick (though that may have been pure Sense Motive, I guess) and she seems a hell of a lot more aware of herself and her surroundings than most of her compatriots. Of course, I guess that could just mean she's got 10 and everyone else (Durkon excepted) has below-average (though I could point out that Belkar was able to cast Cure Serious Wounds, a 3rd-level spell, after an Owl's Wisdom, putting his Wis no lower than 9, at least under 3.5 rules).

Did I say I'd spent too much time over-analyzing before? NOW I've spent too much time over-analyzing. And I'll do it again, mark my words.

[evileeyore]

No Haley suceeded her roll. But is going along with it, because A) she will be there for more looting, B) she can stay with Elan.

[Muisje]

B?
Are you suggesting a romance? ;)

[ShadowDragon8685]

No, I think he's flat-out accusing one of existing.

[Sebastian]

B?
Are you suggesting a romance? ;)

Well, duh !!! ::)

Just think what she did for Elan, she stole the cure potion from Belkar, she give him that rapier when his got broken and she didn't make him pay for either of them..

If it isn't love, I don't know what it is. ;D

[Muisje]

Good point. How could I have missed it? :-[
Perhaps I was too caught up with laughing at other OotS stuff.

[Pharazon]

I'll bet there really are King Giants in guarding that starmetal. And yet, saying that will cause it not to happen, so the bet is off.

And after what happened a couple of comics ago, I'm surprised Haley was convinced so easily... perhaps she was indeed looking for an excuse to come along, after all, every bit of gold would help getting her father out, and in a forest filled with creatures... what would be the odds of not making any profit at all?

[LordofOran]

Tru dat.

Don't kill Elan? Heh.

Belkar needs to grow wisdom based skills.

[Nim]

Belkar needs to grow wisdom, period.