OOTS #599 - The Discussion Thread

[Enigma95]

All I can say is ->

[Mercenary Pen]

1) Anyone else notice the mistake in the last 3 panels? The imp is still wounded. But imps recover 2 HP per round from their fast healing ability. He should have been back to full health by now.

That merely suggests that a) less time has actually passed than we thought OR b) Qarr is a higher level than just your basic imp, therefore possessing more hit dice, and took more overall damage (possibly some collateral damage whilst requisitioning the Pit Fiend)...

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AND if the imp is a higher level than normal, whatever it may have levels in, that would make it a tougher fight for V (if this actually comes to combat) than just V vs. Random Imp #726... It gets even more interesting if we have either a class with decent saving throw progression or the ability to cast higher level spells right back.

[Dalek Kommander]

The first couple of frames in the second page are an interesting turn around from the last strip. Elan tries to let Vaarsuvius know that he'll be telling Hinjo the truth, but is not understood because Vaarsuvius isn't listening. Then because he didn't get through to Vaarsuvius, he isn't up to following through.

Just because Varsuuvius doesn't care doesn't mean he doesn't understand. Goodness knows I've ended more than one role playing misadventure by saying "Well, there's another town I can never go back to..." ;)

As for Elan lying to Hinjo, I chalk that up to the fact that as a bard, he is chaotic good, and does not actually see the point in stirring up more trouble just for the sake of a "broken law".

[TigerHunter]

Elan? Hello? He was trying to escape, and V offed him. That's your story and you're sticking to it.

And pretending that the bad guy was trying to escape when you killed him is the most cliche way of offing someone without a trial, so it's not like he's not creative enough to think up a lie. As V said, he's the Bard. He can tell a good story.

[Manoftyr]

Hrrrrmn, interesting...while I doubt V will become a longterm villain, possibly a short-term one depending on how much influence Qarr can exert over him but definitely not a long term one, I do foresee some considerable problems for Elan in the near future due to a certain annoyingly short sighted and self-righteous Paladin once again putting the letter of the law above the spirit of the law (imho Hinjo is little if any better than Miko) and the innocent will suffer in the wake of the ever-purging 'glorious crusade' of Lawful-Stupidity, the same thing that lead to the downfall of Azure City actually, hurrah for the Paladins and hurrah for dead Goblin women and children pip pip cheerio and all that.

...by the gods I want Hinjo to die 'so' badly, I'm still hoping V...or really 'anyone' ends up killing him somehow for any reason really, the way he betrayed his father without considering his reasons for hiding the truth and sat idly by as Miko bisected him condemns him utterly in my eyes...loyalty to your family and your kin>loyalty to the letters of the law if you lose sight of that then you are simply 'not' a good person no matter how much shiny blue clothing you wear or how brightly blue you shine when someone casts a spell on you, at least in my eyes.

I'm still pulling for the gang all reuniting at some point in the not too distant future though, hopefully 'far' away from meddling Azurites.

[Lord Seth]

You know, I know I'm supposed to be thinking "Wow! What a twist! I wonder what's going to happen next?" but all I can think is "Oh, great, ANOTHER twist that'll just serve to make the story actually get moving even later."

[AstralFire]

If Elan wasn't Elan I would suggest that some part of him wants Hinjo to know but in such a way that no trouble is caused.

[Kish]

Haley doesn't know whether Sabine is a demon or a devil.

More important is that Nale apparently doesn't either, as he wanted to use scissors which were neither silver nor cold iron.

Considering that, I concur with malakim2099: It's meant to be unclear as a running gag.

[Ragn Charran]

You know, I know I'm supposed to be thinking "Wow! What a twist! I wonder what's going to happen next?" but all I can think is "Oh, great, ANOTHER twist that'll just serve to make the story actually get moving even later."

Sadly I find that I have to agree.

[Dalek Kommander]

Actually, i believe, since imps can see alignment auras, the imp is seeing someone who is evil, and wants a new master... evil characters can have imps as advanced familiars.

Well, I don't know if he's turned completely evil yet, but he's certainly ripe for the classic imp-on-the-shoulder "join the dark side, you know you wanna" speech.

Yes, I think that if the imp believes it can manipulate V, it is sorely mistaken. V is not Kubota. Kubota was a shortsighted vain selfish man. V is, above all things, loyal to his friends, especially to Haley and Roy.

Even if that's true, it doesn't make a bit of difference. As long as V is grimly focused on achieving ANY goal with such single-minded determination, he is WIDE open to temptation offered in the form of "help".

I actually suspect Kubota, in his pure selfishness, had a better understanding of the full market value of his own soul.

V seems to have gone from True Neutral Alignment straight to Lawful Evil, if indeed he/she is evil, and not still neutral.

Why lawful? If anything, chaotic. If he was lawful evil, he would have found more use for his disposable red-shirted mooks... excuse me, his "beloved team-mates"... in the fight against the giant demon. He also probably should have shown a bit more interest in the laws that Kubota intended to bend to his whim, for his own purposes.

Varsuuvius does not see the value of his allies even as pawns. He's impulsive and irritable, rather than cool and devious. He sees laws as irritating obstacles, rather than tools to be bent to his own advantage. When you could take lessons from Belkar about how to be a more patient team player, you aren't lawful evil.

V definitely is NOT neutral evil; he may seem selfish to Durkon, but actually I think V is the exact opposite of selfish. V runs himself ragged to find Haley, and also for a greater goal: saving the world from Xykon. Yes, in the beginning V's goal was to attain "ultimate power" for himself... now he wants greater power to destroy Xykon and stop Recloak, which is far more noble. Becoming a lich to kill a lich?

Saving the world is not an intrinsically selfless goal, in light of the fact that he lives IN the world he is trying to save. Also, it's been suggested before and I see merit in it, that he isn't so much going crazy out of loyalty to Haley, but out of frustration that his MAGIC POWER is not sufficient to tear apart the fabric of reality that stands between him and any goal he chooses to set himself, which in this case just happens to be finding Haley.

[brilliantlight]

You misplaced your descriptors there - you mean barely defeated. The chance that all of those spells worked on a pit fiend of that power is fairly astronomical between saves, SR, and Prismatic Spray's inherent randomness. There's luck in strategy, and then there's sheer dumb luck.

Whatever that devil was it was NOT a pit fiend as pit fiends have superhuman intelligence and that one had Elan level intelligence.

[Finwe]

[QUOTE=AstralFire;5068885]Please don't jump into an argument where one person (me) is taking on about 3 or 4 and not read past posts; it leads to more typing and ring-around-rosie debating than necessary:

<snipped>QUOTE]

Yes, all the characters that you mentioned were capable of performing some potentially useful function, but what do you think V would have accomplished by working with the group? Almost everyone was incapable of harming the devil - only Hinjo and Argent really did any demonstrable damage to the devil, and it seemed pretty negligible.

[AstralFire]

I think I've already stated those things a few times now, and I'm not terribly interested in repeating myself again for yet another person to read only a few of the newest posts and continue the cycle.

[Ceric]

And yet I see no reason why I still need ye. You.

Despite the overall of the strip, that still made me laugh.

[Raven Blackwell]

Interesting...

Elan's right back to where Roy started from.

-Frank

That is an interesting point. After Roy's death, Elan has been slowly assuming the leadership position of his half of the OOtS because both Durkon and V are followers, not leaders, leaving Elan leader by default. Indeed his every decision since has been based on 'what would Roy do' and in the process unconsciously shaping himself into Roy's image as best he can. Thus we have come full circle. Roy was very much Elan's father figure in the begining and now after he is gone Elan has assumed his role. Hmmm. It would be an interesting twist if Roy never gets resurrected and the the remnants of the OOtS and allies had to save the world themselves, no? But it's very Joesph Campell 'Hero With a Thousand Faces'......

As for V and her/his 'four words' I can see a very easy interpretation. He/she could get ultimate power easily by saying four words to the right being (Qarr) for the wrong reason (wanting power despite the cost). They are:

"We have a deal"

Of course, just because the prophecy says V could do it, doesn't mean V will do it. But V's judgment is severely off kilter at the moment. Such an offer would be the make of break point of V's entire existence is he/she takes the deal or not. Elan's decision to let the unstable and possibly insane powerhouse that V is go shows the boy's Wisdom score is rising. Better no ally than one you can't trust.....

[David Argall]

But in the context of the comic, they ARE four words. And the target of the spells was Kubota (and well, the Kubota-dust afterwards).

Which means Kubota never heard 3 of those four words. And the target of a spell is normally not someone you are speaking to. In other words, we are having to make quite a stretch here, and so far the prophecies have been rather straight-forward.

To him, disintegrating Kubota has no significant importance,

Which is another reason to reject the incident as prophecy important. Haley may not have known when her prophecy came due, but she and we knew it was an important decision.

It also set into motion a chain of events that led to ...

And why should we deem this the start of a chain of events? We can just as easily start with any event before or after this. And we can predict several future events where 4 words will be spoken to someone that are much more likely to be plot relevant. The shorter the chain the better.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Qarr could well have been working with Kubota to take over Azure City in the first place, so that he could get access to the Sapphire Gate.

But this is evidence of absence.
Imagine yourself Kubota [or his advisor] and you know of the Gate. Now you are told the lich is coming and he wants the Gate. Two strategies suggest themselves.
a-be a "hero" and very publically lead your troops to the wall to defend the city. [Less publically, there will several assassins after Hinjo, who is to be given a lovely funeral as you praise him for his sacrifice in dying to save the city]. If all goes well, you end up the new ruler with control of the Gate.
b-Proclaim a, while sending a ninja or Qarr to make a deal with Xykon. At a convenient moment, your troops step to the side and the hobs sweep in. You don't get to rule the city this way, but you get a pretty high post in the new world government.

What you don't do is...
c-flee the city and wait for the lich to leave the Gate he came here to control. You know the lich is not going to leave. This strategy makes no sense if you know about the Gate.
It does make sense if you don't know of the Gate and your ambitions are little more than to rule the city. Then you see the Lich as simply a giant raider, who will leave the city in a week or a month. If you leave the city first, all your enemies get killed defending the city and you can come back and "chase away" the enemy as he leaves. And you get to rule the city.
But we know Kubota did do c, and we know Kubota was well informed and intelligent. Since he would not leave the city if he knew about the Gate, he didn't know.

...by the gods I want Hinjo to die 'so' badly, I'm still hoping V...or really 'anyone' ends up killing him somehow for any reason really, the way he betrayed his father

It was his uncle, and Uncle had done the betraying.

and sat idly by as Miko bisected him

He was trying to stop her, but she was too fast. Note that Roy did even less to stop her.

[Hithros]

Wait....how does talking(or something) to V get the imp back on the boat?

also.....

[Pun Pun]

The Imp is actually my only hope for V at this point. I really hope in his attempts to coerce V to evil, he will allow the elf to realize exactly how insane he/she has become. Then V can get back to the Order and apologies. The insane destructive V just isn't as charming as the wizard that put an entire room of goblins to sleep with a speech, or blew countless foes (including 1 teammate) away with explosive runes. Here is hoping for a resolution and soon.

[Scarlet Knight]

You know, considering elves are so long lived, you'd think Vaarsuvius would be more patient...

[TehSheen]

Personally, I think Qarr will turn V into a Lich. Think of the possibilities!

[brilliantlight]

Personally, I think Qarr will turn V into a Lich. Think of the possibilities!

What's this obsession of V becoming a lich? She seems to be sliding quickly into evil but she isn't stupid. Lichdom would be a power down not a power up for V. It is an LA+4 adjustment. I hope you enjoy not getting spells for the next four levels V.

[dps]

I still wonder why Elan lied to Hinjo. he could have just told Hinjo that V did it, Hinjo asks "where's V?"
Elan says "V flew away."

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I think it's so that Hinjo won't try to go after V. Not because of loyalty to V, but because he thinks that a pursuit might be dangerous to Hinjo and other Azurites.

[Superglucose]

All I can say is that it looks like the end of this current viewing of the Boat People. And to that? Thank god.

Let's get back to Haley and Belkar and... the sylph.

It's more interesting, less aggravating. Especially since Belkar is actually under MORE control than V at the moment.

[Hectonkhyres]

Yup... looks like V might have found ***self a replacement familiar now that *** raven has proven itself utterly useless.
It fits. It really does.

[Liwen]

Well, issue #600 is still a guess. Might be Qarr's death, well sort of die, since he would just be send back whatever dimensio he comes from, a feature of outsiders which I hope they have removed in the 4th edition (Why can big bads just stay dead anyway?).

Might also be V siding with Qarr, which I find highly probable at the moment. That would make this story line a cliché of good guy turning bad because of her weakenesses and becoming a major atagonist up to the point where V will get a trance.

Might be a switch to Haley's storyline, with a manoeuver similar to what Rich did for this comic. If so, I sense corporeal Roy coming back! :)

[Llelldorin]

Especially since Belkar is actually under MORE control than V at the moment.

It is a nice bit of parallelism, though, that both Haley and Elan, as the by-default leaders of their halves of OOtS, have each had to throw a member off the team. Roy was deft enough to keep V and Belkar each pointed mostly downrange; Elan and Haley aren't quite as good.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

: I wunder if e's ne'er comin' back?
: I think the more important question is: If he's going to act this way on Hinjo's junk, do we even want him back?
: 'er
: whatever

[Liwen]

Forgot to mention this in my previous post. I totally love the way Qarr says a new Oppurtunity has showed up. Great D&Dsation of that expression.

[banjo1985]

Well, all I can say is good. Nice to get rid of V for a while, I must admit I haven't liked him one bit recently. This fragments the Order further, but I can see Durkon and Elan getting more done now they don't have to watch a half crazy elf all the time.

[pjackson]

Nevermind - I should have read the whole thread before replying