Class and Level Geekery XV - What's the Damage of a Thrown Pineapple?

[zimmerwald1915]

Have we put Vaarsuvius' cantrip for picking bugs out of their teeth in their spell list?

Pretty sure that's just prestidigitation.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Besides, Minrah is lower level, and was a fighter before becoming a cleric, so her K:R would naturally be lower than Durkon's.

Depends. Are you just counting skill ranks, or including the base modifier from Ability? Because Durkon not recognizing that Loki is Thor's arch-nemesis suggests he has no Kn:Rel ranks.

[Flame of Anor]

Depends. Are you just counting skill ranks, or including the base modifier from Ability? Because Durkon not recognizing that Loki is Thor's arch-nemesis suggests he has no Kn:Rel ranks.

In 52 Durkon wishes he had more ranks in Knowledge: Religion, not any ranks.

[D.One]

In 52 Durkon wishes he had more ranks in Knowledge: Religion, not any ranks.

And that was some levels ago. He doesn't seem to have had a great improvement, though.

[Hans of Frysia]

Hey, I have a question for you guys (that may or may not have already been discussed to death, in which case I apologize):

If Hilgya is Chaotic Evil, how can she Turn Undead (comic #1105)? The vampires are running away from her, which I believe is specifically a result from Turn, rather than Rebuke (which makes them cower in fear, iirc).
I'm not questioning her alignment, it's been made relatively explicit, just confused about her turning.

[5a Violista]

There are a couple of different potential explanations, but (from what I can tell) this is the most-accepted one:

Loki, her god, has some sort of exception that grants some (or all) of his clerics Turning instead of Rebuking.

[b_jonas]

Hey, I have a question for you guys (that may or may not have already been discussed to death, in which case I apologize):

If Hilgya is Chaotic Evil, how can she Turn Undead (comic #1105)?

Yes, we did discuss this a lot earlier in this thread. It seemed clear enough that she can indeed Turn Undead. People argued a lot on whether she is Evil or Neutral, whether Loki is Evil or Neutral or Good, whether the OoTS universe follows the rules that a cleric's alignment must be close to the god's alignment, and whether Loki has a special exception to the rules because he hates the Undead. There was no clean agreement. People disagreed in how they interpreted the hints in the comics about alignments. People quoted various precedents of certain splatbooks where some gods gave exemptions from the priest alignment rule or from the Turn Undead rule, but it was unclear how common these exemptions were, how much exemption they generally allow, and how we'd guess the OoTS rules from them. In the end we decided that Hilgya was Chaotic Evil, but it wasn't an unambiguous consensus decision.

[Hans of Frysia]

There are a couple of different potential explanations, but (from what I can tell) this is the most-accepted one:

Loki, her god, has some sort of exception that grants some (or all) of his clerics Turning instead of Rebuking.

Yes, we did discuss this a lot earlier in this thread. It seemed clear enough that she can indeed Turn Undead. People argued a lot on whether she is Evil or Neutral, whether Loki is Evil or Neutral or Good, whether the OoTS universe follows the rules that a cleric's alignment must be close to the god's alignment, and whether Loki has a special exception to the rules because he hates the Undead. There was no clean agreement. People disagreed in how they interpreted the hints in the comics about alignments. People quoted various precedents of certain splatbooks where some gods gave exemptions from the priest alignment rule or from the Turn Undead rule, but it was unclear how common these exemptions were, how much exemption they generally allow, and how we'd guess the OoTS rules from them. In the end we decided that Hilgya was Chaotic Evil, but it wasn't an unambiguous consensus decision.

Thanks for the answers, and sorry for asking something that had been discussed already.

[MultitudeMan]

I don't want to trigger anyone here, but does anyone remember which incarnation of CaLG had the discussions about Tarquin's class options? I know it must be years ago, but I don't really want to trawl through ALL the threads trying to find the now-legendary dispute; I'm just mildly-to-moderately curious.

[Peelee]

I don't want to trigger anyone here, but does anyone remember which incarnation of CaLG had the discussions about Tarquin's class options? I know it must be years ago, but I don't really want to trawl through ALL the threads trying to find the now-legendary dispute; I'm just mildly-to-moderately curious.

Going back in comics by the 50s, Tarquin started roughly around 700. By the OOTS wiki, he ended at 936. Going back through the the previous thread versions and the discussion thread index, CLG IX is the farthest back I could find, but that's after Tarquin was introduced, and CLG XII started right before 936 came out. So XII definitely bookends one side, but the front end is going to be before IX. Regardless, you can still narrow it down to IX-XII for a decent range where Tarquin was probably heavily discussed. However, Tarquin's first fight was around 850, so the IX thread is probably going to see the lion's share of it (this investigation is very quick and dirty, so I'm not going to sit here and try to guess as to any resurgent Tarquin debates).

tl;dr - Try CLG IX.

Also, I vote to move the version history to the first post.

Thanks to Quartz for the version history, Lira and hamishspence for the Discussion Thread index, and Kurald Galain for the CLG. Cherish these people, MultitudeMan.

[MultitudeMan]

Going back in comics by the 50s, Tarquin started roughly around 700. By the OOTS wiki, he ended at 936. Going back through the the previous thread versions and the discussion thread index, CLG IX is the farthest back I could find, but that's after Tarquin was introduced, and CLG XII started right before 936 came out. So XII definitely bookends one side, but the front end is going to be before IX. Regardless, you can still narrow it down to IX-XII for a decent range where Tarquin was probably heavily discussed. However, Tarquin's first fight was around 850, so the IX thread is probably going to see the lion's share of it (this investigation is very quick and dirty, so I'm not going to sit here and try to guess as to any resurgent Tarquin debates).

tl;dr - Try CLG IX.

Also, I vote to move the version history to the first post.

Thanks to Quartz for the version history, Lira and hamishspence for the Discussion Thread index, and Kurald Galain for the CLG. Cherish these people, MultitudeMan.

Thanks to all those you mentioned, as well as you, Peelee!

[Ephemera]

Thanks to all those you mentioned, as well as you, Peelee!

Try this for starters: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...Us-Nerds/page3

[Chronos]

IIRC, Tarquin's class (or more likely, combination of classes) is pretty much in the category of "no way to know, but here are some plausible guesses". What's contentious is his total level, in particular the question of whether he's epic (and thus eligible for epic feats).

[Ephemera]

Try this for starters: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...Us-Nerds/page3

Oh, sorry, that was about the arrow snatching, which was the one I remembered, but probably not what you were looking for in the way of class features.

[MultitudeMan]

Oh, sorry, that was about the arrow snatching, which was the one I remembered, but probably not what you were looking for in the way of class features.

It was interesting, but I was rather more looking for the class/level discussion. I take the point made by Chronos that there may just not be a way to know, based on the evidence provided in the strips. I don't feel a great need to know if Tarquin must have epic feats, either.

[Gift Jeraff]

My current take on Tarquin is a fighter with levels in the "BBEG villain prestige class" mentioned in The Sourcebook That Never Was (digital DSTP), plus some obscure feats.

[Chronos]

Wait, there's literally a mention of a "BBEG villain prestige class" somewhere in the bonus materials? What's the context?

I think the most likely answer for Tarquin is that he's got levels here and there in a number of different base and prestige classes, probably including at least Fighter and Swordsage, possibly Monk, plus likely some homebrewed ones. Optimized warrior-types tend to have a lot of dips, and Tarquin certainly seems to be fairly optimized, given that he can single-handedly hold off almost the entire Order at once.

[Linneris]

It's strange that Redcloak was surprised by the high priest of the Twelve Gods casting Hold Monster, considering he cast it himself in SoD (and thus would presumably know about it being a Law domain spell). Perhaps Rich simply forgot he gave Redcloak that spell?

[ti'esar]

Possibly Redcloak simply didn't expect that the high priest would have the Law domain.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Possibly Redcloak simply didn't expect that the high priest would have the Law domain.

Which is fair enough - a high priest of the 12 would be expected to not "play favorites" by having a domain probably opposed by a third of the circle. Mind you, I'm not sure there would be a domain that would be universally liked, but RC's "I'm not like you" might also be involved - his specism does lead to see humans as "others", and in this one thing, they were not so different.

Grey Wolf

[Gift Jeraff]

Wait, there's literally a mention of a "BBEG villain prestige class" somewhere in the bonus materials? What's the context?

Digital DStP has several pages of random notes and mini-comics for a scrapped OOTS sourcebook. Next to a drawing of a fiendish woman is a brief description of the class would have entailed:

Spoiler

Show

Right: The illustration for the BBEG villain prestige class. The class’ main feature was a series of increasingly improbable escape powers, allowing a GM’s recurring villain to always get away if that was the goal. But when facing a foe from whom she had previously escaped, she could declare a Final Boss Battle, gaining special combat powers in exchange for losing access to all escape abilities for 8 hours.

[MultitudeMan]

I know this might have been addressed at some stage, but why do a few characters (including Hilgya, Hinjo, and Laurin) lack pictures?

[hamishspence]

I know this might have been addressed at some stage, but why do a few characters (including Hilgya, Hinjo, and Laurin) lack pictures?

Because the pictures were hosted on Imgur, and Imgur has blocked GiTP.

[D.One]

Because the pictures were hosted on Imgur, and Imgur has blocked GiTP.

"WHY?!" \o/

[b_jonas]

Do these copies work?

Hinjo
Celia
Laurin Shattersmith
Kraagor
Julia Greenhilt
Hilgya Firehelm
Qarr
Serini Toormuck

See also this forum thread about images.

[hamishspence]

They work.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

"WHY?!" \o/

Because Imgur doesn't want to be a image server, it was to be an image storage. Allowing hotlinking is expensive, at the volume of usage Imgur gets. Photobucket had the same issue, and eventually so will all other image hosts.
(Sorry if you were being rhetorical. Hard to tell)
Grey Wolf

[rferries]

Because Imgur doesn't want to be a image server, it was to be an image storage. Allowing hotlinking is expensive, at the volume of usage Imgur gets. Photobucket had the same issue, and eventually so will all other image hosts.
(Sorry if you were being rhetorical. Hard to tell)
Grey Wolf

And I'm STILL seething about it!!!!

[D.One]

Because Imgur doesn't want to be a image server, it was to be an image storage. Allowing hotlinking is expensive, at the volume of usage Imgur gets. Photobucket had the same issue, and eventually so will all other image hosts.
(Sorry if you were being rhetorical. Hard to tell)
Grey Wolf

Thanks. I really didn't know.

Also, I was doing the classical WHY!? shout...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Also, I was doing the classical WHY!? shout...

OK, you're the second person is as many days I see using this vaguely pink-ish colour rather than straight up white text. Did I mess a memo? Is this a Thing We Are Doing now?

Grey Wolf