OOTS #801 - The Discussion Thread

[Soranar]

Elan is a walking disaster to anyone around him so it makes sense that he is at his most efficient when his allies are nowhere near him.

He's the proverbial spanner in the works, very hard to aim in the right direction but when he's surrounded, and alone, he's invincible.

[sims796]

I was wondering what those three was up too.

It looks like the Order may defeat the Linear Guild with their own power. That'll be nice. The less outside help, the better.

[HandofShadows]

Elan is getting better. And he got that Nale was watching the Order. I wonder if the Guild will finally be destroyed this time around. Things are turning around now.

[WickedWizard17]

OMFG LMAO. That was my reaction But I'm so happy to see Elan! It's been . . . five strips since we saw him last! And I'm so pleased to see that he's gotten better in a fight - him handing Amun-Zora the sword? Classic! In regard to the lack of puns, I think he was just too distracted. Level draining doesn't work that way. Plus, it's obvious the mysterious scrying eye was Z's.

[WickedWizard17]

Also, has anyone else noticed the change in Nale's goatee? It used to be a neat 'n perfect triangle thingie, but now it's more messy. Symbolic of his time spent hiding out? Or maybe he picked up a level of Pirate to further complicate his build and make himself even MORE incompetent

[North_Ranger]

Also, has anyone else noticed the change in Nale's goatee? It used to be a neat 'n perfect triangle thingie, but now it's more messy. Symbolic of his time spent hiding out? Or maybe he picked up a level of Pirate to further complicate his build and make himself even MORE incompetent

I think it's just an art shift. I mean, we haven't seen Nale since the Battle of Azure City, and that was how many real-time years ago again? Also, I remember the Cliffport City Police sketch artist drawing a comic of him with a more scraggly beard instead of a clean-cut little soul patch.

[Snails]

Nale's excessively elaborate plans ALWAYS involve splitting up.

It's characteristic of him, it provides dozens of extra low probability failure modes for his plans. (Note: The exact reason Nale's plans fail is usually something unpredictable, but the shear number of moving parts assures a failure even if his status as a villian in a universe largely ruled by dramatic convention weren't already doing so.)

One the nose, with respect to Nale's plans. In fact, I suspect Nale actually thinks of many low probability failure modes as one of the key characteristics of a really great plan. The extreme would be the switcheroo gambit, where Nale seemed to relish piling up failure modes up to the very moment of perfect total collapse.

As for splitting up here, it would be illogical to not split up. Elan is not a physical threat. Nale should keep the quarry moving and Sabine should use her better mobility to box Elan in.

The reason Nale failed here is that Elan cleverly found a non-Order temporary ally. But hurriedly traveling with a succubus in a city could have elicited the same response anyway. Finding Elan quickly was their best hope.

[rewinn]

Nice callback to the last panel of 435...

Doesn't Nale know better than to split up in this sort of situation?

On the evidence, no - after all, splitting up is a much more complicated plan!

-Amun-Zora didn't think it odd Elan grew a goatee in three seconds

It's an evil goatee, so she might not be surprised Elan grew one.

i don't know... Seems to me he did not take any damage from falling headfirst to that lizardpersons helmet :)

He landed on his HEAD - not necessarily his most vital organ ;-)

Karma is indeed a bitch. And a black haired, angry one too.

That's T-shirt worthy right there!

[Gift Jeraff]

It's an art shift; we're supposed to pretend he's always looked like that.

Spoiler

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He also has the scruffy goatee in SSaDT, during Roy's story.

Wow, it's astonishing that Nale doesn't have a plan for this. I'm sure he's coming up with one right now, but it'll be interesting to see how he thinks on his feet.

We've seen him improvise decently before, when he turned the "can't speak right" thing to his advantage.

[the_tick_rules]

Did the OOTS just get lucky? Won't last.

[ScrapperTBP]

Great comic. Oh Elan you genius :P

[Blaznak]

Hahahahahaaa :)

[Craft (Cheese)]

alone, he's invisible.

Fixed that for you :P

[Karoug]

Long-time reader, first post.

Doesn't Elan strongly remind you of Guybrush Threepwood?
I mean, both of them are blond, swashbuckling types, using puns in combat. As characters they are good natured, incurably optimistic, totally oblivious to almost any important situation around them.
Each has an everlasting vendetta against their brother, and is in a relationship with a red-head rogue who can put up with their insanity.
Perhaps most importanty: while fighting the good fight, and ,more often than not, win doing crazy awesome things, they spend 99% of their time accidentally creating disaster.

It all came as a flash when I saw Elan's 'Uh-oh' panel. I'm sure I have seen Guybrush pulling the exact same 'uh-oh' expression, I think somewhere in the third game (Curse of Monkey Island).

[snikrept]

So the mystery scrying in the desert was Zz'dtri!

[Holy_Knight]

Lovely Giant, lovely. Elan really is getting much better than the buffoon who attacked his own reflection, or the idiot who sang about Belkar's curse.

I don't know, I always kind of figured he did that one on purpose.

[voiceofreason]

Interesting there isn't a Luck mechanic in D&D. Elan reminds me of someone who found a grey stone at the bottom of the Gnomish Mines. Love this story!

[raymundo]

Three things that don't make sense about this comic:

-TWO bad guys split up to take down ONE good guy (do the math)
-Elan's not using puns in his fight
-Amun-Zora didn't think it odd Elan grew a goatee in three seconds (though she just may be vengeful at anyone related to Tarquin)

Well.. Quite likely he lost his Dashing Swordman levels due to the level drain attack.
As I understood, she didn't even see his whole face, besides she is a little bit angered.


Edit: Given that this was mentioned about a dozen times, I'd add a "Good job with this strip!" for some nutrional value of this post.

[Gilphon]

That's not how Energy Drain works. You lose spell levels and your attacks rolls suffer, but you don't actually lose any class features or anything unless you fail a will save the next day.

[Cerlis]

yea, the only thing you can see from the cell is Elan's eyes. cant see goatee or cloths.

[Vectner]

Elan's effectiveness is definitely situational, but he has become more confident since the split in the last book. He still makes errors and trusts a bit too much.

I think charging in the third panel was probably a bad idea, it just ended up working out for him. Elan is serendipitous that way.

[Draconi Redfir]

Heh heh heh, clever Elan. Clever

[tcrudisi]

I'm more impressed he managed to sneak by the two combatants without Nale noticing

Especially since he didn't take off his clothes turn invisible.

[Vemynal]

awesome as always lol

[Lurkmoar]

Nothing softens the impact of a fall like a warm body between you and the ground eh?

Nice strip.

[gamephil]

That's not how Energy Drain works. You lose spell levels and your attacks rolls suffer, but you don't actually lose any class features or anything unless you fail a will save the next day.

To be fair, that's not the way they work now, but the universe did update from 2nd to 3rd edition in the middle of an adventure (admittedly a long, long time ago), so maybe Sabine's level drain was rolled back to the previous patch :)

[Anarion]

I liked the punchline of this comic, and I'm particularly pleased to see Elan acting competently. The fact that he uses his bardic training to look for someone unjustly imprisoned and that he's paying attention to Nale and realizes that something is amiss shows the variety of his character (namely that he likes acting childish but really has matured as he can be effective when it matters).

There is something about this comic, however, that bothers me. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the pacing feels off somehow. Maybe because Nale splits up, Elan charges, falls, then frees Amun-Zora so quickly in succession. It's also possible that this strip will flow better either with the next strip or in the context of the book, but things felt like they moved too quickly here.

Edit: About the rules discussion. It's highly unlikely that Sabine's level drain could affect Elan's dashing swordsman abilities. It would require a completely houseruled change to the way negative levels work. I think it's far more likely that Elan either quips off panel or is somehow trying to gather info in the middle of the battle, foregoing his quip bonus to interrogate Nale while the fight. Another possibility is that his subconscious bardic training told him it would be better for the story if he didn't quip when he charged.

[Arcran]

Die Nale, die!

[Ridureyu]

If that woman dies, there shall be many "Elan is evil" threads.

[BobVosh]

Elan is a walking disaster to anyone around him so it makes sense that he is at his most efficient when his allies are nowhere near him.

He's the proverbial spanner in the works, very hard to aim in the right direction but when he's surrounded, and alone, he's invincible.

An inverse ninja law applied to a PC? Interesting.