The MitD outwitting Xykon.

[SowZ]

I think readers have become way too sensitive to exceedingly minor surprises.

In any other work of fiction, if the bad guy suddenly pulls out a gun, the audience doesn't start saying, "Wait, where did he buy that gun? How did he get a valid firearm license? Don't you think it's a little overpowered to suddenly have a metal tube that can fire bits of metal fast enough to kill someone? He can just neutralize the hero by shooting him in the heart, how is that fair?"

And if that doesn't convince you, try re-reading the punchline to comic #904.

Yeah, I think the wand thing is similar to, say, James Bond pulling a silencer out of his pocket and attaching it to his pistol. Sure, no one has foreshadowed it. But it is entirely in keeping with the kinds of things Bond has with him.

[The Giant]

Confusion over the wand's level explains a lot. It was really a small change magic item to an adventurer in the 13th-15th level range, especially since the last thing Nale said in his prior appearance was, "Let's go buy new magic items."

Ultimately, it had virtually no effect on the plot. It's function was a.) to set up Malack attacking Nale on sight by prolonging the fight, thus explicitly illustrating Malack's hatred of Nale and giving us some clues about his power level, b.) teasing that Durkon could now cast Holy Word without actually showing it, so it could be busted out later to more dramatic effect, and c.) showing that Durkon's Mass Death Ward wasn't working yet, so that it would be more meaningful later when he used it successfully in the battle with Malack. That's it. I could have dropped it entirely, but then I would have lost out on those three aspects and weakened later (and more important) scenes.

Frankly, I almost just had Nale cast Enervation, but I didn't want necessarily tie him down to having 8 levels of Sorcerer and I had the magic item dialogue just dangling there from the previous book.

As for the timing, whether Xykon was just outside the pyramid or wandering within the maze of the pyramid does not really matter. Roy destroyed the Gate precisely because he guessed they could have mere hours or minutes until Team Evil would arrive -- Roy had been tipped off. The Giant could have written it differently because "the odds" suggest as much, but it would have added much worthless padding to the story for a minor improvement in "realism".

I'm going to go a step further and say that if I had written the timing any differently, it would have robbed Roy of the rightful fruits of his earlier planning. Roy and Hinjo set up a very clever early warning protocol to keep them apprised of the enemy's location, and it worked.

If Xykon shows up before Roy is warned, then Roy's efforts are voided for no reason. And if Xykon was not on his way any minute, Roy would not have blown the gate at all. So there was only one way it could have really gone down: Xykon showing up shortly after the destruction. The fact that it was a matter of seconds is just an issue of comedy.

[Kish]

The fact that it was a matter of seconds is just an issue of comedy.

Well, and a certain Oracular prophecy.

[The Giant]

Well, and a certain Oracular prophecy.

Well, yes; the option of arriving after the destruction was already eliminated from possibility years ago.

But I was saying that I still could have crammed a few pages between Xykon teleporting in and the gate actually exploding if I had wanted to, I just didn't because it was funnier this way. The "coincidence" that some have had an issue with is the split-second timing of it, and that was purely a comedy decision.

[Fish]

I repudiate Carry2's broad definition of "deus ex machina." He uses it thus:

"Anything unexpected that happens, any new or unforeseen ability, any new character or event, used to overcome any obstacle at all during the story, even if temporarily, or anything that happens that is unlikely or improbable, is a deus ex machina."

Baloney. That definition is so broad, every tale that is not wholly dull and predictable is a deus ex machina from start to finish. Here is such an example:

"How the Paladin, Who Wears Armor and Carries a Sword, Killed a Dragon"
Once there was paladin. He had a shiny sword, because swords are made of metal and metal is shiny. He also had armor to protect him from dragons. He came upon a dragon. Using only his shiny sword, he slew the dragon. The end.

See? All powers and equipment are explained. Nothing unexpected happens. And it's dull as paint.

I also reject the argument that criticism will force an artist to improve. I forget who made that point, but clearly that person fancies himself more critic than artist. If he were an artist, he would know: you can't obey every critic. You can't even obey every good critic. You certainly can't obey every good critic, when those critics have not seen the full completed work. Did Roger Ebert ever review the first 30 minutes of a 110-minute movie? It you think Rich should heed your criticism, you'd better give him a reason to think your criticism is reasonable, fact-based, and objective. Carry2 didn't.

Yes, I have at times complained about the plotting of the story (particularly with Celia) and doubted certain things which later proved to happen. I sometimes feel sonething should happen, or shouldn't, based upon my own biases. Sometimes, Rich pulls off a plot move that I was sure wouldn't work; or he shows me that what I thought was a bad move, wasn't what I thought it was at all. Sometimes I still feel I'm right. But here's the thing: if the story doesn't happen the way you guessed or assumed, it's not the story which is wrong.

[nogall]

A writer you might recognize, Neil Gaiman, once decided that too many people had complained that you couldn't write a good story about Superman because he was too powerful.

Neil decided to write about a character who was literally omnipotent, just to make the point. It was a pretty well received run of comics, too.

Character is more important than power. If the MitD can wish the problems away, the story will be about WHY he does or doesn't.

Great point! And it might also be about the consequences of his newfound power or actions...

[Sir_Leorik]

A writer you might recognize, Neil Gaiman, once decided that too many people had complained that you couldn't write a good story about Superman because he was too powerful.

Neil decided to write about a character who was literally omnipotent, just to make the point. It was a pretty well received run of comics, too.

Character is more important than power. If the MitD can wish the problems away, the story will be about WHY he does or doesn't.

Spoiler

Show

That Neil Gaiman story ended with said "nigh-omnipotent" character realizing what the consequences of his actions were on the people around him, and he realized that as powerful as he was he wasn't justified in ignoring said consequences anymore. So he allowed a trio of judgmental crones to murder him. As they were murdering him, he wished himself a new incarnation, because he was that cool.

Like Wombat said, what the character can do is irrelevant, compared to what the author does with the character. If all you have Superman do is toss small time crooks in jail, punch General Zod into buildings, try to keep Lois Lane from tricking him into marrying her, act like a jerk to Batman, act like a petulant jerk to his parents, or die while punching a gray-skinned alien wearing bikers shorts to death, then of course Superman will seem boring or too powerful. But if you tell stories where Superman plays a complicated cat-and-mouse game with Lex Luthor; comes up with interesting ways to trick Mr. Mxyzptlk into banishing himself; leads the Justice League on interesting missions, such as a sting operation against the Secret Society of Supervillains or helping refugees flee a warzone; tells Lobo he has thirty seconds to leave Earth and to never come back (even if he's sober) because a mass murderer like the Last Czarnian is not welcome here; or solving a gangland murder while investigating as Clark Kent, using his supersenses, interviewing witnesses, and never once changing into his costume; then he stops being boring, especially if you explore why Superman believes what he does and why he takes the actions he does.

[Dalek Kommander]

1. The readers of OotS don't like it when someone tries to criticize what the giant has written. The idea of not liking something isn't that hard to go with, but instead of trying to debate the merit of it and see what he is saying, they go straight to trying to disprove his OPINION.

I don't object to someone not liking the MiTD's character arc, but not even realizing that the MiTD has a character arc isn't a valid opinion, any more than saying "what gate?" is a valid opinion about gates.

[Perseus]

I don't object to someone not liking the MiTD's character arc, but not even realizing that the MiTD has a character arc isn't a valid opinion, any more than saying "what gate?" is a valid opinion about gates.

+1

Yuuup this is how I see it.

[Tragak]

I also reject the argument that criticism will force an artist to improve. I forget who made that point, but clearly that person fancies himself more critic than artist. If he were an artist, he would know: you can't obey every critic. You can't even obey every good critic. You certainly can't obey every good critic, when those critics have not seen the full completed work. Did Roger Ebert ever review the first 30 minutes of a 110-minute movie?

Quoted For Truth

[pendell]

Also,

Thank you, Giant, for engaging my thoughts and answering my questions. I realize you have many things to do in the course of your day, and I felt the courtesy deserved a courtesy in return. Thanks! :)


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Sir_Leorik]

I also reject the argument that criticism will force an artist to improve. I forget who made that point, but clearly that person fancies himself more critic than artist. If he were an artist, he would know: you can't obey every critic. You can't even obey every good critic. You certainly can't obey every good critic, when those critics have not seen the full completed work. Did Roger Ebert ever review the first 30 minutes of a 110-minute movie? It you think Rich should heed your criticism, you'd better give him a reason to think your criticism is reasonable, fact-based, and objective. Carry2 didn't.

You're comparing apples and oranges. "OotS" (and all Webcomics) are released in a serial format, unlike modern movies which are not. Even when a movie is an installment in a larger franchise, it is going to be judged on how well it can stand on it's own merit as a single film.

"OotS" is closer to a novel that is written and published in serial installments, such as much of Charles Dickens' novels were. Novels, comic books, comic strips and webcomics that are published in this format need to be able to provide a strong start middle and finish, even when it is chapter twenty, or issue #557, or strip #904. Is that fair? Not really, but maybe a reader who feels the need to read an entire story should not read the story in serial format.

Rich does an excellent job of pacing his strips. Almost every strip ends with a cliffhanger, a running gag, a punchline or a pun. That alone is a sign of good writing, since he knows the limits of his medium. He also doesn't waste panels showing extraneous events; every panel either advances the story, develops the characters or tells a joke (sometimes more than one). Not all the jokes are funny, sometimes the action causes the story to advance at a slower pace, but this is not a decompressed comic where you can not read a single issue or strip in isolation; in a decompressed comic you need to collect the entire storyline and read it at once to get any enjoyment.

Because it is a serial comic strip, giving the author constructive criticism on a single strip shouldn't be viewed negatively. Sometimes readers are honestly confused about what happened in a strip, prompting the Giant to chime in. Other times they notice art or grammar errors, which are later corrected (either on-line or in the next book). If the criticism is honest and constructive (especially if it is helpful) why shouldn't it be posted?

[veti]

See? All powers and equipment are explained. Nothing unexpected happens. And it's dull as paint.

The fact that you, in five minutes, can write a dull linear story doesn't necessarily prove that all linear stories are dull. Take 'The Hobbit', for instance - it's pretty damn' linear, but still widely considered pretty good.

Did Roger Ebert ever review the first 30 minutes of a 110-minute movie?

As a matter of fact, yes. (Well, he reviewed the first 2 hours of a 170-minute movie, which is a reasonable guess for how much of OOTS we've seen so far. Another time he reviewed the first eight minutes of a full-length movie.)

Also, OOTS is at this point an unfinished story. Are you really saying nobody should try to say anything critical about it until it's finished?

[Carry2]

This debate seems to have gone on longer and wandered more than I expected, so I might try to touch on a few of the broader or more recent points. I probably won't be able to give due attention to all of the salient arguments, though.

I repudiate Carry2's broad definition of "deus ex machina." He uses it thus...

I quoted the wikipedia definition, which is somewhat narrower, on the first page of the thread, but I also think you're creating something of a false dichotomy. I don't have a problem with a story containing unlikely events- even plot-critical unlikely events- every now and then. (In the same way that I can gloss over the remarkably precise timing needed for Romeo and Juliet to kill themselves, as others have commented on.) After all, statistically speaking, unlikely events do and must happen sometimes (and after all, the probability of any sufficiently long sequence of non-certain events will tend to zero, by the multiplication law.)

So if it were just the MitD showing a spontaneous progression from idiot to genius within one scene*, I could probably gloss over that too. This is more a 'straw that broke the camel's back' for me, given that, as far as I can tell, most plot-critical events in the strip have hinged on some random fluke of probability or previously-untouched-on faction or ability. If some of you consider that a feature, not a bug, then good for you. But I am not one of those people.

I also wouldn't mind the accumulation of causal non-sequiturs so much if the author didn't have ambitions of making a pointed commentary on real-world morality. (And no, this is not the same as satire, which takes something it wants to mock and exaggerates it's faults to make them obvious. If the entire plotline hinges on unlikelihoods, then if anything, the moral lessons one might derive from events depicted are actually what's being satirised**.)


* Also no, the go scene is not a demonstration of the MitD's intelligence- it repeatedly states that he finds thinking very difficult. It reasonably implies he would wish to become smarter, or more morally aware or free-willed et cetera, over time. At that point, he's still at the 'idiot' end of the spectrum. There are intermediate stages between idiocy and genius, and those are not shown.

**I also don't have a problem with 4th-wall-breaking humour or lampshaded improbability being used to comic effect- as long as they're not repeatedly and irreplaceably critical to the central plot. The latter does get on my nerves after a while.


On a tangential note, the problem with writing Superman isn't that he's too powerful- it's that he's effectively omnipotent and he's not allowed to be shown as having flaws. Taken together, that nearly guarantees you something close to a Mary Sue.

[Snails]

...Novels, comic books, comic strips and webcomics that are published in this format need to be able to provide a strong start middle and finish, even when it is chapter twenty, or issue #557, or strip #904. Is that fair? Not really, but maybe a reader who feels the need to read an entire story should not read the story in serial format.

...

Because it is a serial comic strip, giving the author constructive criticism on a single strip shouldn't be viewed negatively. Sometimes readers are honestly confused about what happened in a strip, prompting the Giant to chime in. Other times they notice art or grammar errors, which are later corrected (either on-line or in the next book). If the criticism is honest and constructive (especially if it is helpful) why shouldn't it be posted?

If it is honest and constructive, yes, it should be posted.

The question becomes what qualifies as "constructive". If the critic has not done their homework and chooses a negative tone, they should be prepared for a critique of their critique.

The OP could have taken the tact of introducing the topic as "Does the MitD successfully outwitting Xykon seem in character? I say no, because blah blah blah...".

But rather than offer a good argument, the OP labelled the concoction of an adequate fib on the spur of the moment as a "superpower". That was probably not a very useful choice right there.

[Porthos]

So if it were just the MitD showing a spontaneous progression from idiot to genius within one scene*, I could probably gloss over that too. This is more a 'straw that broke the camel's back' for me, given that, as far as I can tell, most plot-critical events in the strip have hinged on some random fluke of probability or previously-untouched-on faction or ability. If some of you consider that a feature, not a bug, then good for you. But I am not one of those people.

Then I will ask again two things:

A) How is the MitD coming up with a rather plausible bluff a 'genius level' activity?

B) How is the MitD coming up with an idea on the spot to try to lie to Xykon any different than him coming up with an idea to go to Tsukiko to find his friend?

As a side note, you mentioned that you find it incredulous that the MitD would remember the Order of the Stick when Xykon couldn't.

Well, I have another counter to that. Xykon has a good enough memory for things he cares about.

He hasn't forgotten about the Gates.
He didn't forget about Right-Eye.
He hasn't forgotten about keeping Redcloak in his place.

If Xykon can remember things he cares about, why can't the MitD? As noted, the MitD cares about getting out of the shadows more than almost anything. Thus is it plausible that he would remember, vaguely, the Order of the Stick since it was so central to coming out of the shadows.

[Sir_Leorik]

On a tangential note, the problem with writing Superman isn't that he's too powerful- it's that he's effectively omnipotent and he's not allowed to be shown as having flaws. Taken together, that nearly guarantees you something close to a Mary Sue.

Superman does have character flaws. He's an honest man who needs to lie to keep a very important secret. He's a polite man, who is capable of eavesdropping on every conversation in the world, at once, if he isn't too careful. He's a peaceful man, whose eyes can set the world on fire if he isn't too careful, who could blow a house down with a sneeze, could crush someone's bones when shaking their hands. He is a patient man, but he finds himself exasperated every ninety days when this jerk in a purple derby shows up to harrass him. He believes in democracy, truth, justice, yet his greatest foe is a despot who promotes tyranny and seeks to crush free thought, and the one time Superman tried to unseat that despot, the people he was trying to liberate, the Hunger Dogs and Lowlies of Apokolips, cried out for Superman not to beat their beloved Darkseid into a pulp. Should I keep going?

All of these are examples of how Superman's strengths are also weaknesses. His physical might needs to be held in check at almost all times, to avoid hurting the innocent. His supersenses are a gift and a curse. His great morals become potential liabilities when he's confronted by a fascist like Darkseid. And worst of all, he needs to lie to the world about who he is. He doesn't want to be Superman, he wants to be Clark Kent; he wants both halves of his life to be one, but he can't. It's hard to express that properly in a film, but in prose or a comic book, where the reader can be told what Superman's thoughts are in first-person narration or a though balloon, it can be quite powerful.

[Fish]

As a matter of fact, yes. (Well, he reviewed the first 2 hours of a...

And did the director revise his entire movie from that criticism? Did the art improve as a result? I think not. Read on:

Are you really saying nobody should try to say anything critical about it until it's finished?

I'm saying if you're going to do that, and expect the author to heed your suggestion, you'd better know your onions. That was the point I was responding to: that criticism always improves art. I say no, it doesn't; you have to give the artist a reason to think you know what you're talking about. Reviewing an unfinished piece raises the bar for criticism. It's a red flag that the critic is shooting off his mouth, as Carry2 seems to do here: he critiques the character development while ignoring the inconvenient character development scenes that actually happened. Why should anybody credit his views with any authority?

The late Mr Ebert, a Pulitzer Prize winner, had no such problems with his critical credentials compared to the average message board poster.

[Carry2]

Why re write something that every person you meet says is amazing? If you want this story to get better, do what Carry has done. Ask questions and pose critical analysis, and don't be so damn scared to do things youtubers and kids in writing workshops do every day, if its a spade call it black. That simple.

Buena Suerta, Carry2. Y tu Gigante

While I do appreciate the moral support, I also agree with the author when he says that criticism of the strip has not been censored by the moderators, nor are the other posters on this forum actually saying that I ought to shut up or go away. (Not out loud, anyway.) And I also appreciate that.

However, I might hazard that when The Giant takes pains to explain to his viewership that nitpicking and criticism sends him into a tailspin that makes it difficult for him to do consistent quality work- even if it's 100% true, and even when 99% of feedback is entirely positive- then this probably leads to a greater degree of self-censorship and passive-hostility to dissenting voices among the general readership.

I have suggested to the author before that if he is genuinely so sensitive to a minority of negative feedback, then asking for it to evaporate entirely, rather than actually fixing the source of complaints (assuming there is any pattern behind them), may be unrealistic. Going forward.

Or, he could just not read the forums. (I don't exactly recommend that course, but then I'm not the one who suggested it.)

But I was saying that I still could have crammed a few pages between Xykon teleporting in and the gate actually exploding if I had wanted to, I just didn't because it was funnier this way. The "coincidence" that some have had an issue with is the split-second timing of it, and that was purely a comedy decision.

I'm not really talking about a difference of a few pages. On the timescales we're talking about, Xykon is in all likelihood either going to be there weeks early or weeks late- In the latter case, the OOTS leave the scene unmolested, aside perhaps from dealing with the remnant of the LG (I don't know, we haven't gotten that far.) In the former case, the story becomes about how the OOTS not only need to traverse the pyramid, but to sneak past/distract RC and Xykon long enough to smash the gate before the ritual completes. (Maybe Nale and/or Tarquin try to backstab 'em, which helps even the odds, and would hardly be vastly out-of-character. The LG did, after all, arrive on the continent weeks before the Order did. *shrugs* I don't know, it's just an example.)

Now maybe this threatens to obviate various story elements you otherwise intended to introduce, or maybe it breaks a prophecy or two in the process. But that's not the point, and I more-or-less don't care. I might be asking for a significantly different story, but I don't know that it's a worse one, and it's not my job to write it. I can only judge by end results.

You also have thousands of other posters to tell you what a good job you're doing in other key respects. (And they're not wrong.) But the plot? I dunno when exactly, but I think that nuked the fridge a while back. Possibly here.

[Math_Mage]

The fact that you, in five minutes, can write a dull linear story doesn't necessarily prove that all linear stories are dull. Take 'The Hobbit', for instance - it's pretty damn' linear, but still widely considered pretty good.

In fact, it also contains a few DEMs and is still pretty good. What does that say about the original contention that the MitD displaying the cunning of a 9-year-old is DEM and therefore ruins the story?

I quoted the wikipedia definition, which is somewhat narrower, on the first page of the thread, but I also think you're creating something of a false dichotomy. I don't have a problem with a story containing unlikely events- even plot-critical unlikely events- every now and then. (In the same way that I can gloss over the remarkably precise timing needed for Romeo and Juliet to kill themselves, as others have commented on.) After all, statistically speaking, unlikely events do and must happen sometimes (and after all, the probability of any sufficiently long sequence of non-certain events will tend to zero, by the multiplication law.)

Well, sure, when you similarly gloss over the reasons given in the narrative for why those events are not so unlikely.

So if it were just the MitD showing a spontaneous progression from naive child to cunning child within one scene*, I could probably gloss over that too.

Fixed that for you.

This is more a 'straw that broke the camel's back' for me, given that, as far as I can tell, most plot-critical events in the strip have hinged on some random fluke of probability or previously-untouched-on faction or ability. If some of you consider that a feature, not a bug, then good for you. But I am not one of those people.

It's so easy to be vague. "It doesn't matter that the event I'm complaining about now doesn't actually have the qualities I dislike, because other unspecified events have those qualities!"

I also wouldn't mind the accumulation of causal non-sequiturs so much if the author didn't have ambitions of making a pointed commentary on real-world morality. (And no, this is not the same as satire, which takes something it wants to mock and exaggerates it's faults to make them obvious. If the entire plotline hinges on unlikelihoods, then if anything, the moral lessons one might derive from events depicted are actually what's being satirised**.)

Er...no. For example, Haley rolling a natural 20 does not make the ensuing bridge scene between Elan and Nale any less karma-riffic.

[size=1]* Also no, the go scene is not a demonstration of the MitD's intelligence- it repeatedly states that he finds thinking very difficult. It reasonably implies he would wish to become smarter, or more morally aware or free-willed et cetera, over time. At that point, he's still at the 'idiot' end of the spectrum. There are intermediate stages between idiocy and genius, and those are not shown.

There are obviously two interpretations to that scene. One is that MitD is an idiot. The other is that MitD is lazy and prefers not to think (which says little about how smart or stupid it is when it chooses to think). How hard is it for Mike to understand jokes? And yet he is a veritable dinkum thinkum. You are willfully choosing the interpretation that makes the least sense in order to pursue your complaint. That's not criticism, it's bias.

[Sir_Leorik]

I'm saying if you're going to do that, and expect the author to heed your suggestion, you'd better know your onions. That was the point I was responding to: that criticism always improves art. I say no, it doesn't; you have to give the artist a reason to think you know what you're talking about. Reviewing an unfinished piece raises the bar for criticism.

Fish, the nature of "OotS" is that it is released in a serial format. I'm pretty sure that you don't feel that someone should have to wait until these strips are collected in a TPB (or even until the last strip is published) to raise an issue they have? You're right that not all criticism is created equal, but Carry2 criticizing a single new strip is not the same as Roger Ebert watching the first reel of a movie and basing his judgment of the whole film on the part he watched.

It's a red flag that the critic is shooting off his mouth, as Carry2 seems to do here: he critiques the character development while ignoring the inconvenient character development scenes that actually happened. Why should anybody credit his views with any authority?

The late Mr Ebert, a Pulitzer Prize winner, had no such problems with his critical credentials compared to the average message board poster.

Ebert wasn't born clutching credentials from the "Chicago Sun-Times"; he had to practice his craft, watching movies and writing reviews for years. He also worked together with another reviewer, Gene Siskel, for years. They frequently disagreed with each other about how they viewed the same movie.

Carry2 is entitled to his opinion. He's entitled to post it. I'm entitled to disagree with his opinion, and to marshall proofs in my favor from other comics featuring the MitD to rebut his criticism (which I did several pages ago in this thread).

[Carry2]

Superman does have character flaws. He's an honest man who needs to lie to keep a very important secret. He's a polite man, who is capable of eavesdropping on every conversation in the world, at once, if he isn't too careful. He's a peaceful man, whose eyes can set the world on fire if he isn't too careful...

Yeah, but how often does he actually do so in a way that actually makes him look bad? How often does he actually snap and beat the pulp out of a hapless goon because he's had a bad day? Approximately never. It's an informed flaw, not an actual one.

It's a red flag that the critic is shooting off his mouth, as Carry2 seems to do here: he critiques the character development while ignoring the inconvenient character development scenes that actually happened...

I'm not ignoring them. I simply don't think that they actually show what people think they show. They probably exhibit some kind of nascent desire, and perhaps potential for, greater autonomy/awareness/smarts, but potential/desire =/= reality.

Put this together with the timing of Xykon's arrival, how the OOTS managed to escape the explosion, and how thinly character motivations have to be stretched for Xykon to even consider not mopping up, and I am calling shenanigans.

And yes, this is but one example in a long-running trend. The mere fact that O-chul was thrown several miles out during the sapphire gate explosion, yet survived, is kind of a frudge-nuking in itself. There was no foreshadowing of the IFCC, of the MitD's teleporting abilities, of the ghost paladin army, or hell, even that throwing Xykon at Durokan's gate would instantly destroy him. Once or twice? Fine. Consistent habit? Not so much.

.

[Snails]

However, I might hazard that when The Giant takes pains to explain to his viewership that nitpicking and criticism sends him into a tailspin that makes it difficult for him to do consistent quality work- even if it's 100% true, and even when 99% of feedback is entirely positive- then this probably leads to a greater degree of self-censorship and passive-hostility to dissenting voices among the general readership.

I have suggested to the author before that if he is genuinely so sensitive to a minority of negative feedback, then asking for it to evaporate entirely, rather than actually fixing the source of complaints (assuming there is any pattern behind them), may be unrealistic. Going forward.

Or, he could just not read the forums. (I don't exactly recommend that course, but then I'm not the one who suggested it.)

I am afraid you are completely misunderstanding what the Giant is saying. Every working and producing artist learns to recognize that satisfying most of even the small number of very very well thought out critiques is hopeless.

So "fixing the source of the complaints" is a practical impossibility. That you would suggest as much seems more than a little naive, at best.

[Carry2]

...So "fixing the source of the complaints" is a practical impossibility. That you would suggest as much seems more than a little naive, at best.

Well for heaven's sake, what other purpose does criticism serve?

[Math_Mage]

Well for heaven's sake, what other purpose does criticism serve?

Uh, your ego, maybe.

[Doug Lampert]

Enervation is a fourth-level spell. You appear to be confusing it with Energy Drain, which is a far more powerful ninth-level spell. A Wand of Enervation is technically a homebrew item in that it is not on the default wand list,

Not even that. The PHB description of the feats for craft wand, brew potion, and scribe scroll STATE CLEARLY that you can make certain items with them, and this wand is within those limits.

It is available purely BtB rules as written and it requires homebrew to not allow it. You'll simply never find one in a randomly rolled treasure.

A custom item of any other sorts is homebrew, but any character with a PHB or access to the SRD can read:

Prerequisite
Caster level 5th.

Benefit
You can create a wand of any 4th-level or lower spell that you know. Crafting a wand takes one day for each 1,000 gp in its base price. The base price of a wand is its caster level × the spell level × 750 gp. To craft a wand, you must spend 1/25 of this base price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half of this base price. A newly created wand has 50 charges.

Any wand that stores a spell with a costly material component or an XP cost also carries a commensurate cost. In addition to the cost derived from the base price, you must expend fifty copies of the material component or pay fifty times the XP cost.

As said, potions and scrolls have similar language, no other types of items do. The langauge is IIRC repeated in the header for the DMG list of items of those types.

[Sylian]

Frankly, I almost just had Nale cast Enervation, but I didn't want necessarily tie him down to having 8 levels of Sorcerer and I had the magic item dialogue just dangling there from the previous book.

Seeing how he cast Dimension Door shortly thereafter, I presume you meant 9 levels of Sorcerer?

[137beth]

And yes, this is but one example in a long-running trend. The mere fact that O-chul was thrown several miles out during the sapphire gate explosion, yet survived, is kind of a frudge-nuking in itself. There was no foreshadowing of the IFCC, of the MitD's teleporting abilities, of the ghost paladin army, or hell, even that throwing Xykon at Durokan's gate would instantly destroy him. Once or twice? Fine. Consistent habit? Not so much.

Let's go through these one at a time:

The mere fact that O-chul was thrown several miles out during the sapphire gate explosion, yet survived, is kind of a frudge-nuking in itself.

If he were a real human, then yes, it would be. But for a high level D&D paladin with almost no damage taken? Not surviving that would be pretty crazy.

There was no foreshadowing of the IFCC

The first appearance of the IFCC was here, a whopping 250 strips before they next appeared. 380 established that there were at least one group of powerful outsiders not related to the groups already in the comic. Along with the much less direct warning that there are at least 9 sides, some of which we don't know about. If that isn't forshadowing, I don't know what is.

of the MitD's teleporting abilities

The MitD's abilities were pretty much set in stone along with his species, around the time of strip 100. You are correct that we don't know what it is, though we have some pretty good ideas (see the 7 MitD threads...)

of the ghost paladin army

This was not forshadowed, but how is it anything remotely resembling a dues ex machina? With or without the ghost martyrs there, Xykon still wins...unless you think that Miko escaping from an already-damaged prison cell is also a "dues ex machina for the bad guys", in which case I really don't know what to say to you...

even that throwing Xykon at Durokan's gate would instantly destroy him.

Yes there was: here, it was revealed that goblins who run into the gate are killed, and Xykon predicts that it is because they are not Good-aligned. Xykon is not good-aligned.

[Zar Peter]

My five cents: Calling abilities of the MitD a Deus ex Machina is a bit moot since we don't know what exactly the MitD is. Rich pointed out that he knows exactly what it is and that it is not something he made up but can be found in a sourcebook. So the only way to call this a Deus ex Machina is to wait until the monster is revealed. THEN you can say: But this action didn't fit in his character sheet. Until then it's being surprised about what the MitD can. And maybe guessing what it really is.

[BroomGuys]

I'm not ignoring them. I simply don't think that they actually show what people think they show. They probably exhibit some kind of nascent desire, and perhaps potential for, greater autonomy/awareness/smarts, but potential/desire =/= reality.

I think it does bug folks a bit that you express so very much confidence that your interpretation is correct. The MitD saying "thinking is so hard" meant "thinking requires so much effort" to me for as long as I can remember. This implies that the MitD can use his brain somewhat effectively, but just doesn't want to because it's too much work, like a child not wanting to do his homework. O-Chul makes him start caring enough to begin putting in some effort. Can you interpret "thinking is so hard" as "I'm incapable of higher intelligence?" Yes, obviously, since that's how you interpret it. But it's a great deal more of a stretch to say that that interpretation is by such a significant degree the default that those of us arguing against it are incorrect.

Put this together with the timing of Xykon's arrival,

This, as Rich said, was a joke, and given that the Oracle actually said that Xykon would be within 1,000 feet of Girard's gate (read: before it's, you know, not there anymore), it was foreshadowed directly stated that he'd show up soon as soon as the gate started cracking.

how the OOTS managed to escape the explosion

Also a joke, if you note the roaches actually departing from a fridge, including one with a hat and a bull-whip. If Rich didn't want to include the joke? He could've just had the gate take longer to explode. But there can be silly moments in between dramatic moments! The tone of the comic doesn't have to be serious the entire time for the serious moments to work.

and how thinly character motivations have to be stretched for Xykon to even consider not mopping up, and I am calling shenanigans.

This has been discussed at length. Xykon wants to cheese off Redcloak, and he's impatient. I can see how this one would still bug you a bit, but I don't think it's enough to call shenanigans; I think l this really is a case where a character does something you wouldn't expect him to do, but it's still believable.

The mere fact that O-chul was thrown several miles out during the sapphire gate explosion, yet survived, is kind of a frudge-nuking in itself.

Dude's got a lot of HP, as we found out around the same time we found out O-Chul was going to be a plot-critical character. When Clint Eastwood spins around and shoots three guys behind him with a revolver before they get a shot off in a Western, I don't think "ok, impossible, the story is ruined"; I think "ok, impossible, that means he's impossibly badass!"

There was no foreshadowing of the IFCC

Not foreshadowed =/= deus ex machina. It's a world with magic and demons (and daemons and devils); an honest-to-evilness Faustian deal isn't totally out of left field in that kind of setting, especially when it's with three guys we've already seen before. Plus, they enter the game right there and continue to be important players, and since V's deal with them causes at the very least as many problems as it solves, it doesn't really have the "fix everything" vibe that a bothersome deus ex machina has.

of the MitD's teleporting abilities,

No, but we know he's really powerful, and we see him yell "O-CHUL!!" after his friend, who he knows is probably running off to get killed. That's definitely foreshadowing that he'll do something; that he does it in a surprising way raises all sorts of questions, but that doesn't inherently ruin the dramatic moment.

of the ghost paladin army

Wouldn't this moment have been super lame if we knew it was coming?

or hell, even that throwing Xykon at Durokan's gate would instantly destroy him.

Yeah, um, this part of the story was definitely less serious than it is now.

Once or twice? Fine. Consistent habit? Not so much.

All of these are unified by the fact that they are surprises to the audience. It is obvious that the author likes surprising the audience. You seem to be arguing that all unforeshadowed surprises (or at least more than one or two of them) are dramatically detrimental. It's no problem that you think it makes the story work less for you, but you also throw in things that demonstrably were foreshadowed and argue that they were deus ex machina. You're perfectly entitled to your opinion, but the analysis you use to explicate your opinion, is, in my eyes, a highly flawed one. That doesn't really discredit your opinion, but I thought a few of those moments were really awesome because of what I see as holes in your analysis.