MitD XIV: High In Protean

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I commend your flawless deduction skills. Bravo!

Commend, condemn, one of those two, anyway.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

Commend, condemn, one of those two, anyway.

Grey Wolf

Correct. 10

[Peelee]

Commend, condemn, one of those two, anyway.

Grey Wolf

For the latter, I'd assume it would be because I made the thread irrelevant due to solving the mystery.

[Schroeswald]

It can't have been that long. I mean I just edited my first page post to describe the most recent appearance, before that it was just a strip number and no description. Would I have left it undescribed for so long? :-) (Answer: yes, more than 6 months.)

And before that it was like, three years since his last set of appearances, which afaik didn’t provide much info

For the latter, I'd assume it would be because I made the thread irrelevant due to solving the mystery.

Yes. The thread is pointless, balloons dropped because it was the correct option.

[Peelee]

Oh, and I don't think I need to say this, but just in case... Crusher, please do not actually add Wile E. Coyote to my actual guess in your log.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Oh, and I don't think I need to say this, but just in case... Crusher, please do not actually add Wile E. Coyote to my actual guess in your log.

::Ahem::

No takebacks!

GW

[Peelee]

::Ahem::

No takebacks!

GW

[Grey_Wolf_c]

[Fyraltari]

Alright, alright, I said I'll watch the damn show!


Oh wait, wrong thread. Carry on with the humiliating.

[Segev]

Now I want to see Wile E. Coyote pasted into all the MitD scenes as a black-and-white figure in the dark.

[Ruck]

Now I want to see Wile E. Coyote pasted into all the MitD scenes as a black-and-white figure in the dark.

Like how if you watch the Futurama pilot and pay close attention, you can see

Spoiler

Show

Nibbler's shadow when Fry's chair tips over and he falls into the cryogenic machine.

[littlebum2002]

It's more like wanting to discuss Arimaa, but the mods decided that chess variants belong in the chess thread, so you end up discussing Arimaa with people with no interest in learning about or discussing anything other than basic chess. So your choices are continue to try to discuss Arimaa in the chess thread or don't discuss it at all. And let's say for the sake of argument that said forum is pretty much the only location on the internet where discussion of Chess and chess variants are relevant.

Let's be real here. When this thread isn't discussing the ha-naga or protean, its discussing snorlax and wile-e coyote. Sorry, but when this is the ONLY place where the MiTD mystery can be discussed and the only thing being discussed when I'm not around are meme monsters, the idea that I'm somehow keeping you from more important business is laughable.

Also the irritation on discussing the same points over and over again goes both ways. I don't like having to re-explain several times, for instance, that "no, that's not how naga having access to cleric spells works." But that's why accurate information in the op would be a plus

That's a good example actually. In your example, if you want to discuss Arimaa in a chess thread, most of the people in that thread won't be interested in talking about it. And that's not their fault, it's because of the rules created by the site administrators. And on this site, the administrators decided that each topic should only have one thread, and it's their right to do so. No one is preventing you from discussing the changes you want made to this thread over and over again, if it makes you happy. But if you do that, you have to understand that eventually people will just stop responding to you. If you don't like the rules of the forum, and you don't like the rules of the thread that have been voted on, then I don't know what advice I can give you, except that Reddit and Facebook both have OOTS discussion boards with more liberal rules than this board.

[Schroeswald]

Remember my official guess is still Redcloak’s niece somehow, you’re the lucky one here.

[Crusher]

Oh, and I don't think I need to say this, but just in case... Crusher, please do not actually add Wile E. Coyote to my actual guess in your log.

Oh, c'mon. I'm not a hack. I'm not going to add Wile E. Coyote to your guess.

Obviously I'd *replace* your guess with Wile E. Coyote. I do take this seriously, after all.

[Peelee]

Oh, c'mon. I'm not a hack. I'm not going to add Wile E. Coyote to your guess.

Obviously I'd *replace* your guess with Wile E. Coyote. I do take this seriously, after all.

Look, I'm going to let you know right now, there is no shortage of unique gifs of Calculon dramatically screaming "NOOOOOOO".

[Crusher]

Look, I'm going to let you know right now, there is no shortage of unique gifs of Calculon dramatically screaming "NOOOOOOO".

Well, no one wants to subject everyone to that. This time I'll let you go with a warning.

[Doug Lampert]

[SNIP]The Monster in the Darkness is, quite clearly, Wile E. Coyote.[SNIP][balloons fall]

You are of course correct.

Duly added to Section 3.c.
Definitely no fun at parties
Grey Wolf

Good.

Oh, and I don't think I need to say this, but just in case... Crusher, please do not actually add Wile E. Coyote to my actual guess in your log.

Crap, now I need to submit a guess.

Hmm,

Wiley E. Coyote > Carbosilicate Amorph > Redcloak's Niece > Snorlax > Protean

Sigh, now that I've started submitting guesses about the comic, next thing you know, I'll be predicting Kenny Belkar's death and it's all downhill from there.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

That's a good example actually. In your example, if you want to discuss Arimaa in a chess thread, most of the people in that thread won't be interested in talking about it. And that's not their fault, it's because of the rules created by the site administrators. And on this site, the administrators decided that each topic should only have one thread, and it's their right to do so. No one is preventing you from discussing the changes you want made to this thread over and over again, if it makes you happy. But if you do that, you have to understand that eventually people will just stop responding to you. If you don't like the rules of the forum, and you don't like the rules of the thread that have been voted on, then I don't know what advice I can give you, except that Reddit and Facebook both have OOTS discussion boards with more liberal rules than this board.

Let's be real here. When this thread isn't discussing the ha-naga or protean, its discussing snorlax and wile-e coyote.

It is actually at least partially their fault, for arbitrarily deciding that Ha-Naga is a valid topic of conversation, and ANB, Snorlax, carbosilicate amorphs, Chronotyryn, Primus and Klurichir (to pick creatures brought up in the last couple of days) somehow are not. Or heck, even Wile E. Coyote - we've had a long tradition of silly guesses in this thread, going all the way back to the Most Dangerous Box. That arbitrary decision has nothing to do with board rules or thread rules. We've hashed out the Ha-Naga, it has failed to impress, we've moved on, just like we've moved on from dozens of others. Insisting on repeating the conversation over and over to the same creature, with the same arguments is not something caused by the rules.

Grey Wolf

[Crusher]

You are of course correct.



Good.



Crap, now I need to submit a guess.

Hmm,

Wiley E. Coyote > Carbosilicate Amorph > Redcloak's Niece > Snorlax > Protean

Sigh, now that I've started submitting guesses about the comic, next thing you know, I'll be predicting Kenny Belkar's death and it's all downhill from there.

Excellent. And I promise to not even mess with...

Well, wait. Per the rules, if you submit more than 3 ranked-order guesses, I cut off everything after 3. Are you ok with predicting Wile E. Coyote > Cabosilicate Amorph > Redcloak's Niece?

Edit -

Remember my official guess is still Redcloak’s niece somehow, you’re the lucky one here.

That guess, much like a Protean, can change if you like. In fact, particularly like a Protean, Darth Paul has changed their guess 5 times.

[Peelee]

That guess, much like a Protean, can change if you like. In fact, particularly like a Protean, Darth Paul has changed their guess 5 times.

[furiously scribbles notes on how Darth Paul is the MitD]

[Squire Doodad]

[furiously scribbles notes on how Darth Paul is the MitD]

"Darth Paul is known to speak English, but not Common. Therefore, it would be surprising to see Darth Paul speaking common..."

[Fyraltari]

"Darth Paul is known to speak English, but not Common. Therefore, it would be surprising to see Darth Paul speaking common..."

Darth Paul cannot raise the dead...

[Crusher]

Darth Paul cannot raise the dead...

Unless he took a bunch of cleric levels!

And we don’t know that he’s NOT beautiful and vomit-inducing!

[lio45]

As for meme monsters, Snorlax would actually be excellent if not for trademarking or whatever.

Yeah, it's the best fit we have so far IMO...

I wonder if Peelee's Boss has ordered him to enforce/crack down on us discussing "Copyrighted" Snorlax in the forum that he owns...? Or the opposite? ;)

I've always said it would be very interesting to empirically determine whether talk of Snorlax is de facto allowed well beyond what normal Forum Rules would okay.

[Jasdoif]

Missed this earlier....

So i've looked into Chronotyryn to see how it fits up, and i've gotten the following:
....
Listed DR in this source is workable, i think the dr 15/magic is from a pathfinder version?

No, it's from the 3.5 update booklet, which covers (among other things) updating monsters in 3.0 books to 3.5 standards; similar to what happened to the Order of the Stick in the very first strip.

Damage reduction changed in 3.5; per the update booklet's "behind the scenes" section on it, the intent was to make damage reduction less "don't even bother if you don't have enough pluses on your weapon", and more "you'll need to try harder if you don't have the right kind of weapon". This was done by reducing damage reduction amounts across the board, and by changing what bypasses damage reduction from a single scale of enhancement bonus (with special materials counting as "0") to sets of yes-or-no magic/epic/material/alignment/damage-type...and this is why a lot of 3.0 monsters struggle/fail to explain the defensive portion of the tower scene when updated.


Fiend Folio is in an odd spot: It's a 3.0 book, being published before the 3.5 core books; but it conforms to most of the 3.5 standards and even references the yet-to-have-been-released revised core rulebooks at one point. I'm guessing the work on 3.5 took longer than expected and a decision was made to release Fiend Folio with what was already done, but that's purely conjectural on my part....Anyway, damage reduction is the only prominent change to the book (unlike the other books, that had to account for new numbers of skill points and feats all over the place).


Fiend Folio is also in a different odd spot: It contains the death dog, which nevertheless is called out in Dorukan's pit of monsters that "were never officially updated to 3rd Edition". And I'm never quite sure what, if anything, that should be taken to imply....

---

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If you're trying to do a separator,

[hr][/hr]

pulls its weight.

[3Power]

No, everyone is excited because we all think MitD will make an appearance soon. Everyone’s hoping a new clue or two will turn up, plus it’s been forever and a day since we saw him.

Well, it's the same for me. On a related note, I'm throwing out a prediction here now that the mysterious voices are MiTD's relatives. O-chul's main significance to the plot is his friendship with MiTD, so it makes sense he will be put in a position where that arc can be forwarded. Plus it makes sense for monsters to be living in a den of monsters.

I will take your word for it that you've previously explained the way Ha-Nagas acquire spells, however, I don't remember reading this anywhere before.

I think this was the first time I explained it. To you, in fact.

(as distinct from spell-like abilities, and admittedly this is a fine line- but as someone already asked, why would he have to tip his cart to reach a bucket if he could just use Mage Hand?).

I'm going to begin by first pointing out (again) that a bucket of stew weighs more than five pounds and as such by the actual D&D rules he couldn't lift that bucket with mage hand. But ultimately I think the tipping was just a visual indicator that he was reaching for it, since extending a claw, tentacle, tail or magical aura would be giving too much away.

Or, in other words, as was said back then, Ha-Naga can cast raise undead, or can do so within a single level up if they re-spec. RC's barb about needing 5 level ups to obtain the necessary cleric levels doesn't fit if he was insulting a Ha-Naga. Or, as per it's entry in the OP, "Can raise undead (or could by retraining upon level up), which MitD cannot "without gaining 5 levels of cleric"."

Again, only if you assume Redcloak's knowledge is perfect, or if he was being serious.

That's a good example actually. In your example, if you want to discuss Arimaa in a chess thread, most of the people in that thread won't be interested in talking about it. And that's not their fault, it's because of the rules created by the site administrators. And on this site, the administrators decided that each topic should only have one thread, and it's their right to do so. No one is preventing you from discussing the changes you want made to this thread over and over again, if it makes you happy. But if you do that, you have to understand that eventually people will just stop responding to you. If you don't like the rules of the forum, and you don't like the rules of the thread that have been voted on, then I don't know what advice I can give you, except that Reddit and Facebook both have OOTS discussion boards with more liberal rules than this board.

Eh... Reddit's not good for ongoing discussion and facebook is facebook.

If you're trying to do a separator,
Code:
pulls its weight.

Thanks. I edited my post and I'll endeavor to remember it for future use.

[Keltest]

Again, only if you assume Redcloak's knowledge is perfect, or if he was being serious.

Do you have some reason to believe that Redcloak would lie or joke about something like that? He certainly hasnt shied away from calling out the MITD on being unhelpful when it had the capacity to be in the past.

And Redcloak has been shown to A: know what the MITD is and B: be fairly well educated (somehow), so absent some specific indication that he is mistaken, im going to take him at his word.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

fairly well educated (somehow)

I'm not sure where he got his chemistry knowledge, but it's not hard to be an expert in monsters when you have access to the monster manuals.

Grey Wolf

[Squire Doodad]

Do you have some reason to believe that Redcloak would lie or joke about something like that? He certainly hasnt shied away from calling out the MITD on being unhelpful when it had the capacity to be in the past.

And Redcloak has been shown to A: know what the MITD is and B: be fairly well educated (somehow), so absent some specific indication that he is mistaken, im going to take him at his word.

I agree, Redcloak is aware of what the MitD is and presumably has done enough research to understand what it can do for all intents and purposes that we would discuss here.
Besides, if Redcloak isn't telling the turth (or at least isn't being accurate), then who's to say that Oona is? Or anyone in the comic?

[Keltest]

I'm not sure where he got his chemistry knowledge, but it's not hard to be an expert in monsters when you have access to the monster manuals.

Grey Wolf

Yeah, i was more speculating on where he got access to all these manuals. I somehow doubt that Xykon was going out and getting all these things for him, given Xykon's attitude, and the fact that he cant really just go to the bookstore and buy them is kind of part of his central motivation.

Im willing to call him an authority figure, because he does indeed have the manuals, but its one of those things that i wonder about occasionally.