OOTS #968 - The Discussion Thread

[Longeye_Samurai]

I have to admit I like the Taupe reference if only for its double-entendre in French.

[Fitzclowningham]

Doesn't it need to be Resurrect, since Durkon was turned into an undead?

Ah, good point. Seemed too simple for the whole party to miss. Thanks!

[NihhusHuotAliro]

Well that settles it. If knowledge of the true nature of vampires requires skill focus (knowledge (religion)) then we're all screwed. We might have just meet the only Cleric in the world who bothered to waste a feat on it.

More evidence that Random Cleric is, in fact, he best character in OOTS.

Just like That Guy With A Halberd, Bandana Paladin, Jiminy and Ambassador Gourntok.

Man, somebody make a party of these awesome bit parts.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I have to admit I like the Taupe reference if only for its double-entendre in French.

For a sentence with "double-entendre" and "French" in it, this link was actually rather tame.

[Aquillion]

My intended implication was that even among the clerics, this was not common knowledge; only 1 out of 4 knew. Maybe that one had Skill Focus (Knowledge (Religion)) or something.

Or they just got a lucky roll, so to speak.

[JSSheridan]

Thanks Giant!

Do we have any evidence that even Durkon has any such ranks?

Hilgya didn't do anything much to hide who and what she was, and Durkon due to his complete lack of knowledge religion missed it.

Non-human clerics often get about 2 skill points per level, and want to max concentration and spellcraft. I've seen clerics in play with no knowledge religion, it isn't all that common a skill choice.

These powerful, field-trained clerics can't get the religious and theological education their temple brethren receive. Killing monsters, clearing dungeons, and keeping your team alive doesn't provide opportunity or leave much time for study.

[sims796]

Stopping this before it even begins.



Exact Words strikes again!

Specifically "in such a way that it entered a general body of knowledge that people would have learned about in the course of their education"

In other words, this is something you'd need enough ranks in Knowledge: Religion to know.

Sneaky sneaky, tricksy tricksy Giant.

===

Still, it makes for interesting situations in the future know that we have confirmation that at least some priests will know the dark of how vampirism works in OotSWorld.

Gonna get the popcorn ready for those instances.

I'm glad you pointed this out, because at this point I'm starting to get fed up with Roy, treating his friend dying and turning undead as just another little condition. I know death is cheap in this world, but still. I'm at least glad he had some suspicions.

[kenlund]

"I never really thought about how much prejudice there is against the undead before..." I thought that statement by Roy was both funny and ironic. Under any other circumstances when encountering an undead creature, Roy would have had the team kill it immediately and collect the XP. That is what adventurers do...good aligned ones anyways.
And his best friend on the team, Durkon, is the one with the most prejudice against the undead. If any other member of the team had been turned into a vampire, Durkon would be demanding they kill it so he could do a resurrect.

[r2d2go]

I'm just surprised Elan didn't realize he had just made a subverted foreshadow

[Jasdoif]

If Durkon really wanted to come back, he could scribe several scrolls of Raise Dead, etc., and have the highest-level cleric cast it on him. There is a chance of failure, iirc, but Owl's Wisdom and other boosts would minimize the chance. I wonder why no one has thought of this yet.

Doesn't it need to be Resurrect, since Durkon was turned into an undead?

Ah, good point. Seemed too simple for the whole party to miss. Thanks!

The biggest problem I see with this type of approach is the time involved in scribing. Resurrection has an expensive material component (in the form of diamonds), which increases the cost of a scroll of the spell, which increases how long it takes to scribe the scroll. It'd take 13 days to scribe a single scroll of resurrection.

[Mike Havran]

Now that we know vampire lore it's not such a rare knowledge, the temple crawl seems an even bigger gamble on Durkula's part.

[Angelalex242]

Admittedly, it IS pretty rare for clerics to fail a will save. But anyone can roll a 1. Just accept the cleric rolled a 1 on his will save and move on.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

Note Roy's reasoning:

"Since my friend hasn't done anything wrong and he's actively trying to fix his condition, I'm not going to let you chop off his head".

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"There is certainly a real danger that he might turn against the Order at some point. But we do not know that he will,

...

His behavior offers no evidence whatsoever that he has become evil, either. The closest one gets is that he was vindictive against Z and Nale. We have seen far worse from Haley (when she killed Cristal - although only Elan among the OOtS knows of that), Vaarsuvius and even Elan, to say nothing of Belkar himself, yet no one is considering slaying them.


Be wary of his vampiric nature, sure. Attempt to find out how much of him is still Durkon, no doubt. Seek the opportunity to ressurrect him, of course. But to simply assume that Vampires Are Always Evil against all the evidence is just unwise."-LuisDantas

"Belkar wanted to destroy Durkula solely for what Durkula is, "a mockery of all we hold dear", not for what Durkula has done.

If it should come to pass that the Order will need to confront an evil Durkula, it will be evil ACTS that he has done, not for being what he is."~Amphiox

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Personally, I think that Roy is, to a small degree, suspicious of Durkula, but is for now giving him the benefit of the doubt because he hasn't done anything wrong (as far as Roy knows), is (from Roy's point of view) trying to get resurrected), and, most of all, Roy really really wants this to be Durkon.

So, let's say that the clerics follow Roy and try to warn him:

Cleric: That's not your friend! That's a vampire pretending to be your friend! Don't trust him!

Roy: Yeah, I've heard.

Cleric: You don't understand! He's evil and will betray you!

Roy: And you know this... how?

Cleric: He's a vampire, that's how vampires work!

Roy: Yeah, I know. Bye!


Or, assuming they try to reveal the domination to him:

Cleric: Your vampire friend dominated one of us.

Roy: Into doing what?

Cleric: Well, he was running and frantic, trying to explain something to you, something about vampires that he clearly thought was important, and then his sentence went in a different direction and he said something obvious instead.

Roy: Wow. Very evil. Such diabolical.

Cleric: And now he won't tell us what he was about to say! He keeps saying we're overthinking it and he does not, in fact, know any world-shattering secrets that would incite a vampire to take such measures to prevent said secret getting out.

Roy: So, he's acting normally otherwise.

Cleric: Yes! Except he won't tell us what he didn't say! And he claims that he meant what he said and only what he said.

Roy: -sigh-

Cleric: So, clearly, we need to wait a long enough time for that domination to wear off. Then we can tell you whatever it was. Considering the first half of that sentence, I think he was saying something about your friend's soul not being something.

Roy: So, you have no evidence other than that someone didn't say a world-shattering revelation, that that person is acting normally and denies having any such revelations to say, and that vampires are vampires; and that based on this evidence I should disregard the actions of a sentient being and kill him. Brilliant! I've never thought about it in that way!

Cleric: Really?

Roy: No! That was sarcasm. Now please leave me alone unless you can point me in the direction of a cleric who can cast Resurrection.

[Bulldog Psion]

Now that we know vampire lore it's not such a rare knowledge, the temple crawl seems an even bigger gamble on Durkula's part.

Yes, if 1 out of 4 low level gnome clerics at a random temple know this, Durk Malackssen is really playing with fire.

There must be something he wants badly at one of these temples.

[The Giant]

Sometimes, I wonder if the first time some of you saw Star Wars you spent the entire second half of the movie complaining about how the scanner crew that Han and Luke knocked out when they came aboard the captured Millenium Falcon never woke up and reported their deception to the officer overseeing the Death Star docking bay, thus ending the movie with the summary execution of two intruders.

Random 3rd Level Gnome Cleric #4 has as much chance of resolving the Durkon plotline as the phrenologist had of fixing Haley's speech. Sometimes, an author deliberately shows logical-but-undramatic solutions (that the audience might think of on their own) conspicuously not working in order to exclude them so the actual story they want to tell with actual consequences for the actual characters can proceed. Because the goal for the author is not to fix the problem as quickly as possible, the goal is to fix the problem in an interesting and entertaining way (that preferably also says something about the world or human nature or what have you).

If everyone needs a super-logical answer here, assume that Durkon telepathically commands the cleric to say that he's not feeling well due to the stress of seeing a vampire and is going home to lay down, where he stays for the next few days. But that's not going to be addressed in the strip, because it doesn't need to be.

EDIT: Everyone should be required to read Film Crit Hulk's essay on plot holes and movie logic before they can use the word "plot hole" again.

[Porthos]

(Slightly new take on what I was saying, so I feel justified in piping in again. Plus I was thinking about this after I logged off last night, and I wanted to mention it )

1. The gnome cleric who was dominated knows that Durk Malackssen is not the same entity as Durkon.

2. Roy is only accepting Durk because he think's that it's actually still Durkon, just evil now. If he knew it was an evil entity, he would likely attack.

3. The gnome cleric is still alive and therefore can communicate this fact to the other gnomes.

4. You don't need a cute angry mob to cause profound problems for Durk Malackssen. All you need is someone shouting the truth to Roy, slipping a letter into Roy's hand with the truth written in it, writing it as graffiti on a wall, or having that All-Gnome Choir sing it from a nearby rooftop.

5. The clerics are, IMO, quite likely to notice the dominated cleric is dominated. This, in turn, will lead them to try to break the spell. Once un-dominated, the cleric will be able to spill the beans to all and sundry, which will inevitably lead to it getting back to Roy and the rest of the Order quickly.

This is a big tactical mistake on Durk's part, IMO, unless he is literally the luckiest S.O.B. on this global hemisphere.

He has set up a situation where he is probably 95% likely to be unmasked unless the Order leaves town almost immediately.

If he gets away with this, then he should buy some lottery tickets, because he's going to win every time he buys one.

All of this depends on how badly the clerics want to tell Roy (or others) about his 'buddy'.

All of it.

More specifically all of this "OMG, Durkon is in trouble now" depends entirely on how much the clerics want to push this issue.

It is not, IMO, a given that they will want to push this.

They might, they might not. Arguments could be made either way, IMO. For instance, they might write off Roy as a lost cause and just be on their guard for further shenanigans from Durkon. Or maybe they try again if they see Roy later, but won't move heaven and earth for what appears to them to be a problem, but not an End of the World one.

As long as people can come up with what they think of as plausible alternatives, this isn't a plot hole. Again, IMO. Now, I fully realize that plausibility is in the eye of the beholder (so to speak ), but for me, I can see the gnome clerics not trying to contact Roy again. I could also see them bitching about this to the Town Guard, FWIW. Then again, I can also see them deciding to wash their hands of it. Hell (no pun intended), I can even see them sending an invoice to the Mechane, billing Team OOTS for the Dispel Magic it took (or whatever) to get rid of the Domination on their fellow cleric.

Admittedly that last one is pretty unlikely. But it would be funny.

So, yes, I could see Durkon getting in trouble for this. But I don't see it as anything resembling a certanity (barring lottery level luck). Mostly because it entierly depends on the reactions of a group we only know a scant amount about. Way too easy to project our own "What would our PCs do in this situation" type thinking, IMO. In fact, I was falling a little for that myself, which is why I did my reread/analysis of the comic panel by panel earlier. I found I had came away with a bit stronger read of the gnome's attitudes here than was actually shown. After that reread, I came away thinking that it was in fact plausible that their main motivation was to convince Roy to deal with the situation and that they in fact might plausibly not press it once Roy and Durkon left their temple.

EDIT::::

Darn it. Ninja'ed hard by The Giant.

I guess I should feel honored.

[Tragak]

Sometimes, I wonder if the first time some of you saw Star Wars you spent the entire second half of the movie complaining about how the scanner crew that Han and Luke knocked out when they came aboard the captured Millenium Falcon never woke up and reported their deception to the officer overseeing the Death Star docking bay, thus ending the movie with the summary execution of two intruders.

As a prospective writer myself, I don't understand those people either.

[Porthos]

I really want to link Film Crit Hulk's excellent essay on plot holes here, but it seems to be missing. I will leave the link in case it returns at some point.

Alternate link via Wayback Machine.

(and, yes, Film Crit Hulk is awesome)

[The Giant]

EDITED: Ah, that link works! I will edit it into that post.

[Lexible]

As a prospective writer myself, I don't understand those people either.

I just like how your avatar kobold seems to have taken down an avatar of Demogorgon™.

[Runeclaw]

The fact that they tried to turn Durkula immediately indicates that they want to do something to stop the vampire.

Turning doesn't stop a vampire, it just drives it away. They weren't trying to smite it. If anything, they were trying to protect themselves from the perceived threat, at the expense of whoever else the vampire might encounter next had they successfully turned it. Unless you're significantly higher-level than the threat, or can trap it in a corner or dead-end, turning is actually a horrible tactic to employ against a foe you intend to destroy.

[Throknor]

Very good points.

To be fair, a better comparison might be The Hound of the Baskervilles which came out in serial installments. Or maybe a TV miniseries like V. I'd bet even Babylon 5 went through crazy speculations after certain episodes. The chance to have a Fridge Logic moment increases dramatically when there are breaks in the narrative so each portion can be reflected upon instead of the whole piece at once. With a movie you tend to focus on the big things - like how can an entire planet be the same temperate zone, or where were Alderan's sun and its other planets. The little points end up swept under the rug.

Of course, sometimes things hit you right in the face even in a movie. (A spaceship under water for a planet whose people didn't have telescopes? Spaceships floating next to the moon falling to Earth when they lose power? It's like Abrams had a personal grudge against the concept of Physics, but I digress.) A good narrative can gloss over the little things when there isn't time to think about them, but an interrupted catches gets a brain going between speculation on the future and analysis of the immediate path.

Just an unfortunate side-effect of the medium. Luckily there's also the opportunity to nip some of the larger ones in the bud. I don't know if Doyle would have needed to, but as I recall JMS was relatively active in the discussion groups of the time. He probably also had to walk a line of shutting down crazy speculation vs. giving away future plotlines before intended.

[gerryq]

I think he actually wants something.

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Maybe he knows there is a cult of Hel in Tinkertown. Or perhaps he's going to hook up with some other evil aligned church.

Or perhaps it's something as prosaic as stealing something that is in a church somewhere.

I agree. He has done enough to convince Roy, and it's obviously not 100% safe, so he would stop now if that was the only point. There's something he wants from a shrine.

[Runeclaw]

3. It isn't the cleric's words Roy would notice, but the sudden change in tone. It would strike anyone odd. Just read his lines aloud, including the tone change when he is dominated. Tell me if that doesn't strike you as odd.

There's nothing in the actual comic to suggest that the cleric's tone changed or that he was audibly interrupted. That's all your interpretation. There's no change from capitals to lower-case letters or anything else to visually make it clear. And a hyphen in interrupted suggests something different that an ellipsis (...) - it means it didn't trail off, the text was just continued from one panel to the next.

[The Giant]

If everyone needs a super-logical answer here, assume that Durkon telepathically commands the cleric to say that he's not feeling well due to the stress of seeing a vampire and is going home to lay down, where he stays for the next few days. But that's not going to be addressed in the strip, because it doesn't need to be.

When the domination wears off, the gnome cleric is overwhelmed with feelings of despair at his own helplessness in the situation. Rather than returning to the temple, he spirals into depression, sitting on his tiny gnome couch watching reality programming on his crystal ball and eating tubs of chocolate chip mint ice cream. Every day, he considers getting up and telling his clerical associates what happened to him, but how does he start? Would they even believe him? He wants to hope so, but he never really felt like he belonged there. He was always more interested in the old books and forgotten lore than the rest, who seemed so at ease tending to the parishioners' needs. Eventually, he decides to leave the clergy quietly, accepting a job as an assistant librarian elsewhere. He's constantly hounded by his failure to shake off the vampire's gaze whenever he walks by the church, though, so when his new boss mentions an exchange position with the Great Library of Kurodin that I just made up right in this sentence, he puts his name in to be considered. To his surprise, he's accepted and packs his bags—leaving behind anything that would remind him of his old clerical life. At the Great Library, he finds new purpose and feels energized for the first time since his he was young, before his mother pushed him into the clerical life to follow in his grandfather's footsteps. With a new zeal for research, he makes many important scholarly discoveries concerning the Lu-Ching dynasty of the ancient Southern Lands that I also just made up and has his work published in all the most prestigious scholarly journals. As his academic star rises, his newfound confidence allows him to finally ask out that cute gnome researcher in the Linguistics department, and the two are eventually married in a charming ceremony where he even invites his old clerical friends. Over drinks at the reception, he finally tells them why he left the church all those years ago, and they reflect on that fateful encounter with a vampire dwarf and wonder whether his human friend was ever able to save him.

Either that, or the Snarl destroys the world in a week or two.

[gerryq]

Well, Rich has already answered, but what I was going to say is that there are styles of writing other than gritty realism. In Game Of Thrones, this would be a plot hole. In classic fantasy such as that of Jack Vance, it wouldn't. This is what the hero/anti-hero did, and it worked. End of story. [i mean, end of scene.]

[Runeclaw]

That's not a very strong statement on Durkula's part

There's no doubt at all in my mind that it was intended by Durkon, and understood by Roy, as an admission of being Evil in alignment.

[Porthos]

When the domination wears off, the gnome cleric is overwhelmed with feelings of despair at his own helplessness in the situation. Rather than returning to the temple, he spirals into depression, sitting on his tiny gnome couch watching reality programming on his crystal ball and eating tubs of chocolate chip mint ice cream. Every day, he considers getting up and telling his clerical associates what happened to him, but how does he start? Would they even believe him? He wants to hope so, but he never really felt like he belonged there. He was always more interested in the old books and forgotten lore than the rest, who seemed so at ease tending to the parishioners' needs. Eventually, he decides to leave the clergy quietly, accepting a job as an assistant librarian elsewhere. He's constantly hounded by his failure to shake off the vampire's gaze whenever he walks by the church, though, so when his new boss mentions an exchange position with the Great Library of Kurodin that I just made up right in this sentence, he puts his name in to be considered. To his surprise, he's accepted and packs his bags—leaving behind anything that would remind him of his old clerical life. At the Great Library, he finds new purpose and feels energized for the first time since his he was young, before his mother pushed him into the clerical life to follow in his grandfather's footsteps. With a new zeal for research, he makes many important scholarly discoveries concerning the Lu-Ching dynasty of the ancient Southern Lands that I also just made up and has his work published in all the most prestigious scholarly journals. As his academic star rises, his newfound confidence allows him to finally ask out that cute gnome researcher in the Linguistics department, and the two are eventually married in a charming ceremony where he even invites his old clerical friends. Over drinks at the reception, he finally tells them why he left the church all those years ago, and they reflect on that fateful encounter with a vampire dwarf and wonder whether his human friend was ever able to save him.

Either that, or the Snarl destroys the world in a week or two.

Meaningless "Plus 1" posts and/or simple inserts of "Orson Welles Clapping" gifs are frowned upon here, aren't they?

....

Consider it made anyway.

[Vinyadan]

I thought there would be a dramatic reveal in which Elan noticed that Durkon doesn't need to breathe anymore and can therefore be put in a bag of holding to be pulled out in case of need. You know, as a safety measure.

[Doug Lampert]

The biggest problem I see with this type of approach is the time involved in scribing. Resurrection has an expensive material component (in the form of diamonds), which increases the cost of a scroll of the spell, which increases how long it takes to scribe the scroll. It'd take 13 days to scribe a single scroll of resurrection.

From the SRD.

In addition, some items cast or replicate spells with costly material components or with XP components. For these items, the market price equals the base price plus an extra price for the spell component costs. Each XP in the component costs adds 5 gp to the market price. The cost to create these items is the magic supplies cost and the base XP cost (both determined by the base price) plus the costs for the components. Descriptions of these items include an entry that gives the total cost of creating the item.

The creator also needs a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well-lit place in which to work. Any place suitable for preparing spells is suitable for making items. Creating an item requires one day per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price, with a minimum of at least one day. Potions are an exception to this rule; they always take just one day to brew. The character must spend the gold and XP at the beginning of the construction process.

Components add to market price, not base price! Crafting time is determined by base price. Scrolls have a base price of 25 × level of spell × level of caster (formula given multiple places in the SRD).

A level 7 scroll at caster level 13 (adequate for this purpose) has a base cost of 2,275 GP and can be made in 3 days. The components do not add to base cost, and thus don't add to crafting time.

Of course three days is still too long, and a cleric of too low a level to cast the spell himself needs a caster level check to cast from a scroll, if too low a level there's a small chance of a mishap destroying the scroll, so you'd really want two scrolls; which needs twice the material components, which they may not even have.