OOTS #990 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

[Doran]

Interesting, I wonder if the shot of the moon is supposed to be foreshadowing of something lunar related, or just an ominous pause.

[dancrilis]

I liked it - I think it is one I will come back to a bit for review.

[nogall]

Random encounters, hehe... Nice one.

[hamishspence]

Vampires do have a strong association with werewolves - sometimes as allies, sometimes as archenemies.

Maybe that'll be the random encounter if there is one?

[Quild]

Drama inc on geekery thread :]

[Killer Angel]

Poor Roy, your instinct is really failing you...

[factotum]

Poor Roy, your instinct is really failing you...

I dunno, it's enough to tell him to be suspicious of Durkula, which is better than most, I expect.

[Kantaki]

Roy doesn't seem to trust Durkula as much as it seemed so far. I still think the inevitiable Revelation will hit him hard but I'm sure if the time comes he will fight the vampire. V helping him to logic his way through his confusion is great. Her comment about abdominal cognitive limitations made me laugh.
The random encounter bit was amusing as well.

[hroþila]

This comic needs more conversations between Roy and V.

[luxlucis]

Interesting, I wonder if the shot of the moon is supposed to be foreshadowing of something lunar related, or just anominous pause.

Eh, probably just ominous pause.
Poor Roy, he is getting behind on levels

[Shining Wrath]

So now we see Vaarsuvius being a creature of pure intellect, and Roy wondering why it is he's wondering about this issue.

And Haley is up a level - helpful.

[Deathhappens]

"It appears you are of two guts on the matter".
Oh V.

Still can't figure out what exactly we are supposed to establish from the establishing shot in the last panel.

[Jay R]

This is exactly the kind of conflicted position I've been expecting Roy to be in.

Roy's right about one thing - his gut is smarter than Belkar's.

[Psyren]

Good to know that after Durkula's sudden but inevitable betrayal, V at least might be able to do something during the surprise round.

My guess is that Durkon will, during his daily "feeding session" with one of them (likely Roy as he is the most direct threat), not stop drinking in order to take one of them out immediately, then slip off the ship to the pajama party while no one is the wiser. Hopefully it would be a nonlethal takedown, perhaps with Durkon having figured out a way to keep him from drinking the last drop?

Poor Roy, he is getting behind on levels

"Getting?" He's been behind since he died, so over half the comic at this point

[Killer Angel]

I dunno, it's enough to tell him to be suspicious of Durkula, which is better than most, I expect.

Not so sure about it. Maybe we could say that his instinct is right, but he's not listening?

Interesting, I wonder if the shot of the moon is supposed to be foreshadowing of something lunar related, or just anominous pause.

Vampires do have a strong association with werewolves - sometimes as allies, sometimes as archenemies.

Maybe that'll be the random encounter if there is one?

IMO, that's this strip version of tumbleweed. I clearly imagine the landscape with the moon, accompanied by the chirping of crickets.

[b_jonas]

I think the first panel has a typo. It seems like the Giant wanted to write "vis à vis" but the accent is shifted to later.

[jidasfire]

Geez, poor Roy. If he's only as tough as he was at Azure City, he's lagging pretty far behind. I would have assumed he was doing better than that, seeing as he fared reasonably well against Thog, the upgraded Linear Guild, Tarquin's army, and half of Tarquin's party. I know levels matter less than character development, but that's still a big lag when you're getting ready to fight a super lich and you're one of the most underpowered classes.

[Murk]

Poor Roy, being outleveled by your lackies.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Well, it's good to see that Roy isn't absolutely trusting of Durkon, and that he is a little more trusting of Belkar than I originally thought. Can't believe that this day is finally ending.

[Carl]

Loved the punchline. The Moon shot is interesting, some sort of Lunar calendar date that's important perhaps.

[The Giant]

I think the first panel has a typo. It seems like the Giant wanted to write "vis à vis" but the accent is shifted to later.

The new dialogue font doesn't support accent marks, so every time I use a word with one, I have to take a separate apostrophe, turn it on its side, and float it above the word. Works great, until the text gets reflowed in the speech balloon for some reason.

Should be fixed now.

[Neosmith]

So, can anyone clarify Roy's final comment - does dying in D&D mean you lose your levels and experience and have to start over from scratch when you resurrect?

[Halghare]

The new dialogue font doesn't support accent marks, so every time I use a word with one, I have to take a separate apostrophe, turn it on its side, and float it above the word. Works great, until the text gets reflowed in the speech balloon for some reason.

Should be fixed now.

Out of curiosity, what's the name of the new typeface?

[JSSheridan]

Thanks Giant!

[dancrilis]

So, can anyone clarify Roy's final comment - does dying in D&D mean you lose your levels and experience and have to start over from scratch when you resurrect?

No, dying doesn't impact your level at all.
However he was returned to life via Resurrection which resulted in him losing one level, which sets his experience to the midpoint of his previous level.
So if Roy was level 14 when he died he would have been raised as level 13 at the mid-way point for experience.

[The Giant]

Out of curiosity, what's the name of the new typeface?

Wildwords Lowercase from Comicraft.

[Neosmith]

No, dying doesn't impact your level at all.
However he was returned to life via Resurrection which resulted in him losing one level, which sets his experience to the midpoint of his previous level.
So if Roy was level 14 when he died he would have been raised as level 13 at the mid-way point for experience.

Oh, I see. Thank you!

[fishguy]

So, can anyone clarify Roy's final comment - does dying in D&D mean you lose your levels and experience and have to start over from scratch when you resurrect?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/resurrection.htm

You lose one level. Usually, you start at the mid point of the new level, although I know some DMs are merciless and start you at the start of the new, lower level.

ps. the d20SRD for 3.5 ed. (linked above) is an excellent resource to answer many of your D&D questions

ed. Ninja-ed!!

[Czhorat]

"It appears you are of two guts on the matter".
Oh V.

Also "Abdominal cognitive limits"

The Giant does a terrific job on creating distinct voices for each character. If you removed the graphics and just gave text, you'd almost always know which party member is speaking. Yes, V can be a tiny bit over the top, but I'm sure it's terrific fun to write AND it says something abotu the character's personality.

One of the real treats in following OOTS for all of these years has been watching Burlew grow as a writer. Today he seems to have developed quite a skill for it, and would likely to an excellent job with straight prose if he ever wanted to set aside teh stick figures to rest his thumb a bit.

(also, while praising his writing, I can nitpick that a grammatical error slipped into panel 8 - "ones feelings", not "one's feelings")

(on further reflection, the grammatical mistake is mine; the possessive sense of "one" is "one's", despite all logic to the contrary)