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May 6, 2007 04:54
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I guess why I like this strip is because Xykon epitomizes why I'm so terrible as casters. The approriate way is to hang back, let the meatshields take thier hits and blast the crap out everyone. But eventually I just go gently caress THIS poo poo I'm a high level caster what the hell are a bunch of lower level semis going to do to me? Which leads to this happening: Dude, this is gonna be awesome  wait, ow  OH poo poo WHERE ARE MY MEATSHIELDS at this point, I usually die, and Xykon would too, except that he convices the paladins beating his rear end to turn around (oh god the extras don't kill the bad guy when they have the chance because they stop and talk to him CALL THE CLICHE POLICE) and as long as I'm spending way more effort than is really necessary for this discussion, a fair number of paladins either don't look at the ball or pass all of their will saves. O'Chul, Not-Miko, and Halbard Paladin seen above seem to be the only ones at the front still fighting, but there's also  Flying Paladin(Cleric?)  Cloaked Paladin and  Pirate Paladin all who are a bit preoccupied to do much good. plus once Xykon get a bit of separation from the melee fighters, he goes back on the offensive starting with  Finger of Death  a Bluff check   Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt So it's not like he wiped out a room full of paladins with one gimmick, he tried to wipe out a room full of paldins with one gimmick, nearly got killed in the process, then reverted to epic caster to clean up the mess. in summation: rar rar agree with my opinion about a webcomic!
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May 6, 2007 05:57
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I would think an epic level lich versus a room full of prepared paladins and clerics would be a dramatic, even awesome battle. But the rubber ball trick is pretty lame, after the previous fights we've seen in the battle. And it is offensive, because throwing a symbol in someone's face is forcing them to look. He used it to attack the paladins. That's what offensive means. Symbols are meant to defend or protect a location. Do you think the game designers wanted an 8th level spell being vastly more powerful than 9th level attack spells like meteor swarm? No. Use common sense. So, as a fantasy story, this failed, because it isn't well..fantastic. It's just cheap.
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May 6, 2007 06:04
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clockworkjoe posted:I would think an epic level lich versus a room full of prepared paladins and clerics would be a dramatic, even awesome battle. I mean, who gives a drat since we know that the Not-PCs aren't going to defeat him no matter what. It would be like adding an extra hour of footage to Return of the King dedicated to the fall of the garrison at Osgiliath.
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May 6, 2007 06:23
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clockworkjoe posted:It's just cheap. It's only cheap because you know the rules and try to make story predictions with them. For the rest of us, it was amazing. Turn off your gamer sense and look at it from a purely imaginary perspective. This was a fantastic strip.
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May 6, 2007 06:35
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Soonmot posted:I thought Roy was LG? And in case anybody missed it, from #231:
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May 6, 2007 06:37
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clockworkjoe posted:So, as a fantasy story, this failed, because it isn't well..fantastic. It's just cheap. I bet you got into arguments about what level magic-user Gandalf was.
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May 6, 2007 06:45
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All this rule lawyering BS make me glad I don't know poo poo about D&D beyond what I picked up from Planescape Torment. IT'S A GOOD STORY AND XYKON'S AN AWESOME VILLAIN OKAY YOU JERKS
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May 6, 2007 07:20
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Zoolooman posted:It's only cheap because you know the rules and try to make story predictions with them. For the rest of us, it was amazing. Turn off your gamer sense and look at it from a purely imaginary perspective. This was a fantastic strip. I am looking at from an imaginary perspective. The rubber ball isn't really that fantastic to me.
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May 6, 2007 07:25
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clockworkjoe posted:I am looking at from an imaginary perspective. You have the imagination, but you aren't inclined to approach the story from the same angle. The rubber ball is beside the point. I don't care about it or the paladins' stats or the technical rules for symbols or whatever. Up until now, Xykon was a sucky villain. The best thing he'd done for Team Evil was employing Redcloak. Otherwise, he was snarky and silly--even while murdering no-names. In 447, when he flew up to the throne room, Redcloak said, "What the hell is he doing?" This implied that Xykon was making a fatal mistake. We expected that the Sapphire Guild would rip Xykon to shreds. But in two pages, Xykon proved that an army of mid-level paladins was literally a joking matter for him. That was an amazing, concrete revelation. It validated Roy's death for me, because until now, I'd thought Roy had died only because he'd fought alone. Now, I understand that if Roy hadn't gone solo, the entire OOTS would've been wiped with him. Xykon was simply that powerful. What we have now is a puzzle story. The Throne Room is probably lost, but the war isn't over. If the remaining OOTS can destroy the gate-sapphire and escape with their lives, Xykon loses this round. The question is, how do they break the sapphire without being wiped by the lich? I suspect we're going to see O-Chule momentarily healed, giving him the second he needs to finish his swing and smash the gate. How will the OOTS manage this? I don't know. That's why the story remains so exciting. Zooloo fucked around with this message at 08:29 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 07:53
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Ferrinus posted:If Xykon fought a goblin, he wouldn't need to be "uberpowerful" for the outcome to be preordained. quote:In short I think it can be argued successfully that by the facts established in the comic (how strong the paladins in the Sapphire Guard generally are, how strong Xykon is) that Xykon should have won that fight, just like what we know about Miko and Roy suggests that Roy should have been able to hand her rear end to her after she fell. quote:There's no D&D rule that says "PCs may only encounter enemies whose CR matches their level." My point is that the rules are a tool, and the GM decides how to use them. Saying "it's by the rule" sidesteps the reality that the rules serve the writer. quote:They should only be excised from the story if their unrestrained power impedes the advance of the plot rather than facilitates it. From where I'm standing Xykon the twentieth level lich sorcerer has made the strip better, not worse. Rather I think he had an idea for a cool scene, but failed to realise that everybody else has already had the same 'cool' idea and it's actually kinda lame. He came to these conclusions based on the same things other people do, such as seeing paladins as having an in-built character arc - oh hey look they're jerks and they can fall so they must do so immediatly!. quote:I don't get the rest of your suggestions. Yes, he can do that stuff. So, quite frankly, can Varsuuvius, substituting fireballs for Symbols of Insanity. D&D isn't Exalted - twentieth-level characters can't just cast a spell and finish off a city, they have to apply their powers and resources intelligently...which Xykon is doing. quote:More hyperbole! Xykon doesn't have "no limits". He's just really powerful. He's gotten seriously damaged twice now. quote:I think you have your Cliche Detector tuned too strongly, honestly. A bunch of weak guys getting killed by a strong guy isn't automatically the Clueless Guys Who Always Lose, and honestly a powerful evil character taking out a bunch of weaker good characters who want to stop him isn't at all outlandish or stupid. quote:I've never read those books, but I feel really sorry for you now happyelf I didn't actually read that many of them, but people talk a lot and I have read a few by accident, for instance when I bought NWN they tossed in a copy of "Thronhold" for free and oohh godd it was painful and aparently not even the worst. The one's i've read to the point of masochism have been the dragonlance ones, and I skipped the summer of chaos trilogy in wich the solamnic knights get completly steam-rolled by an invincible plot army not once, but twice in three books. But the FR books are equally bad if not worse, several of the writers really do push paladins as stupid jerks who only cause trouble, wich then requires a GC anti-hero type or a loving wizard to come in and fix things. 'Everybody' knows this stuff, it's one of the common rpg/fiction cliches, just the same as "hey guys technology is evil and our cool nature powers are way cool" and "oh look it's a fantasy church that claims to be good- but it's actually evil and corrupt like all religions in the real world!". Actually scratch that last example, you'd probably love that stuff <  >There are threads right now on RPG.net or ENworld wich i'm sure you could find examples of this, I even spotted one the other day. I'm not saying these concepts are horrible in all cases, but people go back to them again and again and they do that because they have a pretty unoriginal and uninteresting take on things. They follow a certain train of thought to what they think is the inevitable result, but it's always the same dull combination of dissing authority and using the establishment as a prop and the heroes have to be on their own like frodo and the law is dumb and so on and on. He doesn't have that problem broadly, but in terms of this subset of the plot it's right there. quote:Again, though, I think you've just become so used to bad writing that you're seeing it wherever you look, like a soldier suddenly having visions of Charlies In The Trees. It's possible for a bad guy to kill a bunch of good guys and have it not be bad writing! Zoolooman posted:If I might speculate, I think the people who are complaining have too much emotional investment. That seems like a strange thing to say--naively, one wonders how emotional investment could be a bad thing--but in a fundamentally comedic story, stepping to close to the page can make you feel frustrated, because fundamentally, even in their most dramatic moments, comedies never make sense. Soonmot posted:I thought Roy was LG? And have you ever wondered why so many people on the OOTS boards inexplicably consider him a big mean bossy jerk? Heresiarch posted:I bet you got into arguments about what level magic-user Gandalf was. No, really! Think about it! He even summoned a horse! Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 10:51 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 10:48
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clockworkjoe posted:I would think an epic level lich versus a room full of prepared paladins and clerics would be a dramatic, even awesome battle. But the rubber ball trick is pretty lame, after the previous fights we've seen in the battle. And it is offensive, because throwing a symbol in someone's face is forcing them to look. He used it to attack the paladins. That's what offensive means. Symbols are meant to defend or protect a location. Do you think the game designers wanted an 8th level spell being vastly more powerful than 9th level attack spells like meteor swarm? No. Use common sense. If Xykon had simply flown in with Greater Invisibility and Stoneskin on and started repeatedly casting Horrid Wilting and Wail of the Banshee, then the fight would have indeed ended as one would expect based on D&D. However that would have been too predictable in my opinion. Having a bouncing ball that drove all the paladins to slaughter one another was much more inventive than that and thus more interesting.
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May 6, 2007 10:48
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Look. I think everyone needs to take a step back and just enjoy where the comic is going. If you scrutinize it, it will break. It simply isn't coherently plotted. It wasn't meant to be. It's a comedy with dramatic moments. Just suspend as much disbelief as you can manage and move on. Edit: If I might remind you, characters in this strip break the fourth wall and disobey common sense in order to knowingly execute genre cliches. Compared to that, two pages dedicated to making a comedic villain look especially nasty are hardly mistakes on the part of the writer. Zooloo fucked around with this message at 11:40 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 11:36
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Caselogic.com posted:No, it was done away with in 3rd edition. It wasn't all that useful in 2nd either, the radius was 10 feet and was nullified if the paladin forced an evil creature into it. IE, charging towards something. All they got now is an aura of courage, giving allies within 10' a +4 on saves vs fear.
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May 6, 2007 11:52
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I think that reading some of Burlew's articles, especially Villain Workshop, will give some insight into the OOTS plot and the character of Xykon. A few points regarding Burlew's apparent preferences:
At this stage, the OOTS shouldn't be able to stop Xykon, and not just because of his personal power, but because since they don't know what's really going on (as he hinted to Roy on board the dragon) they can't counter his plot effectively. Shojo's long introduction of the Snarl and the gates may well be true, but he could easily have been wrong about what Xykon and Redcloak are really up to. In terms of the plot, Xykon right now is undefeatable, at least in terms of being able to smack him around with swords and spells. Later, the Order will be able to stop his evil plan, and the events of this arc may be what makes them realize that they need more information about their enemies (as well as to grow in strength themselves). There's an element of railroading here but it's very far from Xykon being a Mary Sue; if anything, Burlew's world and plot is what he wants us to adore, rather than the character.
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May 6, 2007 12:12
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The paladin girl killing herself due to guilt at the end was just too much for me. 
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May 6, 2007 14:21
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Efreet saiid posted:I'm not going to start quoting the DMG to you. But it's right here, ok, I can go there any time I want. Just so you know. *Firmly taps DMG for emphasis even though it's actually in the closet downstairs* Dungeon Masters Guide, pg 49-50 posted:Sometimes, the PCs encounter something that's a pushover for them. At other times, an encounter is tooo difficult, and they have to run away. A well-constructed adventure has a variety of encounters at several different levels of difficulty. Table 3-2: Encounter Difficulty shows (in percentage terms) how many encounters of a certain difficulty an adventure should have. Efreet saiid posted:Gandalf was pretty clearly a Paladin. NorgLyle fucked around with this message at 15:03 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 14:58
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Ah-ha, nerd trap! You see everyone? It is NorgLyle who is truly the nerd! ... But I mean think of it, Gandalf doesn't cast many spells, most of the time it he kills something it's using a melee weapon, he's a servant of the gods, he's fearless and inspiring, and he has a pokemount. He's an Assimar paladin, or at most a paladin/sorcerer. And plus clearly he's the GM's pet.
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May 6, 2007 15:18
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Efreet saiid posted:Ah-ha, nerd trap! You see everyone? It is NorgLyle who is truly the nerd!  types)
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May 6, 2007 15:23
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Lurdiak posted:The paladin girl killing herself due to guilt at the end was just too much for me. Yeah.  Jesus, to think that a couple of months ago people were arguing that somehow Miko was the most unsympathetic of the villains.
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May 6, 2007 15:52
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Rincewind posted:Yeah. Miko doesn't wisecrack enough.
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May 6, 2007 17:23
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Rincewind posted:Yeah. I dunno. Xykon's a dick but he knows he's a dick. Miko thinks that she's a shining beacon of holy goodness. Does anyone really believe that Miko wouldn't have gladly chosen a strategy that ended with goblins killing themselves once they see the true meaning of their actions? And then she'd gloat about how she helped their souls regain purity. Honestly, I'd rather have a beer with a self-admitted rear end in a top hat any day.
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May 6, 2007 17:34
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Okay, honestly, he could have tossed a big silver platter with the symbol on it into the middle of them, that's not an offensive use of the spell. Years of 'Sage Advice' on the D&D website and in Dragon and Dungeon magazines have pretty much clear where the line between offensive is and where it isn't. That particular action would not have broken invisibility, as it directly affected no one, therefor it was not offensive. He could have inscribed the damned thing in the air in the same panel he tossed the ball. The ball was comic effect. Secondly, it only affects, as of 3rd ed, this may have changed in 3.5, 150 hit points of creatures. It affected, as far as I can count, at least 15 unique paladins, the highest level ones, not being affected. There is not one Mount in that room, given the amount of area, you'd think the someone of high level would have summoned theirs. Unless no one in there is above 4th level (see my note about 150 hit points) No matter how Xykon did it, that room would have been a cake walk, he just chose to do it in typical Xykon style instead of "mwah ha ha, I have an evil plan." And dumping the room full of cloudkills and chain lightning. Hinjo has a mount, no one else seems to, except Miko. Miko is high level cause she's an rear end and was sent on missions as far away and as dangerous as possible to keep her out of people's hair, while everyone else trained and rousted the occasional pickpocket.
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May 6, 2007 17:49
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I said all this before! As per the spell description, you don't have to look at the symbol to trigger it. You can set it so that it goes off by alignment, but here's the thing: once one person activates it, it's active for a radius of sixty feet. So even if you're not looking for it, if you're 60 feet away when someone activates it you have to make a save. So long as you're in the radius, you have to make the will save every round. That's every six seconds. Eventually you're gonna make a bad roll and fail it, especially since a saving throw against Xykon's spell can't be that easy. That room isn't that much bigger than sixty feet, and getting out of the radius in a crush of insane paladins would kill you with AoOs anyway. It was a good plan, it was totally within the spell description and system rules, and there is nothing wrong with it. The bouncy ball was for humor; he could have used virtually any other object to toss.
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May 6, 2007 18:40
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Symbol of insanity specifically has no hit die limit anymore. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/symbolofInsanity.htm (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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May 6, 2007 18:40
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TheFuzzyLumpkin posted:I said all this before! Looks like somebody failed his spot check: "A creature need save against the symbol only once as long as it remains within the area, though if it leaves the area and returns while the symbol is still active, it must save again." Anyway, I don't mind when Burlew tweaks the rules or whatever. What I'm not liking is that Xykon is being written contrary to all his previous characterization. Suddenly the chaotic, lazy, supremely confident lich is being written as ruthless, efficient, and foresighted. I don't like it.
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May 6, 2007 20:06
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Samedi posted:Looks like somebody failed his spot check: He's always been those things. Look at it this way. Redcloak sees the world the way a normal person would. He's concerned with siege engines, armies, supply chain, tactics. Xykon doesn't care. He knows that hey, push comes to shove, there's not a whole hell of a lot anyone can do if he decides he wants to do something. He sees the world the way a D&D player does. "Wow, that's sure an impressive army. You know, hypothetically, a single Great Cleave could take out EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM." Xykon's chaotic and lazy because he's supremely confident. He's supremely confident because when push comes to shove he still is ruthless, efficient, and (a little bit) foresighted.
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May 6, 2007 20:29
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Samedi posted:What I'm not liking is that Xykon is being written contrary to all his previous characterization. Suddenly the chaotic, lazy, supremely confident lich is being written as ruthless, efficient, and foresighted. I don't like it. What part of those two descriptions can't co-exist? He was still chaotic. It was only Roy's interference that forced him to make a change in plans. Redcloak had no idea what he was doing. That's pretty chaotic. He took a bit of a beat down so that his enemies would kill each other. That's pretty drat rear end lazy when he could really have done it himself. Ruthless.. well he's always been ruthless. Dead followers are just as good as live ones and talk back less. Efficient, foresighted and Supremely confident, He's never been shown as a cackling, deluded megalomaniac, and he _did_ manage to be foresighted enough to turn himself into a lich. Not to mention his magical gadgets. he just doesn't particularly worry himself with people who aren't a threat. Like that Greentree guy. As for efficient... there were more efficient ways of handling this whole battle. Fortunately Redcloak handled the tactics or there would have been no planning at all. There were more efficient ways of handling a room of Paladins. Efficiency and Foresight has your major villain scribing Summon IX scrolls in advance of the attack, things like that, not casting Overland flight and spending 10 minutes etching a rubber ball with symbol of insanity. He's just never had a reason to even live up to a fraction of his potential before. And that's all this was.. a fraction of his potential.. if he weren't so chaotic, lazy, and generally uncaring of anything he doesn't perceive as a threat. His whole speech to Roy was "This is how you play the game, I know how to play the game. You can't beat me until you know how to play the game too." And Xykon just proved he can play. gothfae fucked around with this message at 21:36 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 20:34
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He has always been that way. He came up with that plan to find out where the Sapphire gate was on the spot when he met Miko, I have no idea how you were thinking he wasn't ruthless, and as far as efficiency goes, he's as efficient or inefficient as his violent sense of humor dictates at any given moment. Edit: eh, as far as the planning the battle goes, why should he bother with it? An evil overlord has minions that do the grunt work for him. Those hobgoblin generals weren't just going to zerg the city walls with no planning ahead whatsoever you know. They're a race that places high value on military discipline. Spaz mk. 2.0 fucked around with this message at 20:44 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 20:38
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gothfae posted:What part of those two descriptions can't co-exist? This post pretty much sums up everything I was trying to say. Xykon is a really, really great villain.
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May 6, 2007 21:20
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The ball thing is not legal, I don't get why people are defending it based on the rules when the rules don't support it. For instance, he'd certainly lose invisibility for doing something like this. That said, I didn't have a problem with Thor's exploding tree thunder spell because it was cool, so I can totally see people using the same reasoning here. That's fine. But trying to defend it under the rules is weak as.Samedi posted:Anyway, I don't mind when Burlew tweaks the rules or whatever. What I'm not liking is that Xykon is being written contrary to all his previous characterization. Suddenly the chaotic, lazy, supremely confident lich is being written as ruthless, efficient, and foresighted. I don't like it. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 22:27 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 22:25
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Samedi posted:Anyway, I don't mind when Burlew tweaks the rules or whatever. What I'm not liking is that Xykon is being written contrary to all his previous characterization. Suddenly the chaotic, lazy, supremely confident lich is being written as ruthless, efficient, and foresighted. I don't like it. He was ruthless enough to end a labor dispute by killing and zombifying a bunch of ogres; he was efficient enough to frame his killing the ogres as a net positive; and he was foresighted enough to give Redcloak the baseball speech at the end of the first arc ("...you gotta suck it up and realize it's the season that matters..."). This is just the first time he's been in a strip where his badassery wasn't done off-panel.
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May 6, 2007 22:26
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Efreet saiid posted:The ball thing is not legal, I don't get why people are defending it based on the rules when the rules don't support it. ... But trying to defend it under the rules is weak as.  on point X, so it stands to reason that there would be some on point Y as well."
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May 6, 2007 23:33
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Efreet saiid posted:But the writer still decides to set him up against a goblin. Yeah, and? Most of the paladins in the Sapphire Guard were too weak to take on a lich, and due to how the battle unfolded they ended up doing it anyway, so they lost. It was spelled out for us at the beginning of the battle that the Order of the Stick was basically there to try and engage Xykon and hold him off, because (to paraphrase Roy or someone else) "A high level sorcerer isn't really at the level of engaging enemy units, he just reworks the whole course of the battle." quote:Rather I think he had an idea for a cool scene, but failed to realise that everybody else has already had the same 'cool' idea and it's actually kinda lame. He came to these conclusions based on the same things other people do, such as seeing paladins as having an in-built character arc - oh hey look they're jerks and they can fall so they must do so immediatly!. Again, years of reading terrible fantasy fiction has turned you into the books-about-elves equivalent of a hardened soldier who spins, pulls a gun, and yells "freeze" at anyone who taps him on the shoulder. It's possible for an evil guy to take out a bunch of weaker good guys and have it be a good addition to the story. It's possible for an ostensibly good character's rigid moral code to make them into an antagonist and be a good addition to the story. Your complaints just look silly in the context of the entire story. "Ugh a paladin falling is so cliched!" The strip's other ~forty paladins remain upstanding members of society! "Ugh a bunch of soldiers dying to the main bad guy is so cliched!" We have been aware that the bad guy was capable of this for an extremely long time now, and the whole objective of the battle was to prevent it from coming to pass! Quit being super-jaded! Also the ball thing isn't explicitly legal but it's very, very arguable. As others have said, what the spell means by saying a symbol is used "offensively" is spelled out very clearly, and chucking an item with a symbol on it into the air doesn't qualify. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 03:29 on May 7, 2007 |
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May 7, 2007 03:27
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, and? quote:Again, years of reading terrible fantasy fiction has turned you into the books-about-elves equivalent of a hardened soldier who spins, pulls a gun, and yells "freeze" at anyone who taps him on the shoulder. They made tanis half-elven travel back in time to meet his mom and then carve a huge mural on the side of a mountain! Why? Why did he do any of that?? One guy did a book about the knights that just ripped off the entire plot to "Sir Garwain and the green knight", only he got the best bit backwards! And where the hell did the knights of takhisis come from? There were like 40,000 of them all of a sudden and the whole continent is smaller than Australia! Did they have cloning tanks? And that's not even mentioning the star wars ones! Wait- what's that in the trees? Oh god it's Kevin J Anderson fire fiiiiire- quote:It's possible for an evil guy to take out a bunch of weaker good guys and have it be a good addition to the story. quote:It's possible for an ostensibly good character's rigid moral code to make them into an antagonist and be a good addition to the story. quote:Your complaints just look silly in the context of the entire story. "Ugh a paladin falling is so cliched!" The strip's other ~forty paladins remain upstanding members of society! quote:"Ugh a bunch of soldiers dying to the main bad guy is so cliched!" We have been aware that the bad guy was capable of this for an extremely long time now, and the whole objective of the battle was to prevent it from coming to pass! Quit being super-jaded! quote:Also the ball thing isn't explicitly legal but it's very, very arguable. As others have said, what the spell means by saying a symbol is used "offensively" is spelled out very clearly, and chucking an item with a symbol on it into the air doesn't qualify. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 10:16 on May 7, 2007 |
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May 7, 2007 10:14
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Efreet saiid posted:Ok fine, then the next move should be for the OOTS to spend a few comics pouring boiling water down ants-nests to get lots of extra XP. I'm pretty sure that if killing hordes of hobgoblins doesn't give XP, neither does boiling anthills. Seriously, "I do not approve of the way he's interpreting the rules" doesn't translate into "he is clearly ignoring D&D rules and thinks that anything no matter how crazy should work". Judging from Spaz's reply, I agree that I like his interpretation. It might not be how you'd do things, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.
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May 7, 2007 11:44
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Efreet saiid posted:And so it's his call, it's got nothing to do with the rules. Just like it's the GM's call if they drop a red draogn on a 1st level party, they can't use the rules as a defence. No one is invoking the rules to defend the setup of the encounter, just the outcome of the encounter. Sure, Rich could've had the throne room defended by a single level 3 commoner or a trio of ancient golden dragons, but instead he put in about twenty low-to-mid level paladins. And epic lich vs. lots of low-level melee guys has only one outcome! quote:This wasn't that, this was falling paladin #978. Really? Is that how it usually happens? Miko fell because of her near-hysterical anger at having been lied to her entire life, incredible ability to make excuses and justify anything she does, and general bloodlust. She found her lord had been corraborating with a bunch of people she utterly, utterly hated, decided that the lot of them must have been working with the Big Evil Badguy, and let loose instead of talking things through. It didn't strike me as some Holy poo poo Never Been Done Before Ever series of innovative events, but it was certainly appropriate to the situation and the characters as they'd been established and produced a lot of good strips. The only other falling paladin storyarc I'm familiar with is Arthas from Warcraft 3, who basically sacrificed everything he had to kill a demon he had a vendetta against. Oh and I guess Aribeth from Neverwinter Nights to who threw in with the bad guys to get back at the city of Neverwinter for unjustly executing her lover? Actually, those all sound pretty good. What exactly is wrong with "ostensibly good person is driven to do bad by personal concerns" again? quote:And then die. See? That's the other side of the cliche. They're either going to end up bad or they're going to die. They're useles, see? That's the point. Authority and the establishment always fails. Oh, that's just dumb. Roy is Lawful Good and law-abiding he's the star of the strip. (Well, I guess he got killed recently, but still.) Hinjo is lawful good and he's constantly portrayed as intelligent and effective. And those paladins who got their asses kicked were cool - there was a pirate paladin and a scary samurai armor paladin and a grizzled veteran paladin, they weren't just consciously-made-to-be-idiots caricatures of authority figures that some hack writer was using to get back at the police for arresting him for speeding. quote:Ok fine, then the next move should be for the OOTS to spend a few comics pouring boiling water down ants-nests to get lots of extra XP. I would not have thought it amiss if there was an early strip about that gambit, actually.
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May 7, 2007 15:14
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ZorbaTHut posted:Seriously, "I do not approve of the way he's interpreting the rules" doesn't translate into "he is clearly ignoring D&D rules and thinks that anything no matter how crazy should work". Judging from Spaz's reply, I agree that I like his interpretation. It might not be how you'd do things, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. That doesn't stop it from being a cool idea in the comic but that in turn doesn't change how weak it is for a writer who aparently takes pride in suprises and like playing with cliches, to drop a series of predictable plot points like this. Really, the bouncy ball, the paladin splash page, and Roy dissing Miko have been the only redeeming features of that little bit of the strip. But as I said, i'm not carrying this over to the rest of the strip. It's still good. Ferrinus posted:The only other falling paladin storyarc I'm familiar with is Arthas from Warcraft 3, who basically sacrificed everything he had to kill a demon he had a vendetta against. Oh and I guess Aribeth from Neverwinter Nights to who threw in with the bad guys to get back at the city of Neverwinter for unjustly executing her lover? Granted, in the case of Arthas they were doing the arc based on part on the death knights, who were in WC2 as well, but it's still typical of the hack writing that so much of WC3 relied on- it's actually an odd combination of good ideas and hack cliches, but a falling paladin who kills all the other paladins? Yawn. And Aribeth, god, we're talking about the NWN OC, wich was notorious for how rushed and contrived it was. In each case the mindset and logic leads to the same place. There's a lot of different causes but ultimatly people think that paladins are a character with a built-in character arc- they fall, that's what they do. And this is the same thing. Miko and the guard were set up from the start to reach that point where the CG old guy came into conflict with her. Miko was always set up to fall. I'd go so far as to say that he's wiped out the saphire guard in part because he has no use for them after that, since their main purpose was that plot and the introduction of the snarl/gate stuff. Again, as has been noted before, can anyone think of a paladin or paldin-like character who isn't either a huge jerk or a walking corpse? All I can come up with is big ears from goblins(early days yet!), a strip wich also has Kore, the nastiest 'paladin' ever. quote:Actually, those all sound pretty good. quote:What exactly is wrong with "ostensibly good person is driven to do bad by personal concerns" again? quote:Oh, that's just dumb. Roy is Lawful Good and law-abiding he's the star of the strip. quote:Hinjo is lawful good and he's constantly portrayed as intelligent and effective. quote:And those paladins who got their asses kicked were cool - there was a pirate paladin and a scary samurai armor paladin and a grizzled veteran paladin, they weren't just consciously-made-to-be-idiots caricatures of authority figures that some hack writer was using to get back at the police for arresting him for speeding. I guess it's possible he can pull a real twist, like maybe the one under the robe is Miko and she'll pull something, but that's doubtful and ultimatly they're just typical cannon fodder good guys who die just like the those guys always die. quote:I would not have thought it amiss if there was an early strip about that gambit, actually. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 17:00 on May 7, 2007 |
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May 7, 2007 16:47
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I think the main problem is that plot twists and resolutions seem hollow without foreshadowing. They seem like deus ex machina. Even though Xykon is certainly capable of making a symbol of insanity it seems like a deus ex without foreshadowing.
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May 7, 2007 16:52
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Efreet saiid posted:Again, he set things up like that. It's still a cliche even if it was contrived to a degree you found acceptable. You can say that about anything! quote:See, those came out within a year of one another, and that should tell you something about how common this idea is. Yeah? Well both of those games also had the undead in them. And evil wizards who wanted to take over things. And orcs. "Common ideas" are what make things part of a genre! quote:There's a lot of different caues but ultimatly people think that paladins are a character with a built-in character arc- they fall, that's what they do. Paladins don't have a built-in character arc, they have a built-in visible indicator of an extremely common and universal character arc. There's tons of stories about good people being driven to do bad things. poo poo, Roy's done bad things - remember him abandoning Elan to die? It's just that if you're a fighter and you do something bad, you're still a fighter, whereas if you're a paladin and you do something bad there's some pyrotechnics. Your immense distaste for poorly-written fantasy has blinded you to the fact that "the good person who falls from grace" is actually a pretty good story trope! It's certainly used badly in many places, but it's being used well here. The strip is better for containing Miko than it would be if she was just replaced with some generic hired mercenary/enforcer who beat up the Order, dragged them to Azure City, and didn't say a word. quote:And this is the same thing. Miko and the guard were set up from the start to reach that point where the CG old guy came into conflict with her. Miko was always set up to fall. I'd go so far as to say that he's wiped out the saphire guard in part because he has no use for them after that, since their main purpose was that plot and the introduction of the snarl/gate stuff. I don't get it, it looks here like you're complaining that Rich Burlew has planned out his plot in advance? Anything that happens was set up to happen. quote:It's not that vague. It's paladins falling over and over again, assuming they aren't being jerks without falling. It's like all these guys used to play D&D and never really got past the cliche phase, at least when it comes to that one class. It is that vague. A "The Paladin has fallen!" storyline is a "A good person's turned evil!" storyline with more obvious special effects. It's dumb to write off every instance of a Paladin A) falling or B) dying as a stupid whiny teenager lashing out at authority. quote:And again, seriously, i'm pretty sure part of why people inexplicably bitch about Roy and call him a jerk so much is because he's LG. HappyElf, I absolutely agree with you that this attitude exists within a distressingly large part of D&D's/this comic's fanbase (as well as fantasy writing as a whole.) But, like, it doesn't stop a paladin falling from having the ability to be a good part of a good story, and Rich Burlew definitely doesn't have this attitude himself. quote:One guy. He's the exception, just like when he was initially introduced, purely to reassure the readers that the writer didn't write all paladins as cliche jerks. What? Every paladin but Miko was written as not a cliched jerk. Miko was included in the strip specifically as "the wrong way to play a paladin", just like Belkar is "that guy who just wants to kill everything". To complain that Miko is an insult to paladins is like complaining that Belkar is an insult to rangers. Think about it - for you to be satisfied with the strip's portrayal of paladins, every single one would have had to be morally and intellectually perfect! Because otherwise, uh oh, looks like someone's just dredging up that boring old "Paladins suck!" cliche. (Since all non-paladins in the strip are portrayed as competent and rational, right?) quote:And then they all died because he wanted them to die. Their designs just make it worse. He may have drawn them like interesting characters, but he didn't treat them like that. I can sympathize with "Those characters look cool, I wish they'd lived so we could see them be cool some more!" but it has little to do with the whole is-this-a-horrible-cliche angle.
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May 7, 2007 17:13
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