Soonmot posted:Anyway, I think Miko isn't quite LE yet, she's LN. Ferrinus posted:This brings us back to the age-old question of whether deluded is the same as evil. Ferrinus posted:Honestly, I think she's the example of the only way that a (Lawful) Good character can serve as an antagonist for a Good (or maybe Neutral) party - the Good antagonist is not in possession of all the facts and somehow prevented from acquiring them. If wanderer's theory is correct, a few more posts like this should make her kill and rape a few babies in the next few comics, followed by her sprouting horns and leathery wings and saying "I LOVE BEING LAWFUL EVIL OF MY OWN VOLITION". Lurdiak fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Jun 5, 2007 |
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Jun 5, 2007 09:57
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Lurdiak posted:If wanderer's theory is correct, a few more posts like this should make her kill and rape a few babies in the next few comics, followed by her sprouting horns and leathery wings and saying "I LOVE BEING LAWFUL EVIL OF MY OWN VOLITION". Hey, I don't think Miko is misunderstood or shortchanged or treated unfairly - by real-world standards, she's a horrible monster. But she's still "Lawful Good" until such time as she decides to stop trying to serve justice and the gods and so forth. Basically I see alignment as a statement of intentions, so there's no point in telling someone who (honestly, as far as they can tell) claims to be some alignment that they're really a different alignment.
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Jun 5, 2007 10:03
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Arctic Baldwin posted:In all fairness, it was a huge fall that killed Roy. Roy managed to take a meteor storm and now Xykon has used up a good amount of spells. Could be a fair fight He still can't do much damage to Xykon though; despite the fact he had a sword that specifically aimed at combating undead he was only able to occasionally hit him. And with Redcloak by Xykon's side who's able to rebuke undead and cast plenty of spells that can injure ghosts, I think Roy still wouldn't have much of a chance.
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Jun 5, 2007 10:30
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Soonmot posted:Except for the lich's touch attack. It ignores AC except for the dex bonus. It would not ignore the wisdom bonus a monk gets though.
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Jun 5, 2007 14:35
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/\/\/\yeah, the wisdom bonus would count too, forgot about her monk levelsFerrinus posted:
I actually think it does, but I'm too lazy to dig out the DM guide or look it up. EDIT: Miko is in armor, doesn't that negate the wisdom bonus as monks cannot wear armor? Soonmot fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Jun 5, 2007 |
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Jun 5, 2007 14:49
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Miko would actually do ok against a lich, if she's got a few monk levels. Not super-great but still she could knock him around for a panel or two. I'm wondering if instead Burlew is going to pull a switch, and suddenly have her "divine" good fortune reverse itself by crushing her with masonry or something.Ferrinus posted:But she doesn't have a player!  quote:Honestly, I think she's the example of the only way that a (Lawful) Good character can serve as an antagonist for a Good (or maybe Neutral) party - the Good antagonist is not in possession of all the facts and somehow prevented from acquiring them. Anyway, i've lost track of the number of "neutral is the new good" plotlines and storylines wich centre around an ignorant do-gooder going up against pinfully cliche "moraly ambiguous" neutral protagonists. Ferrinus posted:Hey, I don't think Miko is misunderstood or shortchanged or treated unfairly - by real-world standards, she's a horrible monster. But she's still "Lawful Good" until such time as she decides to stop trying to serve justice and the gods and so forth. quote:Basically I see alignment as a statement of intentions, so there's no point in telling someone who (honestly, as far as they can tell) claims to be some alignment that they're really a different alignment. I find that alignment is not nearly as wierd and counter-intuitive as people claim. I mean it's not like it's V:TM's humanity/paths system or something. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Jun 5, 2007 |
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Jun 5, 2007 15:03
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Soonmot posted:EDIT: Miko is in armor, doesn't that negate the wisdom bonus as monks cannot wear armor? EDIT: The monk's AC bonus does apply to touch attacks but you lose it if you're wearing any kind of armor. Unless she has levels in some made up prestige class or something. NorgLyle fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Jun 5, 2007 |
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Jun 5, 2007 15:06
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NorgLyle posted:Yes. I didn't realize she was wearing armor, I thought that was just clothes. Why would you put people in prison wearing armor?
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Jun 5, 2007 15:17
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NorgLyle posted:Yes. Doesn't have to be made up, there's an official monk/paladin prestige class that stacks armour with the monk wisdom bonus.
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Jun 5, 2007 17:11
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Efreet saiid posted:Then she doesn't have an alignment Oh yes she does because players have to be able to use Protection from [Alignment] to evade her attacks! quote:I think there's a lot of ways you can send non-evil people up against each other, after all the facts only say so much. Not all good people have the same opinons- Well yeah, they can certainly serve as political antagonist or social antagonists or competing groups of adventurers or whatever. But the only way to have a Good antagonist as in someone who repeatedly attempts to kill you and your party is to make them believe you evil. quote:Anyway, i've lost track of the number of "neutral is the new good" plotlines and storylines wich centre around an ignorant do-gooder going up against pinfully cliche "moraly ambiguous" neutral protagonists. All of the protagonists are Good! Except for Varsuuvius and Belkar, and Varsuuvius doesn't actually care about helping people and Belkar is comedy relief. Anyway, you're trying to avoid storylines like that by bending too far into the other direction - you're saying that there's no way someone with the Good alignment can ever do anything bad while retaining the alignment, even by mistake. quote:Oh cool, hitler is LG! Yeah that's really useful. I saw that comparison coming from a miiiiile away. You can't call Hitler or a suicide bomber or whatever Good (even if you treat alignment as a statement of intentions) because he's completely willing to kill innocents to accomplish his aims. Miko isn't - the innocents she's killed have been people who she thought were conscious servants of Xykon. The Lawful Good alignment doesn't allow you to kill people because of their race or their politics, but it does allow you to kill people because they're conspiring with a lich to overthrow your city. If alignments were actually based on actions, and slowly changed as you took more and more actions in direction or another, then you'd be able to turn Belkar Neutral by locking him up in a cage for the rest of his life. Every day that passes without him murdering someone would slowly shift him farther and farther away from Evil! And I guess the fact that he hasn't got any laws to break means he'd stop being Chaotic, too. quote:I find that alignment is not nearly as wierd and counter-intuitive as people claim. Who's saying it is?
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Jun 5, 2007 18:55
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As far as intentions are concerned, one might label her as chaotic, because once you think your ultimate word is the law and refuse to follow others, that is chaotic right there. But she still intends good, and still wants to protect innocents. And as far as actions are concerned she has only committed one evil act really, killing whats his old-man. You don't have to change alignment to lose your powers, just one indiscretion does it.
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Jun 5, 2007 19:22
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Sick_Boy posted:I believe that you are correct, even if she is not "offically" LE, she certainly fits the bill here. Um. After killing Lord Shojo, wouldn't she become LE? That was, after all, an incredibly evil act. Edit: As I understand it, alignment is about actions and not intentions. If someone thought murder every day but stuck to the actions of a LG character, he'd be LG, just insane. Miko acts LE, almost to the letter of the description. She killed Lord Shojo of her own free will without any deception in an attempt to uphold the exact letter of the law as she saw it. She thinks LG or NG, but she acts LE, therefore she is LE and insane. Zooloo fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jun 5, 2007 |
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Jun 5, 2007 19:31
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Zoolooman posted:Um. After killing Lord Shojo, wouldn't she become LE? That was, after all, an incredibly evil act. I don't know, is Redcloak turned good suddenly from pulling back his troops and working to minimize his casualties because of his epiphany that all goblinkind were created equal?
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Jun 5, 2007 19:44
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Ferrinus posted:You can't call Hitler or a suicide bomber or whatever Good (even if you treat alignment as a statement of intentions) because he's completely willing to kill innocents to accomplish his aims. Miko isn't - the innocents she's killed have been people who she thought were conscious servants of Xykon. But they were Jews! Everyone knows that the Jews are evil satan-spawn that could be Smite Eviled out of existence if Hitler had taken any levels in Paladin. Hitler was totally being a righteous LG character. greatn posted:I don't know, is Redcloak turned good suddenly from pulling back his troops and working to minimize his casualties because of his epiphany that all goblinkind were created equal? It is much harder to go evil=>neutral=>good than the other way.
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Jun 5, 2007 20:01
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So if I kill one baby, I'm evil? That's no fair. I've been protecting babies my whole life. And for what? Just so you could call me evil for killing ONE that probably had it coming the first place? God, it makes me so angry, it makes me so mad I just want to go kill some babies.
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Jun 5, 2007 20:05
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Hey guys, stop punching babies and check out the... New Strip
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Jun 5, 2007 22:05
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greatn posted:So if I kill one baby, I'm evil? That's no fair. I've been protecting babies my whole life. That wouldn't fly in a courtroom, it certainly doesn't fly for alignment. You can be friends with plenty of people but if you murder one, surprise, you are a murderer. edit: new strip 
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Jun 5, 2007 22:08
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Things would be a lot better for Team Ghost Paladin if Soon stuck to his own plan and occupied Redcloak while the rest of the paladins fought Xykon. Redcloak has really thinned the hell out of their ranks. I hope this Miko thing is another fake out like the arrow, because we're all expecting her to screw things up even worse some how. Does she have any means available to unparalyze the paladin going for the throne or something?
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Jun 5, 2007 22:11
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Well, she definitely has her monk powers in full effect there.
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Jun 5, 2007 22:17
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It will be very annoying if the next comic jumps to some other characters. I don't really care how the mystic theurge is faring at the moment. Elan seems to get foreboding feeligns a lot. It looks like a literary device joke, but any chance he actually has some kind of power doing that? For instance, could Elan possibly be... an Elan?
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Jun 5, 2007 22:39
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farraday posted:Hey guys, stop punching babies and check out the...
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Jun 5, 2007 22:43
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greatn posted:Elan seems to get foreboding feeligns a lot. It looks like a literary device joke, but any chance he actually has some kind of power doing that I think the joke is that it's one of his Bard abilities to sense plot. ^^^Really should have read Dave Woo's post first, sorry. Bobulus fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Jun 5, 2007 |
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Jun 5, 2007 23:17
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Ferrinus posted:Hey, I don't think Miko is misunderstood or shortchanged or treated unfairly - by real-world standards, she's a horrible monster. But she's still "Lawful Good" until such time as she decides to stop trying to serve justice and the gods and so forth. NO SHE IS NOT! Get it through your head, she is serving her own sense of self-importance and delusion, not any sort of truelly noble ambition. She doesn't give two shits about what the 12 gods actually want, she doesn't care about helping people or anything. She pays lip service to those beliefs while doing whatever it takes to make herself feel like she is a special person of divine importance, and anything unjust or violent that she does is justified because she "serves the gods". She's a fallen loving paladin for a reason, she didn't seek atonement for a reason. If she did it, by nature its what the gods want, because its her and she can do no wrong in her own eyes. She's loving evil.
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Jun 5, 2007 23:27
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MIKO IS SCREWING WITH US AGAIN  I will be disappointed if Burlew takes the obvious route and has Miko gently caress up things for team good.
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Jun 5, 2007 23:28
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No good can come of this for Azure City. Miko's too unbalanced to deal with the idea of the founder of her Order being "undead". She should know that the Lich and Evil Goblin cleric are, you know, evil, but if she thinks that her (former?) order is evil, then she might do something very rash, like try to kill everyone in the room. (Poor O-Chul) She still might be a match for OOTS, since they're missing Roy, and kinda depleted/wounded from the battle. (13+ levels of monk/meatshield) She walked in just in time to see Xykon fighting Soon, and Redcloak turning undead, something evil clerics can't normally do. She has a penchant for jumping to conclusions... O-Chul and a vanquished/defeated Soon can't defend their position... And she's still hell-bent on getting revenge against the OOTS. Yep. This is going to end poorly. P.S. Can we end the Hitler allegory please? It's not a good choice, as it does not compare with the actions of fictional characters in a webcomic. Plus, it's a cheesy way to try to win an argument. "If you don't agree with me, you must support Hitler! Hurr!" Ugh.
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Jun 5, 2007 23:34
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NutShellBill posted:She walked in just in time to see Xykon fighting Soon, and Redcloak turning undead, something evil clerics can't normally do. She has a penchant for jumping to conclusions... O-Chul and a vanquished/defeated Soon can't defend their position... And she's still hell-bent on getting revenge against the OOTS. Yep. This is going to end poorly. She believes both Xykon and Redcloak to be even worse than the Order of the Stick. There's no way she's going to help them. The ghost of Soon does nothing but impart how serious this is to the 12 gods, and how totally awesome of a servant she is to be fighting along side Soon. I'm kind of hopping that Xykon and Redcloak are defeated, and either Soon is able to talk some sense into Miko or he turns out to be just as much of a stuck up rear end as her and Hinjo joins OOTS.
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Jun 6, 2007 00:17
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Miko's gonna murder that paralyzed guy trying to destroy the gate so hard.
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Jun 6, 2007 00:54
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I am disappointed that the cloaked paladin ghost is no longer around. And it really will be pretty hilarious when the first thing she does is coup de grace the poor paralyzed guy next to the gate.
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Jun 6, 2007 02:13
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NutShellBill posted:Miko's too unbalanced to deal with the idea of the founder of her Order being "undead". If she was one of the Paladins before, why wouldn't she know about the whole "if you're killed in the throne-room, you come back as a pseudoghost" thing if all the other paladins did? NutShellBill posted:P.S. Can we end the Hitler allegory please? It's not a good choice, as it does not compare with the actions of fictional characters in a webcomic. Plus, it's a cheesy way to try to win an argument. "If you don't agree with me, you must support Hitler! Hurr!" Ugh. You know who else wanted us to not talk about Hitler? That's right.
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Jun 6, 2007 02:26
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bgaesop posted:You know who else wanted us to not talk about Hitler? That's right. Stalin?
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Jun 6, 2007 02:41
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bgaesop posted:But they were Jews! Everyone knows that the Jews are evil satan-spawn that could be Smite Eviled out of existence if Hitler had taken any levels in Paladin. Hitler was totally being a righteous LG character. Hey, the Good alignment has pretty straightforward guidelines - it's like, you have to help people in need and respect the well-being and dignity of sentient beings or whatever. You can't do that when you're rounding a subset of them into death camps based on who their grandfather was! The Good alignment allows for killing traitors and criminals but it doesn't allow for killing civilians. And Hitler is actually a pretty good example of why defining alignment by actions alone (rather than intentions) is silly. What, he started out Neutral, became Good as he started to use politics to pull his country together, started racking up evilpoints and sliding into Neutral again after he murdered all his political opponents, and then became Evil once he opened deathcamps? He was always the same person with the same intentions! And it's not like D&D has any mechanics for gradual alignment change in the vein of NWN/Planescape: Torment. ("You've murdered an orphanage - now you're ten points less Good, and might turn Neutral any day now! Watch out!") It has to be possible to be a Chaotic Evil character who's just been either too timid or too scared of local authorities to go on the killing spree he's always wanted, and it has to be possible to be a Lawful Good character that simply can't see that they're betraying their own ideals due to massive personality flaws in areas that aren't related to alignment. The Werle posted:NO SHE IS NOT! Get it through your head, she is serving her own sense of self-importance and delusion, not any sort of truelly noble ambition. Well, yes, she's an egomaniacal lunatic, but she's still attached to the idea of thinking of herself as Lawful Good, which means she is. If, for instance, a bunch of peasants came to her and begged her to save them from a marauding demon or something she would have to help them, because she thinks of herself as the good guy. If you could somehow beam the entirety of the comic strip into her head and thereby give her perfect knowledge of exactly how Shojo and the Order of the Stick related to Xykon, she would have to regret offing Shojo or else actually betray herself. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Jun 6, 2007 |
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Jun 6, 2007 03:22
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Ferrinus posted:Well, yes, she's an egomaniacal lunatic, but she's still attached to the idea of thinking of herself as Lawful Good, which means she is. If, for instance, a bunch of peasants came to her and begged her to save them from a marauding demon or something she would have to help them, because she thinks of herself as the good guy. Actually, she would because she believes being a Paladin of the Sapphire Guard is the way her "great destiny" will be fulfilled, so tries to play the role to a T. The notion that she is somehow "chosen" by the gods is the only thing she truly cares about. Being a selfish egoistical megalomaniac pretty much makes you evil. Good intentions are also a part of being "good" in D&D.
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Jun 6, 2007 03:41
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No matter what, Miko isn't going to willingly aid Xykon and Redcloak. She did just kill some hobgoblins on the way in. However, she could probably be tricked or deluded into helping them unwillingly.
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Jun 6, 2007 03:58
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Sick_Boy posted:Actually, she would because she believes being a Paladin of the Sapphire Guard is the way her "great destiny" will be fulfilled, so tries to play the role to a T. The notion that she is somehow "chosen" by the gods is the only thing she truly cares about. "Good" doesn't mean "devoid of personality flaws". Good characters can and should (sometimes) be overly jealous or prideful or sarcastic or confrontational or whatever. Miko thinks she is singly chosen by the gods to do their righteous will in the world, which is quite frankly crazy because it's not like she's the world's only paladin, but being deluded and unlikable is not an evil act. Miko thinks protecting villagers from a marauding demon even at personal expense is the right thing to do, ergo she is "Good" (but still horribly flawed as a person and deserving of imprisonment and possibly execution. Please do not interpret me as "defending" Miko in some sense.) I might be persuaded to call her Lawful Neutral (because some of her dialogue makes it seem like she considers the vaunted Law Of The Gods an end unto itself regardless of the moral value of the orders the gods give, but...I'm pretty sure she was always like this, even when she was a fully-empowered Paladin. She's extremely angry and high-strung right now because nothing's been going her way, but I don't think she's fundamentally changed as a character. We're not seeing a shift in her personality - we're just seeing the worst parts of her already-extant personality come to the forefront.
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Jun 6, 2007 04:00
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The thing is, as I pointed out before, Miko interprets anything and everything as proof of the "will of the gods"... as long as it supports her "chosen One" mindset. Her reasoning in the strip before was PURE EVIL: "If I can do it, the gods want me to do it; therefore I am right" This line of thinking justifies pretty much anything she does, even if deep down it's a deeply selfish, even evil act. Is it that much of a stretch to imagine Miko as a totalitarian oppresive dictator, reasoning that if she has that position and power it's because the gods willed it so?
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Jun 6, 2007 04:10
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Cowcaster posted:Miko's gonna murder that paralyzed guy trying to destroy the gate so hard. I'm placing my 20 internet bux on this now.
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Jun 6, 2007 04:11
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Sick_Boy posted:The thing is, as I pointed out before, Miko interprets anything and everything as proof of the "will of the gods"... as long as it supports her "chosen One" mindset. Her reasoning in the strip before was PURE EVIL: "If I can do it, the gods want me to do it; therefore I am right" This line of thinking justifies pretty much anything she does, even if deep down it's a deeply selfish, even evil act. That's not "PURE EVIL" at all, it's just stupid and easily abusable. Pure evil entails eating babies or loosing demons or whatever. Shaky metaphysics and self-centered pride aren't Evil - they're just dangerous. I mean, at this point in the story her belief in her being Chosen By The Gods To Dispense Justice could easily lead to her defeating or driving off Xykon and Redcloak and saving Azure City's gate.
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Jun 6, 2007 04:34
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At this point she's clearly delusional and insane. How does insanity play into alignments? Is there anything in the rulebooks about this?
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Jun 6, 2007 04:43
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I'm wondering if Burlew is foreshadowing in order to gently caress with us, or wether he's just bracing us for the inevitable?Ferrinus posted:Well, yes, she's an egomaniacal lunatic, but she's still attached to the idea of thinking of herself as Lawful Good, which means she is. quote:If, for instance, a bunch of peasants came to her and begged her to save them from a marauding demon or something she would have to help them, because she thinks of herself as the good guy. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Jun 6, 2007 |
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Jun 6, 2007 04:44
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Efreet saiid posted:No, she's not, that's stupid. I don't know why you've got this barmy notion in your head. As I said, some people tend to overthink alignment, it's just a convenient label. Alignment is not that complex. It's not a big deal. It's just roughtly what it obviously appears to be. Miko is clearly evil, or at best neutral. There you go. That's it. Being delusional doesn't make you LG anymore than it makes you hyperinteligent or charismatic. It's a convenient label, but it can't be a convenient label for the sum total of your past actions. Otherwise we have the silly Neverwinter Nights system where I remain Neutral by donating to charity on odd-numbered days and raping and murdering on even-numbered days. A variant D&D ruleset where you have to explicitly earn any alignment beyond "true neutral" by adhering to stringent codes of behavior (and get cool bonuses for it and maybe Paladin becomes a hard-to-qualify-for and powerful prestige class) would be fun, but it's not how the game works now. You don't build up an alignment, you declare it. quote:And I'm sure most LE characters in most settings have themselves convinced that they're good or "just". Oh, certainly. There are strong guidelines in D&d for what constitutes Good and what doesn't (altruistic self-sacrifice concern for the dignity of sentient beings, yadda yadda) and it's up to the DM whether a given set of motivations or plans of action fall within it. For instance, I wouldn't call a ruler who just slaughters everyone infected with a certain disease in order to prevent it from spreading further Good in D&D terms, even though he would certainly describe his actions as being for "the common good". But, if Miko's crazy delusions were true, her actions would still fall within the Lawful Good alignment as it seems to work in Order of the Stick. After all, it's not like she wasn't a bloodthirsty slayer of men before she met the Order, and she still happily maintained Paladin status. She fell for the same reason that a paladin who kills a bunch of imps who turn out to have been glamered children would fall from grace - the unknowing commitment of an inarguably evil act. It's just occurred to me though that in the strip directly following that one, she appeared ready and willing to kill Hinjo before Roy smashed her into a wall. This kind of puts a dent in my position. I guess I could say she was just really angry and not thinking clearly...? Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jun 6, 2007 |
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Jun 6, 2007 05:14
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