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Bobulus posted:"Geostationary" seems to be the best explanation, since things get weird if you try to think about the world moving through the solar system, the solar system moving through the galaxy, the galaxy moving through the universe, etc. In the DnD universe there's crystal spheres and phlogiston and stuff like that though, right? It's not a normal solar system/galaxy/universe setup.
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Nov 4, 2011 05:47
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The immovable rod: one of the most versatile and useful items in D&D, or the most versatile and useful item in D&D? Beats the Apparatus of Kwalish, certainly.
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Nov 4, 2011 06:17
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Pope Guilty posted:The immovable rod: one of the most versatile and useful items in D&D, or the most versatile and useful item in D&D? The bag of holding would have words with you.
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Nov 4, 2011 06:20
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Red_Mage posted:The bag of holding would have words with you. You misspelled Decanter of Endless Water.
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Nov 4, 2011 08:46
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See that's the thing, my experience with D&D pretty much begins and ends with Baldur's Gate and if you asked me what the most powerful item in the game was I'd have said it was a 2 handed Holy Avenger plus 5, but every time a conversation like this gets started with people who actually play the game they always say stuff I wouldn't expect like the Bag of Holding or whatever the Decanter is. It's at once confusing and extremely interesting to me.
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Nov 4, 2011 09:01
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It's like this: The designers think of an item like from a fantasy story. Say they think of a scene where the queen of the elves gives the weary travellers a cool drink of water from a magic bottle, even though the bottle doesn't look like it could hold that much water. They want to put that item in their game so they put in the description "you can always pour water out of this bottle, it never runs empty." Players get their hand on that item and realize, hey, apart from always having a drink of water, you could just as well, say, set that bottle up so it points into a dungeon entrance, go to the beach for a few days until all the monsters have drowned, then come back and do a little comparatively danger-free diving to retrieve the loot. Obviously the designers didn't think of that, haha, wouldn't it be silly if we did that. Except some players actually start doing that in their games because they want to win the game more than they want to play out the fantasy story. And that's why every [Container] of Endless [Substance] has to have a "stuff disappears if not drunk/eaten/used after 1 hour" clause in 4E.
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Nov 4, 2011 09:14
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Nilbop posted:See that's the thing, my experience with D&D pretty much begins and ends with Baldur's Gate and if you asked me what the most powerful item in the game was I'd have said it was a 2 handed Holy Avenger plus 5, but every time a conversation like this gets started with people who actually play the game they always say stuff I wouldn't expect like the Bag of Holding or whatever the Decanter is. A Holy Avenger +5 is great and all, but at the end of the day it's just a sword, and a DM can plan ahead for that. What they can't plan ahead for is when you put a bag of holding on the ground lying open and attach a portable hole to an arrow, and fire the arrow when the Big Bad guy runs by the bag of holding, leading to him getting sucked into the Astral Plane. Or when you intentially get swallowed by a giant monster so that you can activate your Feather Token, Tree once you are inside.
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Nov 4, 2011 09:38
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Dunno if it still works this way, but two Bags of Holding used to make a pretty rad bomb, also.
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Nov 4, 2011 09:48
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Portable holes were awesome and you could do hilarious things with them.
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Nov 4, 2011 10:13
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I was expecting to see a new comic, not more nerd talk. Is... is Rich still okay???  am I doing this right or should I sacrifice a virgin along with the incantation?
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Nov 4, 2011 12:20
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Begin the ritual: Gee, I hope Rich is OK and wasn't eaten by a swarm of wild rye weevils. Nenonen posted:Is... is Rich still okay??? Expressing concern and derailing work, but its not hard to find a virgin around here. TampaTango fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Nov 4, 2011 |
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Nov 4, 2011 14:18
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Bobulus posted:"Geostationary" seems to be the best explanation, since things get weird if you try to think about the world moving through the solar system, the solar system moving through the galaxy, the galaxy moving through the universe, etc. You know, Asimov sort of wrote a story about that. Dude develops an anti-gravity device, doesn't apply it properly so that it negates all gravity effects in the field. Instead of getting something that makes things floaty, an object entering the field becomes totally stationary - while the earth/sun/solar system keeps on moving relative to it. At least I think that's how it works out, it's been a long time since I read it.
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Nov 4, 2011 14:26
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Ashcans posted:You know, Asimov sort of wrote a story about that. Dude develops an anti-gravity device, doesn't apply it properly so that it negates all gravity effects in the field. Instead of getting something that makes things floaty, an object entering the field becomes totally stationary - while the earth/sun/solar system keeps on moving relative to it. At least I think that's how it works out, it's been a long time since I read it. That is roughly how that story works out, yes.
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Nov 4, 2011 14:30
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Pope Guilty posted:The immovable rod: one of the most versatile and useful items in D&D, or the most versatile and useful item in D&D? The immovable rod is great, but Force Ladder may as well be 'Summon Immovable Rod Ladder'. It's loving tremendous. It's got the same immunities as a Wall of Force, is immovable, can support any weight, and can be summoned in mid-air or whatever angle you want for CL minutes. And it's only a 2nd level spell, for gently caress's sake. It's one of my favorite spells ever. Two feet wide, 10-60' long, endless possibilities.
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Nov 4, 2011 15:25
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crime fighting hog posted:You misspelled Decanter of Endless Water. That's not how you write "portable hole."
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Nov 4, 2011 18:05
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I forget. What were the differences between portable hole and bag of holding, gameplay-wise?
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Nov 4, 2011 18:52
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Can you take a decanter of endless water to the elemental plane of fire, hang it a mile or so up from an immovable rod, turn them both invisible and make your own steam room dimension?
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Nov 4, 2011 18:56
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Speedball posted:I forget. What were the differences between portable hole and bag of holding, gameplay-wise? One is a hole you can pick up, the other is a bag that is a TARDIS.
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Nov 4, 2011 19:01
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Speedball posted:I forget. What were the differences between portable hole and bag of holding, gameplay-wise? You can store stuff in a portable hole, but you can also use it to make holes in walls. It's the same sort of portable hole you find in use by Wile E. Coyote.
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Nov 4, 2011 19:40
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TampaTango posted:Begin the ritual: Nicely done. New strip!
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Nov 4, 2011 20:19
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It's getting creepy how effective that is.
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Nov 4, 2011 20:28
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Humanoid resources.
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Nov 4, 2011 20:30
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Russian Guyovitch posted:Nicely done. New strip! Holy poo poo!
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Nov 4, 2011 20:59
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Ha, I love Taquin so much. Although, I think he's finally made his first mistake.
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Nov 4, 2011 21:52
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SlimGoodbody posted:Ha, I love Taquin so much. Although, I think he's finally made his first mistake. That's exactly what he wants you to think.
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Nov 4, 2011 21:56
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Yeah I can't help but feel that he knows everything already.
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Nov 4, 2011 22:17
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New comic: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0813.html
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Nov 5, 2011 00:00
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Russian Guyovitch posted:Nicely done. New strip! That feat was so worth it.
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Nov 5, 2011 01:23
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Good strip. Tarquin owns. ----- Back to our derail: I had a player whose character was a delightful rear end in a top hat. Excellent RP all the way around, but drat was his dude a selfish jerk. The capstone? He bought one of those Bags of Tricks (see comic) from which you can pull small useless animals. He didn't put them into any of the intended, more humane situations like combat against people wearing steel footwear. Nope. He used them as test dummies. Faced with a dark hole, he'd just toss something in and listen. Does it squeal in pain? Is there a thud? A splash? Can you hear it scrabbling around down there? Did something just say "Never seen a chipmunk in a cave before"? When faced with a potentially poisoned dinner, he fed some to a rat first. And so on. It was just wrong. Though probably not any more wrong than using them as intended, when you think about it.
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Nov 5, 2011 01:27
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I wish he wouldn't save those comics as GIF, the blurriness on the text has bugged me for years.
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Nov 5, 2011 02:12
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ConfusedUs posted:Good strip. Tarquin owns. Umm... what's the intended use?
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Nov 5, 2011 05:49
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Vorgen posted:Umm... what's the intended use? I think to throw a rat or whatever next to the fighter so he can great cleave it into a free attack on the monster. Or to provide flanking bonuses.
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Nov 5, 2011 06:14
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The intended use is to get players excited at finding a bag of holding.
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Nov 5, 2011 06:23
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That's really inventive. Let's think of other uses! You could kill them, and leave their dead bodies as a trail to backtrack out a maze or labyrinth. You could also do the ole' Rat-Flail. Good ole' Rat-Flail. What other animals can you draw out of it? Can you cook a nice, tasty quail? Or hollow out a tortoise for some nice
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Nov 5, 2011 06:34
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Nilbop posted:That's really inventive. Let's think of other uses! I think as soon as they die, the animals disappear. I bet you could use them to bluff a waiter into finding a rat in your soup, thus getting a free room for the night. Just hope you are lucky, otherwise its a badger in the soup.
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Nov 5, 2011 08:03
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Vorgen posted:Umm... what's the intended use? Extra combatants on the field. It's just as useless as it sounds.
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Nov 5, 2011 13:29
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The tan bag of tricks isn't entirely useless. The larger animals are great for setting off traps.
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Nov 5, 2011 13:52
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Nilbop posted:See that's the thing, my experience with D&D pretty much begins and ends with Baldur's Gate and if you asked me what the most powerful item in the game was I'd have said it was a 2 handed Holy Avenger plus 5, but every time a conversation like this gets started with people who actually play the game they always say stuff I wouldn't expect like the Bag of Holding or whatever the Decanter is. Even in Baldur's Gate the weapons weren't the most powerful items. Like you could cheat yourself that NPC assassin sword that was supposed to kill you with no chance of recourse (I think it was on hit death at some impossible save) but it still wouldn't be nearly as powerful as the Illithid crown. The crown was a one use no save mind-control that went through immunities and lasted days which you were expected to use in order to get out of the city. Except you could have your wizard equip it in an item slot and clone himself and have the clone use it preserving the original crown. It even works to hilarious effect on Kangaxx; when you control his initial form the game assumes he is dead and spawns his second form allowing you to have a Kangaxx v kangax brawl. Items like the decanter of endless water or the portable hole, have simple immutable abilities that fundamentally alter how things work. They don't sound very powerful on their face but when people start getting creative the DM has to really think on his feet to keep up. Hell a Decanter of Endless water + a bag of holding = a portable ocean. You can shrink a huge boulder with a spell and stash it in the bad of holding before enlarging it and then open it above an enemy to crush them. It's pretty easy to see how there are only so many things to do with the sword of hitting things really hard versus something that can break the laws of physics. Edit: The best use of the bag of tricks is to poison the animals and send them into the ogre camp at evening. The junk collector fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Nov 5, 2011 |
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Nov 5, 2011 20:26
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draper13 posted:The tan bag of tricks isn't entirely useless. The larger animals are great for setting off traps. Easily replaced by a level 1 wand, Summon Natures Ally I or Summon Monster I.
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Nov 6, 2011 14:18
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I suppose they could be great decoys for anything.
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Nov 6, 2011 15:09
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