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Colonel Cool posted:Well O'Chul survived an explosion, a collapsing castle, and a fall square on his head from god knows how high so it can't be that much. That's because he's motherfucking O'Chul.
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Jul 11, 2013 20:55
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my dad posted:That's because he's motherfucking O'Chul. "One saving throw at a time." That remains the most badass line of the entire comic so far.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:00
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Honestly, I'm really surprised this strip didn't come as #900. It would have been pretty perfect.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:06
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Colon V posted:Honestly, I'm really surprised this strip didn't come as #900. It would have been pretty perfect. That'll be Belkar's corpse.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:20
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Magnificent. Simply magnificent. Hrm, where did Redcloak put the real phylactery, again? I know Xykon hid the fake, but did Redcloak actually say what his plans were in that regard?
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Jul 11, 2013 21:20
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Colonial Air Force posted:That'll be Belkar's corpse. It would be pretty fitting for Belkar to die right at the moment Roy finally shows trust in him (and since the rest of the team survives, probably rightly so.)
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Jul 11, 2013 21:39
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nimby posted:Ok, so that answers my question, time for a new one! 20dMcGuffin + Fiat.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:46
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Mundane events do quite low damage at high levels. Falling at terminal velocity does 20d6, something already survivable for a level 10 character. And a solid stone wall only has around 170 hp per thickness of a human body, also easily outclassed by appropriately geared level 15 characters.
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Jul 11, 2013 22:50
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peak debt posted:Mundane events do quite low damage at high levels. Falling at terminal velocity does 20d6, something already survivable for a level 10 character. And a solid stone wall only has around 170 hp per thickness of a human body, also easily outclassed by appropriately geared level 15 characters. Yeah, that too. But on the spectrum of game-plausible to story-plausible, a gate blowing up is hard on the story side. It does whatever damage fits the story. Holy crap this has been a great arc. That pause before Roy followed Belkar was so rich.
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Jul 11, 2013 23:30
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peak debt posted:Mundane events do quite low damage at high levels. Falling at terminal velocity does 20d6, something already survivable for a level 10 character. And a solid stone wall only has around 170 hp per thickness of a human body, also easily outclassed by appropriately geared level 15 characters. Also take into account Miko, who was by no accounts an epic-level character like Xykon presumably is, was at the epicenter of an enormous explosion, and she still had more than -9 HP left over.
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Jul 11, 2013 23:40
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Okay, as someone who's never had an opportunity to actually play DnD, can someone please explain to me this concept of negative hit points? I mean, if hit points are basically your health, and you have 0, then you're effectively dead, right? What's left to take away? I just don't understand.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:01
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Roughly: until 0, you're okay to fight. Between -9 and 0, you're out of commission but a simple healing potion/spell will get you back. Less that -9 you're dead.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:04
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TheAceOfLungs posted:Okay, as someone who's never had an opportunity to actually play DnD, can someone please explain to me this concept of negative hit points? I mean, if hit points are basically your health, and you have 0, then you're effectively dead, right? What's left to take away? I just don't understand. HP actually represents not your health, but your survivability to danger, that's why experience increases it. Not everything that does damage does damage to you. It represents a chance you might be hurt. 0 HP, instead of being dead, is where you are no longer able to handle any more, that manifests as unconsciousness, and no matter your level, represents being perilously close to dead.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:07
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TheAceOfLungs posted:Okay, as someone who's never had an opportunity to actually play DnD, can someone please explain to me this concept of negative hit points? I mean, if hit points are basically your health, and you have 0, then you're effectively dead, right? What's left to take away? I just don't understand. More broadly, in original D&D if you ran out of hit points you were dead, see ya, all she wrote. This often turned out to be unduly harsh in play, and was modified in various official and unofficial ways including the elaborate 3.5 rules for being on exactly 0 hitpoints (you are conscious but can only take one action - after which you start dying). This last rule was why, when Belkar stabbed Crystal after escaping from the Thieves Guild, she didn't die - she was on exactly 0 hitpoints. As you'd expect Burlew ignores these rules when appropriate - there's no way Miko should have been able to have her dying speech, f'rex, and V probably shouldn't have been knocked unconscious by falling into the pit. IMpO, the best rules are the 4e ones where you make a death save every round (10 or higher on a 20 sided dice) and if you fail three times cumulatively you die - but if you get a 20 you're back on your feet. Gives the player something to do, adds drama to the fight (can we get to him in time?! Should we focus on the baddie instead?!?! OMG 20!!!!!) and has roughly the same 'bleeding out' impact. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 00:26
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In general it's assumed that hit points is your ability to avoid crippling injury, so hit point loss until you get to 0 represents fatigue, bruising, minor cuts, light burns, and so on. Meanwhile anything that takes you to 0 or below is major life threatening trauma that will kill you if someone doesn't do something about it in a minute or less depending on how far down you are. Fourth Edition D&D took this concept to its logical extreme where hit points were morale and fatigue, making it possible to have the Warlord Class who's able to restore hit points by yelling at you, or 4E Bards who sing the pain away. Mind you, I find the Warlord more egregious than the Bard in that respect, since the idea of magical music has a long tradition through fantasy fiction, including the Elves doing it in Lord of the Rings. Pathfinder, which is essentially D&D 3.75 after WotC quit making 3.5 to do 4th edition, uses a decent little system where you die at negative Constitution. So if you have the human average Constitution of 10 you die at -10 like in 3.5, but if you're a burly Fighter with Con 17 you don't die until -17, while a weedy Elf Wizard might have a Con of 8 and die at -8. I like that variation since it gives an extra layer of toughness to your meat shields, and helps distinguish between the burly guy who works out 8 hours a day versus the academic who spends his time in the library. Though I agree that the 4th Edition version gives more player agency, even if its only a 5% chance of working out.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:51
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Ok, that all makes sense. Pretty cool. Thanks, guys. 
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Jul 12, 2013 01:37
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jng2058 posted:In general it's assumed that hit points is your ability to avoid crippling injury, so hit point loss until you get to 0 represents fatigue, bruising, minor cuts, light burns, and so on. Meanwhile anything that takes you to 0 or below is major life threatening trauma that will kill you if someone doesn't do something about it in a minute or less depending on how far down you are. Fourth Edition D&D took this concept to its logical extreme where hit points were morale and fatigue, making it possible to have the Warlord Class who's able to restore hit points by yelling at you, or 4E Bards who sing the pain away. It's more YOU AIN'T GOT TIME TO BLEED (spins up minigun). Or Diehard, where McClane getting a few minutes to have a cigarette after a big fight is back at full deadly action hero strength. But that path leads to ugly edition warring places so let's not take it. Both approaches have their benefits, and the 3.5 one is the only one that's relevant to OOTS (though Burlew did a funny and basically fair comparison of the editions in his Snips, Snails and Dragon Tails book.
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Jul 12, 2013 02:06
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I had taken O'Chul's being held in place to be why he survived in the way he did. I guess I could be wrong about that but I figured it prevented his skull from caving in by hitting the ground or what not.
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Jul 12, 2013 05:24
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Cliff Racer posted:I had taken O'Chul's being held in place to be why he survived in the way he did. I guess I could be wrong about that but I figured it prevented his skull from caving in by hitting the ground or what not. The rules aren't nearly that specific for such a spell/physics interaction, so it would be left up to the storyteller, the DM, to decide what to do in that situation. In that case Rich decided O'Chul wasn't going to die, and so he didn't. There are no specific rules, and equally no reason to over think it.
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Jul 12, 2013 05:30
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Cliff Racer posted:I had taken O'Chul's being held in place to be why he survived in the way he did. I guess I could be wrong about that but I figured it prevented his skull from caving in by hitting the ground or what not. Yeah I would assume (to  a bit) that Hold Person just literally holds every atom in one position with relation to the rest. Which makes for it's own interesting metaphysical derail (can you perceive anything if your neurons literally can't fire off, or do they fire off but you can't remember any of it because they don't create new pathways?) that I won't delve into.
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Jul 12, 2013 05:32
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Eh. It's not like you stop breathing when you're Held either. It probably just makes you stop moving around, it doesn't apply some sort of force field to your body.
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Jul 12, 2013 05:53
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Ursine Asylum posted:Yeah I would assume (to considering that the spells allows you a will save every round to shake it off, I imagine it does allow for some activity in the brain at least.
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Jul 12, 2013 07:12
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Slashrat posted:considering that the spells allows you a will save every round to shake it off, I imagine it does allow for some activity in the brain at least. True, but that just makes it more horrifying to be quite honest.
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Jul 12, 2013 07:18
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He was not held he was paralyzed by a lich. (something that is permanent until removed and looks like death normally.) Anyway Rich said that O`Chul had a con score in the mid twenties.
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Jul 12, 2013 07:19
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Except it didn't look like death (his eyes were not x'ed and he wasn't slumped over in a heap.) Rich's use of palatalization would thus differ from the official sources for the sake of having the image of O'Chul held in place with his sword above his head, I guess?
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Jul 12, 2013 07:24
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Cliff Racer posted:Except it didn't look like death (his eyes were not x'ed and he wasn't slumped over in a heap.) Rich's use of palatalization would thus differ from the official sources for the sake of having the image of O'Chul held in place with his sword above his head, I guess? I know that that`s why I said looks like death normally (Though you can tell they are still alive because they are still breathing and the like) I am guessing he just ignored that part. Still he was not held which was my point.
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Jul 12, 2013 07:33
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MonsterEnvy posted:He was not held he was paralyzed by a lich. (something that is permanent until removed and looks like death normally.)
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Jul 12, 2013 09:44
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And if that wasnt nasty enough, in 3E dracoliches had a passive paralyzation gaze with save DC in the high twenties.
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Jul 12, 2013 12:20
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The whole thing with hit points just never ceases to be funny to me. So you roll dice to see if you lost any hit points and how many; and then the "hit points" are also just representative of chance/danger/morale/whatever, and not an actual thing you lost. There's no mechanic to keep track of what is actually happening to your character, and whether perchance they should have obviously died a horrible death. I'm picturing an epic level bard being slowly squeezed by an inescapable crushing wall trap, and all the while he's singing that ooooh now you feel like number one song from Bleach which enables him to survive because his epic level singing boosts morale/ability to cope faster than the crushing wall can drain it.
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Jul 12, 2013 17:45
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Sounds perfectly fine to me.  Seriously though even apart from "it's totally awesome", encouraging someone or himself to stay alive long enough to escape from the inescapable crushing trap sounds like 100% epic bard territory. Regular adventuring parties fall into the trap, panic and yell "oh poo poo there's no way out" and get crushed, the party with Hrogdar Honeyvoice in it survives because Hrodgar tells a tale of perseverance in direst circumstances and inspires the others to keep their wits about them and discover an anchor spot for a grappling hook just in time. e: you can totally model that same thing using radically different mechanics than HP, though
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Jul 12, 2013 18:02
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Triple Elation posted:The whole thing with hit points just never ceases to be funny to me. So you roll dice to see if you lost any hit points and how many; and then the "hit points" are also just representative of chance/danger/morale/whatever, and not an actual thing you lost. There's no mechanic to keep track of what is actually happening to your character, and whether perchance they should have obviously died a horrible death. Aw, people have been complaining about hit points since the 1970's. I think Gygax got enough noise about it that he even put a handwavey explanation in the 1st ed. DMG. At the end of the day, they're just a convenient way to categorize an extremely complex concept. They represent physical damage unless they don't, now let's all roll some funny dice.
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Jul 12, 2013 18:17
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Yeah, the thing with hit points is that if you don't have them you end up with a much more realistic game that accurately models how dangerous medieval combat could be....and that's not the point. Dungeons & Dragons isn't about realistic combat, or accurate accounting of the damage a longsword does to you when it's inserted into your guts. D&D is heroic fantasy where you regularly do things that would be impossible to survive in real life because you're also battling things, like dragons, that also don't exist in reality. It's about a swashbuckling high fantasy setting where crazy poo poo happens and you roll with it because your character is just as improbable as the ten ton flying fire-breathing lizard you're going to war with. Or to put it another way, you're cool with magic, divine intervention by gods, and dragons, but how long it takes that dragon to eat a knight is what breaks your immersion? If you can accept the all of the fantasy tropes, you should be able to get with the idea that a fighter's ability not to die is as much a part of the setting as a wizard casting fireball or the cleric healing your burns because the wizard aimed that fireball poorly.
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Jul 12, 2013 18:34
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Now I'm wondering if they'll think the pyramid exploded because they teleported next to it. It's quite a coincidence otherwise and it's not that hard to imagine that an epic level character had some sort of contingency trap rigged to explode the whole drat place if an epic caster teleported in too close.
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Jul 12, 2013 20:12
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Triple Elation posted:The whole thing with hit points just never ceases to be funny to me. So you roll dice to see if you lost any hit points and how many; and then the "hit points" are also just representative of chance/danger/morale/whatever, and not an actual thing you lost. There's no mechanic to keep track of what is actually happening to your character, and whether perchance they should have obviously died a horrible death.
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Jul 12, 2013 22:04
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CapnAndy posted:Star Wars did it the best. It's not your hit points, it's your luck, making the Stormtroopers miss and your clothes just get attractively singed. When your luck runs out, that's when the next blaster bolt gets you between the eyes.
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Jul 12, 2013 23:13
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Well D&D's mechanics really don't support the idea of it not actually being your health very well.
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Jul 12, 2013 23:29
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Nearly everything in every game system breaks down when you think too much about it. As said above, they are only there to help games run more smoothly and be more fun for everyone involved, and over-analyzing them robs them of some of that fun when done during the game. It's fine to realize, "Hey, when you really think about it the concept if spell slots are retarded" if you also simultaneously realize that they are that way to make it easier for you, the player, to understand and implement magic in the game.
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Jul 13, 2013 00:19
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CapnAndy posted:Star Wars did it the best. It's not your hit points, it's your luck, making the Stormtroopers miss and your clothes just get attractively singed. When your luck runs out, that's when the next blaster bolt gets you between the eyes. Someone summed up why Boba Fett went out like a bitch in Jedi. Don't remember who, though. "Sometimes even the baddest bounty hunter in the galaxy rolls a 1." I've always thought that the regenerating health in FPS games was similar to luck. Sure, you get close calls with a bullet, but you get behind some cover and get your breath back, you're back in the action. Until someone shoots you in the head because you weren't looking that way. 
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Jul 13, 2013 04:08
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Vicissitude posted:I've always thought that the regenerating health in FPS games was similar to luck. Sure, you get close calls with a bullet, but you get behind some cover and get your breath back, you're back in the action. Until someone shoots you in the head because you weren't looking that way. There is actually a shooter that works exactly like this. Call of Jurez: Gunslinger, available right now on Steam. Your bullet-dodging is "luck" and when it runs out you get to play brief minigame which you get a chance to dodge the fatal bullet. If you do you regain your regular health but have to wait for your lucky dodge to recharge. If you don't... well, game over. It's a really really really good game. Buy it.
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Jul 13, 2013 04:38
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Who What Now posted:Nearly everything in every game system breaks down when you think too much about it. As said above, they are only there to help games run more smoothly and be more fun for everyone involved, and over-analyzing them robs them of some of that fun when done during the game. It's fine to realize, "Hey, when you really think about it the concept if spell slots are retarded" if you also simultaneously realize that they are that way to make it easier for you, the player, to understand and implement magic in the game. In fact, there wouldn't even be a need for a D&D parody comic if it weren't for the inherent contradictions and nonsensical stuff within the system. At least there wouldn't be much to work with.
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Jul 13, 2013 23:32
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