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Blobone posted:The demon said without a mortal host. Aren't liches technically immortal? I think he meant Mortal as opposed to Divine.
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Mar 30, 2009 01:01
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I think the point is just that Haerta is just a floaty soul now, much like Roy, so she cannot take any effect on the material plane?
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Mar 30, 2009 01:14
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HKR posted:The character who's only goal in life was to amass as much arcane power as possible willingly giving up a massive amount of arcane power? V isn't necessarily planning on keeping the power indefinately; he may just seek to reunite the party and/or defeat Xykon before he gives it up. Just because he wants massive arcane power doesn't mean he's not smart enough to know he'll lose control of the souls eventually and that he needs to minimize the time he spends with the fiends.
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Mar 30, 2009 01:35
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Sefer posted:V isn't necessarily planning on keeping the power indefinately; he may just seek to reunite the party and/or defeat Xykon before he gives it up. Just because he wants massive arcane power doesn't mean he's not smart enough to know he'll lose control of the souls eventually and that he needs to minimize the time he spends with the fiends. Unless V is about to go through another character change/development that just about every other main character has (Which is very possible), V isn't going to willingly give that power up. She/He's going to keep finding reasons to keep it as long as possible, keep finding things that need to be done before he/she can give it up.
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Mar 30, 2009 02:20
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Sefer posted:V isn't necessarily planning on keeping the power indefinately; he may just seek to reunite the party and/or defeat Xykon before he gives it up. Just because he wants massive arcane power doesn't mean he's not smart enough to know he'll lose control of the souls eventually and that he needs to minimize the time he spends with the fiends. He's probably just going to reunite the party. The whole reason he was on the deserted island in the first place was to make a spell powerful enough to reach the lost members of the party.
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Mar 30, 2009 07:16
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Blobone posted:The demon said without a mortal host. Aren't liches technically immortal? Yes, and the soul splice (probably) requires a sufficiently high-ranking fiend anyway. I was thinking that even if she can't cast her own spells, she could still teach him some epic necromancy.
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Mar 30, 2009 09:55
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I think most of you are forgetting the dragon had some soul trap scrolls and the gems the spells require. By trapping the souls, V's never really giving up control, so the fiends never get a chance to take over V's soul. Except the one, since the necromancer has in fact left the building.
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Mar 31, 2009 06:26
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... Holy gently caress that's brilliant, and I never thought of it.
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Mar 31, 2009 08:32
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Except that eventually the gems will be destroyed, even if it's after V dies--leaving V far worse off than he is already. Still a great idea (and it might happen), except that at this rate it's probably only going to be another ten V-focused comics tops before all of the soul-spliced souls have left the building--or V will gently caress himself over far, far worse (which, granted, is entirely possible at this rate) (Also, don't things like fireballs have a chance to destroy scrolls? Although the dragon never visibly carried any scrolls--but it did apparently have precisely two scrolls) stringless fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Mar 31, 2009 |
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Mar 31, 2009 12:53
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cowboy
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"Each one of us will get your soul for the same amount of time that you are under the effects of their soul splice." http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0633.html If V were to just capture the remaining two souls after they escpaed it wouldn't change the terms of the lease agreement. However, those infernal guys don't seem to care about the necromancer so I bet they'd rather have V walking around with two evil objects further damning her and helping them get close to the Snarl.
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Mar 31, 2009 15:07
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pseudosavior posted:... http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2300198&pagenumber=152&perpage=40#post357087397 Mentioned 12 pages back. Soul bind requires a recently dead soul -- unless a recently unbound soul is close enough.
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Mar 31, 2009 15:10
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bartolimu posted:By trapping the souls, V's never really giving up control, so the fiends never get a chance to take over V's soul. I don't know if that is how it works, I take it to mean that if V keeps the souls for the rest of her life, then after she dies the fiends get her soul to use for how ever many years she was alive, which for an elf would be hundreds.
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Mar 31, 2009 17:08
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One thing I'm a little confused about is WHY the damned souls even WANT to break free of the soul splice. Haerta, for instance; she's a necromancer, and her primary motivation seems to be killing as many people as possible. Why wouldn't she want to ride piggyback on V as long as possible to have the greatest chance to spread havoc? I mean, she's just going back to the neutral evil hell, right? Hmm... that brings up another question, that of which of the two varieties of 'alignment hell' that exist in the OotS 'verse. There's the 'punishment' model, where the evil afterlife was created by the gods in order to torment evil souls, and there's the 'empire hell' model, where it's more of a 'recruitment' than a 'punishment' thing. This second type of hell is still a horrible and miserable place, but it's that way because all of the most evil people go there; so it's sort of a punishment hell if you're evil but weak, cowardly and stupid, but it's a twisted 'heaven' if you're sinister enough to take advantage of it; in this second model, demons were not created before mortals, but rather, demons ARE mortal souls that have grown ever more twisted and malevolent over the centuries. So far, most of the evil entities we've met (including Xykon), especially the IFCC, are pretty businesslike, so I'm tempted to believe that the OotS-verse has an 'empire hell' where their hunger for mortal souls is a desire for footsoldiers rather than (or in addition to) victims. If that's the way it's set up, then I guess it makes sense for Haerta to escape as soon as she can after all, since she would presumably be in a position of great power in the neutral evil afterlife.
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Mar 31, 2009 17:31
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Demons and devils are still extremely miserable, though. I mean, you have your memories agonizingly purged and start out as a runty, disgusting thing at the bottom of the infernal/abyssal ladder. And that's assuming you even get on the ladder, instead of being a petitioner who rises every day to fight in a mob of people killing and eating each other raw because it's the only thing to eat, or who gets warped into a twisted-looking chair made of bone and sinew, because the evil gods think that kind of thing makes their lower plane feel more homey.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Mar 31, 2009 |
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Mar 31, 2009 17:56
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Was it ever spelled out in the contract that the souls leaving of their own accord stops the clock? I was under the impression that it continues until V says stop, and not a moment sooner. So maybe the three souls are encouraged to split when they can as that would make V more desperate to hold on to the remaining power even longer. Hell, if all three get away and V just goes 'oh well' and move on, it wouldn't surprise me at all if 100+ years when he dies those corporate demons show up and say, 'you never ended the spell, so that's 300 years a peice'.
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Mar 31, 2009 20:39
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No, I think that the whole "it turns out V actually IS totally in control of her actions" thing by the IFCC is heavy foreshadowing that their plan is for V to become irredeemably evil while drunk with power, giving them her soul forever. I don't think that the black dragon megamassacre is enough to make V truly evil in and of itself, considering that the Gods apparently condone the mass slaughter of innocent monsters (I refer again to Start of Darkness), but it definitely shows that V is hurtling down the slippery slope.
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Apr 1, 2009 01:40
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You guys are really hung up on ignoring intent, especially considering that it's been stated in so many words that intent is actually taken into account by the higher up and lower downs out there. V's seems to have two motivations here, rage and hubris. She's pissed off that the dragon threatened her family, and is unable to accept that her own magical ability isn't the solution to the problem. Her motivation doesn't seem so much to be defending her family, but punishing the dragon for having the gall to try and strike at her through them. Self defense is killing the person trying to kill your family. Revenge is killing that person's children, and her children's children, and literally hundreds of people who were otherwise uninvolved in your dispute. If defense were only her primary motivation, she could easily have employed a method of defending her family (one which was literally handed to her on a silver platter) that didn't require she make a pact with the incarnate forces of evil. The only problem here is that she would have to confront her own pride, accept that she can't solve any problem, and discard her hubris-- and that doing so would prevent her from extracting the visceral retaliation that her rage demanded. Rather than sacrifice herself to save her family, and her soul, she opted to trade the latter away for petty revenge and temporal power. This is like Introduction to Evil 101.
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Apr 1, 2009 01:58
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/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ It's a grad-student class at this point, she's way past the pass/fail marker by now.
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Apr 1, 2009 08:14
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Cabbit posted:This is like Introduction to Evil 101. I would take that class in a heartbeat.
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Apr 1, 2009 08:57
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(if I were a GM and a player tried to argue with me that their character having just done something like this should still be good i'd send Tiamat after them)
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Apr 1, 2009 09:27
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Yes, I suppose intent does matter. But as I keep saying, it's a known fact that running down goblin women and children, whose only crime was being in the same community as an evil cleric, does not cause you to lose paladin status, as of the Sapphire Guard's merciless rampage at Redcloak's village. If it's ok for actual PALADINS to slaughter children for no reason but the fact that their parents are 'evil' (or even suspected of being evil), I just can't see how V is evil for the black dragon slaughter, especially since black dragons are EVEN MORE 'always chaotic evil' than goblins.
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Apr 1, 2009 14:48
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Okay, what I'm reading here is "Yes, I suppose that is a valid point, but let me completely ignore it and go on saying the same thing". If you do suppose intent does matter, then might it stand to reason that the intent of the Paladins might matter in this instance?
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Apr 1, 2009 15:02
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Miko intended to stop the evil lich Xykon in service of the 12 gods when she struck down Hojo. The problem here is something that Sefer mentioned 2 pages back: just because the Paladins did a good act by killing evil creatures, that doesn't mean killing an evil creature is always a good act. Essentially: Killing Evil can be Good That is neither: Killing Evil always equals Good Killing Evil never equals Evil V totally can kill evil creatures in an evil way and have it be an evil act.
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Apr 1, 2009 15:24
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On a related note, has 4E changed the alignment rules at all?
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Apr 1, 2009 15:30
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DoctorTristan posted:On a related note, has 4E changed the alignment rules at all? Sort of. It's now a slider. LG - G - N - E - CE
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Apr 1, 2009 15:45
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DoctorTristan posted:On a related note, has 4E changed the alignment rules at all? A little bit. There's an assumption that the vast majority of creatures are unaligned unless they are hardcore dedicated to one side or the other. There's no such thing as "detect evil/good" or "smite evil/good" any more. The news that ticked off a lot of D&D purists is that the law/chaos axis is gone. "Lawful Good" is now more zealously and rigidly good than just Good, and "Chaotic Evil" is more debased and destructive than just Evil.
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Apr 1, 2009 15:51
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IMJack posted:A little bit. So there are no more CG Robin-Hood style characters?
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Apr 1, 2009 16:28
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Sick_Boy posted:So there are no more CG Robin-Hood style characters? That would just be filed under "good" I believe.
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Apr 1, 2009 16:30
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Sick_Boy posted:So there are no more CG Robin-Hood style characters? No more Lawful Evil Senators, either.
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Apr 1, 2009 16:30
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Commissar Lord posted:No more Lawful Evil Senators, either. Rolled into "Evil"
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Apr 1, 2009 16:49
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I'm disappointed since I always thought the two axes were very clever. It's easy enough to homebrew the split back in or just play the variations without their proper names, but it sucks for future players who won't know the difference.
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Apr 1, 2009 17:04
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It's almost as if the alignment system was a deliberately simplistic classification system that grew out of a wargame, making it an exercise in futility to try to analyze morally complex and nuanced actions and situations in terms of it as if it were Nicomachean ethics or or logical positivism or any other actual moral philosophy. Nah. Couldn't be.
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Apr 1, 2009 18:05
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The alignment system is terrible and plenty of RPGs function without one. They are usually better for it.
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Apr 1, 2009 18:21
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Ashcans posted:The alignment system is terrible and plenty of RPGs function without one. They are usually better for it. I agree, but it's been a staple of D&D for a while. And if this is the theory (and I'm fine with that) then they should just get rid of it altogether.
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Apr 1, 2009 18:29
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Alignment works fine for aggregates or inhuman creatures that personify an alignment. Hobgoblins are "usually lawful evil," this tells you that groups of hobgoblins are disciplined, organized cruel conquerors. Orcs are chaotic evil; they're violent bands of savages. Archons are always lawful evil because they're always principled upstanding defenders of goodness; black dragons are always chaotic evil because they're selfish whimsical bastards. Using alignment to analyze individuals, much less individual actions is problematic to the point of being an exercise in futility. It's called alignment for a reason; it's not like the Paths of morality in Vampire: the Masquerade.
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Apr 1, 2009 18:38
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One variant 3.5 mechanic that I liked was replacing alignment with 'taint' from Heroes of Horror. Basically, it splits supernatural evil away from 'mundane' evil entirely. There are no 'alignments', only the presence or absence of taint and personality. Therefore, someone like a greedy tyrant or a murderous bandit could certainly be said to have an 'evil' personality, but they aren't Evil with a capital E, which is a discrete, tangible force of magic associated with necromancy, demons, and various other evil magic and monsters. Although tainted people and monsters are pretty much always evil in personality (because it is a supernatural force that affects the mind and changes your personality against your will, so it doesn't usually matter if you were a nice person before you became tainted), the vast majority of people who act evil most of the time aren't tainted, and there's no way tell them apart from people with a good personality. Basically, the system lets you have your cake and eat it too. You get moral relativism for the vast majority of people, plus true tangible Evil for when you want to spice things up. edit: Cabbit posted:Okay, what I'm reading here is "Yes, I suppose that is a valid point, but let me completely ignore it and go on saying the same thing". If you do suppose intent does matter, then might it stand to reason that the intent of the Paladins might matter in this instance? What the gently caress could possibly justify killing noncombatant women and children as they flee and beg for their lives? How can 'intent' ever make that a good act unless the forces that regulate alignment are racially biased against the victims? I concede that intent matters when you're on shaky ethical ground and aren't sure whether an act is good or not. The sapphire guard was not on shaky ethical ground. They were plunging into the abyss of of unforgivable atrocity with wild abandon. I don't think any intent or justification they could give would justify such a thing. And it's heavily implied this wasn't an isolated incident. I still see an extremely close similarity between the goblin village massacre and the Familicide. The only tangible difference is that the Sapphire guard were massacring innocents by the dozens using holy powers given by good-aligned gods, wheras Suvie is doing it with powers granted by fiends. And Suvie is enjoying it a bit more. But I don't think that's enough to differentiate these two massacres. Liberal_L33t fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Apr 1, 2009 |
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Apr 1, 2009 20:54
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Halloween Jack posted:Alignment works fine for aggregates or inhuman creatures that personify an alignment. Hobgoblins are "usually lawful evil," this tells you that groups of hobgoblins are disciplined, organized cruel conquerors. Orcs are chaotic evil; they're violent bands of savages. Archons are always lawful evil because they're always principled upstanding defenders of goodness; black dragons are always chaotic evil because they're selfish whimsical bastards. That's a pretty amusing typo.
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Apr 1, 2009 21:02
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Liberal_L33t posted:The only tangible difference is that the Sapphire guard were massacring innocents by the dozens using holy powers given by good-aligned gods, wheras Suvie is doing it with powers granted by fiends. And Suvie is enjoying it a bit more. But I don't think that's enough to differentiate these two massacres. Apparently it is, since they didn't lose their powers!
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Apr 1, 2009 21:10
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I think there's one thing we can all agree on as an evil act: using the name "Suvie" if you are a real life human being and not a stick-figure elf.
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Apr 1, 2009 22:20
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Seriously. It's V. It's what he's been called the entire strip and theres one character who calls him suvie and now everyone changes?
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Apr 2, 2009 01:38
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