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Inspired by the moment:
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Feb 3, 2007 19:07
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Ununnilium posted:...drat you for being awesome. Seriously, the bar has been raised here Goons. This thread has reached a new plateau of nerd awesome.
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Feb 3, 2007 19:12
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ZorbaTHut posted:I'm half-expecting her to join the Linear Guild. She makes a good opposite for Roy - they'd have to get rid of Thog somehow, but maybe he just sees something sparkly in a window and gets lost. I agree that Nale would easily be able to manipulate her into joining him against the OotS, but as long as she feels she is still on the side of Good, the Linear Guild would have to be walking on eggshells to keep her placated. Though I guess Miko would be able to pretty easily rationalize almost anything as long as Nale kept her convinced it was part of revenge on the OotS.
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Feb 3, 2007 20:05
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Vomax posted:I agree that Nale would easily be able to manipulate her into joining him against the OotS, but as long as she feels she is still on the side of Good, the Linear Guild would have to be walking on eggshells to keep her placated. Though I guess Miko would be able to pretty easily rationalize almost anything as long as Nale kept her convinced it was part of revenge on the OotS. I don't think Nale would let her anywhere near the Guild. She's a total control freak, it'd be no time at all before she starts trying to play "still holier than thou" and barking orders at everyone. She's too busy digging her own holes to really be manipulated in any worthwhile way. Hell, if anything, I see her turning on the Guild once she uses Sabine to get her first level of Blackguard. Miko: Grrr, I need to kill them all for tricking Shojo into allying with them to betray the country by tricking them into working with him after they tricked him. But until the Gods come around to my way of thinking, I no longer have the power I need. Nale: Maybe we can help with that. one Blackguard ritual later Miko: Neat, powers. And now I can Smite them for being Good, even though they're secretly evil, but still registering as Good because everyone is wrong except for me. Nale: *attempt at manipulation* Miko: I shall convince the gods that I am the one who is right by killing everyone *attack guild* Edit: Run on sentence at the end, tried to make it a bit more sensible the_steve fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Feb 3, 2007 |
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Feb 3, 2007 20:14
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Cowcaster posted:That's too bad, because everything up to this point is building to that outcome I guess. I just hope she still cares about Xylon coming to destroy Azure City and getting revenge on Roy isn't the only thing on her mind.
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Feb 3, 2007 20:47
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Sock posted:I guess. I just hope she still cares about Xylon coming to destroy Azure City and getting revenge on Roy isn't the only thing on her mind. She's convinced the entire city is corrupt at this point. My money is on her joining up with Xykon to destroy the city, rather than joining up with the Linear guild. Her logic is so convoluted I'm sure she'll justify it somehow despite the fact Xykon is evil.
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Feb 3, 2007 21:54
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Vomax posted:I agree that Nale would easily be able to manipulate her into joining him against the OotS, but as long as she feels she is still on the side of Good, the Linear Guild would have to be walking on eggshells to keep her placated. Though I guess Miko would be able to pretty easily rationalize almost anything as long as Nale kept her convinced it was part of revenge on the OotS.
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Feb 3, 2007 22:06
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Sock posted:I guess. I just hope she still cares about Xylon coming to destroy Azure City and getting revenge on Roy isn't the only thing on her mind. Hey, Miko still thinks Xykon is evil. She just also thinks that both Roy and Shojo are secretly working with him.
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Feb 4, 2007 00:38
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The people on those forums take this thing far, far too seriously. That said, Miko won't join Xykon. She still somehow thinks she's in the right. I think she'll get locked up, and then break out and sacrifice herself in defense of her city.
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Feb 4, 2007 00:46
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gothfae posted:well played. I don't get it :smogon:
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Feb 4, 2007 07:04
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Calaveron posted:I don't get it :smogon: It's a Watchmen reference. Read it sometime. It's got pirates in it.
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Feb 4, 2007 07:25
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TheFuzzyLumpkin posted:Yes, but she's still got some levels on them. She won a 5-on-1 fight of PC class against PC class, which is pretty tough to do even if the heavy hitter's at a disadvantage - she got lucky, but she also had to be up on their levels for it to be possible. Well in the run down it says she gets 5 attacks a round so even if she took some feat that lets her treat the katana like a monk weapon and used flurry of blows she would still be around 12-13 by then. The OotS were all around 12 then too.
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Feb 4, 2007 23:13
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Well, she's also allowed to fight very intelligently, which helps, and Durkon isn't participating besides as a healer, which also helps. Miko abuses her abilities and feats to make both Belkar and Haley non-factors, V isn't in the fight very long, and Elan's pretty useless. That leaves Roy as the only real participant.
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Feb 4, 2007 23:56
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Wanderer posted:Well, she's also allowed to fight very intelligently, which helps, and Durkon isn't participating besides as a healer, which also helps. Miko abuses her abilities and feats to make both Belkar and Haley non-factors, V isn't in the fight very long, and Elan's pretty useless. That leaves Roy as the only real participant.
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Feb 5, 2007 04:24
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Jonked posted:And don't forget the dice just 'happening' to come up with high rolls for Miko and low rolls for the Sticks, thanks to the magic of plot points! Seriously, you can analyze and make spreadsheets and write down specifically what boardgame rules you'd have to bend to get things to work the way they do, but in the end the thing is a comic strip. Sometimes things happen because it is a comic strip, not because they happen in a dungeons and dragons game.
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Feb 5, 2007 07:28
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Jonked posted:And don't forget the dice just 'happening' to come up with high rolls for Miko and low rolls for the Sticks, thanks to the magic of plot points! Both Miko and most of the Order are at a level where the dice are sort of a cute tradition instead of an actual determinant. It's a weakness in AD&D 3.5.
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Feb 5, 2007 11:27
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Here's how I think Miko will be conivnced to join the Linear Guild: 1) OOTS carts Miko to prison, and locks her away, forgetting about her with the dual distraction of Hinjo wanting to know what's going on, and an army of undead and hobgoblins coming. 2) Nale pieces together what's happened, and realizes that Leafy and Pompey aren't coming for the save. 3) Nale/Sabine convince Miko that Sabine is an LG outsider, imprisoned by the evil, corrupted Sapphire Guard. They make a deal something along the lines of "Sabine will restore your powers if you help us escape, and oh yeah, together we can rid the world of the evil that is the OOTS." Miko will jump to the conclusion that the Gods do care for her, and eagerly accept. 4) The 3 of them escape, with Thog (who is the closest to "good" of all of them) and kill a lot of Samurai/Paladins on the way out. 5) Miko gradually just begins to accept the lie, and collapses into "the crazy". No longer able to differentiate between right and wrong, as when she is restored, anything she scans for evil is in fact good, and therefore must be killed. In this way, she makes a great Blackguard. Nale will use her mostly for distractions, and to point at things he wants to perferates with holes. 6) After a time, the need to manipulate Miko is gone, as evil will be good, and vice versa. It's what the gods want, after all. NutShellBill fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Feb 5, 2007 |
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Feb 5, 2007 18:31
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Wanderer posted:Both Miko and most of the Order are at a level where the dice are sort of a cute tradition instead of an actual determinant. It's a weakness in AD&D 3.5. What level would that be? NutShellBill posted:3) Nale/Sabine convince Miko that Sabine is an LG outsider, imprisoned by the evil, corrupted Sapphire Guard. They make a deal something along the lines of "Sabine will resotre your powers if you help us escape, and oh yeah, together we can rid the world of the evil that is the OOTS." Miko will jump to the conclusion that the Gods do care for her, and eagerly accept. That would fullfil the "consort with a demon" prereq, too.
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Feb 5, 2007 19:49
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NutShellBill posted:3) Nale/Sabine convince Miko that Sabine is an LG outsider, imprisoned by the evil, corrupted Sapphire Guard. They make a deal something along the lines of "Sabine will resotre your powers if you help us escape, and oh yeah, together we can rid the world of the evil that is the OOTS." Miko will jump to the conclusion that the Gods do care for her, and eagerly accept. I doubt that she'll view the Sapphire Guard as being evil, since they are paladins. Though she may well think that they're being manipulated by the OOTS and thus acting against the cause of good, which would cause her to act in the same way. What I'm curious about is to see what excuse they'll use to avoid raising that old guy from the dead. In the context of D&D raising him would make sense after all. Perhaps the Sapphire Guard will be unwilling to raise him in order to avoid having him regain power, since he has shown himself to be duplicitous and unwilling to follow the paladin code of honor.
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Feb 5, 2007 20:10
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Factor_VIII posted:I doubt that she'll view the Sapphire Guard as being evil, since they are paladins. Though she may well think that they're being manipulated by the OOTS and thus acting against the cause of good, which would cause her to act in the same way. She tried to kill Hinjo, deciding that since he doesn't agree with her anymore, he's corrupt and evil too now. She'll have no problem deciding that the other members of the guard are now evil since they apparently don't see through Roy and Hinjo's deception. As for reviving Shojo, I figure that either: Any cleric high leveled enough to bring back Shojo will be killed in the attack. Or, Xykon succeeds in taking over Sapphire City, so they won't be in a position to bring him back.
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Feb 5, 2007 20:37
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High Altitude Hair Stylist posted:What level would that be? Don't your games reach a point where attacks, or at least the first couple of them, are virtually guaranteed to hit? Between base attack, magic weapons, gradually increasing ability scores and scads of miscellaneous magic stuff (which I understand can be selected for defense but for all gamers I know are selected for killing power) I've found that to-hit values increase quite a bit faster than Armor Classes. Now I don't think 12th level is that point, especially considering that the Order and the guys they fight seem to be lacking in magic gear, but it happens sometime. And then there's damage rolls, which tend to pass the line where the die is significant compared to the bonus a lot earlier than to-hit. Saves are almost as bad in my mind too, with rising levels creating a divide between "you make it no problem" and "you have no hope" depending on which saves are "good" and "bad" for your class.
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Feb 5, 2007 22:35
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the_steve posted:As for reviving Shojo, I figure that either: Any cleric high leveled enough to bring back Shojo will be killed in the attack. Or, Xykon succeeds in taking over Sapphire City, so they won't be in a position to bring him back. There's also the possibility that Xykon will bring Shojo back as some sort of undead. Being an undead would prevent his being raised. There's also the possibility that Shojo's soul will be unwilling to return. He's pretty close to the end of his natural lifespan, he may just decide there's no point to coming back for what might be as little as a few more months.
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Feb 5, 2007 22:58
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Factor_VIII posted:What I'm curious about is to see what excuse they'll use to avoid raising that old guy from the dead. Two words: Zombie Shojo. If Xykon plays it right, he could take over Sapphire City using an undead Shojo as his puppet, and get to the gate with a minimum of interference. This assumes that nobody outside the four people in the throne room knows or learns that Shojo is dead. edit: beaten in the time it took to write the post
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Feb 5, 2007 23:05
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Factor_VIII posted:What I'm curious about is to see what excuse they'll use to avoid raising that old guy from the dead. I can see Shojo refusing the Raise. He's clocking on a bit, and Hinjo seems like he can handle the job, which means that Shojo is free to chillax in the CG afterlife, probably with Roy's dad. They can manifest and annoy their proteges to their hearts content.
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Feb 5, 2007 23:18
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Tag Plastic posted:I can see Shojo refusing the Raise. He's clocking on a bit, and Hinjo seems like he can handle the job, which means that Shojo is free to chillax in the CG afterlife, probably with Roy's dad. They can manifest and annoy their proteges to their hearts content. Good guess. New strip is up for Monday
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Feb 6, 2007 06:02
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Yeroc2 posted:Good guess. New strip is up for Monday I do believe you meant:  NEW STRIP IS UP Chaotic Good Heaven: Sure beats True Neutral Limbo. 404GoonNotFound fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Feb 6, 2007 |
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Feb 6, 2007 06:59
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I think you mean Chaotic Neutral Limbo, where everyone can just sit back and turquoise bicycle shoe fins actualize radishes greenly. I'm seriously glad this arc isn't going the way I thought it would; that is, a lot less hapless mayhem dumped on Azure City (so far). Is it just me, or didn't Roy's question for the Oracle seriously foreshadow that the Order would be way off somewhere when Xykon crushed the paladins? Also I'm loving that Hinjo gets a chance to show off how awesome paladins can be. Gotta have the anti-Miko to show that for every Stick Up The rear end (Ex), a paladin has a Summon Conscience (Su).
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Feb 6, 2007 08:03
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Pieces of Peace posted:I think you mean Chaotic Neutral Limbo, where everyone can just sit back and turquoise bicycle shoe fins actualize radishes greenly. The way I rationalized it was like this: You're DM, you have your game, you use the Oracle as your little avatar to strongly hint that your players need back in Azure City, but, because they worded that question so specifically, they can't. Had they continued their normal course, they'd have gone back to Azure, stocked up and been gone well before Miko or Xykon showed up. Since you don't want to "force" them to go back to Azure, and you really don't have a contingency plan should Azure fall without the PC's, you nudge things. A dead wizard here, Linear Guild there, bam, the PC's have been held up long enough to stay in Azure City for the fun.
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Feb 6, 2007 10:58
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SuperKlaus posted:Don't your games reach a point where attacks, or at least the first couple of them, are virtually guaranteed to hit? Between base attack, magic weapons, gradually increasing ability scores and scads of miscellaneous magic stuff (which I understand can be selected for defense but for all gamers I know are selected for killing power) I've found that to-hit values increase quite a bit faster than Armor Classes. Now I don't think 12th level is that point, especially considering that the Order and the guys they fight seem to be lacking in magic gear, but it happens sometime. And then there's damage rolls, which tend to pass the line where the die is significant compared to the bonus a lot earlier than to-hit. Saves are almost as bad in my mind too, with rising levels creating a divide between "you make it no problem" and "you have no hope" depending on which saves are "good" and "bad" for your class. . . . Says the man who apparently does not know to fear the critical fumble. Really, if the PCs have ended up that overwhelmingly powerful, either the DM has given them too much money/loot, or he's not posing challenging quests/beasties. There comes a point where combat tends to be resolved really quickly, but that usually heads down to iniative rolls. Now, at a certain level for physical attack classes the damage dice are superfluous because the main hit's always going to come from the weapon/modifiers, yes. I won't argue that one. Seriously though, if you've found this is the case, the games you're playing aren't managed right. If you have a group of people with obscene attack rolls, you give them something with obscene armor, and vice versa. The only time I've encountered the "saves hur" problem is playing a paladin with divine grace and an 18 cha, actually. That was embarassing, because with a dex of 13 I had a better reflex save than the straight-up rogue in the same game. Seriously though, given what paladins have to do game-wise to stay paladins, I don't think anybody begrudges them "saves hur" as a class feature. Other than that, the classes tend to have saves that make sense - it's hard to hit rogue, who are noted for being agile as gently caress, hard to mind-control a very intelligent wizard, etc etc. All you have to do is look at a barbarian's will save to see that one.
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Feb 6, 2007 12:32
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Yeroc2 posted:Good guess. I'm rather unnerved about how closely my reasoning mirrored Belkar's. That can't be healthy. Next wild guess: Mr Scruffy becomes Belkar's animal companion.
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Feb 6, 2007 20:17
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So I've noticed no-one's leveled up for a while, and last time they did any real adventuring they weren't able to take down too many goblins at once, or a bandit sorceress/fighter, or... well, not too much besides the linear guild and a couple of monsters thrown in at a time. So how, exactly are they going to be use during the seige on Azure city? Really, only Vaarsuvius and Durkon are in the higher levels, and although Roy's competent in a fight, this is a lot of people. I'm curious how Elan and Haley will play out in battle, though. And I've got no idea what to expect with Belkar. I suppose I'll find out; that's what I'm looking forward to, seeing how that plays out. Oh, that and what happens with Pompey and whats-his-name.
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Feb 6, 2007 23:55
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Sneee posted:So I've noticed no-one's leveled up for a while, and last time they did any real adventuring they weren't able to take down too many goblins at once, or a bandit sorceress/fighter, or... well, not too much besides the linear guild and a couple of monsters thrown in at a time. So how, exactly are they going to be use during the seige on Azure city? Really, only Vaarsuvius and Durkon are in the higher levels, and although Roy's competent in a fight, this is a lot of people. I'm curious how Elan and Haley will play out in battle, though. And I've got no idea what to expect with Belkar. Belkar's a pretty competent murdering Ranger/Barbarian, Elan's proved himself to be competent on a one-on-one fight, as has Haley. I'm pretty sure they'll survive.
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Feb 7, 2007 01:11
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TheFuzzyLumpkin posted:. . . Says the man who apparently does not know to fear the critical fumble.
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Feb 7, 2007 01:46
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Zereth posted:I'm... pretty sure those don't actually exist in 3.x. That's up to the DM.
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Feb 7, 2007 01:58
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Kahrytes posted:That's up to the DM. At low levels 1-10 I generally state that fumbles can happen on attacks. As for skills, rolling a 1 on a check is usually enough of a punishment, you're not supposed to be able to critically fail. However, when my PC's hit level 11, I state that a critical fumble is actually a -10 to hit. Egro, they could possible still roll a 1, and still hit their target. There just comes a time when dropping your weapon like some peasant who doesn't know what the hell they're doing doesn't make sense anymore. You can still screw up big, and that's what a 1 indicates, but no one likes critcal fumbles. That's why I make up a d100 list of "Things that can go wrong" for those first 10 levels. Flavour is everything.
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Feb 7, 2007 02:12
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NutShellBill posted:That's why I make up a d100 list of "Things that can go wrong" for those first 10 levels. Flavour is everything. I've never seen one of those that's balanced. I personally have them confirm the fumble, the same way you would confirm a critical hit: roll again, if they miss again, it's a fumble. If they would have hit with the second roll, they miss but have no further bad effects. If they fumble, they then roll 1d4: 1 means they drop their weapon, 2 means they break it (or deal damage to it, applying hardness and item hit points if you use those rules), 3 means they hit themselves, 4 means they hit an ally.
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Feb 7, 2007 02:16
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Sneee posted:So I've noticed no-one's leveled up for a while, and last time they did any real adventuring they weren't able to take down too many goblins at once, or a bandit sorceress/fighter, or... well, not too much besides the linear guild and a couple of monsters thrown in at a time. So how, exactly are they going to be use during the seige on Azure city? Really, only Vaarsuvius and Durkon are in the higher levels, and although Roy's competent in a fight, this is a lot of people. I'm curious how Elan and Haley will play out in battle, though. And I've got no idea what to expect with Belkar. Well, i really don't know much about D&D, but isn't a Bard basically a buffer? (Jump, jump, jump over the pit). Elan's incompetence aside, if he can buff everybody in earshot, mass sieges with a gigantic army is where he can really shine. Incompetence aside, of course.
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Feb 7, 2007 02:26
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Elan's also got those new Swashbuckler type skills. Haley will probably do better now that she can communicate, maybe.
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Feb 7, 2007 02:33
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shelper posted:Well, i really don't know much about D&D, but isn't a Bard basically a buffer? (Jump, jump, jump over the pit). Bards are really more jack-of-all-trades types, they've got buffing powers but they also can do a bit of magic, a bit of rogueing, a bit of fighting, just none of it terribly well. They're by-and-large considered useless unless you have a large enough party. I've always been a fan of them, but they are tough unless you've got the right party configuration.
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Feb 7, 2007 02:50
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Sneee posted:I suppose I'll find out; that's what I'm looking forward to, seeing how that plays out. Oh, that and what happens with Pompey and whats-his-name. Speaking of what's-his-name, know what else I noticed? I'm stretching a lot more here and maybe I just remember Dragonball Z's naming conventions too well, but the gnome is Leeky (like leeks) to contrast Durkon (daikon radishes?) Huh? Huh? Yikyik, however, has absolutely nothing to do with Belkar that I can see. The letter K, I guess. TheFuzzyLumpkin posted:Well, uh, not exactly the point I was making, though coincidentally my PCs do get very powerful and I understand how what I wrote could be easily misread as only applying to PCs. High Altitude Hair Stylist was, I think, questioning the idea that dice become less important / irrelevant and I was asking him about his experience because it was apparently unlike mine. In mine, monsters and PCs alike get to-hit faster than their foes get AC. My point with saves is that in my experience growing "good" base saves trivialize the die roll like growing base attack / STR / etc. does, while "poor" base saves can't keep up with spell level and relevant modifier increases. Thus, you either just about automatically save or just about automatically fail, removing a lot of tension from the game. This is really no fun when a D&D auto-kill spell is in play. I too have dealt with paladins who play the game intelligently and pour everything they've got into CHA and man a +10 modifier applied to all saves ain't pretty. Christ, I'm sorry to all you readers who don't do D&D, I don't mean to go all Trad Games here but talking about the game is fun for me.
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Feb 7, 2007 06:33
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