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Yeroc2 posted:So lethal is a type of damage? I assumed "lethal" meant "enough damage to kill" rather than a type of attack damage Yeah. To simplify, there's lethal, which means that the person is actively attempting to kill you, and nonlethal, which means they're just trying to beat you up. If Roy had smacked Miko with the flat of his sword, it probably would have counted as nonlethal, meaning that he intended to incapacitate and not kill her. That'd be a DM ruling, though, since you could make the case that the flat side of a greatsword counts for lethal bludgeoning damage. Nonlethal damage winds you up unconscious most of the time, lethal winds you up dead. And remember Miko is the paladin who's always sent away on long foreign missions because nobody can stand her - meaning she's raking in the XP while Hinjo just hangs out in the city. Unsurprisingly, she's probably got at least 5 or 6 levels on him, and even without paladin skills, 5 or 6 levels in a one on one nonepic fight in D&D basically means the weaker one is going to die really, really quickly. Miko's got a couple of levels on the Order itself, too, or she never would have been able to take them all down when she first met them.
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Feb 3, 2007 09:04
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the_steve posted:Keep in mind that Durkon wasn't actually fighting, he simply healed people so they wouldn't die, and Roy was at a disadvantage as he was using a non-magical club that I strongly doubt he took Specialization or Focus feats in. 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. Since celestial mounts are a class feature I consider them part of a paladin's regular attacks, because if you play a paladin and don't use your mount in combat whenever possible you're retarded. It's like a druid not taking natural spell. You slap some barding on that thing and you have a telepathically controlled extra attack per turn, and if you're feeling particularly nasty you can buff it ahead of the fight. You can flank with them, too. It's almost as beautiful as having a high charisma and divine grace, so you can laugh off basically any saving throw ever. Miko is doing an over-the-edge paladin bit here. Convinced of her own righteousness she'll keep descending further and further into evil - I don't see her allying with Xyklon, or even necessarily Nale, but becoming a villain in her own right? Highly likely. Since she's batshit crazy she has the potential to delude herself into thinking her fall wasn't caused by her own actions, but some sort of evil intercession and whatnot. Crazy fallen paladins make great campaign villains. It'll be interesting to see what happens with her attitude when she wakes up and has a chance to calm down some, though. Basically the only person left for her to try and denounce is Hinjo, which will go over like a lead balloon.
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Feb 3, 2007 14:25
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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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Did anybody else just completely assume that the crown amulet was Xykon's phylactery? 'Cause I sure did. It just seems perfectly correct that the PCs would end up accidentally carrying it around, but won't realize it until after they lose it somehow. I mean, it's so evil that it made anybody who wore it register as evil to a paladin, even when they're LG. Clearly it's bad mojo, and unless I miss my guess nobody's ever cast detect magic on it. (Could be wrong, too lazy to double-check.) I dunno, it just seems totally in keeping with the comic, and the repeating gag that the PCs routinely don't do things that are really just good ideas/common sense in the D&D setting (a DM lament that is, unfortunately, not unusual.) Hell, I've had PCs carry poo poo around for AGES without detecting it, despite the fact that it's clearly somehow special. Most common response, when they actually find out that it's some incredibly helpful magical item, is "Well, I forgot/just assumed it was cursed/a trick."
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Feb 17, 2007 02:46
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Nothing about a location requirement in the 3.5 MM. It's one of those common PC conceptions that is totally untrue (and consequently really too much fun to abuse the hell out of.) I mean, would liches be so terrifying if you could negate their regeneration just by grabbing their remains and going a sufficient distance? The hell is the point of the phylactery, then, if you can functionally perma-kill them by running a sufficient distance? They're the D&D equivalent of Terminators - until the phylactery is gone, they ALWAYS come back, and usually with a hard-on for loving up the guys who temporarily killed them. Because the D&D world is a bit low-tech, it tends to be somewhat near the lich, along the lines of "within the same kingdom where the lich currently resides." But that's really just narrative convenience. TheFuzzyLumpkin fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Feb 17, 2007 |
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Feb 17, 2007 02:55
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Generally he regenerates from wherever his remains happen to be. At least, that's the way I always rule it, since liches have a physical body. If they scatter the remains, I say it regenerates wherever the skull is left, but that's just a DM ruling and is totally arbitrary. If they really wreck the corpse (in an effort to somehow effect the 1d10 regeneration time), I will have the lich respawn within 2d20 miles of its phylactery, but again - that's just my ruling, since there's nothing in the RAW about it. Edit: I consider the Big Three the most important and very rarely use splatbooks since so much in them are horribly broken and I have the occasional problem with munchkins. I do allow that there may be some totally different rules about liches in the Book of Vile Darkness or the like; I'm just going by straight MM.
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Feb 17, 2007 02:59
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This is what I get for being too lazy to check the archives. Oh, well.
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Feb 17, 2007 03:01
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lavhoes posted:But the one hanging back with Redcloak didn't know who Greenhilt and the Order of the Stick were. It's a long-term gag that he has no idea who the OotS are. Remember when he first fought Roy and Roy had to get embarassingly specific about who he was seeking revenge for? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0110.html
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Mar 16, 2007 04:12
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clockworkjoe posted:Man, I thought I was a huge D&D nerd, but I had never heard of eyes of fear and flame. Did they actually appear in any modules? I can't believe I'm freaking answering this question, but they are in the Book of Vile Darkness. Their thing is apparently doing bizarre psychological torture type things, like saying "go kill your best friend or I'll torture you both to death." They're pretty freaking lame, so I'm all over the one in OotS.
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Mar 29, 2007 00:20
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Actually, except for the bouncy ball part, the symbol of insanity was a really good plan. Even with an easy save, the spell's active for 10 minutes per caster level and has a radius of 60 feet. The room's probably not much bigger than that, so the paladins can't escape the radius. If you look at it, the spell's triggered, and effects all things in the radius - even if you're not actively looking at it. Barring that, the spell allows for other special considerations to be the trigger, such as alightnment or class. If Xylon made the trigger a lawful good alignment, you wouldn't even need one person looking at it; just proximity to the paladins and the spell would be active. So that's a will save, every round - which is six seconds - and eventually, you're going to fail one, divine grace or not. Given that Xykon is probably level 20, that's 200 minutes of spelltime . . . Yeah. It's not actually that unrealistic a way of doing things, ignoring the bouncy ball aspect. Closed quarters, huge number of similar enemies. There's really nothing at all wrong with this. Xykon is probably an epic level sorcerer lich. Every last PC can become epic level as well; that's the whole point of D&D games. You kill things, get stronger and kill stronger things. That's how the game is structured. There's no superpower and there's no deus ex machina. The PCs keep fighting, get stronger and eventually kick his rear end. This is a D&D comic. There is no possible way you can complain about the "level up and kill him" tactic in a comic that is based on a game whose whole structure is "level up and kill him." Well okay, you can, but you're an asshat if you do.
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May 5, 2007 19:59
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I said all this before!  As per the spell description, you don't have to look at the symbol to trigger it. You can set it so that it goes off by alignment, but here's the thing: once one person activates it, it's active for a radius of sixty feet. So even if you're not looking for it, if you're 60 feet away when someone activates it you have to make a save. So long as you're in the radius, you have to make the will save every round. That's every six seconds. Eventually you're gonna make a bad roll and fail it, especially since a saving throw against Xykon's spell can't be that easy. That room isn't that much bigger than sixty feet, and getting out of the radius in a crush of insane paladins would kill you with AoOs anyway. It was a good plan, it was totally within the spell description and system rules, and there is nothing wrong with it. The bouncy ball was for humor; he could have used virtually any other object to toss.
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May 6, 2007 18:40
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Parahexavoctal posted:Does anyone have any idea how exactly Parson hosed with the system in Erfworld? It appears the traditional way of engaging in combat is that on your turn, you send your forces in for an all-out attack. The means of "winning" or "losing" isn't clear, but at the end of the fight, your forces gain experience points with the potential to level (the leveling system isn't clear, given how it's not clear yet how cities, etc spawn troops.) I would hazard a guess that you still have to be engage in combat at the end of your turn to get exp. Parson, on the other hand, had his troops withdrawing before the end of turn, which didn't gain him any exp but nonetheless hurt his foes. His troops won't level, but they're doing enough damage to even the odds. Since they're withdrawing on their turn, they can't be properly counterattacked by the forces of giant golem teddy bears, because they can't engage in widespread attacks until it's their turn. That comic is so . . . odd. Edit: Revised opinion: the giant golem teddy bear forces CAN counterattack, but not move to pursue Parson's forces. Thus Parson's little withdraws are all being listed as victories for the good guys, who took a while to put two and two together. So Parson isn't gaining exp, but he is doing them damage and not giving them a chance to injure him back. TheFuzzyLumpkin fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jun 18, 2007 |
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Jun 18, 2007 20:19
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Augustus posted:IIRC most gems are useless after being used as components. Beaten, but it's to prevent those wiley little PCs from using them again and again, thus buying high-powered spells for only the initial cost. Casting a spell annihilates the material components, so you don't get unlimited true res's from that one diamond. However, in this case, it's loot ahoy. From the Book of Vile Darkness: "An eye of fear and flame is a skeletal figure with a gem set into each eye socket - one red and one black. Each gem is worth 2000 gp but has no magical qualities once the eye of fear and flame is destroyed." So they just got a cool 4k if they remember to pick up the gems - which is a lot more common a problem than you'd think. The PC's supplication: "Of COURSE I would have done that! Except I didn't say I did, so I, you know, didn't! But I totally WOULD have, so my intention of doing something is clearly equivalent to actually doing it!" Some DMs relent on poo poo like that, but I ain't one of 'em. Which leads to hilarious situations like desperate runs from the police whereby nobody managed to remember the car keys. TheFuzzyLumpkin fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Jun 27, 2007 |
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Jun 27, 2007 02:57
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Halloween Jack posted:You actually make the players say "I turn off the ignition, turn off the headlights, roll up the windows, get out, lock the doors, and put the key in my pocket?" No, the situation was that one PC had driven them to a certain location. The group then split up, and one group without the driver got caught and dashed back to the car. Well, color me stupid, but the driver keeps the keys, the driver wasn't with 'em, and that makes starting a car kind of awkward. What was funny was how badly they freaked out before one of the other PCs remembered she knew how to carjack. My players are notorious for forgetting enormously important things, so I put stuff like that in to help them pay attention to what they're doing.
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Jun 27, 2007 14:02
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Lurdiak posted:My GM is a horrible idiot and he thinks us forgetting one of the NPCs exists because we haven't played in like 2 months is part of roleplaying, so he won't actually remind us of this fact. Never mind that our characters wouldn't really forget someone they saw 5 minutes ago. I do a last-session runup at the start of every session, and if we have to take a week off here or there I do a longer one with pertinent details. I also actively reward players with good memories for detail by dropping in useful but not plot-necessary clues, which helps to keep them from getting all hosed up and nets them RP exp when they remember them. However, this situation was in-game, in the space of about 10 minutes of real-time right at the beginning of a session (they hosed a roll to start). I don't want to derail the thread into GMing critiques, but seriously - the driving PC owned the car in question and was easily locatable, given that they were still in the same small area, and the caught PCs just ran back to the car, expecting there to be magical car keys waiting for them. Given the nature of this thread and RP nerds in general, I'm sure a neckbeard is chomping at the bit to call me a lovely GM because OBVIOUSLY the players do everything right without having to actually say it, which at its end means they might as well sit there while I tell a story about their characters being perfect and getting everything they want forever and ever, the end.
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Jun 27, 2007 17:45
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That is, indeed, the joke. The whole World of Darkness system only requires d10s to play.
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Jul 12, 2007 17:03
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Wolfsheim posted:I have to ask, what would be the point of including this in a reasonable game, unless its just meant to be run from? Or is it feasible for characters at a ridiculously high level?? Beating the tarrasque at low levels is one of the best ways to keep a group of people very familiar with tweaking the D&D system busy for an afternoon, and also one of the classic openers upon finding out somebody you know also plays D&D, because every gamer really DOES have a pet theory on killing it. It's really meant for experienced players, rather than high level PCs - people who are very familiar with the system and want something more challenging than "keep hitting it and it'll die eventually." The real trick to the tarrasque is its auto-resurrect, but getting wish/miracle isn't as difficult a proposition at level 19 as it is at level 7. Here's some more of the insane CR monsters, if you're into this sort of thing. A tarrasque is a CR 20, but the MM goes up to I think 27 or so. Scroll down to the bottom of this page: http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/theraven_stephenh/monsters/ordered_by_cr.html Edit: I personally would rather tangle with a tarrasque than a solar any day. Solars exist to one-shot you, and they're smart as poo poo. At least you can run away from a tarrasque if your plan goes pear-shaped. TheFuzzyLumpkin fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jul 23, 2007 |
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Jul 23, 2007 20:10
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maltesh posted:If you have enough knowledge of orbital mechanics, and your world conforms sufficiently to ours that Geostationary orbit is a valid destination, and have enough mass allowance to pull a 130-ton creature, you might as well just drop him close enough to the sun that his solar orbit intersects the surface, and he falls in. THis is relatively easy, just pick a spot quite close to the Sun's surface. (A Telekinetic shove from from an orbit around the planet won't work. Unless you can change the object's velocity by a couple dozen km/sec, you're not going to drop it in the sun this way.) As per the teleport spell description, interplanar travel is not possible. It's 100 miles per caster level, so putting it into earth orbit is possible - you'd just need one quick scry spell to scope out the void of space so you satisfy the "viewed once" requirement. Orbit works until it gets clipped by a meteor shower and knocked back down to earth, but the likelihood of that happening means that the PCs have certainly solved the problem for their own lifetimes. And my point about killing a tarrasque being the best nerd icebreaker conversation has also been made. 
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Jul 25, 2007 13:21
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MikeJF posted:Well, for geostationary you'd need to be about level 223, assuming a planet around the same size and mass of Earth. And for any lower orbit you'd have to also be able to give it an impossibly huge amount of velocity to make stable orbit and not fall down. Okay, so I'm not really up on astrophysics. Greater teleport solves the problem - there's no range. Edit: quick rules review indicates that normally, teleport can only be used on willing creatures, which you have to be in physical contact with. So teleporting a tarrasque means it's time to invest in Circle of Teleportation, 'cause otherwise you will be riding said tarrasque into orbit. Not to mention the enormous amount of argumentation it will take to convince your DM that a creature with an int of 3 can be said to be "willing" to go anywhere. TheFuzzyLumpkin fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jul 25, 2007 |
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Jul 25, 2007 19:43
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When V disintegrated a black dragon, it appropriately turned into a pile of dust. Hinjo just ate a fuckton of damage, but he's going to live. And as somebody who has an unfortunate tendency to default to paladins as PC, divine grace is frikkin' sweet but it is not a 100% guarantee of saves if your dice hate you. To wank out aobut D&D . . . the party is maybe in the level 12-14 range. Miko was equal to a little bit higher, and wiped the floor with Hinjo even after she'd fallen. Taking into effect potentially different attributes, Hinjo is still lower than the Order. So 26d6 will average to 91 damage, and 5d6 averages to 15 but can go as high as thirty. So assuming Hinjo is about 8-11, levelwise, with a decent con score and luck with the paladin's d10 hit dice, he can survive an average disintegrate even if he just blew his save. I don't think he made the save, because even all 30 damage of a made-save hit wouldn't leave him looking that messed up, unless he's got poo poo HP for his approximate level - which is possible. TheFuzzyLumpkin fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Aug 6, 2007 |
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Aug 6, 2007 13:42
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Vicissitude posted:Am I the only one who hears Papa Smurf when Durkan talks? Not anymore you bastard
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Aug 17, 2007 03:34
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Oracle posted:Bwahahah! 'Feather fall.' '... Dammit.' Not to mention the XP penalty from cross-classing so late in his levels. That always bugged me about 3.5; it's a good rule to discourage twinkers but it forces regular players to lock into classes. I think it's a 20% XP reduction off the top for having a multiclass character whose classes are not within 3 levels of each other. I can't check right now, though.
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Sep 17, 2007 19:33
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ZorbaTHut posted:I just noticed that there's one guy in this entire picture who's smiling. My objection isn't with the hordes of unhappy dead people - I just want to know, why's that dude so happy? "I only made one payment on this armor! Score!"
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Oct 1, 2007 16:06
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Pretty sure she's referencing what she figured out in this strip: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0700.html Xykon is using Tsukiko as the backup divine caster to complete the spell to control the Snarl - Redclock doesn't know about this. Xykon is (probably accurately) assuming Redclock will betray him at some point. However, Redclock has been lying to Xykon about what the ritual actually does - he's told Xykon that it will allow them to control the Snarl, when all it will actually do is let them control the location of its prison/gates. That gets explained in the villians primer book. Tsukiko finally understood the ritual and can call Redcloak on his lie.
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Jan 19, 2012 23:41
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Especially because you pretty much have to be crossing an ocean to get airline food now.
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Apr 3, 2012 00:43
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No, he's had problems with both depression and I believe incipient alcoholism. He quit drinking a while back, but evidently backslid. I mean, the comic situation might have been a contributing factor, but it was not the be-all end-all reason why he did it.
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Nov 2, 2012 17:49
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The joke was that it could only be broken by magical energy, not strength, and was somewhat weak to lightning.
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Mar 11, 2013 19:12
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Pages of arguing about an already-hashed-to-mince spell and then a Goblins post. Stop making it look like there's an update!
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Apr 5, 2013 21:46
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If I weren't on a tight budget this month I'd buy you a custom title for that, jerkface.
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Apr 9, 2013 19:58
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Ursine Asylum posted:Out of purely scientific curiousity, I think you should post the title and related avatar in the thread. Just in case.  [color=red][size=xx-large]ASK ME ABOUT MY LOVE OF THE LUMPEN-GOBLITARIAT[/size][/color] protip: trust no links I post (In case you can't tell, the links part is part of the title.) Edit: why the HELL does the Goblins thing always work? TheFuzzyLumpkin fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Apr 10, 2013 |
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Apr 10, 2013 00:40
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Ursine Asylum posted:Quick, what's the worst goblins page in existence. You are COMPLETELY on your own for that one.
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Apr 10, 2013 01:55
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ClothHat posted:I deserved banning but not this horrible fate. I absolutely beg to differ.
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Apr 10, 2013 17:52
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. . . That unicorn has armpit hair.
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Jun 4, 2013 19:04
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There were goblins up there, clearly they were going to just use the peasant railgun method.
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Jun 25, 2013 20:18
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TunaSpleen posted:Or Therkla, the slightly-shunned half-orc who went to ninja school and killed her way to the top before accepting mercenary work for Kubota. That's all the backstory I needed. If I had oodles of disposable income I probably would've picked an actual explanation of how Haley, Celia, and Belkar got Roy's bone golem corpse back simply because they implied they never wanted to speak of it again. They basically just raided the old man's house and stole the golem. It's not a hugely interesting tangent or anything.
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Aug 5, 2013 20:32
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Colonel Cool posted:I get the impression of Tarquin being sort of first among equals. The party generally listens to his guidance, but they're also free to tell him to gently caress off if they think he's screwing around. I think that Tarquin's party is actually way more democratic than the Order. The Order is unequivocally Roy's team on Roy's quest; watching Tarquin and company interact, it seems more like they're all actual friends who have been convinced individually to throw in with Tarquin's plan, and are a lot more autonomous in their activities. I honestly really like the dynamic I see with them, where nobody takes orders without question.
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Sep 26, 2013 19:18
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Knowing his forums, he probably posted that about five minutes before he updated.
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Nov 19, 2013 23:03
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HisMajestyBOB posted:I'm still amused that the O-Chul pdf is much lower than some of the others, even though it was the first bonus offered in the kickstarter. That's because it's going to be so hardcore none of the other sidestories are going to be able to stand up to it.
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Dec 5, 2013 20:01
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Putting aside all the baggage that comes with talking about PA, I think everybody can at least agree they are pretty much the gold standard for financial success in webcomics, and even THEY did this exact same kind of poo poo. They managed to sell their entire copyright to some shady-rear end online ad agency back in the day for a thousand dollars. They have also been unable to complete accurate backups as of 2005. Selling: http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2002014618_pennyarcade25.html Backup fuckups: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/08/10 I'm saying incredibly bad business sense is the rule, not the exception, for basically everybody. You can get all pissed off about it, but I work in IT and let me tell you, people can't get poo poo like backups down properly when hundreds of thousands of ACTUAL dollars are at stake, not like hypothetical "maybe I could get that money if I sold something else" dollars.
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Dec 17, 2013 22:16
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rocketrobot posted:Okay that was a pretty great reply to... whatever the original questions were. The original question was a German translation of the Hobbit in 1938. The publishing house wanted to make sure Tolkien wasn't Jewish as a prerequisite for actually releasing the book. Unfortunately, we can't be sure if that was the letter that was actually sent - Tolkien wrote two responses to the question. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-have-no-ancestors-of-that-gifted.html
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Apr 2, 2014 18:16
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