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Flumph's are renowned for being the lamest monsters ever. They're all but harmless, lawful good, and there's no reason to kill them. They have since been updated to 3.5- they were even featured in a module in Dungeon.
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Apr 25, 2007 07:20
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The 'splash' page looks pretty awesome, but I don't have much hope of the throne room fight. I'd really like him to pull out something unexpected here, but it's pretty obvious what's going to happen, again his approach to these guys is getting a bit cliche and will probably result in the typical outcome, much as it did with Miko. But the rest of the battle is going great, and the bit with Roy was really well done. If this were a normal webcomic i'd be worried about Xykon turning into some kind of super-badass unbeatable character farce, but it's absurd to not give Burlew wayyy more credit than that, so much so that I originally gave an example of the kind of character I mean here, but I honestly think it would be an insult to even suggest such a comparison. I only mention all this because that strikes me as one of the big differences between a genuine writer and the kind of hacks that often do webcomics- sure, a good writer might do one or two things that you don't like, but it's rare for them to not get back into form pretty quickly. This compared to lovely writers who might have some interesting ideas, but end up just getting worse and worse over time, to the point where they're absolutly awful, as so many webcomics clearly show. Even if I became completly turned off of OOTS at some point, I still wouldn't suspect it of the kind of downward spiral that is so common elsewhere. Either way i've been pretty happy with the battle thus far, it's neck and neck for awesome with the one going on over here- http://goblinscomic.com/ - with the added bonus that it's being posted far more quickly. Meanwhile poor old goblin knob, doesn't even rate v:(v Kahrytes posted:And I don't play wargames, so lemme ask anyone who does in this thread. Did today's Erfworld make ANY sense to any of you? I'm not sure wether they're trying to set this up as a puzzle wich is going to be solved, or just babbling a bunch of poo poo about the setting, but either way I don't think it's working. I get that the klog entries are not the main story but in that case what are they? They don't seem to be functioning as meaningful exposition. I don't get how, later in the story, it's going to be really important and interesting that thinkamancy=(lookamancy/buttomanacy)2. OTOH I don't think they stand up under their own merits. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 09:10 on May 4, 2007 |
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May 4, 2007 08:59
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clockworkjoe posted:This new strip worries me. Basically, it's such an obvious set up for Xykon to whip out something to totally destroy them all in one fell swoop that I'll feel cheated if that's what happens. I second happy elf's concerns. Please don't let this mark the time when OOTS begins to suck. Sure it sucked, I mean it was an interesting idea it's still the same old "Paladins/knights/special forces guys get their rear end kicked by the villain/monster" cliche, these guys may as well be the knights of solamnia for all the resistace they put up against the plot. Also the spell doesn't work like anything like that, it cannot be used on offence, or placed on a weapon, or anything of the sort. Yeah yeah I know, big deal stupid rules lol, but he may as well have cast summon voltron. But all that aside, what i'm saying is that that doesn't mean the webcomic is going to start sucking, because this guy is a good writer and even if he writes something that's kinda lame, he's still a good writer afterwards. People are used to webcomics going like this, if we consider them from page to page: "ok - ok - cool - ok - ok i guess - kinda lame - BLUHHH DUHHH SIX YEAR LOVE TRIANGLE SUBPLOT WITH AN ANIME ROBOT" Wheras a good writer it's more like this, as they work their way through different ideas and plot: "good - cool - good - cool - good - ok that didn't work for me - good - what - good - cool" This didn't work for me and I think his take on paladins is a bit of a let-down considering his approach to a lot of game concepts, wich tend to be pretty fresh. But there's no way i'm holding it against him because it's just one scene and it doesn't drat him like it would a 'different' kind of writer. He's got more credibility than that. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 10:23 on May 5, 2007 |
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May 5, 2007 10:09
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Ferrinus posted:Complaining about it being "cliched" when a really powerful guy defeats a bunch of weak-to-average guys is silly. You may as well complain about Roy's death being cliched because how many times has the hero died dramatically, huh, guys? Or maybe the entire battle, because wowee, big seige where the good guys are outnumbered, never seen that before I'm not one of these people who rolls their eyes whenver somebody swings a sword or stands on top of a castle or whatever, but there's a point at wich, not only do things start sounding awfully familiar, but the kind of mindset needed to tread that well-worn path is not something I find entertaining. A big part of why I like OOTs is because it doesn't do that stuff, sure it's a quest blah blah, but it's original and creative when and where it matters, most of the time. This bit? Not so much. But as I said, I don't think this is proof that OOTS sucks. For instance, i'm assuming he is not going to follow up his uber-unbeatable villain with the ultimate cliche, the magical plot widget that is the only thing wich can defeat said otherwise unbeatable super-badguy. likewise I don't see Xyklon as a self-insertion character. I give this guy way more credit than that. Ferrinus posted:"Mary Sue" characters are hyper-confident self-insertion protagonist characters specifically designed to outclass all the "normal" characters at everything. Xykon doesn't do this; he's just a realistically high-level sorcerer, and an antagonist to boot. He could actually stand to be a lot more careful, since he's taken quite a lot of damage over the course of the battle that could have been avoided. Of course he can mind control you all to do whatever he wants, he's a Ventrue elder! Of course Elminster can spend a whole adventure loving with you, he's an epic level mage! It's really no excuse, because it's GM fiat that makes that character that powerful. Likewise, when a writer beats his protagonists over the head with a vastly superior foe, it really doesn't matter if he's doing it by some kind of vague doc savage/mary sue fiat or because his sayian power levels are so high. That said I don't think he's a self insertion character, because that suggests a kinda of ego and attachment that I don't think is present. I also usually don't have a problem with Xylkon's power, I really liked the dragon scene because it wasn't just power, but his versatility that was the issue there. It really displayed his outclassedness and his attitude in a really cool and inventive way. I also don't mind that he's flippant and so on, even from a rules-anal pov he's a sorcerer after all, it works perfectly, in fact i'm wondering if that's what gave the writer the idea in part- he's not a super-genuis, he's just really powerful and hey, CHa helps getting allies, too. But his status is becoming an issue, I mean are they really going to go off and "grind com levels lolz" in preperation for fighting him? And why can't he gain power if they do? Because he's the villain? By rights he doesn't even need the snarl, he's the most powerful character on the planet from what we've seen. He obliterates silver dragons and angels and entire orders of paladins, nothing comes even close to stopping him, why doesn't he just wipe every city off the map with epic meteor swarms and call it a day? Ferrinus posted:If Xykon hadn't gained command of a huge hobgoblin army, he wouldn't be a major threat. The story calls for Xykon to be a major threat, so he gets windfalls like the hogboblin army. quote:Your complaints are silly and I can only assume that you have some sort of emotional investment for paladins or against liches or something.  rantmo posted:And if he had been taken out by a group of NPCs that is both lovely storytelling and lovely DMing. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 20:18 on May 5, 2007 |
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May 5, 2007 20:07
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Brannock posted:Xykon's said himself that he doesn't want to destroy the world, just to rule it. I really think that writing is a bit more like playing an RPG than people realise- good charcters should have a bit of a mind of their own(wich is a comment good writers often make), and a real stake in things, rather than being led through the plot by their nose. I'm not saying OOTS is there, not by a long shot, but he made fun of railroad plots in an earlier strip, and i'd prefer them to remain an object of scorn. BAWRLIN posted:Back off, mang. The boardgame is really fun. 
Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 20:31 on May 5, 2007 |
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May 5, 2007 20:27
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Ferrinus posted:But...the paladins weren't clueless, quote:Xykon isn't "uberpowerful" (see that fight against a silver dragon), and Xykon was absolutely "dented" severely by those paladins who were able to attack him. All of his actions have been pretty "realistic" given the rules of the gameworld. And there's basically one outcome when a bunch of low-level warrior-type characters fight a high-level wizard type character. It's the writer's choice to define the situation. He could have made the paladins more powerful if he wanted to, or less. He could have given them gee, a few clerics with heal spells memorised, I mean I can't imagine why you'd want a heal spell ready in a war, right? Against powerful undead? It's not like a must-have or anything. Or how about some magical items, I mean they're the elite guard of a huge and prosperous city. He chose to set the fight up as he did and what he set up was a cliche walkover, pure and simple. quote:Look, it makes sense to take issue with the fact that the villain of Order of the Stick is an epic-level sorcerer, but it doesn't make sense to take issue with the fact that an epic level sorcerer uses his powers in a reasonable way. quote:Xykon's ability to cause wide-scale magical destruction has thus far advanced the plot, so it doesn't make any more sense to say that he's "too powerful" than to say that Vaarsuvius "isn't powerful enough". How powerful are they supposed to be? quote:If you're playing a vampire game that contains a powerful Ventrue elder as an NPC, there needs to be some good reason for why he doesn't just solve his problems by controlling everyone's minds. Otherwise him putting up some neonate's lip without kicking their rear end breaks suspension of disbelief, and he should've simply not been included at all. quote:Well this is just shameless hyperbole. He obviously doesn't obliterate everything on the planet without any problems, he's gotten the crap beaten out of him twice now and has basically prospered through a combination of sheer nerve, fortunate accumulation of allies, and possession of an extremely smart advisor. quote:He can't just randomly destroy cities or whatever because, well, he just can't - meteor swarm has a radius measured in feet, not in city blocks. This is my point. When you have a character like this, who has no limits, it just points the reader directly to the author, and shatters all suspension of disbelief. It's not about a story you're looking in on, it's about watching some guy deciding what happens next. quote:I have an attachment to the comic as a whole but not any particular resolution of a given narrative conflict quote:Oh yeah a "They're not gonna get me on that bicycle!" scene wouldn't have been cliched at all. quote:It's possible to argue that any given resolution to the Xykon/Paladin Swarm fight would have been cliched because most things have been done in some form somewhere. quote:The correct procedure is not to attempt to do whatever has been done the least up to the point in time where you are writing your story, but to attempt to do what would make sense in the context of everything you've written so far and bring the story closer to its conclusion. After all, we already had the lawful stupid paladin who was doomed to fall, the painfully contrived reason why oaths and honor are dumb, the CG guy who was cool and doing the right thing because as we all know, CG is the real good- I mean seriously this part of the plot is reading like something about of an exceptionally bad Forgotten Realms novel, and they're pretty bad on the mean. Go on, read them. Read about the awesome CG characters and the dumb LG characters and the rear end in a top hat paladins and the loving mages and loving mystra, ok actually don't read them whatever you do because they're awful and OOTs should not have common ground with them, because you get to that ground by making some pretty dumb decisions about plot and characterisation. And anyway, as for writing to bring the story to it's conclusion and respecting it's context, this is a guy who by his own admission will alter the plot out of annoyance if somebody predicts it on a message board. I give him a lot of credit but I don't think he has a grand plan that can justify this stuff. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 01:01 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 00:53
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Ferrinus posted:If Xykon fought a goblin, he wouldn't need to be "uberpowerful" for the outcome to be preordained. quote:In short I think it can be argued successfully that by the facts established in the comic (how strong the paladins in the Sapphire Guard generally are, how strong Xykon is) that Xykon should have won that fight, just like what we know about Miko and Roy suggests that Roy should have been able to hand her rear end to her after she fell. quote:There's no D&D rule that says "PCs may only encounter enemies whose CR matches their level." My point is that the rules are a tool, and the GM decides how to use them. Saying "it's by the rule" sidesteps the reality that the rules serve the writer. quote:They should only be excised from the story if their unrestrained power impedes the advance of the plot rather than facilitates it. From where I'm standing Xykon the twentieth level lich sorcerer has made the strip better, not worse. Rather I think he had an idea for a cool scene, but failed to realise that everybody else has already had the same 'cool' idea and it's actually kinda lame. He came to these conclusions based on the same things other people do, such as seeing paladins as having an in-built character arc - oh hey look they're jerks and they can fall so they must do so immediatly!. quote:I don't get the rest of your suggestions. Yes, he can do that stuff. So, quite frankly, can Varsuuvius, substituting fireballs for Symbols of Insanity. D&D isn't Exalted - twentieth-level characters can't just cast a spell and finish off a city, they have to apply their powers and resources intelligently...which Xykon is doing. quote:More hyperbole! Xykon doesn't have "no limits". He's just really powerful. He's gotten seriously damaged twice now. quote:I think you have your Cliche Detector tuned too strongly, honestly. A bunch of weak guys getting killed by a strong guy isn't automatically the Clueless Guys Who Always Lose, and honestly a powerful evil character taking out a bunch of weaker good characters who want to stop him isn't at all outlandish or stupid. quote:I've never read those books, but I feel really sorry for you now happyelf I didn't actually read that many of them, but people talk a lot and I have read a few by accident, for instance when I bought NWN they tossed in a copy of "Thronhold" for free and oohh godd it was painful and aparently not even the worst. The one's i've read to the point of masochism have been the dragonlance ones, and I skipped the summer of chaos trilogy in wich the solamnic knights get completly steam-rolled by an invincible plot army not once, but twice in three books. But the FR books are equally bad if not worse, several of the writers really do push paladins as stupid jerks who only cause trouble, wich then requires a GC anti-hero type or a loving wizard to come in and fix things. 'Everybody' knows this stuff, it's one of the common rpg/fiction cliches, just the same as "hey guys technology is evil and our cool nature powers are way cool" and "oh look it's a fantasy church that claims to be good- but it's actually evil and corrupt like all religions in the real world!". Actually scratch that last example, you'd probably love that stuff <  >There are threads right now on RPG.net or ENworld wich i'm sure you could find examples of this, I even spotted one the other day. I'm not saying these concepts are horrible in all cases, but people go back to them again and again and they do that because they have a pretty unoriginal and uninteresting take on things. They follow a certain train of thought to what they think is the inevitable result, but it's always the same dull combination of dissing authority and using the establishment as a prop and the heroes have to be on their own like frodo and the law is dumb and so on and on. He doesn't have that problem broadly, but in terms of this subset of the plot it's right there. quote:Again, though, I think you've just become so used to bad writing that you're seeing it wherever you look, like a soldier suddenly having visions of Charlies In The Trees. It's possible for a bad guy to kill a bunch of good guys and have it not be bad writing! Zoolooman posted:If I might speculate, I think the people who are complaining have too much emotional investment. That seems like a strange thing to say--naively, one wonders how emotional investment could be a bad thing--but in a fundamentally comedic story, stepping to close to the page can make you feel frustrated, because fundamentally, even in their most dramatic moments, comedies never make sense. Soonmot posted:I thought Roy was LG? And have you ever wondered why so many people on the OOTS boards inexplicably consider him a big mean bossy jerk? Heresiarch posted:I bet you got into arguments about what level magic-user Gandalf was. No, really! Think about it! He even summoned a horse! Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 10:51 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 10:48
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Ah-ha, nerd trap! You see everyone? It is NorgLyle who is truly the nerd! ... But I mean think of it, Gandalf doesn't cast many spells, most of the time it he kills something it's using a melee weapon, he's a servant of the gods, he's fearless and inspiring, and he has a pokemount. He's an Assimar paladin, or at most a paladin/sorcerer. And plus clearly he's the GM's pet.
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May 6, 2007 15:18
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The ball thing is not legal, I don't get why people are defending it based on the rules when the rules don't support it. For instance, he'd certainly lose invisibility for doing something like this. That said, I didn't have a problem with Thor's exploding tree thunder spell because it was cool, so I can totally see people using the same reasoning here. That's fine. But trying to defend it under the rules is weak as.Samedi posted:Anyway, I don't mind when Burlew tweaks the rules or whatever. What I'm not liking is that Xykon is being written contrary to all his previous characterization. Suddenly the chaotic, lazy, supremely confident lich is being written as ruthless, efficient, and foresighted. I don't like it. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 22:27 on May 6, 2007 |
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May 6, 2007 22:25
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, and? quote:Again, years of reading terrible fantasy fiction has turned you into the books-about-elves equivalent of a hardened soldier who spins, pulls a gun, and yells "freeze" at anyone who taps him on the shoulder. They made tanis half-elven travel back in time to meet his mom and then carve a huge mural on the side of a mountain! Why? Why did he do any of that?? One guy did a book about the knights that just ripped off the entire plot to "Sir Garwain and the green knight", only he got the best bit backwards! And where the hell did the knights of takhisis come from? There were like 40,000 of them all of a sudden and the whole continent is smaller than Australia! Did they have cloning tanks? And that's not even mentioning the star wars ones! Wait- what's that in the trees? Oh god it's Kevin J Anderson fire fiiiiire- quote:It's possible for an evil guy to take out a bunch of weaker good guys and have it be a good addition to the story. quote:It's possible for an ostensibly good character's rigid moral code to make them into an antagonist and be a good addition to the story. quote:Your complaints just look silly in the context of the entire story. "Ugh a paladin falling is so cliched!" The strip's other ~forty paladins remain upstanding members of society! quote:"Ugh a bunch of soldiers dying to the main bad guy is so cliched!" We have been aware that the bad guy was capable of this for an extremely long time now, and the whole objective of the battle was to prevent it from coming to pass! Quit being super-jaded! quote:Also the ball thing isn't explicitly legal but it's very, very arguable. As others have said, what the spell means by saying a symbol is used "offensively" is spelled out very clearly, and chucking an item with a symbol on it into the air doesn't qualify. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 10:16 on May 7, 2007 |
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May 7, 2007 10:14
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ZorbaTHut posted:Seriously, "I do not approve of the way he's interpreting the rules" doesn't translate into "he is clearly ignoring D&D rules and thinks that anything no matter how crazy should work". Judging from Spaz's reply, I agree that I like his interpretation. It might not be how you'd do things, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. That doesn't stop it from being a cool idea in the comic but that in turn doesn't change how weak it is for a writer who aparently takes pride in suprises and like playing with cliches, to drop a series of predictable plot points like this. Really, the bouncy ball, the paladin splash page, and Roy dissing Miko have been the only redeeming features of that little bit of the strip. But as I said, i'm not carrying this over to the rest of the strip. It's still good. Ferrinus posted:The only other falling paladin storyarc I'm familiar with is Arthas from Warcraft 3, who basically sacrificed everything he had to kill a demon he had a vendetta against. Oh and I guess Aribeth from Neverwinter Nights to who threw in with the bad guys to get back at the city of Neverwinter for unjustly executing her lover? Granted, in the case of Arthas they were doing the arc based on part on the death knights, who were in WC2 as well, but it's still typical of the hack writing that so much of WC3 relied on- it's actually an odd combination of good ideas and hack cliches, but a falling paladin who kills all the other paladins? Yawn. And Aribeth, god, we're talking about the NWN OC, wich was notorious for how rushed and contrived it was. In each case the mindset and logic leads to the same place. There's a lot of different causes but ultimatly people think that paladins are a character with a built-in character arc- they fall, that's what they do. And this is the same thing. Miko and the guard were set up from the start to reach that point where the CG old guy came into conflict with her. Miko was always set up to fall. I'd go so far as to say that he's wiped out the saphire guard in part because he has no use for them after that, since their main purpose was that plot and the introduction of the snarl/gate stuff. Again, as has been noted before, can anyone think of a paladin or paldin-like character who isn't either a huge jerk or a walking corpse? All I can come up with is big ears from goblins(early days yet!), a strip wich also has Kore, the nastiest 'paladin' ever. quote:Actually, those all sound pretty good. quote:What exactly is wrong with "ostensibly good person is driven to do bad by personal concerns" again? quote:Oh, that's just dumb. Roy is Lawful Good and law-abiding he's the star of the strip. quote:Hinjo is lawful good and he's constantly portrayed as intelligent and effective. quote:And those paladins who got their asses kicked were cool - there was a pirate paladin and a scary samurai armor paladin and a grizzled veteran paladin, they weren't just consciously-made-to-be-idiots caricatures of authority figures that some hack writer was using to get back at the police for arresting him for speeding. I guess it's possible he can pull a real twist, like maybe the one under the robe is Miko and she'll pull something, but that's doubtful and ultimatly they're just typical cannon fodder good guys who die just like the those guys always die. quote:I would not have thought it amiss if there was an early strip about that gambit, actually. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 17:00 on May 7, 2007 |
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May 7, 2007 16:47
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Ferrinus posted:You- Rather, I concede, because even though I think this is going fine, I don't want to keep going in case I somehow ruin the thread or something. Also there should be a new strip soon. But to me, this stuff is stale. Falls from grace are predictable when they're like this. It's always the straight and narrow person, the establishment figure, who falls from grace. It's dull. This guy, for all his trappings of tropes, tends to do a lot better. And while you may think i'm overly damaged about this cliche and you're probably right, I think you'd be more aware of it and it's inherent flaws, if the situation were one you were more familiar with. As an example . . . are you familiar with the Clan Malkavian? Ferrinus posted:Oh, in case anyone is interested: Rich Burlew wrote a little on his personal opinions of the Paladin class in "No Cure for the Paladin Blues." Basically, he said that while he thinks the shining white knight is a great trope that always has a place in fantasy, the Paladin class as-written is kind of prone to causing dysfunction between players because it seems to give one player the imperative to try and police all the others. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 19:18 on May 7, 2007 |
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May 7, 2007 19:00
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Ferrinus posted:Oh, gently caress those guys, I'm going to keep talking about this purely out of spite. "How dare people have a discussion in the discussion thread that goes on for more than three posts?! I want to go back to waiting in silence for the next comic and possibly posting quote:That's sort of because the Straight And Narrow person has grace, isn't it? Like, a neutral or chaotic good character is probably not liable to sweep away everything they once stood for in a gigantic stroke of murder purely because they never particularly stood for any grand supposedly-unassailable principles or codes of conduct. And yet we rarely see such a character fall from grace in these kinds of stories, even though in many ways they'd be more likely- they don't even have a code of ethics or honor to fall back on. I'd much rather see say, a CG barbarian who beserks at the wrong people and then refuses to make amends, or a NG ranger who develops an obsessive vendetta. But it's always the paladin, and it's not just because of fall from grace + pyrotechnics, it's because, among other things, inherent in that premise is a rejection or undermining of certain assumptions about authority wich are laughably outdated anyway. There are other factors also, but they follow a similar path- for instance some people think it's awfully clever and fresh to show that an order of knights or a righteous church has a seamy underbelly or is outright corrupt, but that is the cliche now, and has been for a long time. quote:If someone like Haley "fell" it'd be more like quietly sabotaging the other PCs for a gigantic payoff, not committing one crime and suffering divine retribution - because only paladins are dramatically weakened if they violate their own code a single time in the first place. quote:Look, we can go back and forth on whether an overly-righteous paladin committing murder and falling is cliched or tediously predictable, but it's not actually gratingly annoying - unlike vampires with teddy bears who play "pranks" on people. Ok it's a lot worse, but my point is the same. In theory it might be feasable (and they did kinda fix them for NWOD, the malk primogen in V:TM:Bloodlines is basically a new-school Malkovian), but in pratice you know where it's coming from and it's not coming from anywhere good. the motives are bad, the approach is bad, it's grating but it's grating because that's what they're after. quote:Well, the Paladin is the only one that actually has to police the actions of everybody else in order to keep their class features. Roy's a pretty good Lawful Good fighter, but he couldn't cut it as a paladin in his exact situation simply because associating with Belkar would probably strip him of his powers - even though, under his guidance, Belkar's endless psychopathic rage is generally channelled towards things that deserve it. I guess a cleric is the second most problematic class after paladin because a cleric who fails to cleave to his code will lose his powers too ("George, unless your evil cleric sacrifices one of the PCs on a desecrated altar within one week, you will lose your ability to cast spells") but it's not spelled out so explicitly and it's easier to tailor a cleric's divine mandates to fit any adventuring party.
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May 7, 2007 19:44
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Backdoor Blanche posted:One idea you never seem to entertain here is that perhaps being Lawful Good does tend to make you a jerk? quote:Also, it is supposed to be hard to be a Paladin. The reasons you see Paladins falling so often is because it is very easy for a Paladin to fall. They have to follow ridiculous codes of honor. That is part of what they are. They are the only class that has to do that, and it is that way for a reason. quote:I've played multi-year campaigns where we never discovered that a third of the party was NE.
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May 7, 2007 22:05
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So you would have no problem asociating with somebody who was immoral and sadistic?
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May 7, 2007 22:16
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clockworkjoe posted:I just played a Ptolus campaign as a paladin where I made it a point not to be 'that guy'. In fact, I argued for the looting of a house and not returning the treasure to its proper owners because the need for us to fund our crusade was greater than their need for the treasure. greatn posted:So many creatures are automatically labelled evil. Goblins, for instance. They are evil... why? It seems like they have society. They kill humans, but it seems that's mainly becaus humans are always killing them, too. quote:Then you have guys like Bob. Bob's a beet farmer. He's evil, but all he does is farm beets, because he's not particularly inclined to do much with that evil. Maybe he cheats on his taxes and sells beet wine to underage girls. Ok, so he's kind of evil, still what warrants judgement. Should I just kill the dude cause he's evil? quote:And if a guy is immoral, in whose eyes? If we were playing D&D in the 1950's suburban god-fearing America, would gay people have the CE alginment? If somebody is a real nasty ashsole, they're probably evil. If somebody generally, genuinly means well and tries to do good, they're good. Everyone else is neutral. A guy in the 1950's who went around sadistically bashing gays with his buddies might be CE, while a gay person would not be evil unless they were also incidentally evil for other reasons. Meanwhile a psychiatrist who kept trying to 'cure' gays via lobotomies or ECT might still be neutral depending on how he treats his patients. It's really just a set of guidelines, it's not as "objective" as people claim. anyway I find many of the criticisms of D&D morality to themself be ignorant of real-world morality, for, while moral absolutism is a pretty laughable concept, absolute moral relativism is likewise quite absurd. It's not really that far-fetched that, in a setting where people routinly fly and come back from the dead, they'd also have a slightly better grasp on some kind of universal princible of benevolent coexistance. And anybody who doesn't? Neutral. Backdoor Blanche posted:he =/= his character. I'll put up with a lot of poo poo in DnD that I won't in real life, or vice versa, depending on who I'm playing. Johnny Aztec posted:hey happyelf can you be a buddy and give me a summary of what happened in the dragonlance series after dragons of summer flame? I read the first book of the nex tDragons of whatever with the Mina chick but no more. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 00:53 on May 8, 2007 |
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May 8, 2007 00:33
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Ohhh shiiit look how stupid I am! I don't even care if he beats them anyway, that'll do nicely.
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May 8, 2007 00:49
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Soylentbits posted:Am I the only one who thinks Belkar is going to kill off Redcloak and destroy the pyhlactery through random happenstance and then get killed off by the thing in the shadows?
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May 8, 2007 10:00
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They wern't going to off themself while they had a chance of beating him, they didn't even know he'd be there. And as for the ball, I think the two work well in concernt. #448 is "ha ha unbeatable Xykon does it again!" wich we've already seen, but re-asserts how evil he is, and then #449 is the "oh shiiit" twist on the initial cliche.
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May 8, 2007 17:33
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ZorbaTHut posted:I think that's the Moment of Truth for DMs. You come up with a great situation, you get the players into it, and the players pull an awesome and yet completely unexpected metaphorical rabbit out of their hats which utterly annihilates every bit of planning you've done in the last month. Either way, I don't really see rules stuff as all that clever, especially since they could have gotten it off the internet. Sure, a hovertank built out of an armoured carriage, a flying carpet, a portable hole and a decanter of endless water sounds awesome, but in practice it's the rare exception to the general rule of rules-lawyering, powergaming and outright cheating that many people engage in when they attempt to exploit the system. Also you tend to get kinda 'over' exploits after you've played a game like Champions in wich, were the players free to do whatever they want with the rules, they could easily create characters that could destroy the entire planet and turn it's population into an army of loyal zombies. Ferrinus posted:However, it totally sucks to then go "Yeah well now the big bad guy sees you as a threat; you all die in your sleep from stealth assassins." I think the gentlemanly response is to make your players aware that if they try to do that repeatedly, you're just going to make the bad guys start using the same exploit against them.
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May 10, 2007 05:04
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Gally posted:I get the feeling some of you guys complaining are like players I played with that could NOT understand just becuase if you tweaked the rules something was allowed didn't mean you SHOULD do it.
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May 10, 2007 06:56
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Jeet posted:Maybe Trad games needs a thread called "Bitch about the application of D&D rules in OOTS" or something because jesus this thread is making me embarrased to be a nerd, chill out a bit guys.
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May 10, 2007 08:29
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I specifically said "again" for a reason. All i'm saying is that you don't kill the PC's with plot ninjas if they go overboard(such as repeating a trick like the ones mentioned), you talk to the players about it and reach a conclusion as to where you all want the game to be. BTW i'm an awesome GM and my games are endlessly creative and exciting just FYI. Nomenklatura posted:Edit: Oh Please. Don't play the "I don't care, I dunno why all you people care so much" card. It's just unseemly. quote:THAT is like the guy that never gets told when the next D&D night is, because his field of socially-maladjusted annoyance cripples any fun within forty yards. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 08:40 on May 10, 2007 |
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May 10, 2007 08:34
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Dude it's loving sonic, sonic is awesome. It's actually the best damage type because nobody is resistant to it. I think the thunder thing was cool, and had a less overwhelming effect. I'm willing to let the bouncy-call slide because it wasn't used for the walkover I thought at was at the time.
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May 11, 2007 17:42
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Ferrinus posted:EDIT: Vanadium, Vaarsuvius tried to burn and zap the trees to death but then the druid bragged that he'd magically immunized them against fire and lightning attack. Sound beams killed them because they weren't shielded against them.
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May 11, 2007 19:35
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sakesniper posted:I guess I'm the only one who thinks this sudden change of heart for Redcloak is kind of dumb.
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May 12, 2007 12:50
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There's also half-fiends. Tiefling is a race, half-fiend is a template (that can be applied to any creature), cambion is it's own creature/statblock.
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May 13, 2007 07:39
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Golly, i'm glad that stupid rules discussion is over so we can all talk about wether or not Haley is an evil gay assimar!Boggus posted:I tried countless of times to understand that comic but it is neither funny nor interesting in the least.
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May 13, 2007 18:11
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Oh man, you're dissing the blood war? No wonder you have me on ignore, you're the enemy of everything that is awesome and cool. The blood war is one of the best concepts that writers ever came up with in D&D. There's a lot about the planes that I don't like, but the idea that these groups would be so hostile to one another makes perfect sense to me, and makes for a better backdrop to more subtle and atypical conflicts and intrigues that various fiends might be involved in. It also makes for more interesting uses of the rivla camps on the prime. PS: "Tanar'ri" and "Baatezu" are way cooler than "Demons" and "Devils".
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May 15, 2007 03:29
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Bobulus posted:All might not be completely lost. There's still a second, inner wall. Too bad all the spellcasters up on the tower died, all those hobgoblins clustered in between the two walls would seem like a good target for big AoE spells. (edit)Ok, if we assume that this layout is valid: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0260.html It looks like the city is on the other side of the keep to the big hole in the wall. So the horde should hit the keep before the city. That makes me wonder how long he's planning to dwell on the battle and wether there might be some cityfighting or evacuation in the works after the keep is taken, assuming it is. Schwarzwald posted:By doing this, the Yugoloths have created a second whole army of evilness and deprived goodness of a large number of their greater warriors. Also, the escalating battles between the devils and the demons force both armies to develope stronger weapons and more dangerous magic. In the end, the Yugoloths plan to unify both armies and lead them against the forces of good. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 23:59 on May 15, 2007 |
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May 15, 2007 23:52
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There are these guys on Krynn called the Irda, they're the high ogres who retain the original form of their now-twisted race. They're pretty powerful and stuff. And the best thing about them? They write these ultra-smug poems making fun of Gilean for being neutral. Because neutral sucks 
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May 16, 2007 10:15
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Probably the tree/thunder thing that was mentioned earlier on the thread.
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May 17, 2007 15:35
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Brannock posted:Ooh, this is a sticky situation. I bet it won't be resolved until next Friday; next two panels are gonna be Redcloak ravaging the city and Xykon fighting the Ghost-Martyrs.
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May 20, 2007 04:51
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Robot Bastard posted:The bit where the guy yells for his troops to fire their arrows? Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 09:15 on May 22, 2007 |
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May 22, 2007 09:11
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maltesh posted:And many of the Azure City Soldiers who may be still alive, be in the vicinity, and have been watching Lord Hinjo. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 15:01 on May 22, 2007 |
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May 22, 2007 14:15
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They're not even speaking english as we know it, nor were people in the middle ages.Soonmot posted:Man, I thought the last argument was ridiculous. Are people seriously getting their nerd panties in a twist over "firing" arrows? Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 09:29 on May 23, 2007 |
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May 23, 2007 09:26
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Spellcasters have to rest overnight, but V doesn't actually need much sleep since they're an elf. This is as per standard D&D rules and as per one of the earliest strips(where roy takes watch all night and his father visits him for the first time).
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May 23, 2007 16:39
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Man I really wish we had a forum for talking about this stuff. In other news the really awesome fight is still going on in Goblins, but it's pretty slow going. I'll probably post here once it's reached some kind of climax. Also the Goblins guy does this thing called "tempts fate" where a goblin has to escape deathtraps based on donations or he dies, only in the most recent version people also have to email in guesses as to how he can get past various puzzles. The puzzles have been pretty easy but it's still a cool idea, and the strips are lighter in mood than the story strip. In other other news i'm going to give erfworld one more strip and then i'm going to start ignoring it, yes it's easy to click it when looking at oots but it's even easier to not click it.
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May 25, 2007 16:59
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Wanderer posted:I'll say it again for the grins: why do people keep talking about second-edition monks? Monk was not a class in second edition.
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May 25, 2007 18:16
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 16:32 |
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It's ok i'm sure they'll buddy up again once they clear the throne room.
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May 26, 2007 20:34
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