explosion... a little too... weak?

[Gandariel]

the explosion (last strip) was intended to kill Soon Kim, who is likely veeery high level.
now...
we see the explosion didn't kill roy, who should be about level 12 right?....
so, any theories?

[Somewhere]

The dice rolled PLOT. 1's and 2's on damage with Roy rolling natural 20 for the save.

One example of an epic blast spell someone had linked elsewhere was what, 40d6? Even if it got PLOT'd to 2's on all rolls, that's just 80 damage, then save to halve that to 40. Easily within Roy's life.

Throw more d6's? PLOT more 1's outta them.

[Inhuman Bot]

Giriad wasn't that good of a caster, thus his damage wasn't that high.

Maybe he was a Ranger 2/[casting class] 10/PrC 10 or somesuch.

[TriForce]

perhaps the explosion was never meant to kill soon anyway?
i mean, seriously... epic..... lvl..... deciever..... im distrusting his gender and everything thats less established

[Skorj]

I'd just assume it was a shadow evocation of some sort, and thus perhaps at less that 100% damage. Combine PLOT with 70% or 50% "real" damage and it's not unreasonable.

Also, I'm not convinced that Girard would actually want to kill Soon, so he may have been pulling his punches (which, I guess, is also the power of PLOT). I'm still half-conviced the whole Girard rant was an act for benefit of gate defense.

EDIT: Tri-Ninja'd!

[Optimystik]

Giriad wasn't that good of a caster, thus his damage wasn't that high.

Maybe he was a Ranger 2/[casting class] 10/PrC 10 or somesuch.

[Casting class] is at least 11 - Programmed Image (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/ProgrammedImage.htm) is a 6th-level spell. If he used epic magic instead, then at least 21.

Given his charisma, I'd say he's a spontaneous caster, which puts his casting class at 12.

[Snails]

It is possible that Roy was very lucky, and made his save.

[Herbstfarben]

Which Charisma?
Or do you mean he lacks Int and thus must be a Charisma based caster?

[Dark Faun]

Do note that the explosion isn't necessarily the only part of the trap. It could be only the beginning.

[WildPyre]

I'd like to point out that if the deadly explosion had killed any number of party members that it would have severely slowed down the strip... and seriously how many times can we do the "Roy is dead" thing? The poor guy just got back!

I'd say it was action hero invulnerability.

[Dark Faun]

And we can't have an incapacitated member either since we had that with Belkar.

We didn't have any dismemberment among the protagonists though. I wonder how well V can cast spells with both her arms cut off... :smallamused:

[WildPyre]

And we can't have an incapacitated member either since we had that with Belkar.

We didn't have any dismemberment among the protagonists though. I wonder how well V can cast spells with both her arms cut off... :smallamused:

Ohh good point... though my money is on Durkon and his left eye.

[Lorn]

Do note that the explosion isn't necessarily the only part of the trap. It could be only the beginning.
Exactly my thoughts.

It doesn't matter that someone survived it.

They're in a desert, and have been scattered all over the place. Water carriers etc may have burst on landing. They have no idea where they landed or which way is civilisation.

Assume Soon Kim - who, as he put Girard as the map reader/tracker, probably isn't so great at finding his way around - is in this position... good chance he just gets lost in the desert and dies of dehydration or something.

[Faramir]

He landed on a flumph. That guarantees survival of big explosions.

[NerfTW]

I'd like to point out that if the deadly explosion had killed any number of party members that it would have severely slowed down the strip... and seriously how many times can we do the "Roy is dead" thing? The poor guy just got back!

I'd say it was action hero invulnerability.

It's not like the world existed ahead of time and Rich put a bunch of characters in it. The blast is only powerful enough for the purpose of the strip. Saying "They had to survive it because otherwise we'd be doing another rez sequence" doesn't make any sense. If they have to survive it, make it a different trap. Clearly, either the blast wasn't actually intended to kill Soon, or there's more to the trap.

My money is on an army of deadly creatures/bandits that have long since died/moved away, since Girard expected Soon to break his oath early on.

[Zanaril]

Do note that the explosion isn't necessarily the only part of the trap. It could be only the beginning.

My guess is the explosion only targets Lawful Good people to get them out of the way; everyone else now gets a different message. :smalltongue:

[whitemane]

And we can't have an incapacitated member either since we had that with Belkar.

Not to mention, it would be a real bummer if Roy got killed again... so soon after taking up that oxygen habit once more!

[Gandariel]

Exactly my thoughts.

It doesn't matter that someone survived it.

They're in a desert, and have been scattered all over the place. Water carriers etc may have burst on landing. They have no idea where they landed or which way is civilisation.

Assume Soon Kim - who, as he put Girard as the map reader/tracker, probably isn't so great at finding his way around - is in this position... good chance he just gets lost in the desert and dies of dehydration or something.

this IS likely to happen

[Tricksy Hobbits]

Exactly my thoughts.
They're in a desert, and have been scattered all over the place. Water carriers etc may have burst on landing. They have no idea where they landed or which way is civilisation.


Yeah, but the gate's location was given as coordinates for a sextant. Whoever set off the trap would still have a way to find their way to a city and sextants don't have many lenses, just a mirror so even if it did break it would be possisble to repair with a nearby shiny flat thing.

[Milandros]

It's entirely possible that this is some sort of deceit; however, note that Roy walked away in disgust three panels before the explosion. He may very well have been outside the immediate area. If he was taking half damage, save for a quarter, for example, then he could easily survive.

We won't know until we've seen what happens to the others.

[good_lookin_gus]

Without using cheese, it's kind of hard to one-shot an epic paladin, especially using direct damage. Since the explosion blasted Roy so far away, it's unlikely that there were subsequent trap spells. I think Girad intended to teleport in so he could finish the job personally. Whether he is still around to do so, remains to be seen.

[Dr Bwaa]

My guess is the explosion only targets Lawful Good people to get them out of the way; everyone else now gets a different message. :smalltongue:

This was my immediate thought also. Gerard is probably not Evil-aligned, or the Order of the Scribble would have fallen apart much earlier (and Soon possibly lost his powers). It's easy enough for an epic mage with all the time in the world to craft a trap spell that only hurts LG people, like Soon (or one of his fascist paladin lackeys), and since that's the person Gerard holds the grudge against, it seems like the most reasonable kind of thing to do (and has the added benefit of not blowing up whatever servants and so on were traveling with the paladins). Besides, any high-level caster ALSO knows (especially if they were in his party for X years...) that Soon, like all paladins, has awesome saves and if you really want to kill him, you don't do it with an explosion. The explosion is simply to (A) send a message to Soon and/or (B) get the paladins out of the way so other people can receive some other message, as Zanaril suggested.

[dps]

Roy wasn't necessarily that close to the epicenter of the explosion. He was already walking away in panel 4.

[SoC175]

Assume Soon Kim - who, as he put Girard as the map reader/tracker, probably isn't so great at finding his way around - is in this position... good chance he just gets lost in the desert and dies of dehydration or something. Except that create water is also on the paladin spell list :smallbiggrin:

[Moff Chumley]

Except that create water is also on the paladin spell list :smallbiggrin:

Well played...