Without Xykon and Redcloak... [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

slayerx

2010-02-12, 09:41 AM

furthermore its a officially recognized state, meaning attacking it equals declaring war. not only will potential adventurers get ripped to shreds, those that come back home alive will get executed by their king for provoking war ( unless they are elves or paladins of the SG)

It's recognized by only 17 nations... there are about that many nations on the western continent alone... There are still plenty of nations that do not recognize Gobbotopia; hell aside from cliffport i'd bet that most of the nations that recognize gobotopia are either evil alligned like greysky city, or nearby nations afraid of invasion

Furtharmore, Adventurers normally do not tie themselves down to any one nation and are generally free roaming... And god knows this would not be the first time a party of adventurers has ever caused trouble within an evil nation in a DnD campaign... Hell if i were the elves, one of my first strategies would be sending a wizard to visit every tavern in every major non-evil alligned city and posting up fliers about rebels in need of aid against hobgoblin invaders/occupiers and an abandoned Lich tower that is full of unknown left behind treasure.

When it comes down to it, Team peregrine is gonna start being able to do some real damage... i mean hell, the only thing really keeping Haley at bay was tsukiko and her wights... The elves will be able to do a lot more damage than she could ever do without high level players to oppose them and will roll over many hobgoblins; hell team peregrine is not even gonna be the only team coming... and when things start to look dicey, they just retreat and do more damage the next day. That's one of the nice things about having those tunnels and caves to hide in just as the rebels have been doing for the past year; you can pop out do a load of damage, and pop back out when you can do no more damage... hell if the elves send in a a good cleric, he can even raise any fallen members

Drakevarg

2010-02-12, 09:50 AM

Another_Poet

2010-02-12, 09:55 AM

And the Hobbos are CR 1/2

They've gotten tons of XP since invading the city. They probably all have class levels and some may be mid- or high-level.

Plus, they've been shown some pretty awesome tactics and had a year to train on defending the city.

Tsukiko doesn't have to be around for them to pull a Tsukiko move and have a bunch of Goblin Wiz1's around the city ready to cast Dancing Lights and summon the Goblin Badass Leets to deal with an outbreak of adventurers.

They do seem to have a lot of clerics; we've seen several in-panel together in recent strips who are high enough level to work with Redcloak personally, and Redcloak's speech makes it sound like this is a very religious nation, either an actual theocracy or a state where the church is big and has a lot of unofficial political power. Either way I suspect they have clerics out the wazoo.

Saph

2010-02-12, 10:13 AM

Eh. If I was given control of a 9th-13th-level caster-heavy party and told to destroy a city of 20,000 low-level hobgoblins, I'd be pretty confident of succeeding eventually. It would just take a while, is all.

Minion-level enemies are only a problem to a high-level party when they also have to deal with level-appropriate threats at the same time. If they're free to focus on the low-level enemies, they should generally be able to wipe the floor with them.

Shhalahr Windrider

2010-02-12, 10:19 AM

It's recognized by only 17 nations... there are about that many nations on the western continent alone... There are still plenty of nations that do not recognize Gobbotopia; hell aside from cliffport i'd bet that most of the nations that recognize gobotopia are either evil alligned like greysky city, or nearby nations afraid of invasion
And that’s still potentially 17 maybe-evil nations more than you want on your ass to begin with. What’s official doesn’t really matter much.

Furtharmore, Adventurers normally do not tie themselves down to any one nation and are generally free roaming...
Doesn’t stop Gobbotopia from pinning one free-roaming adventurer on the entire elven nation.

JoseB

2010-02-12, 11:22 AM

And that’s still potentially 17 maybe-evil nations more than you want on your ass to begin with. What’s official doesn’t really matter much.

Eh, if a suitable proportion of those nations are in the Western Continent, you can be almost guaranteed that they will not exist two years from now, with some other People's Dictatorship of Opressia in their place. It is even conceivable that the new lords of the land would consider the previous country's allies to be their enemies now...

PseudoPserious

2010-02-12, 11:26 AM

(From here) (http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/3.htm)
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician were on a train heading north, and had just crossed the border into Scotland.

* The engineer looked out of the window and said "Look! Scottish sheep are black!"
* The physicist said, "No, no. Some Scottish sheep are black."
* The mathematician looked irritated. "There is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black."

Strictly speaking, that should be:

"...of which at least one side is black at least some of the time."

Cheers,
PP

Ancalagon

2010-02-12, 12:08 PM

Jokes usually don't get better if you increase the length of the punchline. ;)

Asta Kask

2010-02-12, 12:11 PM

Strictly speaking, that should be:

"...of which at least one side is black at least some of the time."

Cheers,
PP

Shouldn't it be "...of which at least one side is black at least once."

:smallsmile:

rayne_dragon

2010-02-12, 12:29 PM

Your basic hobgoblin is CR 1/2, but so is your basic human, elf, or dwarf. When they invaded Azure city they had Redcloak and Xykon on their side, but the humans also had the OOTS with them. Given that Xykon wasn't really in the fight, I'd say its safe to say that the benefit of Redcloak and OOTS to their respective sides is about equal, which lets us consider the goblin army against a human army. Given that the human army was probably one of the largest in the world and had the backing of paladins it seems to me that the hobgoblins are capable of holding their own against other nations that decide to invade - unless several nations team up to erradicate them.

But, I expect eventually the Giant will be showing us exactly what happens to it in the long run.

SoC175

2010-02-12, 12:57 PM

The elves are massively overestimated. Back in SoD Redcloak already lead a goblin army against the elven homeland and they were quite successfull.

The invasion lasted for 11 days during which they penetrated deep into the elven homeland with the elven army being no better than them.

Team Peregrine is a spec-ops team and in no way represents the rank and file of the elven army. And as seen in form of the hobgoblin ninjas during the taking of AC, the goblin's also have something more than just redshirts among their rank.

Given their performance against the goblin army in SoD, it's unlikely that the elves are capable of just throwing the goblins out of AC.

slayerx

2010-02-12, 01:21 PM

Doesn’t stop Gobbotopia from pinning one free-roaming adventurer on the entire elven nation.
true, however i think there may be only one Elven nation... as such it's easy to pin where the elf was originally from... not to mention i would imagine the elven and dwarven lands(dwarven adventurers) to be densely enough populated that Gobbotopia could not afford to go to war with them, at this early point in their existence (not easy to go war while you have on going rebellions); not to mention that the elven lands are across the sea which makes a war with them even harder... i mean if a dwarf attacks the goblins, will jirix really be dumb enough to try and go to war with the dwarves over something they obviously do not have control over? that would be a very costly war for no reason...

you get human adventurers though, and now you have pretty much the whole world to look at... can't pin any one nation down for a human adventurer

And that’s still potentially 17 maybe-evil nations more than you want on your ass to begin with. What’s official doesn’t really matter much.
"Recognition" is not the same as an alliance... there is nothing saying that any of those 17 nations are able or willing to aid the goblins should they go to war... hell the ones that recognized their nation out of fear of the hobgoblins might just take advantage of the war to join the goblin's attackers

They've gotten tons of XP since invading the city. They probably all have class levels and some may be mid- or high-level.

I don't think they got that much experience...
the ones who did the most killing were also the ones that died the most... So i'd say only a fraction of those that got to kill humans actually lived long enough to enjoy that experience... furthermore they were killing low level humans which would not be worth much exp

And if we try to consider experience for the entire encounter, the sheer number of the THOUSANDS of hobgoblins and undead, would seriously lower how much experience each one earned ... really 30,000 vs 9,000 humans would not mean much experience for each hobgoblin (we are talking 1/3 human each)... so we are likely still talking about mostly low levels

Tsukiko doesn't have to be around for them to pull a Tsukiko move and have a bunch of Goblin Wiz1's around the city ready to cast Dancing Lights and summon the Goblin Badass Leets to deal with an outbreak of adventurers.

They need atleast 9th level wizards to be able to teleport those elite troops in... and i HIGHLY doubt that hobgoblins have wizards of that level... without teleport, the elves will be gone before the elites even get there... hell the elves will likely be smart enough to make nearby low level wizards their first targets any time the launch an attack to prevent reinforcements... one or two arrows before they even know there their is all it takes

The statement of the OP is inaccurate. The Hobgoblin Invasion of Azure City was not won solely by Redcloak and Xykon. Did their presence hurt? Not at all. But you'll notice that even before the gate was destroyed, most of the army was already within the walls.

This invasion was not a "just barely" kind of thing. Azure City got CURB STOMPED, and it couldn't have ended in any other manner. Yes, perhaps without Miko's final acts Redcloak and Xykon would've died, but the city itself was going to fall regardless.

THE most effective things that lead to the goblin victory was Redcloak's Elementals causing the massive breach in the walls; Redcloak's higher level trio of undead; and Xykon killing the paladins and Roy who were the highest level fighters in the Azurite army

If it was not for Xykon and Redcloak, the battle would have been MUCH more even... the battle might have gone on for days had Redcloak not breached the outer walls as he did

Given that the army has apparently doubled in size since then, I think they can hold off most other opposing armies. As for adventurers, well... consider Hinjo's point during the battle regarding that. Even if they need a natural 20 to even hit you, do you really want to try your luck against a thousand arrows per round?
i don't recall anything saying their army doubled in size over one year's time; not to mention there was bound to be a few thousnad losses during the battle...
Futharmore, the elves and rebels are using guerilla style tactics... striking hard, fast, and then retreating... they won't give the hobgoblins time to send a sizeable force against them, so they will never be dealing with thousands of arrows per round

The moment the numbers start to look bad, the elves will be out of there as fast as you can say "teleport"

jidasfire

2010-02-12, 03:12 PM

Seems to me that Gobbotopia and its impending war with the elves and resistance is going to be an ongoing B-plot. In terms of meta-story, it's how Hinjo and the elves will be kept occupied while the Order is fighting to save the world from Xykon. The new alliances will serve to keep the inevitable battle between the two sides from being overwhelming by the forces of good. I think that we will indeed see Hinjo reclaim his city one day, perhaps even forming some kind of peace with the hobgoblins, though I doubt it. In either case, it will be hard-won and no time soon.

Dr.Epic

2010-02-12, 03:15 PM

Come on, Only the High-Levels and Epic-Levels mosters (Namely Xykon, RedCloak, MitD and Tsuki-chan) prevented the re-conquest of Azure City.

If they withdraw, along with more or less sacrificable minions, it would be matter of MERE MILLISECONDS that Gobbotopia would become "Free XP Land" to the wandering parties;
since the Azure City battle was won only by Xykon and RedCloak mending (with a Little help from Miko, the Shappire-Breaking Girl) ¿Have the Gobbos any mean of defense?

Not really. The hobgoblins had 30,000 soldiers and the Azurites had only 10,000. Both side lost about 10,000 in the battle leaving the hobgoblins 20,000 ahead. Not to mention that the high level PCs were all fighting for Azure City and since they're not there I think the hobgoblins will be just fine.

gorknmork

2010-02-12, 05:34 PM

Just some thoughts on the battle,
1. A fair amount of Azure City's army left before the battle even began, not wanting to follow Hinjo. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0414.html

2. All of the Paladins in Azure City (except Hinjo, Lien, and Fallen Miko) were in the throne room, and would have made a much larger difference if Xykon had not been there. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0447.html

3. Add in turncoats like Tsukiko http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0446.html or Kabuto's Rogue http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0435.html and deserters http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0452.html and Azure City loses a lot of it's decent defenders.

Mr. Pin

2010-02-12, 05:59 PM

Shouldn't it be "...of which at least one side is black at least once."

:smallsmile:

Shouldn't it be "... of which at least one side appears to be black at least once"?

And I think we can assume that they have some high level dudes hanging out- Tsukiko would be left in charge, I suspect, and Jirix and the other clerics have gotta have at least a few levels; I recall some cure mods being cast at one point. Furthermore, you have to realize that not every hobbo warrior is a grunt; you remember the guys V buffed to hold the breach? In any army, there'll be those who are better fighters than most of their companions; in D&D, this is represented by them having a couple of extra levels in warrior. Even in the monster manual, I believe it says something in "organization" about a tribe of hobgoblins containing several higher-level warriors (I can't be bothered to look that up. Sorry.) I would assume that a similar ratio could be applied to the Gobbotopian army.

They've gotten tons of XP since invading the city. They probably all have class levels and some may be mid- or high-level.

Don't be stupid. They killed maybe one low-level human warrior each, on average? That's a very liberal estimate, imo. No army-wide levels there, and certainly not several such levels. Furthermore, getting levels in most PC classes (wizard, fighter, cleric, etc.) generally takes a lot of specialized training (this ain't Goblins, kid)- training that the hobbo's just don't have on a massive scale. At most, you're looking at a fraction of the army getting one more level of warrior.

Optimystik

2010-02-12, 06:14 PM

Don't be stupid.

Could you have worded that any more offensively? :smallsigh:

Morthis

2010-02-12, 06:20 PM

2. All of the Paladins in Azure City (except Hinjo, Lien, and Fallen Miko) were in the throne room, and would have made a much larger difference if Xykon had not been there. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0447.html

Soon was the only real challenge, the paladins were all low level. Even if they were each capable of killing 20 goblins before being overwhelmed, and there's 50 of them there, that's an extra 1000 goblins, out of 20k. More troops would have died, but it wouldn't have had a major impact on the outcome.

3. Add in turncoats like Tsukiko http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0446.html or Kabuto's Rogue http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0435.html and deserters http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0452.html and Azure City loses a lot of it's decent defenders.

You can't just discard deserters, it's a part of war. Morale is a huge part of warfare (especially during those times), why do you think they had things like battle standards or battle drums?

I think Gobbotopia has relatively little to fear from another nation sending an army. They're in a fortified position with large numbers and incredibly high level allies, who would march an army to conquer that city? The fear of pissing off Xykon alone would probably be enough for most of them to avoid it. Sure Xykon probably wouldn't care, but other nations don't know that, all they know is some very high level lich sorcerer leading an army conquered one of the biggest nations in the world.

Adventurers is another story. Over time they could certainly do some serious damage, and if they play carefully they would never have to face 1000 arrows. Still, if they face a serious threat from adventurers, all it takes is a sending to RC (once cloister fades). There's a good chance Xykon would be willing to teleport back and forth just to kill some adventurers for fun, and if he wasn't, RC can always word of recall back by himself (assuming he's got the balls to go against Xykon's wishes).

Either way, how many adventurers would even be willing to risk starting trouble in the city that was conquered by a sorcerer that could destroy their entire party in a heartbeat? With the way things are set up, it seems oots is one of the higher level good aligned party in the world (if not the highest), and even they don't stand a chance against Xykon unless plot power beats him.

ShellBullet

2010-02-12, 06:46 PM

slayerx

2010-02-12, 06:50 PM

Not to mention that the high level PCs were all fighting for Azure City and since they're not there I think the hobgoblins will be just fine.

I think one of the bigger issues though are the elven insurgents...
Having a wizard that can "teleport", means we are dealing with a team that is around 9th level if not higher... and there are plans to bring in more elves... Essentially while the Gobbotopia is loosing all of their high level characters, the rebels are getting mid-level reinforcements

And fighting a war and fighting guerrilla warfare are two very different things...
In a war, numbers become one of the biggest deciding factors; even in DnD, if you have high level characters, they will only be able to do so much before they get overwhelmed by sheer numbers... but in guerrilla warfare, sheer numbers matter less; the guerrilla's pick their battles and keep them short... they are there long enough to do damage, and gone before the enemy can properly respond; the hobgoblins will never get the chance to use their numbers to their advantage unless they manage to find where the rebels are hiding (which they have not done in the past year)... the nature of DnD makes such tactics even more effective by the fact that mid-level characters will be much harder for the hobgoblins to kill; the elves could do a lot of damage and retreat before they suffered any losses (not to mention the power to raise dead if they have a cleric). If the evles can get by suffer little to no losses then that means they can do a lot of damage in the long run

Adventurers is another story. Over time they could certainly do some serious damage, and if they play carefully they would never have to face 1000 arrows. Still, if they face a serious threat from adventurers, all it takes is a sending to RC (once cloister fades). There's a good chance Xykon would be willing to teleport back and forth just to kill some adventurers for fun, and if he wasn't, RC can always word of recall back by himself (assuming he's got the balls to go against Xykon's wishes).
The adventurers would likely just duck underground if Xykon or redcloak were to return... and while RC might be willing to wait for them and search for them, Xykon would not and would be quick to get bored and drag Redcloak back to the western continent

And I think we can assume that they have some high level dudes hanging out- Tsukiko would be left in charge, I suspect, and Jirix and the other clerics have gotta have at least a few levels; I recall some cure mods being cast at one point. Furthermore, you have to realize that not every hobbo warrior is a grunt
I think Tsukiko is going with Xykon... no way is she gonna stay in the goblin nation when the love of her life is not... hell i'm still betting on Xykon ruining redcloak's plans by forcing Jirix to come with them.

As for the higher level grunts... if we are talking about 5th level warriors then we are still not talking about much... The evles are using 9th level characters which could easily deal with such level fighters. Furtharmore, the elves and adventuers alike would be fighting guriella style which means no time for the goblins to give a proper responce... those 5th level warriors will usually not be around, or be too few in number to make a difference... by the time the higher level hobbos can attack, the adventurers and insurgents would be long gone.

Will they stay united?
eh i wouldn't bet on it...
I mean these hobgoblins were functioning together just fine back in the valley where RC found them so i see little reason for rifts to start up now... Not to mention the fact that they seem to have a high tolerance for idiotic leadership as they kept following RC even when he was sending them to die like a bunch of lemmings... i guess there is something to be said about their level of discipline

Morthis

2010-02-12, 07:03 PM

The adventurers would likely just duck underground if Xykon or redcloak were to return... and while RC might be willing to wait for them and search for them, Xykon would not and would be quick to get bored and drag Redcloak back to the western continent

Well, they can simply scry to find them. I'm not sure what non-epic options are available to prevent scrying.

slayerx

2010-02-12, 07:24 PM

Well, they can simply scry to find them. I'm not sure what non-epic options are available to prevent scrying.

This is somewhat true... I mean there are likely non-epic options to prevent scry as Xykon was not able to scry on the Azure city throne room, but i'd doubt the rebels got their hands on that magic; and its a big unknown if the elves would be able to cast similar spells... i guess the only reason they haven't done this already is because of the cloister
Which brings up the question as to when the last cloister casting was and how long it will last... we could have already dissipated within the last week, or may have been only recasted 2 weeks ago meaning about 5 months more of no scrying

Morthis

2010-02-12, 07:30 PM

It's also possible that cloister is dismissible by caster (it's only +2 DC if it's not by default possible).

Really though, there are plenty of ways to explain why Gobbotopia will not simply be invaded by another nation or destroyed by adventures, just as there are ways to explain why it will. In the end, what matters is what Rich has planned, because in terms of pure mechanics, it can easily swing either way.

Azukar

2010-02-12, 07:40 PM

Citation needed.

So far we have only seen Team Peregrine working against the gobbos... and they would be taken down by a hundred Goblins with ease.

Citation needed.

So far we have only seen Team Peregrine take down a couple of hobgoblins outside the city limits... they could be all Epic level for all we know of their powers.

Dr.Epic

2010-02-12, 09:03 PM

I think we need to also consider that without Red Cloak he wouldn't have been able to summon titanium elements and break the wall thus leading to the breach and conquest of the city.

ChowGuy

2010-02-12, 09:10 PM

Shouldn't it be "... of which at least one side appears to be black at least once"?

Nah. Actually the Mathematician would assert that "Based upon the Law of Averages, Scottish sheep are light gray."

Meanwhile of course the Physicist would hold the view that "It is impossible to accurately determine the color of Scottish sheep." and the engineer as a practical matter would declare that "Obviously Scottish sheep are white. That one over there is an experimental error and can be ignored."

factotum

2010-02-13, 04:28 AM

Well, they can simply scry to find them. I'm not sure what non-epic options are available to prevent scrying.

I don't know if such things exist in D&D proper, but they certainly exist in the strip--remember Mama Dragon wondering if V had forgotten to ward himself against scrying because of his lack of trancing, or if he was just so arrogant as to believe he'd never made any enemies? There would have been no point in her saying that if it were not possible for non-epic characters to guard themselves against scrying attempts.

joeaverage

2010-02-13, 05:26 AM

It would actually be a bit strange if other nations didn't unite to take them down. The goblins have already shown they are highly aggressive and unpredictable. It's really risky to count on having peace with that kind of force.

Besides, every single nation has probably killed goblins like azure city did at some point. If nothing else through adventurers(aka Terrorists.) The goblins could justify war whenever they felt like it.

Ancalagon

2010-02-13, 06:14 AM

It would actually be a bit strange if other nations didn't unite to take them down. The goblins have already shown they are highly aggressive and unpredictable.

They did?

They conquered themselves a hometown but apart from that? Also, we do KNOW that the Goblins have no real other interest than building their own nation. Redcloak wants a chance for goblins, not world-goblin-domination.

SoC175

2010-02-13, 06:14 AM

I know that this sounds oblivious, but I think the biggest factory is not adventures nor foreign armies, but hobgoblins themself.

Will they stay united? If so they are pretty tough nut to crack, high level characters either being allied or against them.

But the fight between Hobgoblins themselfs creates a crack so great to their defence, that you need more than one sexy shoeless god of war to fill that rack with bodies. I wouldn't worry about the hobgoblins at all, like Redcloak said in an earlier strip, they're all about warrior code here and legendary discipline there. Their goblin and orc and bugbear citizens might become a problem, but the hobgoblins themselve shame even dwarves with their discipline

slayerx

2010-02-13, 11:41 AM

I don't know if such things exist in D&D proper, but they certainly exist in the strip--remember Mama Dragon wondering if V had forgotten to ward himself against scrying because of his lack of trancing, or if he was just so arrogant as to believe he'd never made any enemies? There would have been no point in her saying that if it were not possible for non-epic characters to guard themselves against scrying attempts.

ya looking it up on d20, there are a few spells that can gurd a person or object from scrying... a little more scant on spells that can guard an area... there is a level 5 that could work and be within the elves' casting range, but it does more then just block scrying... and there is also a lv 8 spell, but that would be beyond what the insurgents could use...

So it's plausible for the insurgents to block scrying from Xykon and the goblins, but not certain

They conquered themselves a hometown but apart from that? Also, we do KNOW that the Goblins have no real other interest than building their own nation. Redcloak wants a chance for goblins, not world-goblin-domination.
Ah but two things... one how big of a nation are they looking to make, and what do the human nations know?
Acquiring more land is a part of nation building, so nearby kingdoms may yet still come under attack... and if i was one of their neighbors, i'd be scared ****less right about now of them making me their next target... and after conquering azure city and still having 20,000 soliders i would not believe them for a second if they said they were gonna completely stop their expansion... by being conquers they pretty much lost any and all trust

I'd consider them a very real and active threat and would want to take the first good chance i saw to get rid of them (by good i mean high chance of success so they can't retaliate)... this is the problem when you use "fear" and "respect"... those that fear you will honor you, but they will also take the first chance they can get to stab you in the back

Ancalagon

2010-02-13, 11:55 AM

Ah but two things... one how big of a nation are they looking to make, and what do the human nations know?
Acquiring more land is a part of nation building, so nearby kingdoms may yet still come under attack... and if i was one of their neighbors, i'd be scared ****less right about now of them making me their next target... and after conquering azure city and still having 20,000 soliders i would not believe them for a second if they said they were gonna completely stop their expansion... by being conquers they pretty much lost any and all trust

Probably true but... where is that specific to THIS nation? It is "day-to-day business" among bigger nations - and they all manage to work together somehow.
Yes, that is an issue - but none that would block diplomacy. And actually, would YOU want to block diplomacy with a powerful, war-able country next to you or would you rather want to get on good terms with them?
Especially if that nation needs good terms right now in regard to trade to support themselves.
There are reasons "for" and "against"... but all in all, it's not very different from what nations do to each other, no matter of the race or the history.
And it surely might be a good idea to be rather on good terms with the nation that just defeated Azure City than be known to them as "possible target and not helpful at all".

slayerx

2010-02-13, 02:08 PM

Probably true but... where is that specific to THIS nation? It is "day-to-day business" among bigger nations - and they all manage to work together somehow.

What makes it specific to THIS nation is that THIS nation was just founded through conquest, with all of the former citizens either killed or enslaved... that is a sheer sign of active aggression... Furthermore the enslavement of of all the citizens tells me that the hobgoblins HATE humans which makes them seem even more likely to attack me... hell, it wouldn't even be a case of fearing for just my own power, as i know it will be my citizens that suffer the most from the hobgoblin attack; most nations when they take over are willing to make the citizens part of their nation (at the very least make them second class), but the hobgoblins choose to kill or enslave them... that ups the ante on why i should fear them

other nations do not show such signs of aggression and tyranny and/or are normally not in the position to continue their expansion... The ones that might want to continue expanding their borders often can't, as their neighbors are either too strong to be worthwhile targets or have enough allies to back them up... the hobgoblins on the otherhand have the numbers to strike again if they wanted to.

Not to mention i find it highly probable that their are wars going on right now in the OotS universe for territory

Yes, that is an issue - but none that would block diplomacy. And actually, would YOU want to block diplomacy with a powerful, war-able country next to you or would you rather want to get on good terms with them?

get on good terms... however those "good terms" only last as long as i am powerless to get rid of them; keeping them on good terms would be nothing more than a way for me to buy time and keep alive... after conquering azure city and enslaving their people, i wouldn't trust anything they would say; the perceived risk that they would attack me is just too great... the moment i see what looks like a real chance to get rid of them or significantly reduce their strength, i'd take it in order to protect myself from being their next target... and this would include working to create alliances with nations that feel the same... the goblins have given me every reason to fear them and no reason to trust them

Quite frankly, with all the fear they have instilled with their conquest, actual diplomacy and peace would not be able to start until i was in a position to defend myself; when the situation got to the point where the goblins would think that attacking me would be far to costly... it would become fighting fear with fear, only when i feel they fear me as much as i fear them will i start to feel safe... granted it will probably take still longer for REAL peace as i think that would leave me and them in more of a cold war kind of situation...

When you win over others through "respect" you earn their trust and can create long lasting diplomacy... when you win over others with "fear", there is no trust and any and all diplomacy will only last so long as the fear remains... it will take DECADES of them not attacking for nearby nations to start loosing their fear of them

Ancalagon

2010-02-13, 02:20 PM

What makes it specific to THIS nation is that THIS nation was just founded through conquest, with all of the former citizens either killed or enslaved... that is a sheer sign of active aggression...

And you assume that all other nations were founded on/extended through Peace and Candy?

other nations do not show such signs of aggression and tyranny and/or are normally not in the position to continue their expansion... The ones that might want to continue expanding their borders often can't, as their neighbors are either too strong to be worthwhile targets or have enough allies to back them up... the hobgoblins on the otherhand have the numbers to strike again if they wanted to.

Awesome. You had a private talk with Rich and did not tell us about it? You are quite mean to keep all that secret information to yourself!!!

Not to mention i find it highly probable that their are wars going on right now in the OotS universe for territory

So... humm... WHERE exactly was Gobbotopia differnent in your opinion? They are so evil and bad because they were founded on war and now you state that you think it's a normal state that war happens.
So why should Gobbotopia have a special role again?

get on good terms... however those "good terms" only last as long as i am powerless to get rid of them;

You don't know that. Neither do the other nations. Of course they are cautious... but why should they be more cautious towards Gobbotopia than to... let's say the Kingdom of Tyrannia?

keeping them on good terms would be nothing more than a way for me to buy time and keep alive... after conquering azure city and enslaving their people, i wouldn't trust anything they would say; the risk that they would attack me is just too great...

Why? You throw statements at me, not reasons. Why is that different from any other warlike country? Why would you not trust anything their say? You are not neighbour but neighbours neighbour, so you'd have quite a lot of warning when Gobbotopia marches again. IF they do that.

the moment i see what looks like a real chance to get rid of them or significantly reduce their strength, i'd take it in order to protect myself from being their next target... and this would include working to create alliances with nations that feel the same... the goblins have given me every reason to fear them and no reason to trust them

But RIGHT NOW you do not even know if there will be a next target. Also, the goblins might offer an option to trade. You know... you give goods and get money. Lots of it.
You might get soft. And if you don't trade with them, others might. Or you did not like those pesky Azurites who were only do-gooders anyway (they were against many laws you had, they were against your nasty practices).

Quite frankly, with all the fear they have instilled with their conquest, REAL diplomacy and peace would not be able to start until i was in a position to defend myself; when the situation got to the point where the goblins would think that attacking me would be far to costly... it would become fighting fear with fear, only when i feel they fear me as much as i fear them will i start to feel safe

Support your opinions with reasons!
Did they cause that much fear? Why should someone who lives a few hundred miles away fear an attack?
But sure... make them fear your military might... if that's established, you don't have to fear them anymore and can start to trade. Hum... ughh... you did not think that far, no? ;)

When you win over others through "respect" you earn their trust and can create long lasting diplomacy... when you win over others with "fear", there is no trust and any and all diplomacy will only last so long as the fear remains

Proof! PROOF!
And who cares if there is fear? As long as there are diplomatic channels. Fear for years but... nothing happens. If the gobbos don't attack, nothing will happen. Now, the gobbos won't attack, that would be utterly stupid from them.

They have a base now. That's what Redcloak wanted. THEY won't be the ones to start hostility and risk all that.

Morthis

2010-02-13, 03:10 PM

Unless the people of Azure City manage to rally several nations, I just don't see any logical reason a nation would go to war against Gobbotopia. You saw the comic, 4 old allies refused to go to war even after being asked for help by Hinjo, because they feared being the next target.

Sure, many of them would probably love to see Gobbotopia being removed from the world again, but no single nation is going to want to take the initiative, because that's pretty much painting one giant target on their back begging to get destroyed. Most nations would probably much prefer to wait and see what happens, because the odds they happen to be the next target are pretty low. Even if you're in a higher risk situation, like being right next door, you'd probably have a better chance simply recognizing the nation instead. Presumably, Gobbotopia would prefer to attack nations that don't recognize them first, if they go to war.

You have to keep in mind, not only would they face invading a very well defended nation with a strong standing army, but that nation just so happens to have 2 of the highest characters in the world (especially Xykon, who might just be the highest level in the world). If those guys, and Gobbotopia, are willing to sit around without attacking them for a year, why chance it now, knowing full well that Xykon could easily kill you for making that decision (and conquer your whole nation by himself for that matter)?

slayerx

2010-02-13, 03:17 PM

And you assume that all other nations were founded on/extended through Peace and Candy?

Many nations are founded by just claiming land that no other nation was living on... Sometimes nations are perceived as evil for their warlike ways and are thus destroyed by the "good" nations; while not peaceful, the nations that destroy it are not perceived as a threat to others... and some nations are founded when the old nation gets taken over through internal rebellion or revolution; not peaceful but no reason for outside nations to expect them to attack them... Also when a nation is conquered, death and enslavement of all it's people is not always the case

furthermore, another big difference is whether or not the conquering nation has the means to continue its expansion...if they do not, then their is little reason to fear them as it would be decades before they could actually try something... gobbotopia on the other hand seems like who could continue if it wanted to... hell Xykon thought they might be able to use an army of that size to plow through eight nations... granted he's not exactly the smartest when it comes to military conquest, but 4 of azure city's allies definitely thought the hobgoblins could take them over aswell

Awesome. You had a private talk with Rich and did not tell us about it? You are quite mean to keep all that secret information to yourself!!!

now you seem to be getting pretty hostile
It's called "SPECULATION"... y'know the exact same thing YOU are doing when you contest that nations would not be forging alliances against the goblins... the only thing you KNOW is what the goblins intentions are, you know NOTHING about how other nations would perceive the goblins intentions... you jump to the conclusion that they would not bother the goblins that they would just believe them to want peace, but you don't know that...

We don't know these things so we speculate on what MIGHT be

So... humm... WHERE exactly was Gobbotopia differnent in your opinion? They are so evil and bad because they were founded on war and now you state that you think it's a normal state that war happens.
So why should Gobbotopia have a special role again?

Actually that point was made to point out the possibility that other nations may NOT be getting by together just fine as you originally said... have you been having private talks with rich aswell?

You don't know that. Neither do the other nations. Of course they are cautious... but why should they be more cautious towards Gobbotopia than to... let's say the Kingdom of Tyrannia?

Why? You throw statements at me, not reasons. Why is that different from any other warlike country? Why would you not trust anything their say? You are not neighbour but neighbours neighbour, so you'd have quite a lot of warning when Gobbotopia marches again. IF they do that.

Who says i wouldn't be as cautious with other warlike country?
though i would again add that the human death and enslavement would spark even more fear as it's easy to perceive this as a clear hatred for humans...

But RIGHT NOW you do not even know if there will be a next target. Also, the goblins might offer an option to trade. You know... you give goods and get money. Lots of it.
You might get soft. And if you don't trade with them, others might.

Ya i don't know, but the fear is enough to make me think they will and prepare for it and possibly even make a preemptive strike should i see the chance

It's not about what risk the goblins pose, but about the perceived risk...

Support your opinions with reasons!
Did they cause that much fear? Why should someone who lives a few hundred miles away fear an attack?
But sure... make them fear your military might... if that's established, you don't have to fear them anymore and can start to trade. Hum... ughh... you did not think that far, no? ;)

Azure city was several weeks march away from where the hobgoblins started... guess they never had reason to fear an all out invasion.

And part of the problem is that i may very well not have the military might... i mean if Azure city is a standard for what most nations have in terms of military then i don't stand a chance... it would take years or decades to forge my own defense, and until then i will fear them

my "reasons" is speculating on what many rational people might be thinking at this time.

They have a base now. That's what Redcloak wanted. THEY won't be the ones to start hostility and risk all that.
And why should other nations believe that they WON'T start any hostilities... like i said, there is no trust, just fear... I would not at all believe them when they say all they want to live in peace while they are whipping their slaves

You have to keep in mind, not only would they face invading a very well defended nation with a strong standing army, but that nation just so happens to have 2 of the highest characters in the world (especially Xykon, who might just be the highest level in the world). If those guys, and Gobbotopia, are willing to sit around without attacking them for a year, why chance it now, knowing full well that Xykon could easily kill you for making that decision (and conquer your whole nation by himself for that matter)?
actually that brings us back to the main topic of the thread... Xykon, RC and the rest of the high level players are planning on leaving and they will not be returning any time soon... if Hinjo can convince other nations that this is the case, he may be able to convince them to start ally together to get rid of gobbotopia... this becomes more plausible if the evlen insurgents and rebels start making some good damage within the nation

Morthis

2010-02-13, 08:36 PM

Many nations are founded by just claiming land that no other nation was living on... Sometimes nations are perceived as evil for their warlike ways and are thus destroyed by the "good" nations; while not peaceful, the nations that destroy it are not perceived as a threat to others... and some nations are founded when the old nation gets taken over through internal rebellion or revolution; not peaceful but no reason for outside nations to expect them to attack them... Also when a nation is conquered, death and enslavement of all it's people is not always the case

Thinking most nations were formed peacefully is naive. Look at humanity's history. It's filled with wars and civilizations that wanted to conquer the whole world.

though i would again add that the human death and enslavement would spark even more fear as it's easy to perceive this as a clear hatred for humans...

Since when? We have enslaved other humans as well, and not just those of skin tones different than ours. Does this indicate we hate all humans and wish to wipe out every last one of them?

Ya i don't know, but the fear is enough to make me think they will and prepare for it and possibly even make a preemptive strike should i see the chance

It's not about what risk the goblins pose, but about the perceived risk...

Why would you declare war on a nation whose military might you fear? That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. You'd be much better served getting on their good side and earn yourself a powerful ally.

actually that brings us back to the main topic of the thread... Xykon, RC and the rest of the high level players are planning on leaving and they will not be returning any time soon... if Hinjo can convince other nations that this is the case, he may be able to convince them to start ally together to get rid of gobbotopia... this becomes more plausible if the evlen insurgents and rebels start making some good damage within the nation

Again, why would the leaders of these nations risk it? They know Gobbotopia has an army far more powerful than the one Azure City ever had. They know Gobbotopia was also conquered and founded by two powerful people, ones that are more than capable of wreaking havoc on their own nation and can easily kill them, guards or not. You expect those leaders to believe Hinjo when he says "Yeah those guys captured our city and stayed there for a year, but I promise you they're leaving and they won't care if you attack it"? Especially when this is coming from someone who has a very clear interest in attacking Gobbotopia.

It just makes no sense for any nation to declare war on Gobbotopia right now. Even with Xykon and RC gone. It's a nation with a powerful army, well defended, and some of the highest level allies in the world. Any nation declaring war has little to gain and everything to lose.

slayerx

2010-02-13, 09:38 PM

Thinking most nations were formed peacefully is naive. Look at humanity's history. It's filled with wars and civilizations that wanted to conquer the whole world.

there is a difference between "most" and "Many" and i did point out that there were many cases of wars being used to create nations, however i added in points as to why other nations might not be precieved as a threat to their neighbors...

Since when? We have enslaved other humans as well, and not just those of skin tones different than ours. Does this indicate we hate all humans and wish to wipe out every last one of them?

The problem is not that they employ slavery, but that they employ human slavery in a goblin nation... They are not enslaving their own kind with leads to the belief that they have a great intolerance for humans

And the fear that they would go the extra step to wipe out other human nations comes from the fact that they just got done conquering one

Why would you declare war on a nation whose military might you fear? That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. You'd be much better served getting on their good side and earn yourself a powerful ally.

Keywords: "if i see the chance"
this could mean many things... if i see an alliance of nations that is forming to take on the goblins, i would join it... if Hinjo and the elves decided to attack the nation by sea and they looked like they stood a chance, i would attack from land to split up their forces and increase the chance of victory... if the hobgoblins were to send their forces away to go to war, i might use the chance to strike... Just because they can beat me now does not mean they will not be placed in a moment of weakness, or never face a foce greater than themselves

As for "getting on their good side to earn a powerful ally"... i really could just invoke godwin's law. Ya, siding with conquers or allowing them to keep existing may not always work out... do you really think it's rational to trust conquers of a good aligned nation, that enslaves only human civilians (which i can easily see as taking joy in their pain and misery), and were minions to an evil lich?

Again, why would the leaders of these nations risk it? They know Gobbotopia has an army far more powerful than the one Azure City ever had. They know Gobbotopia was also conquered and founded by two powerful people, ones that are more than capable of wreaking havoc on their own nation and can easily kill them, guards or not. You expect those leaders to believe Hinjo when he says "Yeah those guys captured our city and stayed there for a year, but I promise you they're leaving and they won't care if you attack it"? Especially when this is coming from someone who has a very clear interest in attacking Gobbotopia.

The idea that Xykon is leaving and does not plan to come back can be supported by the elves confirming his departure and if he is not seen for weeks or months... indicating that he has moved on.

and I think quite a few of gobbotopia's neighbors might take the chance of his long absence, to actually make moves against the hobgoblins

It just makes no sense for any nation to declare war on Gobbotopia right now. Even with Xykon and RC gone.
Which is why such things probably will not happen for weeks or months... Xykon and RC leaving is only the beginning

Frankly i would expect a number of nations to start making a move when Hinjo and the elves are ready to make more serious move... for now they will widdle away at their power with the elven insurgents, but once Hinjo has rebuilt his forces, he will return along with the elves ready to strike... With Xykon gone, the the insurgents doing a good amount of damage, and the elves being willing to go to war; hinjo's other allies may have second thoughts about helping him and some of the more fearful nations may join them.

and when i think about it, i would not be so quick to praise Gobbotopia's defensive position... the wall has never been properly repaired, which makes for a weak spot in the wall... There does not seem to be much defences at the port meaning that Hinjo and the elves could attack from the sea... this would force the hobgoblins into a two front fight and split up their forces... and then we have the insurgents and rebels who can cause trouble from within their defenses... hell actually, thinking about it, those mines could cause serious trouble during a war... they would allow the land based force to totally bypass the wall and get forces on the inside; and if the insurgents can kill the goblins guarding the one gate before they can send a warning, gobbotopia will never see it coming... The hobgoblins may have a force of 20,000, but they will be spreading out their forces all over the city which could really hurt their numerical advantage

Pyron

2010-02-13, 10:11 PM

They've gotten tons of XP since invading the city. They probably all have class levels and some may be mid- or high-level.

According to their shirts (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0455.html), they got no xp.

Morthis

2010-02-13, 10:33 PM

there is a difference between "most" and "Many" and i did point out that there were many cases of wars being used to create nations, however i added in points as to why other nations might not be precieved as a threat to their neighbors...

The problem is not that they employ slavery, but that they employ human slavery in a goblin nation... They are not enslaving their own kind with leads to the belief that they have a great intolerance for humans

And the fear that they would go the extra step to wipe out other human nations comes from the fact that they just got done conquering one

See, I think this is very open to interpretation. All these actions, military conquest, slavery, etc are done by all races. Just because this one is done by goblins does not mean they're clearly bent on world domination. If they were, they would have been drafting whatever was left of Azure City to march on the next nation, not turning them into slaves and building up their city.

if the hobgoblins were to send their forces away to go to war, i might use the chance to strike...

That's reasonable enough, which is exactly why it would make sense for the other nations to do nothing right now besides see how things pan out. This whole hypothetical discussion is from the assumption the goblins do not attack more nations, but rather try to build their own nation.

As for "getting on their good side to earn a powerful ally"... i really could just invoke godwin's law. Ya, siding with conquers or allowing them to keep existing may not always work out... do you really think it's rational to trust conquers of a good aligned nation, that enslaves only human civilians (which i can easily see as taking joy in their pain and misery), and were minions to an evil lich?

That depends. The leader of the hobgoblin army just so happened to have a very good reason to hate Azure City, and would like goblins to live alongside the rest, not ruling the rest. You're looking at this from a pure D&D alignment perspective, but oots has already shown us that alignments are not as strict and there's a lot more room for shades of gray.

In the real world, many "good nations" trade with "evil nations" (nations with practices that the civilized world finds immoral).

The idea that Xykon is leaving and does not plan to come back can be supported by the elves confirming his departure and if he is not seen for weeks or months... indicating that he has moved on.

The idea that he left can, the notion he wouldn't come back can't. In fact, I don't think anyone in oots knows that besides team evil. We know this as readers because we get to see Xykon's conversations with Redcloak, but Hinjo, the oots, or anyone else really does not know that. The oots might be able to guess this, based on their experiences with Xykon, but I highly doubt any nation is willing to put itself at risk based on a guess by some random stranger from the north. You have to keep in mind, these nations will know what teleport is, and likely know that Xykon can do it. It's not like you can catch him at a time he's too far away to support the city.

<stuff about Gobbotopia's defenses>

Splitting to attack from multiple sides requires an army far larger than the one in Gobbotopia (since they can shift position between fronts much easier than the attacking army can reinforce a front). When so vastly outnumbered, yeah they're pretty much screwed, but that would require several nations willing to devote their entire army, or a ton of nations willing to devote a good share of their army.

factotum

2010-02-14, 02:16 AM

slayerx

2010-02-14, 01:50 PM

See, I think this is very open to interpretation. All these actions, military conquest, slavery, etc are done by all races. Just because this one is done by goblins does not mean they're clearly bent on world domination. If they were, they would have been drafting whatever was left of Azure City to march on the next nation, not turning them into slaves and building up their city.

Actually, by using the slaves as labor, the goblins do not have to do much of the work themselves, and thus allowing them to keep holding their swords... if they have turned the azurites into canon fodder, the goblins would have to put down their swords to support the labor... also i would not trust handing a few thousand citizens swords when their are on going rebellions that they would love to join up with... not to mention there's the whole hatred of humans thing

That depends. The leader of the hobgoblin army just so happened to have a very good reason to hate Azure City, and would like goblins to live alongside the rest, not ruling the rest. You're looking at this from a pure D&D alignment perspective, but oots has already shown us that alignments are not as strict and there's a lot more room for shades of gray.

no the leader had a good reason to hate paladins; the azurites citizens are innocent of any actual wrong doing and what he is doing to them is certainly evil... it's part of his hypocrisy... Furthermore, you are using meta knowledge; how many nations do you think are gonna believe redcloak just wants to live in peace? The hobgoblins had a place of their own in the valley, but decided to destroy azure city. He made no attempt at diplomacy for peace with azure city and jumped right into war and enslaved the people; this makes him appear like a cruel warmonger.

and in that part you quoted a didn't even mention them being an "evil" nation, but mentioned evil things they had seemed to have done... one thing about the alignment system is that much of it is based on actions and intentions... even if you might be born with a certain alignment that will changed based on actions. So if you are an adult and still registering as "evil" as opposed to "neutral" then that means there is something wrong about what you are doing... in this case i would look at desire to kill people, enslavement of citizens, jumping to war without trying diplomacy first, and working for a very clearly evil lich...

In the real world, many "good nations" trade with "evil nations" (nations with practices that the civilized world finds immoral).

Ya, that's one of those things in real life that i have often pointed to as being a massive hypocrisy in the world and generally do not support... seems hard to call you're nation "good" when you allow alliances with the worst kind of people... really all you got to do is say you're friend of the west and you get away with almost anything...

The idea that he left can, the notion he wouldn't come back can't. In fact, I don't think anyone in oots knows that besides team evil. We know this as readers because we get to see Xykon's conversations with Redcloak, but Hinjo, the oots, or anyone else really does not know that.

No i think the oots do know that Xykon does not care about the city... They know that he only came for the gate and that's all he cares about. And thanks to o-chul, they know that the only reason Xykon stayed so long was because they were trying to gather more info before they moved on. Hell i think o-chul may have had enough experience with Xykon to know he doesn't care about the goblins themselves

Hell only reason i think Xykon would return to gobbotopia is if he found a new use for those minions... which would probably mean conquering a few more nations just for laughs; getting on his good side ain't possible... might be better to deprive him of those resources before he can actually use them

Splitting to attack from multiple sides requires an army far larger than the one in Gobbotopia (since they can shift position between fronts much easier than the attacking army can reinforce a front). When so vastly outnumbered, yeah they're pretty much screwed, but that would require several nations willing to devote their entire army, or a ton of nations willing to devote a good share of their army.
I'm not so sure about that... i mean depending on how large the city is it could take a good amount of time for the soldiers to switch from one front to the next, and there would be chaos going on in the middle of the city aswell... part of the point of attacking from 3 directions is undermine the city's defenses which would normally be problematic... The city's defenses could make the goblins 3 times harder to take down; trying to take the wall could take 60,000 troops, but eliminating them as a factor makes the fight more even... so getting around them would be key...

I think Hinjo has a chance to shore up some good the numbers...
The azurite citizens numbered in the tens of thousands... ofcourse we have to exclude those who died, those who are unwilling or unable to fight and those taken as slaves... this could still mean thousands of potential new soldiers... the slaves themselves can be freed and added to the rebel forces; with team evil gone, i do think the elves will go a long way to freeing those people while at the same time they will be undermining their forces by killing hobgoblins and with various other attacks on food and armory... The elves themselves might be able to dedicate many troops as well. With enough forces already dedicated, Hinjo may be able to convince some of the allies that turned him down the first time to join him in retaking the city.

but that would require several nations willing to devote their entire army, or a ton of nations willing to devote a good share of their army
kinda depends on how large the amries are of those other nations are... which we do not know

veti

2010-02-14, 02:58 PM

its a NATION of at least 20.000 TRAINED warriors, even assuming 99.9% are lvl 1, they are still stronger then the sapphire guard ever were.

Citation needed. There were that kind of number when they attacked, but a lot of hobgoblins died in the battle. And without high-level leadership, particularly Redcloak's titanium elementals, they'd have lost then.

Moreover, Gobbotopia has a large slave population. That means a significant number of troops has to be diverted to keeping the humans oppressed, rather than actually fighting.

furthermore its a officially recognized state, meaning attacking it equals declaring war. not only will potential adventurers get ripped to shreds, those that come back home alive will get executed by their king for provoking war ( unless they are elves or paladins of the SG)

Erm. Not really. "Officially recognised state" just means "Okay, we'll listen to you". It doesn't mean "we'll go out of our way to stop our people from being a nuisance to you." Heck, it doesn't even mean "we're not at war with you." Newly formed or reorganised states usually spend several years at war with their neighbours, before relations settle down. And countries commonly turn a blind eye to - or, in many cases, actively (but unofficially) support - their people committing acts of aggression against neighbouring countries. Particularly if relations are strained by issues such as slavery and racial tensions.

"Recognised" doesn't mean squat. It's a propaganda coup for Redcloak, but that's about all.

Gift Jeraff

2010-02-14, 03:04 PM

Citation needed. There were that kind of number when they attacked, but a lot of hobgoblins died in the battle. And without high-level leadership, particularly Redcloak's titanium elementals, they'd have lost then.
There were 30,000 when they attacked. 10,000 were estimated to be dead on both sides. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0466.html)

Ancalagon

2010-02-14, 03:05 PM

Citation needed. There were that kind of number when they attacked, but a lot of hobgoblins died in the battle. And without high-level leadership, particularly Redcloak's titanium elementals, they'd have lost then.

They started with 30k and at the end, Redcloak said that both sides have lost around 10k and that was like all of "their" units and 1/3 our "ours".

veti

2010-02-14, 03:10 PM

There are plenty of examples in real life of nations turning a blind eye to the worst excesses of foreign powers purely in the hope of keeping the peace. Nobody really wants a war, and if Cliffport etc. think they can avoid being the next on Gobbotopia's hit list by appeasing them, they'll darn well do it!

That may be true (although short-sighted, I'd say). But conversely, if places like Cliffport see ways to weaken and destabilise Gobbotopia at little risk or cost to themselves, they'll darn well do that too. The obvious way in this case is simply to turn a blind eye to adventurers from their territory raiding it.

Team Peregrine/the elven menace may be the only ones officially at war with Gobbotopia, but Cliffport et al will be doing their bit to cash in. They'd be crazy not to.

veti

2010-02-14, 03:39 PM

The statement of the OP is inaccurate. The Hobgoblin Invasion of Azure City was not won solely by Redcloak and Xykon. Did their presence hurt? Not at all. But you'll notice that even before the gate was destroyed, most of the army was already within the walls.

This invasion was not a "just barely" kind of thing. Azure City got CURB STOMPED, and it couldn't have ended in any other manner. Yes, perhaps without Miko's final acts Redcloak and Xykon would've died, but the city itself was going to fall regardless.

It was Xykon who enabled them to approach the city without advance warning being sent from the guard towers, thus catching Azure City (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0413.html) with only a part of its army available to fight. It was Redcloak's idea of titanium elementals that tore great holes in the wall and allowed the attackers to charge in. It was Xykon who distracted and destroyed most of the high-level defenders. It was Redcloak who created three more high-ish-level undead, which did great damage to the defenders. It was Xykon who tricked Miko into murdering Shojo, thus creating a crisis (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0414.html) in Azure City, as well as costing the Sapphire Guard their greatest warrior, and demoralising (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0422.html) the army (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0452.html).

Without their leadership, the hobgoblins would have been creamed.

Ancalagon

2010-02-14, 03:47 PM

Without their leadership, the hobgoblins would have been creamed.

I would not say that.

The battle would have been much, much harder and the goblins would surely not have survived in numbers that are city-population. High level casters change the course of entire battles, they don't just "contribute".
But that the Goblins would have lost for sure and clearly? I'm not seeing that.

Apart from that is this discussion pointless as the Goblins would not have started their invasion without Redcloak in the first place.

veti

2010-02-14, 04:45 PM

They did?

They conquered themselves a hometown but apart from that? Also, we do KNOW that the Goblins have no real other interest than building their own nation. Redcloak wants a chance for goblins, not world-goblin-domination.

Anyone who's played Civilization knows how this works out...

Thing about goblins, in most worlds at least, is that they breed quickly. As long as they're only occupying mountains and swamps and barren wastes, that doesn't matter, because they die just as fast. But given the comfort and security of Azure City and its hinterlands...

... well, in 15 years or so, that 20,000 hobgoblins will be looking more like 100,000. Many of them young, ambitious, and looking to carve out their own little niche in the world. They can't do that within the existing borders of Gobbotopia, because all the land is taken. The traditional thing to do, at this point, is to form new armies and go and conquer more land.

SoC175

2010-02-14, 05:25 PM

There were 30,000 when they attacked. 10,000 were estimated to be dead on both sides. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0466.html)
Which should actually be considered to be crippling losses. Not many nations would be able to recover from losing 1/3 of their forces in less than a few decades. So yeah, this costly victory bough them AC, but it should also leave them unable to invade anything else for a very long time.

veti

2010-02-14, 06:03 PM

Which should actually be considered to be crippling losses. Not many nations would be able to recover from losing 1/3 of their forces in less than a few decades. So yeah, this costly victory bough them AC, but it should also leave them unable to invade anything else for a very long time.

Consider that the hobgoblins won. They got a shiny new homeland, room to breathe and stretch and grow food and live comfortably for the first time in history, and they've been encouraging immigration for all they're worth ever since. (Plus slaves to do the hard work, of course.) I think they've probably made up that number by now, and in a few more years, with more immigration, they'll have doubled it at least.

If I were Gobbotopia's neighbours, I'd be very, very worried about now. I might not actually declare war, at least until I got word that Xykon had moved out, but I'd definitely be gearing up and fortifying my borders.

shadowdemon_lord

2010-02-14, 06:12 PM

Hobgoblins reach full physical maturity at age 10. In a warrior city like that one it's likely that warrior training starts while they are still children, maybe at age 8. Given this, Gobbotopia should be able to have a new army ready and raring to go in about a decade, maybe 12 years tops. Also, this means that each generation of hobgoblins is only about 10-15 years, as oppose to the 20-25 years between human generations. This rapid generation coupled with the intense military society of hobgoblins, and access to resources on par with the human nations and you have a powerful military force.

Ancalagon

2010-02-15, 06:12 AM

... well, in 15 years or so, that 20,000 hobgoblins will be looking more like 100,000. Many of them young, ambitious, and looking to carve out their own little niche in the world.

So, someone should go and "thin out there numbers while they are no threat"?
Isn't it a topic of this comic that something like that is like... wrong?

Evil actions based on what COULD be are bad.

Morthis

2010-02-15, 08:37 AM

No i think the oots do know that Xykon does not care about the city... They know that he only came for the gate and that's all he cares about. And thanks to o-chul, they know that the only reason Xykon stayed so long was because they were trying to gather more info before they moved on. Hell i think o-chul may have had enough experience with Xykon to know he doesn't care about the goblins themselves

Once again, you're expecting other nations to go to war based on the speculation of some guy they don't know. If that speculation is wrong, not only would their war fail horribly, because Xykon would easily be able to hold the city if he wanted it, but he could then set his sights on the leader that called the shots and/or their entire nation as well.

We know Xykon doesn't care to do this, the oots or O'Chul might suspect this, but anyone who actually has to make decisions for the best of their nation would be a complete idiot to simply assume that pissing off one of the most powerful beings in the world isn't gonna bite them in the ass. As we can see in the comic, that's exactly what happened, they all told Hinjo no.

I'm not so sure about that... i mean depending on how large the city is it could take a good amount of time for the soldiers to switch from one front to the next, and there would be chaos going on in the middle of the city aswell... part of the point of attacking from 3 directions is undermine the city's defenses which would normally be problematic... The city's defenses could make the goblins 3 times harder to take down; trying to take the wall could take 60,000 troops, but eliminating them as a factor makes the fight more even... so getting around them would be key...

How can it ever be harder for the goblins, who are inside the city, to adjust fronts, when all they need to do is walk across the city? For the attackers, changing fronts would quite literally mean marching around the city until you reach the next area, would could easily take 2-3 times longer as walking across the city. As defenders, they will always be able to react to being attacked from different fronts better. The only reason why multiple fronts would cause a big ordeal is if the numbers are overwhelming, or the defender's leadership is poor and unable to properly deal with it.

kinda depends on how large the amries are of those other nations are... which we do not know

Considering the size and setup of Azure City, as well as the fact that Eugene calls it one of the oldest bastions for the forced of good, I would estimate that Azure City typically has one of the more powerful armies in the world. Now this army wasn't fully ready, and a part of it retreated with the nobles. So perhaps AC would normally have had about 20k defenders, and the average nation has 15k. Now if Hinjo must get the help of those nations, they are unlikely to send their entire army since that means there is nobody left to defend the nation. If they send, let's say 5k soldiers, he'd need a ton of nations to get the kind of numbers needed to win, and that's all assuming Xykon will not help defend.

Of course it's all speculation since we don't know numbers, my point with these estimations is just that even if other nations have armies of similar size of the hobgoblin army, they're unlikely to devote the entire thing (if you need an army that size you've got something to defend), and to get the kind of numbers needed to attack would take many nations. You have to remember, they're not sending armies to fight for their own land, they're sending armies to fight for someone else's.

derfenrirwolv

2010-02-15, 08:50 AM

veti

2010-02-15, 03:34 PM

So, someone should go and "thin out there numbers while they are no threat"?

I didn't say that. All I'm doing is pointing out the foreseeable long-term consequences - and not all that long, either - of leaving them alone.

What you want to do about those consequences is your decision. You think it's better to let Gobbotopia gather strength, with absolutely no promises or guarantees - even untrustworthy ones - as to its future policy and behaviour? - well, that's your decision. Me, I'll be with the elves.

Evil actions based on what COULD be are bad.

Evil actions are bad, period. But what makes an action "evil"? That's the real question.

Is fighting/raiding/waging war evil? How about if the people you're fighting are themselves evil - does that make a difference?

These questions are a lot simpler in D&D than they are in real life, but even so there's plenty of room for difference of opinion (as Celia shows).

hamishspence

2010-02-16, 03:40 AM

Ancalagon

2010-02-16, 04:24 AM

Is fighting/raiding/waging war evil? How about if the people you're fighting are themselves evil - does that make a difference?

These questions are a lot simpler in D&D than they are in real life, but even so there's plenty of room for difference of opinion (as Celia shows).

Evil (not in general, but in this case): Attacking a nation because they MIGHT have bigger numbers in 20 years and MIGHT expand then with war.
That was simple. ;)

Math_Mage

2010-02-16, 06:17 AM

They are simpler in D&D- if you take into account the various sourcebook, without them, its basically "up to the DM"

And the answer is- waging war on evil beings "just for being evil" without any other provocation, is evil- BoED.

I'm...not exactly sure 'being evil' is the only claim to infamy Gobbotopia has at this point. Let's start with the (largely) unprovoked attack on Azure City and work our way up.

Asta Kask

2010-02-16, 06:40 AM

I seem to remember there being a large, genocidal war waged by goblinoids a couple of generations back. Pure, good old-fashioned racism can also be added to the stew.

hamishspence

2010-02-16, 07:09 AM

I'm...not exactly sure 'being evil' is the only claim to infamy Gobbotopia has at this point. Let's start with the (largely) unprovoked attack on Azure City and work our way up.

Largely?

Secretive organization, run by the ruler of the city, attacks villages thousands of miles from the city, slaughters noncombatants, even after they killed the guy they were attacking the village to kill?

That sort of thing seems like provocation.

Plus, according to War & XPs- the hobgoblins had been at war with Azure City for a while- the only difference was that Xykon mobilized most of the population for this attack.

also- the war waged a couple of generations back- murdering the leader of a nation when he comes to parley is, again, provocation.

That's if Redcloak's account is true.

Asta Kask

2010-02-16, 07:13 AM

also- the war waged a couple of generations back- murdering the leader of a nation when he comes to parley is, again, provocation.

Yes, so? We're not talking about objective history here, we're talking about a casus belli. A way to motivate the masses to fight tooth and nail for their ruler. What do the real events have to do with it? Ever heard of the War of Jenkin's Ear? Or the Football War?

Do you know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled? (Pope Julius III)

hamishspence

2010-02-16, 07:19 AM

The question was- what would justify a war against Gobbotopia- and make declaring such a war a non-evil act?

The fact that they attacked the other nations two generations back, in response to the murder of their leader- is not exactly a casus belli.

If "declaring war on the goblin nation because its inhabitants are evil" is not a justification, why would "declaring war on them because they are goblins"?

Now "declaring war because they attacked your allies" is better- but Azure City's allies apparently haven't done that. Except possibly for the elven nations.

Asta Kask

2010-02-16, 07:26 AM

The question was- what would justify a war against Gobbotopia- and make declaring such a war a non-evil act?

Oh, sorry.

Torture? Slavery? Ugly flag? Alliance with a mass-mass-mass-murderer (Xykon)?

Math_Mage

2010-02-16, 07:42 AM

Largely?

Secretive organization, run by the ruler of the city, attacks villages thousands of miles from the city, slaughters noncombatants, even after they killed the guy they were attacking the village to kill?

That sort of thing seems like provocation.

Well, if we're going to consider things that wouldn't be known to the neighboring kingdoms, the plan of the Supreme Leader and the lich he is consorting with would be more than sufficient cause. But if we're going to look at it consistently, it's no more likely that they know about the secret attack on Redcloak's village 20 years ago than that they know anything about The Plan. Besides, this only explains Redcloak's motivation and justification, not the hobgoblins'.

Plus, according to War & XPs- the hobgoblins had been at war with Azure City for a while- the only difference was that Xykon mobilized most of the population for this attack.

Oh? Well, I can't argue that, as I don't have the books.

Ancalagon

2010-02-16, 02:53 PM

Torture? Slavery? Ugly flag? Alliance with a mass-mass-mass-murderer (Xykon)?

Well, it's not really that the goblins a) choose to ally with him, b) they actually are "allied", c) that they did know who that guy was, d) that they had any choice at all.

Remember SoD with "There are only two types of Goblins within a mile radius. Those who work for me and those..."?

hamishspence

2010-02-16, 02:56 PM

But if we're going to look at it consistently, it's no more likely that they know about the secret attack on Redcloak's village 20 years ago than that they know anything about The Plan.

The "tourist's guide to Azure City" in the back of War & XPs- shows that the neighbouring nations are aware that paladins are crossing their borders after people and aren't happy about it- but they perceive them as "members of the Lord's staff" and don't know about the Sapphire Guard as an organization.

The precise phrasing used is:

Because paladins on the Lord's staff have pursued many individuals into other countries, however, Azure City has recently developed a reputation for violating sovereign nations over what are perceived as "personal grudges".

veti

2010-02-16, 03:05 PM

Torture? Slavery? Ugly flag? Alliance with a mass-mass-mass-murderer (Xykon)?

Exactly. There's no shortage of justifications to go to war with Gobbotopia, if you want to.

What I'm saying is that there's also a damn' good reason to do it. In 20 years' time - which is to say, in Elven terms, about Saturday week - they're going to be unstoppable. Time is on their side - the more time they have, the stronger they'll get, relative to their opponents.

If you want a nice "moral" way to deal with the goblin races in general, it has to involve integrating them into human/demi-human society. If they can live peacefully, side by side with humans/etc., then that's fine. But if they define themselves as a separate nation, with its own army, and which doesn't extend that kind of racial tolerance themselves - then they're a threat, and one that's too big to ignore.

The existence of Gobbotopia as a fully integrated, tolerant nation - that would be just fine. The existence of Gobbotopia as a racially pure Goblin-only state - that's an existential threat to every other country on the planet.

hamishspence

2010-02-16, 03:11 PM

veti

2010-02-16, 03:34 PM

Thing is, it isn't a "racially pure goblin state"- it has opened its borders to all disenfranchised humanoids, going by this:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0702.html

Now if humans, elves, dwarves, etc who want to join Gobbotopia as citizens are turned away- then there might be reason to be worried.

"Open to all disenfranchised humanoids". That's a definition designed to exclude demi-humans, who are not "disenfranchised" elsewhere. We've seen what happens to humans within Gobbotopia, and as for elves, they'd probably be killed on sight at the moment.

If you're looking at race-based qualifications for citizenship, the original Azure City is a better candidate:

War & XPs (tourist guide section)- "While the city is open to travelers from all lands, the law only grants citizenship to those with human blood (Tip: that blood must still be inside the human for it to count)"

Yes indeedy. The dubious morality of Azure City itself is what makes this whole story interesting. But AC didn't have the goblin fast-breeder effect going for it - its population wasn't likely to double every decade - so, although it was a pain in the posterior to its neighbours, it wasn't the same kind of existential threat to them.

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not saying there's an overwhelming moral case for trying to destroy Gobbotopia. I'm saying there's an overwhelming practical case for doing it. It's not a matter of "should", it's a matter of "must".

hamishspence

2010-02-16, 03:39 PM

There is also the bit about "establishing trade relations with the more mercenary nations"

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0548.html

If it's trading with its neighbours- does all trade take place at the border? Or will people of all races be invited in, if they come as part of trading groups?

Meta

2010-02-16, 05:35 PM

Without knowing how common slavery is in OotS, (we haven't seen many indications of it in other cities outside of newly rechristened Azure City) I would say that other nations would have ample moral reasons to invade Gobbotopia

hamishspence

2010-02-16, 05:47 PM

We saw slave raiders here:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0683.html

And Belkar mentions the possibility of selling Smantha the bandit leader into slavery much earlier.

Roy disapproves- however its not clear in the setting if the mere existence of slavery in a nation would be considered sufficient justification for an invasion of that nation.

The goblins waged war, won, and enslaved the survivors (those who hadn't already evacuated).

When compared to people who wage war, win, kill the enemy leader, and then slaughter the survivors- which looks worse?

The Science of Discworld II, when discussing the evolution of morality, seemed to take the view that enslaving your defeated foes, was an improvement on exterminating them- a first step along the progression.

veti

2010-02-16, 08:10 PM

That's a perfectly valid point. Once you start thinking of goblins as sentient beings, with rights, the morality of all the existing "good" nations starts to look very questionable.

But it's not important. The important question, here and now, is: is it moral to allow evil to grow unconstrained, thus condemning your own children to death or slavery? (Not paternalistic, "nice"-type slavery, either. We're talking about people who will beat and torture their slaves, to death, just because "it's funny (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0511.html)".)

What I'm saying is that, from the perspective of the neighbouring nations - and particularly the elves - Gobbotopia has to be destroyed, as a matter of survival. It's like an immovable powder keg, with the fuse already lit. They can (a) try to shield themselves from the blast; (b) try to put out the fuse or destroy the keg itself; or (c) sit back and hope that someone else will take care of it.

Dark Matter

2010-02-16, 09:14 PM

What I'm saying is that, from the perspective of the neighbouring nations - and particularly the elves - Gobbotopia has to be destroyed, as a matter of survival. It's like an immovable powder keg, with the fuse already lit. They can (a) try to shield themselves from the blast; (b) try to put out the fuse or destroy the keg itself; or (c) sit back and hope that someone else will take care of it.Agreed.

This is D&D, "good" and "evil" aren't things that depend on your point of view, they're things that are abstractly measurable by a Cleric or Paladin.

Gobbotopia is a nation of evil, designed to allow evil creatures be "free" from constraints so they can do their thing free of "oppression" from good creatures. The result isn't likely to be pretty.

slayerx

2010-02-16, 10:28 PM

When compared to people who wage war, win, kill the enemy leader, and then slaughter the survivors- which looks worse?

Well, when you consider that "death" would send most civilians to a sweet after life in the heavens and "Slavery" involves a life time of pain and misery until your death... i actually kinda think the slavery might be more cruel in the Oots-verse; it's like torturing them before they die... kinda borderline on that part... would be different if the captors planned to set their slaves free in a few years...

Not to mention that doesn't change the fact that slavery IS STILL an evil act, and that there isn't much stopping them from exiling the humans or absorbing them into their society is some way or form, which would be the "good" way to handle civilians on the loosing side

factotum

2010-02-17, 02:47 AM

What I'm saying is that there's also a damn' good reason to do it. In 20 years' time - which is to say, in Elven terms, about Saturday week - they're going to be unstoppable. Time is on their side - the more time they have, the stronger they'll get, relative to their opponents.

Thing is, there were already 30,000 hobgoblins in their mountain city long before Redcloak and Xykon showed up, and yet they'd never attempted to sack Azure City before as far as we can tell. Without Redcloak and Xykon pushing them onward it's entirely possible they never WOULD have attacked Azure City directly--and this is considering hobgoblins are by far the most militaristic goblin species. Therefore I don't see that it necessarily follows that Gobbotopia will be heading out to conquer again in 20 years' time.

Math_Mage

2010-02-17, 03:30 AM

Thing is, there were already 30,000 hobgoblins in their mountain city long before Redcloak and Xykon showed up, and yet they'd never attempted to sack Azure City before as far as we can tell. Without Redcloak and Xykon pushing them onward it's entirely possible they never WOULD have attacked Azure City directly--and this is considering hobgoblins are by far the most militaristic goblin species. Therefore I don't see that it necessarily follows that Gobbotopia will be heading out to conquer again in 20 years' time.

That's not how the neighboring kingdoms would look at it. They see a dramatic behavior shift in the hobgoblins followed by new military conquests that were unthinkable before, and they're not going to assume this behavior shift will just go away. In fact, that's precisely why Hinjo's allies refused to grant him military aid. They weren't apathetic about Gobbotopia because it wasn't going anywhere--they were scared of where it might go next.

It's the classic civilization-vs-barbarians trope: civilization wins because the barbarians are too disorganized to come out on top, but throw a charismatic and effective barbarian leader into the mix and suddenly you have a conquering army.

veti

2010-02-17, 03:10 PM

Also, as I said up-thread, I don't think 30,000 hobgoblins without the aid of Xykon and Redcloak could have taken Azure City. The city would have been properly warned and prepared, it would have had its full army inside the walls, and they wouldn't have been demoralised by the death of Shojo and subsequent political crisis. The hobgoblins would have been massacred.

(That's my opinion, based on countless hours of playing Rome: Total War, and I'm sticking to it...)

Even if I'm wrong - if you were the hobgoblin supreme commander in that position - how confident would you be of your chances? Confident enough to risk your entire army? I think not.

Saurus33

2010-02-18, 01:27 AM

I would do it. Not the way it was done in the comic, but more along the lines of a conventional siege.

Souhiro

2010-02-18, 03:42 AM

Well, most people are agree that the gobbos victory was mainly because Xykon and Redcloak were leading them. True, the gobbos had a lot of manpower to do, but without Xykon and Redcloak, they won't have conquered Azure City at all.

But now, they won't be there.

Without these two, Gobbotopia would be just another goblin camp, but with buildings instead of huts. And a bunch of slaves and war prisoners, to lure any raging paladin, or glory-seeking character.

And a goblin camp is a place adventurer raids and get lot of treasures and XP.

hamishspence

2010-02-18, 05:53 AM

Red XIV

2010-02-18, 06:13 AM

Citation needed.

So far we have only seen Team Peregrine working against the gobbos... and they would be taken down by a hundred Goblins with ease.
You're forgetting, Team Peregrine's plans weren't to run out in the open and start collecting hobgoblin heads. Their plans were to link up with Thanh and the Azurite resistance, and "coordinate further insertions (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0670.html)." Which, given that they're fully aware of Cloister's effects, including its weakness, presumably means they're going to summon more elves from inside the city.

Which should actually be considered to be crippling losses. Not many nations would be able to recover from losing 1/3 of their forces in less than a few decades. So yeah, this costly victory bough them AC, but it should also leave them unable to invade anything else for a very long time.
Most nations aren't able to turn their dead soldiers into zombie soldiers.

Math_Mage

2010-02-18, 06:40 AM

Question is, will the fact that "17 nations have recognized the borders of Gobbotopia" make a difference?

Will they rein in their adventurer populations, out of fear that adventurer attacks will be treated as acts of war?

Some will, some won't. Other adventurers will come from other countries that *haven't* recognized Gobbotopia. All in all, it's still a fair point to make. However, I think that Gobbotopia faces a bigger threat from the coordinated actions of Team Peregrine (and presumably other elven insertion groups) with the Resistance. It won't become a problem until Xykon leaves, and probably not until the Cloister effect wears off, but boy oh boy will it become a problem then.

Ancalagon

2010-02-18, 08:02 AM

You're forgetting, Team Peregrine's plans weren't to run out in the open and start collecting hobgoblin heads. Their plans were to link up with Thanh and the Azurite resistance, and "coordinate further insertions (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0670.html)."

That's not a point. The resistence had other High-Level-Friends before. They were not united, though.

Which, given that they're fully aware of Cloister's effects, including its weakness, presumably means they're going to summon more elves from inside the city.

That IS a point. ;)[/QUOTE]

But the goblins might get really serious about the resistence one day. Once the base is discovered, it might be over quite quickly.

Also, cloister might not be in affect for much longer. Even if Xykon re-casts it before he leaves (why should he?) the city gained just another six months (or so) of cloistering.

What I find very interesting at this stage: Is there even a point in liberating the city? I mean... liberate for WHOM exactly? The Azurites are on a different continent and build a new city there.
Even if half of them decide to sail back to fight for the city (a ruined city that was in the hands of goblins for a long time by then) and live there the numbers will not be that impressive.

yanmaodao

2010-02-19, 04:16 PM

If the Elves do retake Azure City, it's going to be with a big army and a battle. Having six 9th level-ish characters taking on an army of 20,000+, even if parceled out over time and not all of once, is something that may or may not be mechanically possible from within the D&D ruleset. If it is, however, that's simply a flaw within a ruleset that was never meant to handle such situations. Rich is under no obligation to obey that for his story, gutting any sense of drama for a dumb in-game rules joke.

Really, if it were that easy, a goblin army should never have been able to take Lirian's Glade in SoD.

Dark Matter

2010-02-19, 04:50 PM

Really, if it were that easy, a goblin army should never have been able to take Lirian's Glade in SoD.

Apples and Oranges.

Each high level character (and I think they're way above 9th) kills 50 gobs a day then flees when they run out of spells and/or hit points. Lirian *couldn't* do that.

As for mechanics, think of "Scry and Die". Kill the boss monster or the highest level characters in the dungeon, and you can put a fork in the minions because it's over no matter how long it takes.

Souhiro

2010-02-22, 05:31 AM

Okay, seeing who is Jirix, and the kind of leader he is I only can say: The days of Gobbotipia are numbered.

- Sir, a few High Level Fighters are destroying our numbers using the great cleave feat! the guards are helpless against them!
- If they are destroying our numbers, we'll use letters!
- WHAT?
- Yeah... without numbers, we still have letters. characters... aw nevermind. Come back in a few hours.

Ancalagon

2010-02-22, 06:28 AM

Err, what?

In fact, he seems quite competent as he is able to ponder which style of government he wants. He threw those jokes in his speech for a reason (one that is stated in the current comic), which means he is quite aware about what he is doing and why.
So far, that's a big, shining sign of a reflected leader and not a sign of incompetence.

Maybe he IS incompetent in leading but what we have seen so far is more an indicator for the opposite.

hamishspence

2010-02-22, 07:44 AM

I supsect he is aware of the suggestion that the ideal leader, is one who is loved and feared, and his portrayal of himself as an affable, humourous leader, is a first step in that process.

Dark Matter

2010-02-22, 07:47 AM

This is the guy who yelled for Xykon when OChul broke out? Tactically that was the best move he could make. On the other hand OChul one punched him, so he can't be all that high in level.

Ancalagon

2010-02-22, 08:26 AM

I think that O-Chul had Plot behind his punch (as rules would have let to the very same outcome, yet not with the dramatic speed we just had now) so you cannot really use a scene like that to estimate level.

Jirix simply cannot be that low-level for the positions he was in and the one he is in now.

Dark Matter

2010-02-22, 09:13 AM

Jirix simply cannot be that low-level for the positions he was in and the one he is in now.Yes and no. Jirix clearly isn't low level by goblin standards, he's high level... but that might not mean much by PC standards.

We've seen a fair number of other "high level" gobs get one punched or otherwise show RedCloak's level is *much* higher than theirs. The hobgoblin 'king' stepped down rather than face RC in combat. The battle in the throne room had the other Clerics be totally ineffectual even before Miko one punched a few. RC is absurdly *old* by gob standards, it makes sense that his level would similarly be absurdly high.

On a slightly different subject, Xykon clearly thinks he could slaughter the entire goblin population by himself. He's probably right, he could just run around posting symbols of insanity in populated areas and/or intersections.

Ancalagon

2010-02-22, 09:42 AM

Yes and no. Jirix clearly isn't low level by goblin standards, he's high level... but that might not mean much by PC standards.

I use "high and low level" as the Core Rules do (and the Order of the Stick seems to follow it as well).

Level 5 is quite decent, as most normal guards in villages are level 1s or 2s (and don't even have PC-classes).

A level 10 fighter is the leader of an army for a quite decent kingdom. The head of a magical academy (or similar) is some level 7 to 12 guy.

A level 12 Mage is a quite powerful figure, while everything below level 15 really becomes "rare" and "special".

Everything near or even above level 20 is legendary and truely rare of some sort.

Each class probably only has zero to three (or so) level 18+ guys on the entire continent.

Felyndiira

2010-02-22, 09:56 AM

Jirix is probably not going to single-handedly thwart attempted invasions to the Goblin nation with his level. From past events, it's accurate to say that he's at most level 10 or so, making him ineffectual against, say, Team Peregrine should he end up facing them alone (also unlikely, but used as an example).

That being said, though, Gobbotopia is nothing like a random encounter goblin camp, and will likely not be raided by random adventurers with any amount of certainty. A random camp is a scattered, isolated organization with minor fortifications and rare organization that a low-level adventurer can plow through quite easily, while Gobbotopia is both organized, fortified, and houses a sizable 20k goblins that are, individually, all veterans of the war. A siege assault by isolated adventurers without preparation will likely result in failure. The recognition of the nation and the organization is likely to discourage mid-level adventurers in the same way that a random group of evil adventurers won't overtake the former Azure City - too risky, go pick on kobolds instead.

Team Peregrine/the Resistance is probably the biggest threat to the goblins at the moment, and that is only because they utilize guerilla warfare (from what we can infer of RC/Jirix's speech, they still haven't been discovered yet). The Resistance has the added advantage of knowing the city like the back of their hand (so they can hide within the goblin nation) and launching isolated attacks behind the goblin's backs. It's mainly this - and not that they're mid-level - that makes them so effective in the ensuing conflict.

In the end, I believe that without Xykon and Redcloak (and Tsukiko), Gobbotopia will survive on shaky grounds with an internal guerrilla operation, but will be relatively protected from intruding outside attacks.

Souhiro

2010-02-22, 10:33 AM

Jiryx was just "Another one" just before he O'chul incident, so I won't give him more than Lv-5

hamishspence

2010-02-22, 10:49 AM

According to DStP, Jirix was "just another hobgoblin cleric" here:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0459.html

Then he died, got raised, and promoted to Redcloak's second-in-command.

O-chul's killing of him was the second time, in strip, that he had died.

So, its possible he's a little higher level now.

Dark Matter

2010-02-22, 10:54 AM

Felyndiira

2010-02-22, 11:03 AM

Looking over the history... I don't think we've *ever* seen any Goblin other than RC show signs that he was over level 5. Most of them are throwing around level 2 (or at the very most, 3) spells. RC himself is thought to be level 15.

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0011.html) is a goblin at level 7, casting a fourth-level domain spell.

EDIT: My mistake. Assuming that he isn't a variant cleric with spontaneous evil domain and is more-or-less core only, he's at least level 9 as since he casted the domain spell twice (fourth and fifth level slots).

Ancalagon

2010-02-22, 11:03 AM

As I said... level 5s are quite decent characters (and also pretty powerful if compared to the "normal population").

slayerx

2010-02-22, 02:37 PM

That being said, though, Gobbotopia is nothing like a random encounter goblin camp, and will likely not be raided by random adventurers with any amount of certainty. A random camp is a scattered, isolated organization with minor fortifications and rare organization that a low-level adventurer can plow through quite easily, while Gobbotopia is both organized, fortified, and houses a sizable 20k goblins that are, individually, all veterans of the war. A siege assault by isolated adventurers without preparation will likely result in failure. The recognition of the nation and the organization is likely to discourage mid-level adventurers in the same way that a random group of evil adventurers won't overtake the former Azure City - too risky, go pick on kobolds instead.

Given the scenerio, it is far more likely that adventurers would join the resistance, and fight Guerrilla style... That's how i'd play it if this were a Dnd Campaign...

Though what level adventurers would take part in such a campaign i am uncertain... those around level 5 would probably find the exp most worthwhile; this scenerio would probably be too tough for anyone lower... Not so sure about those around lv 10; as in how low is the experience for the hobgoblins vs how many they would be killing; though there is a chance of them being enticed by possible left behind Lich treasure; and i'm not sure about any other experience they might be rewarded unrelated to killing... i would not expect parties over lv 10, since at that point the hobgoblins won't be giving any exp...

This is the guy who yelled for Xykon when OChul broke out? Tactically that was the best move he could make. On the other hand OChul one punched him, so he can't be all that high in level.
actually its been pointed out before that Jirix did take a dose of V's lightning... we never saw him heal himself, so it is possible that most of his HP was eaten away... the rest i would just call plot

Dark Matter

2010-02-22, 02:42 PM

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0011.html) is a goblin at level 7, casting a fourth-level domain spell.

EDIT: My mistake. Assuming that he isn't a variant cleric with spontaneous evil domain and is more-or-less core only, he's at least level 9 as since he casted the domain spell twice (fourth and fifth level slots).Thank you, but this stands out as the exception that proves the rule. It's the 11th comic with Rich very clearly playing with "funny trumps the rules".

If the goblin were a reoccurring character he'd be RC's 2nd in command, instead he's a one joke corpse. How reasonable is it for a 9th level cleric to be hanging around the early parts of the dungeon only to get one punched by a halfling's dagger?

The only 3rd level spell we've heard of is Animate Dead, and we've never even seen that. It's possible they have to do so from wands or something that RC has prepared.

veti

2010-02-22, 03:11 PM

The only 3rd level spell we've heard of is Animate Dead, and we've never even seen that. It's possible they have to do so from wands or something that RC has prepared.

One of RC's followers here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0465.html) casts "Cure Serious Wounds".

But given that seems to be the best he can do, and the other guy is stuck with "Cure Moderate", it seems likely he's no more than 5th level, 6th at the most.

veti

2010-02-22, 03:50 PM

That being said, though, Gobbotopia is nothing like a random encounter goblin camp, and will likely not be raided by random adventurers with any amount of certainty. A random camp is a scattered, isolated organization with minor fortifications and rare organization that a low-level adventurer can plow through quite easily, while Gobbotopia is both organized, fortified, and houses a sizable 20k goblins that are, individually, all veterans of the war.

It's not that unlike the previous hobgoblin fortifications in the mountains, except with better walls and more loot. We have no concrete information on whether or not these were previously subject to adventurer raids, but it seems pretty likely to me. The hobgoblins have a highly militaristic society - that kinda suggests they spend a lot of time thinking about fighting.

A siege assault by isolated adventurers without preparation will likely result in failure. The recognition of the nation and the organization is likely to discourage mid-level adventurers in the same way that a random group of evil adventurers won't overtake the former Azure City - too risky, go pick on kobolds instead.

Siege is hardly the stuff of adventures - you need an army, and I don't think I've ever heard of a D&D group with the attention span needed to sit patiently outside someone's walls for months or years on end anyway.

I don't agree that the recognition of the nation will mean anything. Well, it means that if those countries send officially-backed and sponsored armies to clean out Gobbotopia, that would be a war, not just a spat. But it really doesn't mean squat from the point of view of unofficial adventuring troops in search of XP and loot.

I think, for any party of any alignment that can put together enough levels and organisation to survive inside Gobbotopia for a week or so, it'll be the training ground of choice. And I think the governments of Cliffport et al are banking on that.

Felyndiira

2010-02-22, 06:13 PM

Given the scenerio, it is far more likely that adventurers would join the resistance, and fight Guerrilla style... That's how i'd play it if this were a Dnd Campaign...
Then again, most normal adventurers do not automatically look for a resistance when they attempt a raid. That's, of course, not accounting for the fact that the resistance is very well hidden and unlikely to show themselves at the precise time an adventuring party decides to arbitrarily raid the castle. This especially goes for adventurers below level 5 - encountering a highly organized band of 20k goblins leaves low levels dead.

Every time our adventuring parties in D&D go through goblin camps, we typically have to take them in small waves using the full benefit of cover. Here, you have an alerting system and tactics - imagine your level 4 party wizard trying to aim a grease against goblins standing 3 squares from each other, supported by clerics, with a gobbie wizard in the back casting dancing lights at the first chance he gets.

It's not that unlike the previous hobgoblin fortifications in the mountains, except with better walls and more loot. We have no concrete information on whether or not these were previously subject to adventurer raids, but it seems pretty likely to me. The hobgoblins have a highly militaristic society - that kinda suggests they spend a lot of time thinking about fighting.

Siege is hardly the stuff of adventures - you need an army, and I don't think I've ever heard of a D&D group with the attention span needed to sit patiently outside someone's walls for months or years on end anyway.

I don't agree that the recognition of the nation will mean anything. Well, it means that if those countries send officially-backed and sponsored armies to clean out Gobbotopia, that would be a war, not just a spat. But it really doesn't mean squat from the point of view of unofficial adventuring troops in search of XP and loot.

I think, for any party of any alignment that can put together enough levels and organisation to survive inside Gobbotopia for a week or so, it'll be the training ground of choice. And I think the governments of Cliffport et al are banking on that.

On the other hand, we also don't have enough information to discount the possibility that there weren't that many normal adventurer raids, nor any information on how organized the hobgoblins are before RC's takeover. A low level party, for one, would be slaughtered in a heartbeat if you're up against 100 goblins or so at once (and regardless of how much hide your rogue has, if you alerted the horde, it's not outside expectation for the goblins to mobilize at high force to smoke out the invaders), and any adventurer high enough to stand a reasonable chance of overpowering a small legion is wasting time fighting 1 HD hobgoblins.

The nation-backed means little in terms of nations actually sending support, but recognition is part of what separates a random camp of [creature here]s and an officially recognized nation that the adventurers are not supposed to attack. Pretty much similar to why most adventurers would not attack the impoverished kingdom in the north for XP and treasure - it's a politically recognized entity in the world now, and thus becomes the quest giver instead of the questee.

And the challenge, of course, is surviving in Gobbotopia for about a week. Team Peregrine and the resistance could do it because they are Azurites (and friends) - they know the place better than the goblins do, have connections, can stake out in the middle of enemy territory, and attack primarily in short bursts (it also helps that they were formerly led by Haley, who could take out three hobgoblins per attack and has an high AC). An adventuring blindly going into the tower, on the other hand, suffers from the necessity of stealth (penalties to move silently becomes an instant threat), fear of survival (remember: organization. A low-level party does not survive a goblin zerg rush with longbow-men/swordsmen that easily), and the difficulties of overcoming enemy fortifications that makes raiding a level-appropriate kobold camp much better.

That, and it's not worth it if you're level 10 or so. Killing one umber hulk is worth more EXP than raiding a camp of hobgoblins that, organization aside, are mostly 1 HD and worthless.

slayerx

2010-02-22, 07:16 PM

Then again, most normal adventurers do not automatically look for a resistance when they attempt a raid. That's, of course, not accounting for the fact that the resistance is very well hidden and unlikely to show themselves at the precise time an adventuring party decides to arbitrarily raid the castle. This especially goes for adventurers below level 5 - encountering a highly organized band of 20k goblins leaves low levels dead.

Every time our adventuring parties in D&D go through goblin camps, we typically have to take them in small waves using the full benefit of cover. Here, you have an alerting system and tactics - imagine your level 4 party wizard trying to aim a grease against goblins standing 3 squares from each other, supported by clerics, with a gobbie wizard in the back casting dancing lights at the first chance he gets.
There is a huge difference between Gobbotopia and a goblin camp... They would not treat this like a goblin camp, but more like an evil aligned city... and if a party was willing to raid an evil aligned city, the DM would probably give him self a concussion from how hard he facepalms himself...

no adventurer would be stupid enough to just charge into the city and start killing goblins; that would be suicide... they would make it their first priority to locate any resistance group or a place where they can always retreat to when things get to hot for them... they would make sure they were never fighting more than a dozen or so goblins at a time (depending on level), and would retreat before they could send hundreds after them. A lot of it would be about being stealthy, and relying on surprise attacks... hell if PC races are not outright banned from entering Goobotopia, the first thing a party would do is just walk/sneak through the city, keeping a low profile until they can find a way to contact the resistance

and as :elan: would probably tell you, the chance that a party of adventurers finds, helps, and/or is saved by the local resistance is quite high. :smalltongue:

Felyndiira

2010-02-22, 07:35 PM

There is a huge difference between Gobbotopia and a goblin camp... They would not treat this like a goblin camp, but more like an evil aligned city... and if a party was willing to raid an evil aligned city, the DM would probably give him self a concussion from how hard he facepalms himself

no adventurer would be stupid enough to just charge into the city and start killing goblins; that would be suicide... they would make it their first priority to locate any resistance group or a place where they can always retreat to when things get to hot for them... they would make sure they were never fighting more than a dozen or so goblins at a time (depending on level), and would retreat before they could send hundreds after them. A lot of it would be about being stealthy, and relying on surprise attacks... hell if PC races are not outright banned from entering Goobotopia, the first thing a party would do is just walk/sneak through the city, keeping a low profile until they can find a way to contact the resistance

and as :elan: would probably tell you, the chance that a party of adventurers finds, helps, and/or is saved by the local resistance is quite high. :smalltongue:

We're looking at adventurers that aren't backed by knowledgeable players. It's true that they won't barge in through the front door, but to a layperson that is not a bard with good checks, it's not common to expect every evil city you find to contain a workable and still threatening resistance., nor should they be expecting that plot will guide them to a just sane enough resistance NPC that will install them into a working order and give them tasks with always appropriate CR.

Elan's dramatic convention also works best for plot-central characters. Random adventurers that are not either OotS or Celia would probably not be favored by plot and thus will not find the resistance without the guidance of a DM. Since there are no players in OotS, said guiding DM is not existent (and the resistance IS hard to find).

Being stealthy, too, requires checks, with the consequence of a failed check being pretty much death. It's a good reason for why adventurers don't quest in Menzoberranzan at level 5 - the point at which an adventurer is ready for a large-scale mission is when the party wizard starts being able to divine properly, when the party's wealth is adequate to prepare themselves for diverse situations, when the party has enough resources to find out enough information about their target, etc. - expecting that your medium-armored level 4 cleric to make move silently/hide checks all the way is at best risky in a evil-dominated city.

And as we have already established, level 10+ gain little by raiding Azure City, so higher-level adventurers will only skirmish Azure City out of duty.

veti

2010-02-22, 08:22 PM

A low level party, for one, would be slaughtered in a heartbeat if you're up against 100 goblins or so at once (and regardless of how much hide your rogue has, if you alerted the horde, it's not outside expectation for the goblins to mobilize at high force to smoke out the invaders), and any adventurer high enough to stand a reasonable chance of overpowering a small legion is wasting time fighting 1 HD hobgoblins.

Yee-es, up to a point. But there's a sweet spot between extremes where n hobgoblins is a level-appropriate encounter, for any given value of n. Given a party of, say, six 6th-level characters, 100 hobgoblins - including the statutory 5 3rd-level sergeants and three 5th-6th level officers - would be challenging, but manageable, so long as Tsukiko doesn't show up.

The nation-backed means little in terms of nations actually sending support, but recognition is part of what separates a random camp of [creature here]s and an officially recognized nation that the adventurers are not supposed to attack.

You might think that, and it might even be true, but in-comic we have zero evidence to support the theory that "officially recognised" means anything more than "yes, we will listen to your ambassadors - before impaling them."

Pretty much similar to why most adventurers would not attack the impoverished kingdom in the north for XP and treasure - it's a politically recognized entity in the world now, and thus becomes the quest giver instead of the questee.

"Impoverished", by definition, implies that it's not the best place to go looking for treasure. And as for XP, many adventurers will shun XP sources that have adverse effects on their alignment. Even those that don't, will tend to keep quiet about it for fear of the social repercussions when they get home. None of which applies to Gobbotopia.

A low-level party does not survive a goblin zerg rush with longbow-men/swordsmen that easily), and the difficulties of overcoming enemy fortifications that makes raiding a level-appropriate kobold camp much better.

True, but with a nice safe place for goblinoids to go and breed, it's only a matter of time before "level-appropriate kobold camps" have all moved to Gobbotopia. Or Gobbotopia has come to them - as I keep saying, the place is inherently expansionist - it's quite literally built into its genetics.

Dark Matter

2010-02-22, 10:50 PM

no adventurer would be stupid enough to just charge into the city and start killing goblins; that would be suicide... Depends on the level, and how brutal you're willing to be.

Symbol of Insanity + Overland Flight + Invisibility and boom, no more city.

Granted, you probably won't get much experience for it, but it'd get the job done.

SoC175

2010-02-23, 01:39 AM

Every time our adventuring parties in D&D go through goblin camps, we typically have to take them in small waves using the full benefit of cover.
More precisely: every time our adventuring parties in D&D go through a humanoid camp/lair they don't really go through a real humanoid camp/lair as it should be, but through the illusion of said humanoid camp/lair that only has a population up to an reasonable encounter level for their current level.

When first level parties attack the lair of the Acidmaw-kobold-tribe (numbering 1,000 members, half of that capable of fighting them off), they koboblds somehow still have the courtesy to only attack them in no more than EL5 encounters and the PCs have soon cleared the "entire" lair while actually having killed less than 50 kobolds.

You don't usually play "Ok, you attack the lair of the acidmaw-tribe, you're surrounded by 300 kobold warriors. Roll initiative"

Souhiro

2010-02-23, 07:09 AM

hamishspence

2010-02-23, 07:15 AM

In the short term.

In the long term, by fighting alongside Redcloak, and eventually dying in battle, he proved himself to be deserving of more responsibility- thus, he got raised (or possibly resurrected) and put in a position of power.

Question is- has he gained combat power as well over time?

Tsukiko was the one sent to attack The Resistance in strip- but maybe Jirix was with other attack forces, before and after then.

Optimystik

2010-02-23, 08:36 AM

What?
Dying and getting raised is something that levels you DOWN! Less spells, less BAB, less Saving Throw...

I agree, he's weaker now - which is a good thing; if he were stronger Xykon might want him along with them instead of running Gobbotopia, especially since he's second in line for the Cloak (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0662.html) in Xykon's mind.

Asta Kask

2010-02-23, 11:46 AM

no adventurer would be stupid enough to just charge into the city and start killing goblins; that would be suicide...

You clearly haven't played with my group. Oh, dear... :smallsmile:

veti

2010-02-23, 04:45 PM

I agree, he's weaker now - which is a good thing; if he were stronger Xykon might want him along with them instead of running Gobbotopia, especially since he's second in line for the Cloak (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0662.html) in Xykon's mind.

Xykon's exact threat is: "... and give your cloak to that hobgoblin." He doesn't even know Jirix's name. He's only "second in line" because he was the nearest hobgoblin who'd made a favourable impression on Xykon within his recent memory, something that Xykon has probably forgotten already.

I don't think Xykon would take Jirix along from choice. He's never going to be able to trust any cleric completely, because their first loyalty will always be to their god, not to him. He only trusts Redcloak as far as he does because he (Redcloak) has invested heavily in Xykon. Much better off with Tsukiko, who seems to be unencumbered by any diverging scruples or loyalties.

Souhiro

2010-03-03, 05:28 AM

Xykon don't give a dammn for nobody. He calls redcloak by a nickname, not wanting to learn his name. He just needed an army, so he got one.

He didn't bother to remember Roy's name, altough he destroyed his body once and thwarted his plans at Dorukan's. And he didn't seem to bother about Vaarsuvius once S/He retired.

So, if Redcloak would meet the blade of a fleshgrinder sword, Xykon just only grab the crimsom mantle and give it to the first goblin he would see. Cleric or not cleric.
Well, after think it over a bit... I doubt he would grab the mantle by himself. He would raise Redcloak as a zombie, would make it hand over the mantle to another goblin, and then, throw the RedCloak-Zombie into the fleshgrinder again, just for the show.

Manga Shoggoth

2010-03-03, 08:03 AM

Xykon don't give a dammn for nobody. He calls redcloak by a nickname, not wanting to learn his name. He just needed an army, so he got one.

While I can't argue your other points (and indeed Xykon's attitude to other people), this is a little unfair to Xykon (SOD Spoilers):

He uses an alias for Redcloak because Redcloak introduced himself by that alias. Xykon has no reason not to think it is not Redcloak's real name.

It is true that Redcloak used an alias rather than give a long title (and hit Xykon's boredom threshold), but that's another matter.

Kish

2010-03-03, 01:06 PM

While I can't argue your other points (and indeed Xykon's attitude to other people), this is a little unfair to Xykon (SOD Spoilers):

He uses an alias for Redcloak because Redcloak introduced himself by that alias. Xykon has no reason not to think it is not Redcloak's real name.

It is true that Redcloak used an alias rather than give a long title (and hit Xykon's boredom threshold), but that's another matter.

And Redcloak's brother said, "My name's not Right-Eye," and Xykon just went right on calling him Right-Eye. So...I'm inclined to think Xykon knows, if he's ever thought about it at all, that Redcloak isn't the name Redcloak was born with. "Don't confuse not caring with not knowing," and all that. And even if Xykon doesn't know Redcloak isn't the name Redcloak was born with, I'd give Xykon no credit for it, in light of the example of Redcloak's brother.

Manga Shoggoth

2010-03-03, 05:30 PM

That's a fair point, Kish. However I suspect that Right-Eye's comment was an aside (and cut off by Redcloak), so Xykon could not be expected to hear/remember it.

Of course, with his attitudes there's no way of telling...

Souhiro

2010-03-11, 05:02 AM

Well, it seems that RedCloack won't lift a finger (at first) in order to stop the new rebellion.

In a few strips we will see if Jiryx is a lousy leader, or just a lousy hobgoblin

Garwain

2010-03-11, 05:19 AM

Shouldn't it be "... of which at least one side appears to be black at least once"?

Hmm no, that would be the philosopher , not the mathematician.

Having six 9th level-ish characters taking on an army of 20,000+, even if parceled out over time and not all of once, is something that may or may not be mechanically possible from within the D&D ruleset.
Sure it's possible. Just clean out the sewers: fresh hobgob seaching parties every day. If they send the fresh meat in, the 9th-level group can take them one by one (probably backed-up with a crate of potions). If they don't send them in, then the phylactery will never be found.

Morthis

2010-03-11, 08:01 AM

Hmm no, that would be the philosopher , not the mathematician.

Sure it's possible. Just clean out the sewers: fresh hobgob seaching parties every day. If they send the fresh meat in, the 9th-level group can take them one by one (probably backed-up with a crate of potions). If they don't send them in, then the phylactery will never be found.

Of all the things you could try to do without Xykon caring, that's not one of them. As soon as you start killing the search parties, Xykon is pretty much guaranteed to get involved, which would be the death of said party.

DeltaEmil

2010-03-11, 08:07 AM

Of all the things you could try to do without Xykon caring, that's not one of them. As soon as you start killing the search parties, Xykon is pretty much guaranteed to get involved, which would be the death of said party.But will Xykon help the hobgoblin search teams eradicate the adventurers, or will he actually slay the hobgoblin search parties all together for being so useless in his eyes, and then send even more minions (really the entire city with all the patrolling guards) to look for it, and to never return until they've retrieved it?

Morthis

2010-03-11, 08:18 AM

But will Xykon help the hobgoblin search teams eradicate the adventurers, or will he actually slay the hobgoblin search parties all together for being so useless in his eyes, and then send even more minions (really the entire city with all the patrolling guards) to look for it, and to never return until they've retrieved it?

For any other mission, I'd say Xykon might just find it amusing to see adventurer parties wipe out goblins (especially based on what happened at the end of SoD), however we've seen just how angry he is about this situation. I can't imagine him standing by for this, I think he'd kill any party that opposes this search. If they want to kill goblins in Gobbotopia after the phylactery is recovered, he probably wouldn't care (in fact he'd probably TeeVoo it to watch it later).

DeltaEmil

2010-03-11, 08:43 AM

For any other mission, I'd say Xykon might just find it amusing to see adventurer parties wipe out goblins (especially based on what happened at the end of SoD), however we've seen just how angry he is about this situation. I can't imagine him standing by for this, I think he'd kill any party that opposes this search. If they want to kill goblins in Gobbotopia after the phylactery is recovered, he probably wouldn't care (in fact he'd probably TeeVoo it to watch it later).We must however remember that he's completely monstrous and doesn't care for the well-being of his minions.

The most likely thing he'd do is to destroy the entire city so that there's no building and street to block the view to the canalisation, and then send all surviving minions to search for it, be it a baby hobgoblin or an elderly tooth-less bugbear cripple. And for every day they don't find the phylactery, Xykon will encourage the minions by slaying a few hundreds of them each day indiscriminately.
Perhaps even humiliate Redcloak more, by forcing him to slay some of his fellow goblinoid brethrens too.

Aldrakan

2010-03-11, 04:15 PM

We must however remember that he's completely monstrous and doesn't care for the well-being of his minions.

The most likely thing he'd do is to destroy the entire city so that there's no building and street to block the view to the canalisation, and then send all surviving minions to search for it, be it a baby hobgoblin or an elderly tooth-less bugbear cripple. And for every day they don't find the phylactery, Xykon will encourage the minions by slaying a few hundreds of them each day indiscriminately.
Perhaps even humiliate Redcloak more, by forcing him to slay some of his fellow goblinoid brethrens too.

Yeah, except that that would be massively inefficient. Even for Xykon destroying a entire city would be a lot of work, and then he'd have to clear away all the rubble. And while the hobgoblins will put up with a lot, around the time he starts killing indiscriminately they'd run away, not hang around and hope he'll stop sometime.
Unless Xykon turns out to have researched "Wall of Force, But With Four Giant Walls" the only way to keep them there would be to start patrolling, corral them with undead, keep watch to stop them slipping away in the night. Organize things.
Boring.

It is actually much less work to have a group of people willingly helping you than to personally enslave them.

DeltaEmil

2010-03-11, 09:22 PM

Yeah, except that that would be massively inefficient. Even for Xykon destroying a entire city would be a lot of work, and then he'd have to clear away all the rubble. And while the hobgoblins will put up with a lot, around the time he starts killing indiscriminately they'd run away, not hang around and hope he'll stop sometime.
Unless Xykon turns out to have researched "Wall of Force, But With Four Giant Walls" the only way to keep them there would be to start patrolling, corral them with undead, keep watch to stop them slipping away in the night. Organize things.
Boring.

It is actually much less work to have a group of people willingly helping you than to personally enslave them.Xykon is always willing to go the extra mile. And as can be read in Start of Darkness, every goblinoid not working for him is working against him, even if they manage to flee for over 30 years...

At worst, a few hundred minions must be zombified to get the work done, but it would not be surprising if Xykon brutally punishes the hobgoblins and shouting the "You have failed me for the last time"-speech.

CrimsonAngel

2010-03-11, 09:25 PM

Without them, there would be no OOTS.

icastflare!

2010-03-11, 09:33 PM

Without them, there would be no OOTS.

its like the webcomic industry without the internet.

Morthis

2010-03-11, 09:45 PM

We must however remember that he's completely monstrous and doesn't care for the well-being of his minions.

The most likely thing he'd do is to destroy the entire city so that there's no building and street to block the view to the canalisation, and then send all surviving minions to search for it, be it a baby hobgoblin or an elderly tooth-less bugbear cripple. And for every day they don't find the phylactery, Xykon will encourage the minions by slaying a few hundreds of them each day indiscriminately.
Perhaps even humiliate Redcloak more, by forcing him to slay some of his fellow goblinoid brethrens too.

Yes he doesn't care about them, but he cares about his phylactery, in fact he cares an awful lot about it. You actually believe that if an adventurer party prevents him from finding it, he'll just sit back and wait? Considering he wasn't even willing to wait one night for the search party to start, there's just absolutely no way he would be willing to stand back and ignore people preventing him from finding his phylactery, especially since he could completely obliterate those people in a few rounds.

DeltaEmil

2010-03-11, 09:54 PM

Yes he doesn't care about them, but he cares about his phylactery, in fact he cares an awful lot about it. You actually believe that if an adventurer party prevents him from finding it, he'll just sit back and wait? Considering he wasn't even willing to wait one night for the search party to start, there's just absolutely no way he would be willing to stand back and ignore people preventing him from finding his phylactery, especially since he could completely obliterate those people in a few rounds.He wouldn't personally search the sewers. Also, if he finds out that the hobgoblins were having a party instead of searching, heads will roll and zombified. That's what minions are here for, and it doesn't matter if the delay was because they stopped working and were celebrating, or adventurers were hindering them.

Morthis

2010-03-11, 10:01 PM

He wouldn't personally search the sewers. Also, if he finds out that the hobgoblins were having a party instead of searching, heads will roll and zombified. That's what minions are here for, and it doesn't matter if the delay was because they stopped working and were celebrating, or adventurers were hindering them.

Except that in the case of a party, maybe some heads need to roll, whereas with the adventurers, there is literally nothing the goblins can do. Why in the world would Xykon not deal with the problem, when that's the only realistic solution to finding his phylactery? You actually think he'll just ignore it to teach the goblins a lesson, risking losing his phylactery? That notion to me is so absurd I can't even imagine why someone would consider it plausible.

DeltaEmil

2010-03-11, 10:50 PM

Except that in the case of a party, maybe some heads need to roll, whereas with the adventurers, there is literally nothing the goblins can do. Why in the world would Xykon not deal with the problem, when that's the only realistic solution to finding his phylactery? You actually think he'll just ignore it to teach the goblins a lesson, risking losing his phylactery? That notion to me is so absurd I can't even imagine why someone would consider it plausible.Sure they can do something about it. Work harder (as in, no resting ever), and throw more bodies at it, even if they die in the hundreds while combing for every inch in the canalisation, if the phylactery hasn't floated somewhere in the ocean. That's how he would deal with the problem, instead of mucking in the sewers searching for adventurers who hide and retreat constantly personally. At best, he'll tell the hobgoblins were the adventurers are hiding with his scrying tivo, but aside from that, he's busy creating new spells somewhere else and being too angry about losing his phylactery because of Redcloak. Planning and executing is something which Redcloak is responsible for.

Aldrakan

2010-03-11, 11:23 PM

DeltaEmil

2010-03-12, 12:57 AM

I do not remember seeing this terminally stupid and totally incapable of reacting to a situation Xykon you seem to have read about.
I mean you are aware that this method is moronic right? This is an approach that leads to him sending woefully underqualified minions to die over and over again and accomplish absolutely nothing.The same as throwing goblins against the gate in Dorukan's dungeon, I'd wager. Or zombifying ogres who want a little raise and making them worse monsters. Or using his paralysing touch just for fun on other goblins. Or killing hobgoblins applicating for the position as executioner because they spelt the word wrong.

Sure, it's marginally eviler to do it this way because it involves killing his own troops, and Xykon does like to do evil stuff. But he also wants to get this done, not sit around in the city slaughtering hobgoblins while the key to his immortality is in danger.Slaughtering hobgoblins just to scare the survivors into doing more work is absolutely in alignment with what he always does. Bonus point if he can coerce Redcloak to do that and make him feel bad for it (again).
He might do that too if he finds out that Redcloak temporarily halted the search for the phylactery just to throw a party.