Elan's contribution to the ambush

[Mike Havran]

So far, every member of the Order presented at the ambush did something cool and successful:

Haley made a difficult shot through the crowd of mummies and delivered smoke arrow that confused the Guild and led to Malack's separation.

Durkon emerged from the wall and dropped the holy bomb in the middle of the Guild, eliminating Sabine and Kilkil from the battle.

Belkar dropped from the ceiling on Nale, who is now probably very close to his death.

Roy destroyed five mummies with one kickass strike.

What about Elan? Is he just hiding somewhere, trying not to get involved? Or has he some ace up in his sleeve? What do you think?

I guess something about casting Mislead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mislead.htm) and going to help Durkon while the guild concentrates on the illusion.

[Winter]

He's the joker. The big surprise.

[Roland Itiative]

The most sensible decision would be for Roy to make sure Elan is nowhere near the ambush, considering his propensity for ruining plans, and general combat inefficiency (specially considering his pun-based powers probably don't work in people who can't hear the puns) :smalltongue:

[Lord Ensifer]

So far everyone's done something awesome, so it's definitely Elan's turn to do something. He can either do something awesome as well or stay out of people's way. But pointedly staying out of combat has already happened (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0851.html) pretty recently, so I think Elan will actively do something to contribute this time.

[Xelbiuj]

I think Elan is going to use illusions to "deal with" Malack. Though a mass cure light wounds he was building to wouldn't hurt.

[Peelee]

I think Elan is going to use illusions to "deal with" Malack. Though a mass cure light wounds he was building to wouldn't hurt.

Malack appears to have already been "dealt with," at least for the moment.

[Grape Starburst]

So far, every member of the Order presented at the ambush did something cool and successful:

Haley made a difficult shot through the crowd of mummies and delivered smoke arrow that confused the Guild and led to Malack's separation.

Durkon emerged from the wall and dropped the holy bomb in the middle of the Guild, eliminating Sabine and Kilkil from the battle.

Belkar dropped from the ceiling on Nale, who is now probably very close to his death.

Roy destroyed five mummies with one kickass strike.

What about Elan? Is he just hiding somewhere, trying not to get involved? Or has he some ace up in his sleeve? What do you think?

I guess something about casting Mislead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mislead.htm) and going to help Durkon while the guild concentrates on the illusion.

I had expected Roy to take advantage of the confusion caused by Haley's smoke and Durkon's Holy and have him have Elan add some illusions into the mix to at the least make thier confusion even worse and at best get them attacking each other.

[Fish]

If Elan could cast an illusion to make the Linear Guild look like the Order, it wouldn't be hard to make them attack each other. Tarquin might not fall for it, but the others might.

[rewinn]

One good illusion would be a hot red-haired female archer shooting into the smoke ... and standing clos to where the Angry Ax Killer is most likely to emerge from the cloud.
Reasons for:
* It wastes the AAK's attack round
* It's a very believable illusion because it has a very high Circumstances bonus ... the enemy already knows the Order has one
* Elan has a good idea what one looks like.

[Concept]

Elan could be held out for story reasons so they can get the combat out of the way before some plot driven interaction/confrontation between Elan and his father. But in character, since he's been held out so long, I'm half expecting Roy to have Elan use one of Nale's previous tricks against the Linear Guild.

(Of course, since this is Roy's ambush, he might try to keep Elan out of the way because he doesn't trust Elan to do anything right, but that gag feels a little overplayed.)

[Quakes]

Song of Discord. I would give Tarquin even odds of failing that save.

[Jay R]

"Ignore, ignore, ignore the bard's absence in this sequence."

[Forikroder]

One good illusion would be a hot red-haired female archer shooting into the smoke ... and standing clos to where the Angry Ax Killer is most likely to emerge from the cloud.
Reasons for:
* It wastes the AAK's attack round
* It's a very believable illusion because it has a very high Circumstances bonus ... the enemy already knows the Order has one
* Elan has a good idea what one looks like.

no way Tarquin would think Haley is anywhere but the max range of a longbow, the smoke cloud is significantly smaller then the max range of a longbow

plus Tarquin got a decent idea of where haley is from the first attack

Elan is probably far enough away from Haley that she still benefits from his song but far enough away that the LG cant hear him

[Alias]

One good illusion would be a hot red-haired female archer shooting into the smoke ... and standing clos to where the Angry Ax Killer is most likely to emerge from the cloud.
Reasons for:
* It wastes the AAK's attack round
* It's a very believable illusion because it has a very high Circumstances bonus ... the enemy already knows the Order has one
* Elan has a good idea what one looks like.

You could say that he knows the details intimately.

[Toy Killer]

I think a silent illusion of Tarquin attacking Nale would be straight brilliant. Nale's Deaf, so he couldn't hear illusion-Tarquin any way. Nale would believe his father would attack him at an opportune time (Even Sabrine was worried he out lived his usefulness to Tarquin) and once the spell is cleared, it leaves Nale wondering if his dad tried to take advantage of the smoke cloud and rid him for once and for all.

Malack would know better, sure, but Nale wouldn't. Plus, finally, it would show usefulness to Elan's dramatic knowledge skill, he knew that the helm had to be taken off at one point and it would be all dramatic and the one person they didn't want to fight yet: Tarquin.

[Zorgophlats]

Once Nale is out of the way, Elan impersonates Nale.

[Sorator]

I wonder how difficult it would be to have an illusion of Haley & Roy set up so that they're actually farther down the hallway than it appears? (And ideally several traps where they appear to be right now.) Elan might have already contributed to the ambush in that way.

[Beanjamish]

Remember that Tarquin has a Ring of True-Seeing. This will automatically see through any illusion magic the Order throws at him. Of course, the Order doesn't KNOW this, so might try illusions anyway.
(Not that Tarquin can tell the others it's an illusion at the moment)


I think a silent illusion of Tarquin attacking Nale would be straight brilliant. Nale's Deaf, so he couldn't hear illusion-Tarquin any way. Nale would believe his father would attack him at an opportune time (Even Sabrine was worried he out lived his usefulness to Tarquin) and once the spell is cleared, it leaves Nale wondering if his dad tried to take advantage of the smoke cloud and rid him for once and for all.

Malack would know better, sure, but Nale wouldn't. Plus, finally, it would show usefulness to Elan's dramatic knowledge skill, he knew that the helm had to be taken off at one point and it would be all dramatic and the one person they didn't want to fight yet: Tarquin.

The Order doesn't know this is Tarquin, just that it's not Thog. Roy wouldn't have a reason to ask Elan to cast this particular illusion, I think.

[Emperordaniel]

Once Nale is out of the way, Elan impersonates Nale.

Elan doesn't have the scraggly goatee Nale has. He could use Disguise Self, but the only one it'd possibly work on right now is Zz'dtri (who could be blind at this point, rendering that moot).

[WindStruck]

One idea I have is maybe Elan could have gave out neutralize poison buffs before-hand... it would definitely come in handy in case a crafty opponent has such tricks up his sleeve like that... but otherwise, still at a loss. :smallmad:

[Roderick_BR]

So far everyone's done something awesome, so it's definitely Elan's turn to do something. He can either do something awesome as well or stay out of people's way. But pointedly staying out of combat has already happened (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0851.html) pretty recently, so I think Elan will actively do something to contribute this time.
Kinda ironic that he could be inspiring his allies as he did back in the beggining of the comic, when Roy had to remind Durkon of the bonuses they get during it.

[Fish]

Beanjamish, that's exactly why a spell such as "Seeming" could cause such chaos. If you disguise Tarquin with an illusion to look like Roy ... it doesn't matter if Tarquin sees through it. The rest of the Linear Guys will attack Tarquin because they fell for it, Ring or no Ring.

[karkus]

Isn't it obvious already? Elan will "strangely" be secluded with Tarquin, and after a few rounds, Tarquin's helmet "strangely" falls off, and Elan must decide whether or not to kill his own father in a thematic way.

Although... The Giant DOES normally add a decent amount of plot-twists...

[ti'esar]

And so the answer was... nothing?

Huh.

[M.A.D]

He stayed out of the way, didn't he?

[Emperordaniel]

"Try try try, try not to get too much in anyone's way. Hooray, I did it!"

[Darakonis]

Elan disguised himself as Nale to infiltrate the Linear Guild. Tarquin just teleported away with Elan, not Nale.

*shrugs*

[dtilque]

And so the answer was... nothing?

Huh.

He couldn't find a plate glass window to jump through.

[Killer Angel]

And so the answer was... nothing?

Huh.

At least, they didn't use him to take cover (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ohk5Swy-04). That would have been worse. :smalltongue:

[theinsulabot]

Or possibly ethan was on the otherwise of that wall trap and is now stuck on malack's side.

[Ghosty]

Beanjamish, that's exactly why a spell such as "Seeming" could cause such chaos. If you disguise Tarquin with an illusion to look like Roy ... it doesn't matter if Tarquin sees through it. The rest of the Linear Guys will attack Tarquin because they fell for it, Ring or no Ring.

I really liked this suggestion, but would slightly alter it to have Elan place a disguise of V onto Tarquin. I doubt Z could resist blasting away at T after that. And I don't think T would put up with it very long. The flaw in this is that you'd expect a high-level party like the LG, penetrating an Illusion-heavy lair, to have multiple castings of True Seeing constantly active. It is kinda funny though, to think of Z spamming T with lots of Baleful Polymorph, Plane Shift, and Flesh to Stone spells.

As it is...? I have no idea what Elan is doing. You'd think he'd have made an appearance by now. And T's Ring of True Seeing should cut down on any disguise shenanigans. I like the idea raised in another thread that it's related to his "Secret Plan" hinted at in 836 and 837, but I still don't have an idea as to what that could be.

[Kish]

Or possibly ethan was on the otherwise of that wall trap and is now stuck on malack's side.
Before Roland shows up and Ethans us all, I would just like to say...

Ethan is not a member of the Order of the Stick.

[konradknox]

Part of me is hoping Elan will once more pick up the lute and do something epic.

So far, Elan sings humorous buff chants a la "bluff bluff bluff bluff the stupid ogre." But we've seen on occasion he's known to compose some legit ballad, like when he was trying to evacuate people from the Inn when "Kaboom" and his buddy created a bomb threat.
Also, Elan has a nack for having some immense negative influence on masses. Whenever he attempts public speaking, he actually switches from comic to a tragic actor, making the public slowly frown and depress. ("...in that case they will have taken both your lives and your freedom" and his "oppression and tyranny" speech during Tarquin's event.

So, my secret theory is that Elan's natural talent is not buffing, but debuffing. That would explain why he sucks at buff chants so hard.

But what I imagine for the final battle is a 3 or 4 panel comic which shows Elan striking a very different, new, disturbing, bothersome, DARK tune on his lute, the Elan we have never seen before, and singing an epic and terrifying ballad, in which he utterly destroys the inner worlds of his enemies, pinpointing all their downfalls, downsides, negative qualities, and failures. Something so demoralizing, that it imposes performance penalties necessary for the OOTS to beat the debuffed enemy.

Something so demoralizing, that it touches Xykon himself, in all his impotent inability to taste bad coffee.

[Sky_Schemer]

Roy's specific words were "Just hide where I tell you to hide".

So, the question to ask is, where is Elan hiding?

[Killer Angel]

Now, we know that the lack of contribution, wasn't his fault! :smallbiggrin:

[snikrept]

He couldn't find a plate glass window to jump through.

..and the corridor was too narrow to swing on a rope!

[Sky_Schemer]

This is what happens when you don't do an ambush montage.

[The Pilgrim]

So, Elan's contribution to the ambush was...

... to provide the punchline.

Very fitting.

[Anarion]

This is what happens when you don't do an ambush montage.

If they did an ambush montage, they would definitely have been creamed by Tarquin's group.

I'm actually starting to wonder if this arc is suggesting that Elan is not merely less of a hindrance when he stays out of the way, but is actually effective when he's passive. We saw that with Tarquin getting distracted waiting for an attack to counter and then got nailed by Roy and Belkar earlier, and then we saw this ambush work really well with Elan staying out of it.

[Snails]

If they did an ambush montage, they would definitely have been creamed by Tarquin's group.

I'm actually starting to wonder if this arc is suggesting that Elan is not merely less of a hindrance when he stays out of the way, but is actually effective when he's passive. We saw that with Tarquin getting distracted waiting for an attack to counter and then got nailed by Roy and Belkar earlier, and then we saw this ambush work really well with Elan staying out of it.

The point I think is to highlight that Tarquin may possibly be the most competent individual in the whole OotsVerse, but he also has one glaring weakness: Elan (and Nale perhaps). Tarquin is so self-centered and so overthinks his importance to The Story that he cannot imagine Elan as anything other than the Main Protagonist.

This is, what, the third time Tarquin has said aloud that indicates he believes Elan to the real cheese in the Order, even as it seems to be dawning on him that Roy is calling the shots? Tarquin often deceives by misdirection and omission but he does not lie about these kinds of things.

[snikrept]

It seems kind of like Tarquin thinks Elan is the lieutenant and Roy is the sergeant as far as battle orders go.

[Mike Havran]

It seems kind of like Tarquin thinks Elan is the lieutenant and Roy is the sergeant as far as battle orders go.

I see it in similar way. I think Tarquin sees Roy as a capable battle tactic, and Elan as an even more capable leader, the one who knows when to let his battle tactic take the helm.

Tarquin, being always on the safer side, overestimates the Order's overall efficiency and ability.

[Caractacus]

I see it in similar way. I think Tarquin sees Roy as a capable battle tactic, and Elan as an even more capable leader, the one who knows when to let his battle tactic take the helm.

Tarquin, being always on the safer side, overestimates the Order's overall efficiency and ability.

You mean battle tactician, yes?

I think you are pretty much on the money with your assessment.

[Mike Havran]

You mean battle tactician, yes?


Tactician it is. Thanks :smallsmile:

[ManuelSacha]

If they were planning to deafen the enemies AND Belkar, Elan would have been quite useless in that fight.

The enemy wouldn't hear his puns, and Belkar wouldn't hear his buff song.

I guess Roy decided that sending Elan into the fray just to give Durkon a mild buff was an unnecessary risk, 'cause Elan might have gotten himself squashed.

I don't understand why not try an illusion, though. Between the traps and the effects of Holy Word, an illusion would have made the enemies even more confused.

[Mr. Pants]

So far, every member of the Order presented at the ambush did something cool and successful:

Haley made a difficult shot through the crowd of mummies and delivered smoke arrow that confused the Guild and led to Malack's separation.

Durkon emerged from the wall and dropped the holy bomb in the middle of the Guild, eliminating Sabine and Kilkil from the battle.

Belkar dropped from the ceiling on Nale, who is now probably very close to his death.

Roy destroyed five mummies with one kickass strike.

What about Elan? Is he just hiding somewhere, trying not to get involved? Or has he some ace up in his sleeve? What do you think?

I guess something about casting Mislead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mislead.htm) and going to help Durkon while the guild concentrates on the illusion.

Actually, this was lampshaded in the latest strip...:smallamused:

[brilliantlight]

Part of me is hoping Elan will once more pick up the lute and do something epic.

So far, Elan sings humorous buff chants a la "bluff bluff bluff bluff the stupid ogre." But we've seen on occasion he's known to compose some legit ballad, like when he was trying to evacuate people from the Inn when "Kaboom" and his buddy created a bomb threat.
Also, Elan has a nack for having some immense negative influence on masses. Whenever he attempts public speaking, he actually switches from comic to a tragic actor, making the public slowly frown and depress. ("...in that case they will have taken both your lives and your freedom" and his "oppression and tyranny" speech during Tarquin's event.

So, my secret theory is that Elan's natural talent is not buffing, but debuffing. That would explain why he sucks at buff chants so hard.

But what I imagine for the final battle is a 3 or 4 panel comic which shows Elan striking a very different, new, disturbing, bothersome, DARK tune on his lute, the Elan we have never seen before, and singing an epic and terrifying ballad, in which he utterly destroys the inner worlds of his enemies, pinpointing all their downfalls, downsides, negative qualities, and failures. Something so demoralizing, that it imposes performance penalties necessary for the OOTS to beat the debuffed enemy.

Something so demoralizing, that it touches Xykon himself, in all his impotent inability to taste bad coffee.


I think that would be cool but it would be tragic for poor Elan. He would be worried sick that he is actually evil. After all it is EVIL characters that are more likely to go the dark tune route. Elan knows this due to his genre savvy. He might be an idiot overall but no one beats him in that area!

[Mr. Pants]

Ah yes, I'm sure that he would freak out if he did something like that...:eek:

[fictionfan]

I personally like to think that he was singing a bard song that gave everyone bonus that they just didn't mention.