#448 longer?

[GoC]

Yes, #448 was good but would including some more paladin fight panels, having a few more make their will saves and in general slow down the lightning fast pace of this strip, have raised it from "Standard (good) OotS strip." to "Really EPIC! One of the best OotS strips!"?

Maybe the fact that Rich did a bit too well in creating unique and likable paladins has caused this...

[Da Luniz]

he had them beaten with a SUPER BALL!!!

showing them making will saves and fighting more would have been cruel

the swift and merciful end was better for them all

[FujinAkari]

The problem with making it longer is that it will do two things:

1) Make Xykon seem weaker. I mean, really, what self respecting 18th level Sorcerer-Lich has trouble with a bunch of 6 - 8th level Paladins?
2) Makes people afraid Xykon might lose. The longer the fight goes, the less one-sided it is, and Xykon is the VILLIAN, he should not create empathy. People might love to hate him, but people should not be rooting for him. -any- battle where one character is overwhelmed and assaulted by a horde will create empathy for that character, and thus such a situation has to be minimized.

[CardinalFang]

Yeah, I kind of thought that it was done to show that he basically killed them all in the amount of time it took for a superball to bounce around the room, i.e. not that long.

[Dervag]

Personally, I think it was a little too easy, allowing Xykon to blitz them all with negligible effort. He should have had to sweat a little (metaphorically speaking) to hack his way through the mooks, instead of being able to one-shot the entire Order except for its senior officers using a single spell.

For dramatic purposes, that was an anticlimax.

[FujinAkari]

For dramatic purposes, that was an anticlimax.

And this is why you will continue to have problems. This comic is, first and foremost, a comic about D&D. It isn't a drama. In D&D, the PC's (which no one in that room was) are thrust into the rolls of heroes, saving the world from <insert threat here>. Non-player characters CANNOT save the world by themselves, and the story makes this abundantly clear. This is -why- Roy got so much more screen time, because he is the focus, not the Sapphire Guard. The story always will return to the OOTS and their enemies. Allies are there to advance the story, nothing more.

[Dolash]

For dramatic purposes, that was an anticlimax.

Goodness no, I wouldn't call it that at all.

It's anticlimactic for us right now, maybe, who had to wait a day or two filled with speculation and wonder as to just what's going to happen next, but once all the story's been collected together and you can read it as one complete arc it'll make sense simply because a larger, more exciting climax will exist to overshadow it. This fight scene - though incredibly done, considering the sheer amount of work it'd take to portray all those Paladins as much as he did - was more for the purpose of building up to the final climax than being said climax itself, and thus couldn't be an anticlimax.

[Lemur]

I think one of the things about Xykon's character is that things are supposed to be easy for him. He's a high level lich in a world without a lot of characters who match him in power. This is why he never takes anything seriously, and how he can act so nonchalantly even when it concerns his goals. Besides, it's not time for a climax yet- Xykon has to actually screw with the gate first.

[Icewalker]

DnD is the land of anticlimaxes. I mean really. The DM spends a while building up some great villain, gets some character in, comes up with a way for him to escape so that he can be a returning enemy, sets up some nice foreshadowing for a big fight with the PCs, then they show up and get some critical hit or a well-thought out spell and he goes down.

I'd say this is quite awesome, and I agree with the others here pointing out that Xykon should be able to slaughter a load of lowish level paladins, he's epic. It'd be odd if he couldn't shred em that fast.

[Dolash]

I've been reading the comment thread, and the common complaint seems to be "Nice comic, but I'd have rather seen him fight it out with the Paladins for a few rounds."

Just why people would rather see it runs the gamut from a love of good-guys to a belief that 43 Paladins should pose a threat to a single lich to expectations of climax. It may just be people saw it as the opposite of when OOTS burst into Xykon's lair, and expected a similar amount of fighting.

The counter to this argument is pretty straightforwards regardless of their reason, however - Xykon said it himself. He could have flown up towards the ceiling and burned a few maximized fireballs down below, and to be honest, there wasn't much practicle way they could have threatened him anyways. Heck, if he'd prepared the Wail of the Banshee he could have dropped almost all of them in one spell.

If anything, the way he did things with the bouncy ball was the longest and most dramatic way to make this fight go. It was creative, moving, and destructive beyond a fiery explosion. I love good guys, but I just knew it was a bad idea to stick them in Xykon's way and this was the coolest way for them to go.

[darkelf]

feh. mooks are fer slaughterin'.

[brian c]

he had them beaten with a SUPER BALL!!!

showing them making will saves and fighting more would have been cruel

the swift and merciful end was better for them all

Also, you have to figure that it's pretty unlikely they would make their saves. Symbol of Insanity is a 8th level spell, so the save DC is 18+ Xykon's Cha mod. His Cha is a minimum of 19 (cast meteor swarm) and as people have pointed out on the boards before, a level 18+ sorceror probably has about 24-30 charisma, including magic items. If he has 24, that's a +7 and the save DC is 25, will. Paladins have a low will save. The highest level paladin there is O-Chul at maybe level 10 (+3 will save) and the rest are probably 4-8ish, which are +1 or +2. I think it's safe to assume that no Paladin there has higher than 16 wisdom, and most probably only have a +1 or +2 mod. Without +will save items or feats, any of the paladins who saw the ball could have at most a +4 or +5 will save, which means they'd need a 20 to pass the save. So 5% of the strongest paladins back there (level8 with 16 wisdom, which there can't be many of) succeeded, and any of the lower levels couldn't have. With the way that ball is bouncing, they'd pretty much all see it.

[NovaSeaker]

Just a little note, Brian, but you're forgetting about Divine Grace. Add approximate Charisma scores of 14-18 (with magic items), and you're looking at a 16+ needed to save.

Still not enough to avert the disaster, but about a fourth of them should have made their saves.

[tanonev]

Out of curiosity, if the room is large enough, won't the bouncy ball bounce in and out of range of each paladin? If so, then does each paladin have to save again every time the ball bounces back? (The rules say you have to save every time you walk out and back into the range, but it doesn't say anything about the range itself moving.) If so, then that would explain why so few paladins made their save. That also makes me that much more scared of Rich as a DM o.o

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Please feel free to discuss this in the official #448 thread. Thanks.