OOTS #1014 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

[Mordae]

That could be a really painful way to go... being bitten to death by a thousand rodent teeth... :smalleek:

[ThePhantom]

Well, at least the sense of pain will let V know that something is very wrong down there.

[Origamite]

Are we going to get a vampire-tiger?
(Also, love the quip about Bloodfeast's mini-ed but still dinosaur teeth being sharp.)

[YossarianLives]

I love Mr. Scruffy slaying the rat in the third panel.

[Lexible]

Rats. Why did it have to be rats?

[Lord Ruby34]

I love Blackwing. Really, sometimes that bird is my favorite character in the comic.

[Abd al-Azrad]

I'm impressed that a vampire can cackle and drink blood at the same time. Must be one of their ridiculously broad set of powers.

Also, we still don't have a reliable counter to a vampire cleric in the OotS-verse, do we? They seem almost impossible to put down, or even slow down, without special circumstances in our heroes' favour.

[KorvinStarmast]

The line about an airship being infested with pigeons was very good!

There are two mechanical issues about this


The TP globe turning gaseous? (Is attunement not a 3.5 feature?)
And more pressing ...Once the vampire leaves, why would the rats remain? He summoned them, as vampires can, but doesn't he need to be around to direct them? (Then again, if he summoned hungry rats maybe it would not matter).


A discriminating rat epicure would like an answer to the following question:

Does an elf wizard's familiar taste like chicken?

[Mith]

I hope Blackwing survives.

[Porthos]

Raven Boy Who Cried Wolf reference.

Exquisite. :smallcool:

[Psyren]

Dang vampires, even with no spells they get all tricky...

Poor Mr. Whiskers, I hope he's okay :smallfrown:

But how can V save them? A blast would risk frying our furry friends and a swarm is tough to deal with otherwise.

[Giggling Ghast]

That's actually a pretty dire situation.

I think being eaten by rats is pretty high on the 'worst ways to die' list.

[Peelee]

Rats. Why did it have to be rats?

I believe you win the thread.

[Shekinah]

I love the little "No fair!" that the vampire exclaims when the rats get stomped on. I mean, vampires are always known for playing by the rules.

[Flemkopf]

Wow, I hope that our favorite tiger is all right. That would be a really painful way to go, getting all the blood sucked out of you and then getting eaten by rats. Speaking of which, can animals become vampires? Do the become vampire spawn? Do they just stay dead?

[Abd al-Azrad]

The TP globe turning gaseous? (Is attunement not a 3.5 feature?)
And more pressing ...Once the vampire leaves, why would the rats remain? He summoned them, as vampires can, but doesn't he need to be around to direct them? (Then again, if he summoned hungry rats maybe it would not matter).


1. I'm betting it's something like, "The subject and all its gear become insubstantial, misty, and translucent. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gaseousForm.htm)" Vampires turn to mist as per Gaseous Form, so I presume that as soon as it picked up the orb, the orb became a possession of the Vampire's, and is now part of the spell's target.

2. The summoned Children of the Night must serve the summoning Vampire for one hour (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm). The Vampire could easily just leave them with a simple command ("attack everyone you see") and then leave those as standing orders. You are correct that the Vampire can't direct them to take new actions, but they'll continue to follow whatever they were last told to do until they succeed.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Uh oh, poor Blackwing. :smalleek:

[CoffeeIncluded]

Uh-oh. Yeah, this is bad. And actually really nightmarish to contemplate. If nothing else V will absolutely notice Blackwing being attacked!

Ah, this brings back memories of when the wizard's familiar was attacked by another familiar in the middle of the night. That was astonishingly tense for a scuffle between a weasel and a snake.
EDIT: I also just noticed the pigeon reference--hah!

[Alex Warlorn]

One is a familiar and the other is an animal companion, they can handle one stupid Rat Swarm.

[Draconium]

I think that our favorite tiger will be all right - his eyes aren't X-ed out, are they? Though I really do hope that the pets survive the rat attack. They're some of the best characters. :smalltongue:

[KorvinStarmast]

1. I'm betting it's something like, "The subject and all its gear become insubstantial, misty, and translucent. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gaseousForm.htm)" Vampires turn to mist as per Gaseous Form, so I presume that as soon as it picked up the orb, the orb became a possession of the Vampire's, and is now part of the spell's target.I guess that's a "no" on attunement. Good enough, he need not use it, just include it in his kit. Thanks.

2. The summoned Children of the Night must serve the summoning Vampire for one hour (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm). The Vampire could easily just leave them with a simple command ("attack everyone you see") and then leave those as standing orders. Thank you, makes sense and good to go.

As to Blackwing, I think that this weekend the beer and wings vendors at the various arenas for gladiator contests need a new flavor:
Black Wings. :smallyuk:
(@Lord Ruby34: Nobody loves a drama queen).

[Professor Gnoll]

Surely such a commotion will allow the rest of the Oots to smell a rat?

[Lord Torath]

Aww, poor Whiskers! But no X's in the eyes, so he's still alive! But the ultra bauble's been stolen!

[KorvinStarmast]

Surely such a commotion will allow the rest of the Oots to smell a rat?Only if they didn't bathe, or ate a load of beans before this summons.

[grandpheonix]

Round 1 v teleports in.
Round 2 v cast chain lightning.
Round 3 his soul gets grabbed again.

[Abd al-Azrad]

One is a familiar and the other is an animal companion, they can handle one stupid Rat Swarm.

And the two others are an animal companion and a Tyrannosaur. There are tons of hit points for those rats to burn through before anyone is in mortal peril.

Still though. Not fun being eaten by swarms of vermin.

[Telwar]

One is a familiar and the other is an animal companion, they can handle one stupid Rat Swarm.

I suspect the cat could handle the rat swarm by himself; while rats can dogpile (sorry) a cat in numbers, Mr. Scruffy's got what, 8 hit dice? He should be fine, so long as Belkar's alive.

...which he is, I can't imagine that he'd be killed off-screen.

[Alfa]

A tense situation made with rats (when the PCs are over level 15 probably), awesome. You cannot forget such classic monsters even at high levels.

[KorvinStarmast]

I can't imagine that he'd be killed off-screen. I can, but with the content stretch required to achieve the objectives stated, the interlude to examine in detail the Belkar versus Gravity situation is more likely.

More importantly, Rich saves some of his best wisecracks for Belkar. This situation is a great set up for at least one outstanding wisecrack on the way out the door. It's just not a Belkar moment without a wiseacre remark.

[Ivrytwr]

This is the part where the heroes burst in just in time to save the plucky side-kicks, but too late to stop the villian's henchman? I hope so, it would be a dark day if Blackwing is nibbled to death!
Plus got my calendar ordered!
Thanks Giant!

[memnarch]

Round 1 v teleports in.
Round 2 v cast chain lightning.
Round 3 his soul gets grabbed again.

V can't teleport.

[Knight.Anon]

Bloodfeast The Extreme-inator still lives under his generic lizard thing exterior.

[Pendulous]

Is...is panel three a Futurama reference?

[Lheticus]

Round 1 v teleports in.
Round 2 v cast chain lightning.
Round 3 his soul gets grabbed again.

Oh Hel no.

[DataNinja]

Ah... So that's why Gontor's eyes were glowing!

[Lord Stoneheart]

Is...is panel three a Futurama reference?

I think it's just a reference to pigeons being considered to be bird vermin?

In any case, a swarm of rats is pretty terrifying way to go. Though that empathetic link should be telling V some very different things now.

I do find Vampire Gontor's willingness to embrace a loophole pretty interesting though. I mean sucking anything's blood would be a pretty big sign that the Durkon has betrayed the Order. Maybe since he hasn't drank yet his thirst is too overwhelming to really think that through? (The first thing that Malack ordered Vampire Durkon to do was to not drain Belkar's blood completely.

[Elenna]

Round 1 v teleports in.
Round 2 v cast chain lightning.
Round 3 his soul gets grabbed again.

I doubt the IFCC will want to waste one of their remaining two soul-grabbing opportunities to prevent V from saving the animal companions.

[Zweisteine]

The TP globe turning gaseous? (Is attunement not a 3.5 feature?)


Attunement is not a feature of 3.5e (there are some vaguely similar mechanics for certain types of items (relics and weapons of legacy), but those aren't so common, and the mechanic is only vaguely similar, and not necessarily limited to any number of items).

If you pick up a magic item, you can use it if you know how.

But in any case, even if it did require attainment, why wouldn't it become gaseous? Nothing would keep it from being carried, and if you teleport, things you carry tend to as well.



And more pressing ...Once the vampire leaves, why would the rats remain? He summoned them, as vampires can, but doesn't he need to be around to direct them? (Then again, if he summoned hungry rats maybe it would not matter).

Well, in the case of a normal summon, it would continue to obey its last command. Summon swarm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/summonSwarm.htm), however, is a bit different, in that the caster has no control over the summoned swarm; it just attacks the nearest living creature.


EDIT:


I doubt the IFCC will want to waste one of their remaining two soul-grabbing opportunities to prevent V from saving the animal companions.
Twist: What if they use the really short one to warn V what's going on? We don't know if they want the world to end; it seems like their plans involve the gates, and the god's plans will involve eliminating the gate for a good long while.

[XXelementXX]

I see the vampire made the first move against the animal. In that case, PETA will be informed, and the vampire thusly squashed into a healthy tomato juice.

[Zweisteine]

I see the vampire made the first move against the animal. In that case, PETA will be informed, and the vampire thusly squashed into a healthy tomato juice.

More like chalk dust. :smalltongue:

[Willis888]

Does Bloodfeast still bite like a T-Rex, or did the Empire of Blood perform a tooth augmentation that lasted through the shapechange? Maybe "sharp teeth" is what it feels like when a lizard has an unusually high attack bonus?


Is...is panel three a Futurama reference?

New Newyork is infested by owls.

[Gloverboy]

Hey kids, look! Its Charlie Sheen! A vile old parasite who drinks tiger blood! Winning!

[Peelee]

Is...is panel three a Futurama reference?

No. Owls were the pests in Futurama. And don't think for a second that my first thought there wasn't , "damn, that's a possible Futurama reference missed right there."

[Raphite1]

This one must have been fun to draw!

[RblDiver]

So, in attacking Veldrina's animal companion, does that mean they get to dust Durkula since it's an attack on a divine guest (by extension)? Pretty please?

[ti'esar]

Oh, man! Is Little Whiskers done for mere moments after the first time he's done something tiger-like in the almost 30 comics he's been around??

...naaah. (I hope!)

Looks like people were correct in assuming that "Gontor" was after the teleport orb, and that his lines last time meant that he was going to use his Children of the Night ability - but I'm not sure anyone called it being rats instead of something larger.

Also interesting that it looks like he was sent to steal the orb regardless of what happened in the Godsmoot.


Twist: What if they use the really short one to warn V what's going on? We don't know if they want the world to end; it seems like their plans involve the gates, and the god's plans will involve eliminating the gate for a good long while.

Hmm, interesting thought.

[Reboot]

And the two others are an animal companion and a Tyrannosaur. There are tons of hit points for those rats to burn through before anyone is in mortal peril.

Doesn't Baleful Polymorph reduce all stats to match the new/reduced form? (some with a delay, but it has to be past that now...)

Still, I think Mr. Scruffy, at least, is clearly in very little danger given his casualness on the last row of panels.

[Breccia]

Yo dawg I heard you liked animals....

[HMS Invincible]

So, in attacking Veldrina's animal companion, does that mean they get to dust Durkula since it's an attack on a divine guest (by extension)? Pretty please?
Hasn't it been said that the plot won't move forward due to technicalities? Really just think about how a proper Bard would move the story forward, and that's probably how how it'll go.

[M.A.D]

Is it just me or the vampire sounds kinda childish there? Almost like a kid.

[TRH]

I doubt the IFCC will want to waste one of their remaining two soul-grabbing opportunities to prevent V from saving the animal companions.

Don't be so sure - they tried to get Qarr to kill Blackwing once before, if you'll recall. Besides, using the three-minute break would probably suffice, and wouldn't be too big a loss.

[The gF]

Wow, I hope that our favorite tiger is all right. That would be a really painful way to go, getting all the blood sucked out of you and then getting eaten by rats. Speaking of which, can animals become vampires? Do the become vampire spawn? Do they just stay dead?

Animals don't become vampires, no. And the tiger is fine; he barely got any blood sucked out, he's just suffering from vampiric constitution damage, the same way Belkar did after Durkula bit him.

Also, if an animal COULD become a vampire, it would still have to have its blood drained until it died, then be buried in the ground for three days. Only a high-level evil-aligned cleric or necromancer who had been studying vampirism for decades or centuries could hasten that process.

[Pendulous]

Does Bloodfeast still bite like a T-Rex, or did the Empire of Blood perform a tooth augmentation that lasted through the shapechange? Maybe "sharp teeth" is what it feels like when a lizard has an unusually high attack bonus?



New Newyork is infested by owls.


No. Owls were the pests in Futurama. And don't think for a second that my first thought there wasn't , "damn, that's a possible Futurama reference missed right there."

Gaaaah. I knew that. I mean, I should have known that.

[Atomburster]

I think Mr.Scruffy still being an animal companion might be the surest sign that Belkar is still alive.. I hope?

EDIT: Oh my. GONTOR IS GOING TO TELEPORT TO BELKAR AND VAMPIRIZE HIM. THEN TELEPORT BELKAR TO HELP KILL ROY>

[F.Harr]

Oh no! Not our hero animal companions! AAAAAAA!

This is so exciting.

[Draconium]

Is it just me or the vampire sounds kinda childish there? Almost like a kid.

Well, remember when Durkon first got vamped and was under the thrall of Malack? He acted very much like a child then. Gontor may be experiencing a similar personality shift.

[ManicOppressive]

I love how adorably incompetent this vampire is.

[MReav]

Huh... I thought he was going to transform into a wolf to deal with Mr. Scruffy. Oh well.

[DaOldeWolf]

Seems like the HPoH will be able to get plan B in action smoothly. Just hope the animals make it out alive.

[CrispyCriminal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3fe8yNl6jg This song is relevant to team animal's predicament. Heh.

[Bedinsis]

I don't think a vampire should complain about sharp teeth.

Particularly not after having just sunk his teeth into another creature.

Also, is the vampire disloyal, hungry, annoyed or just stupid? He understood the reasoning for why HpoH didn't want him to drink blood yet he still drank blood, disobeying the reasoning.

[Atomburster]

Guys, I think Gontor is going to vampirize Belkar.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

Bad form, Vampire Gontor.

Bringing an enemy animal with you when you get away?

Next, you can take a page out of your vampiredad Durkula's book, and declare a hero to be "of no concern".

Somewhere, the count of Monte Cristo feels disappointment towards your insufficiently-brilliant evil scheme.

Edit: I am right in assuming that Bloodfeast was still hanging on to Vampire Gontor when he escaped, right?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Looks like people were correct in assuming that "Gontor" was after the teleport orb, and that his lines last time meant that he was going to use his Children of the Night ability - but I'm not sure anyone called it being rats instead of something larger.

Several of us did.

[Reboot]

Bad form, Vampire Gontor.

Bringing an enemy animal with you when you get away?

Next, you can take a page out of your vampiredad Durkula's book, and declare a hero to be "of no concern".

Eh? I see no sign he took Bloodfeast with him, advertently or otherwise. And he explicitly DIDN'T take Blackwing, LW or the Scruffster.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

Curse my assumption-making brain! It has failed me FOR THE LAST TIME! There will be punishment!

[Basement Cat]

When Veldrina learns that her tiger was attacked by a vampire she's gonna be awfully angry. Possibly angry enough to link up with the rest of the Order and chase after Durkula (which coincidentally provides the party a new healer).

Things don't look good for Blackwing. V better get his/her act in gear or s/he'll end up with a dead familiar and a really nasty reason to feel guiltier on top of the familiacide massacre.

[Wildroses]

Gontor won that round. He succeeded in his goal of getting the teleport orb. I think the fact he was so thrilled at finding a loophole is more evidence to the Gontor is a thrall theory.

I think V will feel Blackwings physical pain and realise something is very wrong and come to save them. I hope they still have some potions left for Little Whiskers as all the clerics are behind the barrier.

I am also looking forward to the Wrath of Veldrina when she hears about her tiger.

[Reboot]

I hope they still have some potions left for Little Whiskers as all the clerics are behind the barrier.

Dr. Banjo will save the day!

[littlebum2002]

Rats. Why did it have to be rats?

My thoughts exactly


Round 1 v teleports in.
Round 2 v cast chain lightning.
Round 3 his soul gets grabbed again.
I think Round 2 would be "the rest of the Order kills V for taking 1014 strips to realize V can teleport"

[foobar1969]

Looks like people were correct in assuming that "Gontor" was after the teleport orb, and that his lines last time meant that he was going to use his Children of the Night ability - but I'm not sure anyone called it being rats instead of something larger.
Some of us thought it was a possibility (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?463356-OOTS-1013-The-Discussion-Thread&p=20115453&viewfull=1#post20115453). Also, Children of the Night is worded vaguely. Does "command lesser creatures" and "call forth" mean true summoning, or just drawing from what's locally available? Rats are commonly found on ships, and so make the most sense for the latter interpretation.

Side note: vampires summon 1d6+1 rat swarms.

Agree that Scruffy's fighting ability means Belkar is still alive. An ordinary cat only has 2 hit points and would be taken out by a rat swarm in a single round. But a ranger companion with +4 HD can go the distance.

Bloodfeast's bite suggests that Rich is using an old school version of polymorph, where the creature retains some of its original features.

[rambaldi]

The line about an airship being infested with pigeons was very good!

There are two mechanical issues about this


The TP globe turning gaseous? (Is attunement not a 3.5 feature?)
And more pressing ...Once the vampire leaves, why would the rats remain? He summoned them, as vampires can, but doesn't he need to be around to direct them? (Then again, if he summoned hungry rats maybe it would not matter).


A discriminating rat epicure would like an answer to the following question:

Does an elf wizard's familiar taste like chicken?

In general attunement is not in 3.5. It might exist for a lot of items in some or other splat book or for things like artefacts but in general that was only added as standard in 4e (to balance the total number of certain types of benefits)

[Forikroder]

Gontor won that round. He succeeded in his goal of getting the teleport orb. I think the fact he was so thrilled at finding a loophole is more evidence to the Gontor is a thrall theory.

I think V will feel Blackwings physical pain and realise something is very wrong and come to save them. I hope they still have some potions left for Little Whiskers as all the clerics are behind the barrier.

I am also looking forward to the Wrath of Veldrina when she hears about her tiger.

its the exact opposite he made actions outside of what was ordered, he refered to Durkon as his High Priest not Master

also Thrall-Durkon had a much higher craving for blood then Gontor demonstrated

hes too personable (probably the wrong word and someone will link the definition to belittle me) to be a thrall


I think Round 2 would be "the rest of the Order kills V for taking 1014 strips to realize V can teleport"

teleport is in his banned school, so round zero would be "V rewrites the law of magic"

and he teleported then after attacking Xykon so they think he has the ability to teleport in specific circumstances at a heavy cost

[SaintRidley]

Well, this is not so good for the Order. Of course, we knew the teleport orb couldn't stay theirs either - it would make things too easy.

[SaintRidley]

I hope they still have some potions left for Little Whiskers as all the clerics are behind the barrier.

Needs Restoration, not potions. Same as Belkar.

[Basement Cat]

Also, is the vampire disloyal, hungry, annoyed or just stupid? He understood the reasoning for why HpoH didn't want him to drink blood yet he still drank blood, disobeying the reasoning.

I suspect that the young vampire isn't disloyal or stupid or fully informed by Durkula of the big plan. I figure he's just taking advantage of said "loophole" because of his vampiric nature.

Upon reflection I think it's a moot point, anyway. The vampire's pretty much given away the fact that his master is Durkula who has betrayed the party. Blackwing is more than intelligent enough to put two and two together--that's why the 3 fiends tried to get him away from V.

Of course the HPoH's plan didn't account for Blackwing witnessing the new vampire's arrival, etc. Durkula's order to not fang anyone became pointless the moment the vampire caught Blackwing's attention.

[ti'esar]

Well, this is not so good for the Order. Of course, we knew the teleport orb couldn't stay theirs either - it would make things too easy.

One of the primary unstated principles underlying the specific details of the plot has always seemed to be "the Order cannot teleport" - or at least not for long, anyway. Look at the sad fate of Wizard Guy all those comics ago.

[Vinsfeld]

It doesn't seem like he's a thrall. I guess Durkula released him already.

[Ruslan]

I love how adorably incompetent this vampire is.
Seems to be achieving everything he's supposed to achieve so far...

[TCRM]

Couldn't the attack on the tiger be construed as a violation of the rules? One necessitating that Durkula be annihilated by the other high priests?

[ShaneWegner]

I think Round 2 would be "the rest of the Order kills V for taking 1014 strips to realize V can teleport"

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/Cats_Are_Aliens/Banners/Tarquin.png "Note to self- elf cannot cast teleport"

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/Cats_Are_Aliens/Banners/VaarsuviusNew.png "How was I to know the rules of the universe would fundamentally change when I picked Transmutation (or whichever) as my barred school!"

[Gift Jeraff]

Couldn't the attack on the tiger be construed as a violation of the rules? One necessitating that Durkula be annihilated by the other high priests?

The tiger is not present at the actual Godsmoot, nor has he officially been recognized as a bodyguard.

[gooddragon1]

Quickly! Change this to a counter strike source map! All T's and CT's target the rats! Use AWPS!
http://files.gamebanana.com/img/ss/maps/3577a.jpg

[King of Nowhere]

I've been looking at the rats in detail, and i can't see two of them looking identical. rich actually drew each one of them individually. It's amazing how the art has progressed.

[Eireannx]

I think it's just a reference to pigeons being considered to be bird vermin?

Pigeons are actually referred to regularly as 'flying rats'.

[theasl]

Edit: I am right in assuming that Bloodfeast was still hanging on to Vampire Gontor when he escaped, right?
Doubtful (he isn't in the panel after biting Gontor), and he wouldn't be able to hang on to mist-Gontor anyways.

In other matters, I wonder if cats get combat bonuses vs mice/rats.

[Eireannx]

The tiger is not present at the actual Godsmoot, nor has he officially been recognized as a bodyguard.

And even if he were, he's being attacked by a free willed vampire and some rodents, not Durkula or his bodyguards.

[BriarHobbit]

This is very exciting. I don't think that the transformed T-Rex got carried along for the ride. That swarm of rats is dangerous, and the team of amazing animal side kicks will need all of the help that they can get. Surprised that there were no mystic wards guarding the teleportation orb. Here is a question. Are we sure that the thrall took the real teleportation orb? That would explain the complete absence of defensive spells and wards.

[Seward]

So lets see - Blackwing's got half of V's hitpoints, probably about 50. Scruffy is an 8-9 hd animal companion, again, probably about 50 hp. Bloodfeast is tiny but still has all his hp. A T-Rex clocks in at 180hp. He's also BAB13 but doesn't seem to have power attack so I'm not sure why his bite did so much damage. Maybe Bloodfeast has power attack, as he's a gladiatorial trained critter. That would do 1d3+26+tiny critter strength mod - enough to get through the vampire DR.

The only critter in much danger from a rat swarm (1d6/rnd no matter how many swarms were summoned) is the blood-drained tiger. A normal tiger is 45hp, and the cat seems normal, not a companion, just something Veldrina bought somewhere. So similar to the other critters but took a slam and a blood drain/con loss from the vampire, so is likely down about half hp. Come to think of it, Blackwing got slammed too, so he's in some danger, but it'll still take the rats long enough to chew through the hitpoints that Scruffy and maybe Bloodfeast will likely kill them all before anyone dies.

[Marcelinari]

Pigeons: the rats of the sky.

[Idiotic_Bird]

Well, no one saw THAT one coming...:smallwink:

[Idiotic_Bird]

So lets see - Blackwing's got half of V's hitpoints, probably about 50. Scruffy is an 8-9 hd animal companion, again, probably about 50 hp. Bloodfeast is tiny but still has all his hp. A T-Rex clocks in at 180hp. He's also BAB13 but doesn't seem to have power attack so I'm not sure why his bite did so much damage. Maybe Bloodfeast has power attack, as he's a gladiatorial trained critter. That would do 1d3+26+tiny critter strength mod - enough to get through the vampire DR.

The only critter in much danger from a rat swarm (1d6/rnd no matter how many swarms were summoned) is the blood-drained tiger. A normal tiger is 45hp, and the cat seems normal, not a companion, just something Veldrina bought somewhere. So similar to the other critters but took a slam and a blood drain/con loss from the vampire, so is likely down about half hp. Come to think of it, Blackwing got slammed too, so he's in some danger, but it'll still take the rats long enough to chew through the hitpoints that Scruffy and maybe Bloodfeast will likely kill them all before anyone dies.

Why all the technical stuff? This is a STORY, remember? I know you're trying to figure it all out, but I'm sure that the Giant will come up with something totally unpredicted, like this one. (Who guessed rats over an unploymorphed Bloodfeast?)

[Humanist Geek]

So lets see - Blackwing's got half of V's hitpoints, probably about 50. Scruffy is an 8-9 hd animal companion, again, probably about 50 hp. Bloodfeast is tiny but still has all his hp. A T-Rex clocks in at 180hp. He's also BAB13 but doesn't seem to have power attack so I'm not sure why his bite did so much damage. Maybe Bloodfeast has power attack, as he's a gladiatorial trained critter. That would do 1d3+26+tiny critter strength mod - enough to get through the vampire DR.

The only critter in much danger from a rat swarm (1d6/rnd no matter how many swarms were summoned) is the blood-drained tiger. A normal tiger is 45hp, and the cat seems normal, not a companion, just something Veldrina bought somewhere. So similar to the other critters but took a slam and a blood drain/con loss from the vampire, so is likely down about half hp. Come to think of it, Blackwing got slammed too, so he's in some danger, but it'll still take the rats long enough to chew through the hitpoints that Scruffy and maybe Bloodfeast will likely kill them all before anyone dies.

anydice.com/program/7265
d20srd.org/srd/monsters/swarm.htm#ratSwarm

The 1d6+1 rat swarms each have 4d8 hp and take half damage from slashing and piercing. According to the above probability distribution of ((1d6+1)*4)d8, there's a 50% chance that the rats have at least 80hp total. Given swarms' vulnerability to AoE attacks, Vaarsuvius is the pets' best chance of survival.

Fortunately, the sound of a roaring tiger and 300*(1d6+1) rats taking up 200-700 ft2 should draw some attention.

[Lombard]

This strip made me realize in retrospect that the landlord of my first apartment was probably a vampire.

[Ramien]

Okay, Blackwing is awesome, as always.

[Onyavar]

Also, is the vampire disloyal, hungry, annoyed or just stupid? He understood the reasoning for why HpoH didn't want him to drink blood yet he still drank blood, disobeying the reasoning.

We don't know if Undurkon told Ungontor his reasons. I highly doubt it: Undurkon had to kill Gontor, chase after Belkar, kill the female/creed/dwarf/usher person, [probably quick-vamp the latter], quick-vamp Ungontor, [possibly even kill and quick-vamp other creed followers/ushers], cast Pr./Sun on Ungontor, and giving all his followers detailed orders...
All of this at the same time he needed to get to the meeting in time. We didn't notice Wrecan and Roy to wait overly long on the gallery, so all of the above happened within mere minutes. I kinda doubt he could clue them all in on his super-secret plan, he just loaded them with very detailed mission orders.

My guess is that Ungontor is a thrall, but his vamp personality is a bit different from Undurkon's. Being LE, he just loves a nice loophole. Being a vampire, he loves sucking blood. He thought he could get away with it, because nobody of the crew or the order noticed him yet. And look at the last panels, Ungontor DID get away with it, nobody of the crew was alerted to Undurkon's betrayal early.

Next comic, V rushes downstairs because BW is panicking, and that's how V misses the misted Ungontor returning to the temple...

[137beth]

Mega animal fight!

[Thanatosia]

Does an animal companion keep it's increased abilities after it's Ranger dies? Does Mr Scruffies resiliance indicate Belkar still kick'n?

Also, poor Blackwing in the last panel reminds me of the end of 1984.

[XicoFelipe]

The next comic should be called "The Raven Who Cried Elf" to contrast with comic 674, "The Elf Who Cried Raven".

[Seto]

Pain. PAIN. That empathic enough for ya, V ?

Seriously, we learned that Bad Gontor indeed belongs to the Church of Hel, and that his vampire spirit is more inclined to respect the letter than the intent of an order (unlike Durkula).
Also, love the "he's too comfortable to die !"

[Dracon1us]

Wow we got ourselves served some nasty Poe brand of horror here. Really masterful storytelling.

Our Pets Rocks!

[Dracon1us]

Anyway...does vampires have entrails? because I think some of them are gonna taste theirs soon.

[rodneyAnonymous]

It's awesome that Mr. Scruffy is killing rats. Probably not fast enough, though. :(

[Zwiebelchen]

When Veldrina learns that her tiger was attacked by a vampire she's gonna be awfully angry. Possibly angry enough to link up with the rest of the Order and chase after Durkula (which coincidentally provides the party a new healer).
Veldrina is a cameo character that just happened to be the right class/deity combination for this plot. She won't be a new PC.

[Vendanna]

It's awesome that Mr. Scruffy is killing rats. Probably not fast enough, though. :(

Too bad, I don't expect to see next page as a silent "cat to rodent fight" emulating the "Sexy shoeless God of War" moment of belkar on top of all the hobbos. (mr. scruffy on top of all dead rats and blackwing saying that it won't get any XP for that)



The last time we saw Varsuvius, he went to check on the raven, so he probably will come to the rescue.

[factotum]

The last time we saw Varsuvius, he went to check on the raven, so he probably will come to the rescue.

No he didn't? He explicitly dismissed the feelings he was getting through the empathic link as being Blackwing just afraid someone was trying to steal his bracelet. Chances are he'll feel the pain Blackwing is feeling now and come running, but we have no idea if he'll get there in time.

[schmunzel]

Wow, I hope that our favorite tiger is all right. That would be a really painful way to go, getting all the blood sucked out of you and then getting eaten by rats. Speaking of which, can animals become vampires? Do the become vampire spawn? Do they just stay dead?

I want to have a Vampire Tiger!

sch

[Adeptus]

The sense of fair play on the new vamp is hilarious :smallcool: I really like that character.

Also the poor tiger is still useless.

[schmunzel]

I think it's just a reference to pigeons being considered to be bird vermin?

In any case, a swarm of rats is pretty terrifying way to go. Though that empathetic link should be telling V some very different things now.

I do find Vampire Gontor's willingness to embrace a loophole pretty interesting though. I mean sucking anything's blood would be a pretty big sign that the Durkon has betrayed the Order. Maybe since he hasn't drank yet his thirst is too overwhelming to really think that through? (The first thing that Malack ordered Vampire Durkon to do was to not drain Belkar's blood completely.

I think that this is conclusive evidence that Gonturkula is still a thrall.
( and only with a little stretch)

Durkula ordered him not to drink blood of any *PERSON* in order to NOT give the betrayal away.
Gonturkula follows Durkulas directives but he isnt really interested in the reasons and the outcome.
All he cares about is the order to not drink from a person and get thr orb.
And that he is thirsty

Now mustache swirling aside the next scenes (on the Mechane) will likely lead to V bursting in and see a tiger thats been drunk from by a Vampire and smell the betrayal.
Now Im intensely interested in the directors' reaction.
As for our favorites Sidekicks - aside from a pet tiger who in itself should be scary enough - I cannot see this rat swarm get past Mr Scruffy or a Tyrannosaurus Rex by themselves, let alone combined.

sch

[schmunzel]

Does Bloodfeast still bite like a T-Rex, or did the Empire of Blood perform a tooth augmentation that lasted through the shapechange? Maybe "sharp teeth" is what it feels like when a lizard has an unusually high attack bonus?



New Newyork is infested by owls.

Im not really knowledgeable of the Baleful Polymorph mechanics BUT
I would assume that the creature retained its HitPoints AND its HitDice AND its damage (And Attacks).
Can someone clarify??

sch

[Ted The Bug]

Dear Rich, I know you don't feel comfortable taking donations, but I will give you everything I own if Blackwing actually gets eaten by the rats. This is a standing offer.

[schmunzel]

its the exact opposite he made actions outside of what was ordered, he refered to Durkon as his High Priest not Master

also Thrall-Durkon had a much higher craving for blood then Gontor demonstrated

hes too personable (probably the wrong word and someone will link the definition to belittle me) to be a thrall
...

while you probably mean that Futurkula displays to much personality I would like to know how many thralls you have met (personally) so far in your live to know how they act ?

And now please excuse my I need to go to slap myself silly to restart this conversation against better judgement.

sch

[schmunzel]

Seems to be achieving everything he's supposed to achieve so far...

While leaving a hughe mess with a (partly) drained Tiger that screams I AM VAMPIRE I GOT IN YOUR ROOM I TRIED TO KILL EVERYONE AND STOLE YOUR BAUBLE

So yes I think he messed up.

In the end it will probably be the question of how fast this mess is discovered. But I cannot see V ignore the physical pain of her familiar being eaten by rats.

And then its still up for debate whether the directors will intervene or not.

sch


Why all the technical stuff? This is a STORY, remember? I know you're trying to figure it all out, but I'm sure that the Giant will come up with something totally unpredicted, like this one. (Who guessed rats over an unploymorphed Bloodfeast?)

Only near a dozen people or so :P


Dear Rich, I know you don't feel comfortable taking donations, but I will give you everything I own if Blackwing actually gets eaten by the rats. This is a standing offer.

Now the pressing issue would probably be "How much do you own ? " :)

[Silverionmox]

Dear Rich, I know you don't feel comfortable taking donations, but I will give you everything I own if Blackwing actually gets eaten by the rats. This is a standing offer.

Plot twist: you're in debt.

[Forikroder]

while you probably mean that Futurkula displays to much personality I would like to know how many thralls you have met (personally) so far in your live to know how they act ?

And now please excuse my I need to go to slap myself silly to restart this conversation against better knowledge.

sch

hes acting completely different from the one thrall we have seen, thats good enough for me


So yes I think he messed up.

only if blackwing survives and manages to remember enough of the conversation to rat out Durkula

[Marp]

I believe in Mr. Scruffy!

Go go, you commoner-killin' machine!

[schmunzel]

...
only if blackwing survives and manages to remember enough of the conversation to rat out Durkula

So let me rephrase that first (retoric) question to fit the new situation

How many Vampires have our characters met in the extent of this comic so that there might be any question at all on who (what) might be to blame for the bite marks on that tiger?

As soon as V / any character (notable exception everyones favorite Bard) gets aware of that mess there wont be any guesses on who / what might be responsible.
Even if Blackwing has snuffed it.

sch

[Kareasint]

Im not really knowledgeable of the Baleful Polymorph mechanics BUT
I would assume that the creature retained its HitPoints AND its HitDice AND its damage (And Attacks).
Can someone clarify??

sch

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm

Retains Hit Points.
Retains Hit Dice only for effects based on HD such as spells like Sleep
Attack and Damage as per the new form (1HD Lizard). Base Save per new form also.

[Agnostik]

So what happens if Blackwing or Mr. Scruffy end up dead (in terms of PnP D&D)? I know a bit of 3.5 from the videogames based on the system, but in those games the Ranger or Wizard can just summon them again after resting.

[Forikroder]

So let me rephrase that first (retoric) question to fit the new situation

How many Vampires have our characters met in the extent of this comic so that there might be any question at all on who (what) might be to blame for the bite marks on that tiger?

As soon as V / any character (notable exception everyones favorite Bard) gets aware of that mess there wont be any guesses on who / what might be responsible.
Even if Blackwing has snuffed it.

sch

what are the odds of anyone looking at the tiger close enough to realise it has such bite marks? i doubt someone is gonna give it an autopsy

[Seward]

So what happens if Blackwing or Mr. Scruffy end up dead (in terms of PnP D&D)? I know a bit of 3.5 from the videogames based on the system, but in those games the Ranger or Wizard can just summon them again after resting.

If Blackwing dies, V loses 200xp per level if V fails an easy (DC15) fort save, but Blackwing can be raised in any event. If not raised, V has to wait a year and a day before attracting a new familiar.

Animal companions can't be raised but you can attract another with a 24 hour ritual. I'm not sure Belkar would be happy with that outcome, long-running and well loved companion deaths are traumatic. (other players call their companions "Speed Bump #4" and don't get too attached).

[Agnostik]

If Blackwing dies, V loses 200xp per level if V fails an easy (DC15) fort save, but Blackwing can be raised in any event. If not raised, V has to wait a year and a day before attracting a new familiar.

Animal companions can't be raised but you can attract another with a 24 hour ritual. I'm not sure Belkar would be happy with that outcome, long-running and well loved companion deaths are traumatic. (other players call their companions "Speed Bump #4" and don't get too attached).
I see, thank you. :smallsmile:

[Roland Itiative]

So, the empathic link will probably alert V to his familiar's troubles, and the teeth marks on the tiger will make them suspect Durkon, regardless of it not being a person... I wonder if the Order will crash the godsmoot afterall, and what the consequences would be.

[Kareasint]

So, the empathic link will probably alert V to his familiar's troubles, and the teeth marks on the tiger will make them suspect Durkon, regardless of it not being a person... I wonder if the Order will crash the godsmoot afterall, and what the consequences would be.

They may not be able to enter the Moot due to the barrier.

[schmunzel]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm

Retains Hit Points.
Retains Hit Dice only for effects based on HD such as spells like Sleep
Attack and Damage as per the new form (1HD Lizard). Base Save per new form also.

That comment about the Sharp teeth would make no sense then. Otherwise he wouldnt have penetrated the damage reduction.
So Rich probably knowingly set the stage here for someone to find the tiger alive but with bitemarks.

Which leads me to the assumption that Veldrina might stay with the order for some time

sch

Oh and the assumption that the 2nd plan at least partially gets busted by V finding out.
Still curious about the Directors

[Forikroder]

That comment about the Sharp teeth would make no sense then. Otherwise he wouldnt have penetrated the damage reduction.
So Rich probably knowingly set the stage here for someone to find the tiger alive but with bitemarks.

Which leads me to the assumption that Veldrina might stay with the order for some time

sch

Oh and the assumption that the 2nd plan at least partially gets busted by V finding out.
Still curious about the Directors

i dont see the directers doing anything here

im pretty sure everything is going to be wrapped up now, with Durkon either being raised or being dead dead before anyone leaves the area

and if whiskers survives then blackwing would too, and then he can just tell them what happened

[Ninja Dragon]

What does that magic orb do again? I don't remember it.

[Killer Angel]

Let's see if V. notices that... :smallamused:

[Forikroder]

What does that magic orb do again? I don't remember it.

teleport orb

[factotum]

hes acting completely different from the one thrall we have seen, thats good enough for me

By that logic, Elan and Roy clearly can't both be free-willed human individuals because they act completely different to each other. But fine, keep on believing what you want to believe.

[One Skunk Todd]

Allosaurus, Bloodfeast is an allosaurus.

[lenon3579]

what are the odds of anyone looking at the tiger close enough to realise it has such bite marks? i doubt someone is gonna give it an autopsy

Except if, I don't know, there was a very talky and communicative familiar that could have witnessed a vampire entering the room, sucking Whisker's blood, getting the orb and departing?

[Forikroder]

By that logic, Elan and Roy clearly can't both be free-willed human individuals because they act completely different to each other. But fine, keep on believing what you want to believe.

thats a completely different scenario because 2 thralls made in the same process following the same rules should act similar

especially since Durkula acted so different after being unthralled


Except if, I don't know, there was a very talky and communicative familiar that could have witnessed a vampire entering the room, sucking Whisker's blood, getting the orb and departing?

in that scenario though they dont need to find the bite marks to know there was a vampire

[Reboot]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm

Retains Hit Points.
Retains Hit Dice only for effects based on HD such as spells like Sleep
Attack and Damage as per the new form (1HD Lizard). Base Save per new form also.

"If the subject remains in the new form for 24 consecutive hours, it must attempt a Will save. If this save fails, it loses its ability to understand language, as well as all other memories of its previous form, and its Hit Dice and hit points change to match an average creature of its new form. These abilities and statistics return to normal if the effect is later ended."

[Forikroder]

how crazy would it be if Tarquin had all his allosaurs enchanted with magic fang/silver claw or whatever its called just in case and Bloodfeast retained the enchantment in its new form and thats why it could hurt Durkula

[Neoriceisgood]

Man .. all those poor little animals. :smalleek:

[Shining Wrath]

Ah, character progression for Vamptor!
He's clearly free-willed, as he was able to modify his instructions to attack Little Whiskers.
He's also clearly a bit stupid, as the fact that a tiger has had his blood drained is just as clear a sign to Vaarsuuvius there is a vampire about as a crew member.
And he's in Hel's clergy and views the HPoH as his High Priest, which means I was wrong when I speculated that a Creed of Stone dwarf might not fall under her dominion.
I wonder if "Not that thirsty" means he's drained other members of the Creed already?

Also, Rich is subtly trolling all the rules purists; RAW, a vampire can summon a swarm of rats, and so here we have a swarm of rats - on a vessel that almost never touches ground, does not carry grain or other foodstuffs as cargo, and is currently floating 100 feet above a landscape inimical to rodentia. "It's ... magic!" cry the vampire fanboys, as somewhere Bram Stoker weeps.

Oh, and Bloodfeast's sharp teeth FTW.
Will Bloodfeast revert to Allosaur if killed? That just might be noticed...

[zoofroot]

Also, we still don't have a reliable counter to a vampire cleric in the OotS-verse, do we? They seem almost impossible to put down, or even slow down, without special circumstances in our heroes' favour.

Don’t we? An adventuring party. Dispel magic + sunlight. A good grapple + a stake. Roy is on his own and unprepared vs. Durkula. Also, a vampire in gaseous form is extremely vulnerable.


But how can V save them? A blast would risk frying our furry friends and a swarm is tough to deal with otherwise.

Bugsby’s cat-retrieving hand to retrieve the tiger. Pick up the bird. Pick up the lizard. Stomp feet while Mr. Scruffy finishes them off. Or chain lightning—since they’re a maximum of seven swarms, not dozens of individual rats, chain lightning stands a good chance of killing them all in one shot, and it’s targeted so it wouldn’t hit anyone else. A stinking cloud would likely disperse them.


A T-Rex clocks in at 180hp. He's also BAB13 but doesn't seem to have power attack so I'm not sure why his bite did so much damage.
Well, he’s an Allosaurus, not a t-rex. That’s 85 hit points. Maybe the “sharp teeth” comment had to do with the lizard getting through the vampire’s natural armor, which is a lot easier when you have an Allosaurus’s BAB instead of a lizard's.


Why all the technical stuff? This is a STORY, remember?

Because it's fun!


Animal companions can't be raised

Source, please?

[Hamste]

thats a completely different scenario because 2 thralls made in the same process following the same rules should act similar

especially since Durkula acted so different after being unthralled


in that scenario though they dont need to find the bite marks to know there was a vampire

Why would two things made in a similar way have to act similar? Nale and Elan acted differently even as babies and they were created at the very same time. Taking a sample size of one and saying it is representative of everything in that group makes no sense. It would be like saying all vampires have bald heads, after all they were all created in a similar way and this actually has a sample size of 3 all of whom were bald... Until I see otherwise it is now head canon that all vampires are bald.

[Shining Wrath]

Huh... I thought he was going to transform into a wolf to deal with Mr. Scruffy. Oh well.

And I thought he was going to dominate Mr. Scruffy and send him after Blackwing - cat vs. bird being "natural".


Guys, I think Gontor is going to vampirize Belkar.

Five Internets says he's taking the teleport orb to his master. In 1009 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1009.html) we see HPoH taunting Roy with having throw Belkar off the mountain while listing people who have died on Roy's watch; I think HPoH believes Belkar to be dead, which is his overconfidence showing.


its the exact opposite he made actions outside of what was ordered, he refered to Durkon as his High Priest not Master

also Thrall-Durkon had a much higher craving for blood then Gontor demonstrated

hes too personable (probably the wrong word and someone will link the definition to belittle me) to be a thrall



teleport is in his banned school, so round zero would be "V rewrites the law of magic"

and he teleported then after attacking Xykon so they think he has the ability to teleport in specific circumstances at a heavy cost

I think referring to HPoH as "High Priest" indicates he is no longer a thrall. However, we don't know what Vamptor did prior to setting off for the Mechane - he may have drained N of the Creed of Stone priests, N > 0.

[Gusion]

New comic is up.

Maybe now he will share his distress over that empathic link... and V will scry on familiar.

[Reboot]

And I thought he was going to dominate Mr. Scruffy and send him after Blackwing - cat vs. bird being "natural".
Vampire gaze = Dominate person. Doesn't work on animals (Rich was even linked confirming this in the last thread)


I think referring to HPoH as "High Priest" indicates he is no longer a thrall. However, we don't know what Vamptor did prior to setting off for the Mechane - he may have drained N of the Creed of Stone priests, N > 0.
Well, we know N>=2, between Gontor and the female. In addition, the fact that Balder's priest couldn't attract any ushers suggests that N = the number of Creed of Stone priests around...

[Forikroder]

Why would two things made in a similar way have to act similar? Nale and Elan acted differently even as babies and they were created at the very same time. Taking a sample size of one and saying it is representative of everything in that group makes no sense. It would be like saying all vampires have bald heads, after all they were all created in a similar way and this actually has a sample size of 3 all of whom were bald... Until I see otherwise it is now head canon that all vampires are bald.

were talking about souless magical constructs

you make 2 robots the exact same way and theyll both act the exact same way

[Legoshrimp]

were talking about souless magical constructs

you make 2 robots the exact same way and theyll both act the exact same way

...they aren't soulless.

[Forikroder]

...they aren't soulless.

the thralls are, a temporary personality that disapears once the vampire is freed

only way to explain Durkulas actions while Malacks Thrall

[happycrow]

(announcer voice) And it's the new contender, Tucker's Rat Swarm! Oh, they're all over the home team. But wait, how come the little guy's teeth are so stabby? We gotta consult our team of experts on this one....

I know how to keep a rat-swarm satisfied
When I spot a raven their eyes get so wide
They're always in the mood for someone to munch
Oh, rats, they wanna have lu-unch.....

[Bulldog Psion]

I love Mr. Scruffy's combat mode here -- the determined look and the opening blow in panel 3 are both great. :smallsmile:

Good to see Bloodfeast still has the spirit of an allosaurus, albeit in the body of a runty lizard or Gila monster.


Pain. PAIN. That empathic enough for ya, V ?


Chances are he'll feel the pain Blackwing is feeling now and come running, but we have no idea if he'll get there in time.

Pain isn't an emotion, any more than an itchy nose, a sensation of warmth or cold, or the like.

It's just sensor feedback from your body. You may well feel an emotion in response to the pain, however -- which is what V will feel. So, again, V will feel basically the same set of emotions as the previous time.

The only chance he'll come investigating is if she thinks that the raven's emotional feedback is going on too long, and that makes him suspicious. Otherwise, she'll just discount it as further "bauble defensiveness."

[HandofShadows]

Rat's! Kill them! :smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious: (Just be glad they are not giant rats). And I think the vamp might have blown the op by biting the tiger since V might have time to act.

[Forikroder]

I love Mr. Scruffy's combat mode here -- the determined look and the opening blow in panel 3 are both great. :smallsmile:

Good to see Bloodfeast still has the spirit of an allosaurus, albeit in the body of a runty lizard or Gila monster.




Pain isn't an emotion, any more than an itchy nose, a sensation of warmth or cold, or the like.

It's just sensor feedback from your body. You may well feel an emotion in response to the pain, however -- which is what V will feel. So, again, V will feel basically the same set of emotions as the previous time.

The only chance he'll come investigating is if she thinks that the raven's emotional feedback is going on too long, and that makes him suspicious. Otherwise, she'll just discount it as further "bauble defensiveness."

the link is supposed to send pain and emotions

[Ted The Bug]

Plot twist: you're in debt.

SHHHH, I'm trying to get a two-for-one life improvement boost here!

[lenon3579]

the thralls are, a temporary personality that disapears once the vampire is freed

only way to explain Durkulas actions while Malacks Thrall

AGAAIN?? AGAAAIN????

Man, that got tiresome, like, in the last thread, some ten pages before the end of it.


Pain isn't an emotion, any more than an itchy nose, a sensation of warmth or cold, or the like.

It's just sensor feedback from your body. You may well feel an emotion in response to the pain, however -- which is what V will feel. So, again, V will feel basically the same set of emotions as the previous time.

The only chance he'll come investigating is if she thinks that the raven's emotional feedback is going on too long, and that makes him suspicious. Otherwise, she'll just discount it as further "bauble defensiveness."


Maybe you are right. But I don't think that the sheer terror of being dogpiled and eaten by a swarm of rats would be so easily answered by the emoting of dismissive apathy.

[alexandraerin]

the thralls are, a temporary personality that disapears once the vampire is freed

only way to explain Durkulas actions while Malacks Thrall

Or the vampiric soul that is the high priest of Hel was playing up the helpless child angle so that Malack wouldn't suspect he had his own agenda.


I think Mr.Scruffy still being an animal companion might be the surest sign that Belkar is still alive.. I hope?

EDIT: Oh my. GONTOR IS GOING TO TELEPORT TO BELKAR AND VAMPIRIZE HIM. THEN TELEPORT BELKAR TO HELP KILL ROY>

It is a one-shot teleport orb capable of transporting at least 8 creatures several hundred miles, so any use of it that involves teleporting one person several hundred feet is a waste of its capabilitiesand any use of it that involves teleporting more than once is beyond its capabilities.

If Gontor knows where Belkar is and suspects he's alive, he could have simply flown to him... but then he'd have to bury him for three nights before he would turn, so unless you think the fight with Roy is really going to drag on...

The orb was procured by the Order specifically because it had the range to get them to the next gate. If Durkula wants it for any reason besides its ability to get him and his thrall(s) to the next gate, I will drain the levels from my hat.

[Forikroder]

Or the vampiric soul that is the high priest of Hel was playing up the helpless child angle so that Malack wouldn't suspect he had his own agenda.

why would Malack care if Durkula had his own agenda?


Man, that got tiresome, like, in the last thread, some ten pages before the end of it.

well if someone could actually come up with a counter point i might stop

[ChillerInstinct]

"He's too comfortable to die!"

And with just one line, Blackwing just shot up several spaces on my favourite OOTS character list.

I'm hoping Little Whiskers' opening roar was loud enough to draw some attention. If not that then, as someone who owns cats, Mr. Scruffy going ballistic and screaming as he goes all Vermintide should have SOMEONE open the door and tell them to quiet down.

Also, Bloodfeast's teeth are still that sharp while polymorphed, eh? Now, that could prove useful down the line...

[Legoshrimp]

why would Malack care if Durkula had his own agenda?


well if someone could actually come up with a counter point i might stop

They have you just ignore them and restate your opinion with no evidence. So people stop bothering.

Also last thread you said thralls weren't braindead robots, this thread you do. Although if they were clearly they wouldn't act the way either durkula or gontohel has.

Also you seem to be spending a lot of effort constructing things that are really complicated and make no sense. Just to avoid admitting you are possibly wrong.
Which is a better explanation for durkulas actions:
1:His new vampire soul is starting to accumulate the knowledge of durkon, and starts at a young age. Which this and how malack treats him makes him act more like a child then he needs to.
2:His new soul is already pretty good at everything, but decides to just appease malacks treating him like a children then show some other personality, while waiting to be unthralled.
3:While thralled a third soul is temporarily placed in his body, which as soon as he becomes unthralled dies, and is replaced with the new vampire soul from hel?

Pretty clearly option 1/2 sound more straightforward, and likely to me.
I am leaning towards 1/2 or a mix of them as the best.
but 3 just makes no sense, and if it was 3 why would it act specifically like that?

[happycrow]

Love the 1st edition creature-hit-dice-DR-bypass shout-out on Bloodfeast the Extreminator.

[Forikroder]

Also last thread you said thralls weren't braindead robots, this thread you do.

does noone know what metaphors, simile and hyperbole are?


but 3 just makes no sense, and if it was 3 why would it act specifically like that?

because its dumb?

if Durkula was in control from the start he would have started on the plan, he could have whispered something to Belkar

if Durkula was in control why volunteer to send in his devil? he needed the OoTS alive for his plan he even volunteered the knowledge that he even could summon a devil

if Durkula was in control then why did he bring back the staff? Malack only said to get the staff

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0906.html

he never mentioned anything about bringing it back, if he just grabbed the staff and never returned he would have guranteed Malacks death and his freedom (as unnecesary as it ultimately was), so either Durkula was dumb and didnt notice the obvious loophole (and if Gontor is a thrall that proves that thralls can exploit loopholes in orders) or he had a temporary (and loyal) thrall personality in charge

also look at his expression in the second last panel, hes PANICING hes concerned about Malack, if it was Durkula he wouldnt care at all

[Aerysil]

No! Not the familiars and animal companions!

I hope you people who lock your animals into rooms are happy! It's now politically incorrect!

[Nightcanon]

what are the odds of anyone looking at the tiger close enough to realise it has such bite marks? i doubt someone is gonna give it an autopsy
Really? If it comes to needing to do an autopsy on Little Whiskers to find out what's been going on, then it implies that Blackwing is dead (and can't simply tell V), and so is LW, with the teleport orb missing from a locked room that is warded against teleportation. If they can't work out that vampires have some role in this already, the Order certainly isn't going to just shrug its shoulders and say "strange things happen sometimes", and examining the corpses to find out how they died is certainly going to be on the list of things to do.

[8BitNinja]

No! Not the familiars and animal companions!

I hope you people who lock your animals into rooms are happy! It's now politically incorrect!

Why was the Tiger even in that room, I get that it thinks it's a house cat, but seriously

[Basement Cat]

As far a signaling for help goes Little Whiskers did give out a fair roar in panel 4.

As far as Gontar's childish behavior is concerned I definitely fall into the "Young vampire needs time to absorb host personality" camp. Throw in the young vampire being a thrall and the speed of maturity may even be slowed by personal dependency upon the thrall's master.

[Forikroder]

Really? If it comes to needing to do an autopsy on Little Whiskers to find out what's been going on, then it implies that Blackwing is dead (and can't simply tell V), and so is LW, with the teleport orb missing from a locked room that is warded against teleportation. If they can't work out that vampires have some role in this already, the Order certainly isn't going to just shrug its shoulders and say "strange things happen sometimes", and examining the corpses to find out how they died is certainly going to be on the list of things to do.

so V returns to the study, he finds the animals dead and the orb plundered

you think instead of trying to catch the thief and alerting the ship/roy there first priority will be to figure out exactly how they died? and even with the hundreds of rat bits they will be able to find the one vamp bite and immediately figure out it was a vampire?

[alexandraerin]

why would Malack care if Durkula had his own agenda?


well if someone could actually come up with a counter point i might stop

First, it doesn't actually matter whether or not Malack would care because Durkula, unlike Roy, is not a future psychic. Durkula wouldn't know if he cared or not until the objection actually arose, so if as a thrall he was all like, "It is imperative that you free me so that I might take my rightful place as the High Priest of Hel and fulfill her plan while the opportunity persists!" and Malack was like, "I'm not sure Nergal would approve of that.", he couldn't be all "LOL J/K", could he? The safe thing to do--especially knowing that Malack sees his thralls as children--is to act the part of a helpless, clueless child.

You're saying he "needed the Order of the Stick", but again, Durkula is not a future psychic. He didn't know the Order was going to get a hold of an airship in the very near future. As far as he knew, Malack's access to the resources he needed to get to the Godsmoot far exceeded the Order's, right up until the point when Malack was dusted. While Malack remained undead, the Order were inconvenient enemies. They only became his best bet when Malack was gone.

Before Malack died, all he had to do was play nice with Malack long enough for Malack to unthrall him, and then casually mention that it's been so long since he visited his former self's homeland and he feels the need to go there for closure. He could even mention that an oracle told him he would return posthumously. He'd get an airship, a magic carpet, teleportation, whatever he needed that the high priest and de facto second in command of the empire of blood (and best bud of the de facto first in command) could give him. Malack, seeing him as a colleague and equal, and understanding the need to finish up unfinished business, would have no reason to refuse him.

Comparatively, using the Order to get there was a long shot even after they (unexpectedly, remember!) got the Mechane. They wouldn't willingly escort him anywhere if they didn't think he was Durkon, and Durkon would have no compelling reason to deviate from the gate quest for sentimental reasons. If they hadn't acquired the Mechane, the plan would have been to find a one-shot teleport item in Sandsedge, which would have eliminated all possibility of reaching the moot.

Also, the best clue that Gontor is a thrall is the fact that he's following exact words. This would be the hallmark of someone who is overly technical about being Lawful or someone who is compelled to do as they're told. I would expect the Exarch of Stone to be neutral, as elements don't have ethical or moral components. Being neutral alignment-wise also bolsters their case for being the ones to provide the politically neutral ground of the moot... and I'd expect a Lawful person to hold to that neutrality at the expense of being able to try to play politics with the guests, as Gontor did.

[Cazero]

if Durkula was in control from the start he would have started on the plan, he could have whispered something to Belkar

if Durkula was in control why volunteer to send in his devil? he needed the OoTS alive for his plan he even volunteered the knowledge that he even could summon a devil

if Durkula was in control then why did he bring back the staff? Malack only said to get the staff

Because the perspective of stealing a teleport item or a very fast flying carpet from Tarquin seemed more likely to help him reach the Godsmoot in time than helping a band of plucky heroes about to get wiped and unable to teleport. With Malack dead, it wasn't going to happen, so Durkula considered alternative plans and extorted more intel from Durkon's memory, revealing the possibility for the Mechane to show up. He then put his money on it and re-joined the Order.

[alexandraerin]

does noone know what metaphors, simile and hyperbole are?

Sure. A simile is like an analogy, but a metaphor is a different animal.


also look at his expression in the second last panel, hes PANICING hes concerned about Malack, if it was Durkula he wouldnt care at all

He's in a panic because it means he has to improvise. Again, the Order has no clear means of getting him to the Godsmoot compared to the boundless resources of the Empire of the Blood, and in order to travel with them he has to successfully convince them that he's the same old Durkon, a ruse that's not necessary or possible with Malack.

[Forikroder]

First, it doesn't actually matter whether or not Malack would care because Durkula, unlike Roy, is not a future psychic. Durkula wouldn't know if he cared or not until the objection actually arose, so if as a thrall he was all like, "It is imperative that you free me so that I might take my rightful place as the High Priest of Hel and fulfill her plan while the opportunity persists!" and Malack was like, "I'm not sure Nergal would approve of that.", he couldn't be all "LOL J/K", could he? The safe thing to do--especially knowing that Malack sees his thralls as children--is to act the part of a helpless, clueless child.

or just be like "yo my god needs me for like a week ill BBL bby i <3 u" and malak would be like "well if your god needs you then i cant say ****"


He didn't know the Order was going to get a hold of an airship in the very near future.

yet he got in touch with them immeditely, he didnt know about the airship but either A) he assumed theyd find some way to move faster or B) there part of plan B either way he knew he needed the OoTS from the start rather then trying to use Malack/Tarquin/Nale (and he knows Z can teleport but doesnt take advantage of that)



Before Malack died, all he had to do was play nice with Malack long enough for Malack to unthrall him, and then casually mention that it's been so long since he visited his former self's homeland and he feels the need to go there for closure. He could even mention that an oracle told him he would return posthumously. He'd get an airship, a magic carpet, teleportation, whatever he needed that the high priest and de facto second in command of the emperor of blood (and best bud of the de facto first in command) could give him. Malack, seeing him as a colleague and equal, and understanding the need to finish up unfinished business, would have no reason to refuse him.

did you just contradict your first paragraph...?


Also, the best clue that Gontor is a thrall is the fact that he's following exact words. This would be the hallmark of someone who is overly technical about being Lawful or someone who is compelled to do as they're told. I would expect the Exarch of Stone to be neutral, as elements don't have ethical or moral components. Being neutral alignment-wise also bolsters their case for being the ones to provide the politically neutral ground of the moot... and I'd expect a Lawful person to hold to that neutrality at the expense of being able to try to play politics with the guests, as Gontor did.

but we saw Thrall-Durkon go above and beyond exact words in order to serve Malack, in fact if he only followed exact words he would not have brought the staff back since he was only ordered to GET it not retrieve it or return with it


Because the perspective of stealing a teleport item or a very fast flying carpet from Tarquin seemed more likely to help him reach the Godsmoot in time than helping a band of plucky heroes about to get wiped and unable to teleport. With Malack dead, it wasn't going to happen, so Durkula considered alternative plans and extorted more intel from Durkon's memory, revealing the possibility for the Mechane to show up. He then put his money on it and re-joined the Order.

then why not say "sure Nale ill join you if you teleport me to a place first"


He's in a panic because it means he has to improvise. Again, the Order has no clear means of getting him to the Godsmoot compared to the boundless resources of the Empire of the Blood, and in order to travel with them he has to successfully convince them that he's the same old Durkon, a ruse that's not necessary or possible with Malack.

but is possible with Nale, hell he could have tried getting it out of Tarquin "Malack would have wanted this gimme a hand"

[colanderman]

OK, Gontorkula is officially my new favorite villain.

"Loophole! Hahahaha!"

Non-threatening, yet effective!

[alexandraerin]

or just be like "yo my god needs me for like a week ill BBL bby i <3 u" and malak would be like "well if your god needs you then i cant say ****"

Except he can. He can totally say *****. He can say, "Tell me, thrall, what purpose does your god need you?" and if it comes to pass that Nergal's will is opposed to Hel's, then Malack has a higher duty to Nergal than he does to his spawn, and the High Priest of Hel is super stuck, being enthralled. If Durkula let that evil cat out of the underbag, there's no way to take it back. Game over man, game over.

You're imagining that things would have to unfold in a way that is conducive to Durkula's plot. He had no reason to be confident they would.


yet he got in touch with them immeditely, he didnt know about the airship but either A) he assumed theyd find some way to move faster or B) there part of plan B either way he knew he needed the OoTS from the start rather then trying to use Malack/Tarquin/Nale (and he knows Z can teleport but doesnt take advantage of that)

No. He didn't "know he needed them from the start". As you observed, he actively tried to kill them faster by summoning the devil. It was only when Malack died that he acted to save them, most immediately by letting Z's fiend know that his services were no longer needed (it's not coincidence that he threw Z's corpse at it). This implies that he had a sudden and pressing need for them, not a pre-existing one.

As I've noted in previous threads: Plan Bs tend to be Plan Bs because they're sub-optimal. The Order of the Stick, being high level adventurers, are certainly his next best bet after manipulating Malack.

I know, I know. You have this whole imagined scenario you've concocted where there's a "third soul" that summoned the fiend. But if we can explain what is happening with a single entity, then in the absence of any direct evidence of another one, there's no reason to infer its existence.


did you just contradict your first paragraph...?

No. Not even a tiny little bit. What contradiction do you see?



but we saw Thrall-Durkon go above and beyond exact words in order to serve Malack, in fact if he only followed exact words he would not have brought the staff back since he was only ordered to GET it not retrieve it or return with it

Right. Thrall-Durkon went above and beyond exact words because he had a use for keeping Malack alive. This implies that he did not want Malack dead, even if it meant he achieved his freedom faster. No one said that thralls can't go beyond exact words, just that they can't go against them.


then why not say "sure Nale ill join you if you teleport me to a place first"

Because he (was occupying the body of someone who) had met Nale?

And not only has his host seen Nale's grandiose incompetence/tendency to be defeated by the protagonists up close and personal, the first occasion they met involved Nale having agreed to do another villain's bidding only as an excuse to achieve his own goals, and then failing at both.

What halfway competent villain would willingly hitch his wagon to Nale's star?

If he had any reason to think that Nale allying with Nale would get him where he needed to be, he had no reason to save the Order. None.


but is possible with Nale, hell he could have tried getting it out of Tarquin "Malack would have wanted this gimme a hand"

Right. Because he has some reason to believe that Tarquin would give intercontinental transportation to a newly created vampire who won't say where he's going and why on the basis of "I swear! Your dead friend would totally have done this!"

Tarquin's response would be, "Malack would be prudent and cautious, and defer to my judgment about risk versus reward."

And again, he had no reason to side with the Order if he thought this was likely to succeed.

Malack was the fulcrum that gave him leverage on the Empire's resources. While Malack was alive, he had a decent chance of making it to the Godsmoot without the Order. With Malack dead, he had to scramble to save Durkon's allies and hope he could steer their next gate quest towards the Godsmoot.

[Bulldog Psion]

OK, Gontorkula is officially my new favorite villain.

"Loophole! Hahahaha!"

Non-threatening, yet effective!

Yes, GontoHel is rather amusing. Which is an odd thing to say about a vampire...

[Tiri]

The funny thing is, the tiger might actually be the most vulnerable creature here. It isn't, as far we've seen, anything more than an ordinary tiger, so it only has 45 hit points. Blackwing might have less, but he has all his familiar abilities and can fly out of the way of the rats if he gets back on his feet. Mr Scruffy and Bloodfeast are an animal companion and a polymorphed tyrannosaurus, so they likely have enough hit points to stay alive for awhile.


Why was the Tiger even in that room, I get that it thinks it's a house cat, but seriously

If it thinks it's a housecat, it probably would've wanted to be with the other animals. It also appears to be afraid of the open deck, as we saw when they were first trying to get it on the airship

[Shining Wrath]

Vampire gaze = Dominate person. Doesn't work on animals (Rich was even linked confirming this in the last thread)

Yeah, I'm glad I didn't actually type that as speculation, I was just idly wondering.

Well, we know N>=2, between Gontor and the female. In addition, the fact that Balder's priest couldn't attract any ushers suggests that N = the number of Creed of Stone priests around...


the link is supposed to send pain and emotions

SRD


Empathic Link (Su)

The master has an empathic link with his familiar out to a distance of up to 1 mile. The master cannot see through the familiar’s eyes, but they can communicate empathically. Because of the limited nature of the link, only general emotional content can be communicated.

Because of this empathic link, the master has the same connection to an item or place that his familiar does.

You will notice the absence of the word "pain" or any synonyms thereof, and the explicit statement that only general emotional content can be communicated.

Dictionary . com


noun
1.
physical suffering or distress, as due to injury, illness, etc.
2.
a distressing sensation in a particular part of the body:
a back pain.
3.
mental or emotional suffering or torment:
I am sorry my news causes you such pain.
4.
pains.

laborious or careful efforts; assiduous care:
Great pains have been taken to repair the engine perfectly.
the suffering of childbirth.

5.
Informal. an annoying or troublesome person or thing.

and


noun
1.
an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.
2.
any of the feelings of joy, sorrow, fear, hate, love, etc.
3.
any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear, etc., and usually accompanied by certain physiological changes, as increased heartbeat or respiration, and often overt manifestation, as crying or shaking.
4.
an instance of this.
5.
something that causes such a reaction:
the powerful emotion of a great symphony.


The only support you get for pain being an emotion is the 3rd definition of pain. The terror of being consumed by rodents might qualify as that sort of pain, but it's the terror that is communicated, not the sensation of teeth tearing flesh.

[Bulldog Psion]

The only support you get for pain being an emotion is the 3rd definition of pain. The terror of being consumed by rodents might qualify as that sort of pain, but it's the terror that is communicated, not the sensation of teeth tearing flesh.

Exactly. If all nerve impulses were transmitted, the wizard could use the familiar as a video camera, seeing through their eyes, and also feel, hear, smell, and taste everything they were experiencing.

Blackwing may be radiating the emotional panic and distress but V cannot feel the actual pain of the attacks.

[a1chemi]

then why not say "sure Nale ill join you if you teleport me to a place first"

but is possible with Nale, hell he could have tried getting it out of Tarquin "Malack would have wanted this gimme a hand"

Nale is an idiot (correction: was an idiot), and anyone could see that. Also he was stuck in the desert for months, and had no resources to allow teleportation.

This argument will go on forever (again) because we don't have enough evidence one way or the other to determine if Vampire-Gontor was in fact thralled by Durkula.

All of the evidence (their apparent intelligence, initiative, following orders, dialog, and the wording of the rules) can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Vampire-Gontor refers to Durkula as both Master and High Priest. An unknown amount of time has passed since Gontor was vampirized (off panel).

I expect The Giant will tell us in comic which is correct when the Vampires get the band back together.

Course it's possible he won't, because it doesn't matter. Vampire-Gontor is loyal, either because he's a Lawful Evil spirit of Hel, or because he's a Thrall. Either way he's not going to betray Durkula and Hel, which was the suggestion which started this ridiculous argument in the first place.

[Seward]

Allosaurus, Bloodfeast is an allosaurus.

ok, so only 93 hp and BAB+8. It does have improved crit, so maybe that bite on the vampire was a crit, but he'd still need something like power attack to do enough to matter.

If Bloodfeast can hurt a vampire (DR 10), he can probably kill about one rat swarm a round, at worst 1 per 2 rounds. (bites are slashing piercing AND bludgeoning, they'll do full damage to a swarm, and each one has only about 18 hp and only AC14)

[Gift Jeraff]

Also he was stuck in the desert for months, and had no resources to allow teleportation.

He willingly traveled to the desert to search for Girard's Gate using Penelope as a lead. Z was capable of teleporting, as well as Nale himself albeit small distances (Dimension Door).

But sure, let's just make up stuff to go with the "Nale is a hopelessly incompetent idiot" narrative the forum's been reciting ever since Tarquin said it. :sigh:

[Silverionmox]

That tiger is a big, useless, [backwards] yssup.

ed: Censorship sucks. What if we would want to have discussion about Philip K. ****, the author of Blade Runner, the gently rolling hills of the village of ****ing, Austria, or the Belgian mathematician Jacques Tits?

[alexandraerin]

Obviously a familiar link does not transmit all nerve impulses, but if being the end result of purely physical phenomenon within the physical body disqualified things from being "emotions" for the sake of the link, nothing would qualify as an emotion. Even the greed Blackwing feels is (at a material level) merely the end result of chemical dominoes knockling each other over.

As a DM, it would never occur to me to not treat physical pain as an emotion. Are we imagining a bouncer standing at Blackwing's end of the link going weighing the extent to which his anguish's cause is physical? The mind feels what it feels. I can't imagine it knowing or caring the origin.

That said, I think the previous strip adequately established that the DM in this world made a different call. All arguments about whether V should feel Blackwing's pain are moot by dint of the manifest fact that V doesn't.

[Keltest]

He willingly traveled to the desert to search for Girard's Gate using Penelope as a lead. Z was capable of teleporting, as well as Nale himself albeit small distances (Dimension Door).

But sure, let's just make up stuff to go with the "Nale is a hopelessly incompetent idiot" narrative the forum's been reciting ever since Tarquin said it. :sigh:

Nale is, perhaps deliberately, incredibly similar to Wile E Coyote. His plans fail from reasons ranging from unfortunate happenstance to cleverly outsmarting himself, but they will invariably fail.

Besides which, Tarquin has a point. Nale's plan to get the gate had a snowball's chance in hell of working, even without the knowledge the audience has as to the nature of the Ritual to control the gate. Tarquin went along with it because he wanted to keep Nale alive out of a twisted sense of affection, not to mention exploiting the opportunity to see Elan in action.

[Doug Lampert]

One of the primary unstated principles underlying the specific details of the plot has always seemed to be "the Order cannot teleport" - or at least not for long, anyway. Look at the sad fate of Wizard Guy all those comics ago.

Teleport is a plot killer power, sort of like true resurrect or time travel. For a story to work well with such a power in the hands of the protagonists the power needs to either be so limited as to be nearly useless as a story element, or the story needs to be about the power and its effects.

Worse: D&D is built around multiple attritional encounters and resource management. The ability to teleport home, get supplies, teleport back, is PARTICULARLY bad for D&D stories. So of course D&D 3.x built it in as a power freely available to wizards at level 13 (the level 5 spell available at wizard 9 has risks which can easily render it low value), it's also available to travel domain clerics at that level, and to all other clerics at level 17. Just to make absolutely sure they'd broken their own model of how the game should work, they explicitly gave the ability to teleport to places you'd never been to but had seen via lower level magic.


Pigeons are actually referred to regularly as 'flying rats'.

Yep, pigeons are flying rats, squirrels are tree rats.


Scruffy is an 8-9 hd animal companion, again, probably about 50 hp.

No. Belkar is a ranger/barbarian multiclass, I doubt he has 24 ranger levels! His companion power is based on HALF his ranger level, scruffy is +4 HD on a regular housecat, the rule is round down, and that fractional HD aren't allowed to creatures with a full HD or more, so by the book, scruffy has exactly 4d8 HD, but I could easily see a DM allowing a round-up to 5d8 since even with the upgrade a housecat is weaker than the listed companions.


By that logic, Elan and Roy clearly can't both be free-willed human individuals because they act completely different to each other. But fine, keep on believing what you want to believe.

But if you assume that all thralls are mindless with no free will and do nothing but obey orders, then it follows that all thralls act the same and thus that Gontohel isn't a thrall, which in turn proves that all thralls are mindless with no free will, because they are all observed to act the same.

You see, perfect(ly circular) logic.

[zoofroot]

ok, so only 93 hp and BAB+8. It does have improved crit,

Where are you getting your allosaurus stats? I'm looking at Monster Manual II and it has HP 85, BAB 5, and no improved crit.

[Chris Wiz]

what are the odds of anyone looking at the tiger close enough to realise it has such bite marks? i doubt someone is gonna give it an autopsy

"Huh, dead tiger in the wizard's chambers. Well, that makes complete and total sense. Just toss it over the side, boys!"

[a1chemi]

He willingly traveled to the desert to search for Girard's Gate using Penelope as a lead. Z was capable of teleporting, as well as Nale himself albeit small distances (Dimension Door).

But sure, let's just make up stuff to go with the "Nale is a hopelessly incompetent idiot" narrative the forum's been reciting ever since Tarquin said it. :sigh:

Nale's goal was controlling the Gate. Durkula didn't want to go to the there. He still would have had to convince Nale to take him to the Godsmoot, without the circumstantial bonus of pretending to be Durkon.

And pretty much every character and every plotline in the comic, even before Tarquin, agreed that Nale was an idiot.

However, I did forget that Z could teleport. I don't remember seeing him ever actually use it, but he does cast Conjuration spells.

[schmunzel]

...

I think referring to HPoH as "High Priest" indicates he is no longer a thrall. However, we don't know what Vamptor did prior to setting off for the Mechane - he may have drained N of the Creed of Stone priests, N > 0.

Thats indeed something I was wondering.
On the other hand his comment about the loophole he could use to drink while his master explicitely forbade it shows that he has no interest in the spirit of his orders, but only in the letter.
This literally screams I AM A THRALL whil dancing on the tip of your nose.

sch

[zoofroot]

"Huh, dead tiger in the wizard's chambers. Well, that makes complete and total sense. Just toss it over the side, boys!"

"And someone get a broom for these 600 to 2,100 rats."

[schmunzel]

...
Pain isn't an emotion, any more than an itchy nose, a sensation of warmth or cold, or the like.

It's just sensor feedback from your body. You may well feel an emotion in response to the pain, however -- which is what V will feel. So, again, V will feel basically the same set of emotions as the previous time.

The only chance he'll come investigating is if she thinks that the raven's emotional feedback is going on too long, and that makes him suspicious. Otherwise, she'll just discount it as further "bauble defensiveness."

I have to disagree here
"Rightful indignation" would NOT be the emotion I would have in this situation.
well Im not a raven ... but still ...
sch

[GreatWyrmGold]

This post's replies have been conveniently organized! Well, they're organized.


hes acting completely different from the one thrall we have seen, thats good enough for me
Under different circumstances. Durkula was closely-supervised, and given a chance to feed shortly after being created. Gontor seems to be obeying Durkon's orders to the letter, but taking personal leeway to feed.


were talking about souless magical constructs
you make 2 robots the exact same way and theyll both act the exact same way
Aside from the different operating conditions, consider that there is one important ingredient which was changed—the spirit put into the vampiric husk. Durkon got Durkula, Gontor got...Gontula?


What halfway competent villain would willingly hitch his wagon to Nale's star?
Sabine. Arguably Tarquin, for a while. The IFCC. Of course, the IFCC was just using him as a convenient pawn and the others have an irrational attachment to him...


He willingly traveled to the desert to search for Girard's Gate using Penelope as a lead. Z was capable of teleporting, as well as Nale himself albeit small distances (Dimension Door).
But sure, let's just make up stuff to go with the "Nale is a hopelessly incompetent idiot" narrative the forum's been reciting ever since Tarquin said it. :sigh:
Well, he certainly has his character flaws—arrogance, flamboyance, the whole nine yards. But what killed his chances of helping Durkula are his goals and his antagonism towards both Durkula's shell and his sire. It would have been quite an effort to convince Nale to trust Durkula, and even more to convince him to head to the other gate.
Assuming Z had a decent intercontinental teleportation spell, of course. And Durkula doesn't know if he? does or not, which is yet another point against that whole gamble.



what are the odds of anyone looking at the tiger close enough to realise it has such bite marks? i doubt someone is gonna give it an autopsy
It's not like they have reasons to suspect traitorous vampires. Like Durkon turning, or Blackwing talking about the dwarf vampire who attacked.


That said, I think the previous strip adequately established that the DM in this world made a different call. All arguments about whether V should feel Blackwing's pain are moot by dint of the manifest fact that V doesn't.
...What pain was Blackwing feeling before/during the panels in which we saw V's reaction? The pain didn't start until late this strip, when the rats started attacking him.


"Huh, dead tiger in the wizard's chambers. Well, that makes complete and total sense. Just toss it over the side, boys!"
The first two sentences do sound like Veldrina. Thank Celestia Wrecan's around...



I suspect the cat could handle the rat swarm by himself; while rats can dogpile (sorry) a cat in numbers, Mr. Scruffy's got what, 8 hit dice? He should be fine, so long as Belkar's alive.
...which he is, I can't imagine that he'd be killed off-screen.
What do you mean, "offscreen"? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0996.html) "Mauled by an energy-draining dire wolf, thrown through a window (smashing through both jagged glass and part of the stone window-frame), tumbled down a stone roof, and fell hundreds of feet onto jagged rocks" sounds plausibly lethal to me.
But it's not like there's a prophecy about him dying soon...wait...


So, in attacking Veldrina's animal companion, does that mean they get to dust Durkula since it's an attack on a divine guest (by extension)? Pretty please?
Well, summon swarm gives no control over the swarm, so it might be that the swarm the cleric summoned in self-defense against V's and Belkar's pets acted on its own volition. It's not like Dracontor (that's stupid, never mind) Gontor and Durkula are the same person—or that Veldrina and L. Whiskers are. Too many feeble links.


EDIT: Oh my. GONTOR IS GOING TO TELEPORT TO BELKAR AND VAMPIRIZE HIM. THEN TELEPORT BELKAR TO HELP KILL ROY>
1. Belkar might already be dead.
2. Barring special spells, vampirizaton takes a while.
3. That's a waste of the teleport orb...
4. ...which only has one use, anyway.



That could be a really painful way to go... being bitten to death by a thousand rodent teeth... :smalleek:
It could be worse...they could have pissed off Skitter.


Veldrina is a cameo character that just happened to be the right class/deity combination for this plot. She won't be a new PC.
On the other hand, a character of that class/deity combination was already planned.

It's not probable that Veldrina joins the order...but it's not implausible, either. (And I can see a couple jokes about having two elves with the initial of V...)


Sure. A simile is like an analogy, but a metaphor is a different animal.
I like you.


I'm interested in the meaning of Bloodfeast's teeth hurting G...oh, hell with it. I mean, when DR negated damage in the past, they didn't mention any pain...so how did a lizard's bite pierce DR? After all, baleful polymorph clearly states that the victim takes on all of the new form's statistics (e.g, Strength, natural attacks, base attack bonus) except for a few noted...

[a1chemi]

This post's replies have been conveniently organized! Well, they're organized.



What do you mean, "offscreen"? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0996.html) "Mauled by an energy-draining dire wolf, thrown through a window (smashing through both jagged glass and part of the stone window-frame), tumbled down a stone roof, and fell hundreds of feet onto jagged rocks" sounds plausibly lethal to me.
But it's not like there's a prophecy about him dying soon...wait...


Well, summon swarm gives no control over the swarm, so it might be that the swarm the cleric summoned in self-defense against V's and Belkar's pets acted on its own volition. It's not like Dracontor (that's stupid, never mind) Gontor and Durkula are the same person—or that Veldrina and L. Whiskers are. Too many feeble links.


1. Belkar might already be dead.
2. Barring special spells, vampirizaton takes a while.
3. That's a waste of the teleport orb...
4. ...which only has one use, anyway.



I agree he's not gonna vampirize Belkar. He doesn't have the staff and it's been a long time so Belkar is probably not where he fell anymore. That being said...

Belkar's not dead until we see the X's in his eyes. It's not clear how far he was falling and he hadn't taken a ton of damage so he could even survive max falling damage, unlike Roy who had taken a full Meteor Swarm to the face from a much higher level badguy.

Also it's a vampire ability not a spell (he has no spells left), and it does give him control:

Children of the Night (Su): Vampires command the lesser creatures of the world and once per day can call forth 1d6+1 rat swarms, 1d4+1 bat swarms, or a pack of 3d6 wolves as a standard action. (If the base creature is not terrestrial, this power might summon other creatures of similar power.) These creatures arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve the vampire for up to 1 hour.

[Seward]

No. Belkar is a ranger/barbarian multiclass, I doubt he has 24 ranger levels! His companion power is based on HALF his ranger level, .

Whoops. Pathfinder rules dyslexia. In Pathfinder, the animal companion is ranger level-3. I had completely blocked from my mind that 3.5 D&D did it at HALF the character level. No wonder the rangers named their companions "Speed Bump".

[Seward]

Where are you getting your allosaurus stats? I'm looking at Monster Manual II and it has HP 85, BAB 5, and no improved crit.

Couldn't find an online source for allosaurus in 3.5, so I went to pathfinder SRD. How is it only BAB5 with 85hp? It must have a monster constitution.

[zoofroot]

I'm interested in the meaning of Bloodfeast's teeth hurting G...oh, hell with it. I mean, when DR negated damage in the past, they didn't mention any pain...so how did a lizard's bite pierce DR? After all, baleful polymorph clearly states that the victim takes on all of the new form's statistics (e.g, Strength, natural attacks, base attack bonus) except for a few noted...

It only gets the new form's BAB if it fails its Will save, and I don't think we know whether it did. I think the best explanation is that the vampire was surprised that the lizard got through his natural armor, which would have been aided by the allosaur's retained BAB. Unless he had some other special qualities we don't know about, there's no way he did any actual damage, since he'd have the lizard's damage of d4-4 (minimum 1). I'm supposing that a sharp bite that hit the skin could be painful without doing any actual damage. If no one else has complained before...maybe this guy's a whiner?

[Anansiil]

Disclaimer: Countless animals were harmed in the making of this strip.
:P

[Elkad]

Beating the DR is possible.
Vampire Spawn only has DR5/silver.

Bloodfeast is a trained arena dino. Not unreasonable for him to have a 16 strength before racial mods. Taking the racial mod of a tiny lizard instead (-8), he'll still have a 8, for a -1 on damage. Lizard does d4+str damage.

Now he just needs a max damage crit, and he'll do 1pt of damage.

Numerous other ways to do it as well. Feat-shuffling for Improved Natural Attack, Wild Cohort on Belkar's part for a 2nd companion (and thus a str bonus for Bloodfeast), etc.

[zoofroot]

Couldn't find an online source for allosaurus in 3.5, so I went to pathfinder SRD. How is it only BAB5 with 85hp? It must have a monster constitution.

Ah, I see. So, in Monster Manual II an allosaurus has 10d10+30=85 HP (CON 17). It doesn't give its BAB but its bite attack is +12 and its strength is 24, so that's 12-7=5, right? Looking at all the dinosaurs in this book, their BABs seem to be half their hit dice.

[littlebum2002]

Couldn't find an online source for allosaurus in 3.5, so I went to pathfinder SRD. How is it only BAB5 with 85hp? It must have a monster constitution.


Bloodfeast is at minimum a Huge creature (larger than a Triceratops (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0925.html)). No matter what people in OOTSverse call its species, it should use the stats for a Huge (or possibly Gargantuan) carnivorous bipedal dinosaur rather than the stats of a Medium or Large one.

Why not just use the stats for a Tyrannosaurus since they're incredibly similar? It's not perfect but it's a whole lot better than guessing and making stuff up

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm

[Shining Wrath]

It only gets the new form's BAB if it fails its Will save, and I don't think we know whether it did. I think the best explanation is that the vampire was surprised that the lizard got through his natural armor, which would have been aided by the allosaur's retained BAB. Unless he had some other special qualities we don't know about, there's no way he did any actual damage, since he'd have the lizard's damage of d4-4 (minimum 1). I'm supposing that a sharp bite that hit the skin could be painful without doing any actual damage. If no one else has complained before...maybe this guy's a whiner?

It is possible that the cleanest explanation of Vamptor's query is that in fact Bloodfeast should not have been able to harm him, and that therefore there is something about the little lizard that we don't know yet.

[alexandraerin]

In the last strip, Blackwing was thrown across the room and into a wall, after possible level drain. That is the pain to which I referred.

[8BitNinja]

It is possible that the cleanest explanation of Vamptor's query is that in fact Bloodfeast should not have been able to harm him, and that therefore there is something about the little lizard that we don't know yet.

What if it is not a real lizard.

It is something else...

loominartyconfirmed

[zoofroot]

Beating the DR is possible.
Vampire Spawn only has DR5/silver.

Bloodfeast is a trained arena dino. Not unreasonable for him to have a 16 strength before racial mods. Taking the racial mod of a tiny lizard instead (-8), he'll still have a 8, for a -1 on damage. Lizard does d4+str damage.


I'm not familiar with this racial mod business, but I'm pretty sure the polymorph gives him straight-up the strength of a lizard, which is 3. For d4-4 (min 1) damage.

The bigger problem is presuming this guy's a vampire spawn, which would mean he had to be no more than a 4th-level cleric, who couldn't even cast stone shape. He's gotta be a proper vampire, meaning his DR is 10/magic and silver.

[8BitNinja]

I'm not familiar with this racial mod business, but I'm pretty sure the polymorph gives him straight-up the strength of a lizard, which is 3. For d4-4 (min 1) damage.

The bigger problem is presuming this guy's a vampire spawn, which would mean he had to be no more than a 4th-level cleric, who couldn't even cast stone shape. He's gotta be a proper vampire, meaning his DR is 10/magic and silver.

I think polymorph gives you the stats of the animal being turned into of the casters level

I'll look it up and tell you guys

EDIT: Okay so I got this from the D&D 3.5e wiki


Baleful Polymorph
Transmutation
Level: Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates, Will partial; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes

You change the subject into a Small or smaller animal of no more than 1 HD (such as a dog, lizard, monkey, or toad). The subject takes on all the statistics and special abilities of an average member of the new form in place of its own except as follows:
The target retains its own alignment (and personality, within the limits of the new form’s ability scores).
If the target has the shapechanger subtype, it retains that subtype.
The target retains its own hit points.
The target is treated has having its normal Hit Dice for purpose of adjudicating effects based on HD, such as the sleep spell, though it uses the new form’s base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and all other statistics derived from Hit Dice.
The target also retains the ability to understand (but not to speak) the languages it understood in its original form. It can write in the languages it understands, but only the form is capable of writing in some manner (such as drawing in the dirt with a paw).
With those exceptions, the target’s normal game statistics are replaced by those of the new form. The target loses all the special abilities it has in its normal form, including its class features.
All items worn or carried by the subject fall to the ground at its feet, even if they could be worn or carried by the new form.
If the new form would prove fatal to the creature (for example, if you polymorphed a landbound target into a fish, or an airborne target into a toad), the subject gets a +4 bonus on the save.
If the subject remains in the new form for 24 consecutive hours, it must attempt a Will save.
If this save fails, it loses its ability to understand language, as well as all other memories of its previous form, and its Hit Dice and hit points change to match an average creature of its new form. These abilities and statistics return to normal if the effect is later ended.
Incorporeal or gaseous creatures are immune to baleful polymorph, and a creature with the shapechanger subtype (such as a lycanthrope or a doppelganger) can revert to its natural form as a standard action (which ends the spell’s effect).

[littlebum2002]

I think polymorph gives you the stats of the animal being turned into of the casters level

I'll look it up and tell you guys

Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorph.htm)gives you the PHYSICAL stats of the animal, but you keep your mental stats.

However, Baleful Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm) gives you all the stats of the creature, and that is the situation here

EDIT Ninjad

[xroads]

Great strip. I especially love panel 8, where in my mind's ear I can hear the astonishment in the vampire's voice.

"How are your teeth so sharp?!?"

[goodpeople25]

I'm not familiar with this racial mod business, but I'm pretty sure the polymorph gives him straight-up the strength of a lizard, which is 3. For d4-4 (min 1) damage.

The bigger problem is presuming this guy's a vampire spawn, which would mean he had to be no more than a 4th-level cleric, who couldn't even cast stone shape. He's gotta be a proper vampire, meaning his DR is 10/magic and silver.
Well to put another nail in the coffin (pun intended), from what i can tell from the Srd, Vampire spawns don't even have access to children of the night. So yeah definitely a proper vampire with DR 10/magic and silver.

[zoofroot]

The revised SRD here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) says something different for Baleful Polymorph:

As polymorph, except that you change the subject into a Small or smaller animal of no more than 1 HD. If the new form would prove fatal to the creature the subject gets a +4 bonus on the save.
If the spell succeeds, the subject must also make a Will save. If this second save fails, the creature loses its extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities, loses its ability to cast spells (if it had the ability), and gains the alignment, special abilities, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores of its new form in place of its own. It still retains its class and level (or HD), as well as all benefits deriving therefrom (such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points). It retains any class features (other than spellcasting) that aren’t extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities.

[JoeyTheNeko]

dangit, he got the orb and got away. drats.

[Zorgoth]

The revised SRD here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) says something different for Baleful Polymorph:

As polymorph, except that you change the subject into a Small or smaller animal of no more than 1 HD. If the new form would prove fatal to the creature the subject gets a +4 bonus on the save.
If the spell succeeds, the subject must also make a Will save. If this second save fails, the creature loses its extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities, loses its ability to cast spells (if it had the ability), and gains the alignment, special abilities, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores of its new form in place of its own. It still retains its class and level (or HD), as well as all benefits deriving therefrom (such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points). It retains any class features (other than spellcasting) that aren’t extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities.

If it has a high enough BAB and power attack, it's technically conceivable that it could do 11 damage, though hitting seems less likely... Also criticals are a thing.

[Killer Angel]

Rat's! Kill them! :smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious: (Just be glad they are not giant rats).

I don't know what i would prefere. Swarms have a lot of damage reductions...

[8BitNinja]

I don't know what i would prefere. Swarms have a lot of damage reductions...

:haley: Elan, what about the ROUS's

:elan: Rodents of Unusual Size, I doubt they exist

[Kopmon]

I'm always re-reading the whole comic but it's nice to pop over and see a new comic loaded up.

The difference in art is so weird when you've been reading nothing but 800 or so pages and you flip back to see the next update.

Aside from my own personal opinions, this was pretty cool. It's great seeing just how many little recruits we've got on the team aside from our traditional OoTS members. I just want to see Bloodfeast huge again. Not that he isn't.. adorable as is!

Let's see more Kitty v Rat action. Look at him attacking, killing in a single blow. If this isn't Godzilla material, I don't know what is. :smallbiggrin:

[8BitNinja]

I'm always re-reading the whole comic but it's nice to pop over and see a new comic loaded up.

The difference in art is so weird when you've been reading nothing but 800 or so pages and you flip back to see the next update.

Aside from my own personal opinions, this was pretty cool. It's great seeing just how many little recruits we've got on the team aside from our traditional OoTS members. I just want to see Bloodfeast huge again. Not that he isn't.. adorable as is!

Let's see more Kitty v Rat action. Look at him attacking, killing in a single blow. If this isn't Godzilla material, I don't know what is. :smallbiggrin:

Rereading sounds like a good idea

[Hamste]

Also criticals are a thing.

Not against 3.5 undead unless someone cast a spell on him which seems unlikely.

[zoofroot]

If it has a high enough BAB and power attack, it's technically conceivable that it could do 11 damage, though hitting seems less likely... Also criticals are a thing.

Hmm...I thiiiiink if he had power attack (like from advancing with HD), he'd even be able to keep it when polymorphed. Right? I'm totally buying this.

[Gaming-Poet]

Teleport is a plot killer power, sort of like true resurrect or time travel. For a story to work well with such a power in the hands of the protagonists the power needs to either be so limited as to be nearly useless as a story element, or the story needs to be about the power and its effects.

To be technical -- but with a purpose! -- about it,

what you state is true for an ongoing series that is serial in its storytelling mode (such as a soap opera or the individual films of a single contained narrative as in most film trilogies) but not true for an ongoing series that is episodic in storytelling mode (such as even the most serious nighttime television series back in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and many but not all comic book series). In an episodic series, there is no plot-killer in having any regular characters who have died then resurrect miraculously before the episode's end or in having the characters teleport to their "next adventure" as a framing device at the end of each episode, in large part because there is little inter-episode continuity so that episodes are stand-alone on one level despite the continuing characters.

(I suppose one could consider this power to be limited, as in limited to "once per episode".)

That's one of the problems that sometimes happens when an episodic series turns serial or when fans start to treat an episodic series as though it were a serial. For example, true resurrection worked in the original Classic Star Trek series at the time with its minimal inter-episode continuity because, each time it occurred, so far as the plotline was concerned this was the only time anyone remembered it occurring, which was an accepted (and even necessary) assumption at the time the series was made. However, when people look at it today, treating it more as a single ongoing narrative instead of the episodic structure under which it had to operate back then, the true resurrection and time travel begin to look problematic. This is often solved with lampshading, such as Deep Space Nine's one-liner about Kirk as having the most temporal "violations" of any starship captain, or with sudden flaws hitherto unknown. (You'll notice similar problems when films or fans attempt to tighten up the loose continuity of the James Bond films or the Superman comic book series, which ended up having to impose strict time travel rules and eventually rule it out altogether.)

The above is relevant when we consider what a good job The Giant has done with integrating (and sometimes ignoring) the more episodic Order of the Stick one-shot comics in Dragon magazine, for example, with the more serial approach we have seen for most of this strip's tenure now. (Unless anyone honestly expects to see a cereal conspiracy enter the serial continuity at this point?) However, it also explains some early installment weirdness.

[schmunzel]

Rat's! Kill them! :smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious: (Just be glad they are not giant rats). And I think the vamp might have blown the op by biting the tiger since V might have time to act.

The Vampire did not just blow the op it literally nuked it.
Its order was to not bite a person to not give away the betrayal early

Instead it summoned n swarms of rats to flood the ship, started a brawl with a tiger and leaves the room with an unconscious tiger with Vampire fang marks; 60 something rats trying to chew through 4 pets / animal sidekicks / companions / familiars and steals a priceless artifact.

ne of the questions that bugs me is

a lot of people seem to think that the party will follow Durkula to dwarfen lands and that the last gate will be found there.

My impression always was that the last gate is near the north pole.
How does this add up ?


sch

[schmunzel]

...

well if someone could actually come up with a counter point i might stop

/me points to sig


sch

[Forikroder]

Except he can. He can totally say *****. He can say, "Tell me, thrall, what purpose does your god need you?" and if it comes to pass that Nergal's will is opposed to Hel's, then Malack has a higher duty to Nergal than he does to his spawn, and the High Priest of Hel is super stuck, being enthralled. If Durkula let that evil cat out of the underbag, there's no way to take it back. Game over man, game over.

You're imagining that things would have to unfold in a way that is conducive to Durkula's plot. He had no reason to be confident they would.

except he wouldnt, there job is to serve not to question he wouldnt ask what his god wanted


No. Not even a tiny little bit. What contradiction do you see?

you say in paragraph one "he cant explain the situation to malack because then malack would stop him" then in paragraph the third one its "he jsut has to ask and Malack would let him leave"


No. He didn't "know he needed them from the start". As you observed, he actively tried to kill them faster by summoning the devil. It was only when Malack died that he acted to save them, most immediately by letting Z's fiend know that his services were no longer needed (it's not coincidence that he threw Z's corpse at it). This implies that he had a sudden and pressing need for them, not a pre-existing one.

he killed someone who could teleport (and was willing to do so) in order to save a group that was incapable of teleport



As I've noted in previous threads: Plan Bs tend to be Plan Bs because they're sub-optimal. The Order of the Stick, being high level adventurers, are certainly his next best bet after manipulating Malack.

plan A was have hermod deliver the final vote, plan B is only now beginning up until right now everything went exactly how Durkula wanted it to, he got there in time for the godsmoot, forced a tie and put the choice in the demigods

only flaw was one of them voted differently


Right. Thrall-Durkon went above and beyond exact words because he had a use for keeping Malack alive. This implies that he did not want Malack dead, even if it meant he achieved his freedom faster. No one said that thralls can't go beyond exact words, just that they can't go against them.

wierd that he never demonstrated any of that as soon as Malack died he couldnt care less about him and killed the second best chance he had to get out in order to go to the worst choice


If he had any reason to think that Nale allying with Nale would get him where he needed to be, he had no reason to save the Order. None.

exactly, so why did he?

Nale offered him employment he could offer a safe place for them to recoup, as a condition for him joinging they teleport him to one place and then its a done deal

nale has no reason to double cross him since hes the one making the offer and Nale needs more party members more then Durkula needs a party Nale is dumb enough to give Durkula one day of free time he could even say that he was going to make some thralls and needed space


Tarquin's response would be, "Malack would be prudent and cautious, and defer to my judgment about risk versus reward."

no it wouldnt be, that makes no sense at all, Malack has often showed that he does not take Tarquins opinion into account when it comes to risk vs reward unless the group rules force him to follow through on bussiness

Malack turned him into a vampire Tarquin would want to at least keep him on friendly terms since they might need him later having someone teleport him someplace quick barely takes any resources

same reason he sent the drows all those fruit baskets

he takes no risk by teleporting Durkon (well unkowingly) and has the reward of having a high level vampire cleric owe him a favour


Also he was stuck in the desert for months, and had no resources to allow teleportation.

he wasnt stuck and Z can teleport

and Nale can teleport


This literally screams I AM A THRALL whil dancing on the tip of your nose.

no a thrall would not drink it would get the orb and leave not waste time with the animal companions and even if it did would simply quickly kill them

[happycrow]

Pretty sure, given GontoHel's reaction, that Belkar gave Bloodfeast the Extreminator a sizable situational bonus to that Will Save simply by hanging out with it while Belkar.

[jafar]

New comic is up.

Rich Burlew is a meany meany head.

[Mousedigits]

Hmmmm, do we know the actual stats of the Orb? As in uses per day and such?

[schmunzel]

He willingly traveled to the desert to search for Girard's Gate using Penelope as a lead. Z was capable of teleporting, as well as Nale himself albeit small distances (Dimension Door).

But sure, let's just make up stuff to go with the "Nale is a hopelessly incompetent idiot" narrative the forum's been reciting ever since Tarquin said it. :sigh:

well he *was* an idiot.
There might be some case for him not having been a *complete* idiot.
And he might in some ways not have been *completely* incompetent.
Apart from this he wanted to much in to short a time with a lot of neglect for other people, their lives and/or needs.
He did overly complicate things and he was way to much focused on showing people how inferior they were than actually getting on with his villainy.
(To much gloat, not enough to back it up in deeds.)
With that, in my book, the prerequisites for a hopeless incompetent idiot are actually fulfilled.

That does of course not take a certain tragic aura off of him. He was certainly intelligent, but he obviously has never learned to accomplish something.
He was always playing and basking in the spotlight of his own legend building.

Quite obviously Tarkin completely failed as a parent here.

sch

[schmunzel]

That tiger is a big, useless, [backwards] yssup.

ed: Censorship sucks. What if we would want to have discussion about Philip K. ****, the author of Blade Runner, the gently rolling hills of the village of ****ing, Austria, or the Belgian mathematician Jacques Tits?

Quite obviously a lot can be said for mathematicians!


sch

[Forikroder]

nales plans were good up to a point like switching with elan they just always fell apart at the end

[Reboot]

I think everybody's missing the important question: When Mr Scruffy cries out atop a huge pile of rat corpses, will the CR be high enough for him to get XP out of it?

[EccentricFellow]

Heh, not even an explosive rune on the orb? Tsk tsk tsk V.

So the gods have voted and are tied, 6 of the 7 demi-gods have voted, and are tied, the 7th demi-god is apparently just hanging around waiting for the conclusion of this little drama before he votes. The mystery to me is what use the teleportation orb would have in this situation. I am sure it will be obvious in hindsight, but foresight isn't cutting it yet.

Also, Gontor makes a rather clumsy vampire chomping on the Tiger's back like that. Possibly a useful spot if he wants to sever the spine but he wouldn't be getting much blood from there.

[Doug Lampert]

Teleport is a plot killer power, sort of like true resurrect or time travel. For a story to work well with such a power in the hands of the protagonists the power needs to either be so limited as to be nearly useless as a story element, or the story needs to be about the power and its effects.To be technical -- but with a purpose! -- about it,

what you state is true for an ongoing series that is serial in its storytelling mode (such as a soap opera or the individual films of a single contained narrative as in most film trilogies) but not true for an ongoing series that is episodic in storytelling mode (such as even the most serious nighttime television series back in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and many but not all comic book series). In an episodic series, there is no plot-killer in having any regular characters who have died then resurrect miraculously before the episode's end or in having the characters teleport to their "next adventure" as a framing device at the end of each episode, in large part because there is little inter-episode continuity so that episodes are stand-alone on one level despite the continuing characters.I'd tend to say that using it only at episode transitions and then considering the "story" to consist only of a single episode at a time, you have in fact clearly so limited it as to remove it as a story element.

You do make a good point that one possible limit is "episode break only" in an episodic media. It's a pretty meta-limit, which is why it fails when people start looking at the series as a whole.

Basically, the problem with these powers is that they are simply so strong that their controllable and usable presence makes the setting almost incomprehensibly weird. You can deal with this by making the story ABOUT the added element and how people deal with it, or you can deal with it by somehow removing the added element from impacting the setting, but since the story is ABOUT the protagonists, you can't give them such a useful power and not expect it to impact things.

[Forikroder]

I think everybody's missing the important question: When Mr Scruffy cries out atop a huge pile of rat corpses, will the CR be high enough for him to get XP out of it?

hes an animal companion he doesnt get xp

teleporting only gets people from point a to point b doesnt solve problems by itslef really

[AlurenDarkfire]

Maybe this was covered, but I thought vampire's had to be invited in? The Mechane is their home, and private property at that. How did he Sneak in?

[alexandraerin]

Forikroder:

What I said was that he would not want Malack to know he has his own agenda. I never contradicted that. If you think I did, I would suggest you read again. My words are all still there and I see no reason to repeat them so you can more conveniently ignore them.

Malack is not a servant of Hel. He is a servant of Nergal. Nergal's will, not Hel, is the one he will not question. He might help a priest of Hel out of professional courtesy, just as he did a priest of Thor, but... well, his aid to a priest of Thor included a backdoor to protect his own mortal interests. He would not be any sloppier concerning his god's designs.

The "Plan B" I referenced is not the current Plan /Plan B but the plan for getting to this point. The Order is obviously a long shot for getting him to the Godsmoot, longer still before the Mechane arrives. You are arguing from hindsight that since it worked out that way, he must've been counting on it, but there was no reason for him to expect the Order would be willing to get him to the Godsmoot, much less able. Sheer desperation is the only thing that compelled him to throw in with them. That's what makes it Plan B for getting to the Godsmoot. Before that, Plan A would have been using Malack's resources.

And you cite what you think Malack would do as the reason Tarquin wouldn't say no. But it doesn't matter Malack would do, it matters what Tarquin would think, and his view of their relationship is that he is the tactical brains who directs their relationship. That is why he wouldn't bow to "your dead friend said so" without insisting that Malack would defer to him.

If I may observe: you seem to base your theories on an external view of the strip and then extrapolate what happened after the fact to impute a priori motives and knowledge to the characters. Because Durkula rode an airship with the OotS to the godsmoot, you infer that this must have been the plan from the beginning. Because we see Malack being emotional and impetuous, you infer that Tarquin would remember his friend as a loose cannon (and go along with whatever random request a stranger tells him his best friend would have done).

Outside of meta-land, it is a mistake to think that the way things worked out is the only way they could have happened, much less that they were anyone's first plan.

[CaDzilla]

If Belkar was there, he could probably whip up something nice (https://youtu.be/WwGn7085gZo) for dinner

[Forikroder]

Malack is not a servant of Hel. He is a servant of Nergal. Nergal's will, not Hel, is the one he will not question. He might help a priest of Hel out of professional courtesy, just as he did a priest of Thor, but... well, his aid to a priest of Thor included a backdoor to protect his own mortal interests. He would not be any sloppier concerning his god's designs.

Malacks whole schtick is "everyone is but a servant and should follow there orders" if Durkula said that his god needed something then Malack would simply accept that at face value because Malack does not doubt people and does not ask probing questions

like when Durkon took a rain check, he never asked why he was taking one or why he ended up not taking it he simply accepted it


The "Plan B" I referenced is not the current Plan /Plan B but the plan for getting to this point. The Order is obviously a long shot for getting him to the Godsmoot, longer still before the Mechane arrives. You are arguing from hindsight that since it worked out that way, he must've been counting on it, but there was no reason for him to expect the Order would be willing to get him to the Godsmoot, much less able. Sheer desperation is the only thing that compelled him to throw in with them. That's what makes it Plan B for getting to the Godsmoot. Before that, Plan A would have been using Malack's resources.

then why did he send his devil away leaving Malack vulnerable? he knows Nale would probably try something

then why did he kill Z instead of mooching a teleport?

then why didnt he try to curry favour with Tarquin to get a teleport out of him?

he gave up 3 more likely chances in order to go with the least likely and most dangerous one

hell he could have gone back to the city and bought a teleport item if he wanted to


And you cite what you think Malack would do as the reason Tarquin wouldn't say no. But it doesn't matter Malack would do, it matters what Tarquin would think, and his view of their relationship is that he is the tactical brains who directs their relationship. That is why he wouldn't bow to "your dead friend said so" without insisting that Malack would defer to him.

ya no Tarquin is not so delusional as to think Malack would think that way


Because Durkula rode an airship with the OotS to the godsmoot, you infer that this must have been the plan from the beginning.

no its "because Durkula burned better bridges he must have wanted to be on that one"


Because we see Malack being emotional and impetuous, you infer that Tarquin would remember his friend as a loose cannon (and go along with whatever random request a stranger tells him his best friend would have done).

no its "because Malack made Durkula and thought of him as a true friend, and because Durkula is a high level vampire cleric, Tarquin has no reason to expend 0 effort in teleporting him to dwarven lands"

and really how did you get taht out of what i said?

[lenon3579]

Hmmmm, do we know the actual stats of the Orb? As in uses per day and such?

Only one use, up to 8 persons, to as far away as the plot needs (Kraagor's Gate).

[Arrowstorm122]

Heh, not even an explosive rune on the orb? Tsk tsk tsk V.

So the gods have voted and are tied, 6 of the 7 demi-gods have voted, and are tied, the 7th demi-god is apparently just hanging around waiting for the conclusion of this little drama before he votes. The mystery to me is what use the teleportation orb would have in this situation. I am sure it will be obvious in hindsight, but foresight isn't cutting it yet.

Also, Gontor makes a rather clumsy vampire chomping on the Tiger's back like that. Possibly a useful spot if he wants to sever the spine but he wouldn't be getting much blood from there.

I guess an explosive rune might have damaged the orb as well?

My personal guess is that Durkula wants to use the orb to forcibly teleport one of the no-voters away, nullifying their vote (I'm sure somebody else has come up with that theory, just can't be bothered to check through the pages of discussion about this comic and the last :p).

[Grey Watcher]

I'm guessing Gontor came to steal the Orb of Teleportation for the same reason Roy is trying to destroy the High Priest of Hel: in order for their vote to count, a Deity's representative must remain in the main chamber. So I figure Hel is planning to force the vote to go her way by teleporting out some of the opposing delegates. (HPoH did say that this backup plan is only possible because of Roy....)

EDIT: Ninja'd by a storm of one hundred and twenty two arrows!

[Jasdoif]

Heh, not even an explosive rune on the orb? Tsk tsk tsk V.An explosive rune on the orb would damage the orb if it was triggered, possibly destroying it. It'd be an accident waiting to happen, hardly something Vaarsuvius would go for.


teleporting only gets people from point a to point b doesnt solve problems by itslef reallyTeleportation does an admirable job of circumventing obstacles between Point A and Point B, though. It doesn't solve problems, it prevents problems from being solved, undercutting any secondary effects solving the problem was intended to have.


Maybe this was covered, but I thought vampire's had to be invited in? The Mechane is their home, and private property at that. How did he Sneak in?There was some discussion on the matter. I think the easiest answer is that the rules as worded are intended only for buildings, and the Mechane isn't a building.

[8BitNinja]

I really hope this doesn't end with the bad guys winning, that would be very sad

[Forikroder]

Teleportation does an admirable job of circumventing obstacles between Point A and Point B, though. It doesn't solve problems, it prevents problems from being solved, undercutting any secondary effects solving the problem was intended to have.

so dont have travel be a main plot point in your story...

as for teleporting a delegate out, im pretty much certain the godsmoot voting area would be dimensionally locked to prevent people from leaving magically

[Keltest]

so dont have travel be a main plot point in your story...

as for teleporting a delegate out, im pretty much certain the godsmoot voting area would be dimensionally locked to prevent people from leaving magically

You have now stumbled upon why teleportation is a plot killer.

[Clistenes]

Shouldn't V be feeling an empathic alarm in his/her head now? He can dismiss the feeling of being robbed as Blackwing's paranoia, but actual pain? He should burt into the cabin any second now...

[Shining Wrath]

I'm guessing Gontor came to steal the Orb of Teleportation for the same reason Roy is trying to destroy the High Priest of Hel: in order for their vote to count, a Deity's representative must remain in the main chamber. So I figure Hel is planning to force the vote to go her way by teleporting out some of the opposing delegates. (HPoH did say that this backup plan is only possible because of Roy....)

EDIT: Ninja'd by a storm of one hundred and twenty two arrows!

That's a plausible theory, but once Vamptor enters the voting chamber it is obvious to a large number of high level clerics that the HPoH has committed murder - and I think the odds that any one of them, let alone all of them, won't realize that Vamptor is in league with the HPoH and should not be trusted at all is minimal. I do not think that turning an undead creature counts as an attack per se; it would just make him stand in the corner for a while as they discussed what to do with him.

The Teleport spell only works on willing creatures. I haven't been able to find stats for the Orb version, but the SRD for Boots and Helm say "exactly as if wearer had cast the Teleport spell". SRD:


Teleport
Conjuration (Teleportation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 5, Travel 5
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal and touch
Target: You and touched objects or other touched willing creatures
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None and Will negates (object)
Spell Resistance: No and Yes (object)

This spell instantly transports you to a designated destination, which may be as distant as 100 miles per caster level. Interplanar travel is not possible. You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed your maximum load. You may also bring one additional willing Medium or smaller creature (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) or its equivalent (see below) per three caster levels. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and so forth. All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you. As with all spells where the range is personal and the target is you, you need not make a saving throw, nor is spell resistance applicable to you. Only objects held or in use (attended) by another person receive saving throws and spell resistance.

Unless the high priest of a "No" vote deity is willing to be teleported away to bring about the destruction of the world and the triumph of Hel, I don't think the Orb is Hel's ace in the hole. Given that Durkon was not studious, I suppose it is barely possible that the HPoH thinks he can teleport voters away, in error.

Of course, there's also the possibility that Story will trump RAW. However, since I don't think the Giant will have "Yes" win, that is likewise unlikely.

[Shining Wrath]

You have now stumbled upon why teleportation is a plot killer.

Teleport only works on willing creatures; unless the Orb by Word of Giant functions differently, removing voters that way should not be possible.

[Mordar]

so dont have travel be a main plot point in your story...

The travel/journey story (with a literal journey that takes the protagonists and readers on a journey of growth/development) is a foundational element of storytelling, and the travel itself is a structural element, not just a plot point or obstacle to be overcome. Teleport powers are a minor part of the D&D foundation.

Which to remove...the structure of the entire narrative or one small piece of the set dressing?

I would much rather see the world that has been created while following the OotS in their travels* then a sequence of boss fights, but YMMV.

* - and the character development, accidental side quests and humor galore it presents

[Grey Watcher]

so dont have travel be a main plot point in your story...

as for teleporting a delegate out, im pretty much certain the godsmoot voting area would be dimensionally locked to prevent people from leaving magically

You'd also think there would be rules about attacking the hosts/staff or bodyguards beating up their own delegates, but there aren't. I get the distinct impression that every rule in these Godsmoots exists because someone, sometime in the past tried shenanigans and smugly pointed out afterwards that "there ain't no rule against it!" So, for the next Godsmoot there WAS a rule.

Plus, this is probably the first time that a delegate has casters supporting him (normally it's just a delegate and a bodyguard, and I suspect the bodyguards are all non- or partial casters (Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, Paladins, etc.) AND there's been a convenient teleportation item nearby.

Besides, even if Gontor's breaking a rule, I doubt the HPoH cares if he gets destroyed for it. (And I believe, as a thrall, Gontor has to obey even a suicidal order.)

EDIT: All this does presuppose that the Orb of Teleportation ignores the rule that the targets must be willing. Which, given that it is a non-standard magic item, is a distinct possibility.

[EmperorSarda]

Hel wins if this world gets destroyed. Whether this happens by vote or the last gate being destroyed is moot. She is defeated at this juncture. So Gontorkula has grabbed the teleport orb so he and the HPoH can beat the Order to the Gate, and destroy it.

As far as free will... At any given time a vampire may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice its own Hit Dice; any spawn it creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed vampires or vampire spawn. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm)

The HPoH had no ability to trick Malack. As a thrall, he could not act without permission of Malack. He was essentially an automata. He had no personality, he was just a blank slate. He had no ability to trick or plan anything.

[Keltest]

Hel wins if this world gets destroyed. Whether this happens by vote or the last gate being destroyed is moot. She is defeated at this juncture. So Gontorkula has grabbed the teleport orb so he and the HPoH can beat the Order to the Gate, and destroy it.

As far as free will... At any given time a vampire may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice its own Hit Dice; any spawn it creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed vampires or vampire spawn. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm)

The HPoH had no ability to trick Malack. As a thrall, he could not act without permission of Malack. He was essentially an automata. He had no personality, he was just a blank slate. He had no ability to trick or plan anything.

Being enslaved does not preclude the possibility of intelligence or personality.

[Cazero]

then why didnt he try to curry favour with Tarquin to get a teleport out of him?
I can see that conversation.

Durkula : Hey, Malack's dead, so I need a teleport far away from here ASAP kthxbye.
Tarquin : Without the supervision of my trusted friend and colleague, you're not a reliable asset. In fact, you might even be a hindrance or worse, a B-plot villain undercutting the dramatic tension between me and my son. I also blame you for the events that lead to Malack's death because I have nobody else within my reach. *stake undead*

[schmunzel]

I guess an explosive rune might have damaged the orb as well?

My personal guess is that Durkula wants to use the orb to forcibly teleport one of the no-voters away, nullifying their vote (I'm sure somebody else has come up with that theory, just can't be bothered to check through the pages of discussion about this comic and the last :p).

Yep this was my idea!
However it was refuted on the grounds that it is very likely, that the Godsmoot was warded against teleportation magic.
Truth be told, I would think it was silly if that was not the case.

Another even better reason against it, is the simple truth, that if Durkula is gone (when teleporking away with the poor Demi God Priest) Hels Vote would be void on the exact same reason as why the DemiGods vote would be void.

Im rather positive, that Futurkula has no way to enter the Hall to give the Orb to Durkula respectively use it himself to teleport the priest away.

It makes much more sense for Durkula to use the orb to get to the last gate himself.

The timing indeed made me think that Durkula would try to rig the last priests vote, however

sch

[EmperorSarda]

Being enslaved does not preclude the possibility of intelligence or personality.

Of course there is some intelligence. Remembering the spell slots available is well and good. But there can be no planning around Malack. No chance for trickery. It's magical enslavement, like domination.

If the HPoH had some degree of control over himself, why would he immediately forgo the accent? Why not keep it from the beginning?

[Keltest]

Of course there is some intelligence. Remembering the spell slots available is well and good. But there can be no planning around Malack. No chance for trickery. It's magical enslavement, like domination.

If the HPoH had some degree of control over himself, why would he immediately forgo the accent? Why not keep it from the beginning?

A: Why bother? none of the Order are around to hear him
B: None of the Order know how Thralldom works anyway. If asked, he can just lie and say it was an aspect of being enthralled.

[Doug Lampert]

Of course there is some intelligence. Remembering the spell slots available is well and good. But there can be no planning around Malack. No chance for trickery. It's magical enslavement, like domination.

If the HPoH had some degree of control over himself, why would he immediately forgo the accent? Why not keep it from the beginning?

Right, he would clearly have kept the accent to....

Wait, why in the world do you think that follows? Seriously, how does having an accent help him around Malik? He's going to fool Malik (aka another vampire) into thinking he's still the same old Durkon, when Malik knows he's a vampire and knows exactly what vampires are?

How in the world do you get "can't plan or use trickery" from anything in the rules? It never says the master can read the thrall's mind and that would be a rather important power to mention as it would have many other uses.

[8BitNinja]

A: Why bother? none of the Order are around to hear him
B: None of the Order know how Thralldom works anyway. If asked, he can just lie and say it was an aspect of being enthralled.

What if someone does know, but just keeping quiet?