End of the Order? [Spoiler, I guess?]

[Ikkitosen]

So, OoTS started with the in-game upgrade from 3.0 to 3.5. What do you think will happen when 4th Ed. is released next year? A few options spring to mind:

1. They get converted to 4th Ed. Unlikely since it's basically re-telling the same joke, but who knows? Maybe it'll depend on how much 4th Ed. changes things, but I'm guessing a lot. Will it even be possible to change them and retain some semblance of the Order that we know and love?

2. They ignore 4th Ed. and continue playing 3.5. I think this is pretty likely - some good comedy mileage here, running into things that are 4th Ed. and having to explain why they're still "old school", etc.

3. The comic will end (dun dun dun!). I REALLY hope this doesn't happen, but Rich might see it as a good hopping off point if his health gets worse or other things change.

So, thoughts?

[Ranis]

3. The comic will end (dun dun dun!). I REALLY hope this doesn't happen, but Rich might see it as a good hopping off point if his health gets worse or other things change.

Rich will not end things due to his health. His condition is not fatal, and that's all we really know about it. So while it is debilitating, it's not going to force him to end the comic. Plus, his little hiatus is well deserved.

[Ikkitosen]

Rich will not end things due to his health. His condition is not fatal, and that's all we really know about it. So while it is debilitating, it's not going to force him to end the comic. Plus, his little hiatus is well deserved.

Seems like you know something I don't - care to elaborate? Or are you just supposing? (which is fine, I *did* ask :smalltongue:)

[NerfTW]

Considering he makes a living off the comic and games, I seriously doubt he'd drop it.

[Seeker]

Seems like you know something I don't - care to elaborate? Or are you just supposing? (which is fine, I *did* ask :smalltongue:)

7/7/2007 news:


(No, I’m not going to tell you exactly what is wrong with me; it’s nobody’s business. Suffice to say that it is nonfatal and my significant other takes good care of me.)

[Regneva]

Rich will not end things due to his health. His condition is not fatal, and that's all we really know about it. So while it is debilitating, it's not going to force him to end the comic...

Well a friend of mine's was in an accident... Lost both arms. I suppose his condition is stable now and its not fatal. But I don't see him anywhere near drawing a web comic...

[lipe44]

Well a friend of mine's was in an accident... Lost both arms. I suppose his condition is stable now and its not fatal. But I don't see him anywhere near drawing a web comic...

How could him draw if he lost the both arms?

I doubt Rich will end this comic, its probably fun for him do it and see the forums and its his income.

[Ikkitosen]

7/7/2007 news:

That's not in question - I know as much as Rich has stated about his health. Why does Rich being alive mean the comic will continue? I mean, I presume he's not going to go on until he dies (although that would be awesome - the going on, not the dying).

The advent of 4th Ed. definitely mixes things up IMO.

[Kaelaroth]

The comic is not yet halfway through, so I very much dount Rich will end it soon - especially as it would be fun for them to maybe run into a 4ed version of OOTS!!! Or alternatively they will just struggle on as if nothing happened.

[TheAlmightyOne]

How could him draw if he lost the both arms?



Rich is a warforged comic writer. Problem solved.

[wojonatior]

i think he will just continue without change beacuse his planned ideas could be majorly changed with 4.0

[factotum]

Rich said in the intro to "Dungeon Crawlin' Fools" that making a big joke of the transition from 3.0 to 3.5 was a mistake--it made the jokes in the first strip heavily reliant on knowing all the details of how the rules changed, and not many people would know that even at the time, much less several years down the line. Given that, I am fully confident he will just ignore 4th edition entirely.

[Chronos]

Really, there's no reason to upgrade to 4th, and several good reasons not to. The upgrade from 3.0 to 3.5 was a small one, and left most character concepts basically intact, but a full-integer upgrade might not. As an example, my most-played character in 2nd edition was a gnome cleric/thief. If I were writing a story about such a character, how could I have updated it to 3.0? Maybe there's some obscure prestige class like that somewhere in one of the splatbooks, but how many people are familiar with it? Likewise, some of the major characters in Order of the Stick might not really be able to survive an edition conversion. Who knows what they'll do with Bards, for instance?

On the other side of the coin, some folks have worried that keeping the comic in 3.5 will stagnate it, since the jokes about the rules will be out of date. I don't think this will be a real problem, though: Most of the rules jokes depend not so much on what the rules are, as on the mere fact that there are rules, and this is a game. For instance, in Math is fun (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0034.html), all you really need to know is that you roll dice with some situational bonuses to determine if you hit and how much damage you do. That joke would work equally well in almost any role-playing game. You don't need to know the specific mechanics of how the attack and damage rolls work in a particular edition of D&D.

[Morty]

Not to mention that amount of rule-based jokes, by which I mean making fun of rules, decreased quite significantly over the course of the strip.

[explanetpluto]

I think that aside from jokes about being "old school" adventurers, 4e will be ignored entirely. Although it would be funny if they ran into a party of 4e characters.

[TheGrimace]

The upgrade from 3.0 to 3.5 was a small one, and left most character concepts basically intact...

Well, this was the earliest form of OOTS, wasn't it?
so, there were no character concepts to keep intact, they were all made up on that fateful day.

[Studoku]

Well a friend of mine's was in an accident... Lost both arms. I suppose his condition is stable now and its not fatal. But I don't see him anywhere near drawing a web comic...

Unless the condition that Rich has is leprosy, I don't see how that could be a problem.

[Mugen Nightgale]

If Rich likes the 4th ed he'll probably do some version jokes and stuf.. theres no need to think too much about it. It doesn't depends on nothing more then his will.

[Yoritomo Himeko]

That's not in question - I know as much as Rich has stated about his health. Why does Rich being alive mean the comic will continue? I mean, I presume he's not going to go on until he dies (although that would be awesome - the going on, not the dying).

The advent of 4th Ed. definitely mixes things up IMO.

Well, Rich said that OOTS will definitely end one day. While he has enough material for a couple more years of OOTS, there is always the possibility that he could end it before its time.

Take the last few weeks for example. While Rich had intended to put out three strips a week, he was forced to slow down to just one strip a week due to health problems.

All we can hope for is that Rich is willing to do the comic, and his health will permit it.

[Talitha]

Rich said in the intro to "Dungeon Crawlin' Fools" that making a big joke of the transition from 3.0 to 3.5 was a mistake--it made the jokes in the first strip heavily reliant on knowing all the details of how the rules changed, and not many people would know that even at the time, much less several years down the line. Given that, I am fully confident he will just ignore 4th edition entirely.

I don't think it was a mistake. I know nothing of 3.0 rules, and even knew nothing of 3.5 rules when I first read the comic, but even I could pick up that changing the ruleset made things much better for everyone in the party, except the one member who was counting on it. Perhaps it makes for a lame joke compared to the rules-richness that others can get out of it, but it was mildly funny nonetheless. Sufficiently funny that I clicked the 'next' button and kept reading. It's almost unheard of for a webcomic to actually be funny in its first few panels. For OOTS to manage even a mild snicker was sufficient merit to make it worth reading.

Since then, I've been getting much more involved. I even acquired a copy of the PHB, although I don't know anyone in meatspace who plays the game so I've can't actually do anything with said book except play NWN.

[Chronos]

...but even I could pick up that changing the ruleset made things much better for everyone in the party, except the one member who was counting on it.Ironically, rangers did improve significantly in 3.5 . Well, in most ways, at least. They now have more skill points, their Favored Enemy ability is more powerful, they have the option of Archery instead of Two-Weapon Fighting if they prefer, and whichever combat style they choose, it continues to improve as they level up. The only thing they really lost is they now have d8 hit dice instead of d10s like they used to. Oh, and the weapon size rules are now slightly worse for Belkar, as a small-sized character, but even at that, the daggers he was using before didn't exactly have overwhelming damage, and if he wanted more damage, he could go with (halfling-sized) short swords.

[RAGE KING!]

Well a friend of mine's was in an accident... Lost both arms. I suppose his condition is stable now and its not fatal. But I don't see him anywhere near drawing a web comic...

Prosthetics not good enough?

[cheesecake]

I guess being a hyprocondrac means you can make up lame excuses for being lazy.

[nephtis]

My bet for switching to 4th edition is:

The characters being all exited about it, try to convert and after a few pages someone (probably Roy or Elan) realizes that they are so different they hardly know each others abilities anymore, neither their strong nor their weak points both physically and socially (failing something that might have worked just fine had they all acted their 3.5 self), that they make a conscious desicion to return to 3.5.
"You do that thing and help me!"
"Last strip/week - maybe - but this is 4.0..."

Maybe once in a while complaining about "if this was 4.0 I could do XYZ..."