OOTS #1219 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

[RMS Oceanic]

Been a while since we've seen so many skill checks. :smallbiggrin:

[Peelee]

I'm really wondering how long has that joke been planned for?

[137beth]

Good, use everyone's skills together.

'Course, it's possible Team Evil DIDN'T deal with this trap, given that they might not have come through this door at all.

[Peelee]

Good, use everyone's skills together.

'Course, it's possible Team Evil DIDN'T deal with this trap, given that they might not have come through this door at all.

They've got the snow pushed aside, so I think it's meant to imply that they totally did.

[RMS Oceanic]

They've got the snow pushed aside, so I think it's meant to imply that they totally did.

I like that it's this that Roy (and probably Haley) picked up on rather than the X's.

[Pampukin]

Ohh maybe the trap ensues that the person coming through never reaches the gate? Like maybe it rearranges the tomb! Or it teleports the person moving to a dead end! Maybe even summons the guardian monsters.
I like the implication that the tomb isnt as simple as a game of chance.

[Peelee]

I like that it's this that Roy (and probably Haley) picked up on rather than the X's.

That actually made me go back and notice, they don't say "you can tell this one's been opened", but rather, "you can tell this one's been opened recently".

[understatement]

There's no way this is the Order. They're actually working so smoothly together!

...so does this mean Team Evil already did the door they "went" through, or not?

[TheJayPhoenix]

Is it just me or is it a little disturbing to see all of them actually using their skills properly? :)

[Rinazina]

snow aside = better indicator than the red X (also because OOTS shouldn't know what does it mean?)

line of magical runes = something that perhaps team evil always miss, and key feature to find the gate? how likely is this?

is it perhaps the trigger for "dangeon remix & repopulate" ?

[Pampukin]

snow aside = better indicator than the red X (also because OOTS shouldn't know what does it mean?)

line of magical runes = something that perhaps team evil always miss, and key feature to find the gate? how likely is this?

is it perhaps the trigger for "dangeon remix & repopulate" ?

My bet is either that or it alerts the faction guarding the gate to do so.

[locksmith of lo]

oh yes, i love looking at another thread and then seeing new comic pop up! :smallcool:

now, why didn't anyone else think of that? that the tracker could hide the tracks from another tracker? :smallwink:

[Quebbster]

I wonder if the runes is the explanation for how there can be so many doors. Perhaps passing the runes makes the rest of the dungeon appear somehow?

[Linneris]

is it perhaps the trigger for "dangeon remix & repopulate" ?

Well, if it is, I feel like it will make the Chekhov's Gun of MitD marking extra doors pointless, unless the Gate is behind one of the extra doors MitD marked, and this turns out to matter.

[Lord Torath]

There's no way this is the Order. They're actually working so smoothly together!Well, they have grown some (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1063.html).

Thanks, Rich!

[Kaed]

Is it just me or is it a little disturbing to see all of them actually using their skills properly? :)

Their comical incompetence had to eventually give way to competence flavored with comical inter-party dynamics when the story got more serious and is starting to wrap up. Everyone's had their mountains of character development, a dozen or so levels since the story began in the Redmountains castle, and an understanding that the world is about to end if they screw up.

Narratively speaking, constant schadenfreude and one dimensional character humor (belkar is evil!, haley is greedy!, elan is stupid!, etc) isn't really appropriate at this stage of the plot, except in very small doses. They can't keep tripping over their own character flaws forever.

[Crusher]

Competence growing by leaps and bounds! If I didn’t know better I’d say they were an actual high level party!

[Resileaf]

Sheesh Belkar, don't pat yourself on the back too hard, you've been absolutely terrible at tracking for a long time. :smalltongue:

And hey, look at that. Every door that Durkon and Minrah open during https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1216.html have little lines on them. And yet Team Evil did not visibly trigger anything upon entering. Most curious.

[Doug Lampert]

I'm really wondering how long has that joke been planned for?

AFAICT the SRD at least doesn't give any advantage to hiding tracks for having survival or the track feat, it's just a flat +5 to the track DC at the cost of moving half speed.

So it's really not a rules joke and isn't a major plot element, it's just an explanation of why this has any chance of working with a final panel joke thrown in.

As a GM, I'd probably allow a larger increase to the DC for use of the survival skill and track feat to help hide tracks, it makes sense, but AFAICT it's not a rule.

[Darth Paul]

Sheesh Belkar, don't pat yourself on the back too hard, you've been absolutely terrible at tracking for a long time. :smalltongue:

Well, this is the only Ranger skill he had a reason to learn, by his logic.

I mean, he wasn't going to be tracking down any bloodhounds, but they might be tracking him down pretty darn hard!

[SlashDash]

Man, it's amazing how well the team work developed by these guys - and how huge of a contrast it is for Durkon going against that by going solo.

[HalfTangible]

Belkar, you didn't have any ranks in survival when this quest started and an ability score penalty. We learned the former shortly before you were captured by a paladin, dragged off to Azure City, and hit with a magic rune that makes it impossible to kill in a city. After that point you were "faking" character growth right up until you actually grew as a character. You only knew how to track at the start because it was part of the Ranger package.

Meaning if you learned to track at all you did it long after you joined the Order and law enforcement agencies stopped being your primary concern :tongue:

[Jannoire]

Okay, my money is on the trap stops you from reaching the gate if you trigger it...

And Mitd marking wrong doors might not impact the search for the gate, but it's good foreshadowing for an upcoming betrayal....

[Peelee]

AFAICT the SRD at least doesn't give any advantage to hiding tracks for having survival or the track feat, it's just a flat +5 to the track DC at the cost of moving half speed.

So it's really not a rules joke and isn't a major plot element, it's just an explanation of why this has any chance of working with a final panel joke thrown in.

As a GM, I'd probably allow a larger increase to the DC for use of the survival skill and track feat to help hide tracks, it makes sense, but AFAICT it's not a rule.

I meant as a character joke, not a rules joke.

[Ghosty]

Who on Team Evil can detect traps? RC can run Find Traps, but that's only 1 min/level. Do we think he has a slew of them, or their Extended versions? Can Oona Find Traps or otherwise detect them?

The whole point of this is, are we sure that TE even knew that this tripwire was even there? If they didn't, and kept hitting it in every door they've gone through, might the tripwire send TE to a different dungeon (without an Epic Sorcerer or near-Epic, very clever Cleric realizing they'd been teleported elsewhere) than the one the Order is about to enter?

EDIT: OTOH, Haley hasn't been keeping her Search maxed, per that scene at the entrance to Girard's Pyramid, so maybe it doesn't take a huge Search skill to detect this particular tripwire?

[RMS Oceanic]

Who on Team Evil can detect traps? RC can run Find Traps, but that's only 1 min/level. Do we think he has a slew of them, or their Extended versions? Can Oona Find Traps or otherwise detect them?

The whole point of this is, are we sure that TE even knew that this tripwire was even there? If they didn't, and kept hitting it in every door they've gone through, might the tripwire send TE to a different dungeon (without an Epic Sorcerer or near-Epic, very clever Cleric realizing they'd been teleported elsewhere) than the one the Order is about to enter?

That sounds like something Girard or Dorukan would do. I'm not sure if Serini would have had access to that much high level magic. Paying for magic can get screwy.

[Thales]

Last comic ended on a half page, but this comic is a full page. Will the missing half-page be in the book?

[Peelee]

Belkar, you didn't have any ranks in survival when this quest started and an ability score penalty. We learned the former shortly before you were captured by a paladin, dragged off to Azure City, and hit with a magic rune that makes it impossible to kill in a city. After that point you were "faking" character growth right up until you actually grew as a character. You only knew how to track at the start because it was part of the Ranger package.

Meaning if you learned to track at all you did it long after you joined the Order and law enforcement agencies stopped being your primary concern :tongue:

Imean, he was in jail. Desire to not be tracked by the law does not equate to skill at not being tracked by the law.


Last comic ended on a half page, but this comic is a full page. Will the missing half-page be in the book?

It'll probably be bonus content of some form. Probably. Not the author. Regardless, though, there's no "missing" half-page.

[Reboot]

That sounds like something Girard or Dorukan would do. I'm not sure if Serini would have had access to that much high level magic. Paying for magic can get screwy.
Yeah, the builders have to cut enough corners to pay for their pool room, after all.

[Bunny Commando]

Who on Team Evil can detect traps? RC can run Find Traps, but that's only 1 min/level. Do we think he has a slew of them, or their Extended versions? Can Oona Find Traps or otherwise detect them?

The whole point of this is, are we sure that TE even knew that this tripwire was even there? If they didn't, and kept hitting it in every door they've gone through, might the tripwire send TE to a different dungeon (without an Epic Sorcerer or near-Epic, very clever Cleric realizing they'd been teleported elsewhere) than the one the Order is about to enter?

EDIT: OTOH, Haley hasn't been keeping her Search maxed, per that scene at the entrance to Girard's Pyramid, so maybe it doesn't take a huge Search skill to detect this particular tripwire?

TE knows that Serini Toormuck was a Rogue, it would seem a serious oversight on their part to not check for traps.
There's the chance that no one in TE knows that these traps have an automatic reset however, so even if they find the OotS they will end up blasted by a bunch of traps they didn't expect to find.

[Worldsong]

I do like this new and effective Order.

Also I guess we just learned something important about how the gate is protected. And rather than it being based on being a dwarf or a halfling it's based on being a rogue. Which I find a lot more satisfying.

[Schroeswald]

Watching the Order work together like this is so satisfying.

Also this is the fiftieth new strip posted since I caught up with the comic, so that’s cool.

[deltamire]

I'm guessing whatever this trap is is, it's not something you'd notice immediately - maybe something to do with the monsters inside? - instead of just exploding you into next week (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0893.html), It would explain why such a weight has been given to the fact that Haley's disarming it (for now, which could mean if Team Evil follows in later, we'll see what it triggers from an inside viewpoint), and why, if it's something unusual, she hasn't been able to specify what type of trap it is. She's usually on the ball with recognising things (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0841.html) like that. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0892.html)

[Psepha]

Wait... IS the snow being moved aside a reliable indicator? It doesn't look like the doors hit the snow, so I assume it's from the passage of feet... and the MITD did approach each door to paint the red X's, whether that door was opened or not, so would that throw things off?

[danielxcutter]

Yeah, that “trap” has to have something to do with how the dungeon works. Can’t be an offensive spell though, because if it was then we’d have heard an explosion when Team Evil went into the dungeon three strips ago.

[Peelee]

Wait... IS the snow being moved aside a reliable indicator? It doesn't look like the doors hit the snow, so I assume it's from the passage of feet... and the MITD did approach each door to paint the red X's, whether that door was opened or not, so would that throw things off?

It's being presented as a reliable indicator, so I will not assume it's unreliable until the comic shows reason to. Which isn't to say that it is reliable, just that I like the story to be able to take me to the places it wants.

[Amarsir]

It’s worth remembering that Oona and her village farm these caves on the regular. Team Evil would have no reason to check for traps if they’re with someone who has been in there before.

[Doug Lampert]

I meant as a character joke, not a rules joke.

Sure, but as a character joke, Belkar has had a point made before about being a lousy tracker. I think it's just a throw away with no real setup.

[Tuhlore]

It's possible that TE is just immune to the trap's effect. However, it couldn't be mind affecting, because Xykon wouldn't be affected. It also couldn't be an Evocation spell, because there was no boom, as mentioned.
Also, Haley has leveled up since the desert temple.

I agree that it has something to do with the dungeon's design. Xykon can't Ghostform or Teleport inside, so who's to say it needs to be static?

[Peelee]

Sure, but as a character joke, Belkar has had a point made before about being a lousy tracker. I think it's just a throw away with no real setup.

As I pointed out earlier (albeit in a spoiler), having a reason to learn how to track and actually being good at tracking are very separate things.

[Bunny Commando]

Yeah, that “trap” has to have something to do with how the dungeon works. Can’t be an offensive spell though, because if it was then we’d have heard an explosion when Team Evil went into the dungeon three strips ago.

That's actually a good point; there's the chance that the trap in that dungeon hasn't been already reset, though.

[BruceGee]

That sounds like something Girard or Dorukan would do. I'm not sure if Serini would have had access to that much high level magic. Paying for magic can get screwy.
We don't know who Serini might have met and allied with, all those years building her dungeon by herself at the top of the world. Such as the mysterious invisible flying dart shooter, for instance.

Or she was the dart shooter, and the other individual was responsible for the invisibility and flying. Are there any dragons that can turn invisible, cast spells, and carry unconscious paladins? (Not sure if anyone else has proposed it in comments.) Anyway, that's my theory.

[Wildstag]

Sure, but as a character joke, Belkar has had a point made before about being a lousy tracker. I think it's just a throw away with no real setup.

It is certainly possible that since the plot revolves around evil goblins, he's spent one of his Favored Enemy bonuses on Humanoid (goblinoid), which could provide an actual bonus to the checks, in which case there could be a real setup.

[Windscion]

If Serini installed magic traps, the most obvious source for the magic is a caster she knows. So Durokan or Girard, probably Girard. Which points toward the school of illusion.
Any illusions that do not show up on true seeing or have the mind affecting tag?

[skim172]

I'm prepared to accept this under suspension of disbelief - but just pointing out, I'm not sure there is any way to hide your scent tracks after the fact. As I understand it, once the scent trail is laid, there isn't much you can do about it.

[danielxcutter]

It is certainly possible that since the plot revolves around evil goblins, he's spent one of his Favored Enemy bonuses on Humanoid (goblinoid), which could provide an actual bonus to the checks, in which case there could be a real setup.

There aren’t any ways to hide your tracks besides moving at half speed, and the favored enemy bonus doesn’t help either.

[Rinazina]

Okay, my money is on the trap stops you from reaching the gate if you trigger it...

And Mitd marking wrong doors might not impact the search for the gate, but it's good foreshadowing for an upcoming betrayal....

I copy your bet like in etoro! make me wonder as a partnership between Haley and the magic users to find all the connection. a trigger like that would be hidden in other place of the dungeon too, wouldn't it ?

[Elenna]

Fun to see the Order being competent, especially in comparison to the first book(s)

[Emmit Svenson]

A ranger of sufficient level and sufficient wisdom could cast Pass Without Trace. If, upon gaining a new level, a high-level ranger spent his stat bump on raising his wisdom to the required (and really pretty low) score, he would become capable of casting the spell.

That doesn't seem to be exactly what's happening here--I just find it an interesting parallel. "Hey, can I reflavor my ranger spells as skills? I don't think it really fits my character to pray for divine spells."

[Psepha]

I'm prepared to accept this under suspension of disbelief - but just pointing out, I'm not sure there is any way to hide your scent tracks after the fact. As I understand it, once the scent trail is laid, there isn't much you can do about it.

Is Febreze a ranger class feature?

[Rinazina]

It’s worth remembering that Oona and her village farm these caves on the regular. Team Evil would have no reason to check for traps if they’re with someone who has been in there before.

Totally agree, and they never found the gate even if explored (randomly?) many doors.
It can be something spotted by Haley today, and likewise spotted by the bugbear in the past. Simply they neglected the meaning of it by not seeing any effect.

[Keltest]

I'm prepared to accept this under suspension of disbelief - but just pointing out, I'm not sure there is any way to hide your scent tracks after the fact. As I understand it, once the scent trail is laid, there isn't much you can do about it.

You can cover it up with something different. If you go to an intersection and you put a really strong source of stench (say, skunk spray) down each direction, thats going to cover you up pretty well. Its not foolproof, but the sensation of "NOPE!" will make it significantly harder for them to locate your own scent underneath it.

[locksmith of lo]

the funny thing, as someone pointed out, we can see the lines from when durkon opened the doors. but, curiously, they are never in the line of sight when team evil opens the door, nor the warg. we have no way of knowing if they actually have the lines when they go in or not. :smallconfused:

[understatement]

Crackshot theory:

The trap isn't offensive (or else Team Evil would have set it off). It's a scrying trap instead, allowing the guardians of the Gate to track whoever didn't disable the alarm (that's why Haley also mentions it goes off for each person walking over it). That way, the guardians instantly know which dungeon the Team has entered as well as tracking their progress. This also maybe allows them to reach the Gate before the invading team and blow it if they have to.

[ByzantiumBhuka]

Is Febreze a ranger class feature?

Well, there are air fresheners (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0526.html), at least.

[Ghosty]

I'm prepared to accept this under suspension of disbelief - but just pointing out, I'm not sure there is any way to hide your scent tracks after the fact. As I understand it, once the scent trail is laid, there isn't much you can do about it.

Magic covers a lot.

Laying a superintense scent down that masks the original scent---strong essential oils like eugenol (oil of clove), chili pepper extract, etc---is another method. I can see too, spraying some other substance that would chemically break down the floating and adsorbed molecules that make up a scent trail. Bleach, ozone, fluorine gas. An aerosol of activated charcoal dust? Super-Febreeze.

A dog's nose is pretty sensitive though.

IMHO, it requires less suspension of disbelief than many other things in either D&D or this strip.

[DougTheHead]

For your own self-enrichment, Belkar? Yes.

Your own NOBLE self-enrichment? Not so much.

[Ghosty]

Is Febreze a ranger class feature?

Considering Aragorn never washes his hair (h/t to Cassandra Claire), yet is able to sit in a tavern without being noticed, I'd think so...

[Psyren]

...Belkar learned to track? Aside from his weird culinary scent ability I mean :smalltongue:

[mjasghar]

I don’t recall the runes triggering whenever any of team evil entered - including when the warg went in

[Rinazina]

That's actually a good point; there's the chance that the trap in that dungeon hasn't been already reset, though.

if I understood correctly, Haley said it resets at every individual passage.
also true the 'if then' block of pseudocode triggered by the trap, if is at every individual passage, need a timeout to expire internally, if activate something in the maze.
without a timeout, it would have now been triggered since the first step, from the bugbears, years ago.
and/or, if the effect it is associated to the individual, like an invisible mark, that might have an expiration time.

well now I believe it is likely related to the mysterious character of the book.

[Rinazina]

Crackshot theory:

The trap isn't offensive (or else Team Evil would have set it off). It's a scrying trap instead, allowing the guardians of the Gate to track whoever didn't disable the alarm (that's why Haley also mentions it goes off for each person walking over it). That way, the guardians instantly know which dungeon the Team has entered as well as tracking their progress. This also maybe allows them to reach the Gate before the invading team and blow it if they have to.

that's it! yes!
and it is likely they were aware of the paladins hiding nearby?
considering we'll have a very frequent character appeared only once in last book, might be one of the invisible guardian?

[Rogar Demonblud]

I'm prepared to accept this under suspension of disbelief - but just pointing out, I'm not sure there is any way to hide your scent tracks after the fact. As I understand it, once the scent trail is laid, there isn't much you can do about it.

Perfumes exist. Use Summoning to call in a Celestial Skunk to spray down the area. Cast Stinking Cloud. And I'm pretty sure Disguise Scent got updated from 2E into 3E.

[KorvinStarmast]

Is it just me or is it a little disturbing to see all of them actually using their skills properly? :) It's about darned time.
My bet is either that or it alerts the faction guarding the gate to do so. That's the direction of my thinking as well.

Well, if it is, I feel like it will make the Chekhov's Gun of MitD marking extra doors pointless, unless the Gate is behind one of the extra doors MitD marked, and this turns out to matter. Foreshadowing for a bigger betrayal later, perhaps. MiTD can't know if things reset ... not that bright.
It’s worth remembering that Oona and her village farm these caves on the regular. Team Evil would have no reason to check for traps if they’re with someone who has been in there before.
Fair point.
I'm prepared to accept this under suspension of disbelief - but just pointing out, I'm not sure there is any way to hide your scent tracks after the fact. As I understand it, once the scent trail is laid, there isn't much you can do about it. As noted above, skunk scent or, perhaps, lots of cayenne pepper. I am guessing, with Belkar's skill as a chef, that he's laying down some hot pepper flakes ...

Considering Aragorn never washes his hair (h/t to Cassandra Claire), yet is able to sit in a tavern without being noticed, I'd think so... Those Very Secret Diaries are/were The Bomb. Loved them.

[Xlsfd]

I think a quote from Strip #922 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0922.html) is appropiate here.

Roy:
Ok, now I know were're doomed. Belkar is acting like a ranger.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think a quote from Strip #922 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0922.html) is appropiate here.

Roy: Ya beat me to it.
And I just love Belkar's closing line in the last panel. Love it.

[deltamire]

Crackshot theory:

The trap isn't offensive (or else Team Evil would have set it off). It's a scrying trap instead, allowing the guardians of the Gate to track whoever didn't disable the alarm (that's why Haley also mentions it goes off for each person walking over it). That way, the guardians instantly know which dungeon the Team has entered as well as tracking their progress. This also maybe allows them to reach the Gate before the invading team and blow it if they have to.
I hadn't considered anything like that at all, but it makes a lot of sense! My main problem with the restocking theory was that it removed all the weight from the MiTD's cover-ups beyond a marker of his personality growth if Team Evil couldn't check the doors for his betrayal, but this would still keep that as something affecting the plot while introducing anyone (Serini, the mysterious voices, anyone else who's thrown their chips in) who's protecting or surveying the gate in a more organic way. Definitely going to be considering this as one of the more viable theories being thrown about.

[gatemansgc]

Sheesh Belkar, don't pat yourself on the back too hard, you've been absolutely terrible at tracking for a long time. :smalltongue:

And hey, look at that. Every door that Durkon and Minrah open during https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1216.html have little lines on them. And yet Team Evil did not visibly trigger anything upon entering. Most curious.

good catch!

[pendell]

Did someone mention that the bugbears farm these caves regularly? Then perhaps that explains why TE missed the trap; Oona must know about it, and know how to bypass it. Possibly it's more trouble to disarm than it's worth. I'm a bit surprised Xykon didn't simply throw an underling across the line of runes to see what would happen for funsies. "Disposable Minions" are the evil-aligned party's standby for trap detection and disposal, after all.

.. what was that strip where they used disposable minions to put a monster to sleep by munching down on hobgoblins ,again?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[gatemansgc]

I think a quote from Strip #922 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0922.html) is appropiate here.

Roy:

that was one of my fave moments in the series tbh <3

[Thrillhouse]

Crazy theory time:

Be aware that I have no knowledge of DND mechanics so I don’t know if I’m even describing something possible.

If Serini were truly trying to defend the gate based on Kraagor’s philosophy, she would be unlikely to make a dungeon in which you could get lucky by picking the right door first and then have to fight less.

She would also be unlikely to make the monsters a diversion, and the “real solution” something like finding a secret passage.

The true “brute force” defence would be a system whereby invaders have to fight and kill each and every monster in the entire hollow before getting to the gate.

So my guess is that the “trap” simply puts an invisible marker on those who cross it, meant to “record” that they have entered that tunnel. There is probably a similar trap at the end of each tunnel that records that one reached the end of it.

When a person crosses this trap with a number of invisible marks on them indicating that they’ve reached the end of the “last” hollow, a passageway opens up somehow to the gate, probably with some suitably epic final boss monster in front of it.

The reason there is a passage at all is so that Serini can get to the gate herself if need be. However in her case either she has some way of evading the detection of all the monsters, or more likely they are charmed or trained not to attack her, specifically. In any case she has already triggered all the traps herself and merely needs to walk to the end of any hollow to make the passage appear.

No idea if any of this is actually possible in terms of game mechanics. But that’s my theory. It’s incomplete in that it doesn’t explain the regeneration of the monsters but my suspicion is there are numerous ways one could manage that.

PS: This also would have the bonus of making MitD’s betrayal something substantive, that will actually make it harder for TE to find the gate.

[Riftwolf]

AFAICT the SRD at least doesn't give any advantage to hiding tracks for having survival or the track feat, it's just a flat +5 to the track DC at the cost of moving half speed.

So it's really not a rules joke and isn't a major plot element, it's just an explanation of why this has any chance of working with a final panel joke thrown in.

As a GM, I'd probably allow a larger increase to the DC for use of the survival skill and track feat to help hide tracks, it makes sense, but AFAICT it's not a rule.

Ranger Teacher: OK kids today were going to learn about tracking. It's useful for tracking animals, or occasionally criminals who escape into the forest. The first thing I should warn you of, because it's how my brother died, is that sometimes criminals will use bear musk to hide their trail...
Belkar: Does it have to be bear musk?
Ranger Teacher: Well other animals might work, I suppose... Fox, Beaver, Elon... But using bear musk attracts bears, you see, and so my brother...
Belkar: *writes down 'use musk to hide scent trail'* OK thanks Mr. Strider, see you next week!

[B. Pseudonym]

The runes are very, very interesting, and I'm excited to see that chekhov's gun go off.

That said, remember strip 1040, when Team Evil walks out of the tomb and they're all banged up? And there's a last-panel gag where the MitD says "So visually complex, too! I'm glad no one had to draw a picture of that!"

It's probably a little stupid, but that's had me hyped up to see what this dungeon looks like for months.

[Riftwolf]

Those Very Secret Diaries are/were The Bomb. Loved them.

Was that the 'Sam will kill him if he finds out' series? Wow that takes me back to when the Internet was young.

[ReaderAt2046]

So, as Roy pointed out in strip 1203, the dungeon doors are too close together for anything other than a straight corridor behind each. We also know that the whole thing is made of multidimensional stone, which 1) means that you can't Ghostform through it and 2) introduces the idea of multidimensional natures. And now we have a trap that only a very high-level rogue could spot inside each door, one that obviously doesn't have any visible effect and that resets to apply to each person passing through the door.

So my theory is that the entire complex is a shell game. The runes form some kind of dimensional shift, and if you cross the runes without disabling them you enter a tiny pocket dimension for each door, one that holds the appropriate monsters. The only way to access the actual Gate is to disable the dimensional runes, which allows you to enter the actual Gate complex. Serini tells everyone she's building a dungeon dedicated to the power of physical might in memory of Kraagor, but that is just one more layer of obfuscation around the Gate's actual defenses. Very rogueish thing to do.

[harami2000]

Magic covers a lot.

Laying a superintense scent down that masks the original scent---strong essential oils like eugenol (oil of clove), chili pepper extract, etc---is another method. I can see too, spraying some other substance that would chemically break down the floating and adsorbed molecules that make up a scent trail. Bleach, ozone, fluorine gas. An aerosol of activated charcoal dust? Super-Febreeze.

A dog's nose is pretty sensitive though.
Hopefully the silence spell is still in force so we can't hear Greyview's response to being called a d-o-g. :smallamused:

[Gnoman]

It occurs to me that we might be seeing a particularly clever variant of the shell game here. Pretty much anybody actually seeking the Gate is going to know something of the history of the Order Of The Scribble. So they're expecting either a rougish maze or (if they're very well informed) a physical gauntlet if extreme difficulty.

At most, they'll expect Girard to contribute Illusions, but that is it for magic. So whaever this magic trap is will be something completely unaccounted for in planning. I like the notion that it is a very powerful Teleport effect you don't notice, that ensures you are never on a valid path to the Gate, but there's lots of other possible options here.

[Resileaf]

I'll go ahead and give my own theory since everyone's up to it.

There is one real dungeon, but it also has the trap trigger at the beginning. Hundreds of doors lead into small passageways that lead nowhere, but with a trap at the beginning that leads to a fake dungeon (perhaps creating a portal), one door leads to the real dungeon, also with a trap at the beginning that leads to a fake dungeon since there's no reason for the real dungeon to not have that defense at the beginning, and is further defended by trap after trap after trap.

Which means that the hundreds of doors are still an effective defense because you still have to check on them one by one, and always have to disarm the trigger at the beginning. This is very time consuming and lets Sereni's invisible allies (if her allies they are) find a way to deal with the intruders.

[Olinser]

AHA.

Evidence is starting to pile up for my theory that it is a specific ORDER of door opening that is required to access the Gate.

[JSSheridan]

Thanks Giant!

[Peelee]

AHA.

Evidence is starting to pile up for my theory that it is a specific ORDER of door opening that is required to access the Gate.

Not to sound snarky, but... it is? What evidence?

[KorvinStarmast]

Was that the 'Sam will kill him if he finds out' series? Wow that takes me back to when the Internet was young. "Well, younger ..." but yeah, that one. I laughed when I first came across it.
(Aragorn, Day 352: Darnit, still not King!)

Also, to follow up on the Strip 1216 point about lines on the floor ...
Greyview did not appear to trigger a trap when he took off with a silence spell upon him (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1217.html)

I wonder if Haley slightly misdiagnosed what she found. :smallconfused:

[Resileaf]

"Well, younger ..." but yeah, that one. I laughed when I first came across it.
(Aragorn, Day 352: Darnit, still not King!)

Also, to follow up on the Strip 1216 point about lines on the floor ...
Greyview did not appear to trigger a trap when he took off with a silence spell upon him (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1217.html)

I wonder if Haley slightly misdiagnosed what she found. :smallconfused:

None of Team Evil appeared to trigger a trap when they went through the door. The effect of the trap is clearly of the very subtle kind that isn't noticeable and doesn't deal damage.

[KorvinStarmast]

None of Team Evil appeared to trigger a trap when they went through the door. The effect of the trap is clearly of the very subtle kind that isn't noticeable and doesn't deal damage. Might even be an alarm. :smallwink:

And I think this is a good place to put this: last two panels, I still really like Roy's green hat and Roy's green scarf.

[jayem]

It would be quite trickstery if actually going into the dungeon invalidated the opening of the door. I'm not sure how you actually do it.

[Raven777]

This new era of Belkar contributing mission critical skills (beyond stabbing fools) confuses me.

[b_jonas]

As for erasing their trail from tracking dogs.

Lois Lowry's children's novel Number the stars (1989) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_the_Stars) is a story based on real history that involves this. The story is set during World War II, telling about the evacuation of jews from Denmark to Sweden to avoid their prosecution. People were smuggled through the sea in hidden compartments of fishing boats. To attempt to stop this, german soldiers used dogs to sniff out people hiding in the boat. So the fisherman had to use a trick to mislead the dogs.
This involves a powder mixed from rabbit blood, to attract the dog, and cocaine, to numb their sense of smell.

If Belkar was indeed hunted by law enforcement dogs, he might indeed have learned a trick like this. But, as other people point out, there could also be magic involved.

[Jacky720]

Not to sound snarky, but... it is? What evidence?
Every door is rigged with runes that do something other than explode you. It fits neatly into forming a passcode, if the something is "track which door you entered".

Which isn't really evidence because of all the other interpretations, but it does fit.

[Peelee]

Every door is rigged with runes that do something other than explode you. It fits neatly into forming a passcode, if the something is "track which door you entered".

Which isn't really evidence because of all the other interpretations, but it does fit.

OK, I getcha now. Though if that were the case, I'd imagine it would be easier and more reliable to just have any such runes on the inside of the doors, since that way they wouldn't be able to be bypassed like Haley is doing.

[KorvinStarmast]

OK, I getcha now. Though if that were the case, I'd imagine it would be easier and more reliable to just have any such runes on the inside of the doors, since that way they wouldn't be able to be bypassed like Haley is doing. But it could be a Schroedinger's trap, wherein simply observing and interacting with it changes its state. :smallsmile:

[merrygoblin]

Wait... IS the snow being moved aside a reliable indicator? It doesn't look like the doors hit the snow, so I assume it's from the passage of feet... and the MITD did approach each door to paint the red X's, whether that door was opened or not, so would that throw things off?

I seem to recall the MitD not leaving footprints in the snow previously (comic #1039 - one of the clues that those guessing the nature of the MitD picked up on).

[Petrocorus]

So, as Roy pointed out in strip 1203, the dungeon doors are too close together for anything other than a straight corridor behind each. We also know that the whole thing is made of multidimensional stone, which 1) means that you can't Ghostform through it and 2) introduces the idea of multidimensional natures. And now we have a trap that only a very high-level rogue could spot inside each door, one that obviously doesn't have any visible effect and that resets to apply to each person passing through the door.

So my theory is that the entire complex is a shell game. The runes form some kind of dimensional shift, and if you cross the runes without disabling them you enter a tiny pocket dimension for each door, one that holds the appropriate monsters. The only way to access the actual Gate is to disable the dimensional runes, which allows you to enter the actual Gate complex. Serini tells everyone she's building a dungeon dedicated to the power of physical might in memory of Kraagor, but that is just one more layer of obfuscation around the Gate's actual defenses. Very rogueish thing to do.
I can go behind this theory.
Heck. I should totally design an extra-dimensional-space dungeon.


"Well, younger ..." but yeah, that one. I laughed when I first came across it.
(Aragorn, Day 352: Darnit, still not King!)

Never heard of her, but i'm interested.
Which one of her series parodies LotR?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Wait...

Back before Azure City Belkar had zero ranks in Survival and a negative wisdom modifier, making him a horrible tracker who couldn't track. (While still technically having the feature that will let him track.) So when was this time that he was avoiding cops with dogs and learning how to track because of it?

[Wraithfighter]

Wait...

Back before Azure City Belkar had zero ranks in Survival and a negative wisdom modifier, making him a horrible tracker who couldn't track. (While still technically having the feature that will let him track.) So when was this time that he was avoiding cops with dogs and learning how to track because of it?

Two possibilities:

1: He since realized the need for that (possibly after having put some points into WIS for various reasons), and has been backfilling his Survival stat since then.

We have to keep in mind that the party was still mid-level back then, and they've gotten considerably more powerful since then.

2: He's lying to Roy about his reasons because, while he's certainly closer to Chaotic Neutral these days than he was way back when (maybe even there and progressing towards Chaotic Good!), it ain't like he's going to go completely soft on Roy :).

[Thanatosia]

I really doubt this is the case tbh, but is it possible that Team Evil made those weird Glyph Lines for some reason? The Order is specifically only checking doors that they believe Team Evil has already explored combined with the fact that Team Evil clearly does not set off any obvious effect from them might mean they are part of Team Evils workings?

But a cool chekhovs gun related to the Gate does have so much more dramatic potential, even if it's a little hard to swallow that Team Evil is unaware of them or just setting them off willy nilly unconcerned.

[catagent101]

Wait...

Back before Azure City Belkar had zero ranks in Survival and a negative wisdom modifier, making him a horrible tracker who couldn't track. (While still technically having the feature that will let him track.) So when was this time that he was avoiding cops with dogs and learning how to track because of it?

Tracking requires the Track feat in 3.5e, which the Ranger class gets for free at 1st level. I presume this is what he's referring to. Survival doesn't have a way of hiding tracks by default in 3.5e so the Giant may be ruling this as a use of Profession (Criminal) - or some other skill - that requires the Track feat.

[KorvinStarmast]

Never heard of her, but i'm interested.
Which one of her series parodies LotR? It was a blog called Very Secret Diaries (http://www.ealasaid.com/misc/vsd/). Her own blog has not stayed up, but a friend/associate hosted them for posterity's sake.

They are kinda silly. They first emerged after Fellowship of the Ring, the movie, came out. A friend at work clued me in, so I went home ... and was having a gigglefest when my wife dropped by and asked 'what's so funny' and then she had a giggle fest ...

[Riftwolf]

Wait...

Back before Azure City Belkar had zero ranks in Survival and a negative wisdom modifier, making him a horrible tracker who couldn't track. (While still technically having the feature that will let him track.) So when was this time that he was avoiding cops with dogs and learning how to track because of it?

He learnt the basics of tracking, enough to learn how to avoid being tracked. So he's terrible at tracking, but knows enough to throw off scent trails and cover his tracks. Think of whatever he's tossing on the ground as a Masterwork item giving a circumstance bonus. Hell, whatever he's throwing might even be in one of the Complete splatbooks. There was a ton of stuff for boosting skill checks in an overly specific way (tube of baby rust monsters, anyone?).

[Snails]

Every door is rigged with runes that do something other than explode you. It fits neatly into forming a passcode, if the something is "track which door you entered".

Which isn't really evidence because of all the other interpretations, but it does fit.

In the abstract, it is a fine idea.

Concretely speaking, it does not fit in this story, because the doors are so perfectly unidentifiable. If the doors had unique names or numbers on them, I could imagine there is a puzzle to be solved, such as you suggest. But The Giant would have dropped hints well before this point in the story.

Call the Chekow's Anti-Gun. When no mention of a gun has occurred in the story, you can't have a hidden gun pulled out from behind some books on the shelf in the third act, and used to immediately kill an important character.

[Snails]

Regarding various speculations, it is quite conceivable that Haley is the first high enough level Rogue to attempt to disable one of these traps (other than Team Serini) within the relevant window of history. So, I agree something interesting might suddenly be stumbled upon, something that RC's True Seeing would not reveal.

[Snails]

I'm prepared to accept this under suspension of disbelief - but just pointing out, I'm not sure there is any way to hide your scent tracks after the fact. As I understand it, once the scent trail is laid, there isn't much you can do about it.

The 3.5 Scent rules as written have a lot of rough edges. Enough so that I would not expect a DM to adhere to strict RAW.

In terms of this story, Belkar has established that he is both a ranger and a skilled cook with an acute sense of smell/taste who spends personal time worrying over spices. We see him spreading herbs. That he could mask a scent makes a lot more sense than you average ranger, and as a DM or reader I would find this idea attractive enough to agree to.

[Fish]

Since Team Evil arrived at this location, everybody has been talking about the idea of a double bluff. Mostly, this has centered around the statue, and whether the Gate might somehow be hidden inside it, or something. I think there could be a double bluff of a different nature...


I like the notion that it is a very powerful Teleport effect you don't notice...

...namely, how certain are we that there actually is more than one dungeon? Team Evil seems to have blindly proceeded with the assumption that 1 door = 1 dungeon. What if there only is one great big dungeon that resets with epic-level monsters, and everybody is teleported into that same space as they go in? A party could spend eternity checking and re-checking "every dungeon" and never reach the Gate.

And since the walls are made of multi-dimensional stone — whatever that is, it seems to block ghostform and possibly other kinds of wall-bypassing magic — the dungeon itself guards against anyone figuring out the trick. You can't just escape from "one dungeon" into the "next dungeon over" because there isn't a "next dungeon over" from this one. There's just this one.

Yes, I realize this would undermine the dramatic tension of MITD's clever ruse to keep Team Evil from finding anything. It doesn't undermine his character development, though, because he didn't know this wouldn't work.

And if you want to get really far afield in the speculation department, what if the statue is the key — literally — in that you have to take the statue with you in order to get to the gate? The statue just sits up there saying SACRIFICE FORGOTTEN and everybody ignores it. So not forgetting the statue gets you inside.

Yeah, too much speculation for one post. I know. Still, this is a fascinating turn of events.

[Jaziggy]

The runes didn't appear to react to being crossed, which suggests that their effect is quite subtle. I'd also note that there's some... thematic weakness to the notion that the protections created by a rogue require only the direct application of force to solve.

I note that the text has recently referenced the shell game idea again; my pet theory is that each and every door leads to the gate, but only if you detect and avoid the rune trap. Sort of the opposite of none of them being the door- they are all the door, and the existence of the choosing game is the sleight of hand.

Can't wait to see what happens next!

[Fish]

I'd also note that there's some... thematic weakness to the notion that the protections created by a rogue require only the direct application of force to solve.
Who says that brute force solves it? In the comic it only says she "filled the dungeon with fearsome monsters to reflect Kraagor's belief in physical might." Not that physical might would be useful in getting through.

[Peelee]

Since Team Evil arrived at this location, everybody has been talking about the idea of a double bluff. Mostly, this has centered around the statue, and whether the Gate might somehow be hidden inside it, or something. I think there could be a double bluff of a different nature...



...namely, how certain are we that there actually is more than one dungeon?

I can't speak for anyone else, but given that the bug ear village has been there for quite some time, they use the dungeons as a way of getting food, materials, and experience, and they firmly believe the Dungeons can be depleted of creatures and that they might have empty Dungeons while waiting for the creatures to respawn....

I'd say that I, for one, am pretty certain there's at least two.

[Fish]

I'd say that I, for one, am pretty certain there's at least two.
You think a village of bugbears would send a party to split up and tackle multiple epic-level opponents simultaneously?

[Peelee]

You think a village of bugbears would send a party to split up and tackle multiple epic-level opponents simultaneously?

I think a village of bugbears would find at least one dungeon they could not take at some point, one they could at some point, and upon retrying the one they could, discover it took a while to repopulate while other doors still had monsters. After a couple of years, I'd imagine they would have a pretty good idea of how it works overall.

[tomaO2]

Is it possible that every door leads to different dungeons, as is assumed, and you get to these dungeons by teleporting after activating the runes, but when you disable the trap you don't teleport, which means you just walk in a straight line until you hit the end of the path?

Basically, the monsters are what everyone thinks they need to beat, but they are a lure. What you actually need to do is disable the trap and then check the path beyond the trap for every door. One path leads to the portal.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

First thought: this "trap" is a progress tracker of some description - ie. a way to keep track of how many dungeons have been tackled in the last X days, and is used to determine when you are allowed to the gate.

Second thought: it is Serini's backdoor system. She wanted a Temple to Might to honour Kraagor, but, not being a barbarian, she needed a way to get to the door (for repairs, if nothing else) that didn't require battling through entire dungeons. So by skipping the trap, the OotS might actually skip ahead. I doubt it is as simple as avoiding the one trap at the start, though. I'd expect there would be others, some of which you have to trigger, and some you must not (but until you get it "wrong", you don't face monsters).

Grey Wolf

[Riftwolf]

My guess on the trap is Subtle Teleport, and the entire Dungeon is put together like an old Duke Nukem 3D map. Bypassing it gets you to the *real* Dungeon where the Invisible Assailants are stationed.

[danielxcutter]

I’m pretty sure that if it allows a save, it shouldn’t have worked on TE that much. I think whatever it does, it doesn’t influence the people who trigger it directly - it resets for every person who triggers it, not every dungeon.

[Olinser]

In the abstract, it is a fine idea.

Concretely speaking, it does not fit in this story, because the doors are so perfectly unidentifiable. If the doors had unique names or numbers on them, I could imagine there is a puzzle to be solved, such as you suggest. But The Giant would have dropped hints well before this point in the story.

Call the Chekow's Anti-Gun. When no mention of a gun has occurred in the story, you can't have a hidden gun pulled out from behind some books on the shelf in the third act, and used to immediately kill an important character.

What are you talking about, unidentifiable?

Literally every single door is different. They have different handles, colors, wood patterns, number of wood slats in the door, hinges (type/size/placement), single/double door, and size. Not a single one is repeated in the entire wall - most obviously shown in comic 1039 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1039.html). That's a pretty big neon sign that there is a clear way to identify exactly what door/pattern is correct, we just don't know what it is yet.

If I came across this setup in a game or D&D session, I would ASSUME that I needed a clue/code that I hadn't found yet, like Spelunky 2, the jar room where there are hundreds of very SIMILIAR, but distinct jars, where you obviously need to find the code for that run (although finding it can be tricky if you don't know), and I would keep an eye out for it as I continued my adventures - or look for rumors in the tavern. :smallamused:

Or maybe we DO know, it was encoded in Serini's journal, and Xykon hasn't bothered to look for it.

Which is exactly how the OOTS would find the correct path to the Gate - steal/acquire the journal, realize what the code is, and use it to access the Gate.

[Jaziggy]

Who says that brute force solves it? In the comic it only says she "filled the dungeon with fearsome monsters to reflect Kraagor's belief in physical might." Not that physical might would be useful in getting through.

That's what I mean- Team Evil has essentially been treating it as 'keep killing monsters 'til we guess right' and if that were really the structure of the gate's defenses, it would be a bit of a disappointing 'grandmaster rogue dungeon'- but a dungeon that appears to be one thing and is actually through a sort of psychological slight of hand another is really satisfying.

[Windscion]

Query: Why would the Order need to access the gate? All they need is to prevent TE from accessing the gate.
Hell, I never understood why O'Chul seemed to want to find the gate.

[Yirggzmb]

Query: Why would the Order need to access the gate? All they need is to prevent TE from accessing the gate.
Hell, I never understood why O'Chul seemed to want to find the gate.

Probably the idea is "If I can get there first, I can be better prepared to defend it"

[CountDVB]

Query: Why would the Order need to access the gate? All they need is to prevent TE from accessing the gate.
Hell, I never understood why O'Chul seemed to want to find the gate.

Well, besides being better able to defend it, probably to learn how to recreate the Gates in order to seal the giant growing rifts of the world I imagine.

[craig_s]

snow aside = better indicator than the red X (also because OOTS shouldn't know what does it mean?)

People keep saying that the OOTS doesn't know what the red X means, but they figure it out in comic 1198. So they do know what it means.

[Darth V]

Wait, so Roy was asking Elan for advice in the last strip and actually listened to him... And now Belkar is useful as a ranger??? Folks, we are still in the illusion! Nothing of the last 330 strips was real! :smalleek:

[WolvesbaneIII]

A lot of good guesses and ideas. I would say the idea that taking a part of the statue might be a hint or close to what the truth actually is.

Maybe its as simple as breaking off a piece and carrying it with you.

Though it could be multiple things, like disabling the trap at the entrance, the statue piece, killing all or none of the monsters, finding the hidden mcguffin in the dungeon and a hidden exit. Could be even all the dungeons follow this pattern.

Though if killing "all" the monsters makes it impossible to continue, I'd assume it has an auto respawn system somehow. magic, a wizard did it, possibly with severl monsters to repopulate the place. eew.

[Ruck]

This involves a powder mixed from rabbit blood, to attract the dog, and cocaine, to numb their sense of smell.

Cocaine: Is there anything it can't do?

[locksmith of lo]

and... there is the small difference that haley is temporaily bypassing the trap, not disabling it nor letting it trigger. i wonder if this is important too, since team evil probably either just charges in or takes a moment to disable repetative trap. :smallamused:

[Bunny Commando]

if I understood correctly, Haley said it resets at every individual passage.
also true the 'if then' block of pseudocode triggered by the trap, if is at every individual passage, need a timeout to expire internally, if activate something in the maze.
without a timeout, it would have now been triggered since the first step, from the bugbears, years ago.
and/or, if the effect it is associated to the individual, like an invisible mark, that might have an expiration time.

well now I believe it is likely related to the mysterious character of the book.

You are right, thanks for pointing out that detail to me.

[Fishman]

And now Belkar is useful as a ranger???We don't know if Belkar is being useful as a RANGER. After all, the SRD makes no mention of this as a ranger ability specifically, and Belkar is a terrible tracker. Given that Roy knows the abilities of a ranger and expected Belkar to actually have those abilities (and he didn't), his disbelief that Belkar has this ability may be confusion as to why Belkar can do this when it isn't part of his class ability set at all.

It is likely something that he has learned outside of being a ranger, like his abilities as a chef, because it's not part of the ranger skillset.

[Charity322]

Lies! Belkar doesn't know how to track!

[Goblin_Priest]

We don't know if Belkar is being useful as a RANGER. After all, the SRD makes no mention of this as a ranger ability specifically, and Belkar is a terrible tracker. Given that Roy knows the abilities of a ranger and expected Belkar to actually have those abilities (and he didn't), his disbelief that Belkar has this ability may be confusion as to why Belkar can do this when it isn't part of his class ability set at all.

It is likely something that he has learned outside of being a ranger, like his abilities as a chef, because it's not part of the ranger skillset.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm#track

Rangers get Track at level 1...

[danielxcutter]

Also Survival is one of the skills that can be used untrained(if poorly) IIRC.

[Shining Wrath]

Haley Rogue abilities FTW.

Belkar ranger abilities FTW.

Durkon and Minrah raising the issue of tracking - well done.

The team is teamworking well.

EDIT:

A sadistic trap would be one that, if the gate can be reached via this entrance, rearranges the dungeon so that the path no longer exists.

A good tribute to strength (and dwarves) would be to seal the Gate inside a few hundred feet of rock that has been enchanted against being removed magically. The only way in is with a pickaxe.

[ratfox]

On a meta level, I'm thinking of the reason they open one door, and then go through the other one. Not from their point of view, from the narrative point of view; as in, why did The Giant wrote it this way. It could be simply that Team Evil will assume they went through the first door (since they didn't close it). But much more likely is that it is to establish that every door has a similar line of runes. And indeed, checking 1216 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1216.html), we can faintly see a similar line behind each door.

Great narration! :smallbiggrin:

[Goblin_Priest]

Has anyone considered that maybe the trap at the start, since it has no blatant effect, is what conceals the gate? That one can only access the gate if the traps are bypassed?

[danielxcutter]

Has anyone considered that maybe the trap at the start, since it has no blatant effect, is what conceals the gate? That one can only access the gate if the traps are bypassed?

It's too soon to say, but I think it's safe to assume it has something to do with how the dungeon works.

[Peelee]

Has anyone considered that maybe the trap at the start, since it has no blatant effect, is what conceals the gate? That one can only access the gate if the traps are bypassed?

Yes, many people so far. :smallwink:

[elros]

Further proof that the party has moved forward: Roy used to think they were doomed when Belkar would act like a Ranger (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0922.html).

[Fyraltari]

It's too soon to say, but I think it's safe to assume it has something to do with how the dungeon works.

I don't see why. It might just trigger a fireball to soften the intruders for the monsters. Or something of that effect.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I don't see why. It might just trigger a fireball to soften the intruders for the monsters. Or something of that effect.

We have seen TE walk both in and out of dungeons repeatedly, and no massive fireball has been seen so far. Nor any other indication that they are aware of any deleterious trap about to hit them.

GW

[Shale]

We can also be pretty sure it's not a mind-altering effect, since that would get obvious pretty fast with a lich crossing the threshold side-by-side with a team of living cohorts.

[danielxcutter]

And if it requires a save, then it eventually wouldn't have worked on at least one of the members of Team Evil; trap DCs tend to be low and most of them can get pretty high save bonuses after buffs anyways, not to mention that someone could roll a nat 20.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

not to mention that someone could roll a nat 20.

*Nat 1, I'd imagine, since we are talking about missing a saving throw.

Third thought (closely related to my first): maybe this is a counter, but of a very simple type: it counts how many people are crossing the threshold at the same time. And if it is more than 1, you are out of luck to get to the gate. This is a Temple of Personal Might. No teams allowed.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

We have seen TE walk both in and out of dungeons repeatedly, and no massive fireball has been seen so far. Nor any other indication that they are aware of any deleterious trap about to hit them.

GW

That's a good point but it could also be that side-stepping this trap has become routine to them and so not worth mentionning anymore.

[KorvinStarmast]

The 3.5 Scent rules ... and as a DM or reader I would find this idea attractive enough to agree to. concur.

Sort of the opposite of none of them being the door- they are all the door, and the existence of the choosing game is the sleight of hand. It also allows whomever seeks the gate to keep wasting time and not find it until they grok that there's a game being played ... quite a meta joke, come to think of it.

I can't speak for anyone else, but given that the bug ear village has been there for quite some time, While I realize that this is a typo, I have a new headcanon: Oona, leader of the Bug Ear Tribe.


... Serini's back door system ... The front door is the back door ... yeah, I like that.

Hell, I never understood why O'Chul seemed to want to find the gate. Hinjo told him to. :smallwink:

Probably the idea is "If I can get there first, I can be better prepared to defend it"And that. :smallcool:

Wait, so Roy was asking Elan for advice in the last strip and actually listened to him... And now Belkar is useful as a ranger??? Folks, we are still in the illusion! Nothing of the last 330 strips was real! :smalleek: Lack of purple frames harms this concept ...

Third thought (closely related to my first): maybe this is a counter, but of a very simple type: it counts how many people are crossing the threshold at the same time. And if it is more than 1, you are out of luck to get to the gate. This is a Temple of Personal Might. No teams allowed. Neat idea, and opens the door for O-Chul to find the gate. Or, MiTD, going in all alone.

[danielxcutter]

*Nat 1, I'd imagine, since we are talking about missing a saving throw.

Third thought (closely related to my first): maybe this is a counter, but of a very simple type: it counts how many people are crossing the threshold at the same time. And if it is more than 1, you are out of luck to get to the gate. This is a Temple of Personal Might. No teams allowed.

Grey Wolf

No, I did mean nat 20. Because if the trap prevents TE from getting to the Gate somehow(such as illusions or teleportation) and it offers a saving throw, then someone should have realized what was going on by now. But that didn't happen, so it's very likely the "trap" has nothing to do with actually affecting the people who enter in the first place.

[Metastachydium]

Has anyone considered that maybe the trap at the start, since it has no blatant effect, is what conceals the gate? That one can only access the gate if the traps are bypassed?

Yes, many people so far. :smallwink:

Also, it would not be a very good idea. „You cannot beat the dungeon unless you have a high level rogue with you, who'll automatically let you find the McGuffin of cosmic importance” is not what I would call a sound defense strategy. I mean, whoever enters a dungeon without one of those (other than Team Evil, that is)?

[danielxcutter]

To be fair, there's a certain limit as to how well you can protect stuff from high-level characters. You can make it hard for them to get in, but making it impossible can't really be done without DM fiat or literal divine influence. It's not like Serini or any of the Scribblers are that much higher level than the Order anyways.

[Grey Watcher]

To be fair, there's a certain limit as to how well you can protect stuff from high-level characters. You can make it hard for them to get in, but making it impossible can't really be done without DM fiat or literal divine influence. It's not like Serini or any of the Scribblers are that much higher level than the Order anyways.

Do we know for sure? All we know is they hit epic levels, which could mean anything from "they each have exactly enough XP to get to Level 21" to "literally Level 50." (Yes, the latter is highly unlikely, but theoretically possible with the info we have so far.)

[Goblin_Priest]

Also, it would not be a very good idea. „You cannot beat the dungeon unless you have a high level rogue with you, who'll automatically let you find the McGuffin of cosmic importance” is not what I would call a sound defense strategy. I mean, whoever enters a dungeon without one of those (other than Team Evil, that is)?

Well it was designed by a high level rogue.

And nobody suggested it would automatically reveal the gate. I don't get why so many people have the reflex to jump at "no you can't have this safety mechanism because X could defeat it". Stacking defenses just makes things tougher.

As it stands, we know: Sirini was an epic rogue with likely mastery of traps, she made this dungeon, she filled it with big tough monsters as a tribute but in no way should we expect "be bigger and tougher" to be the key to the gates, she seemingly put a trap on each door, and these traps have no overt effect that we can see.

So "triggers something else further down off-screen" is a pretty likely explanation. Another one is that it's an alarm. There could be other explanations, for example, the trap might be what actually fills the dungeon with monsters.

Narratively, I don't see a point to adding a trap that calls a dead or insignificant third party, or spending the time to disable a useless trap.

Option 1 could lead the heroes directly to the gate, I see no other reason for it. Option 3 could help the tide of battle by allowing the order to hunk up in the dungeon and then having monsters come and flank Team Evil as they trigger it. It could work whether or not the gate is through this door.

[Metastachydium]

To be fair, there's a certain limit as to how well you can protect stuff from high-level characters. You can make it hard for them to get in, but making it impossible can't really be done without DM fiat or literal divine influence. It's not like Serini or any of the Scribblers are that much higher level than the Order anyways.

For sure, but building a huge system of dungeons where EVERY SINGLE DOOR leads to the prize if you have a good enough rogue to dismantle one trap at the entrance… Now, that would mean the one who built the place wasn't even trying or worse yet, wished to sabotage her own efforts.

[Wildstag]

Further proof that the party has moved forward: Roy used to think they were doomed when Belkar would act like a Ranger (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0922.html).

Eh, it's been clear he's moved forward when he started to rely on Belkar as a person to actually have a heart-to-heart with. Besides, Roy was annoyed when Belkar snuck off to make a buttload of skill checks, but he also felt confident enough in Belkar's ability to be a Ranger that he was even brought along to the Godmoot.

My personal hope is that the line trap is actually a reoccurring thing in the dungeons. Basically, if you walk over the runes without disarming them, they create a mystery dungeon that has a randomly generated set of rooms and monsters. If you disarm the trap and continue disarming each following trap, it is instead the pregenerated Gate dungeon with rooms and monsters and features specific to defending the gate. But to actually disarm the traps consistently, you'd need to be a high level PC.

It's not technically a shell game (since if it were, the gate would be in another castle), but an endless dungeon.

[Goblin_Priest]

Do we know for sure? All we know is they hit epic levels, which could mean anything from "they each have exactly enough XP to get to Level 21" to "literally Level 50." (Yes, the latter is highly unlikely, but theoretically possible with the info we have so far.)

I don't think it's possible to legit level to lvl 50. When the CRs are too distant you just don't get any XP. It's already hard to gain XP at levels below 30, I'm not even sure there's any monsters with a CR above that. Just reaching level 30 requires insane amounts of time chasing extremely rare opponents. For level 50, you could go kill all the gods and still not be close to your target.


For sure, but building a huge system of dungeons where EVERY SINGLE DOOR leads to the prize if you have a good enough rogue to dismantle one trap at the entrance… Now, that would mean the one who built the place wasn't even trying or worse yet, wished to sabotage her own efforts.

Who said any door would lead to the prize? Stacked defenses. Pick the right door AND disable the trap, nor OR. Even if it was, though, it'd still be a better ruse than "the gate is under the statue".

[danielxcutter]

Do we know for sure? All we know is they hit epic levels, which could mean anything from "they each have exactly enough XP to get to Level 21" to "literally Level 50." (Yes, the latter is highly unlikely, but theoretically possible with the info we have so far.)

Considering that Lirian and Dorukan both got their asses handed to themselves by Xykon, who is the final boss for a party only just in their late teen levels, they can't be that high.

Though to be honest, if you get a Death Ward effect and fire resistance you've essentially protected yourself from like 75% of what the big X can do. He's extremely powerful, but at the same time I could probably do a bit better with his build. Of course, Rich probably wouldn't do that even if he did remember enough of 3.5e to optimize heavily and he's already a bit too stronger than the Order if you ask me. Like, seriously, an epic version of Redcloak would be "extremely powerful, but can be taken down if you're good enough". Xykon is "you literally can't use 95% of your abilities to do crap to him, and your wizard can get yanked out of the battle at any moment" which is why I'm betting on "he gets shoved into the Rift and the Snarl eats him".

[Goblin_Priest]

Considering that Lirian and Dorukan both got their asses handed to themselves by Xykon, who is the final boss for a party only just in their late teen levels, they can't be that high.

Though to be honest, if you get a Death Ward effect and fire resistance you've essentially protected yourself from like 75% of what the big X can do. He's extremely powerful, but at the same time I could probably do a bit better with his build. Of course, Rich probably wouldn't do that even if he did remember enough of 3.5e to optimize heavily and he's already a bit too stronger than the Order if you ask me. Like, seriously, an epic version of Redcloak would be "extremely powerful, but can be taken down if you're good enough". Xykon is "you literally can't use 95% of your abilities to do crap to him, and your wizard can get yanked out of the battle at any moment" which is why I'm betting on "he gets shoved into the Rift and the Snarl eats him".

The other 20% being lighting (electric), and 5% being magic missile (force).

Death Ward, Resistance to Fire, Resistance to Electricity, Shield, and you are pretty well covered.

That's why he's got Superb Dispelling, though.

[Metastachydium]

Well it was designed by a high level rogue.

Who should know a high-level rogue is basically standard issue for stuff like this.


And nobody suggested it would automatically reveal the gate. I don't get why so many people have the reflex to jump at "no you can't have this safety mechanism because X could defeat it". Stacking defenses just makes things tougher.

It is a defense which makes little difference if the party has a good rogue. „Team Evil could have found the Gate already, were they lucky enough to pack a rogue” just does not sound narratively satisfying to me.
Also, not anticipating a great wyrm dracolich thing with 15 levels in various overpowered psionic classes and not anticipating that an adventuring party will likely have a rogue are different things altogether.


As it stands, we know: Sirini was an epic rogue with likely mastery of traps, she made this dungeon, she filled it with big tough monsters as a tribute but in no way should we expect "be bigger and tougher" to be the key to the gates, she seemingly put a trap on each door, and these traps have no overt effect that we can see.

So "triggers something else further down off-screen" is a pretty likely explanation. Another one is that it's an alarm.

More likely, I'd say.


Narratively, I don't see a point to adding a trap that calls a dead or insignificant third party, or spending the time to disable a useless trap.

Said third party does not have to be dead or insignificant.

Edit:

Even if it was, though, it'd still be a better ruse than "the gate is under the statue".

Well. Almost literally everything is a better ruse than ”the Gate is under the statue.”

[Shining Wrath]

I wonder if the runes is the explanation for how there can be so many doors. Perhaps passing the runes makes the rest of the dungeon appear somehow?

A weakness of Team Evil is no rogue. They have all the spells but none of the (exploration) skills, except those that Oona brings. So maybe they've been crossing the line of runes without noticing it, and it does something that is not in-your-face blasting. An alarm that wakes the monsters? A conjuration that brings in more monsters? A transmutation that alters the path to the Gate?

[danielxcutter]

The other 20% being lighting (electric), and 5% being magic missile (force).

Death Ward, Resistance to Fire, Resistance to Electricity, Shield, and you are pretty well covered.

That's why he's got Superb Dispelling, though.

Also Mind Blank(he has a number of Mind-Affecting spells like Mass Hold Person and Symbol of Insanity) and possibly a good Fort save(Cloudkill). Those would help.

And I'd say how much Superb Dispelling matters depends on how fast you can beat him down. A decently optimized level 20 party - not min-maxing munchinkery, but certainly better than the Order - should be able to take him down before the person who got their buffs dispelled dies. For the Order though... Honestly, I'm not sure how they could defeat him at this point. He's too resistant, if not flat-out immune, to pretty much anything they can do to him.

[Peelee]

For sure, but building a huge system of dungeons where EVERY SINGLE DOOR leads to the prize if you have a good enough rogue to dismantle one trap at the entrance… Now, that would mean the one who built the place wasn't even trying or worse yet, wished to sabotage her own efforts.
I agree.

Who said any door would lead to the prize? Stacked defenses. Pick the right door AND disable the trap, nor OR. Even if it was, though, it'd still be a better ruse than "the gate is under the statue".
I agree.

Well. Almost literally everything is a better ruse than ”the Gate is under the statue.”
I agree.

Who should know a high-level rogue is basically standard issue for stuff like this.
I disagree. "High-level" does not appear to be standard issue in this world at all. It's uncommon. Epic seems to be full-on rare. While I agree with your overall point regarding this, I do not think that Serini expected a high-level Rogue who both knew about the Gates in general and also knew where they were and also wanted to access them for some reason would have a terribly high likelihood of happening.

[danielxcutter]

Yeah, Greyhawk this ain't.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

That's a good point but it could also be that side-stepping this trap has become routine to them and so not worth mentionning anymore.

Sidestepping doesn't seem to be an option according to Haley.


Basically, if you walk over the runes without disarming them, they create a mystery dungeon that has a randomly generated set of rooms and monsters.

I'll be rather surprised if these traps are so magical as to reshape the entire dungeon and summon monsters on demand. First, because the place stays empty, so it can't be recreating the dungeon every time one person goes in - literally, that'd mean that the dungeon changed around Xykon right now, since Greyview came in late - but also because Serini is not an epic mage. And the one epic mage she knew spent all his money on their own dungeon; it doesn't sound like he was around to strengthen the defences of anyone else's.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

Sidestepping doesn't seem to be an option according to Haley.

Side-stepping, bypassing, disarming call it whatever you want I meant dealing with it.

[danielxcutter]

I'll be rather surprised if these traps are so magical as to reshape the entire dungeon and summon monsters on demand. First, because the place stays empty, so it can't be recreating the dungeon every time one person goes in - literally, that'd mean that the dungeon changed around Xykon right now, since Greyview came in late - but also because Serini is not an epic mage. And the one epic mage she knew spent all his money on their own dungeon; it doesn't sound like he was around to strengthen the defences of anyone else's.

Same here - she could probably pay for some magic, and it does seem like she was at least on good enough terms with Girard and probably the Scribblers in general so they might have given a little help, but I doubt it'd be that major considering that they had their own Gates to protect as well.

[Metastachydium]

I disagree. "High-level" does not appear to be standard issue in this world at all. It's uncommon. Epic seems to be full-on rare. While I agree with your overall point regarding this, I do not think that Serini expected a high-level Rogue who both knew about the Gates in general and also knew where they were and also wanted to access them for some reason would have a terribly high likelihood of happening.

…
True enough.
Still, the Tomb is exactly the kind of place a halfway sane low-to-mid level party would not approach unless their life depended on it whether they know about the Gate or not.

[Schroeswald]

Side-stepping, bypassing, disarming call it whatever you want I meant dealing with it.

We’ve seen them go inside the doors twice, both of those times they clearly blindly walked right over the traps.

[Theshipening]

Also, not anticipating a great wyrm dracolich thing with 15 levels in various overpowered psionic classes and not anticipating that an adventuring party will likely have a rogue are different things altogether.

Or not anticipating that powerful spell casters could be immune to disease ! That’d just be silly.

[bunsen_h]

I don't see why. It might just trigger a fireball to soften the intruders for the monsters. Or something of that effect.

Or douse the intruders with barbecue sauce (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0098.html) or honey mustard (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0192.html).

[danielxcutter]

Or not anticipating that powerful spell casters could be immune to disease ! That’d just be silly.

Disease I can buy. Not getting that undead creatures can't be poisoned, though?

[b_jonas]

I'd like to note that we already had a dungeon that was protected by a magical trap where you need to satisfy some tricky condition to reach the gate. It was Dorukan's dungeon, where you needed to collect three sigils and have three adventurers who are pure in the heart to use them. Serini's dungeon won't repeat such a thing. Like Grey_Wolf_c says, Serini isn't a high level mage. My guess is that the trap is insignificant in the long run. It probably has some ordinary magic effect. We've seen traps that give Stoneskin and Haste (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0867.html) to a guardian monster in the dugeon, or shoots darts with strength-draining poison to the adventurers (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0038.html) (the same trap that bunsen_h mentions). It probably won't be an exact repeat of those effects of course.

Darth V: No, it's not still an illusion. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=16883966) :)

[Grey_Wolf_c]

My guess is that the trap is insignificant in the long run.

Interesting. And the expenditure of 8+ panels on it is just in the service of character development, then? Showcasing how much the OotS has grown? I mean, I can see that maybe being the case, but I can't help but feel that then the Giant would have had her disable the first one. The extra attention to it feels like it is accomplishing both the character development and setting a trigger to be employed by Mr. Chekhov at some later time (as a comparison, I'd expect the trail-erasing being set up by Belkar to be unreferenced from now on, or at most head-nodded before being bypassed).

Grey Wolf

[locksmith of lo]

We’ve seen them go inside the doors twice, both of those times they clearly blindly walked right over the traps.

we've seen them go in the door twice, yes, but both times you cannot see what is inside the door that they themselves opened. (i think that is for a reason) so we are assuming that something is there like behind those that OOTS opened. but for all we know, team evil did not have them for some reason. in fact, we never see what's behind a door when TE opens it. so it's a possibility, but i am not sure what it would mean.

[BruceGee]

It's worth remembering that it isn't just TE that his been traipsing in and out of these doors -- several generations of adventurous bugbears have made it the basis of their economy. Surely one of them would have noticed the runes -- even a low-level rogue would have rolled a 20 at some point.

Perhaps Oona knows all about the traps, but "forgot" to mention them to the rest of team evil. After all, actually finding the gate doesn't necessarily help her achieve her personal goals, whatever they may be. Xykon sees her as a minion, but perhaps she sees him and GC as convenient saps who can help her stock up the village for winter.

[Ghosty]

…
True enough.
Still, the Tomb is exactly the kind of place a halfway sane low-to-mid level party would not approach unless their life depended on it whether they know about the Gate or not.

Yet the Bugbear village does it all of the time. Do they have any Rogues? Or any Rogues with enough oomph in Search that they'd spot this trap that appears to be on every door?

Have other parties tried the Tomb? We know by RC's reaction when first seeing Durkon, that "pilgrims" to the statue aren't that unusual, but do those pilgrims ever test themselves against the weird valley with a gazillion doors?

EDIT: a teleporting trap solves a few issues with the Tomb as stated.

1, Roy's observation about the sheer number of doors and their spacing. With the implication that you can't fit all of the dungeon tunnels in the space of the Hollow as drawn.

2. If these monsters are so powerful, why are they choosing to stay in the Tomb? Especially if they get bothered by some pack of adventurers? If the adventurers figure out the Tomb's too much for them and try to run away, what prevents the monsters from giving chase? A Geas? On all of the inhabitants? Giving the monsters some form of thingy that inactivated the transport tripwire, takes care of that problem.

[Skull the Troll]

It's worth remembering that it isn't just TE that his been traipsing in and out of these doors -- several generations of adventurous bugbears have made it the basis of their economy. Surely one of them would have noticed the runes -- even a low-level rogue would have rolled a 20 at some point.

Perhaps Oona knows all about the traps, but "forgot" to mention them to the rest of team evil. After all, actually finding the gate doesn't necessarily help her achieve her personal goals, whatever they may be. Xykon sees her as a minion, but perhaps she sees him and GC as convenient saps who can help her stock up the village for winter.

Given that when team evil has walked over nothing happened that anyone seemed to be aware of, I think these traps aren't just a fireball or some other direct defense. It seems unlikely that is anything so powerful as reconfiguring the dungeon, she was a rogue and wouldn't have had access to a huge amount of magic. My guess is that its a doorbell. A way of Serini or whoever is monitoring this now to know who's going in where.

[Feruk]

Lies! Belkar doesn't know how to track!

He had to be manipulated into it, but https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0022.html shows that he's been able to track for nearly 1200 strips :P

[Metastachydium]

Yet the Bugbear village does it all of the time.

Well, they are no adventurers and their life does kind of depend on it.


Do they have any Rogues? Or any Rogues with enough oomph in Search that they'd spot this trap that appears to be on every door?

Hard to tell. Personally, I have difficulty believing that no one ever detected them before.


Have other parties tried the Tomb? We know by RC's reaction when first seeing Durkon, that "pilgrims" to the statue aren't that unusual, but do those pilgrims ever test themselves against the weird valley with a gazillion doors?

I am inclined to assume that Redcloak first identified Durkon as a pilgrim mainly for lack of any other realistic idea on why he would visit the statue. The whole deal with „sacrifise forgotten” tells us that actual pilgrims are quite unlikely to pay visits.


EDIT: a teleporting trap solves a few issues with the Tomb as stated.

I'd presume that X. and especially Redcloak would have noticed that by now, though.


If these monsters are so powerful, why are they choosing to stay in the Tomb? Especially if they get bothered by some pack of adventurers? If the adventurers figure out the Tomb's too much for them and try to run away, what prevents the monsters from giving chase? A Geas? On all of the inhabitants? Giving the monsters some form of thingy that inactivated the transport tripwire, takes care of that problem.

Yeah, that's one very good question. Permit me to be somewhat skeptical about the answer you proposed, however, for the reason stated above.

[Hopeless]

So what we do know is that Serini is a halfling and a Rogue who was close friends with some of the others and created her dungeon as a memorial to Kraagor a dwarven Barbarian?

So building her dungeon out of stone, have a trip wire that sounds like its only visible to those not of evil alignment perhaps not so much invisible but designed to be something only a rogue would notice?

Maybe the point of that trap is not to effect the intruders but indicate where they end up heading back out to prevent them realizing they aren't searching the same corridor they thought they were?

Is it possible when TE entered when their wolf came after them the wolf doesn't end up in the same corridor as they do as neither are aware of the true nature of these challenges?

A variant of Mordenkainen's Magnificient Mansion made permanent but like Caleb's is designed to suit Serini's whims which in this case would be a test of might worthy of a barbarian, but perhaps the Order has bypassed the first such safety measure so instead of entering the "mansion" they're about to enter the true dungeon?

Next episode might reveal more though...

[pendell]

Yet the Bugbear village does it all of the time. Do they have any Rogues? Or any Rogues with enough oomph in Search that they'd spot this trap that appears to be on every door?

...
2. If these monsters are so powerful, why are they choosing to stay in the Tomb? Especially if they get bothered by some pack of adventurers? If the adventurers figure out the Tomb's too much for them and try to run away, what prevents the monsters from giving chase? A Geas? On all of the inhabitants? Giving the monsters some form of thingy that inactivated the transport tripwire, takes care of that problem.

Interesting question . Maybe that line of runes isn't a trap after all? Maybe instead it prevents the monsters, which are presumably sustained in the tomb by some magic, from leaving it? That would explain why TE just ignored it rather than disarming it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[TuringTest]

Is it just me or is it a little disturbing to see all of them actually using their skills properly? :)

It's quite funny actually. The first jokes were about D&D characters being awfully incompetent.

Now the situation has been reversed, and all the jokes are about them being competent!

[Metastachydium]

Interesting question . Maybe that line of runes isn't a trap after all? Maybe instead it prevents the monsters, which are presumably sustained in the tomb by some magic, from leaving it? That would explain why TE just ignored it rather than disarming it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Hm. And how would it do that? A compulsion effect or some kind of abjuration? Shouldn't Haley be able to tell those from a strict sense trap? Why doesn't it affect other creatures leaving the corridors, such as Team Evil and the bugbears?

[Goblin_Priest]

Who should know a high-level rogue is basically standard issue for stuff like this.

It is a defense which makes little difference if the party has a good rogue. „Team Evil could have found the Gate already, were they lucky enough to pack a rogue” just does not sound narratively satisfying to me.


Said third party does not have to be dead or insignificant.

Again, exact same logical fallacy. "Bypassing this trap is required to access the gate" and "Bypassing this trap leads to the gate" are two different things altogether. Just because the setup requires a rogue, doesn't mean that having a rogue would give you instant access to the gate. You'd still need to figure out the right door first, or stumble upon it in any case.

And high level characters, much less rogues, aren't standard issue. That's a pretty baseless affirmation.

As for the third party, well, these doors have been penetrated quite a few times over quite a long period of time. So if that rule is calling someone, that someone isn't responding, and hasn't in ages, and there's little reason to believe that this activation would be any different than any of the previous ones.


Also Mind Blank(he has a number of Mind-Affecting spells like Mass Hold Person and Symbol of Insanity) and possibly a good Fort save(Cloudkill). Those would help.

And I'd say how much Superb Dispelling matters depends on how fast you can beat him down. A decently optimized level 20 party - not min-maxing munchinkery, but certainly better than the Order - should be able to take him down before the person who got their buffs dispelled dies. For the Order though... Honestly, I'm not sure how they could defeat him at this point. He's too resistant, if not flat-out immune, to pretty much anything they can do to him.

Team Evil is grossly undersized. Less so lately, though, thankfully for them. If MitD's neutral and doesn't outright help the Order, Xykon and Redcloak are going to suffer terribly from the action economy advantage the Order has. Even if they have access to a higher spell slot, they still need to cast them. And there's a lot of way to disrupt spellcasting. Especially when you have more party members than the opposing party, which makes readied actions much more viable as a strategy. They've got Oona and Greyview, though, so it's not as bad, but we don't know what level they are, and they remain outnumbered. I also seem to recall Xykon taking a good hit in pretty much every fight. Aside form fire, his immunities haven't been massively handy.


Interesting. And the expenditure of 8+ panels on it is just in the service of character development, then? Showcasing how much the OotS has grown? I mean, I can see that maybe being the case, but I can't help but feel that then the Giant would have had her disable the first one. The extra attention to it feels like it is accomplishing both the character development and setting a trigger to be employed by Mr. Chekhov at some later time (as a comparison, I'd expect the trail-erasing being set up by Belkar to be unreferenced from now on, or at most head-nodded before being bypassed).

Grey Wolf

I've considered that. It's possible the trap's just there to showcase Haley's contributions, just like every other member of the party is now doing their thing. However, the trap being pointless would make her contribution equally pointless. In fact, if the trap does nothing, then because of her they'd be wasting a minute to bypass it instead of doing more important stuff. This really reeks of Chekov's gun, anyways. The loaded gun's there, it's probably gonna serve a purpose.


Hm. And how would it do that? A compulsion effect or some kind of abjuration? Shouldn't Haley be able to tell those from a strict sense trap? Why doesn't it affect other creatures leaving the corridors, such as Team Evil and the bugbears?

The runes serving to keep monsters in would make sense world-building wise, but it'd just feel like explaining things that didn't need explaining. "Why are the monsters staying inside?" has never really been brought up as a pertinent interrogation.

[Ajustusdaniel]

Why doesn't it affect other creatures leaving the corridors, such as Team Evil and the bugbears?

Hypothetically? It tags you as you enter, crossing one way, and prevents you from crossing the other way if you aren't tagged. Of course if that's the case, the OoTS are in trouble if they try to leave in a hurry, because Haley is going to prevent it from tagging them.

[KorvinStarmast]

Interesting question . Maybe that line of runes isn't a trap after all? Maybe instead it prevents the monsters, which are presumably sustained in the tomb by some magic, from leaving it? I was about to say "Maybe it's written in Thieves Cant" but I don't think Thieves Cant is a written language. But if it were, that could explain why Haley sees the runes and Roy does not, and none of Team Evil, nor Oona, nor bugbears in general, noticed them. (We have no idea whether or not the bugbears prior to team evil's arrival would have or did notice them, and it's probably not relevant to the story).


he runes serving to keep monsters in would make sense world-building wise, Yes. But I share your reaction to that.

[tanonev]

It's worth remembering that it isn't just TE that his been traipsing in and out of these doors -- several generations of adventurous bugbears have made it the basis of their economy. Surely one of them would have noticed the runes -- even a low-level rogue would have rolled a 20 at some point.

Rolling a 20 does not guarantee success on finding traps, as Haley herself has explained and demonstrated as a not-low-level rogue. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0036.html)

The natural 1 and 20 automatic failure/success rules only apply to attacks and saves, not skill checks, by RAW (and RAI). This is important because skill checks with no failure penalty have the option to take 20 (repeat until you get a 20), and "you will succeed on any task in the universe that has no penalty for failure if you try 20 times" is silly, even by D&D mechanics standards.

[Hopeless]

That's an interesting point!

IF it is thieves cant that could explain why its ignored since only a rogue would pay attention to it and might actually be intended as a reference for later on where it leads to a variety of secret doors perhaps?

[Fishman]

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm#track

Rangers get Track at level 1...Yes, but what Belkar is doing is not tracking, but un-tracking, a different skillset not included in the tracking rules. Hiding the trail is not included in the Track feat. Belkar seems to have learned some of the wrong lessons from his tracking training.

[bunsen_h]

We've seen traps that give Stoneskin and Haste (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0867.html) to a guardian monster in the dugeon, or shoots darts with strength-draining poison to the adventurers (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0038.html) (the same trap that bunsen_h mentions). It probably won't be an exact repeat of those effects of course.

That wasn't one of my examples. That's a third one that uses a sticky food/sauce (honey) to attract monsters (fire ants).

[Thermophille]

If I remember correctly, Symbol spells and a lot of other similar magic traps say in their description that they can only be detected by a Rogue (barring certain magical detections, obviously).

Assuming that these haven't been employed by TE, they do not know about the trap, even after crossing dozens of them. This in turn implies that it's not immediately evident, possibly a detection of some sort.

One person (forgot who) mentioned that the invisible folks who grabbed the paladins might be guardians of the gate who use this detection to monitor the gate's defenses. If this is the case, I find it likely they did so to prevent TE from noticing them, since they obviously wanted the paladins alive.

[Petrocorus]

Team Evil is grossly undersized. Less so lately, though, thankfully for them. If MitD's neutral and doesn't outright help the Order, Xykon and Redcloak are going to suffer terribly from the action economy advantage the Order has. ..........I also seem to recall Xykon taking a good hit in pretty much every fight. Aside form fire, his immunities haven't been massively handy.

And the Spellplinter Maneuver has certainly not been introduced just to be used only once against Durkula.

[mormon_soldier]

He had to be manipulated into it, but https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0022.html shows that he's been able to track for nearly 1200 strips :P

I was just wondering why Roy is always surprised when Belkar is good at something. (I.e., BRitF, UD, here). Now I remember why.

[The MunchKING]

People keep saying that the OOTS doesn't know what the red X means, but they figure it out in comic 1198. So they do know what it means.

I thought O-Chull told them about it.

EDIT: No, technically it was Lein, and she didn't actually provide the details of "big Red X".

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I love all the speculation that is going on in this thread and I'm excited to see what twists and turns the dungeon holds. I also really appreciate seeing the Order working together, something we really haven't seen much of since Book 5 (so, a few years now).

[danielxcutter]

And the Spellplinter Maneuver has certainly not been introduced just to be used only once against Durkula.

Yes, but if I’m right and it’s based on(if not a straight renaming of) the Mage Slayer feat, Xykon has a very good chance to make his Concentration check. Undead use their Charisma bonus for Concentration, and even Durkula made it once. Xykon has a Charisma bonus in the low stratosphere.

And like, the Order has trouble doing anything to him at all. The clerics are too underleveled to have a realistic chance of constantly hitting him, most of V’s spells won’t work and the IFCC can pull them out of the fight whenever they want, and the rest have trouble with so much as scratching him.

[Alexandrite]

Definitely not thinking that trap is a damage based one. The dungeon might have been built to honor Kraagor but it was still built by a rogue. The Order might have a pretty big surprise waiting for them at the end of this.

If this is the key to the gate though, then it seems strange to me that none of the more observant members of Team Evil would have noticed it by now.

[greenfunkman]

The 'symbol' spell from v3.0 has the following "Note: Magic traps such as symbol are hard to detect and disable. A rogue (only) can use the Search skill to find a symbol and Disable Device to thwart it. The DC in each case is 25 + spell level, or 33 for symbol"

http://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/players-handbook-30--106/symbol--5032/index.html

None of the effects listed look like a good match, however. Was there a v3.5 equivalent? 2 searches got me nothing.

[greenfunkman]

The 'symbol' spell from v3.0 has the following "Note: Magic traps such as symbol are hard to detect and disable. A rogue (only) can use the Search skill to find a symbol and Disable Device to thwart it. The DC in each case is 25 + spell level, or 33 for symbol"

http://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/players-handbook-30--106/symbol--5032/index.html

None of the effects listed look like a good match, however. Was there a v3.5 equivalent? 2 searches got me nothing.

Ah, I see, they split it up into separate symbols. Example: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Symbol_of_Weakness

...has the same Rogue- only Search restriction.

So I guess its a new (epic?) spell with the symbol spell qualities.

[M.A.D]

So if every room has the exact same trap, does that mean the only way to really access the gate room requires bypassing it?

And it also means they're heading right towards the gate?

[Metastachydium]

Again, exact same logical fallacy. "Bypassing this trap is required to access the gate" and "Bypassing this trap leads to the gate" are two different things altogether. Just because the setup requires a rogue, doesn't mean that having a rogue would give you instant access to the gate. You'd still need to figure out the right door first, or stumble upon it in any case.

And high level characters, much less rogues, aren't standard issue. That's a pretty baseless affirmation.

Would you agree that
1. a regular dungeon-delving adventuring group will most often have a rogue;
2. (as pointed out before) an adventuring party entering the tomb on its own volition is more likely than not to be high level;
3. and therefore such a party will almost certainly have a high level rogue?
Also, the line of runes is small, but not exactly hidden. I'm not even sure it takes a high level rogue to notice it.


As for the third party, well, these doors have been penetrated quite a few times over quite a long period of time. So if that rule is calling someone, that someone isn't responding, and hasn't in ages, and there's little reason to believe that this activation would be any different than any of the previous ones.

We don't really know that. The Voices, for instance, could be a response team of sorts (although personally I don't think they are).

[Blatt]

Here's a theory... the trap teleports the gate to another, unoccupied, dungeon; if the gate happens to be in 'this' dungeon. So you can search ALL the dungeons and not find it. You would need to search all dungeons SIMULTANEOUSLY to find it.

[woweedd]

We found the one area of tracking Belkar's good at. God, everyone's just being oddly-competent today.

[Metastachydium]

Here's a theory... the trap teleports the gate to another, unoccupied, dungeon; if the gate happens to be in 'this' dungeon. So you can search ALL the dungeons and not find it. You would need to search all dungeons SIMULTANEOUSLY to find it.

Y'see, I have some difficulty believing that Serini, a rogue, invented a simplified version of the Ritual's arcane half and cast it on the Gate.

[Goblin_Priest]

Hypothetically? It tags you as you enter, crossing one way, and prevents you from crossing the other way if you aren't tagged. Of course if that's the case, the OoTS are in trouble if they try to leave in a hurry, because Haley is going to prevent it from tagging them.

The problem with a system that tags the pass-byers is that any form of tagging would force a save (will, probably). Thus, powerful intruders would simply resist the effect. And I don't recall well but I think your character knows when he makes a save?


Yes, but what Belkar is doing is not tracking, but un-tracking, a different skillset not included in the tracking rules. Hiding the trail is not included in the Track feat. Belkar seems to have learned some of the wrong lessons from his tracking training.

True, I don't see any description for hiding tracks in the track feat or the survival skill, but rangers get track at first level, advanced track later, and a bunch of hidey stuff. If we leave RAW for a moment, which this comic does every now and then when it makes sense or makes a better story, "Belkar using his hidey skills and tracky skills in a novel combined manner to display his growth as a ranger" seems plausible to me.


Yes, but if I’m right and it’s based on(if not a straight renaming of) the Mage Slayer feat, Xykon has a very good chance to make his Concentration check. Undead use their Charisma bonus for Concentration, and even Durkula made it once. Xykon has a Charisma bonus in the low stratosphere.

And like, the Order has trouble doing anything to him at all. The clerics are too underleveled to have a realistic chance of constantly hitting him, most of V’s spells won’t work and the IFCC can pull them out of the fight whenever they want, and the rest have trouble with so much as scratching him.

I don't think Durkula made it. Wasn't the interpretation that the spell only works on spells cast defensively, and that Durkula just chose to take the attack of opportunity? In any case, it needs not work 100% of the time, like it did in the illusion. Xykon only gets 1 turn per round. Even with quickened spells, that's a maximum of 2 spells per turn. With this manoeuver and people like Haley preparing attacks of opportunity, his effectiveness should be reduced.


Would you agree that
1. a regular dungeon-delving adventuring group will most often have a rogue;
2. (as pointed out before) an adventuring party entering the tomb on its own volition is more likely than not to be high level;
3. and therefore such a party will almost certainly have a high level rogue?
Also, the line of runes is small, but not exactly hidden. I'm not even sure it takes a high level rogue to notice it.



We don't really know that. The Voices, for instance, could be a response team of sorts (although personally I don't think they are).

No, I wouldn't agree. Not all parties have rogues, not all parties are high level, not all high level parties that do have rogues have single-classed rogues, not all parties that do have single-classed rogues will have super high spot checks and will always spot the trap, and so on, and so on. Roy couldn't see the runes even when pointed to them by Haley. Nobody else so far seems to have made any mention of them either. The DC can be assumed to be pretty damn high. And even if the runes are spotted, its not guaranteed the rogue will know what they do. So considering the number of doors, even if they spot the runes on the first door, odds are any intruders will need to try a huge number of doors before they stumble upon the right one. Meaning that since these are magical traps, odds are eventually there'll be failures and mishaps. Even a party with a powerful rogue, not knowing what the runes are for, might just end up no longer bothering with them.

An extra layer of defense is an extra layer of defense. Doesn't matter how bad you think it is, if you draw a venn diagram of "parties with potent rogues" and "parties strong enough to defeat the big monsters inside", you've now got a pool of candidates much smaller than either original categories.

[Metastachydium]

No, I wouldn't agree. Not all parties have rogues,

I said dungeon-delving parties and most often. Please note that even if a party knows there's something important inside, they are unlikely to know how exactly that thing is defended. Dungeons have a tendency to contain traps, even te Tomb has at least one. And rogues are a lot better at trapfinding than others.


not all parties are high level,

Irrelevant. Again, a low-to-mid level party has meager chances of surviving a single Tomb dungeon, let alone most of them if they are unlucky.


not all high level parties that do have rogues have single-classed rogues, not all parties that do have single-classed rogues will have super high spot checks and will always spot the trap, and so on, and so on.

Now, that's a point.


Roy couldn't see the runes even when pointed to them by Haley. Nobody else so far seems to have made any mention of them either.

Nobody else has trapfinding as a class ability.


The DC can be assumed to be pretty damn high. And even if the runes are spotted, its not guaranteed the rogue will know what they do. So considering the number of doors, even if they spot the runes on the first door, odds are any intruders will need to try a huge number of doors before they stumble upon the right one. Meaning that since these are magical traps, odds are eventually there'll be failures and mishaps. Even a party with a powerful rogue, not knowing what the runes are for, might just end up no longer bothering with them.

Yeah, if one does not know what an obvious trap does, ignoring the trap is a solid choice.


An extra layer of defense is an extra layer of defense. Doesn't matter how bad you think it is, if you draw a venn diagram of "parties with potent rogues" and "parties strong enough to defeat the big monsters inside", you've now got a pool of candidates much smaller than either original categories.

Look, I can see your point, and I do not wish to quarell with you. I'm merely on the opinion that this particular extra layer would make precious little difference, and more importantly if the Order were to find the Gate now just because Haley is a rogue, well, that would just feel cheap. If they don't find it, on the other hand, and the trap is indeed the key to finding it, they won't learn what the trap does, and we are back to your „odds are any intruders will need to try a huge number of doors before they stumble upon the right one. Meaning that since these are magical traps, odds are eventually there'll be failures and mishaps. Even a party with a powerful rogue, not knowing what the runes are for, might just end up no longer bothering with them.”

[Potatopeelerkin]

Look at 'em, working together like a functional team. *Sniff* They grew up so fast.

[TuringTest]

Look at 'em, working together like a functional team. *Sniff* They grew up so fast.

Isn' it? It has become a recurring joke that they're competent :smallbiggrin:

[Goblin_Priest]

Got me to read the trap finding rules. I thought the skill just granted a auto check and a bonus on it, maybe that's some pathfinder stuff. Instead, they get some form of exclusivity.

But that brought me to see the parts about disabling traps... Haley seems to make it sound easier to bypass than to disarm, but you actually need to roll much higher to do that, and it doesn't take any less time. I'm not sure what to make of this.


Look, I can see your point, and I do not wish to quarell with you. I'm merely on the opinion that this particular extra layer would make precious little difference, and more importantly if the Order were to find the Gate now just because Haley is a rogue, well, that would just feel cheap. If they don't find it, on the other hand, and the trap is indeed the key to finding it, they won't learn what the trap does, and we are back to your „odds are any intruders will need to try a huge number of doors before they stumble upon the right one. Meaning that since these are magical traps, odds are eventually there'll be failures and mishaps. Even a party with a powerful rogue, not knowing what the runes are for, might just end up no longer bothering with them.”

It'd feel cheap to you if the Order got access to the Gate thanks to their combined efforts and increased skills paying off?

The only way I could see that is if we spin that into "then Team Evil would never have been able to find it anyways, so it negates the stakes". Which I guess would be a fair point. But on the other hand they've got a pretty badass bugbear community on hand, so... maybe eventually? Isn't rogue their favored class?

If this is what you mean, then personally I wouldn't completely dismiss the "gate hiding mechanism" possibility, but it would give more credence to alternatives, such as "monster respawn mechanism". Which could play well into a confrontation between the Order and Team Evil. The major obstacles to this theory is that the characters just established that it wasn't the time to confront Team Evil yet. But... maybe someone can help me out, but I can't really see why. Sure, there are unresolved ploint points, but what else is the Order supposed to do? Just sit it out until these resolve themselves on their own? They came here to stop Team Evil. Now that they are here... I kinda expect them to want to stop Team Evil.

The other possibilities that were mentioned were an alarm, which I find unlikely because those traps are constantly getting triggered, it'd seem kinda pointless to have something that rings every day, especially if you'll never do anything about it. Potentially the alarm could be more specific, telling race, alignment, and level, or something like that, but if it needs to scan, then it grants a save, and I'm not inclined to believe these traps are save-based. The last possibility that was mentioned that I can think of is a tag, which runs into this exact save problem. If you have a defense that requires foes being tagged before punishing them, then you are not only allowing two saves when you could have just had one, but you also aren't going to be able to tackle anything strong enough to tackle your monsters (any tagging would be Will negates).

As a sidenote, while I personally like Rich's writing and think most of his stuff is great, there have been occasions where I was rather disappointed with the twists. Nobody's perfect. For example, the resolution of the Durkula problem always bothered me. To pull off his "Durkon takes over from within", which while having some build-up to didn't really feel like the denouement that was being set up, what was also required was that everyone in the order keep rolling nat 1s on all of their saves (or just about), and then completely throwing out the window all of the build up lore on how vampiric inner workings (speed of thought) worked. So it's not impossible later denouements also be somewhat unsatisfying.

[Peelee]

Got me to read the trap finding rules. I thought the skill just granted a auto check and a bonus on it, maybe that's some pathfinder stuff. Instead, they get some form of exclusivity.

But that brought me to see the parts about disabling traps... Haley seems to make it sound easier to bypass than to disarm, but you actually need to roll much higher to do that, and it doesn't take any less time. I'm not sure what to make of this.

I don't see that as her making it seem like it'd be easier. I see that as her thinking it'd be more tactically sound. Roy wants to just spring it, likely out of time crunch and figuring it won't be too bad. Haley responds that in the same time as disarming, she could bypass, meaning it'd still be up for anyone who follows. Which fits in perfectly fine with the rules.

[Schroeswald]

Got me to read the trap finding rules. I thought the skill just granted a auto check and a bonus on it, maybe that's some pathfinder stuff. Instead, they get some form of exclusivity.

But that brought me to see the parts about disabling traps... Haley seems to make it sound easier to bypass than to disarm, but you actually need to roll much higher to do that, and it doesn't take any less time. I'm not sure what to make of this.

How I read that is if Team Evil, or Kermit and Scooter, or Sabine or whoever ends up going into that place after them, they will trigger the trap unless they bypass/disable the trap.

And for the record, I’m not really sure what it will do, but my personal theory is that whatever the trap does, it means that Team Evil finding the gate through their original strategy is much harder than expected, if it’s possible at all, and that having a rogue disable the traps just means you’re facing what we thought you would be facing before the strip, just now you need a high level rogue to disable it and never fail at doing that.

[Metastachydium]

It'd feel cheap to you if the Order got access to the Gate thanks to their combined efforts and increased skills paying off?

The only way I could see that is if we spin that into "then Team Evil would never have been able to find it anyways, so it negates the stakes". Which I guess would be a fair point. But on the other hand they've got a pretty badass bugbear community on hand, so... maybe eventually? Isn't rogue their favored class?

There's that too, but I was mostly referring to the idea that they'll find the Gate via blind luck (Team Evil opened good doors at the right time, and the Order chooses the right one out of the two, all by accident).


If this is what you mean, then personally I wouldn't completely dismiss the "gate hiding mechanism" possibility, but it would give more credence to alternatives, such as "monster respawn mechanism". Which could play well into a confrontation between the Order and Team Evil.

Yeah, I wouldn't completely dismiss the former either, I just don't necessarily like its implications.


The major obstacles to this theory is that the characters just established that it wasn't the time to confront Team Evil yet. But... maybe someone can help me out, but I can't really see why. Sure, there are unresolved ploint points, but what else is the Order supposed to do? Just sit it out until these resolve themselves on their own? They came here to stop Team Evil. Now that they are here... I kinda expect them to want to stop Team Evil.

Dunno. Locate the paladins? Talk to the Voices? Meet up with the Ally that Was Promised? Haves some key revelations (and I'd agree disarming the trap might help with that)? Deal with the IFCC?


The other possibilities that were mentioned were an alarm, which I find unlikely because those traps are constantly getting triggered, it'd seem kinda pointless to have something that rings every day, especially if you'll never do anything about it. Potentially the alarm could be more specific, telling race, alignment, and level, or something like that, but if it needs to scan, then it grants a save, and I'm not inclined to believe these traps are save-based. The last possibility that was mentioned that I can think of is a tag, which runs into this exact save problem. If you have a defense that requires foes being tagged before punishing them, then you are not only allowing two saves when you could have just had one, but you also aren't going to be able to tackle anything strong enough to tackle your monsters (any tagging would be Will negates).

Fair points. I'm not sure I like the alarmist position all that much either.
Still, the alarm thing could still work, since the bugbears were very obviously not searching the place systematically, while Team Evil is opening doors with a breakneck speed. A new faction interfering with what's going on would also help give our heroes something to do with the rest of the book until they get to fight the Bony Bastard, Redcloak or both.


As a sidenote, while I personally like Rich's writing and think most of his stuff is great, there have been occasions where I was rather disappointed with the twists. Nobody's perfect. For example, the resolution of the Durkula problem always bothered me. To pull off his "Durkon takes over from within", which while having some build-up to didn't really feel like the denouement that was being set up, what was also required was that everyone in the order keep rolling nat 1s on all of their saves (or just about), and then completely throwing out the window all of the build up lore on how vampiric inner workings (speed of thought) worked. So it's not impossible later denouements also be somewhat unsatisfying.

Again, fair enough. (As a sidenote, Durkon's defeating Greg looked fine to me, because it did get a build-up of sorts. What I didn't really like was the resolution of the Council vote, where the the solution to the problem was based on some obscure rule (Council needs an intact table) we simply could not know about or expect, as there were no hints whatsoever that anything like that could happen.)

[Feruk]

Look at 'em, working together like a functional team. *Sniff* They grew up so fast.

So fast? Seventeen years since they started, from a quick google. I'd hope that a team could grow up in that timeframe :P

[danielxcutter]

I don't think Durkula made it. Wasn't the interpretation that the spell only works on spells cast defensively, and that Durkula just chose to take the attack of opportunity? In any case, it needs not work 100% of the time, like it did in the illusion. Xykon only gets 1 turn per round. Even with quickened spells, that's a maximum of 2 spells per turn. With this manoeuver and people like Haley preparing attacks of opportunity, his effectiveness should be reduced.

No, that’s not really in line with how it works. It looks like when Durkula casts, Roy swings his sword so it interrupts the casting and the spell fizzles. That’s how Mage Slayer works; you can’t cast defensively in the range of it so you have to make a Concentration check with a DC of 10+damage taken. Roy deals fairly good damage, but both Durkula and Xykon have high DR that his sword can’t penetrate and he can’t Power Attack too much if he wants to hit them. Also Haley literally can’t even scratch Xykon, what do you mean?

[Ghosty]

Again, I don't play 3.5, (except vicariously through reading this strip, and reading the rest of you talk about it) but it looks like two different DC rolls by Haley to bypass these runes. First is a Search check, and because she 'hasn't been keeping it maxed', and didn't take very long to formally search the entryway, I think that implies the Trap DC isn't very high. She's still a high-level (near Epic?) Rogue though, with plenty of traits that would help her Search score for this.

To temporarily bypass the trap requires a separate Disable Device check. We've no information about how little or much she's paid attention to keeping that high. Though she was recognizing and bypassing a bunch of spell-casting traps in the pyramid. I don't know if there are separate DC values for detecting versus disabling a given trap. Like this tape's hard to see but easy to break, and vice versa.

Rangers can Search too, for simple mechanical traps. They don't easily get a lot of the synergistic feats that Rogues do---and as noted upthread, they can't see magic traps like Explosive Runes or Symbols at all---but they could get by, conceivably. RedCloak could use his Search skill like a Rogue if he had cast Find Traps, but Search isn't a class skill for him. How high would it be, really?

What you all say about high level NPC adventuring parties, and their having Rogues, makes sense. Does that imply none have visited the Tomb since construction? I mean, why would they have heard of it in the first place?

[Wildstag]

I don't think it's possible to legit level to lvl 50. When the CRs are too distant you just don't get any XP. It's already hard to gain XP at levels below 30, I'm not even sure there's any monsters with a CR above that. Just reaching level 30 requires insane amounts of time chasing extremely rare opponents. For level 50, you could go kill all the gods and still not be close to your target.


FWIW, there's a level 64 wizard in the Epic Level Handbook, even if he isn't statted out. He makes a godawful spell that isn't worth the research, but hey, he exists.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Fourth thought: the trap does absolutely nothing. It is there only to delay any team who has a rogue and who does not just charge ahead like Kraagor would have. The gate can only be reached if you get there within X rounds of the door opening for the first time since the last respawn, and every 2d4 you waste disarming traps or taking too long to complete the fights count against you.

Grey Wolf

[Thermophille]

Considering that Haley can disable it in "Less than a minute, even.", I don't think that's likely. If it was a stalling tactic, it would be a little more obvious (detectable by a ranger like Oona, for example), and take far longer to disarm.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Considering that Haley can disable it in "Less than a minute, even.", I don't think that's likely. If it was a stalling tactic, it would be a little more obvious (detectable by a ranger like Oona, for example), and take far longer to disarm.

All traps take the same time to disarm. And the point is not the amount of time it takes to disarm this one, but that then you might slow down to be on the lookout for others (which might even be there!), instead of rushing ahead like a proper barbarian. If it was an obvious trap, though, it might be too obvious. If this is an exercise of weeding out non-barbarians, there might be delaying tricks for every class - interesting smells that distract animal companions for rangers, for example.

GW

[Jaziggy]

How I read that is if Team Evil, or Kermit and Scooter, or Sabine or whoever ends up going into that place after them, they will trigger the trap unless they bypass/disable the trap.

And for the record, I’m not really sure what it will do, but my personal theory is that whatever the trap does, it means that Team Evil finding the gate through their original strategy is much harder than expected, if it’s possible at all, and that having a rogue disable the traps just means you’re facing what we thought you would be facing before the strip, just now you need a high level rogue to disable it and never fail at doing that.

This makes a lot of sense. I think what the trap is doing is causing the interdimensional stone to shift so that a different individual door connects to the gate (this saves Serini from having to figure out how to teleport the gate- an epic divine/arcane feat).

Say we have 1,000 doors, numbered 1-1000. The gate is behind door number 223. Assuming the questing party checks the gates in order to avoid a bunch of complex probability math, the party's rogue would have to successfully disarm the trap 223 consecutive times for the party to find the gate. If the rogue failed even once, the party would have to start over at the beginning. It's even possible the rogue could fail and not even be aware that they had failed.

This would be a truly devious and virtually impenetrable labyrinth for all but the most exceptional of rogues with an extraordinarily powerful and diligent party behind them, willing to systematically check hundreds of doors and potentially start over again at any time.

[Goblin_Priest]

FWIW, there's a level 64 wizard in the Epic Level Handbook, even if he isn't statted out. He makes a godawful spell that isn't worth the research, but hey, he exists.

I'll take your word for that, since I don't recall, but that sounds more like a "hey, here's an example of what you can do with the rules we just printed" build, rather than "someone could legitimately become this".

Level 64 would require 2 016 000 XP, compared to 190 000 XP for level 20. (Assuming the same formula because I can't find the numbers for epic).

I can't really find any of the charts relevant, but I have a really hard time believing it would be possible to legit arrive to such high levels. Even if you consider immortal characters like liches living really, really long times. And that they somehow never lose. It's just a question of the ridiculous number of ridiculously powerful opponents you'd need to find and defeat in order to get there, since when the CR gap is too wide you don't even earn any xp at all.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

This makes a lot of sense. I think what the trap is doing is causing the interdimensional stone to shift so that a different individual door connects to the gate (this saves Serini from having to figure out how to teleport the gate- an epic divine/arcane feat).

Say we have 1,000 doors, numbered 1-1000. The gate is behind door number 223. Assuming the questing party checks the gates in order to avoid a bunch of complex probability math, the party's rogue would have to successfully disarm the trap 223 consecutive times for the party to find the gate.
Unless you mis-described it, no, they'd only need to disarm it once, when they are in door 223.


This would be a truly devious and virtually impenetrable labyrinth for all but the most exceptional of rogues with an extraordinarily powerful and diligent party behind them, willing to systematically check hundreds of doors and potentially start over again at any time.

Even if it was, that was not Serini's design intention (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html).

GW

[Doug Lampert]

I'll take your word for that, since I don't recall, but that sounds more like a "hey, here's an example of what you can do with the rules we just printed" build, rather than "someone could legitimately become this".

Level 64 would require 2 016 000 XP, compared to 190 000 XP for level 20. (Assuming the same formula because I can't find the numbers for epic).

I can't really find any of the charts relevant, but I have a really hard time believing it would be possible to legit arrive to such high levels. Even if you consider immortal characters like liches living really, really long times. And that they somehow never lose. It's just a question of the ridiculous number of ridiculously powerful opponents you'd need to find and defeat in order to get there, since when the CR gap is too wide you don't even earn any xp at all.

Level 64 is approximately 214 standard adventuring days. Less than one year of adventuring for a no-down-time party, and back when I followed the 3.5 discussions on this board, PLENTY of people swore backward and forward that they couldn't POSSIBLY take 8 whole hours of downtime to craft a wand of Cure Light Wounds because their GM would always throw something at them.

The SRD has monsters up to CR 57, and the organization line is Solitary or Pair, so there are multiple such creatures out there. There are other high level monsters that didn't make the SRD. CR 57 will give XP to a level 65 character, much less level 64.

So no problem, less than a year of game time for all those "no downtime" adventurers I kept getting told about. Play once a week, and you'd have made it in a bit over 4 years of play.

[Snails]

If I came across this setup in a game or D&D session, I would ASSUME that I needed a clue/code that I hadn't found yet, like Spelunky 2, the jar room where there are hundreds of very SIMILIAR, but distinct jars, where you obviously need to find the code for that run (although finding it can be tricky if you don't know), and I would keep an eye out for it as I continued my adventures - or look for rumors in the tavern. :smallamused:

Or maybe we DO know, it was encoded in Serini's journal, and Xykon hasn't bothered to look for it.

Which is exactly how the OOTS would find the correct path to the Gate - steal/acquire the journal, realize what the code is, and use it to access the Gate.

While mentioning the difference in doors is a point in your favor, the thrust of your argument leaves me thoroughly convinced I am correct.

It is true that what you describe would work well in a D&D adventure. However, it is a very crappy way of doing things in a work of literature, no less so for a work in the literary sub-genre of a comic book in a universe of D&D-like metaphysics.

After over a thousand pages, I have absolute confidence that The Giant is highly competent in building dramatic arcs and basic storytelling. He is not suddenly going to be overtly incompetent. He has been playing out key turning point for years. He is not suddenly going to have Xykon mention to Redcloak this weird puzzle he never figured out within Serini's diary. And he is most definitely not going to have The Order discover a puzzle in the diary that neither Xykon nor Redcloak have mentioned at all. Not going to happen. There is not even a one in a million chance you are right about that.

However, I would concede there is something potentially interesting about what Haley is doing now, as it is conceivable that this is the first time a highly skilled Rogue (level 15+) has ever manipulated one of these traps (at least the first time for someone not part of Team Serini). That Haley's actions might reveal a previously hidden puzzle or similar does make sense. So this is not the bluff people have been speculating about, but trickery that requires the right party composition to reveal.

[Peelee]

Say we have 1,000 doors, numbered 1-1000. The gate is behind door number 223. Assuming the questing party checks the gates in order to avoid a bunch of complex probability math

Actually, unless Serini enters the game and puts on her Monty Hall hat, there's really not any probability math, complex or otherwise (and the Monty Hall problem can be explained significantly better by using a billion doors instead of three, since then it's much more intuitive for anyone who got stuck on the traditional three-door explanation). It's a pretty straightforward 1 in a thousand shot per door.

[tanonev]

All traps take the same time to disarm. And the point is not the amount of time it takes to disarm this one, but that then you might slow down to be on the lookout for others (which might even be there!), instead of rushing ahead like a proper barbarian. If it was an obvious trap, though, it might be too obvious. If this is an exercise of weeding out non-barbarians, there might be delaying tricks for every class - interesting smells that distract animal companions for rangers, for example.

GW

The problem with this theory is that Xykon, being Xykon, almost certainly would have rushed at least one door by now.

----

Throwing my hat into the ring with a hypothesis for what the runes do:

The runes are there for calibrating the dungeon, scanning HD/CR of whatever party enters. That information affects what monsters show up in the dungeon, and they're chosen so that the dungeon is always just barely too hard for the party, so that only a party that pushes past their limits and gives everything they've got can make it to the end. The scan allows a save, but if a save is made and information is not gathered, that run is "disqualified" and some approximation is used instead.

Rationale:
- The doors that Team Evil have been going into have been challenging enough for Xykon to get XP and for Team Evil to consistently burn through resources doing so, but the bugbears have been using the hollow for a while now (if a small village were to send in a scouting party that got rekt by a CR 20+ encounter, their most likely policy around it would be "never go there again").
- Between Xykon, Redcloak, and MitD, the chances of all 3 failing their saves is extremely low, so they would be disqualified unless they figured out they needed to voluntarily subject themselves to calibration.
- Thematically, it fits with the barbarian value of pushing past one's limits.
- Thematically, if the calibration also has a party size requirement, it would fit with Serini's value of teamwork (IIRC she was the member of the old party who was least in favor of it breaking up).

Problems:
- This cheapens MitD's rebellion because there are no consequences for that misdirection.
- It is unclear how the Order (or anyone) would figure out this mechanic; at the very least, that means this choice here causes this run to be a failure.

[Goblin_Priest]

Level 64 is approximately 214 standard adventuring days. Less than one year of adventuring for a no-down-time party, and back when I followed the 3.5 discussions on this board, PLENTY of people swore backward and forward that they couldn't POSSIBLY take 8 whole hours of downtime to craft a wand of Cure Light Wounds because their GM would always throw something at them.

The SRD has monsters up to CR 57, and the organization line is Solitary or Pair, so there are multiple such creatures out there. There are other high level monsters that didn't make the SRD. CR 57 will give XP to a level 65 character, much less level 64.

So no problem, less than a year of game time for all those "no downtime" adventurers I kept getting told about. Play once a week, and you'd have made it in a bit over 4 years of play.

Goes to show that I haven't read that book in ages, probably since about when it came out.

So I guess RAW allows it if your GM just throws are a super gamey world, where CR 40+ enemies are common enough that you can fight a bunch every day, and yet rare enough that they don't completely obliterate all life on the material plane. "Hey, boy, did you think to check under your bed before jumping in? Alright, let's look. Oh! Another great wyrm prismatic dragon! Gosh darn!"

[Riftwolf]

Yes, but if I’m right and it’s based on(if not a straight renaming of) the Mage Slayer feat, Xykon has a very good chance to make his Concentration check. Undead use their Charisma bonus for Concentration, and even Durkula made it once. Xykon has a Charisma bonus in the low stratosphere.

And like, the Order has trouble doing anything to him at all. The clerics are too underleveled to have a realistic chance of constantly hitting him, most of V’s spells won’t work and the IFCC can pull them out of the fight whenever they want, and the rest have trouble with so much as scratching him.

It probably isn't based off Mage Slayer. It's probably a technique outside the rules to prevent 'Spellsplinter doesn't work that way!' arguments.
And Durkula didn't make his concentration check against Spellsplinter, he made it against an attack of opportunity. Roy didn't have time to Spellsplinter the Harm as he'd not readied an action.
Huh, guess "Spellsplinter doesn't work that way!" started after all.

[b_jonas]

bunsen_h: Ah, you're correct. The honey ant trap is distinct from the barbecue sauce hydra trap. My mistake.

[Lex]

I'm a bit confused for why people think Serini built the dungeon in order to test the values and skills of adventurers trying to conquer it. Wasn't the whole point to not let ANYONE reach the gate?

[locksmith of lo]

I'm a bit confused for why people think Serini built the dungeon in order to test the values and skills of adventurers trying to conquer it. Wasn't the whole point to not let ANYONE reach the gate?

yes! thank you! i thought the same thing. :smallcool:

but i think they are arguing narratively too, but this is an important point. even if it narratively makes sense that TE have the means to find the gate, does not mean they should. OOTS just happens to have a high enough level team that effectively mirrors the order of the scribble, coming close to the competence level of original creator. they just have the right skill sets to be able to figure this out. brains, skills, levels vs brute force raw power. a balanced, high level team vs a high level cleric, epic lich sorcerer, a local guide, and unspecified monster. i vote for the former figuring it out. :smallsmile:

[tanonev]

I'm a bit confused for why people think Serini built the dungeon in order to test the values and skills of adventurers trying to conquer it. Wasn't the whole point to not let ANYONE reach the gate?

That wasn't true of the other gates. Dorukan was fond of setting up things in his dungeon (including the gate itself) that would respond to Good-aligned creatures. Soon built an entire city around his gate. For some combination of practical and personal reasons, each Member of the Scribble had conditions under which people would be allowed to approach the gate.

Just as it is plausible that the Order of the Scribble thought there could be scenarios where it would be worth blowing up the gate rather than defending it (see Dorukan's self-destruct rune), it is plausible that they thought there could be scenarios where it would be worth letting capable people with good intentions and new information get close to a gate (such as, say, a new group of adventurers figuring out how to make a stronger, more permanent gate).

[danielxcutter]

I don’t think it was really about “letting” anyone to reach it, though of course when they were still alive they could have done that. For Dorukan, it was like “I might need somebody to access the Gate eventually for some reason, but obviously I can’t trust anyone so I should limit it to Good people only. I mean I’ll probably still be around, so what could go wrong?”

[hroþila]

Soon built an entire city around his gate.
Soon did build a keep around the gate, but Azure City predated it. I'm afraid the pagoda that totally looks like a tree (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html) fooled many of us.

[BarakDeathBlade]

Soon did build a keep around the gate, but Azure City predated it. I'm afraid the pagoda that totally looks like a tree (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html) fooled many of us.

I'm pretty sure that's a Blue Spruce tree.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm a bit confused for why people think Serini built the dungeon in order to test the values and skills of adventurers trying to conquer it. Wasn't the whole point to not let ANYONE reach the gate?

Because (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html).

The gates need maintenance. They can't be unreachable. The question then is "who should be allowed to reach them?". Each Scribbler had a different answer ("Pure hearted" for Dorukan; "Family" for whats-his-face; "Paladins under oath to protect it" for Soon). Serini, it seems, decided on "those Kraagor would approve of" for her gate.

Grey Wolf

[Doug Lampert]

Level 64 is approximately 214 standard adventuring days. Less than one year of adventuring for a no-down-time party, and back when I followed the 3.5 discussions on this board, PLENTY of people swore backward and forward that they couldn't POSSIBLY take 8 whole hours of downtime to craft a wand of Cure Light Wounds because their GM would always throw something at them.

The SRD has monsters up to CR 57, and the organization line is Solitary or Pair, so there are multiple such creatures out there. There are other high level monsters that didn't make the SRD. CR 57 will give XP to a level 65 character, much less level 64.

So no problem, less than a year of game time for all those "no downtime" adventurers I kept getting told about. Play once a week, and you'd have made it in a bit over 4 years of play.
Goes to show that I haven't read that book in ages, probably since about when it came out.

So I guess RAW allows it if your GM just throws are a super gamey world, where CR 40+ enemies are common enough that you can fight a bunch every day, and yet rare enough that they don't completely obliterate all life on the material plane. "Hey, boy, did you think to check under your bed before jumping in? Alright, let's look. Oh! Another great wyrm prismatic dragon! Gosh darn!"

Oh, the no down-time campaign where all encounters are level appropriate is deserving of nothing but ridicule, but it appears to be fairly common, to the point that slower rest mechanics are often decried on game discussions as making daily/long rest abilities "completely unusable", because in many campaigns, "we spend a week in town recovering and visiting the local bars, temples, and whore houses" is an UNTHINKABLE thing to do. How could you ever get a whole week off without the monsters destroying the multiverse?

And I wasn't kidding about having been told MANY times that someone couldn't craft a wand of CLW because it takes so much time. It takes 8 hours and there's no requirement for special conditions or for anything but time and components, so it can be done in the field. Apparently, in many campaigns, the monsters will wait politely while you get a good night's sleep, but if you try to take 8 hours off during the day they attack in massive hordes. (I'm not sure how this works with the fact that 4 encounters is about 2 minutes fighting, what exactly ARE these characters doing the other 15.97 hours of each day?)

On the other hand, a level 63 campaign is almost certainly capable of dimension hopping and divination, so you need not find that prismatic dragon under your bed, it could be 50,000 crystal spheres over that-a-way menacing some completely different dimension and you hunt it down and take it's lunch money (which defeats it and gets full XP, while leaving the valuable adventuring resource for the next level 63 party trying to advance to 64; except I don't think people in no-downtime all level-appropriate campaigns actually do anything but kill monsters for XP).

Still hopelessly silly, but it appears to be the way many people play the game.

[Goblin_Priest]

Oh, the no down-time campaign where all encounters are level appropriate is deserving of nothing but ridicule, but it appears to be fairly common, to the point that slower rest mechanics are often decried on game discussions as making daily/long rest abilities "completely unusable", because in many campaigns, "we spend a week in town recovering and visiting the local bars, temples, and whore houses" is an UNTHINKABLE thing to do. How could you ever get a whole week off without the monsters destroying the multiverse?

And I wasn't kidding about having been told MANY times that someone couldn't craft a wand of CLW because it takes so much time. It takes 8 hours and there's no requirement for special conditions or for anything but time and components, so it can be done in the field. Apparently, in many campaigns, the monsters will wait politely while you get a good night's sleep, but if you try to take 8 hours off during the day they attack in massive hordes. (I'm not sure how this works with the fact that 4 encounters is about 2 minutes fighting, what exactly ARE these characters doing the other 15.97 hours of each day?)

On the other hand, a level 63 campaign is almost certainly capable of dimension hopping and divination, so you need not find that prismatic dragon under your bed, it could be 50,000 crystal spheres over that-a-way menacing some completely different dimension and you hunt it down and take it's lunch money (which defeats it and gets full XP, while leaving the valuable adventuring resource for the next level 63 party trying to advance to 64; except I don't think people in no-downtime all level-appropriate campaigns actually do anything but kill monsters for XP).

Still hopelessly silly, but it appears to be the way many people play the game.

Well, in a way, we tend to have campaigns without downtime either, as far as crafting is involved. But still a lot of time sinks, mostly with travel. It's a bit odd, now that I think of it, that we never seem to teleport around. I honestly don't think it'd matter, though, because a "race against the clock" paced adventure will not grant downtime if shortcuts are found. That's just some GM's style. For the most part, I think they dislike crafting specifically and feel like it cheats the wealth system. Another issue is that crafting takes so long that even if you had your weekends off to craft, every week, by the time you finish crafting an item, you'd probably be high enough level and bathing in enough wealth to already be needing an upgrade. The only things that become worth crafting are scrolls, potions, and rods, at which point, "these are so cheap they aren't worth the feat".

But yes, I'll concede that you are correct and that I was wrong in that the game does provide the means, in terms of statted monsters, in order to reach level 63, I didn't remember they went so high.

I'm not sure if we were initially talking about the OotS-verse specifically, though. I think that epic monsters are clearly established as being super rare here.

And I don't really remember epic magic well enough to figure out how hard it would be to track down epic monsters. Epic martials, as any high level martial, would mostly be left to suck up to their spellcasting counterparts. I guess a divination and/or conjuration specialist would probably be able to develop the means to track down worthy opponents, assuming a cheesy enough meta setting?

[Doug Lampert]

Well, in a way, we tend to have campaigns without downtime either, as far as crafting is involved. But still a lot of time sinks, mostly with travel. It's a bit odd, now that I think of it, that we never seem to teleport around. I honestly don't think it'd matter, though, because a "race against the clock" paced adventure will not grant downtime if shortcuts are found. That's just some GM's style. For the most part, I think they dislike crafting specifically and feel like it cheats the wealth system. Another issue is that crafting takes so long that even if you had your weekends off to craft, every week, by the time you finish crafting an item, you'd probably be high enough level and bathing in enough wealth to already be needing an upgrade. The only things that become worth crafting are scrolls, potions, and rods, at which point, "these are so cheap they aren't worth the feat".

Crafting arms and armor (or wands) becomes available at level 5 or 6 (5 for the wizard). Wonderous items at level 3.

Wands of lesser restoration or cure light wounds take 1 day starting at level 5. As pointed out, claiming that you don't have that much time is utterly nonsensical and it saves vast numbers of slots and means you enter every fight at full HP.

An item of +2 to a stat takes 4 days starting at level 3.

+2 armor takes 4 days at level 6. +2 swords take 8 days. Wands of magic missile at caster level 5 take 4 days.

And the days NEED NOT be consecutive or while in a town. IIRC you can even break it down into 4 hour half days, in which case you can do it at half rate just working nights when not resting.

You have the time unless you ARE playing in the nonsensical world of no-down time, in which case ANY long lasting campaign you get into should in fact hit very high epic levels.

[mjasghar]

*Nat 1, I'd imagine, since we are talking about missing a saving throw.

Third thought (closely related to my first): maybe this is a counter, but of a very simple type: it counts how many people are crossing the threshold at the same time. And if it is more than 1, you are out of luck to get to the gate. This is a Temple of Personal Might. No teams allowed.

Grey Wolf

Then the warg would have bypassed it
And i get the impression Oona May have gone in solo as well hunting meat

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Then the warg would have bypassed it
And i get the impression Oona May have gone in solo as well hunting meat

First, no he didn't. The others went in, and a simple counting process turnstile-like knows they are still inside. If you somehow meant in other instances, neither of those are at all interested in reaching the end of one of the doors. Greyview wouldn't go in on his own at all, and Oona, even in the weird scenario where she doesn't take pets, would hunt something, then leave.

GW

[drebb]

Yeah, geez, Roy. Use your head.

Hahaha. I love Belkar.

[Goblin_Priest]

Crafting arms and armor (or wands) becomes available at level 5 or 6 (5 for the wizard). Wonderous items at level 3.

Wands of lesser restoration or cure light wounds take 1 day starting at level 5. As pointed out, claiming that you don't have that much time is utterly nonsensical and it saves vast numbers of slots and means you enter every fight at full HP.

An item of +2 to a stat takes 4 days starting at level 3.

+2 armor takes 4 days at level 6. +2 swords take 8 days. Wands of magic missile at caster level 5 take 4 days.

And the days NEED NOT be consecutive or while in a town. IIRC you can even break it down into 4 hour half days, in which case you can do it at half rate just working nights when not resting.

You have the time unless you ARE playing in the nonsensical world of no-down time, in which case ANY long lasting campaign you get into should in fact hit very high epic levels.

Depends on the game being run. When I GM, the parties /tend/ to have a lot more downtime than with the other GMs at my table, but there are also large stretches of time with little downtime. I.e. "Spend a month with 17 days of downtime back at the barracks, then we head out trekking into hostile territory, spend 4 weeks traveling without any downtime". I run lower powered campaigns though.

You are right that lower leveled items are more reasonable to make. What's "reasonable downtime", though? If we go with "weekends", in two weeks you can make your +2 bracers. Not too bad. If the rest of that time was spent killing stuff and earning loot, though, also not incredible. The bigger issue is at higher levels, when a +1 bonus takes dozens of days, which crammed into weekends, can stretch into years sometimes. The more you advance, the more the returns on crafting reduce, especially if counted in terms of "+1s per week" or "per gained wealth", or some equivalent.

And that also all assumes always succeeding your check. You do need to make a check every day, right? Iirc?

[danielxcutter]

Honestly scribing a few scrolls shouldn’t take too long. It does depend on the campaign though; if the archdevil summoning ritual starts next Tuesday it’s probably not the best of ideas to start crafting that Belt of Magnificence +6.

[mjasghar]

First, no he didn't. The others went in, and a simple counting process turnstile-like knows they are still inside. If you somehow meant in other instances, neither of those are at all interested in reaching the end of one of the doors. Greyview wouldn't go in on his own at all, and Oona, even in the weird scenario where she doesn't take pets, would hunt something, then leave.

GW

That’s reaching a bit isn’t it? Your argument is that Oona is okay to go in solo because she goes in for a shorter time? Not much of a defense if you leave such a lag time for it to take effect
Or is it reading her mind to know she doesn’t care about the Gate?
Symbol traps aren’t usually artificial intelligences that keep count of people entering and leaving either. It’s simply a triggered spell

[Metastachydium]

The gates need maintenance.
Now, do they? Did I miss something? (Because if they do, splitting up the party definitively was fairly counterintuitive, since a rogue or a paladin cannot be expected to patch up a Gate should it begin to shake.)

[Peelee]

Now, do they?

Well, they definitely do now.:smalltongue:

[Schroeswald]

So I'm not really trying to figure out what exactly the trap does, I do like thinking about the effect it will have and sharing what that effect is and why I think that.

One important thing to think about, is the relationship of the Order of the Scribble and the Order of the Stick. The Scribblers, they failed, they didn't save the world, they broke up and because of this crucial failure, each of the gates so far has fallen. Lirian alone guarded her gate with nature, but didn't let the forest ever burn, and so her gate fell first to an undead abomination, and then second to an accidental blaze catching on all the excess fuel. Dorukan designed his gate based on the power of arcane magic and wizardry, and then with a secondary defense of good, and his gate fell first to a sorcerer (ew) just as powerful as him, and then a good person being really dumb. Soon thought only the honor of a paladin was unbreakable and could defend the gate, and yet Miko, a delusional fallen paladin convinced in her Good, destroyed it. Girard thought he could only trust his family, and so when something took out his family the gate was near defenseless, and a surrogate family made it their and destroyed it to keep it out of the hands of one of their family members (most of the rest of the analysis is stuff I've heard before but that last bit is a Schroeswald original). And the there's Serini, who built a testament to strength, and came up with the idea to split the Scribblers.

So what's going to happen to the final gate? Well, I'm not completely sure, but I have some ideas. What I'm feeling right now, is at least briefly, Team Evil will take it. They will take it with the magical strength of Xykon, the intelligence of Redcloak and the vast physical might of the Monster in the Darkness. The Order is going to win though, they will save the world. They're going to do this, by succeeding where the Scribblers failed. The Scribblers failed because they couldn't work together, they had resentment bubble up for years, and so when they "won", they fell apart, they couldn't Stick together, and so the scribbles went their separate ways. The Order will win by working together. Thoughout the past 17 years and six books we've seen them grow more competent, trusting, and a more cohesive team. The six members of the Order will work together, each of them balancing out the others, and together the Snarl will be contained and together the world will be saved.

What this has to do with the trap? Honestly idk if it has anything to do and thinking about the trap didn't just make me think about this thing I wanted to share. But if it has anything to do with it, its that the traps being overcome is possible by both Team Evil and their strengths and the Order and their strengths, and it will show that a monument to singular physical strength isn't enough and can be overcome, just like the power of nature, arcane wizardry, paladin honor and mistrust of everyone but family could.

[BarakDeathBlade]

That’s reaching a bit isn’t it? Your argument is that Oona is okay to go in solo because she goes in for a shorter time? Not much of a defense if you leave such a lag time for it to take effect
Or is it reading her mind to know she doesn’t care about the Gate?
Symbol traps aren’t usually artificial intelligences that keep count of people entering and leaving either. It’s simply a triggered spell

I think he means, Oona can go in solo, AND COME OUT, and it's a singular person.

Oona, Xykon and Redcloak went in, did NOT come out yet, and the wolf went in, so he counts as to their group.

Not loving this theory, not wedded to it, but that's my read on this viewpoint. Personally I'm going to sit back and make more popcorn while I wait.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

That’s reaching a bit isn’t it?

No, it is not.

GW

[BruceGee]

My prediction is that there will be a replay of the the big throne room scene in book 1 -- either Xykon defending the gate with a horde of bugbears, or maybe with the original scene reversed, and the OotS playing defense.

[Riftwolf]

My prediction is that there will be a replay of the the big throne room scene in book 1 -- either Xykon defending the gate with a horde of bugbears, or maybe with the original scene reversed, and the OotS playing defense.

Eh, hopefully the final battle will be more interesting than that. In fact, it definitely will be, because Xykon wasn't an epic Lich at that point of the comics history (and the Order have progressed beyond 'charge blindly unto glory' tactics).

[Goblin_Priest]

Eh, hopefully the final battle will be more interesting than that. In fact, it definitely will be, because Xykon wasn't an epic Lich at that point of the comics history (and the Order have progressed beyond 'charge blindly unto glory' tactics).

He wasn't?

I thought he was epic since before Redcloak met him.

[Schroeswald]

He wasn't?

I thought he was epic since before Redcloak met him.

He was definitely epic when he defeated Dorukan.

[danielxcutter]

I don’t think the Tomb of Kraagor is as complex as some of the theories, but at the same time I do think it’s more complicated than “get lucky picking doors and be strong enough to defeat the monsters”.

I mean not even that much more complex; that trap alone already likely means something that adds an extra layer on top of it as opposed to just brute force.

[Oxenstierna]

I like the idea that bypassing the trap is one of the steps to the gate.

In any fantasy world the rational expectation is for an adventuring party to fail to spot the trap and trigger it, or spot it and disarm it to continue.
Unless you own the dungeon, or expect to be pursued into it, there's no reason to leave it behind untouched.

If I read the rules correctly, it's also more difficult as a skill roll. In a 'self-aware stick figure fantasy parody' a dungeon building rogue would naturally choose the most difficult rule options...

If so, the 'physical might' aspect of the protection would come later, on or near the gate itself.
The magical sigil seal, the ghost-martyrs of the Sapphire Guard, and the 'your gate is in another pyramid' deception were all final challenges to overcome.

If it's a theme for the whole dungeon though, I did think the funniest 'physical might' requirement to the gate via traps would be for the party tank to have to take full damage: right in the face.
Go meatshield! Make some use of those d12 Barbarian hit dice! Leeroy Jenkins it!

It might also be fun if failing a mandatory saving throw was a requirement.

Made my reflex save.
Not again!
Can't you remember *not* to duck the whirling blades of death?
It's not my fault! I'm level 13, it's pure instinct!
Okay, get ready for a double-dose of the poison of slowness, and this time we're casting 'enlarge person'.

They'd also have to take whatever petty, pointless, or embarrasing traps are in the mix.

What's this?
Glitter.
Oh Glitterdust - blinds and dispels invisibility.
Nope, just glitter. Turns the deadliest warriors into sparkling vegetarian vampires.
I hate you guys.

[Riftwolf]

He wasn't?

I thought he was epic since before Redcloak met him.

I get the feeling he was retconned to epic some time around the Battle of Azure City. This is after getting his level bumped so he could fight an Ancient Silver Dragon, while in the first 100 strips he was probably below 15th level (before plot).

[Metastachydium]

with the original scene reversed, and the OotS playing defense

… with a horde of bugbears. Because, as we all know, Kraagor never died. Rather, he was polymorphed into several bugbears.