Why I think the OOT is better off not going to the final dungeon. [Archive]

gbaji

2023-06-01, 02:00 PM

Strategically, I agree with the OP. Fighting at the gate location risks accidentally blowing up the gate with, I don't know, a Meteor Swarm or something. The safer ambush location is at the second to last dungeon, which allows them to attack when Team Evil is at its most resource-depleted condition it will be in but still at a distance from the actual gate.

Safer from a "less chance to accidentally blow up the gate" pov, but not from a "can we actually defeat these guys?" one. Strategically, ambushing them in the penultimate dungeon presents problems. Assuming this dungeon is occupied with monsters, and the Order doesn't have someone with them who can create walls of force at will, how exactly are they going to set up this ambush? Also, since they are still in one of the dungeons that is part of the exploration agreement with the Quinton, the Order will just find themselves walled off beyind a wall of force just like any other random creature in the same dungeon.

That would be a disastrous location to ambush them. They'd be better off hitting them outside the dungeon in the canyon while they travel between the second to last to last dungeon doors. That would *also* be a terrible ambush location, since it's in an open area where Sunny's AMF will be least useful, but at least the Quinton might just stand by itself doing nothing to help or hinder the fight, and they wouldn't have to defeat a bunch of monsters just to set up the ambush. So "bad", but "better".

Assuming they want to do this indoors where they can use Sunny to their best ability and otherwise control the terrain, the Final Dungeon is by far their best bet. Serini has already stated that all the monsters within are in stasis and she knows where all the release triggers are. So as long as she can actually remember how to avoid triggering the traps that release them, they should be able to position themselves somewhere very good, while ensuring that TE is in an ideal location for them, and also potentially surrounded by really nasty monsters that may be released and attack TE during or right before the Order springs their ambush

This is basically the equivalent of waiting until your enemy is standing in the middle of a mine field before amubusing them. That's about as perfect as you can get.

We also don't know that the Final Dungeon is just one big room with a gate in it. Could very well have multiple chambers with monsters in it. No clue. At least the normal dungeons seemed to have multiple rooms, since Serini specifically states that "the last room behind every door" has the trap that marks folks. Why reference a "last room" in a dungeon if there are no other rooms? But even if there is just one big room or something, this is still by far their best bet at successfully ambushing TE.

However, what I expect is to see the Order go in then have big 'surprise' eyes before we switch back to Team Evil. At that point we will follow Team Evil till they get to the Final Dungeon™, step through the entrance, and get 'surprise eyes' of their own.

I really want the surprise to be the Mother Of All Good Dragons lying on a mountain of treasure that makes Smaug's look like lunch money. An Ancient Great Wyrm with epic sorcerer levels would illustrate the Xykon Maxim that Power = Power, and create a situation where the fight to fulfill the Blood Oath must continue elsewhere.

I have a terrible track record predicting things in this strip, but I'll still say with somewhere around 99.999% certainty that the "Mother of all Good Dragons" will not be in the Final Dungeon.

You mentioned swapovers and the idea that it just moves you to where the dragon is or somethiing, but that can't be the case. We've had some discussions in the past as whether the dungeons are actually physically in the Hallow, or are somewehere else and the swapovers are actually teleporting folks to different small dungeons located near monster lairs all over the world. That's possible for the regular dungeons, but *not* for the Final Dungeon. That dungeon leads to the gate, which is physically located right here. So whatever method "opens up a portal" to the Final Dungeon, must open it up to somewhere located in the Hallow itself.

brian 333

2023-06-01, 03:07 PM

Safer from a "less chance to accidentally blow up the gate" pov, but not from a "can we actually defeat these guys?" one. Strategically, ambushing them in the penultimate dungeon presents problems. Assuming this dungeon is occupied with monsters, and the Order doesn't have someone with them who can create walls of force at will, how exactly are they going to set up this ambush? Also, since they are still in one of the dungeons that is part of the exploration agreement with the Quinton, the Order will just find themselves walled off beyind a wall of force just like any other random creature in the same dungeon.

Why would the final dungeon not be covered by the quinton's agreement? Unless it is dismissed or destroyed it should remain with TE as long as they are exploring the dungeons behind the doors in Monster Hollow.

That would be a disastrous location to ambush them. They'd be better off hitting them outside the dungeon in the canyon while they travel between the second to last to last dungeon doors. That would *also* be a terrible ambush location, since it's in an open area where Sunny's AMF will be least useful, but at least the Quinton might just stand by itself doing nothing to help or hinder the fight, and they wouldn't have to defeat a bunch of monsters just to set up the ambush. So "bad", but "better".

Assuming they want to do this indoors where they can use Sunny to their best ability and otherwise control the terrain, the Final Dungeon is by far their best bet. Serini has already stated that all the monsters within are in stasis and she knows where all the release triggers are. So as long as she can actually remember how to avoid triggering the traps that release them, they should be able to position themselves somewhere very good, while ensuring that TE is in an ideal location for them, and also potentially surrounded by really nasty monsters that may be released and attack TE during or right before the Order springs their ambush

This is basically the equivalent of waiting until your enemy is standing in the middle of a mine field before amubusing them. That's about as perfect as you can get.

Not sure how the final dungeon is different from the second to last. Monsters in stasis, check. Narrow corridors, check. Quinton will be there? Check.

We also don't know that the Final Dungeon is just one big room with a gate in it. Could very well have multiple chambers with monsters in it. No clue. At least the normal dungeons seemed to have multiple rooms, since Serini specifically states that "the last room behind every door" has the trap that marks folks. Why reference a "last room" in a dungeon if there are no other rooms? But even if there is just one big room or something, this is still by far their best bet at successfully ambushing TE.

Still not sure how this differs from the second to last dungeon. The conditions are the same except that in the final dungeon the gate is there.

I have a terrible track record predicting things in this strip, but I'll still say with somewhere around 99.999% certainty that the "Mother of all Good Dragons" will not be in the Final Dungeon.

I don't think Moad will be there, but I am hoping something really big, really mean, and capable of smacking Xylon around like an inflatable punching bag is there.

You mentioned swapovers and the idea that it just moves you to where the dragon is or somethiing, but that can't be the case. We've had some discussions in the past as whether the dungeons are actually physically in the Hallow, or are somewehere else and the swapovers are actually teleporting folks to different small dungeons located near monster lairs all over the world. That's possible for the regular dungeons, but *not* for the Final Dungeon. That dungeon leads to the gate, which is physically located right here. So whatever method "opens up a portal" to the Final Dungeon, must open it up to somewhere located in the Hallow itself.

Which means it is another point in favor of the fight not being in the final dungeon. The farther away from the gate that it happens, the better.

However, if asked what I think will happen, I'm torn between 'they are headed to the final fight now' and 'Serini is tricking them and they are about to be portaled to the farthest southern point on the planet.' I think it is far too soon, story wise, to end. Time in universe may only be a few days, but there is a lot of potential story still to be told before the end.

Provengreil

2023-06-01, 03:41 PM

KorvinStarmast

2023-06-01, 08:31 PM

It's not really fair to use audience knowledge of the quinton to judge the order's planning(and even if they can use blackwing and knowledge to work out his abilities they can't possibly know his deal's particulars), but if you go that way you can't forget that Xykon is purposefully rushing ahead to score some kills, presumably using spells in the process. Given that, the final room is the most likely place to encounter a Xykon that no longer has a meteor swarm to hit the gate in the first place. I have a hunch that the IFCC are about to throw a wrench into everyone's works (TE and OotS) but timing that is ... well, hard to predict. What I think will happen is that as the Order and TE face each other, the IFCC's evil machinations will erupt into their encounter and make for a whole new mess.

As both V and Roy opined in various strips some years ago, we really don't know what's going on.
In a similar vein, Belkar's maybe someone's been yanking everyone's chain (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0900.html) also applies here.

That "someone" strikes me as a Fourth Wall Break reference to either the author or the IFCC.
Not sure, could be either one.

Smoutwortel

2023-06-02, 06:17 AM

IFCC has yet to play their card. The vessel is, I think, a person (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0897.html) (Yeah, I know, Redcloak's niece, Thog, someone, yadda yadda) and the artifact will throw a massive curve ball at the Order.

Quite possibly the Vessel and the Order locked in mortal combat.
I am pretty sure that the Mother of All Good Dragons is not going to be confined to a little hole under the North Pole. She's got a lair and realm of her own.

We don't know where the final gate teleports to.
It could be a literal gate spell to the realm of good.

Safer from a "less chance to accidentally blow up the gate" pov, but not from a "can we actually defeat these guys?" one. Strategically, ambushing them in the penultimate dungeon presents problems. Assuming this dungeon is occupied with monsters, and the Order doesn't have someone with them who can create walls of force at will, how exactly are they going to set up this ambush? Also, since they are still in one of the dungeons that is part of the exploration agreement with the Quinton, the Order will just find themselves walled off beyind a wall of force just like any other random creature in the same dungeon.

That would be a disastrous location to ambush them. They'd be better off hitting them outside the dungeon in the canyon while they travel between the second to last to last dungeon doors. That would *also* be a terrible ambush location, since it's in an open area where Sunny's AMF will be least useful, but at least the Quinton might just stand by itself doing nothing to help or hinder the fight, and they wouldn't have to defeat a bunch of monsters just to set up the ambush. So "bad", but "better".

Assuming they want to do this indoors where they can use Sunny to their best ability and otherwise control the terrain, the Final Dungeon is by far their best bet. Serini has already stated that all the monsters within are in stasis and she knows where all the release triggers are. So as long as she can actually remember how to avoid triggering the traps that release them, they should be able to position themselves somewhere very good, while ensuring that TE is in an ideal location for them, and also potentially surrounded by really nasty monsters that may be released and attack TE during or right before the Order springs their ambush

A Quinton force wall isn't very effective against a group with access to a full shot beholder like Sunny(disintegrate destroys force walls).
That doesn't mean the Quinton will be ineffective(it's still a DC 14 with a wide range of more effective spells).
With your suggestion of "alternate locations" you make a good point.
- They could also use the "inside dungeon" they just discovered
It's not as good as the final dungeon, but it allows for removing a few magic marks to reset TE's search and elaborate traps. Also it allows for wearing them down with the fore last dungeon.
- They could also use the back tunnel at the other side of the internal gate, they discovered by going through the other side.
- They could (if they hurry) use an empty dungeon already cleared out by team evil, but that would cost them some precious wearing down.

Tzardok

2023-06-02, 07:18 AM

We don't know where the final gate teleports to.
It could be a literal gate spell to the realm of good.

Unlikely. The Snarl is imprisoned in the planet. The rifts are holes in that prison. So the Final Dungeon has to be on the planet itself.

KorvinStarmast

2023-06-02, 07:29 AM

Unlikely. The Snarl is imprisoned in the planet. The rifts are holes in that prison. So the Final Dungeon has to be on the planet itself.

We don't know where the final gate teleports to. It could be a literal gate spell to the realm of good. I do not believe that it teleports anyone anywhere, unless (maybe) the 'reach out and touch someone' attempt by the Snarl (with Lirian at Girard's Rift) was an attempt by the Snarl to teleport Lirian (or just grab her and drag her) into its world of water.
She was making contact with (or attempting to) sentient beings on that world; the Snarl is sentient.

To date, the gates / rifts do not appear to be a variation on the gate spell, given that Elan, Miko, and Roy didn't go anywhere when they interacted with the gates. They stayed in OotS-World.

The Snarl is imprisoned in the planet. The rifts are holes in that prison. So the Final Dungeon has to be on the planet itself. I am presuming that by "the planet" you mean "OotS-World" and not the planet seen inside the rift in BRitF.

Tzardok

2023-06-02, 07:36 AM

Yes, the planet the Snarl is imprisoned in (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0275.html) is the prison of the Snarl. :smalltongue:

I'm assuming that Smoutwortel means to say "the entry into the Final Dungeon" when saying "the final gate". Because else his statement doesn't make sense at all.

gbaji

2023-06-02, 08:31 PM

Why would the final dungeon not be covered by the quinton's agreement? Unless it is dismissed or destroyed it should remain with TE as long as they are exploring the dungeons behind the doors in Monster Hollow.

Sure. But you're focusing on the "they have to deal with someone who can create walls of force at will" (which is also the case anywhere else they ambush TE), while ignoring the much more relevant point that "they do *not* have someone on their team who can create walls of force at wlll". Which means that the Order will have to actually fight any monsters in the "second to last dungeon" before they can set up their ambush. Thus, reducing their own resources for no real gain.

I was listing off every factor involved for completenesses sake. Please don't take just one of them as the entire argument.

Not sure how the final dungeon is different from the second to last. Monsters in stasis, check. Narrow corridors, check. Quinton will be there? Check.

The monsters in the other dungeons are not in stastis. Only those in the Final Dungeon are. So by ambushing them in the Final Dungeon, with the person who set up the traps that release the monsters within that dungeon from stasis, they have a signficant positional advantage. They can use the monsters as traps to hit TE with during the fight. They don't have that in any other location.

Still not sure how this differs from the second to last dungeon. The conditions are the same except that in the final dungeon the gate is there.

Sure. Which means there may be multiple corridors and rooms in the Final Dungeon, prior to reaching the room with the gate in it. Which makes the concern about an errant meteor swarm destroying the gate less significant. I was directly responding to that concern. So I pointed out that, assuming the Final Dungeon has a similar layout to the other dungeons (multiple rooms, hallways connecting them, etc), then they should be able to pick an ambush spot that isn't "right in front of the gate".

I happen to believe that the Final Fight(tm) will actually occur right in front of the Final Gate, but that's a dramatic thing.

Which means it is another point in favor of the fight not being in the final dungeon. The farther away from the gate that it happens, the better.

Eh. Sure. But "further away" has a pretty significant value dropoff point. When it comes to D&D combat "the next room" and "the next continent" are 99% identical in terms of risk to the gate. But the danger of trying to set up an ambush anywhere other than the one location you absolutely know they will be at is much greater.

Heck. How you you pick the "last dungeon" (or "second to the last")? Are you absolutely certain you know the order TE is going to search the doors? This ties into my point above. The only way to be realtively safe doing this is to pick any door that hasn't been numbered yet *and* doesn't have an X on it. May not be the "second to last" dungeon in actual fact, but at least you know they haven't gotten tagged by it yet. Um... But that guarantees a dungeon full of monsters you have to fight.

And, if we're talking about the Order not being able to assume things about what TE is doing, they can't actually know for certain what the X's mean, or the numbers for that matter. And any time spent lingering around (or even just running out, finding another door, and running back in) risks being spotted. There's just a lot of negatives here, and not much positives.

We don't know where the final gate teleports to.
It could be a literal gate spell to the realm of good.

Huh? It has to take them to where the gate is (also assuming you mean the "portal" that activates when you have all of the marks). The final gate must be physically located in this area. It's here because that's where the rift was which they sealed and built a gate over.

A Quinton force wall isn't very effective against a group with access to a full shot beholder like Sunny(disintegrate destroys force walls).
That doesn't mean the Quinton will be ineffective(it's still a DC 14 with a wide range of more effective spells).

Sure. I'm not even going into that much. Literally just tossed it in the list because it was one more thing that they may have to deal with. Didn't expect folks to focus on just the issues with the force wall being used against the Order.

With your suggestion of "alternate locations" you make a good point.
- They could also use the "inside dungeon" they just discovered
It's not as good as the final dungeon, but it allows for removing a few magic marks to reset TE's search and elaborate traps. Also it allows for wearing them down with the fore last dungeon.

Except TE has already explored the dungeon they are in currently. Although, I don't think the Quinton has taken them there yet. But again, if we're not to consider what we know about the Quinton and its instructions, we can't assume the Order would realize that TE is going to come back into this dungeon.

Also, I doubt seriously that there is any means to dispel the marks. They're like tiny enchantments or something (instant spells cant be dispelled). Not something that can be dispelled. And certainly not something that Sunny's AMF will eliminate. They aren't active spells. They just exist, and are used as a trigger condition for another spell.

Also. The absolute most "worn down" that TE will be is if the Order waits for them in the Final Dungeon. That's literally going to always be the very last place they arrive. Once they trigger the portal to it, they will enter. So there is no more "wearing down" for them to experience at that point.

- They could also use the back tunnel at the other side of the internal gate, they discovered by going through the other side.
- They could (if they hurry) use an empty dungeon already cleared out by team evil, but that would cost them some precious wearing down.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. That they should hide in the backstage area? There's no guaranteed that TE ever finds backstage before finding the Final Dungeon. So that's a really bad idea.

I'm also not sure how using an empty dungeon helps them in any way. They are already in an empty dungeon (although they could go to any dungeon from where they are). But, as I explained above, the only way the Order can be absolutely certain that they will encounter TE is to go to a dungeon they know TE has not yet entered. None of which will be empty. Thus, any attempt to ambush them, if they want to guarantee that TE will enter their ambush, would have to occur in an occupied dungeon. Which, for every dungeon except the Final Dungeon, will require that the Order fight all the monster within themselves. Which results in them wearing themselves down, not TE.

brian 333

2023-06-03, 12:29 AM

Sure. But you're focusing on the "they have to deal with someone who can create walls of force at will" (which is also the case anywhere else they ambush TE), while ignoring the much more relevant point that "they do *not* have someone on their team who can create walls of force at wlll". Which means that the Order will have to actually fight any monsters in the "second to last dungeon" before they can set up their ambush. Thus, reducing their own resources for no real gain.

Wait, why are the monsters in the second to last dungeon not in stasis? Did I miss something? I thought all of the monsters in all of the dungeons were in stasis, lest we begin wondering what they eat an where they go when they go.

I was listing off every factor involved for completenesses sake. Please don't take just one of them as the entire argument.

Noted. Is it acceptable to cite one item from the list or a small sample? Or must each item be addressed individually?

The monsters in the other dungeons are not in stastis. Only those in the Final Dungeon are.

Source?

So by ambushing them in the Final Dungeon, with the person who set up the traps that release the monsters within that dungeon from stasis, they have a signficant positional advantage. They can use the monsters as traps to hit TE with during the fight. They don't have that in any other location.

Except that we only know that Serini knows how to bypass the traps which release the monsters from stasis, not that she can trigger them at will. And we certainly do not know that she can control them even well enough to direct them against TE. (Also, the stasis traps are in all the dungeons, not just the final one, sooo...)

Sure. Which means there may be multiple corridors and rooms in the Final Dungeon, prior to reaching the room with the gate in it. Which makes the concern about an errant meteor swarm destroying the gate less significant. I was directly responding to that concern. So I pointed out that, assuming the Final Dungeon has a similar layout to the other dungeons (multiple rooms, hallways connecting them, etc), then they should be able to pick an ambush spot that isn't "right in front of the gate".

One Earthquake from MitD could collapse the whole tunnel. Running from a summoned monster and ducking behind the gate not even aware that it is a gate risks its destruction. There are many, many ways that a fight in the final dungeon can go bad, all of them depending on the exact circumstances of that moment. There are zero ways fighting for the safety of the gate in proximity to it is a good idea or minor risk.

The issue is, fighting over the gate in proximity to the gate is a danger to the gate. The more miles away that fight can happen, the safer the gate is.

I happen to believe that the Final Fight(tm) will actually occur right in front of the Final Gate, but that's a dramatic thing.

Fair enough. For the record, I also think there will be a battle there,, but in my opinion it will have bad results. I think over half a book happens after the battle over the last gate.

Eh. Sure. But "further away" has a pretty significant value dropoff point. When it comes to D&D combat "the next room" and "the next continent" are 99% identical in terms of risk to the gate. But the danger of trying to set up an ambush anywhere other than the one location you absolutely know they will be at is much greater.

Heck. How you you pick the "last dungeon" (or "second to the last")? Are you absolutely certain you know the order TE is going to search the doors? This ties into my point above. The only way to be realtively safe doing this is to pick any door that hasn't been numbered yet *and* doesn't have an X on it. May not be the "second to last" dungeon in actual fact, but at least you know they haven't gotten tagged by it yet. Um... But that guarantees a dungeon full of monsters you have to fight.

And, if we're talking about the Order not being able to assume things about what TE is doing, they can't actually know for certain what the X's mean, or the numbers for that matter. And any time spent lingering around (or even just running out, finding another door, and running back in) risks being spotted. There's just a lot of negatives here, and not much positives.

That 99% drops off pretty fast when one of the casters literally has the power to level a mountain. I'd want the fight to be as far away as possible.

We know a hundred places TE will be before they get to the final dungeon. TE gas to go through them all. Pick one that is your best guess based on their current search pattern and ambush there. And why would The Order have to fight monsters in stasis, unless Elan triggers one 'accidentally.'

And they already know TE's pattern because Blackwing watched them then reported what he saw. Knowing the pattern of TE's search gives them a reasonable idea where to wait for them.

Provengreil

2023-06-03, 07:31 AM

Except that we only know that Serini knows how to bypass the traps which release the monsters from stasis, not that she can trigger them at will. And we certainly do not know that she can control them even well enough to direct them against TE. (Also, the stasis traps are in all the dungeons, not just the final one, sooo...)

Where is this assumption that monsters outside the final dungeon are in stasis coming from? They certainly were active backstage, and I'm pretty sure Oona or Redcloak would have brought something up about it before: RC would be thinking about bypassing them to go faster while Oona would be concerned with picking the right monsters at the right times. The traps only even got mentioned because the FD is completely sealed.

brian 333

2023-06-03, 07:40 AM

Where is this assumption that monsters outside the final dungeon are in stasis coming from? They certainly were active backstage, and I'm pretty sure Oona or Redcloak would have brought something up about it before: RC would be thinking about bypassing them to go faster while Oona would be concerned with picking the right monsters at the right times. The traps only even got mentioned because the FD is completely sealed.

Serini says they have no ecosystems to support them and she has to restock them after they are used.

Backstage is not the dungeons. Where does the idea that the monsters in the dungeons are not in stasis until triggered by adventurers entering their dungeons come from? Why would the final dungeon be the only one with stasis traps? And where do they go to dispose of their bodily wastes after eating the tons of food that monsters would require each day, that somehow Serini takes care of between naps? And why don't some of them come outside or wander into backstage from time to time?

From what we've seen, Team Evil is really good at finding simple, mid-level traps and bypassing them...

Tubercular Ox

2023-06-03, 08:23 AM

Serini says they have no ecosystems to support them and she has to restock them after they are used.

Backstage is not the dungeons. Where does the idea that the monsters in the dungeons are not in stasis until triggered by adventurers entering their dungeons come from? Why would the final dungeon be the only one with stasis traps? And where do they go to dispose of their bodily wastes after eating the tons of food that monsters would require each day, that somehow Serini takes care of between naps? And why don't some of them come outside or wander into backstage from time to time?

From what we've seen, Team Evil is really good at finding simple, mid-level traps and bypassing them...

A lot of these questions could be asked of any dungeon, so a part of me feels that if other dungeons can manage it, so can this one.

Provengreil

2023-06-03, 08:26 AM

Serini says they have no ecosystems to support them and she has to restock them after they are used.

Backstage is not the dungeons. Where does the idea that the monsters in the dungeons are not in stasis until triggered by adventurers entering their dungeons come from? Why would the final dungeon be the only one with stasis traps? And where do they go to dispose of their bodily wastes after eating the tons of food that monsters would require each day, that somehow Serini takes care of between naps? And why don't some of them come outside or wander into backstage from time to time?

From what we've seen, Team Evil is really good at finding simple, mid-level traps and bypassing them...

Non-stasis is your default. The traps in the FD had to be specifically called out and planned around because they're unusual.

Those questions about diet and waste are usually ignored. For the rest of the dungeon, they still are: you're just getting lost in the fridge logic on this point.

brian 333

2023-06-03, 01:28 PM

Non-stasis is your default. The traps in the FD had to be specifically called out and planned around because they're unusual.

Those questions about diet and waste are usually ignored. For the rest of the dungeon, they still are: you're just getting lost in the fridge logic on this point.

I think you are imposing what you think on the comic then treating it as canon without any in comic support. Unless you can show that Serini was talking about only the final dungeon and not all of them in general, which it appears to me that she is doing.

Tzardok

2023-06-03, 02:47 PM

The stasis traps only come up during a talk about the Final Dungeon, as an explanation why the monsters inside are still alive despite nobody entering it since it was built. There's no reason to assume that this goes for all the other dungeons, which are entered and maintained regularily. In fact, there's reason to assume the opposite: Serini mentions that some of the stasis traps release their monsters when the trap is disarmed instead of when it's sprung. No one in Team Evil mentioned encountering monsters in stasis that didn't activate. If that had happened, you'd think at least Redcloak would wonder about it.

Shosho

2023-06-03, 03:23 PM

No, better to let the Final Dungeon's defenses wear them down and make the last fight easier. Besides, it's thematically and dramatically appropriate that an adventure which began with the bad guys waiting at the end of a dungeon, now ends with the good guys waiting at the end of a dungeon. There's a bardic advantage there.
I'll take that a step further: based on the Laws of Narrative, there is no way the OOTS could win it all in an encounter before the final dungeon. Elan would happily explain that to anyone who doesn't run away fast enough to stop him.

Besides, there has been too much focus on the gates, the snarl, the world beyond, Redcloak and his deity, and so on for things to resolve without involving the final gate. If somehow Xykon and crew were defeated before reaching the final gate, there would be no reason for anybody to go to the final gate and have everything that has been going on finally revealed. That would be an even worse offense against the Narrative Laws. If the group tried that, I'm sure either Elan would argue them down, or be proved right when the attempt blows up in their faces.

Provengreil

2023-06-03, 03:59 PM

I think you are imposing what you think on the comic then treating it as canon without any in comic support. Unless you can show that Serini was talking about only the final dungeon and not all of them in general, which it appears to me that she is doing.

And you aren't? Show me a single panel supporting that the normal dungeons had stasis traps. Not an absence of contrary evidence, actual positive support. Otherwise, any other dungeon could have the same issues, and they quite simply don't have those issues.

The traps are being called out for their uniqueness to the situation.

Tubercular Ox

2023-06-03, 04:23 PM

I'll take that a step further: based on the Laws of Narrative, there is no way the OOTS could win it all in an encounter before the final dungeon. Elan would happily explain that to anyone who doesn't run away fast enough to stop him.

Besides, there has been too much focus on the gates, the snarl, the world beyond, Redcloak and his deity, and so on for things to resolve without involving the final gate. If somehow Xykon and crew were defeated before reaching the final gate, there would be no reason for anybody to go to the final gate and have everything that has been going on finally revealed. That would be an even worse offense against the Narrative Laws. If the group tried that, I'm sure either Elan would argue them down, or be proved right when the attempt blows up in their faces.

So there's room in this comic (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1280.html) for an ambush spot that isn't the final gate. If we learn that they do indeed pick an ambush spot that isn't the final gate, would you agree with me that a fake finale is coming? What do you think Elan would say?

whitehelm

2023-06-03, 06:40 PM

I think you are imposing what you think on the comic then treating it as canon without any in comic support. Unless you can show that Serini was talking about only the final dungeon and not all of them in general, which it appears to me that she is doing.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1279.html
Serini: ...Portal opened just fine. Didn't go inside though. Seemed safer to keep it sealed up, just in case.
Lien: The dungeon is sealed? No one has gone in or out since you built it?
...
Roy: Let me guess: it's an intricately balanced ecosystem that sustains itself.
Serini: It would've been, if Lirian had played ball. Instead, I just put everything in stasis traps and called it done.

"It" in this conversation is the Final Dungeon specifically. The other dungeons aren't sealed up, bugbears have been hunting in them and Serini has restocked those (we earlier learned she visited Dorukan's Dungeon for that purpose).

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1281.html

Roy: We should just stick with the one we were in when Sunny lured us away. Among other factors, we know Xykon and Redcloak just cleared it out again, so we won't need to worry about --

Roy is about to say they won't need to worry about the monsters, which doesn't make sense if all the monsters are in stasis and Serini can take them through without triggering them.

brian 333

2023-06-03, 11:35 PM

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1279.html
Serini: ...Portal opened just fine. Didn't go inside though. Seemed safer to keep it sealed up, just in case.
Lien: The dungeon is sealed? No one has gone in or out since you built it?
...
Roy: Let me guess: it's an intricately balanced ecosystem that sustains itself.
Serini: It would've been, if Lirian had played ball. Instead, I just put everything in stasis traps and called it done.

"It" in this conversation is the Final Dungeon specifically. The other dungeons aren't sealed up, bugbears have been hunting in them and Serini has restocked those (we earlier learned she visited Dorukan's Dungeon for that purpose).

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1281.html

So, one dungeon has stasis traps to keep the monsters alive and where they need to be.

All the rest have monsters running loose, which need to eat, and which can escape into Monster Hollow from time to time?

Serinni says there is no ecosystem to feed and maintain the monsters. She would require a massive infrastructure to bring in food for the monsters. Nobody seems to be doing that.

There is no evidence that the monsters ever wander out of the dungeons, which could be done by any with rogue abilities or any of the various dispell/antimagic abilities.

Anyone with a horse knows that what the animal eats today must be shoveled tomorrow. Where are the stableboys and the dung heaps?

Is it not far easier to assume she was talking about all the dungeons rather than assume this one dungeon is set up diferently for no real reason?

Roy is about to say they won't need to worry about the monsters, which doesn't make sense if all the monsters are in stasis and Serini can take them through without triggering them.

Roy: "...we won't need to worry about bypassing or accidentally releasing the trapped monsters."

Mic_128

2023-06-04, 01:04 AM

Besides, there has been too much focus on the gates, the snarl, the world beyond, Redcloak and his deity, and so on for things to resolve without involving the final gate.

Oh definitely. I'd wager we're a third of the way through the last book, at most. There's far too many loose ends that are nowhere near close to being addressed.

Provengreil

2023-06-04, 07:39 AM

So, one dungeon has stasis traps to keep the monsters alive and where they need to be.

All the rest have monsters running loose, which need to eat, and which can escape into Monster Hollow from time to time?

Serinni says there is no ecosystem to feed and maintain the monsters. She would require a massive infrastructure to bring in food for the monsters. Nobody seems to be doing that.

There is no evidence that the monsters ever wander out of the dungeons, which could be done by any with rogue abilities or any of the various dispell/antimagic abilities.

Anyone with a horse knows that what the animal eats today must be shoveled tomorrow. Where are the stableboys and the dung heaps?

Is it not far easier to assume she was talking about all the dungeons rather than assume this one dungeon is set up diferently for no real reason?

Easier doesn't mean more accurate. The biggest reason we don't see a support setup is that the comic is not a discussion on the logistics of dungeon maintenance. It'd be boring for most, very off topic, and at best might be a cutaway gag. Plenty of other dungeons in inhospitable locations manage without one, this place has no reason to be different.

If you want to assume it's stasis traps all the way down I can't really stop you, but there's no positive evidence for it. You're just using the lack of positive evidence of something else (in this case, the lack of a visible logistics train) as room to propose the traps.

I repeat myself in that the traps are being specifically brought up because they are unique to this one dungeon and will be part of the action in some way. It's not being brought up to resolve fridge logic, it's a dramatic setup.

brian 333

2023-06-04, 08:37 AM

Easier doesn't mean more accurate. The biggest reason we don't see a support setup is that the comic is not a discussion on the logistics of dungeon maintenance. It'd be boring for most, very off topic, and at best might be a cutaway gag. Plenty of other dungeons in inhospitable locations manage without one, this place has no reason to be different.

If you want to assume it's stasis traps all the way down I can't really stop you, but there's no positive evidence for it. You're just using the lack of positive evidence of something else (in this case, the lack of a visible logistics train) as room to propose the traps.

I repeat myself in that the traps are being specifically brought up because they are unique to this one dungeon and will be part of the action in some way. It's not being brought up to resolve fridge logic, it's a dramatic setup.

Repeating an assertion does not equal presenting evidence. You say Serini did one out of hundreds of dungeons differently, and your only evidence for that is a single line in a conversation specifically about that one dungeon. Meanwhile, we have hundreds of dungeons, all with the exact same requirements, but you assert that these are designed and maintained differently with no evidence to support that assertion.

I say Serini used the same method on all the dungeons because she specifically said in that same conversation that she did not have a better way.

If I have misstated your position, please let me know. Otherwise, let's wait and see who is right.

whitehelm

2023-06-04, 09:54 AM

So, one dungeon has stasis traps to keep the monsters alive and where they need to be.

All the rest have monsters running loose, which need to eat, and which can escape into Monster Hollow from time to time?

Serinni says there is no ecosystem to feed and maintain the monsters. She would require a massive infrastructure to bring in food for the monsters. Nobody seems to be doing that.

There is no evidence that the monsters ever wander out of the dungeons, which could be done by any with rogue abilities or any of the various dispell/antimagic abilities.

Anyone with a horse knows that what the animal eats today must be shoveled tomorrow. Where are the stableboys and the dung heaps?

Is it not far easier to assume she was talking about all the dungeons rather than assume this one dungeon is set up diferently for no real reason?

The conversation was specifically about the Final Dungeon. Serini used the word "it" so she is also referring to the Final Dungeon. If she wanted to refer to all the dungeons she would use "they" or "they all". You asked us to "show that Serini was talking about only the final dungeon" and her choice of pronouns does that.

Also note that Lien and Durkon only started asking about the food/poop situation upon learning about this sealed dungeon that no one including Serini has entered or left. They apparently didn't have any issue with the regular dungeons they already knew about that Serini, Sunny and possibly others CAN AND HAVE entered and left (in order to restock monsters), and since we have the same information as they do, why should we have a problem with them?

Roy: "...we won't need to worry about bypassing or accidentally releasing the trapped monsters."

Roy and the rest of them are about to spend 48 hours hanging around the (probably stronger) trapped monsters in the Final Dungeon. I find it highly unlikely Roy would be so concerned about a few extra that it would be the first reason he gives before talking about the "other factors" (having an open door for Blackwing to fly in). Active monsters definitely are something to be primarily concerned with though.

Provengreil

2023-06-04, 11:00 AM

Repeating an assertion does not equal presenting evidence. You say Serini did one out of hundreds of dungeons differently, and your only evidence for that is a single line in a conversation specifically about that one dungeon. Meanwhile, we have hundreds of dungeons, all with the exact same requirements, but you assert that these are designed and maintained differently with no evidence to support that assertion.

I say Serini used the same method on all the dungeons because she specifically said in that same conversation that she did not have a better way.

If I have misstated your position, please let me know. Otherwise, let's wait and see who is right.

Yes, my position is that the stasis traps only exist in the final dungeon, but it's hardly one line of dialogue. It's also the fact that every mention of the stasis traps occurs in conversation explicitly discussing the FD and never once comes up outside of that context. Thus, there's no positive evidence, just a void of information in which any positive assertion is unsupported. The closest we have is that Serini replaces monsters hunted by the bugbears, which says nothing at all about their actual living conditions.

Your assertion that the rest of the dungeon has the traps seems to rest on the absence of a logistics train. I submit to you that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: there's a lot of movement going on in the story right now and such trivialities aren't part of it, so the comic glosses by the subject.

Now if you want me to make a positive assertion to fill that void, here it is. I would expect they're maintained in the same way any other dungeon in any inhospitable location would be: handwavium. I'm sure that sounds like a disappointing cop-out to you, but this is a world that is both adventure friendly and self-aware: some things just kind of work without reason. I can't find the quote atm but when talking about Tarquin, the Giant at one point explicitly stated that this world follows certain narrative conventions, to the point that you can actually exploit that for some power. The narrative convention here is that the dungeon is up and running unless the failures of not having the logistics train is part of the plot: in the FD, that is the case, hence the traps. In the rest of them, it is not.

brian 333

2023-06-04, 11:12 AM

The conversation was specifically about the Final Dungeon. Serini used the word "it" so she is also referring to the Final Dungeon. If she wanted to refer to all the dungeons she would use "they" or "they all". You asked us to "show that Serini was talking about only the final dungeon" and her choice of pronouns does that.

Also note that Lien and Durkon only started asking about the food/poop situation upon learning about this sealed dungeon that no one including Serini has entered or left. They apparently didn't have any issue with the regular dungeons they already knew about that Serini, Sunny and possibly others CAN AND HAVE entered and left (in order to restock monsters), and since we have the same information as they do, why should we have a problem with them?

Roy and the rest of them are about to spend 48 hours hanging around the (probably stronger) trapped monsters in the Final Dungeon. I find it highly unlikely Roy would be so concerned about a few extra that it would be the first reason he gives before talking about the "other factors" (having an open door for Blackwing to fly in). Active monsters definitely are something to be primarily concerned with though.

Restating the same opinion, which I have already addressed in previous posts, does not add weight to your argument.

You have said they were specifically speaking about one dungeon. I agree. You then insist, with no evidence, that the other dungeons are obviously different, and that people who have never explored or talked about them know this.

Okay, I ask for some foundation for this assertion, but I get more assertion that this is so because... it's obvious the one dungeon they were talking about is different from all the rest?

Restating an opinion is not evidence.

So, I ask if it is logical to do hundreds of dungeons one way and one dungeon differently, because of the infrastructure exists to support them, why can't it support the one as well? Or if the infrastructure that is nowhere in evidence does not exist, why wouldn't the same method used on the one dungeon apply to them all?

The response to this is, "Logic does not apply to dungeons because in all of the dungeons we've seen no way of feeding the monsters has been mentioned."

The dungeons of Dorukon had a staff.
The pyramid of Girard had a staff.
The tomb of Kraggor was abandoned until Serini returned.

From what we have seen of dungeons in comic, yes, maintenance of the monsters has been an actual thing. Except at Serini's, where in the only example we have, (OotS has not explored a single dungeon so far in Monster Hollow, so they have no knowledge of how they work,) Serini said there is no ecosystem to support the monsters so she keeps them in stasis.

Your opinion that only one dungeon uses stasis traps is noted. My opinion that all of them do is presented. Believe whichever you like, or show me actual evidence that I am wrong. My evidence is certainly only logic derived from observation, and I am prepared to be wrong. If you do not have actual evidence, then I am content to wait and see if it is a question The Giant ever bothers to answer.

I find it highly unlikely Roy would be so concerned about a few extra that it would be the first reason he gives before talking about the "other factors" (having an open door for Blackwing to fly in). Active monsters definitely are something to be primarily concerned with though.

You do realize that you finished Roy's sentence for him and now adamantly assert that he could not have meant to say anything but what you intended him to say? Shall we start a new thread discussing the many million possible other things he might have intended to say there?

Bonus points: if the whole point of allowing Xykon to go through all the dungeons to waste as much of his power as possible, why would Roy ignore the potential of accidentally tripping a few traps that might waste more of Xykon's power, and why would he risk depleting any of his own party's power in a fight he can avoid?

Tzardok

2023-06-04, 11:20 AM

brian 333

2023-06-04, 11:44 AM

Thing is, you are also just restating your opinion over and over again in different words. Is it logical that this single dungeon is treated differently? Yes, it is. We know that it is treated differently in at least one way: it is closed off from the world. Why spring for the unneccessary expense of building stasis traps where they aren't absolutely needed? Especially as we know that Serini is restocking those other dungeons. Is it really that illogical that she's feeding them too? Or that they leave to go hunt food and then return into their cozy dungeon?

The monsters don't leave the dungeons to get into Monster Hollow, because the bugbears live there in rather ramshackle houses. And for most of them there is no food in the Arctic anyway. Where are they getting their food? And why can't the monsters in the final dungeon use that food supply? Because it is closed off? The other monsters obviously do not use the doors to get out, and if they did, their nearest food supply would be the bugbears or the dungeon next door. So, if they have their own food supply, they have a way they can come and go. And if they have that, why can't that method be used on the final dungeon?

I have acknowledged many times that I am offering opinion and logic. And I am still waiting for a shred of evidence that tilts the scale toward one opinion or the other so that I can adopt that new position.

So far, the only evidence we have is Serini's word that she did not set up an ecosystem to feed her monsters in the final dungeon and that she instead holds them in stasis traps. And we have no evidence that she does it differently elsewhere. And we have logical reasons why she would not.

You may or may not recall that I was an advocate of the self-restocking dungeons scattered around the world from which the monsters went out to feed and then come back home, and that only those who used a swap over from the North Pole to the dungeon could use it to get to Monster Hollow. That simple system would have required minimal investment and no further supervision. It was also wrong. Obviously, the monsters are not able to feed themselves or to exit their dungeons. Your version does not address this, you simply handwaved it away because obviously...

Sir_Norbert

2023-06-04, 02:39 PM

brian 333

2023-06-04, 05:26 PM

If the monsters in the other dungeons were in stasis traps, Xykon and Redcloak would have been surprised and at least talked about it on their exploration so far. They would also have had no reason to summon the Quinton.

How would they have known? To assume they would have known about the stasis traps implies they are able to detect traps. So far they have shown no ability to find traps. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1278.html) They have certainly not found the swapovers, (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1223.html) which Haley described as a cherry on top. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1224.html)

Given that TE has been unable to find several dozen swapovers and several dozen tattoo traps when Haley, who describes herself as "good but not one-of-a-kind," found the first one she encountered, I find the assertion that TE should have found the stasis traps to be less than credible.

OvisCaedo

2023-06-05, 01:38 AM

Dimples786

2023-06-05, 03:38 AM

What is oot stand for

Ruck

2023-06-05, 04:07 AM

What is oot stand for

Ocarina of Time.

(But seriously, probably just a typo intended to be OOTS.)

brian 333

2023-06-05, 07:48 AM

Serini stated there was a mix of ones where disabling the trap is what releases the monsters from stasis, though. Which, for a party that can't find traps, would mean just sometimes wandering across monsters stuck in stasis. And while they can't find the traps, the chances would seem fairly likely for them to at least sometimes notice traps being set off and monsters being released from stasis.

The presumption here is that one can see the monsters in their stasis traps. They certainly couldn't be hidden in any way, such as by being behind a trapped secret door, the trap part being what releases the monsters. Disarm the trap, release the monsters. Open the door, set off the trap and release the monsters.

It sounds like you're concerned that the logistics and ecology of fantasy dungeons full of monsters don't make sense. Which... yes. That is almost universally true everywhere. It almost never makes sense, which is something the comic has poked fun at before. Even outside of dungeons, high fantasy ecosystems often seem blatantly unsustainable in general.

No, I'm concerned with what Serini said. She states that she could not set up a closed ecosystem to support her monsters, so she used stasis traps. My question, which has been handwaved away 'because magic' is, if she could create self sufficient dungeons hundreds of times, why could she not do so this one time? And if she could use stasis traps to solve the problem of maintaining and controlling her monsters, why would she only do it that way once when she has the exact same problem hundreds of other times?

Money is nothing to an epic rogue, so the cost of extra traps is trivial, especially when compared to the swapovers, which appear to be at a minimum capable of multi-dimensional transit. She built hundreds of those.

There is no evidence that the monsters ever get out into the Monster Hollow, nor any evidence that anything goes in. It is possible that there are several hundred or more tables which are capable of providing the dungeon monsters with Heros' Feast, but that would be expensive, and we have seen no sign of that either.

So, handwave or go with what Serini said? My choice, until shown otherwise, is to go with what Serini said.

Tzardok

2023-06-05, 08:38 AM

No, you aren't concerned with what she said. You are concerned with divorcing her words of all context to support an assumption that fails against Occam's Razor.

Tubercular Ox

2023-06-05, 10:04 AM

Does it hurt the plot if they're stasis traps?

brian 333

2023-06-05, 02:33 PM

No, you aren't concerned with what she said. You are concerned with divorcing her words of all context to support an assumption that fails against Occam's Razor.

I'm sorry, but what?

Context: she is talking about one of her dungeons, and says she could not create self-sustaining ecologies because Lirian did not cooperate.

If she could not create self-sustaining ecology for one dungeon, why would she be able to do so for the other hundreds?

Context: she says the final dungeon is sealed.

All of the dungeons are sealed. Most do not require someone traversing all the rest to enter, but otherwise the inhabitants are not free to exit, and nothing but bugbears and TE appear to be entering.

Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is usually correct. I extrapolate from what is known: if it is done a particular way in one dungeon, it is probably done that way in all of them. There is no need to invent an invisible supply chain, ways for the monsters to forage, yet somehow Team Evil missed it, or anything else.

Please demonstrate how you can be so certain that Serini does not use stasis traps in all the dungeons when no other information about those dungeons is available.

Peelee

2023-06-05, 02:35 PM

gbaji

2023-06-05, 04:04 PM

The monsters don't leave the dungeons to get into Monster Hollow, because the bugbears live there in rather ramshackle houses. And for most of them there is no food in the Arctic anyway. Where are they getting their food? And why can't the monsters in the final dungeon use that food supply? Because it is closed off? The other monsters obviously do not use the doors to get out, and if they did, their nearest food supply would be the bugbears or the dungeon next door. So, if they have their own food supply, they have a way they can come and go. And if they have that, why can't that method be used on the final dungeon?

...

You may or may not recall that I was an advocate of the self-restocking dungeons scattered around the world from which the monsters went out to feed and then come back home, and that only those who used a swap over from the North Pole to the dungeon could use it to get to Monster Hollow. That simple system would have required minimal investment and no further supervision. It was also wrong. Obviously, the monsters are not able to feed themselves or to exit their dungeons. Your version does not address this, you simply handwaved it away because obviously...

You could still be correct though. It's entirely possible that the other dungeons have a second entrance from other areas around the world, located in or near the lairs of the various types of monsters she populates the dungeons with. It's also quite possible that those other dungeons have their own swapovers which (as you and I discussed previously) only trigger for people/creatures who enter from that "side" in the first place. This would allow for the dungeons to re-fill themselves over time as described. It's also possible that Serini occasionally restocks them her self.

The point is that, while we don't know if this is actually the case, it's something that could be the case for the other dungeons. And yes, this could mean that some random adventuring group, in some other part of the world, finds a tunnel near a lair of monsters and find their way into that one dungeon (and would get a mark for exploring it). But whether they enter from the hallow or from somewhere else doesn't matter at all functionally, nor does it impact the security of the gate in any way.

Obviously, this can't be the case for the Final Dungeon. Otherwise, some random person could wander in from some random area elsewhere in the world, and be teleported to the gate. Entrance to the other dungeons is via the swapovers (and again, there could be more than one swapover leading to each dungeon). Entrance to the Final Dungeon can *only* be via the portal, which only appears after one has collected all the marks. Thus, there can't be any other entrance to it. Thus, to any degree we may speculate some other entrance to the other dungeons used for the purpose of re-filling them, the Final Dungeon can't have such a "service entrance" so to speak, or else it would represent a weak point in the security of the gate.

That's why the monsters in the Final Dungeon *must* be in stasis. We could speculate that all the monsters in the other dungeons are as well, but we have no evidence for that. Also, Roy's comment about one of the reasons to use the same entrance they entered backstage from was because TE had just "cleared it out again, so we wont need to worry about... (presumably monsters)". Why would he say this if Sereni just told him that the monsters were in stasis and she knew exactly how to bypass the traps? There's just a preponderance of dialogue that points to the regular dungeons having regular monsters, hanging out in the dungeons, like monsters do in dungeons and it's just the Final Dungeon that has all its monsters in stasis.

At least that's how I took it.

Turin_19

2023-06-05, 05:24 PM

Couldn't have put it better myself. Everr since Serini explained the stasis traps, I've been able to practically see the splash panel. Roy & co. on a raised area, a field of monsters, a gate just off to one side, viewed from behind Team Evil.

I wonder if the quinton will still be there at that point? probably not, it may consider the FD to lie outside the contract. Or Xykon messes up the words thing and it chooses to care.

Will the MiTD activate the self destruct rune by accident ?

Provengreil

2023-06-05, 06:51 PM

Will the MiTD activate the self destruct rune by accident ?

Doubt it. If harm comes to the gate at all, I'd bet on intentional sabotage from Xykon. but I really doubt the story goes that way, the gate will be fine this time. MitD gets his reveal, but if he attacks anyone it'll be Redcloak on account of Xykon's prep a while back.

brian 333

2023-06-05, 06:57 PM

These predictions should be on the Predictions thread for later gloating over them.

Ruck

2023-06-05, 07:28 PM

Will the MiTD activate the self destruct rune by accident ?

What self-destruct rune?

brian 333

2023-06-05, 10:28 PM

You could still be correct though. It's entirely possible that the other dungeons have a second entrance from other areas around the world, located in or near the lairs of the various types of monsters she populates the dungeons with. It's also quite possible that those other dungeons have their own swapovers which (as you and I discussed previously) only trigger for people/creatures who enter from that "side" in the first place. This would allow for the dungeons to re-fill themselves over time as described. It's also possible that Serini occasionally restocks them her self.

The point is that, while we don't know if this is actually the case, it's something that could be the case for the other dungeons. And yes, this could mean that some random adventuring group, in some other part of the world, finds a tunnel near a lair of monsters and find their way into that one dungeon (and would get a mark for exploring it). But whether they enter from the hallow or from somewhere else doesn't matter at all functionally, nor does it impact the security of the gate in any way.

Obviously, this can't be the case for the Final Dungeon. Otherwise, some random person could wander in from some random area elsewhere in the world, and be teleported to the gate. Entrance to the other dungeons is via the swapovers (and again, there could be more than one swapover leading to each dungeon). Entrance to the Final Dungeon can *only* be via the portal, which only appears after one has collected all the marks. Thus, there can't be any other entrance to it. Thus, to any degree we may speculate some other entrance to the other dungeons used for the purpose of re-filling them, the Final Dungeon can't have such a "service entrance" so to speak, or else it would represent a weak point in the security of the gate.

That's why the monsters in the Final Dungeon *must* be in stasis. We could speculate that all the monsters in the other dungeons are as well, but we have no evidence for that. Also, Roy's comment about one of the reasons to use the same entrance they entered backstage from was because TE had just "cleared it out again, so we wont need to worry about... (presumably monsters)". Why would he say this if Sereni just told him that the monsters were in stasis and she knew exactly how to bypass the traps? There's just a preponderance of dialogue that points to the regular dungeons having regular monsters, hanging out in the dungeons, like monsters do in dungeons and it's just the Final Dungeon that has all its monsters in stasis.

At least that's how I took it.

This is in line with my original thinking, but we have no evidence to support it even as a possibility. I guess I'd get bragging rights with an asterisk if it turns out to be true, but at this point we have only one example from which to extrapolate. Logically, they are all the same unless evidence to the contrary is presented.

However much I'd like the above description to be true, there is no evidence that says it is, or even might be.

gbaji

2023-06-06, 12:40 PM

I'm thinking at this point that you're just wrangling to get credit no matter what happens. Sneaky! We're on to you though...

KorvinStarmast

2023-06-06, 01:17 PM

My initial reading of the comic was also that all monsters are in stasis in all dungeons, for whatever that's worth. Seemed like a pretty reasonable quick and dirty explanation for how all the monsters in all the dungeons get on for so long, as well as a possible foreshadowing for Serini et al not tripping the stasis ending trigger. That is how it came across to me in my reading of the strip. I am puzzled at how one arrived at "it only applies to the final dungeon" but I guess that's another way to read the same prose.

What self-destruct rune? Heh, if anyone can find it, Elan can. :smallbiggrin:

gbaji

2023-06-07, 05:35 PM

That is how it came across to me in my reading of the strip. I am puzzled at how one arrived at "it only applies to the final dungeon" but I guess that's another way to read the same prose.

Because nothing that has been shown to us about any of the dungeons that have been expored previously, suggested or even hinted that any of the monsters within were in stasis. To my knowledge, no one even thought that this might be the case. A few discussions did occur as to how the monsters inside ate, lived, etc, with a few different ideas proposed, but I dont think anyone came up with "they're in stasis, and are released via traps".

So that's the default assumption for all the other dungeons. Later being told that a different dungeon has creatures in stasis, with traps that release them, should not at all change our assumption about the others. So yeah, the default should be "the regular dungeons work this way, and the Final Dungeon has special rules with monsters in stasis". It's possible that all the dungeons are this way, but no evidence to support it.

Also, you'd think that someone would have noticed that the monsters don't appear until folks walk on certain spots, or trip certain traps. Or even, as Serini pointed out, remain in stasis *unless* you disable trap. If the other dungeons work the same as the Final Dungeon, then we would expect this. Yet, TE has not commented on the strangess of finding monsters that don't move until you enter the room. Or monsters that never move at all (cause they only release when someone disables a trap, and TE isn't actually bothering with finding or disabling traps).

So yeah. It makes the most sense to stick with the other dungeons functioning the way we've assumed they did all along, and that the stasis stuff is an exception case that only applies to the Final Dungeon. At least until we have some information to the contrary.

brian 333

2023-06-07, 06:15 PM

Because nothing that has been shown to us about any of the dungeons that have been expored suggested or even hinting that any of the monsters within were in stasis. To my knowledge, no one even thought that this might be the case. A few discussions did occur as to how the monsters inside ate, lived, etc, with a few different ideas proposed, but I dont think anyone came up with "they're in stasis, and are released via traps".

So that's the default assumption for all the other dungeons. Later being told that a different dungeon has creatures in stasis, with traps that release them, should not at all change our assumption about the others. So yeah, the default should be "the regular dungeons work this way, and the Final Dungeon has special rules with monsters in stasis". It's possible that all the dungeons are this way, but no evidence to support it.

Also, you'd think that someone would have noticed that the monsters don't appear until folks walk on certain spots, or trip certain traps. Or even, as Serini pointed out, remain in stasis *unless* you disable trap. If the other dungeons work the same as the Final Dungeon, then we would expect this. Yet, TE has not commented on the strangess of finding monsters that don't move until you enter the room. Or monsters that never move at all (cause they only release when someone disables a trap, and TE isn't actually bothering with finding or disabling traps).

So yeah. It makes the most sense to stick with the other dungeons functioning the way we've assumed they did all along, and that the stasis stuff is an exception case that only applies to the Final Dungeon. At least until we have some information to the contrary.

You have information to the contrary. What you do not have is evidence that the other dungeons work the way you assumed.

TE walks through swapovers repeatedly, (Haley noticed the first one she saw,) and steps on tattoo traps repeatedly. By what logic do you drive confidence that they would surely have noticed other kinds of traps?

You also insist that creatures caught in stasis traps would be obvious. Why? The trigger for such traps could be in the hallway, out of sight of the monsters, or behind walls which vanish when the trap is triggered, or inside multidimensional stone that ceases to exist in the Stickworld dimension when the trap is triggered.

Asserting that creatures in stasis traps can be seen is an assertion with no foundation. There is no in comic evidence which makes it more plausible than it's opposite.

Now, don't get me wrong: you could be right. In fact, I hope you are, because that will be proof that I was wrong to think I was wrong. There is simply no evidence to support any assumption other than this:

Serini described how it was done in one case. It is logical to extrapolate from that.

gbaji

2023-06-07, 07:19 PM

brian 333

2023-06-07, 09:34 PM

Serini specifically stated that sometimes disabling a trap is what releases the monster from stasis (just to mess with rogues). There has been no evidence or comments on this in any of the other dungeons by TE. But if those other dungeons had monsters in stasis, and they were otherwise set up similarly to how Serini has described, then TE should have encountered a number of monsters, frozen in stasis, with no obvious way to free them, because TE didn't actually spot the trap and disarm it.

To make this work, we'd have to assume that there are monsters in stasis in the other dungeons, but for some unexplained reason, Serini choose to have all of them release when traps are triggered and none fo them released when traps are disarmed. So this neat "trick" only exists in the Final Dungeon? Why?

I'll also point out that having the monsters be in stasis is a weakness to the guantlet. Any party with a rogue could avoid them. And even with some of them in "reverse traps", that still means fewer monsters to fight than if the monsters are not in stasis. And, you know, you don't have to create the magic and traps to put them in stasis in the first place.

It only makes sense to do this in a dungeon where there is no other way to maintain the monsters inside the dungeon itself. The Final Dungeon is the only one described as being "sealed", and with no way in other than through a portal. Again, we've speculated on different ways the other dungeons could have been maintained without requiring stasis to be involved, but every single one of those methods cannot be used for the Final Dungeon (it can only have one entrance, and that entrance requires all the marks to open).

If you really want the dungeons to work as powerfully as possible, you don't want the monsters in stasis. That's a fallback for the Final Dungeon, and was done out of necessity. It's not a "better" way of doing things. It was the "only way" to do it. But only in the Final Dungeon. It makes no sense to do this for the others.

Monsters in stasis do not have to be visible or even detectable in any of dozens of ways. Disabling the trap may drop the monster in stasis from a lead-lined box in the ceiling where it would otherwise have been unseen even if the dungeon delver tried to scry ahead.

Or, maybe the traps release the monster when disarmed, and release the monster when triggered! Talk about screw with rogues!

It makes sense to keep all of the monsters in stasis so that the encounters go off as planned. There's nothing worse than going into a dungeon only to find that the monsters have all gone to Uncle Norbert's funeral.

It makes a lot of sense to keep all of the monsters in stasis:
They don't eat each other.
They are where you want them to be when adventurers come through.
No stable issues, like what to do with the dung.
No feeding issues or expenses.
None of them get out of the dungeon to run away or eat the next door neighbors.
None of them get backstage and eat their warden.
You can store extras backstage for when someone takes out a dungeon or two.

I could literally do this for hours.

While it may prove stasis is not used everywhere, I would like a link to any evidence that demonstrates the possibility of any alternative. Not opinion based on forum speculation, but any shred of actual evidence from the comic.

gbaji

2023-06-08, 01:12 PM

While it may prove stasis is not used everywhere, I would like a link to any evidence that demonstrates the possibility of any alternative. Not opinion based on forum speculation, but any shred of actual evidence from the comic.

The fact that Serini has talked about stocking the dungeons, and which monsters go where (including that the "uppity" ones get assigned to dungeons rather than hanging with her backstage), and yet, never once mentioned anything about monsters being stored in stasis until she started talking about the Final Dungeon.

The fact that the entire question of what monsters eat, where they poop, how the ventilation worked, etc, never even came up until Serini mentioned that the Final Dungeon was "sealed up" in the first place. This strongly suggests that everyone assumes that the regular dungeons are *not* sealed. And that in those other dungeons, the monsters have access to things to eat, and locations to poop, and ventilation, etc.

If we were all talking about cars. And somewhere along in our conversation, someone mentioned that one particular model of car doesn't have door handles, and this sparks an entire conversation about how people get in an out, or open the doors, or whatever, we could intuit from that conversation that "normal cars" do, in fact, have door handles, and thus means to open/close the doors, get in and out of the car, etc. Even if the subject of door handles has never explicitely been raised, the reaction to not having them in this one car gives us information about the rest. Additionally, any special means to get in/out of this car, due to it not having door handles, likely doen't apply to the other "normal cars", since it's not needed.

Same deal here. The fact that these questions were only raised after mentioning the sealed condition of the Final Dungeon, tells us that the other dungeons are *not* sealed, and thus the problems listed for a "sealed dungeon" don't apply, and therefore that the solution Serini developed for the one "sealed dungeon" isn't present in the other dungeons either.

I mean, she could have put monsters in stasis in the other dungeons. Just like we could use some special tools to help people get in/out of cars that have door handles and functional doors. But "probably not" is the better assumption to make IMO.

Peelee

2023-06-08, 01:19 PM

The fact that Serini has talked about stocking the dungeons, and which monsters go where (including that the "uppity" ones get assigned to dungeons rather than hanging with her backstage), and yet, never once mentioned anything about monsters being stored in stasis until she started talking about the Final Dungeon.

The fact that the entire question of what monsters eat, where they poop, how the ventilation worked, etc, never even came up until Serini mentioned that the Final Dungeon was "sealed up" in the first place. This strongly suggests that everyone assumes that the regular dungeons are *not* sealed. And that in those other dungeons, the monsters have access to things to eat, and locations to poop, and ventilation, etc.

If we were all talking about cars. And somewhere along in our conversation, someone mentioned that one particular model of car doesn't have door handles, and this sparks an entire conversation about how people get in an out, or open the doors, or whatever, we could intuit from that conversation that "normal cars" do, in fact, have door handles, and thus means to open/close the doors, get in and out of the car, etc. Even if the subject of door handles has never explicitely been raised, the reaction to not having them in this one car gives us information about the rest. Additionally, any special means to get in/out of this car, due to it not having door handles, likely doen't apply to the other "normal cars", since it's not needed.

Same deal here. The fact that these questions were only raised after mentioning the sealed condition of the Final Dungeon, tells us that the other dungeons are *not* sealed, and thus the problems listed for a "sealed dungeon" don't apply, and therefore that the solution Serini developed for the one "sealed dungeon" isn't present in the other dungeons either.

I mean, she could have put monsters in stasis in the other dungeons. Just like we could use some special tools to help people get in/out of cars that have door handles and functional doors. But "probably not" is the better assumption to make IMO.

If you pick an analogy tailored to you being correct then of course it will appear as if you are correct. If we are talking about cars and you start talking about one specific car and i ask "how do see what's behind you", then you could answer, "oh, there's a rear-view mirror". This could be taken to only apply to this one car, but given that it's a simple fix for a problem every car would have, it is hardly unreasonable to extend the idea that every car has a rear-view mirror. Or one could insist that only this one specific model does solely because nobody ever asked beforehand and the answer wasn't "this is standard equipment in every car on the market for x decades".

If you want to do latter, hey, you do you. But you're probably not going to get a lot of people to buy a ticket to ride that train of thought.

brian 333

2023-06-08, 02:12 PM

The fact that Serini has talked about stocking the dungeons, and which monsters go where (including that the "uppity" ones get assigned to dungeons rather than hanging with her backstage), and yet, never once mentioned anything about monsters being stored in stasis until she started talking about the Final Dungeon.

At that point nobody asked how the monsters were controlled once they were stocked, so your point only demonstrates the question was not asked and the answer to that question was not volunteered.

That is no evidence either of using stasis traps or not using them.

The fact that the entire question of what monsters eat, where they poop, how the ventilation worked, etc, never even came up until Serini mentioned that the Final Dungeon was "sealed up" in the first place. This strongly suggests that everyone assumes that the regular dungeons are *not* sealed. And that in those other dungeons, the monsters have access to things to eat, and locations to poop, and ventilation, etc.

What everyone assumes is not relevant. If everyone assumes sugar substitutes are better than moderate sugar consumption, must one be something other than a part of everyone to note that some sugar substitutes are carcinogens while sugar is not?

Even in comic, what 'everyone assumes' is not evidence one way or the other.

If we were all talking about cars. And somewhere along in our conversation, someone mentioned that one particular model of car doesn't have door handles, and this sparks an entire conversation about how people get in an out, or open the doors, or whatever, we could intuit from that conversation that "normal cars" do, in fact, have door handles, and thus means to open/close the doors, get in and out of the car, etc. Even if the subject of door handles has never explicitely been raised, the reaction to not having them in this one car gives us information about the rest. Additionally, any special means to get in/out of this car, due to it not having door handles, likely doen't apply to the other "normal cars", since it's not needed.

Already answered by Peelee.

Also, @Peelee: does this mean we're friends now? I got sherbet and a Dicky Betts album...

Same deal here. The fact that these questions were only raised after mentioning the sealed condition of the Final Dungeon, tells us that the other dungeons are *not* sealed, and thus the problems listed for a "sealed dungeon" don't apply, and therefore that the solution Serini developed for the one "sealed dungeon" isn't present in the other dungeons either.

The fact that these questions were only raised after mentioning the sealed final dungeon means nothing at all about the other dungeons. There was no, "unlike the other dungeons," or even, "in this one we used..." There was nothing in Serini's language from which to infer that the stasis traps were used in one, some, or all of the dungeons.

Null evidence does not prove that whatever I want to be true is true.

I mean, she could have put monsters in stasis in the other dungeons. Just like we could use some special tools to help people get in/out of cars that have door handles and functional doors. But "probably not" is the better assumption to make IMO.

This statement is the true one; you are stating your opinion.

That's fine. You are entitled to your opinion. There is no in-comic proof that you are wrong.

There is also no in-comic reason to prove you right.

So, when I stated my opinion, the response was not, "Hmm, but you also have no proof," which I would have accepted as true. Instead, one opinion was elevated above the other as obviously true when the only thing obvious is that neither side can be shown to be true from the evidence in the comic.

Peelee

2023-06-08, 03:41 PM

Also, @Peelee: does this mean we're friends now? I got sherbet and a Dicky Betts album...

I do love citrus-flavored frozen desserts.....

Coppercloud

2023-06-09, 02:33 PM

If everyone assumes sugar substitutes are better than moderate sugar consumption, must one be something other than a part of everyone to note that some sugar substitutes are carcinogens while sugar is not?

Also, @Peelee: does this mean we're friends now? I got sherbet and a Dicky Betts album...
Isn't there already quite strong evidence linking excessive sugar consumption and cancer risks? Not that I would refuse sherbet anyway if Peelee hadn't been tempted.

Draconi Redfir

2023-06-10, 06:45 AM

I think the OOT is better off not going to the final dungeon, because they already know the team evil searching pattern and if they can catch them in the forelast dungeon, dispelling, removing or otherwise avoiding team evil to be marked can count as a draw. Meaning they have a slightly higher set of admired conditions.

I don't think it's that simple.

Remember, Team Evil has been exploring doors at more or less random up until this point, and a bunch of those doors were marked as false-positives. As a result, The order has NO IDEA which doors they got the mark from, and which ones they still need. So as a result, they don't know which door Team Evil will finish on. For all we know they could finish on Door 25 out of 30 or something. (i KNOW there's more doors then that, I'm just using a smaller number for simplicities sake, calm down)

Peelee

2023-06-10, 06:53 AM

I don't think it's that simple.

Remember, Team Evil has been exploring doors at more or less random up until this point, and a bunch of those doors were marked as false-positives. As a result, The order has NO IDEA which doors they got the mark from, and which ones they still need. So as a result, they don't know which door Team Evil will finish on. For all we know they could finish on Door 25 out of 30 or something. (i KNOW there's more doors then that, I'm just using a smaller number for simplicities sake, calm down)

Bolding mind. They do know which ones they still need - any door that isn't marked. Of the currently marked doors, they don't know which ones Evil, Inc. has been into, but they do know they haven't been in any of the unmarked doors.

Draconi Redfir

2023-06-10, 07:42 AM

Bolding mind. They do know which ones they still need - any door that isn't marked. Of the currently marked doors, they don't know which ones Evil, Inc. has been into, but they do know they haven't been in any of the unmarked doors.

Right, but the point is that if doors 25-30 are all marked, but team evil have already been inside doors 30, 29, 27 and 25, with 26 and 28 being false-positives, then waiting at door 29 (The 2nd-last door) is going to be counterproductive, because team evil will succeed once they pass through door 28 for the first time.

It'd be better to wait in the final, FINAL dungeon to have a 100% grantee that you'll eventually encounter them, rather taking a 1/30 chance at some random door that they might not need to go through.

They need to go through every door yes, but you can bet your butt that they're not going to see the final dungeon, and then turn around saying "we still have three more doors to go through"

Peelee

2023-06-10, 08:07 AM

Right, but the point is that if doors 25-30 are all marked, but team evil have already been inside doors 30, 29, 27 and 25, with 26 and 28 being false-positives, then waiting at door 29 (The 2nd-last door) is going to be counterproductive, because team evil will succeed once they pass through door 28 for the first time.Except the proposed idea is to disable the marking system in a door they haven't been to yet, which they can easily tell. No mark, no final dungeon opens ever. Regardless if they've been in door 29 already.

Draconi Redfir

2023-06-10, 08:37 AM

Except the proposed idea is to disable the marking system in a door they haven't been to yet, which they can easily tell. No mark, no final dungeon opens ever. Regardless if they've been in door 29 already.

is it? from what I'm reading OP is saying "Catch them in the second-to-last dungeon and fight them there, defeating them there will prevent them from ever even having access to the final gate".

To which I'm saying "They might not even need to go to the second to last dungeon. Better to have a sure-thing encounter then risk it."

Provengreil

2023-06-10, 12:44 PM

You know, looking through this subtopic of how to predict when the last door or two will be, we're all overlooking a gigantic snag with it:

Oona.

How many traps has SHE triggered, in however long she's been here? Serini implied they're permanent. At random, one door(probably still close to the end, mind you) might well show her the Final Dungeon.

Kish

2023-06-10, 12:52 PM

You know, looking through this subtopic of how to predict when the last door or two will be, we're all overlooking a gigantic snag with it:

Oona.

How many traps has SHE triggered, in however long she's been here?
Considering the traps are all at the end of the mini-dungeons, some of which contained creatures powerful enough for Xykon to get XP from them, and getting to the end rather than killing a few monsters and then leaving was never what she was there for: probably zero.

Peelee

2023-06-10, 05:15 PM

is it? from what I'm reading OP is saying "Catch them in the second-to-last dungeon and fight them there, defeating them there will prevent them from ever even having access to the final gate".

To which I'm saying "They might not even need to go to the second to last dungeon. Better to have a sure-thing encounter then risk it."
Fair, it looks like i misunderstood OP's argument.

gbaji

2023-06-15, 01:38 PM

Whether the plan is to disable the trap that creates marks or ambush team evil isn't that relevant in terms of "can they find a dungeon team evil hasn't entered yet".

Bolding mind. They do know which ones they still need - any door that isn't marked. Of the currently marked doors, they don't know which ones Evil, Inc. has been into, but they do know they haven't been in any of the unmarked doors.

In theory, the Order (specifically the paladins since they've been watching) may assume this. But it's not a 100% perfect assumption. They haven't actually spoken to MitD, nor did they personally observe every single door being marked. So they do not actually know for certain that every dungeon door entered has been marked. It's possible that MitD may have deliberately not marked some doors that they did explore, just to sow additional confusion.

And yeah. Someone mentioned the possiblity that Oona has already been to the end room of a dungeon or three. Though to be fair, the odds that one she's been in before happens to be one they go to "last" *and* this happens to be the one that Order chooses to use for their plan is shockingly small.

Um... I'm still also sticking with "the monsters in those dungeons are not in stasis" too. You're also picking an analogy that fits your position while ignoring that there is already information in the comic showing that the regular dungeons are different than the Final Dungeon (not present in your rear window analogy). Again, the fact that they only asked about the ecosystem within *after* Sereni talked about the Final Dungeon being "sealed", strongly suggests that the characters in the strip, at least, consider this to be significant.

Let me also point out (again) that "putting monsters in stasis" does not, in any way, make a dungeon more dangerous/difficult. It actually significantly weakens the defenses. You would only do this if you had absolutely no other choice. Monsters in stasis means that any group with a sufficiently skilled rogue could bypass most of the danger in any given dungeon. You're down from "have to fight all the monsters" to "have to fight just the small number that you fail to disarm, or which are released when you disarm". That's always going to be "fewer monsters to fight".

There's no reason to "seal" the other dungeons. There could be any of a number of means by which food/water (or even the monsters themselves) are transported into the dungeons, air vented in/out, waste removed, etc. These dungeons are literally there to be fought through, so there's no need to limit the different ways things could enter or exit. The Final Dungeon has to be accessible only via one method. So there can't be air vents, or water pipes, or food delivery systems, or waste removal systems. Any of those could be used to bypass all the other dungeons and gain access to the Final Dungeon prematurely. So it has to be sealed, and that means the monsters have to be in stasis.

It's a requirement specific to the Final Dungeon, so yeah, it's reasonable to assume it's only present in the Final Dungeon. Could the monsters in the other dungeons be in stasis? Yes. But it would be a really dumb way to set this up. Given the amount of magic effort required to put that many monsters in stasis versus just building some sort of magical system for maintaining the living conditions within those dungeons? And at the cost of actually weakening the defense of the gate (the whole point for doing this in the first place)? I'm just not seeing it.

Peelee

2023-06-15, 02:45 PM

In theory, the Order (specifically the paladins since they've been watching) may assume this. But it's not a 100% perfect assumption.

Sure it is. The only reason to mark doors is to note where they have already been. With the extra markings, the heroes cannot know which doors the villains have been in with absolute certainly, but they can know which doors the villains have not been in with absolute certainty.

brian 333

2023-06-15, 03:35 PM

Whether the plan is to disable the trap that creates marks or ambush team evil isn't that relevant in terms of "can they find a dungeon team evil hasn't entered yet".

In theory, the Order (specifically the paladins since they've been watching) may assume this. But it's not a 100% perfect assumption. They haven't actually spoken to MitD, nor did they personally observe every single door being marked. So they do not actually know for certain that every dungeon door entered has been marked. It's possible that MitD may have deliberately not marked some doors that they did explore, just to sow additional confusion.

And yeah. Someone mentioned the possiblity that Oona has already been to the end room of a dungeon or three. Though to be fair, the odds that one she's been in before happens to be one they go to "last" *and* this happens to be the one that Order chooses to use for their plan is shockingly small.

Um... I'm still also sticking with "the monsters in those dungeons are not in stasis" too. You're also picking an analogy that fits your position while ignoring that there is already information in the comic showing that the regular dungeons are different than the Final Dungeon (not present in your rear window analogy). Again, the fact that they only asked about the ecosystem within *after* Sereni talked about the Final Dungeon being "sealed", strongly suggests that the characters in the strip, at least, consider this to be significant.

Let me also point out (again) that "putting monsters in stasis" does not, in any way, make a dungeon more dangerous/difficult. It actually significantly weakens the defenses. You would only do this if you had absolutely no other choice. Monsters in stasis means that any group with a sufficiently skilled rogue could bypass most of the danger in any given dungeon. You're down from "have to fight all the monsters" to "have to fight just the small number that you fail to disarm, or which are released when you disarm". That's always going to be "fewer monsters to fight".

There's no reason to "seal" the other dungeons. There could be any of a number of means by which food/water (or even the monsters themselves) are transported into the dungeons, air vented in/out, waste removed, etc. These dungeons are literally there to be fought through, so there's no need to limit the different ways things could enter or exit. The Final Dungeon has to be accessible only via one method. So there can't be air vents, or water pipes, or food delivery systems, or waste removal systems. Any of those could be used to bypass all the other dungeons and gain access to the Final Dungeon prematurely. So it has to be sealed, and that means the monsters have to be in stasis.

It's a requirement specific to the Final Dungeon, so yeah, it's reasonable to assume it's only present in the Final Dungeon. Could the monsters in the other dungeons be in stasis? Yes. But it would be a really dumb way to set this up. Given the amount of magic effort required to put that many monsters in stasis versus just building some sort of magical system for maintaining the living conditions within those dungeons? And at the cost of actually weakening the defense of the gate (the whole point for doing this in the first place)? I'm just not seeing it.

This really does not add anything new to the discussion.

1) Whether they know which dungeon has already been completed or not does not alter the fact that they can watch the progress of TE and set up an ambush where they think it is appropriate.

(That they do not know exactly which is the second to last at this moment is not relevant, no more than knowing which have been penetrated by Oona. If they miscalculate, they can default to attacking TE from behind as they are finishing off The Final Dungeon™. The idea is that if conflict is a danger, then the farther you can get that fight from the gate the better.)

2) You are free to stick with whatever idea you like. There is zero evidence that what you believe is true or false. Trying to shoehorn the idea that 'something they never asked about is true because they didn't ask about it when they did ask about something else' into the evidence locker is at the very minimum really bad logic. (Akin to, "When I asked what kind of coats malamutes have I was told they have thick ones, and since it is obvious they would have said so if all dogs did as well, we can assume that only malamutes have thick coats and all of the rest have short hair and thin undercoats.")

3) Your and my speculation about what counts as a requirement may vary from what The Author thinks.

It is not logical to believe that because the author did not specify a thing, what I choose to believe must be true because it cannot be refuted. The analogy here is that there are Martians living in sealed caves using advanced anti-detection technology, and there is no way to prove it is untrue, so until demonstrated otherwise it must be true.

I may want to believe in Martians, but there is no evidence to support their presence. In this case you speculate what 'must be' then project that speculation as if it is irrefutable. Well, again I ask, where is the dung heap? Why do the monsters never exit their caves into Monster Hollow? Where is the massive logistics chain any moderate-sized zoo needs to keep the animals alive? There is exactly zero evidence of any of those things.

4) Cost? Have you ever played a campaign as a rugue? Mine usually has more income than the kings and questgivers. Not just money on hand. Whole guilds dumping cash on them on a daily basis. An epic rogue is a walking gold mine. Cost is only important to one if pinching pennies is a habit left over from childhood.

Laurentio III

2023-06-18, 09:29 AM

Why do the monsters never exit their caves into Monster Hollow?
When the standard enter trap is active, trying to exit the dungeon leads to a blocked path. Second page, fifth panel. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1223.html)

brian 333

2023-06-18, 08:07 PM

When the standard enter trap is active, trying to exit the dungeon leads to a blocked path. Second page, fifth panel. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1223.html)

And none of the monsters have a high enough level in rogue or access to the second level cleric spell which enables one to Find Traps. None of them realize they are prisoners, not even the dumb ones like dinosaurs or good dragons. And even though food comes in and waste goes out, none of them have managed to exit that way, either.

I was a big proponent of the idea that the dungeons were self-sustaining monster lairs, to which the monsters could come and go at will, feed themselves, maintain their numbers, etc. I would like it to be true. There is no evidence that it is the case.

We do have an explanation of how one dungeon works, which would fit in every case, and is consistent with what we have seen elsewhere. It may be that that explanation only works for that one dungeon, but it would mean something else which we have never seen any evidence for must be true.

So, do we speculate that things we have zero evidence to support are true? Or do we speculate the method we have good reason to believe is true in one case also applies to the other cases? Since there is no absolute proof either way, you make the call.

But if you say my call was incorrect, please back it up with more than, "I want to believe this other thing, so that thing you believe is wrong."

Peelee

2023-06-18, 08:25 PM

not even the dumb ones like dinosaurs or good dragons.

Bold choice of words.

brian 333

2023-06-18, 08:32 PM

Bold choice of words.

It is called irony, which is as badly understood by this generation as the importance of lawns and the staying off thereof.

Peelee

2023-06-18, 08:45 PM

It is called irony, which is as badly understood by this generation as the importance of lawns and the staying off thereof.

https://media.tenor.com/su-QIsZTzaQAAAAC/futurama-bender.gif
Which generation is "this generation"?

brian 333

2023-06-18, 08:53 PM

https://media.tenor.com/su-QIsZTzaQAAAAC/futurama-bender.gif
Which generation is "this generation"?

All of them too young to remember when Michael Jackson was just one of the Jackson 5 and doing covers of Motown hits.

Peelee

2023-06-18, 09:02 PM

All of them too young to remember when Michael Jackson was just one of the Jackson 5 and doing covers of Motown hits.

Great! Then let me ask my dad about the generation that grew up with that.

He said they stink on ice. :smalltongue:

brian 333

2023-06-19, 12:07 AM

Great! Then let me ask my dad about the generation that grew up with that.

He said they stink on ice. :smalltongue:

That sounds like something a spoiled brat from the 80s would say!

Fish

2023-06-20, 02:51 PM

Why would the final dungeon not be covered by the quinton's agreement? Unless it is dismissed or destroyed it should remain with TE as long as they are exploring the dungeons behind the doors in Monster Hollow.
The Quinton's agreement was to help search "the dungeons behind the doors in this canyon." (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1265.html) If for some reason the Quinton decides the door and/or final dungeon is not "in this canyon" then the final dungeon may not be part of its agreement. I have no idea if this is the case, but it is an example of the kind of legal hair-splitting that might occur.

Also, just for completeness, the Quinton might not be present in the final dungeon because a) Xykon got bored and killed it, or b) Xykon violated the terms of the contract and said a wrongly-numbered word, whereupon we may or may not proceed back to a).

Provengreil

2023-06-20, 03:35 PM

The Quinton's agreement was to help search "the dungeons behind the doors in this canyon." (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1265.html) If for some reason the Quinton decides the door and/or final dungeon is not "in this canyon" then the final dungeon may not be part of its agreement. I have no idea if this is the case, but it is an example of the kind of legal hair-splitting that might occur.

Also, just for completeness, the Quinton might not be present in the final dungeon because a) Xykon got bored and killed it, or b) Xykon violated the terms of the contract and said a wrongly-numbered word, whereupon we may or may not proceed back to a).

I expect the quinton will not be inside the FD. On a narrative level, I see the quinton as there just to put a clock on things and bring the story to a head. I figure that either Xykon accidentally breaks the agreement while distracted, purposefully breaks it upon finding the FD as a "screw you just because" to both the quinton and RC, or RC dismisses it in the name of maximum secrecy. Most likely Xykon being spiteful.

Peelee

2023-06-20, 03:49 PM

I expect the quinton will not be inside the FD. On a narrative level, I see the quinton as there just to put a clock on things and bring the story to a head. I figure that either Xykon accidentally breaks the agreement while distracted, purposefully breaks it upon finding the FD as a "screw you just because" to both the quinton and RC, or RC dismisses it in the name of maximum secrecy. Most likely Xykon being spiteful.

More specifically: i think the Quinton is a plot device to bridge the gap between "the author wants to make sure the villains absolutely can't solve the puzzle" and "now the author wants them to solve the puzzle". Quint only signed on for that anyway.

Same thing you said, just a bit more defined.

gbaji

2023-06-20, 04:06 PM

Let me add back in the bits you trimmed out of the paragraph you quoted (bolded):

In theory, the Order (specifically the paladins since they've been watching) may assume this. But it's not a 100% perfect assumption. They haven't actually spoken to MitD, nor did they personally observe every single door being marked. So they do not actually know for certain that every dungeon door entered has been marked. It's possible that MitD may have deliberately not marked some doors that they did explore, just to sow additional confusion.

Sure it is. The only reason to mark doors is to note where they have already been. With the extra markings, the heroes cannot know which doors the villains have been in with absolute certainly, but they can know which doors the villains have not been in with absolute certainty.

No. They can't. Er. Let me be more clear. They can't assume that any dungeon without an X is guaranteed to be a dungeon that TE has not entered yet. It's a reasonable guess based on what the paladins observed MitD doing, but absolutely not 100% guaranteed. As I said originally, they can't assume that MitD didn't also try to sow confusion and slow down TE by deliberately not marking doors that were explored. Forcing TE to spend resources casting buffs only to find an empty dungeon also serves to slow them down, so it's possible MitD tried that as well. At the very least, we can't discount it.

And sure, this doesn't have a ton of relevance if their entire objective is just "intercept TE before they reach the Final Dungeon". But if the secondary goal is "and maximize the amount of resources they've consumed along the way" (suggested in the OPs objective of "in the penultimate dungeon" methodology), then it is relevant. It's also super relevant to the "we need to find an empty dungeon that we know they will have to explore again". Picking a random dungeon (well, presumably one in the far right side, since that would appear to be the search order TE is using) without an X on it is "probably empty", but not "100% guaranteed to be empty". Which, sure, leads us back to our "maybe monsters in the regular dungeons are in stasis" bit, but whatever.

I guess we can discuss and debate best practices if we want, but at the end of the day, it's clear that the good guys in this strip seem to have decided that ambusing TE in a dungeon is better than outside (AMF is almost certainly the deciding factor there) *and* have decided to do so in the Final Dungeon. And if the objectives here are "maximize the resources TE will expend getting to our ambush spot" and also "minimize the resources we will spend getting to our ambush spot", then the Final Dungeon makes a lot of sense.

It's the absolute only location they 100% know that TE will have to enter *last* after having explored everything else first (maximum resources used). It's also the only location they 100% know they can set up an ambush themselves (other than "outside") and not have to encounter any monsters themselves (accidentally triggering stasis traps aside). Every other location takes us into some sort of cloud of probabilities, with unknown positive and negative factors. Not the least of which is the small (but still not 0%) chance that they just happen to pick a dungeon TE has already explored, and every dungeon after that one in the new search order has also already been explored, and they are waiting in that dungeon while TE has bypassed them and is in the Final Dungeon instead.

It's a small chance, but given that the fate of the entire world rests on not screwing this up, it's prudent to go with the only option that reduces that chance to 0%. And that's "ambush them in the Final Dungeon".

Peelee

2023-06-20, 04:22 PM

Let me add back in the bits you trimmed out of the paragraph you quoted (bolded):

No. They can't. Er. Let me be more clear. They can't assume that any dungeon without an X is guaranteed to be a dungeon that TE has not entered yet. It's a reasonable guess based on what the paladins observed MitD doing, but absolutely not 100% guaranteed.

They can, because if MitD does that, then the firsr unmarked door that is already cleared will let them know that MitD has been "screwing up". At best they will not let him mark doors anymore, at worst they will re-check all marked doors. It's a bad tactic that would barely slow them down at all, would remove his ability ro continue falsely marking doors, and is highly likely to undo the his previously falsely marked doors. Its a colossally bad tactic that gives virtually no benefit in return for massive drawbacks.

brian 333

2023-06-20, 06:16 PM

All the OotS has to do is observe the logical order TE is now using to explore, (as opposed to the earlier random door choice,) and deduce where the second to last or even last door they enter will be. Then if they monitor the pattern just to be certain it doesn't change, they can do the swapover ambush they originally planned without revealing the Final Dungeon at all.

Not going to happen, but deducing exactly which door is second to last would not be difficult. If it is a previously unmarked door, great. If the marked doors are last, then do the ambush at the last unmarked one. Not a difficult puzzle to solve.

KorvinStarmast

2023-06-20, 07:29 PM

Not going to happen, but deducing exactly which door is second to last would not be difficult. If it is a previously unmarked door, great. If the marked doors are last, then do the ambush at the last unmarked one. Not a difficult puzzle to solve. Except that the IFCC is going to interrupt all of this. :smallwink:

brian 333

2023-06-20, 09:29 PM

Except that the IFCC is going to interrupt all of this. :smallwink:

I agree that what will happen is not what I described. What the IFCC wants to do is still a mystery to me, except for that bet I made in another thread.

Fish

2023-06-21, 02:40 AM

They can, because if MitD does that, then the firsr unmarked door that is already cleared will let them know that MitD has been "screwing up".
Correct. Failing to mark a completed door greatly increases the chances that Team Evil will notice the deception. If Team Evil’s intent is to search every unmarked door, this method guarantees discovery eventually.

Think of it: suppose the MITD marks 1 searched door out of 5 incorrectly, and there are 100 doors (the false negative). Let us discard the idea for now that the MITD is marking unsearched doors incorrectly (false positive). After searching 25 doors, only 20 are marked; so there is a 5/80 chance that the next door Team Evil picks is a false negative [that is, 5 false negatives / (75 unsearched + 5 false negatives)]. At 50 doors, this increases to 10/60, and at 75 doors this goes up to 15/40 or 3/8. Team Evil would be able to beat the odds at first, choosing only correctly-marked unsearched doors, but when the % of discovery keeps creeping up, they can’t beat those odds forever. At 50 doors, it’s like rolling d6 over and over, hoping not to get a 1. It’ll come up sooner or later.

Of course, we cannot verify whether the MITD is (or is not) following any specific stratagem, but this one seems less likely to be embarked upon by a being of its intelligence.

gbaji

2023-06-21, 01:31 PM

They can, because if MitD does that, then the firsr unmarked door that is already cleared will let them know that MitD has been "screwing up". At best they will not let him mark doors anymore, at worst they will re-check all marked doors. It's a bad tactic that would barely slow them down at all, would remove his ability ro continue falsely marking doors, and is highly likely to undo the his previously falsely marked doors. Its a colossally bad tactic that gives virtually no benefit in return for massive drawbacks.

This assumes that MitD is good at math, and is acting based on logic and reason, and not just wishful thinking. Which is not a good bet.

Correct. Failing to mark a completed door greatly increases the chances that Team Evil will notice the deception. If Team Evil’s intent is to search every unmarked door, this method guarantees discovery eventually.

So does what he was doing anyway. He was marking 3-4 extra doors. Which means that TE would "run out" of unexplored doors 4-5 times faster that they should. At which point, they would start doing something else (and likely realize that something was up). Delay? Not really. As O'Chul said, it was more about the intent than the results that mattered.

Think of it: suppose the MITD marks 1 searched door out of 5 incorrectly, and there are 100 doors (the false negative). Let us discard the idea for now that the MITD is marking unsearched doors incorrectly (false positive). After searching 25 doors, only 20 are marked; so there is a 5/80 chance that the next door Team Evil picks is a false negative [that is, 5 false negatives / (75 unsearched + 5 false negatives)].

And using the method we know he was using, at 25 doors, if there were just 100 (there's more but lets follow your example here), they'd run out. At which point they would know something was up. In fact, they'd probably figure it out much sooner as it becomes increasingly obvious that there's no way they've actually searched that many doors so quick. So... 100% chance they'd figure out something was up versus (don't feel like doing the statistical math, but er... less than 100%).

At 50 doors, this increases to 10/60, and at 75 doors this goes up to 15/40 or 3/8. Team Evil would be able to beat the odds at first, choosing only correctly-marked unsearched doors, but when the % of discovery keeps creeping up, they can’t beat those odds forever. At 50 doors, it’s like rolling d6 over and over, hoping not to get a 1. It’ll come up sooner or later.

Yup. So what? If MitD was actually doing this mathmatically, he would not have been doing what he was doing anyway. There's been quite a bit of discussion about this, and the general consensus is that statstically they will realize that too many doors are marked long before they would have run into the "correct door", thus triggering some other method (like summoning the quinton). And knowing what we know now (that they must search all of the doors), the MitD was absolutely shortening their total search time with that method.

Also, finding an empty room isn't an automatic "something is wrong with the marks" condition. They could assume that this must have been a dungeon previously cleared by the bugbears. So it might not set off any alarms. Certainly not like discovering that a marked door still had monsters in it would.

Of course, we cannot verify whether the MITD is (or is not) following any specific stratagem, but this one seems less likely to be embarked upon by a being of its intelligence.

Not sure I follow that at all. I've seen nothing to show that MitD is particularly intelligent. Well, or at least not well educated. It's not about what the intelligent or sound thing to do is. It's about "what might MitD do". And if I were Roy I would not bet the existence of the world on MitD *not* having done this at least a few times that they weren't aware of. MitD isn't great at math or logical thinking. He's just trying to do what he can to messs up and slow down TE. He's got one thing he can do: Mislead them about which dungeons they have explored. We've seen that he has marked extra doors. This can only be done if the rest of the team all looks the other direction and walks away while he marks the door. So he absolutely *could* just not mark the one they just went into in addition to or instead of marking extra unexplored doors.

We can't assume he did one, but not the other, just because the paladins only witnessed him doing one. Well, we can. But we shouldn't. Certainly not with the stakes involved.

Peelee

2023-06-21, 01:46 PM

This assumes that MitD is good at math, and is acting based on logic and reason, and not just wishful thinking. Which is not a good bet.
Don't need to be good at math, just logic and reasoning. Which MitD has demonstrated being quite capable of when he cares.

Just because you're bad at gambling doesn't mean i am. :smalltongue:

Kish

2023-06-21, 02:03 PM

I've seen nothing to show that MitD is particularly intelligent. Well, or at least not well educated.
Pick one .

brian 333

2023-06-21, 02:37 PM

If the extra marked doors had caused TE to miss entering even one dungeon it would have resulted in TE being unable to enter the Final Dungeon™. Given the 'pick the next dungeon' strategy that TE was using, it was a tactic with a very high probability of success. It was not until Durkon and Minrah showed up and used the doors of previously entered dungeons to hide from TE that Redcloak caught on.

I theorize that, had Durkon not done what he did, TE would still be plugging away at the dungeons, blissfully unaware that some random doors had not been entered. Further, having concluded that none of the doors accessed the gate, TE may well have looked elsewhere on the assumption that Serini was a rogue running a shell game, and that Monster Hollow was nothing more than a time-wasting distraction.

Peelee

2023-06-21, 02:56 PM

If the extra marked doors had caused TE to miss entering even one dungeon it would have resulted in TE being unable to enter the Final Dungeon™. Given the 'pick the next dungeon' strategy that TE was using, it was a tactic with a very high probability of success. It was not until Durkon and Minrah showed up and used the doors of previously entered dungeons to hide from TE that Redcloak caught on

Which makes all the people who claimed Serini's inaction was helping Xykon now demonstrably incorrect - until the Order intervened, from everything she knew Redcloak and Xykon would not be able to find the Gate.

Provengreil

2023-06-21, 03:29 PM

Except that the IFCC is going to interrupt all of this. :smallwink:

Certainly, but it's not in a way that can be planned around, so attempting to do so is a bad choice. Roy only knows that they can take V out of action for a short time, so you try to stock some long term buffs cross your fingers for that. Beyond that, you really just stay on your toes: few battle plans survive contact anyway, so planning is as much or more about knowing your resources and how to pivot them in the chaos.

Provengreil

2023-06-21, 04:42 PM

...TE may well have looked elsewhere on the assumption that Serini was a rogue running a shell game, and that Monster Hollow was nothing more than a time-wasting distraction.

Unlikely. Remember, they aren't divining the locations of the gates, they're getting them from the diary. It's led them to 4 of the 5 gates as is, and with no other leads it would lead them to redouble efforts on the Hollow, even if their new focus was to find a clue to the real location instead. Most likely this would result in the discovery of backstage.

Admittedly this part is pure conjecture, but if all else failed, I'd bet the IFCC would get involved. They want chaos at the gates, seem to have a lot more answers than anyone else, and Redcloak is willing to summon and pay for extraplanar aid, so having Quarr drop another preapproval would be pretty effective.

brian 333

2023-06-21, 05:43 PM

Unlikely. Remember, they aren't divining the locations of the gates, they're getting them from the diary. It's led them to 4 of the 5 gates as is, and with no other leads it would lead them to redouble efforts on the Hollow, even if their new focus was to find a clue to the real location instead. Most likely this would result in the discovery of backstage.

The coordinates which lead to four dungeons which were not the one she was guarding? To a mind suspicious of the shell game, this only confirms they are wasting time.

Do you need the address of your home or workplace? Why would you jot it down in your diary?

My friend L works at this address,
My friend D works at that address,
My friend S lives there,
My friend G has a house over there.
And here is where I live.

You might forget your friend's address, so it makes sense to write it down. The only reason you would write down your own address is if you planned for your secret, personal diary to be read. And if you are a shell game operator hiding a very important artifact, you might pull a Girard and give the wrong coordinates on purpose.

Discovery of backstage would cause TE to be convinced that the dungeons are a shell game, and they would give up looking in them, thus insuring they would never find the final dungeon, so this is another win condition for Serini, who surely has a back door even if the three million swapovers are all disabled.

Provengreil

2023-06-21, 07:28 PM

The coordinates which lead to four dungeons which were not the one she was guarding? To a mind suspicious of the shell game, this only confirms they are wasting time.

Do you need the address of your home or workplace? Why would you jot it down in your diary?

My friend L works at this address,
My friend D works at that address,
My friend S lives there,
My friend G has a house over there.
And here is where I live.

You might forget your friend's address, so it makes sense to write it down. The only reason you would write down your own address is if you planned for your secret, personal diary to be read. And if you are a shell game operator hiding a very important artifact, you might pull a Girard and give the wrong coordinates on purpose.

The diary led them there in the first place, no? Near as we know they have no other leads, so again, redoubling their search of the Hollow is extremely likely.

Discovery of backstage would cause TE to be convinced that the dungeons are a shell game, and they would give up looking in them, thus insuring they would never find the final dungeon, so this is another win condition for Serini, who surely has a back door even if the three million swapovers are all disabled.
Team Evil finding backstage is one of the worst possible outcomes for Serini, because it would put them on her tail, personally. They'd find out someone was living there, and be determined to find them to squeeze answers out of. Between divinations and Greyview, they'd almost certainly find out she was alive in short order, hunt her down, and get the answers that way.

brian 333

2023-06-21, 10:19 PM

The diary led them there in the first place, no? Near as we know they have no other leads, so again, redoubling their search of the Hollow is extremely likely.

Except that they have already looked there, so looking again would be kind of pointless; as all self-aware stick figure D&D parody characters know, only the first search roll counts. So they would look elsewhere, and because they know Serini is a rogue, and because they know what a shell game is, the one place they will know without a doubt that the gate is not will be Monster Hollow.

Team Evil finding backstage is one of the worst possible outcomes for Serini, because it would put them on her tail, personally. They'd find out someone was living there, and be determined to find them to squeeze answers out of. Between divinations and Greyview, they'd almost certainly find out she was alive in short order, hunt her down, and get the answers that way.

Finding backstage will immediately confirm to them that they have found the true secret entrance to The Gate, and they will immediately cease looking in the dungeons to find the secret access that must be there. If they deduce that Serini is still alive they will have a whale of a time finding her, which could add years, decades, or even centuries to their search for the gate because an epic rogue can hide from anything.

The only reason Xykon found her initially is because she did not know she was being hunted and she made no attempt to avoid being found. Given that she would know, she could lead him on a merry chase around the multiverse that would have him forgetting why he was ever hunting her in the first place.

@Provengreil, I admire the strength of your conviction, but I do not share it. I have, from the start, assumed Serini, as played by The Author, has a better grasp of her abilities and knowledge than I do, and I have assumed she has been using that to the best advantage. I tend to mistrust any premise that begins with, 'if I was Serini,' because we do not have access to her character sheet nor her full backstory. I think it is safe to say that she is very aware of how her world, and the characters therein, operate, and as an epic rogue, she is adept at manipulating this knowledge to her advantage.

Provengreil

2023-06-22, 07:02 AM

Except that they have already looked there, so looking again would be kind of pointless; as all self-aware stick figure D&D parody characters know, only the first search roll counts. So they would look elsewhere, and because they know Serini is a rogue, and because they know what a shell game is, the one place they will know without a doubt that the gate is not will be Monster Hollow.

No. I'm at work and cannot look up the exact comic to link it atm, but Roy and Haley walked us through this exact logic train earlier, with Girard's fake coordinates. With only one lead, the double bluff would lead someone to take a very close look for extra clues left behind.

Also, you seem to be thinking of the diary as an address book. It's a diary, functionally a tale of their adventures, which would include the finding and sealing of the rifts. All of them.

Finding backstage will immediately confirm to them that they have found the true secret entrance to The Gate, and they will immediately cease looking in the dungeons to find the secret access that must be there. If they deduce that Serini is still alive they will have a whale of a time finding her, which could add years, decades, or even centuries to their search for the gate because an epic rogue can hide from anything.

The only reason Xykon found her initially is because she did not know she was being hunted and she made no attempt to avoid being found. Given that she would know, she could lead him on a merry chase around the multiverse that would have him forgetting why he was ever hunting her in the first place.

@Provengreil, I admire the strength of your conviction, but I do not share it. I have, from the start, assumed Serini, as played by The Author, has a better grasp of her abilities and knowledge than I do, and I have assumed she has been using that to the best advantage. I tend to mistrust any premise that begins with, 'if I was Serini,' because we do not have access to her character sheet nor her full backstory. I think it is safe to say that she is very aware of how her world, and the characters therein, operate, and as an epic rogue, she is adept at manipulating this knowledge to her advantage.

Normally, yes. However...Redcloak has 9th level spells, which means he has 8th level spells. With access to backstage, all he needs is a single item of any kind she didn't pack: a spare spoon, an eyelash, a lost sock, anything(I'm not counting the diary because I'm pretty sure TE thinks they killed Serini, so they would never think to use it). With that, he casts discern location and they shortcut the puzzle by "asking" its creator.

brian 333

2023-06-22, 02:41 PM

No. I'm at work and cannot look up the exact comic to link it atm, but Roy and Haley walked us through this exact logic train earlier, with Girard's fake coordinates. With only one lead, the double bluff would lead someone to take a very close look for extra clues left behind.

And we know that Serini has embedded misleading clues to mess with divination magic. Why assume she has not left false clues everywhere? Serini has left other false leads:
An uncounted number of random dungeons which appear to lead nowhere.
A backstage area in which logic would dictate the last gate is hidden, but it's not.

After having searched all but one dungeon, (which they beleive was searched,) and after having searched backstage as well, the logical conclusion is not, "Let's do it all again and hope for better Spot Check results this time," (because you can roll as many spot checks as you want: only the first counts.) The logical conclusion is, "That sneaky rogue tricked us."

Also, you seem to be thinking of the diary as an address book. It's a diary, functionally a tale of their adventures, which would include the finding and sealing of the rifts. All of them.

No, all of them except hers.

Think in terms of an evil guy. Or Batman. Let's go with Batman. What is the one piece of information that he never reveals? Nobody knows where the Batcave is. Why?

Who was the intended audience of her diary? Was it, perhaps, her successor, who would have no need of knowing where her gate was, but might need to know where to find the others? And since she's built an elaborate deception to hide her own gate, would she not have given the coordinates to that deception rather than to the real gate location?

A guy who is aware of shell games and would never reveal the location of his own Honeycomb Hideout is more likely, after searching for and not finding the gate, to conclude that she gave false coordinates as a part of the defense of her gate.

Normally, yes. However...Redcloak has 9th level spells, which means he has 8th level spells. With access to backstage, all he needs is a single item of any kind she didn't pack: a spare spoon, an eyelash, a lost sock, anything(I'm not counting the diary because I'm pretty sure TE thinks they killed Serini, so they would never think to use it). With that, he casts discern location and they shortcut the puzzle by "asking" its creator.

If you assume Serini is criminally stupid after her last encounter with Xykon and she has not purchased an Amulet of Proof Against Detection and location (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4569-amulet-of-proof-against-detection-and-location), we can safely assume that as an epic rogue she is at least aware that non-detection spell (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/nondetection.htm)s exist and that she can have items made bearing that property, such as wands, rings, or headbands.

I will assume Serini is an Epic Rogue with all of the knowledge, skills, and wealth of an epic rogue, and that she knows how to hide when she needs to hide.

OvisCaedo

2023-06-22, 05:26 PM

brian 333

2023-06-22, 06:11 PM

Why on earth would her personal diary lie about only ONE of the gate locations but accurately describe the rest of them when any one of the gates being captured by a villain is a doomsday scenario? Having the naivety to document the rest of them is already pretty heavy evidence that she wasn't acting with the foresight to put down tricks just in case a super powerful villain ever got her diary. Foresight would have been not having the diary.

No, I think if the diary has led Team Evil to the four other locations perfectly, and they're struggling to find the fifth one, they are much more likely to come to the logical conclusion of "this must be hidden in a REALLY sneaky way" than "oh it must not be here at all, let's give up despite having no other leads whatsoever."

How would they move forward from that conclusion? I don't know! But Serini "Existing was fun while it lasted, Xykon is unbeatable, I knew this place would never hold out forever" Toormook seemed to think it was inevitable for Xykon to eventually find the gate.

You are not thinking like a bad guy. Sun Tsu is attributed with saying when planning a battle one always plans based on what he would do. Or Gordon Dickson said that. Either way, Xykon and Redcloak will be thinking of Serini as doing what they would do, much as you are thinking about what you would do. A murderer sleeps lightly, a burglar has good locks, and a pickpocket keeps his money in his shoe.

What would Xykon think Serini would do? If he bothered to think about it, he would think she would never reveal the true location of her gate. Why would anyone care about anyone else's gate?

Having looked everywhere, he wouldn't just say, "Let's do it again more methodically than last time." He would say, "The gate is not here."

Whether Redcloak gives up or not may be the wedge that divides TE.

Well, before Durkon stepped in. Now they will be convinced something else is a foot, but that may not mean that the gate is here. It may make them believe that the Good Guys are assembling their forces, and they have a limited time before they attack. They may even be Sending for help of their own.

Provengreil

2023-06-22, 07:35 PM

And we know that Serini has embedded misleading clues to mess with divination magic. Why assume she has not left false clues everywhere? Serini has left other false leads:
An uncounted number of random dungeons which appear to lead nowhere.
A backstage area in which logic would dictate the last gate is hidden, but it's not.

After having searched all but one dungeon, (which they beleive was searched,) and after having searched backstage as well, the logical conclusion is not, "Let's do it all again and hope for better Spot Check results this time," (because you can roll as many spot checks as you want: only the first counts.) The logical conclusion is, "That sneaky rogue tricked us."

If that was the case, Where would they search?

The hollow is literally their only lead, the only hope for another one is to search again and hope.

No, all of them except hers.

Link me to a panel telling me that's the case. I'm using your own logic this time. 1 of, what 100? 120? more? Dungeons has stasis traps, therefore they all have them because we've not heard differing info about them right?

Well, the diary led them to 4 of 5 gates. Not only is there no evidence it didn't lead them to gate 5, Serini has outright told us it led them to gate 5.

Think in terms of an evil guy. Or Batman. Let's go with Batman. What is the one piece of information that he never reveals? Nobody knows where the Batcave is. Why?

And yet Team Evil is here. If not led by the diary, then led by what?

Who was the intended audience of her diary? Was it, perhaps, her successor, who would have no need of knowing where her gate was, but might need to know where to find the others? And since she's built an elaborate deception to hide her own gate, would she not have given the coordinates to that deception rather than to the real gate location?

Diaries don't have an audience, they are one. An audience for a writer who generally never expects someone else to read it. The whole point of a diary is divulge truth that you can't tell anyone else, not even a therapist(if the setting even has them). This goes double in fiction, where diaries serve a literary purpose of a true confession the reader(and by extension the audience) can always trust.

Not having the gate's real location literally defeats the purpose of a diary.

A guy who is aware of shell games and would never reveal the location of his own Honeycomb Hideout is more likely, after searching for and not finding the gate, to conclude that she gave false coordinates as a part of the defense of her gate.

The only character on TE with a secret location the audience knows of is Xykon, and he did reveal it. If only to his allies. One of which he definitely thinks is an enemy in waiting anyway.

If you assume Serini is criminally stupid after her last encounter with Xykon and she has not purchased an Amulet of Proof Against Detection and location (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4569-amulet-of-proof-against-detection-and-location), we can safely assume that as an epic rogue she is at least aware that non-detection spell (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/nondetection.htm)s exist and that she can have items made bearing that property, such as wands, rings, or headbands.

I will assume Serini is an Epic Rogue with all of the knowledge, skills, and wealth of an epic rogue, and that she knows how to hide when she needs to hide.

I'm sorry, but there's just no reasoning with you is there? Are you not the dude who's spend the last two weeks arguing that the there must be stasis traps because Rich didn't draw piles of chimera ****? So point me to a panel where she's wearing an amulet, elsewise it doesn't exist. I'll note that he carefully included blackwing's new bracelet in every panel since he got one, Belkar's clasp is present in every single page, and Xykon equipped the headband of whatever to cast cloister when doing so on panel.

as for Redcloak's actions, we have a lawful character, of generally high mental stats, with full knowledge of shell games, drawing a conclusion about where to re-center a search after a double bluff in the desert. We can, in fact, assume that another lawful character written by that same author, of generally high mental stats would draw a similar conclusion. RC even has a complex full of potentially missed evidence and some summoning spells to work with to reinforce the idea.

No, they'd search the hollow more, find evidence of Serini, and hunt her down.

brian 333

2023-06-23, 03:23 AM

If that was the case, Where would they search?

The hollow is literally their only lead, the only hope for another one is to search again and hope.

The first sentence is correct. The second is not.

In D&D, only the first Search roll counts. There is a specific rule that allows a character to take 20 in any case that multiple attempts might yield results.

Xykon and Redcloak are genre-savvy enough to know that searching what they have already searched will yield nothing but wasted time. There is no hope in searching again.

Link me to a panel telling me that's the case. I'm using your own logic this time. 1 of, what 100? 120? more? Dungeons has stasis traps, therefore they all have them because we've not heard differing info about them right?

Well, the diary led them to 4 of 5 gates. Not only is there no evidence it didn't lead them to gate 5, Serini has outright told us it led them to gate 5.

And yet Team Evil is here. If not led by the diary, then led by what?

Misapplication of an unrelated and misunderstood point is not an analogy.

My point here is not that the diary contains incorrect information, but that Team Evil will conclude, after searching what they think, (incorrectly,) is every dungeon behind every door, that Serini inentionally recorded the location of her shell game

Diaries don't have an audience, they are one. An audience for a writer who generally never expects someone else to read it. The whole point of a diary is divulge truth that you can't tell anyone else, not even a therapist(if the setting even has them). This goes double in fiction, where diaries serve a literary purpose of a true confession the reader(and by extension the audience) can always trust.

Diaries are the romanticized, fictionalized justifications of the writer. They are almost always intended to be read by a future audience, but even where they are not, only the most naive writer is unaware that a diary can be stolen and read.

Trusting what someone writes in a diary is trusting what they want you to believe.

Not having the gate's real location literally defeats the purpose of a diary.

Think from Xykon's pov:

Why would Serini, or her successor, have need of the coordinates of her own home? Keeping the coordinates of the other gates is smart because you might die before your successor is fully trained.

But revealing the coordinates of your own home? Stupid.

The purpose of a diary is not to tell yourself the absolute truth, (you already know that,) but to tell the future what you want them to believe. From Xykon's pov, what would Serini want him to believe?

The only character on TE with a secret location the audience knows of is Xykon, and he did reveal it. If only to his allies. One of which he definitely thinks is an enemy in waiting anyway.

He needed Redcloak to help with his defenses. And he has plans to get rid of Redcloak when he is done with him. And he didn't write the location of his secret retreat in his diary!

I'm sorry, but there's just no reasoning with you is there?

Do you mean 'harangue until he gives up'? Or do you mean, 'present reasonable arguments which cause him to reevaluate his own?' These forums are full of the latter. The sentence I quoted is an example of the former.

Are you not the dude who's spend the last two weeks arguing that the there must be stasis traps because Rich didn't draw piles of chimera ****? So point me to a panel where she's wearing an amulet, elsewise it doesn't exist. I'll note that he carefully included blackwing's new bracelet in every panel since he got one, Belkar's clasp is present in every single page, and Xykon equipped the headband of whatever to cast cloister when doing so on panel.

Really? Show you a picture of her wearing a magic item that she has not needed yet?

She had no clue, no reason to believe anyone was hunting for her the first time she met Xykon. So far as she knows, Xykon is not currently looking for her. If he does start looking, I trust Serini to know how to hide, whether through use of the specific method I cited or by some other means. After all, there are more ways to defeat detection attempts than there are to detect.

as for Redcloak's actions, we have a lawful character, of generally high mental stats, with full knowledge of shell games, drawing a conclusion about where to re-center a search after a double bluff in the desert. We can, in fact, assume that another lawful character written by that same author, of generally high mental stats would draw a similar conclusion. RC even has a complex full of potentially missed evidence and some summoning spells to work with to reinforce the idea.

No, they'd search the hollow more, find evidence of Serini, and hunt her down.

We are talking about a hypothetical situation in which Team Evil has already searched the Monster Hollow, (except for some doors they believe have been searched.) There are no more clues to be found. They have, to the best of their knowledge, searched everywhere. If they found Backstage, they have discovered that Serini is gone, and they will not be able to detect her, if they even have any reason to suspect she is alive at all.

They literally have no evidence to follow, and no reason to believe they will find more by Taking 20 again.

But they will stick around, run all the dungeons again, search backstage again? Why? Only the first Search roll counts.

They will conclude that the gate is elsewhere and set a out looking for clues that they cannot find where they have already looked. Better yet, they may get in a fight about what to do and destroy each other.

Except that Durkon changed all that. Now TE is aware there are deceptive door markings and active opposition on the field. So, rather than help defend a gate that is in jeopardy, the OotS endangered a gate that was well defended. Yay team.

Emberlily

2023-06-23, 05:10 AM

I think you maybe strangely universalizing one particular and, I believe, uncommon way to use diaries

some people probably use a diary to prepare a story for a future biographer or eulogizer or something, but I've never met a single person like that myself. I'm not sure why someone would steal someone's diary and then assume it was meant for that purpose, especially when that person is a rogue who is part of a group that tried its best to erase all evidence of their own existence

Provengreil

2023-06-23, 06:55 AM

The first sentence is correct. The second is not.

In D&D, only the first Search roll counts. There is a specific rule that allows a character to take 20 in any case that multiple attempts might yield results.

No, the first search roll by a new creature OR without changing your bonus counts. They could take a crew from the village on a field trip and hope someone rolls a 20, or get someone to craft a magic item: they have Xykon's teleport and all of Gobbotopia to rely on to serve up someone with a better check.

Misapplication of an unrelated and misunderstood point is not an analogy.

My point here is not that the diary contains incorrect information, but that Team Evil will conclude, after searching what they think, (incorrectly,) is every dungeon behind every door, that Serini inentionally recorded the location of her shell game

That is one possible conclusion, yes. So if they reach it, what would they do? Why would you not refocus the search back onto the hollow, searching not for a door but for some clue left behind by the builder to put you onto a trail for the real door? Where else would you go? I note you dodged this question.

Diaries are the romanticized, fictionalized justifications of the writer. They are almost always intended to be read by a future audience, but even where they are not, only the most naive writer is unaware that a diary can be stolen and read.

Trusting what someone writes in a diary is trusting what they want you to believe.

The diary isn't being read because of Serini fangirling over Girard, it's being read to discern the locations of the gates. It is accurate in this regard. This is a fact of the comic.

Think from Xykon's pov:

Why would Serini, or her successor, have need of the coordinates of her own home? Keeping the coordinates of the other gates is smart because you might die before your successor is fully trained.

But revealing the coordinates of your own home? Stupid.

The purpose of a diary is not to tell yourself the absolute truth, (you already know that,) but to tell the future what you want them to believe. From Xykon's pov, what would Serini want him to believe?

Again, it is a diary, not a rolodex. It is the story of the Order of the Scribble. The whole story. That includes her own parts of it, and clearly includes the location of her gate.

He needed Redcloak to help with his defenses. And he has plans to get rid of Redcloak when he is done with him. And he didn't write the location of his secret retreat in his diary!

He doesn't keep one. Serini did. And she wrote all the gates' locations down.

Really? Show you a picture of her wearing a magic item that she has not needed yet?

She had no clue, no reason to believe anyone was hunting for her the first time she met Xykon. So far as she knows, Xykon is not currently looking for her. If he does start looking, I trust Serini to know how to hide, whether through use of the specific method I cited or by some other means. After all, there are more ways to defeat detection attempts than there are to detect.

So she thought so far ahead of the competition as to partially fudge her personal diary to cover the location of her, and only her, gate, but didn't think anyone would come looking for her? And now that they did, a woman so paranoid about the safety of the gate that she tried attacking the good guys to protect it has this item and isn't wearing it full time?

This makes more sense than that she just doesn't have one?

We are talking about a hypothetical situation in which Team Evil has already searched the Monster Hollow, (except for some doors they believe have been searched.) There are no more clues to be found. They have, to the best of their knowledge, searched everywhere. If they found Backstage, they have discovered that Serini is gone, and they will not be able to detect her, if they even have any reason to suspect she is alive at all.

The bolded parts are out sources of disagreement here. Serini's been living back here, there WILL be something to scry on and TE WILL find it. With the size of Monster Hollow and the diary pointing right to it, the reasonable conclusion is not that there's nothing there, but that they didn't find it.

They literally have no evidence to follow, and no reason to believe they will find more by Taking 20 again.

But they will stick around, run all the dungeons again, search backstage again? Why? Only the first Search roll counts.

They will conclude that the gate is elsewhere and set a out looking for clues that they cannot find where they have already looked. Better yet, they may get in a fight about what to do and destroy each other.

I covered this up top, but to restate: get new eyes involved and try again. There's nowhere else for them to search, no second lead.

Except that Durkon changed all that. Now TE is aware there are deceptive door markings and active opposition on the field. So, rather than help defend a gate that is in jeopardy, the OotS endangered a gate that was well defended. Yay team.

Durkon's diplomacy definitely went sour, no question on that. I just fully reject that TE would shrug and give up on Monster hollow without a better lead, a lead not in evidence.

OvisCaedo

2023-06-23, 06:59 AM

It's also not really a matter of a "search roll". If they fail to physically find it anywhere, they're more likely to conclude "there must be a sneaky mechanism" than "well gosh, we must have failed a d20 roll to spot the gate! since we'll never possibly succeed, guess we should tell ourselves the gate isn't here and give up"

the idea of anyone coming to the (false) conclusion that the diary was meant for a successor is also pretty absurd. Why would she write down things that she could just tell them, but would be incredibly dangerous for anyone else to ever find out? Was she planning to never meet this supposed successor? "Here, I wrote down for you that this gate is over in AZURE CITY in case you forget. But ignore the entire chapter about the north pole, I wrote all of that as a lie just in case someone other than you finds it."

brian 333

2023-06-23, 09:53 AM

Wow, these are getting long.

No, the first search roll by a new creature OR without changing your bonus counts. They could take a crew from the village on a field trip and hope someone rolls a 20, or get someone to craft a magic item: they have Xykon's teleport and all of Gobbotopia to rely on to serve up someone with a better check.

As I said, they would have already taken 20 on all of this where it is possible to do so, so getting people with lower Search and Spot bonuses to search will be as pointless as a new pencil. If they know someone with better Search and Spot skills, who would be willing to help, why are they not here helping now?

What you are suggesting is that they waste even more time doing what they have already done when they know it will not gain them anything.

That is one possible conclusion, yes. So if they reach it, what would they do? Why would you not refocus the search back onto the hollow, searching not for a door but for some clue left behind by the builder to put you onto a trail for the real door? Where else would you go? I note you dodged this question.

Because refocusing a search on an area you have already searched, in D&D, is pointless.

I did not dodge the question. It is a pointless one to ask. As you and Xylon already know, repeatedly searching the same area will produce the exact same results as your first search. So, I ask you, why would you bother doing it twice? If you don't have better clues and you have already checked out the ones you have, it is time to do something else.

Off the top of my head, I might suggest interrogating the two souls he has trapped in a gem. Or finding the Holey Brotherhood. Or kidnapping Hinjo and torturing the info. Or virtually anything but what has been tried already.

The diary isn't being read because of Serini fangirling over Girard, it's being read to discern the locations of the gates. It is accurate in this regard. This is a fact of the comic.

Again, it is a diary, not a rolodex. It is the story of the Order of the Scribble. The whole story. That includes her own parts of it, and clearly includes the location of her gate.

Again, I have not contested the accuracy of the information in the diary. I have contested your conclusion that Xykon would believe it was not a deception after he believes he has checked the location as thoroughly as possible and found nothing.

He doesn't keep one. Serini did. And she wrote all the gates' locations down.

Which Xykon no doubt thinks was very stupid of her. "Why," Xykon might ask, "Would anyone be that foolish?"

After having searched Monster Hollow and concluding that it was a shell game, he might conclude that it was intentional misinformation intended to distract anyone from finding the 'real' coordinates. The one thing he will not believe is that he was outsmarted by a dead 3/8th-ling.

So she thought so far ahead of the competition as to partially fudge her personal diary to cover the location of her, and only her, gate, but didn't think anyone would come looking for her? And now that they did, a woman so paranoid about the safety of the gate that she tried attacking the good guys to protect it has this item and isn't wearing it full time?

Yes, people do sometimes think ahead. I had a friend who bought a lockbox for her personal papers, fearing possible identity theft if they were stolen. Instead, her house caught fire, and her lock box protected her papers. It isn't always the disaster we anticipate.

s for wearing the non-detection item: she does not need it when surrounded by multidimensional stone, or while nobody is actively scrying or divining for her. It is virtually certain she is wearing something in the neck location for magic items that she thought most beneficial when facing the OotS.

By the time characters get to epic levels in D&D, they typically possess more magic items than locations to wear them, and they swap them out to optimize vs the latest threat.

If she does not have some kind of item to provide her with non-detection after having been jumped by Xykon, then she is criminally stupid regarding her own safety and the safety of her world.

It makes more sense than that she just doesn't have one.

The bolded parts are out sources of disagreement here. Serini's been living back here, there WILL be something to scry on and TE WILL find it. With the size of Monster Hollow and the diary pointing right to it, the reasonable conclusion is not that there's nothing there, but that they didn't find it.

They will scry through multidimensional stone? Or, assuming they find Backstage, they will scry her toenail clippings? Fair enough, but when the answer to their divinations is, "Between Girard's buttcheeks," laugh with me and not at me.

In D&D there are literally more ways to defeat divining than there are ways to do it. Cloister is one. Multidimensional Stone is another. Magic items of non-detection are common, (My magekiller ranger had a helm with that property,) because every thieves' guild master will want one. There is specifically a low level cleric spell with that property, which implies that higher level versions could easily be researched. That's just off the top of my head.

Divination is the weakest school of magic for two reasons: few spells, and easy to screw with the results. It is certainly not an I Win button when dealing with an epic rogue who is aware that she is being hunted.

I covered this up top, but to restate: get new eyes involved and try again. There's nowhere else for them to search, no second lead.

Which does not mean try the same thing again because they are genre-savvy enough to know that it will not work! New eyes would only be useful if they have superior spot and search skills, and if Team Evil has someone better than themselves upon whom they can call, why is this person not with them now?

Durkon's diplomacy definitely went sour, no question on that. I just fully reject that TE would shrug and give up on Monster hollow without a better lead, a lead not in evidence.

Having searched and found nothing they might have to go back to find more clues. Trap Hinjo and torture the info out of him. Speak with the two souls in the gem. Try to find a book in Azure City or the desert pyramid.

Doing a repeat of what they already did is not something that will produce any new information. Whatever they do, it won't be what they already did.

It's also not really a matter of a "search roll". If they fail to physically find it anywhere, they're more likely to conclude "there must be a sneaky mechanism" than "well gosh, we must have failed a d20 roll to spot the gate! since we'll never possibly succeed, guess we should tell ourselves the gate isn't here and give up"

Okay, what is your alternative? To repeat the same action for the same result? How many times?

the idea of anyone coming to the (false) conclusion that the diary was meant for a successor is also pretty absurd. Why would she write down things that she could just tell them, but would be incredibly dangerous for anyone else to ever find out? Was she planning to never meet this supposed successor? "Here, I wrote down for you that this gate is over in AZURE CITY in case you forget. But ignore the entire chapter about the north pole, I wrote all of that as a lie just in case someone other than you finds it."

You are not thinking like Team Evil. Why would anyone write this stuff down?

Also, team Evil knows nothing about her plans for the future following her passing. Surely she planned to leave someone in charge, and this person might benefit from knowing what Serini knew. A diary for the fun of keeping a diary, for TE, is a waste of time. A diary for those who take your place is a guarantee that future guardians have all the info they need.

And hyperbole aside, writing down the wrong location in documents is a time honored tradition among treasure hunters. It is entirely reasonable to conclude a member of a class whose primary abilities are based on trickery tricked the reader of her document.

I think we are well into beaten horse territory. Repeating the same arguments isn't convincing anyone. Let's try new arguments, and posts making one or two points rather than these list-posts that rehash every point we've already made.

Provengreil

2023-06-23, 10:54 AM

As I said, they would have already taken 20 on all of this where it is possible to do so, so getting people with lower Search and Spot bonuses to search will be as pointless as a new pencil. If they know someone with better Search and Spot skills, who would be willing to help, why are they not here helping now?

What you are suggesting is that they waste even more time doing what they have already done when they know it will not gain them anything.

--moving this part up to put the discussion in the same answer set--
Which does not mean try the same thing again because they are genre-savvy enough to know that it will not work! New eyes would only be useful if they have superior spot and search skills, and if Team Evil has someone better than themselves upon whom they can call, why is this person not with them now?

Secrecy. Search experts tend to be a nosy sort and Redcloak doesn't want one word more than necessary being spoken of the ritual, and the plan. It's not for nothing the divine half of the ritual has never been written.

Also, none of Team Evil is known to have a decent search check. Once you determine you really do need one, just grab a search expert, if not from Gobbotpia then I'm sure Greysky Ciy can provide the service for an acceptable price and minimal morals..

Because refocusing a search on an area you have already searched, in D&D, is pointless.

I did not dodge the question. It is a pointless one to ask. As you and Xylon already know, repeatedly searching the same area will produce the exact same results as your first search. So, I ask you, why would you bother doing it twice? If you don't have better clues and you have already checked out the ones you have, it is time to do something else.

I keep saying, you get help. The second search isn't Team Evil doing it, it's Team Evil's new helper(s) doing it. The appropriate conclusion would be that they missed something, not that there's nothing there.

Off the top of my head, I might suggest interrogating the two souls he has trapped in a gem. Or finding the Holey Brotherhood. Or kidnapping Hinjo and torturing the info. Or virtually anything but what has been tried already.

The soul interrogation might work, but they haven't gone there yet. I don't know the mechanics of the spell, so maybe they can't force the souls to do anything?
Kidnapping and interrogating a Paladin has actually happened in the comic: Redcloak concluded after months that he legitimately did not know anything. Another paladin with the same oaths of not-knowing will have the same results.

Again, I have not contested the accuracy of the information in the diary. I have contested your conclusion that Xykon would believe it was not a deception after he believes he has checked the location as thoroughly as possible and found nothing.

So he goes and checks....what? Where does he go to get a new lead, if not back into the Hollow? Be specific.

Which Xykon no doubt thinks was very stupid of her. "Why," Xykon might ask, "Would anyone be that foolish?"

After having searched Monster Hollow and concluding that it was a shell game, he might conclude that it was intentional misinformation intended to distract anyone from finding the 'real' coordinates. The one thing he will not believe is that he was outsmarted by a dead 3/8th-ling.

Is it foolish of Serini to have not only kept a diary, but not burned it upon assuming such a guardianship? Probably. But the fact that she did is going to lead Xykon to assume that she was dumb enough to do so, and she is now dead, and therefore not think harder. He's never going to second guess this place. Redcloak might but as I keep trying to get you to hear, there's nowhere else to look for clues.

Yes, people do sometimes think ahead. I had a friend who bought a lockbox for her personal papers, fearing possible identity theft if they were stolen. Instead, her house caught fire, and her lock box protected her papers. It isn't always the disaster we anticipate.

The diary is not preparation for someone else! It's just a written record of her time with the others, presumably for her and her alone to sort out and "tell" her thoughts to it as an emotional outlet. If Haley had kept one, we probably never would have had the cipher-speak subplot.

s for wearing the non-detection item: she does not need it when surrounded by multidimensional stone, or while nobody is actively scrying or divining for her. It is virtually certain she is wearing something in the neck location for magic items that she thought most beneficial when facing the OotS.

Sending got in, why would it block scrying? Can she tell when scrying happening and put it on fast enough to matter? I'm not aware of that rogue feature. and if it's within reach at all times, why not just wear it?

By the time characters get to epic levels in D&D, they typically possess more magic items than locations to wear them, and they swap them out to optimize vs the latest threat.

If she does not have some kind of item to provide her with non-detection after having been jumped by Xykon, then she is criminally stupid regarding her own safety and the safety of her world.

Like....keeping and not burning the one written record of the locations of every place-critical tear and the personalities that guard them?

It makes more sense than that she just doesn't have one.

No, it fits your notions as a player playing a character sheet to maximum tactical precision, rather than as a flawed character who has clearly made a number of imperfect judgements already.

They will scry through multidimensional stone? Or, assuming they find Backstage, they will scry her toenail clippings? Fair enough, but when the answer to their divinations is, "Between Girard's buttcheeks," laugh with me and not at me.

In D&D there are literally more ways to defeat divining than there are ways to do it. Cloister is one. Multidimensional Stone is another. Magic items of non-detection are common, (My magekiller ranger had a helm with that property,) because every thieves' guild master will want one. There is specifically a low level cleric spell with that property, which implies that higher level versions could easily be researched. That's just off the top of my head.

Divination is the weakest school of magic for two reasons: few spells, and easy to screw with the results. It is certainly not an I Win button when dealing with an epic rogue who is aware that she is being hunted.

Per the SRD, Discern Location does exactly this:
A discern location spell is among the most powerful means of locating creatures or objects. Nothing short of a mind blank spell or the direct intervention of a deity keeps you from learning the exact location of a single individual or object. Discern location circumvents normal means of protection from scrying or location. The spell reveals the name of the creature or object’s location (place, name, business name, building name, or the like), community, county (or similar political division), country, continent, and the plane of existence where the target lies.

To find a creature with the spell, you must have seen the creature or have some item that once belonged to it. To find an object, you must have touched it at least once.

In case you skipped it, your options for blocking this one are Mind Blank and literal Deus ex Machinas. A few special rocks aren't up to this task.

Having searched and found nothing they might have to go back to find more clues. Trap Hinjo and torture the info out of him. Speak with the two souls in the gem. Try to find a book in Azure City or the desert pyramid.

Doing a repeat of what they already did is not something that will produce any new information. Whatever they do, it won't be what they already did.

Yes! the bolding is literally what I'm sayin they'd do! They already confirmed to even Redcloak's demanding nature that the sapphire guard really didn't know anything. Girard's Pyramid and Dorukan's Castle went sky high. Lirian's forest burned down and by now, rot and regrowth cycles would have claimed any other evidence a druid would have had. The diary only points them here.

So on they would search.

Okay, what is your alternative? To repeat the same action for the same result? How many times?

Until new information is discovered. They camped in Dorukan's Castle and Azure city for....what, a combined 18 months, I think? I have no problem believing that even if if Monster Hollow and Backstage were a true shellgame, and the gate wasn't there, they'd search until it was time to break out the picks and outright dismantle the place before shrugging and just giving up with no leads.

gbaji

2023-06-23, 03:08 PM

Pick one .

It's not an either or. I'm narrowing down the way in which MitD is limited in mental faculty. "Intelligence" is a subjective thing, and no one can really agree how to measure it (there have been whole discussions about this very topic on this forum).

Marking extra doors may seem like a great way to throw people off, but it's also going to clue them in that something is up pretty quickly. Yet the MitD choose to do this anyway. We also had a long thread about whether this would actually increase or decrease their search time, and the general consensus seemed to be that at the very least it would decrease the amount of time they spent searching doors one at a time. Whether that helps or hinders them in terms of finding the Gate itself was an unknown because when that thread occurred, no one knew what the methodology was.

My point isn't about what it objectively the "right thing to do", but what "might MitD have done". We know MitD has marked extra doors. We can't assume that he might not also have decided to not mark doors that had been explored as well. Either of these is a method to mess with TEs search pattern. My point isn't that I know he did do this, but that we can't be 100% certain that he didn't.

Serious question. Can you be absolutely 100% certain that he didn't deliberately leave a searched door (or more) unmarked? Support your proof.

If they deduce that Serini is still alive they will have a whale of a time finding her, which could add years, decades, or even centuries to their search for the gate because an epic rogue can hide from anything.

The only reason Xykon found her initially is because she did not know she was being hunted and she made no attempt to avoid being found. Given that she would know, she could lead him on a merry chase around the multiverse that would have him forgetting why he was ever hunting her in the first place.

@Provengreil, I admire the strength of your conviction, but I do not share it. I have, from the start, assumed Serini, as played by The Author, has a better grasp of her abilities and knowledge than I do, and I have assumed she has been using that to the best advantage. I tend to mistrust any premise that begins with, 'if I was Serini,' because we do not have access to her character sheet nor her full backstory. I think it is safe to say that she is very aware of how her world, and the characters therein, operate, and as an epic rogue, she is adept at manipulating this knowledge to her advantage.

Except that's exactly what you are doing. You are playing "If I was Serini" and assuming what she would do, what resources she must have, and that this would allow her to lead TE "on a merry chase around the multiverse that would have him forgetting why he was ever hunting her in the first place".

You literally don't know this. You have no clue what she can and cannot do. You're granting amazing powers on the part of Serini while seriously downplaying those of TE. Serini can't possibly have more wands with teleport, dimension door, and gate than TE can cast themselves over time. As mentioned earlier, if they find anything of hers in Backstage (likely), they can divine her location and find her. Yet, you respond by assuming she has some means to block divination (no evidence of this).

I also happen to believe that this entire line of reasoning is false in the first place, but more about that below.

Having looked everywhere, he wouldn't just say, "Let's do it again more methodically than last time." He would say, "The gate is not here."

False premise. You're assuming a starting point of "having looked everywhere". Which rests on the somewhat absurd conclusion that one day, they'll look at the doors in the Hollow and find every single one marked, and conclude that they must have already searched them all, and *not* "hey. Wait a minute. There's like 400 doors here, we've been searching all of three months, and we have not been actually exporing 5+ doors every nignt. Something is up!". In fact, I'd argue that long before they "finished" marking all of the doors, they would realize that a lot more doors were being marked than they were exploring.

let's not forget that what triggered the summoning of the Quinton was not a discovery of an empty dungeon (that would likely lead to them assuming this had previously been cleared by bugbears before they got there). No. It was discovery of a marked dungeon with live monsters in it. Basically, the moment they realize that the marked doors don't actually mean "we explored this dungeon", they will shift gears. And the gear they shifted was "summon a Quinton and search quickly and methodically".

You're basically assuming a sequence of events: TE finishes marking all the doors->concludes searching dungeons doesn't get them to the gate->searches for and finds backstage->searches backstage->finds Serini's home (but not Serini)->concludes she must know something->spends decades chasing after her.

Sorry. That's a really silly assumption. They know the gate is here. They will search here. And the most reasonable assumption is that the would do exactly what Redcloak did. Assume they missed something, or someone is messing with them, and summon the Quinton to do a methodical search of the entire area. Which gets them right where they are now.

brian 333

2023-06-23, 09:58 PM

It's not an either or. I'm narrowing down the way in which MitD is limited in mental faculty. "Intelligence" is a subjective thing, and no one can really agree how to measure it (there have been whole discussions about this very topic on this forum).

Marking extra doors may seem like a great way to throw people off, but it's also going to clue them in that something is up pretty quickly. Yet the MitD choose to do this anyway. We also had a long thread about whether this would actually increase or decrease their search time, and the general consensus seemed to be that at the very least it would decrease the amount of time they spent searching doors one at a time. Whether that helps or hinders them in terms of finding the Gate itself was an unknown because when that thread occurred, no one knew what the methodology was.

My point isn't about what it objectively the "right thing to do", but what "might MitD have done". We know MitD has marked extra doors. We can't assume that he might not also have decided to not mark doors that had been explored as well. Either of these is a method to mess with TEs search pattern. My point isn't that I know he did do this, but that we can't be 100% certain that he didn't.

Serious question. Can you be absolutely 100% certain that he didn't deliberately leave a searched door (or more) unmarked? Support your proof.

Except that's exactly what you are doing. You are playing "If I was Serini" and assuming what she would do, what resources she must have, and that this would allow her to lead TE "on a merry chase around the multiverse that would have him forgetting why he was ever hunting her in the first place".

You literally don't know this. You have no clue what she can and cannot do. You're granting amazing powers on the part of Serini while seriously downplaying those of TE. Serini can't possibly have more wands with teleport, dimension door, and gate than TE can cast themselves over time. As mentioned earlier, if they find anything of hers in Backstage (likely), they can divine her location and find her. Yet, you respond by assuming she has some means to block divination (no evidence of this).

I also happen to believe that this entire line of reasoning is false in the first place, but more about that below.

False premise. You're assuming a starting point of "having looked everywhere". Which rests on the somewhat absurd conclusion that one day, they'll look at the doors in the Hollow and find every single one marked, and conclude that they must have already searched them all, and *not* "hey. Wait a minute. There's like 400 doors here, we've been searching all of three months, and we have not been actually exporing 5+ doors every nignt. Something is up!". In fact, I'd argue that long before they "finished" marking all of the doors, they would realize that a lot more doors were being marked than they were exploring.

let's not forget that what triggered the summoning of the Quinton was not a discovery of an empty dungeon (that would likely lead to them assuming this had previously been cleared by bugbears before they got there). No. It was discovery of a marked dungeon with live monsters in it. Basically, the moment they realize that the marked doors don't actually mean "we explored this dungeon", they will shift gears. And the gear they shifted was "summon a Quinton and search quickly and methodically".

You're basically assuming a sequence of events: TE finishes marking all the doors->concludes searching dungeons doesn't get them to the gate->searches for and finds backstage->searches backstage->finds Serini's home (but not Serini)->concludes she must know something->spends decades chasing after her.

Sorry. That's a really silly assumption. They know the gate is here. They will search here. And the most reasonable assumption is that the would do exactly what Redcloak did. Assume they missed something, or someone is messing with them, and summon the Quinton to do a methodical search of the entire area. Which gets them right where they are now.

All of these are well beaten horses. If you are truly interested in my responses, they are already posted.

I get that you and others disagree with me. I also accept that the premise I am discussing is a hypothetical Which is no longer viable because circumstances have changed. So, whether you agree or disagree in whole or in part, it is your choice. We will never know what might have been if Durkon had not acted, and the author is unlikely to say.

Repeatedly beating dead horses is not going to yield positive results. New ideas are worth debating.

For example, a divination spell was listed to which the "only counter" is Mind Blank. Okay, so get a Mind Blank item. Serini can afford it.

But, Mind Blank is not the only defense. The best defense is that TE thinks she is fead. Anti-Magic Sphere is cheaper than Mine Blank, easier to make into an item, and much lower level. And there are other ways that we have not even begun to investigate.

Divination sucks as a school of magic because it is easily countered and at its best generally ambiguous.

I choose to believe an epic rogue can hard counter an epic sorcerer, if she is aware of the sorcerer. You choose to believe she cannot.

Of the two of us, I'm fairly certain I'm the one who has played both an epic mage, leveled up from first level, and an epic mage-killer, also leveled up from first level. (One of them was a halfling.)

So, dead horse beaten again. Agree or disagree with my points as you like.

Kish

2023-06-23, 10:26 PM

It's not an either or.

Which you are asserting is, in fact, an either-or, unless you choose "both" or "neither." At least one of them demonstrates, in my opinion, aggressive resistance to the point of some of his scenes.

Yet the MitD choose to do this anyway. We also had a long thread about whether this would actually increase or decrease their search time, and the general consensus seemed to be that at the very least it would decrease the amount of time they spent searching doors one at a time.

It wasn't a subjective question then and it's less of one now. Tricking Redcloak and Xykon into thinking that had explored doors they had not was unambiguously sabotaging them, not helping them. It was no more "unknown" than it was "unknown" for a long time that Belkar is evil, something else that spawned many threads with people wondering. Now that it's been established that they need to go through all the doors to reach the final dungeon, it should be even plainer to see that a falsely marked door is all negative for them.

(He didn't know exactly what the situation was, or he would have known that the ideal approach was to mark a single unexplored door, but what he did was vastly better than nothing at all.)

My point isn't about what it objectively the "right thing to do", but what "might MitD have done". We know MitD has marked extra doors. We can't assume that he might not also have decided to not mark doors that had been explored as well.

I feel like I've said this before...

Speak for yourself, please. You don't have to know anything you don't want to but don't try and tell other people they don't know either.

Serious question. Can you be absolutely 100% certain that he didn't deliberately leave a searched door (or more) unmarked? Support your proof.

I have no need to engage with this challenge. What I said was that you should pick whether you're asserting that you've seen no indication that the creature in the darkness is particularly intelligent or that he's educated. Since then you've thrown a billion words at not having to do so but you haven't done so, which would communicate whether your starting premise is wrong or irrelevant. (You do not need to be educated to realize that if you leave an explored door unmarked Xykon and Redcloak are likely to go into it and realize something is up; you do need to be smarter than an imbecile, so if your position is that he's an imbecile you're wrong, whereas if your position is that he's intelligent but uneducated that merits a "so?")

KorvinStarmast

2023-06-24, 12:35 PM

It was no more "unknown" than it was "unknown" for a long time that Belkar is evil, something else that spawned many threads with people wondering.
For how many people was this (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0011.html) not a sufficient clue? :smalleek: :smallconfused:

Sir_Norbert

2023-06-24, 01:00 PM

For everyone who isn't that familiar with D&D rules, which is more than you might think.

gbaji

2023-06-26, 02:52 PM

Which you are asserting is, in fact, an either-or, unless you choose "both" or "neither." At least one of them demonstrates, in my opinion, aggressive resistance to the point of some of his scenes.

Huh? This was the exchange:

I've seen nothing to show that MitD is particularly intelligent. Well, or at least not well educated

Pick one

There is no "one" to pick. I stated that he's not particularly intelligent, and then narrowed down the specific aspect of intelligence I was speaking about (being well educated). It's not an either/or situation. I'm acknowledging that there are different types of observable intelligence, anticipated someone responding with "but what about when he did ....", and preemptely narrowing down my statement to being specifically about "educated".

Which happens to be very relevant when considering what someone might do in what is basically a statistics problem. That is very clearly a type of intelligence that MitD does not exhibit strong capabilities. His disinterest in playing Go with O'Chul is one example. He seems to be pretty good at direct interaction with people, but maybe not so great at critical thinking skills. And definitely not so great at math and statistics. So take that for what it is.

Tricking Redcloak and Xykon into thinking that had explored doors they had not was unambiguously sabotaging them, not helping them.

No. It's an unambiguous *attempt* to sabotage them. As O'Chul states, it's the intent that matters.

Whether it actually sabotages them, or slows them down in the long run, is not clear, nor is it the point.

My point is that, if intent is all that matters, then that intent could just as easily manifest one way in addition to another. We can't just assume that the only method someone is using to attempt to sabotage someone else, is the one we've directly seen.

Speak for yourself, please. You don't have to know anything you don't want to but don't try and tell other people they don't know either.

It's not about speaking for someone else. It's about how basic logic works.

"A=true" does not mean that "!A=false"

We don't know if MitD may have chosen to use some other methods to attempt to sabotage TE in addition to the one we witnessed. That's not my opinion. That is a logical fact.

I have no need to engage with this challenge.

Given that other people are saying that it's 100% certain that he didn't do this. And I'm only saying that we can't know that it's 100% certain, then yeah, the burden of proof does actually rest on you, and not me.

I already laid out the logical proof for my position ("A=true" does not mean "!A=false").

What I said was that you should pick whether you're asserting that you've seen no indication that the creature in the darkness is particularly intelligent or that he's educated. Since then you've thrown a billion words at not having to do so but you haven't done so, which would communicate whether your starting premise is wrong or irrelevant.

I think this arose out of a misunderstanding of what I was trying to say. I realized when I was writing my initial post that some people might not understand what I mean by "not particularly intelligent" (and that "intelligence" by itself isn't well defined anyway), so I clarified that statement by being more specific: "not well educated". That's it. I thought it was clear from the way I wrote it that the second part was a narrowing/clarification of the first. Apparently not though.

The irony here is that I was attempting to avoid getting into arguments about the various forms of intelligence that can exist, and which ones MitD exhibits, and which he doesn't. So much for that plan...

(You do not need to be educated to realize that if you leave an explored door unmarked Xykon and Redcloak are likely to go into it and realize something is up; you do need to be smarter than an imbecile, so if your position is that he's an imbecile you're wrong, whereas if your position is that he's intelligent but uneducated that merits a "so?")

You also don't need to be particularly educated to know that marking significantly more doors than were actually explored will likely be noticed as well. I'm not sure what your point is. O'Chul even states that he doesn't know if what MitD is doing will actually slow down TE at all. It's about the intent mattering.

From my perspective, I'm seeing MitD doing something that is likely to cause TE to realize something is wrong with their current search methodology long before they would actually finish exploring all of the dungeons. So to me, it's not unreasonable to speculate that MitD might do something else that is *also* likely to cause TE to realize that something is wrong with their search methodology long before they would actually finish exploring all the dungeons.

Both are silly things to do. Both are things likely to be noticed before too long. Both will also (in all likelihood) actually *reduce* the total time it takes TE to search the dungeons. But that's not the point. Both also show the intent of MitD to thwart TE's efforts. Which is the entire point of the exercise.

I don't find "but they might notice that a marked dungeon is empty" to be particularly persuasive, given that "they might notice that more doors are marked than they explored" is also a present posssiblity. If MitD thinks marking extra doors will slow them down in some way, he might think that mismarking doors would as well. Both are equally illogical acts that serve most to show MitD is oppposing TE than that he's doing so effectively.

Xirdus

2023-06-26, 07:49 PM

It's not about speaking for someone else. It's about how basic logic works.

"A=true" does not mean that "!A=false"

Point of order: this IS how basic logic works. If A is true, then by definition, negation of A is false. Not that it changes your argument. You probably meant to say "...does not mean that things that aren't A are false."

Also, not marking a cleared dungeon would make it obvious something's wrong if they decided to go in there and saw there are no monsters. Not a smart move if you ask me.

Kish

2023-06-26, 09:14 PM

That you are throwing around "we" when you should be saying "I" is entirely about speaking for someone else. Any We I belong to is entirely comfortable stating that the creature in the darkness did not leave an explored door unmarked. Do not presume.

gbaji

2023-06-27, 12:27 PM

Point of order: this IS how basic logic works. If A is true, then by definition, negation of A is false. Not that it changes your argument. You probably meant to say "...does not mean that things that aren't A are false."

Correct. Sorry. I'm too used to using that syntax in a different way.

"!A" in this case means "things not A". meaning "B", or "C", or "D" (huh. What is the syntax for "set of all cases that aren't A"?). I probably should have been more clear.

What I'm saying is that if A is true, that does not mean that B is false (ie: A is not the only thing that can be true).

To put this back in to the actual case at hand: If "MitD marks extra doors after each exploration" (A) is "true". This does not mean that "MitD does not mark the door explored after each exporation (B)" is "false". Nor does it mean "MitD dances a jig after each exploration" (C) is "false" either. Nor, for that matter, any other thing that we might speculate that MitD might do. The fact that A is true does not preclude other things being true as well. But the argument I'm running into is that because we have seen A being true (MitD marking extra doors), this means (with 100% certainty even) that nothing else can be. That is clearly not correct.

Also, not marking a cleared dungeon would make it obvious something's wrong if they decided to go in there and saw there are no monsters. Not a smart move if you ask me.

No, it wouldn't. It would make them assume they happened to enter a dungeon that the bugbears had previously cleared. They'd probably only start to think something was up if they ran into several dungeons that were empty. The only thing that would immediately guarantee a "Something is wrong with our marks" is if they enter a marked dungeon and find live monsters in it. Which, btw, is exactly what actually happened.

And that's the point I find really flummuxing about this whole discussion. The entire argument that MitD can't possibly have decided to not mark doors that were entered rests around the assumption that doing so would cause discovery of his actions. But that argument ignores that marking extra doors *also* runs the risk of being discovered (which, you know, actually happened). Even if not by chasing the Order into a marked dungeon and finding live monsters in it (as happened in the strip), but merely stopping and counting and realizing that there's way more doors marked than they've explored.

So yeah. I don't get why some people are insistent that MitD wouldn't do one action because it would be obviously counter productive and likely to be discovered, when the action he did take is also counter productive and likely to be discovered (arguably *more* counter productive and *more* likely to be discovered, but that's somewhat subjective).

Heck. Even if it's not discovered, by marking additional doors, MitD is decreasing the time it will take TE to "mark all the doors". We can only speculate what they would do at that point, but it definitely takes this from "it'll take 200 days at 2 doors a day to search all 400 doors", to "they finish marking all the doors in ~50 days, and then try something else". It's not actually a very good idea as it stands, so I'm not sure how one rejects another thing that's also not a very good idea. The same mind that would think one would work, might also think the other would (or hey, maybe do both?). The larger point is that we just can't say with anything close to 100% certainty that MitD didn't try this on at least some of the doors. And that risk alone should be enough to not try to do anything that counts on assuming the marked doors are at all accurate measurements of which dungeons TE has or has not explored.