OOTS #1299 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

[Neoriceisgood]

Absolutely brutal, loving this fight honestly.

[Lord Torath]

I love Sunny! So earnest.

Haley looks stressed. I'm guessing Minrah in full armor weighs a good bit more than either Elan or Bandana.

Thanks, Rich!

[Errorname]

Feels like this fight might be basically over

[Airinyourtires]

I wonder if Sunny learned how to do that from Haley. It’s certainly an inversion: the one whose mind control gets broken has become the mind control breaker, more or less

[The_Weirdo]

I wonder if Sunny learned how to do that from Haley. It’s certainly an inversion: the one whose mind control gets broken has become the mind control breaker, more or less

"...and what's a gllrtkyt? I need to do what you say in the order you say it, after all, and I can't close my gllrtkyt unless I know what it is."

[Provengreil]

Looks like Bloodfeast won the grapple, and the sword didn't stab him.


Feels like this fight might be basically over
If it wasn't RPG rules it would be, you don't come back from a neck bite like that. His only hope would be to somehow get a domination off despite the AMF onto a cleric and get healed.

Still, I suspect that Calder will live through this somehow. Simply killing him would feel....off, given how well characterized he already has become in just 5 pages.

[Toper]

Continuing to love this fight! I'm thinking Calder just wants to escape at this point, though, which would be very bad for Team Good.

[ellindsey]

Can't break the grapple. Can't cast spells while in an AMF. Apparently can't breath fire at the moment either.

What options does the dragon have at this point? The fight's pretty much over if it can't get free.

[Mad Humanist]

Still, I suspect that Calder will live through this somehow. Simply killing him would feel....off, given how well characterized he already has become in just 5 pages.

I'd agree though it is possible that Team Evil find the corpse and reanimate and serves a narrative function that way.

[Faldrath]

He managed to open Bloodfeast's mouth so he's not getting beheaded right now, at least.

I think the stage is set for Calder to submit again, but this time the Order will negotiate something that's less "eternal slavery" and more "look, the world is about to end, please help us". Red dragons are lawful evil, correct? So he should abide to the agreement.

[Pax1138]

Alternately, the fall seems to have cracked the ground around the containment circle, so if Calder can get free, he might be able to flee back out of the dungeon. Running into Team Evil to complicate things more?

[danielxcutter]

Oh yeah, suck on it Calder! The fight's probably not over yet but I don't expect that to be too far off now.

[Shining Wrath]

Once again, Belkar demonstrates that he cares about his little friends - although I'm not sure Bloodfeast the Extreminator counts as little at this moment.

Haley + Minrah disenchant Sunny, who is very upset at the mean dragon who yelled at Mom. Even when participating in a brutal beat-down, Sunny is a charming child.

Nice little vignette of V deciding they do not want to be anywhere near the Allosaurus chewing on the dragon's neck. I'd say that's a decision showing both wisdom and intelligence.

EDIT: Red Dragons are Chaotic Evil by canon, but this one did try to set up a cult, so might be Lawful. However, "interested in domination of others" and "abides by agreements with others" are not at all the same.

[Provengreil]

He managed to open Bloodfeast's mouth so he's not getting beheaded right now, at least.

I think the stage is set for Calder to submit again, but this time the Order will negotiate something that's less "eternal slavery" and more "look, the world is about to end, please help us". Red dragons are lawful evil, correct? So he should abide to the agreement.

A rational course, but I don't see it. The stasis misfire has likely made him unwilling in all cases to work with Serini or even support her goals under any circumstances.

I figure he negotiates an escape, runs into Team Evil, and ends up helping them a bit just to spite her. Probably indirectly, no one's going to heal him and he won't risk further confrontation at that point.

Completely unrelated to that reply, can I just call attention to how Bloodfeast's little look of satisfied determination in the last strip was well rewarded?

[Robster]

Red dragons are lawful evil, correct? So he should abide to the agreement.

RAW they are "always chaotic evil", I'm afraid. Although OOTS has of course always tended to bend/reinterpret/parodize or outright ignore the extremely stiff alignment restrictions of the source material.

[danielxcutter]

Honestly - I think it's more likely that the Order just kills him. Roy and Durkon are LG but they aren't paladins, and I doubt Calder'd be very eager to surrender considering what the last one did to him. At this point it might even be the more moral option, not just practical.

[Psyren]

Belkar + Animals = South of Neutral confirmed :smallbiggrin:

[Faldrath]

RAW they are "always chaotic evil", I'm afraid. Although OOTS has of course always tended to bend/reinterpret/parodize or outright ignore the extremely stiff alignment restrictions of the source material.

Ah, thanks. And yes, I agree... one of the main thrusts of the comic is "you are what you do, not what a book says you are/what you think you are".

And I don't know, Serini has been conspicuously absent during the battle, and Roy did want to make a deal before the fight. Calder is probably very intelligent and might be able to tell they're not Serini's longtime allies. A deal might still be on the table after the submission. It does seem more in character than just killing him (especially now that he can barely defend himself).

[Darkohaku]

The action sequence is very cool, really digging the art right now, perfect mix for detailed enemies and characters, and is still a stick comic parody. WIN WIN.

So, what can do the mean dragon to win?

[Zarhan]

Honestly - I think it's more likely that the Order just kills him. Roy and Durkon are LG but they aren't paladins, and I doubt Calder'd be very eager to surrender considering what the last one did to him. At this point it might even be the more moral option, not just practical.

They'll kill Calder, this guy is (for once) a clear case of Evil without any gray areas.

What *might* come into play is when the topic turns to "should we disintegrate the body, so Xykon can't zombify this thing or leave it", and Vaarsuvius might have some reservations about disintegrating the dragon due to history with the black dragons. But then again, Sunny can just use Number Eight.

[The MunchKING]

I love Sunny! So earnest.

Haley looks stressed. I'm guessing Minrah in full armor weighs a good bit more than either Elan or Bandana.

Thanks, Rich!

Well, while the armor wouldn't be THAT much more than the Leather armor Bandana wears, from what I remember, Dwarves despite being shorter than humans are stocky and dense so they still weigh about as much as Humans.

[KorvinStarmast]

He managed to open Bloodfeast's mouth so he's not getting beheaded right now, at least.

I think the stage is set for Calder to submit again, but this time the Order will negotiate something that's less "eternal slavery" and more "look, the world is about to end, please help us". Red dragons are lawful evil, correct? So he should abide to the agreement.
1. Great actions sequence.
2. Minrah: what spell is she casting?
3. Sunny: I think Minrah's spell worked.
4. Haley: yes, Minrah is heavy.
5. Bloodfeast: yes!
6. Not sure what strip number 1300 will have in store, but those of you who are thinking "subdual a second time" got me thinking.
Is dragon subdual even a thing in 3.x?
7. The cracks in the floor: does that have an impact on the stasis circles?

Great strip.

[drazen]

Feels like this fight might be basically over

Famous last words?

I did have a question whether or not Bloodfeast chomping on Calder's neck would prevent the dragon's fire-breathing ability from functioning.

The only RPG's I've ever played were Wizardry I (PC), Legends (TI-99/4a), Tunnels of Doom (TI-99/4a), and Kingdom of Loathing (online), so I'm not very good with D&D mechanics.

[KorvinStarmast]

He managed to open Bloodfeast's mouth so he's not getting beheaded right now, at least.

I think the stage is set for Calder to submit again, but this time the Order will negotiate something that's less "eternal slavery" and more "look, the world is about to end, please help us". Red dragons are lawful evil, correct? So he should abide to the agreement.
1. Great actions sequence.
2. Minrah: what spell is she casting? Protection from Evil?
3. Sunny: I think Minrah's spell worked.
4. Haley: yes, Minrah is heavy.
5. Bloodfeast: yes!
6. Not sure what strip number 1300 will have in store, but those of you who are thinking "subdual a second time" got me thinking.
Is dragon subdual even a thing in 3.x?
7. The cracks in the floor: does that have an impact on the stasis circles?
8. Besides not seeing much of Serini, where are the Paladins?

Great strip.

[Space Sorceress]

Hey Giant, looks like Calder has the wrong horn broken in this one.

- From, a lurker who made an account to post this :smalltongue:

[Emperor Time]

It's surprising that Calder is now losing because of what he told Sunny to do earlier and guess his plan isn't as great as he originally thought.

[danielxcutter]

It's surprising that Calder is now losing because of what he told Sunny to do earlier and guess his plan isn't as great as he originally thought.

To be fair, “polymorphed Allosaurus” isn’t exactly that high up on the priority list most of the time.

[Doug Lampert]

Can't break the grapple. Can't cast spells while in an AMF. Apparently can't breath fire at the moment either.

What options does the dragon have at this point? The fight's pretty much over if it can't get free.

Bite, claw, claw, tail slam, wing smash, wing smash till there's no dino holding him down. Dragons should avoid melee at all costs, because they've got no good reason to give their foes a chance, but they're still blenders in melee, converting foes to puree with half a dozen high damage attacks a round.

Remember that the party's damage is down substantially due to anti-magic. Serini as a an epic rogue vs. a grappled foe is probably the only one who can do really high damage now.

[BurlewContact]

...what does that mean?

It means the Order would rather have Haley fly past a dragon and pick up a junior apprentice than ask the member of the team who can cast Greater Dispel Magic to do so.

[Emperor Time]

To be fair, “polymorphed Allosaurus” isn’t exactly that high up on the priority list most of the time.

Good point but still he should have known that only having one brainwashed ally might not be enough to win against this party.

[Raven777]

It means the Order would rather have Haley fly past a dragon and pick up a junior apprentice than ask the member of the team who can cast Greater Dispel Magic to do so.

V spent their turn getting knocked prone in the first panel, then spending a move action to get up and another move action to get out of the dragon's reach and possibly Sunny's Antimagic Field in the fifth panel. No time or even possibility for them to cast a spell this round.

[Kardwill]

I did have a question whether or not Bloodfeast chomping on Calder's neck would prevent the dragon's fire-breathing ability from functioning.

The rules don't speak about it, but they don't say an Allosaurus crushing your throat prevents you to speak either, and yet it just happened.
For that kind of thing, you would ask your GM's ruling. That's one of the key advantage of TTRPGs over CRPGs : Tabletop has an actual thinking human acting as a storyteller/referee, to adjudicate edge cases like this one.

Personally, I would totally rule in favor of my players in such a case, and block the Dragon's breath attack, at least as long as they can maintain pressure/grapple on its neck. It's not every day a player manages to strangle a dragon. :smallbiggrin:
But other DMs might rule otherwise.




And I don't know, Serini has been conspicuously absent during the battle, and Roy did want to make a deal before the fight. Calder is probably very intelligent and might be able to tell they're not Serini's longtime allies. A deal might still be on the table after the submission. It does seem more in character than just killing him (especially now that he can barely defend himself).

Well, Roy was eager to negociate BEFORE Calder tried to murder them just because they were not grovelling enough, and before he learnt that Calder was a slaver mindbending cultleader. He might not feel as diplomatic when the fight that the dragon started turns in the Order's favor.

On the other hand, Battlefield Arguments and Last Round Negociation are kinda Roy's signature feats. If Calder attempts to negociate, it would feel off for Roy to flatly say "no" and simply cut down the dragon.

[Shining Wrath]

Alternately, the fall seems to have cracked the ground around the containment circle, so if Calder can get free, he might be able to flee back out of the dungeon. Running into Team Evil to complicate things more?


The rules don't speak about it, but they don't say an Allosaurus crushing your throat prevents you to speak either, and yet it just happened.
For that kind of thing, you would ask your GM's ruling. That's one of the key advantage of TTRPGs over CRPGs : Tabletop has an actual thinking human acting as a storyteller/referee, to adjudicate edge cases like this one.

Personally, I would totally rule in favor of my players in such a case, and block the Dragon's breath attack, at least as long as they can maintain pressure/grapple on its neck. It's not every day a player manages to strangle a dragon. :smallbiggrin:
But other DMs might rule otherwise.




Well, Roy was eager to negociate BEFORE Calder tried to murder them just because they were not grovelling enough, and before he learnt that Calder was a slaver mindbending cultleader. He might not feel as diplomatic when the fight that the dragon started turns in the Order's favor.

On the other hand, Battlefield Arguments and Last Round Negociation are kinda Roy's signature feats. If Calder attempts to negociate, it would feel off for Roy to flatly say "no" and simply cut down the dragon.

Rule Of Cool says that if the party can choke a dragon, they can prevent spellcasting and breath weapons. Because who has hands big enough to choke a dragon? Most parties don't have an Allosaurus close at hand.

I think Roy's negotiations will be "Usually I'd talk to you, but I tried that earlier and you tried to incinerate me. You don't get a second chance. Belkar?" Belkar: lots of stabbing.

[BurlewContact]

V spent their turn getting knocked prone in the first panel, then spending a move action to get up and another move action to get out of the dragon's reach and possibly Sunny's Antimagic Field in the fifth panel. No time or even possibility for them to cast a spell this round.

Not talking about V. I’m talking about Elan. Which the Order would know if they didn’t marginalise, discriminate and abuse him. Tarquin was right, Elan deserves better

[Shining Wrath]

- V is prone, right next to a Dragon fighting an Allosaurus, and in the middle of an antimagic field. They're kinda busy right now, and Haley can't pick them up, since that would dispel her Flight spell. On the other hand, Minrah can cast her spell right now. That round probably saved BF from being polymophed back to a lizard (and instantly killed by the dragon).

- Would you rather have V burning one of his few 6th level spells (Greater dispell, as you suggested), or have the new girl do the same with a 1st level spell (protection from evil)?

- Roy, Haley and Minrah already discussed the plan while V was captured. They seized the first opportunity to spring the plan. Again, that gains them time to act before Calder could shout an order.

So, using Minrah was the right call, both from a tactical and spell-economy point of view. Bloodfeast would be dead if Roy, haley and Minrah had waited for V to get out of the AMF.

BC, as explained later, wanted Elan to do the job. The point of "Level 6 spell slot versus Level 1" still holds, though. Also Elan would have to stop buffing via song to cast a spell ("Hit, hit, hit the mean old dragon!").

[danielxcutter]

Does it even affect them in the AMF?

[Space Sorceress]

Going to the comic, I'm really surprised Serini's not getting in on the dogpile against the grappled, easy to sneak-attack prey. Seems like it should be releasing all sorts of dopamine to her.

lol yeah I'm hoping the next comic is Serini showing us exactly what an Epic Rogue can do in this situation :smallbiggrin:

[Lheticus]

I'd agree though it is possible that Team Evil find the corpse and reanimate and serves a narrative function that way.

I'm in your camp on this one, I think. Possibly Bloodfeast will have a rematch.

[Kardwill]

I'm in your camp on this one, I think. Possibly Bloodfeast will have a rematch.

A big zombie dragon isn't that much of a threat, though. Cool looking, sure, but unless I'm missing something it's just a big HP sponge with a big-but-slow attack. Nowhere near Calder's raw power.

[Fitzclowningham]

Does anyone know whether the effects of a Weapon of Legacy would be affected by an AMF? I was hoping to see a lot of green when Roy finally got to hit Calder

[fuschiawarrior]

Plot twist: Calder fell on Serini just like this (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xE0V-TmqTP8&pp=ygUaZXIgcm9tYW5vIGRlYXRoIGhlbGljb3B0ZXI%3D&t=160).

[ozmar]

EDIT since you clarified you were talking about Elan (my b) - isn't it best to have him stab Calder while making quips (or buff the other people who are hitting Calder, assuming Bard songs can't be AMF'd), and keep his Greater Dispel Magic on standby? They might need to fight Xykon later, and Elan can likely do more damage in melee than Minrah can. And buffing everyone else who's in melee would almost DEFINITELY do more damage overall, too...

Elan can run out of spell slots, but he can't run out of sword or song. And buffing Bloodfeast's damage too seems really mean, besides.

Greater Dispel Magic is a 6th-level spell (5th-level Bard) that has a chance of failure.

Protection from Evil is a 1st-level spell that is guaranteed to succeed.

Having Minrah free Sunny is just good tactics.

-Ozmar the Rules Lawyer

[Provengreil]

Good point but still he should have known that only having one brainwashed ally might not be enough to win against this party.

You underestimate the critical flaw of most dragons: Pride. They only back down when it's far too late.

[hungrycrow]

To be fair Elan excluded himself from that meeting to hang out with Sunny. Elan got mistreated a LOT in the past and the group's been doing better, but Elan's still Elan. He's pretty hard to work with under the best circumstances, and Elan's Greater Dispel would be the least optimal thing he could do here. Elan is boosting their damage with a song since that's not a magical effectand his caster level was too low to pass the dispel check since he's multiclassing. He's most effective when dispelling buffs from potions or wands, not from a high level dragon.

Going to the comic, I'm really surprised Serini's not getting in on the dogpile against the grappled, easy to sneak-attack prey. Seems like it should be releasing all sorts of dopamine to her.

Also V knowing when they're out of their depth is the greatest. I'm just concerned that Roy and Durkon look ROUGH. They need some healing when all this is done.

Inspire Courage is supernatural, so I believe it doesn't work while everyone else is in the AMF. Also I think it doesn't work on Roy while Mindblank is up?

Serini might jump in next comic, but she might also just not want to get into melee with a dragon. Even surrounded he'll be formidable if he can get rid of Bloodfeast, and he might decide to put everything into killing her if it's an option.

[BurlewContact]

To be fair Elan excluded himself from that meeting to hang out with Sunny. Elan got mistreated a LOT in the past and the group's been doing better, but Elan's still Elan. He's pretty hard to work with under the best circumstances, and Elan's Greater Dispel would be the least optimal thing he could do here. Elan is boosting their damage with a song since that's not a magical effectand his caster level was too low to pass the dispel check since he's multiclassing. He's most effective when dispelling buffs from potions or wands, not from a high level dragon.

Elan has CL16 minimum. I’d say he has as much chance as V does.

But the people who are talking about “the most optimal action” are missing the point. The point is the impact on the real world. Elan excludes himself from the meeting because he didn’t feel confident attending. The first instinct of the Order SHOULD be to adjust the meeting to accommodate Elan’s anxiety and impaired following ability and make him feel comfortable attending. Anything else is CRIMINAL work practices. Instead Elan is told the meeting is optional and because of this he missed out on valuable CPD so that Minrah of all people has a better understanding of the big picture team capabilities than a founding member. Who remembers when Elan was ordered by V to run a mile to get Durkon to unpetify Haley when he could have Song of Freedom’d her out himself? Clearly no one. It’s never been acknowledged in comic and the Order are letting history repeat.

But they are fictional. It doesn’t matter what they do. What matters is that Rich Burlew, a person in the real world, is advocating for criminal work practices and portraying them in comic as acceptable. OOTS has a big reach amongst neurodiverse people and people who work with, live with and employ neurodiverse people. In that context, such behaviour would be criminal and Rich is portraying it as acceptable.

Elan’s certainly not getting a happy ending in a workplace where your employer shouts at you that you don’t count and then continues to treat you as second class without consequence.

[KorvinStarmast]

{Scrubbed} Why burn a level 6 or level 5 slot when you can get the job done with a level 1 slot?

Tarquin was right, Elan deserves better Elan ran the party into the Serini/Beholder trap.

But of course given he was at the meeting where everyone shared their character sheets his team know too.
Oh wait. The Order excluded him from that No, he excused himself to go and play baseball with Sunny.

- Would you rather have V burning one of his few 6th level spells (Greater dispell, as you suggested), or have the new girl do the same with a 1st level spell (protection from evil)?

- Roy, Haley and Minrah already discussed the plan while V was captured. They seized the first opportunity to spring the plan. Again, that gains them time to act before Calder could shout an order. How dare the Order execute a plan?

So, using Minrah was the right call, both from a tactical and spell-economy point of view. How dare Roy think tactically?

It's a good use of resource to put Minrah on this mission. Plus it is national woman's month, or something like that. Lean into it, Sister (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1068.html)!

Also V knowing when they're out of their depth is the greatest. I'm just concerned that Roy and Durkon look ROUGH. They need some healing when all this is done. And there's a bard hanging around ...

EDIT: just read your rant. How do you feel about Bandana?

Just to let you know: you are in the running for this month's "least charitable take on a comic strip" award.

[Tzardok]

He actually did yeah. Does Dispel Magic et. al work on SLAs? I know they don’t work on supernatural abilities.
They do. A SLA can be dispelled, but not counterspelled. A SU can be neither, a spell both. All three are useless in Antimagic.

The rules don't speak about it, but they don't say an Allosaurus crushing your throat prevents you to speak either, and yet it just happened.

Actually, they do: the SRD says that you can prevent an opponent you have pinned from talking



Elan can run out of spell slots, but he can't run out of sword or song. And buffing Bloodfeast's damage too seems really mean, besides.
Correction: Elan can run out of song. Bardic Music has a limited number of per day uses.

Does anyone know whether the effects of a Weapon of Legacy would be affected by an AMF? I was hoping to see a lot of green when Roy finally got to hit Calder

Yes, of course they are affected.

[BurlewContact]

Elan ran the party into the Serini/Beholder trap.

Elan did this because he failed a will save. He failed a will save because V and Roy, the two members who made a successful will save on screen are hogging the mind blanks. Another example of bad work practices hurting Elan on purpose.

[BurlewContact]

Let's see, if I have mind blank, I protect the two people with the highest intelligence, one of whom is the party leader, one of whom is the irreplaceable arcane spell caster.

Your take is not valid.

I made a take that explains my larger issue in post 55. But in general it’s good practice to shore up weaknesses not enhance others strengths. At least when you’re dealing with abjurations.

And that’s excluding whether ROY deserves to be leader.

[Provengreil]

Elan has CL16 minimum. I’d say he has as much chance as V does.

But the people who are talking about “the most optimal action” are missing the point. The point is the impact on the real world. Elan excludes himself from the meeting because he didn’t feel confident attending. The first instinct of the Order SHOULD be to adjust the meeting to accommodate Elan’s anxiety and impaired following ability and make him feel comfortable attending. Anything else is CRIMINAL work practices. Instead Elan is told the meeting is optional and because of this he missed out on valuable CPD so that Minrah of all people has a better understanding of the big picture team capabilities than a founding member. Who remembers when Elan was ordered by V to run a mile to get Durkon to unpetify Haley when he could have Song of Freedom’d her out himself? Clearly no one. It’s never been acknowledged in comic and the Order are letting history repeat.

But they are fictional. It doesn’t matter what they do. What matters is that Rich Burlew, a person in the real world, is advocating for criminal work practices and portraying them in comic as acceptable. OOTS has a big reach amongst neurodiverse people and people who work with, live with and employ neurodiverse people. In that context, such behaviour would be criminal and Rich is portraying it as acceptable.

Elan’s certainly not getting a happy ending in a workplace where your employer shouts at you that you don’t count and then continues to treat you as second class without consequence.

Did you make a fresh account containing the author's name just to accuse him of criminal advocacy over letting a lighthearted manchild not attend a meeting that put much more serious characters to sleep? And then say that his current course of action is informed by missing information about the team member that he skipped the meeting with, observing those same capabilities in action during play?

[Space Sorceress]

Correction: Elan can run out of song. Bardic Music has a limited number of per day uses.


Ahhh, thank you, thank you. Knew I shoulda double-checked that before posting; my understanding of DnD rules is pretty basic :smallredface:

I just figured one couldn't run out of, you know, singing. Maybe he has to take cough drops after too many songs or something...

[ozmar]

Does anyone know whether the effects of a Weapon of Legacy would be affected by an AMF? I was hoping to see a lot of green when Roy finally got to hit Calder

AMF shuts down all magic. Period. Only artifacts are immune. A weapon of legacy is just a masterwork weapon in an AMF.

-Ozmar the DM

[Provengreil]

AMF shuts down all magic. Period. Only artifacts are immune. A weapon of legacy is just a masterwork weapon in an AMF.

-Ozmar the DM

This is only mostly true, actually.

It is a swanky, emotionally important masterwork weapon in an AMF.

[RichTF]

Another advantage of Protection From Evil is that it provides ongoing protection, so Calder won’t be able to try that same trick again during this fight (not on Sunny at least).

[woweedd]

Sounds like someone is miffed by the way the Order treats Elan.

To be fair... Elan's history (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0026.html) kind of warrants (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0421.html) their dismissing him. But they've gotten better (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0691.html), as he's also gotten better at contributing. There have been many (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0727.html), many (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0647.html), many (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1060.html) examples of Elan's increasing competence (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0949.html) and the party's (and especially Roy's (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1187.html)) acknowledgement thereof.

-Ozmar the Fair Witness
Personally, i'd have picked this (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1218.html)as an example of Roy acknowledging Elan's growth. Him actively deferring to Elan to make an extremely vital descion, showing that Roy really does trust his judgement, on this at least.

[ti'esar]

The way Calder keeps referring to Sunny as "aberration" is really starting to tick me off.

[ozmar]

Personally, i'd have picked this (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1218.html)as an example of Roy acknowledging Elan's growth. Him actively deferring to Elan to make an extremely vital descion, showing that Roy really does trust his judgement, on this at least.

I literally thought of that one, but looking up comics takes time :) so I just picked the ones I could quickly find.

-Ozmar the Semi-Lazy

[ozmar]

The way Calder keeps referring to Sunny as "aberration" is really starting to tick me off.

Well, he doesn't know its name. But also, Calder's kind of evil, so yeah... But I think its good that it ticks you off. Its a good response to the objectification that Calder probably applies to all beings other than him(her?)self. Other creatures are just slaves to Calder.

-Ozmar the Objective

[Tzardok]

The way Calder keeps referring to Sunny as "aberration" is really starting to tick me off.

On one hand, yes, but on the other, what else is he supposed to say? He can't say beholder because the name is copyrighted, and he doesn't know Sunny's name.

[Windscion]

The way Calder keeps referring to Sunny as "aberration" is really starting to tick me off.
He's a cult leader, seeing his minions as anything other than expendable isn't his thing.

[Yxylu]

I did have a question whether or not Bloodfeast chomping on Calder's neck would prevent the dragon's fire-breathing ability from functioning.


While I would rule that it would stop the breath weapon, were I the DM, in this case (right now, anyway), it’s moot. The anti-magic cone shuts down the breath weapon, since dragon breath is a supernatural ability.

[Heroic Lich]

First of all, Elan is not neurodivergent. He is of low intelligence, yes, but he is not mentally disabled

It's admittedly pedantic being neurodivergent doesn't mean mentally disabled, it means you have a different way of processing information and dealing with emotions, among other things. Elan is probably neurodivergent since he seems to have some elements of ADHD, although turned up to 11.


As for the Song of Freedom point...I don't know if he actually knew Song of Freedom at that point, it seems like a weird thing to bring up

But as for the other points, Song of Freedom has a long casting time so it is correct to say that it wouldn't work. Everything else is spot on.

[Kardwill]

Well, he doesn't know its name. But also, Calder's kind of evil, so yeah... But I think its good that it ticks you off. Its a good response to the objectification that Calder probably applies to all beings other than him(her?)self. Other creatures are just slaves to Calder.

-Ozmar the Objective

Well, yes. After all, Sunny is just a "fascinating little tool" whose only purpose in life is serving Calder's ambitions. Like everybody else, really. It's just the natural order of things.

Dragons gotta dragon.

[Coppercloud]

First of all, Elan is not neurodivergent. He is of low intelligence, yes, but he is not mentally disabled, in the real world sense, I'm sure it wasn't your intention, but your phrasing could be read as equating neurodivergence with mental disability, which rubbed me the wrong way.


As for the Song of Freedom point...I don't know if he actually knew Song of Freedom at that point, it seems like a weird thing to bring up.
Bards learn Song of Freedom before they get 5-th-level spells (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm), and Elan had those at this point (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0647.html). The only ways Elan could learn these abilities in reverse order would be if the OotS-specific Dashing Swordsman prestige class advanced bard spellcasting, or if Elan didn't get enough Perform skill ranks until two levels later. Which is possible, since this comic is not meant to be a treaty on build optimization, and also since despite being a human Elan's low intelligence would give him less points per level.


But as for the other points, Song of Freedom has a long casting time so it is correct to say that it wouldn't work. Everything else is spot on.
Song of Freedom was mentioned in the context of the fight against Zz'dtri at the arena, as an example of Elan forgetting his own abilities. I think Elan could have tried it at the time, but it would have slowed him down while he needed to run to warn Durkon anyway, so he might have decided against this course of action and not actually forgotten anything at all.

[BurlewContact]

First of all, Elan is not neurodivergent. He is of low intelligence, yes, but he is not mentally disabled, in the real world sense, he is, by D&D standards, fully mentally competent, and, like all characters with an Int score above 3, considered mentally competent, fully capable of things like being in combat, surviving in a dungeon, and telling right from wrong IE he has an alignment. As for the way they treat Elan, while there is certainly a degree of underestimation there (and, honestly, not entirely unwarranted), his competence has been acknowledged by the rest of the party on numerous occasions and, while Roy has snapped at him often (although, I notice you did not mention said snapping was shortly after learning his best friend was violently murdered), he is generally regarded as a member of the team on par. He excluded himself from the meeting, fully willingly, and it does not actually seem to have effected his effectiveness whatsoever. As for the Song of Freedom point...I don't know if he actually knew Song of Freedom at that point, it seems like a weird thing to bring up.



Since when? I mean, aside from the illusion magic early on, and that stopped pretty quickly after V started giving him pointers on how to use it effectively, I can't recall any notable instances of Elan forgetting about his powers any more so then the rest of the party sometimes do as well (IE V forgetting about Blackwing all the time, pre-development).

I’m aware that Elan isn’t neurodiverse. I’m ALSO aware Rich Burlew promised to include members of every marginalised minority group in his comic and he seems to have missed a particularly large group who is a significant part of the fan base.

You speak of context regarding Roy’s view on Elan. The context that matters is Rich saying that stress brings out the true person. This means regardless of what Roy says and does prior and subsequent, he believes Elan doesn’t count. That’s the real Roy. And I think, in real life, that an employer who says that, that’s him DONE. Expelled. Dismissed from leadership. And of the other members, Elan is best positioned to replace him as leader.

Of course, if we want to have it that Roy didn’t mean those things he said than maybe we should forgive Tarquin when he said he didn’t mean what he said and the Order should have let him aboard. After all, in real life the parent is right that their child was mistreated in the workplace nine time out of ten.

As for the team being “nicer to Elan” that doesn’t matter either. What matters is procedures to accommodate all members are present. Anything else is criminal and illegal, regardless of good intent. Procedurally the Order failed. Rich Burlew said the comic should be judged by its impact on the real world. Showing that you don’t need to make adjustments to a meeting because one member is struggling to follow and that it doesn’t matter if said member loses our on CPD is an example of a NEGATIVE REAL WORLD IMPACT.

As for Elan uniquely forgetting his powers, it’s the only running joke of that ilk which carries past early book 2 (other than Blackwing) and Elan forgetting illusions is the subject of a book 6 bonus comic in the Giant Fight. But the most notable example is the Song of Freedom thing (which Elan was definitely a 13th level Bard during). You wouldn’t want your co-worker making you run a mile because neither of you knew you could do something and then it never gets brought up again. Neither should Elan.

[kenlund]

I find myself if this battle is a n opportunity to get some of the Order the XP they need to hit their next levels. It would be a good time right before the big boss battle with Xykon. And beating a dragon is usually worth a lot of XP.

I've played D&D, but I'm not clear on the rules for a behol...I mean creature like Sunny using anti-magic. Will Bloodfeast polymorph back to a lizard when no longer in Sunny's gaze? Or has this removed the spell effect?

[ozmar]

I feel like if we're applying real-world laws to a D&D world we're going to hit much bigger crimes from the Order than some less than ideal treatment of a coworker with ADHD.


IKR. Of all the things to get upset about! "Oh noes, the Order doesn't model best-practices in workplace inclusion!" Never mind the wholesale plundering and murder of goblins in dungeons... the extra-legal vigilantism... the attempts to foment rebellion and topple foreign governments... impersonating royalty (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0226.html)...

-Ozmar the Fantasy Lawyer

[Tubercular Ox]

The real crime here is against the Bluish people who were unfairly robbed of the only representation they had. It's bad enough that literally everyone punched down on them after the Rooster Teeth thing, but ignoring Rich's casual erasure of them from history in favor of arguing about workplace practices is cooperating with genocide.

[gatemansgc]

I love Sunny! So earnest.

Haley looks stressed. I'm guessing Minrah in full armor weighs a good bit more than either Elan or Bandana.

Thanks, Rich!

oh true, she is used to carrying lighter characters!

[BurlewContact]

I'll be honest I just assumed Haley picked up Minrah because she was closer and not in the anti-magic field. Probably the correct tactical choice and if I was Elan's player I wouldn't be at all mad about it.



Here's the thing, Tarquin is acting in bad faith and Roy is not.



I feel like if we're applying real-world laws to a D&D world we're going to hit much bigger crimes from the Order than some less than ideal treatment of a coworker with ADHD.



If I had to run a mile to get something and I realized I had a tool that could have done the job in my pocket I would be deeply frustrated, but it's also the sort of mistake that happens in a high-stress situation (and which in this case had an obvious narrative purpose of taking Haley out of the fight with Z and getting Nale into contact with Malack)



I do in fact specifically remember Rich saying that he was hesitant to include an explicitly trans character because he was worried about getting things wrong.


Elan is also out of the AMF and Dispel is ranged.

I agree Tarquin’s apology is insincere. But so is Belkar’s after “character development”. But ultimately that evolved into something more. Maybe Tarquin: Prisoner of Elan could evolve his behaviour. But Haley denies that opportunity by shooting Tarquin in the face, talking over Elan and acting against his best interests.

Application of real world laws is irrelevant to the fantasy stuff because that’s clearly tongue in cheek with obvious “don’t try this at home” disclaimers. What I’m concerned about is real. It’s a real thing that could happen and Rich portrays it without a disclaimer.

[hroþila]

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ba/43/10/ba43109eb308e41e295042760ffde921.jpg

Anyway, cool fight. In the comic, I mean

[Heroic Lich]

Y'all think that if those crack in the floor didn't disrupt the stasis, that Calder will be half in stasis if the AMF turns off?
I've actually been wondering about that for a while, but since Sunny's kept her AMF eye centred on him maybe not? I don't think it will at this point anyways but that could have been a good strategy earlier on.

[danielxcutter]

{scrubbed}

[Heroic Lich]

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}
{scrubbed}

[Provengreil]

I've actually been wondering about that for a while, but since Sunny's kept her AMF eye centred on him maybe not? I don't think it will at this point anyways but that could have been a good strategy earlier on.

It really kind of depends on how the trap actually works I guess. Thinking on it, it's likely that someone his a trigger on the way in and it didn't matter because Calder was already moving, so by now they're off either way. Be kinda funny to have him half mobile though.

Maybe that's how the two sides of the battle find time to use words and not wounds?

[arimareiji]

IKR. Of all the things to get upset about! "Oh noes, the Order doesn't model best-practices in workplace inclusion!" Never mind the wholesale plundering and murder of goblins in dungeons... the extra-legal vigilantism... the attempts to foment rebellion and topple foreign governments... impersonating royalty (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0226.html)...

-Ozmar the Fantasy Lawyer

Wrt your input throughout the thread… You probably get this all the time, but I wanted to say that I'm a huge fan of your work. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0932.html) (^_~)

(I just find myself wondering who fermented perceived grievances long enough to decide creating …Detract was a good idea.)

[Psyren]

2. Minrah: what spell is she casting?


Pro:Evil is my guess, as she has used that anti-domination (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1104.html) tactic previously. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1105.html)



Is dragon subdual even a thing in 3.x?

As written, only constructs and undead are immune to nonlethal baseline. True Dragons are susceptible, so knocking him out is feasible if they go that route.

If that weren't enough, this overland movement quote seems to explicitly state that dragons are subject to nonlethal damage:



Dragons do not tire as quickly as other creatures when moving overland on the ground. If a dragon attempts a hustle or a forced march, check for nonlethal damage once every 2 hours instead of every hour.

[Rinazina]

If the Calder phase ends soon with his demise, only two factors could be affected:


A giant Tyrannousurus (can it be shrinked?) that otherwise can't leave the room.
Serini perhaps trusting the Order even more than before?

... and so, I don't see this as more than an appropriate level random encounter...
What narrative purpose do you see in it so far? if none, then Calder isn't over yet?

[Provengreil]

If the Calder phase ends soon with his demise, only two factors could be affected:


A giant Tyrannousurus (can it be shrinked?) that otherwise can't leave the room.
Serini perhaps trusting the Order even more than before?

... and so, I don't see this as more than an appropriate level random encounter...
What narrative purpose do you see in it so far? if none, then Calder isn't over yet?

Indeed, this is why I said earlier the Calder thing isn't just going to be them pinning him, killing him, and moving on. Too much effort for no payout on a narrative side for that.

Serini's interactions with the order going forward are highly likely to hinge on how this finishes.

And Bloodfeast is only big while in the AMF. It's providing Calder with quite the tactical dilemma: Party gets magic, or party gets dinosaur. Which would you choose?

[ti'esar]

On one hand, yes, but on the other, what else is he supposed to say? He can't say beholder because the name is copyrighted, and he doesn't know Sunny's name.

I mean, that's not wrong, but it's not like Calder is so flush with minions here that he needs a specific identifier. He's going out of his way to use the most dismissive term possible.

It's a small detail, but it's definitely an effective move for establishing him as "evil, but also kinda a ****", to paraphrase Rich's comments on Xykon.

[The MunchKING]

Ahhh, thank you, thank you. Knew I shoulda double-checked that before posting; my understanding of DnD rules is pretty basic :smallredface:

I just figured one couldn't run out of, you know, singing. Maybe he has to take cough drops after too many songs or something...

I mean technically you're right. He can't run out of singing.

WHat he CAN run out is magic power to put IN his singing. :smallwink:



On one hand, yes, but on the other, what else is he supposed to say? He can't say beholder because the name is copyrighted, and he doesn't know Sunny's name.

I mean he could have ASKED at any point before the Order of the Stick showed up.

Just goes to show that as a Cult Leader he just doesn't care. I know all the most powerful members of MY cult in Cult of the Lamb. :p



But as for the other points, Song of Freedom has a long casting time so it is correct to say that it wouldn't work. Everything else is spot on.

They WERE Fighting a wizard at the time. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0790.html) I don't think they had a minute for unbroken singing time (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm#songofFreedom), esp. as a Ranger was rolling in to dual shot anyone that would have helped V's chance.

But 12th does seem like Elan would have been at that level by that point.


I've played D&D, but I'm not clear on the rules for a behol...I mean creature like Sunny using anti-magic. Will Bloodfeast polymorph back to a lizard when no longer in Sunny's gaze? Or has this removed the spell effect?

Baleful Polymorph has duration:Permanent. SO after he leaves the AMF, Bloodfeast will be back to a tiny aggressive lizard.

[Yirggzmb]

You are creating your own assumption as to Elan's reasons for not attending the meeting. It could just as easily (and frankly more likely) be because he just finds meetings boring, and he would rather spend time getting to know their new friend Sunny.

Man, I was just thinking "If I were there, I'd so much rather go hang out with Sunny than sit in a long boring meeting". Not because I'm "too anxious about whether I can contribute" but because "omg that sounds really boring". I don't think there's anyway you can "accommodate" a meeting like that into being less boring either, other than just not having it at all.

Elan had a choice about whether to attend. He chose "nah". They were perfectly able to text him (ask him telepathically) if his presence became required or they had questions. And he can look at the meeting notes (or ask Roy for the short version) afterwards if he wants to.

Sounds ideal to me.

[Psyren]

If the Calder phase ends soon with his demise, only two factors could be affected:


A giant Tyrannousurus (can it be shrinked?) that otherwise can't leave the room.
Serini perhaps trusting the Order even more than before?

... and so, I don't see this as more than an appropriate level random encounter...
What narrative purpose do you see in it so far? if none, then Calder isn't over yet?

#1 the dinosaur is actually perma-shrunk. It will revert to pocket size the moment Sunny puts their lens back in or stops looking at it.

#2 That's a likely outcome of this battle, yes. It would be nice if the paladins could have participated though, her opinion of them is even lower than that her opinion of the Order.



Pivoting to Serini...how does the Troll treatment impact her aging? I know Troll lifespan is around 100 years, but would the creatures age out more rapidly than that if they did not have regeneration? Thus, does Serini have any additional Troll-influenced longesvity? For some reason, many new Troll questions have come to mind.

- M

I think her halfling side is contributing more to her lifespan than the troll side.

[ozmar]

Wrt your input throughout the thread… You probably get this all the time, but I wanted to say that I'm a huge fan of your work. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0932.html) (^_~)

(I just find myself wondering who fermented perceived grievances long enough to decide creating …Detract was a good idea.)

Gosh, thanks!

-Ozmar the Blushing

[The MunchKING]

Banjo players?

He made their rep into a GOD... puppet thing.

Sounds like pandering to me. :smalltongue:

[Tzardok]

I mean, that's not wrong, but it's not like Calder is so flush with minions here that he needs a specific identifier. He's going out of his way to use the most dismissive term possible.


Wouldn't the most dismissive term be either "Slave" or "You there!"?



Pivoting to Serini...how does the Troll treatment impact her aging? I know Troll lifespan is around 100 years, but would the creatures age out more rapidly than that if they did not have regeneration? Thus, does Serini have any additional Troll-influenced longesvity? For some reason, many new Troll questions have come to mind.

- M
There exists the possibility that a troll without regeneration would be more longlived. Regeneration possibly puts a lot of stress on the body and consumes ressources that would otherwise be spent on keeping the body going.

[fuschiawarrior]

Wouldn't the most dismissive term be either "Slave" or "You there!"?


Wouldn't you find demeaning if your boss or cult leader used "human" to refer to you? In my opinion all three are equally bad.

[Tubercular Ox]

Show me where, exactly, The Giant promised to included members of EVERY marginalized group. Because there's a lot of them. Left handed people? Sikhs? People with Tourette's Syndrome? Kleptomaniacs? Schizophrenics? Banjo players? Seems like an impossible task.


Don't forget the Blues.

[Tzardok]

Wouldn't you find demeaning if your boss or cult leader used "human" to refer to you? In my opinion all three are equally bad.

Probably, but I'd find it less demeaning than "slave" or "servant". Not to mention any actual insults.

[Ridureyu]

Wait... is someone accusing the cartoonist of breaking labor laws and influencing employers to break labor laws?

And sent him an email? And is taking "other steps" without a response to said email?

Because the characters didn't force Elan into a meeting where he would not have been able to contribute anyway, because that's not his skillset?

Do I have this right?

[Mordar]

There exists the possibility that a troll without regeneration would be more longlived. Regeneration possibly puts a lot of stress on the body and consumes ressources that would otherwise be spent on keeping the body going.

An interesting possibility. One could argue the damage caused by the stress could be regenerated, though, and the demand for additional sustenance should be significant in any event.

In fact, I recall some mass-media using that as a story by-product...the thing regenerating needed lots and lots of food to get better. Abominable, maybe?

Though I grant my original question was, at least in some regards, an editorial comment...I do find the topic very interesting.

So, would adding Troll-ish regeneration extend, shorten or have no impact on a halfling lifespan? Is it dependent on when the grafting occurred? Didn't some version(s) of (A)D&D Trolls also have a disease or poison effect from their claws?

- M

[Lumus]

that's kind of a draconian viewpoint, don't you think?

So you're saying this might be Calder's alt account?

[Space Sorceress]

I mean, honestly, looking back at the "meeting" strip, I felt like having the party's Bard befriend a powerful Be[REDACTED] and establish a rapport with them was a perfectly productive use of his time. Didn't think twice about it.

Also, as somebody who actually has an anxiety disorder, essentially crowding around someone and drilling them about their feelings regarding a meeting they've expressed implicit desire to not participate in... well, that sounds pretty stressful to me. Because then I'd be worried that I somehow expressed my OWN feelings wrong.

At its core, my own social anxiety disorder (absolutely NOT speaking for everyone) is ultimately predicated on a fear that I won't be accepted, and/or am misunderstanding social cues, somebody's feelings, etc. Elan, however, read the room and decided what he wanted to do. "Is this a meeting? It sounds like a meeting" does not 'unexpressed desire to attend a meeting' make. The Order accommodated his desire to go do something else, and in all honesty, playing with Sunny for a while really WAS basically a team-building exercise. You want the child with all the cool magic eyeballs to feel comfortable in your group, you know? :smalltongue:

[KorvinStarmast]

Elan, however, read the room and decided what he wanted to do. "Is this a meeting? It sounds like a meeting" does not 'unexpressed desire to attend a meeting' make. The Order accommodated his desire to go do something else, and in all honesty, playing with Sunny for a while really WAS basically a team-building exercise. You want the child with all the cool magic eyeballs to feel comfortable in your group, you know? :smalltongue:
Having been in, literally, thousands of meetings in my life (work related) I can utterly empathize with Elan's desire to skip a meeting. :smallbiggrin:

[Somniloquist]

Are we done derailing? Back to the strip at hand, what's Sunny going to do next? Probably whatever Serini says, but what will that be?

Also, what would be the tactically best thing for Sunny to do, which is an entirely separate question?

[Space Sorceress]

Having been in, literally, thousands of meetings in my life (work related) I can utterly empathize with Elan's desire to skip a meeting. :smallbiggrin:

Right? I feel like disliking meetings is pretty damned close to a universal human agreement.

LIKE HOW MUCH DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME SUCKS :smallfurious:

Got it out of my system. Hmf :smallmad:


Also, what would be the tactically best thing for Sunny to do, which is an entirely separate question?

Given that maintaining the AMF seems like a pretty good idea, I feel like "doing absolutely nothing" is a perfectly valid option :smallwink:

Disclaimer: I am absolutely TERRIBLE at tactics.

[KorvinStarmast]

Right? I feel like disliking meetings is pretty damned close to a universal human agreement. And yet people keep having meetings. Arrrrrrrrrrgghhhhhhhhhhh!

LIKE HOW MUCH DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME SUCKS :smallfurious: Don't get me started ... :smallyuk:

[pendell]

Right? I feel like disliking meetings is pretty damned close to a universal human agreement.

LIKE HOW MUCH DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME SUCKS :smallfurious:

Got it out of my system. Hmf :smallmad:

And yet we still flippin' do it every year. Everyone I know .. {scrubbed} .. they all HATE daylight savings time . And yet we're still doing it.

Sadly,

Brian P.

[Space Sorceress]

And yet we still flippin' do it every year. Everyone I know .. {scrub the post, scrub the quote} .. they all HATE daylight savings time . And yet we're still doing it.

Sadly,

Brian P.

I AM AT LEAST SEVERAL OF THESE THINGS AND I AGREE WITH YOUR SENTIMENT :smallfurious:

[Heroic Lich]

Are we done derailing? Back to the strip at hand, what's Sunny going to do next? Probably whatever Serini says, but what will that be?

Also, what would be the tactically best thing for Sunny to do, which is an entirely separate question?

I think that barring Serini giving other orders, keeping here eye on Calder would be the best option. If Calder pops off any defensive spells things are gonna go from bad to worse. Even without magic the order probably has better options engaging in melee like this. It's not optimal but the group can't risk Calder casting anything dangerous. He's already cast two 9th level spells along with one 8th level spell. Calder's probably got tonnes of these to MESS up the group. Keeping the eye on him, between Bloodfeast, Roy, Belkar and Durkon the dragon might actually be done, provided he doesn't pull off any tricks. Maybe he'll throw one of them into Sunny to derail things since this is a weird amount of set-up for him to die right here.
Although an anticlimax might be the point.

[Taragorn]

And yet we still flippin' do it every year. Everyone I know .. {scrub the post, scrub the quote} .. they all HATE daylight savings time . And yet we're still doing it.

Sadly,

Brian P.

I love daylight savings. I don't want daylight at 4 am in the summer, and I love having it at 8:30 pm.

[Kantaki]

Wait... is someone accusing the cartoonist of breaking labor laws and influencing employers to break labor laws?

And sent him an email? And is taking "other steps" without a response to said email?

Because the characters didn't force Elan into a meeting where he would not have been able to contribute anyway, because that's not his skillset?

Do I have this right?

Could be satire?


Having been in, literally, thousands of meetings in my life (work related) I can utterly empathize with Elan's desire to skip a meeting. :smallbiggrin:

I mean, they can be pretty great for a little nap?
On the other hand I wouldn't need one if it wasn't for the meeting, so still kinda a mixed bag at best.:smallbiggrin:

[pendell]

I love daylight savings. I don't want daylight at 4 am in the summer, and I love having it at 8:30 pm.

It's not so much an issue now because I work from home, but I want it light as early as possible. First, because I have to drive on those roads. Second, because kids are standing outside at school bus stops waiting for busses. Darker mornings = drowsy drivers = Kids getting run over in the dark (https://www.cars.com/articles/daylight-saving-time-dangers-deadly-crashes-spike-studies-show-463423/).

Not to mention, the older I get the more disruptive I find the time change. Pick a time and stick with it, I say.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

(PS, thanks for the link to Rich's rant about how he tells his story. He's a bit wrong: you can be discriminated against for being color blind.

Imean, yeah, you can be refused a job for not being capable of doing the job. That's not discrimination, though.



Also, Daylight Saving (no s) Time is best time. Y'all can enjoy wallowing in darkness at 5 in afternoon if you want, but I'm all for year-round DST.

[Ridureyu]

Concerning "reasonable accommodation" vs "discrimination" for Elan in terms of the planning meeting:

Reasonable accommodation for Elan would be not requiring him to attend meetings where he would not want to contribute, nor could he realistically contribute. He has plenty of strengths and contributions to the party, but he is not strong in sitting down long beforehand and plotting out a course of action. His attention span does not allow that, and it would be unreasonable to try to fit him into that role. He's very good when told something just before a situation (especially concerning his attention span), and excellent at improvising ways to support the party when plans go awry. Therefore, Roy absolutely reasonably accommodates him - whether it's a "disability" or merely quirks of his personality, however we want to define this. Roy is playing to Elan's strengths instead of trying to force him into a role or archetype where he is not suited.

[Space Sorceress]

Also, Daylight Saving (no s) Time is best time. Y'all can enjoy wallowing in darkness at 5 in afternoon if you want, but I'm all for year-round DST.

Oh don't get me wrong, I really don't mind what time it is exactly as such. Just don't arbitrarily move clocks ahead or behind a whole hour on some random day and I'm all good. HMF :smallmad:

[JT]

Once again, Belkar demonstrates that he cares about his little friends - although I'm not sure Bloodfeast the Extreminator counts as little at this moment.

Nope. Definitely something non-"little" at this time. See https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0922.html

[gbaji]

Wouldn't you find demeaning if your boss or cult leader used "human" to refer to you? In my opinion all three are equally bad.

I'm not sure where "evil enemy red dragon who just met and dominated you like 2 minutes ago" transformed into "your boss or cult leader".

But as a broad concept? If I'm the only human in a group of other non-huiman people, and the person doesn't know my name, and it happens to be the most accurate descriptor someone could use to make sure I know I'm the one being addressed? No. Not at all.


And yet we still flippin' do it every year. Everyone I know ... they all HATE daylight savings time . And yet we're still doing it.

Because more people would be upset at the effects of not having daylight savings time than are upset by having it. Yeah. I know. Crazy, right? But... bear with me here.

Most people dislike the actual time change. And that's a reasonable thing. But it happens 2 days a year. Annoying, but brief relatively speaking.

Most people who dislike something about the actual time and the "daylight" elements of it, actually complain about "standard time" and not the actual "daylight savings time" period of the calendar. And that's what we just normally get in terms of hours of daylight per day. Nothing at all we can do about it (well, except shifting to "daylight savings all the time", which I've heard people talk about, but I suspect they would hate just as much if it were actually implemented, if not more). Case in point:


It's not so much an issue now because I work from home, but I want it light as early as possible. First, because I have to drive on those roads. Second, because kids are standing outside at school bus stops waiting for busses. Darker mornings = drowsy drivers = Kids getting run over in the dark .

That's "standard time". It would be that dark that early whether we had daylight savings time or not. Or, if we switched to DST all year round, it would get dark an hour earlier in the winter months, and you'd be complaining about driving home in the dark. Or your kids walking home from school in the dark. Or your kids doing afterschool activities in the dark, etc (I'll point out that the absurd solution number two I mention below would actually fix this. Of course, your kids would have to learn stuff 20% faster during the winter months, but it's all relative right?)

I suspect that the vast majority of people actually really do enjoy the fact that daylight extends longer into the evening during the summer months because of daylight savings time, rather than having sunrise occur at like 4:30 in the morning, and would actuallly dislike it if that were removed.

It's hard to say exactly, but I suspect that most people actually do prefer the effects of daylight savings. They just don't like the abrupt time change. And, given the time period, I just happened to be giving this some thought over the last couple days, and have come up with two "solutions":

1. Given that we live in an age with all our clocks being digital and whatnot, just have like "leap seconds" (or reverse) happen every day. We could seriously just adjust the clock skew a tiny bit each day, and none of us would really notice it. Computers don't have a problem with this, since they just count time from an arbitrary starting point anyway (in total seconds since epoc time). What you see on your clock is just the application of a timezone function to that base time. Could be easy enough to do this. Might be an issue having to constantly reset your oven(s) maybe (about the only clocks most people use that don't auto sync to some nntp source).

2. A slight(ly absurd) variation of the above. We actually change the duration of the length of time a second actually lasts at different times of the day througout the year. That way, night and day time are always the same length of time!. I mean, this might wreak a bit of havoc in just about everything, but it would certainly be... fun! (yeah, I may have been in a sillly delerium when I came up with this one). I haven't quite worked out the details in terms of latitudinal effects, but I'm sure we could make it work.

[Zancloufer]

So there appears to be a bit of an argument about Elan being under utilized because they didn't send him to dispel the Charm Spell on Sunny?

Two BIG problems with this;

1] Song of Freedom requires 1 minute (10 rounds) of UNINTERRUPTED casting where you have to remain within 30ft of the target. It's essentially useless in most combat situations.

2] Dispel Magic is a 3rd level spell that requires you make a check of 1d20+CL(up to 10) vs a DC of 11+CL of the spell you are trying to dispel. Since Cador can cast 8th level spells his CL is 15+ which means dispel magic has a 0-20% chance of success depending on Cador's final level.
Protection from evil is a 1st level spell with a 100% chance of working that also gives Sunny a +2 for his saves and AC vs Cador.

So yeah, not sure how taking the most tactically viable option, by a mile, is discrimination against Elan.
I mean it might be but discrimination has a fairly broad definition and you can technically discriminate based off someone's actual ability to complete a task.

[Alexandrite]

With how badly Calder is losing here I feel like he'll escape and become another threat the team needs to deal with. He was built up as someone the entire Scribble team had to work together to beat and he's pretty distinct as a character already, so it'd be weird if he just got written off after five pages.

[Elkad]

I made a take that explains my larger issue in post 55. But in general it’s good practice to shore up weaknesses not enhance others strengths. At least when you’re dealing with abjurations.

And that’s excluding whether ROY deserves to be leader.

This is D&D. Given the choice, you boost strengths to infallibility, not weaknesses to mediocrity.

Like this (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html)

[Elves]

Standard t-rex grappling or fighting an old+ red dragon doesn't work in the rules, but it's possible if the t-rex is advanced to Gargantuan size, which seems reasonable since it and the dragon look comparable in size. T-rexes can be advanced up to 54 HD

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

[arimareiji]

Also, Daylight Saving (no s) Time is best time. Y'all can enjoy wallowing in darkness at 5 in afternoon if you want, but I'm all for year-round DST.

Just a wacky thought: Instead of redefining time and our position in orbit around the sun (to be more convenient to those who define our schedules), why can't those who define our schedules adjust them? (^_^)º

(/down with Daylight Shaving)

[Precure]

Always nice when a popular Webcomic promotes workplace discrimination

He's only metaphorically neurodivergent and a minor.


Hey Giant, looks like Calder has the wrong horn broken in this one.

I knew it! He's faking it!

[fuschiawarrior]

I'm not sure where "evil enemy red dragon who just met and dominated you like 2 minutes ago" transformed into "your boss or cult leader".

But as a broad concept? If I'm the only human in a group of other non-huiman people, and the person doesn't know my name, and it happens to be the most accurate descriptor someone could use to make sure I know I'm the one being addressed? No. Not at all.

I thought it was clear I was being tongue in cheek comparing him to a boss because as you pointed out Calder is obviously evil and dominated Sunny and however he calls them it's one of the least evil thing he did since his introduction even if callous.

It together with how Calder never bothered to learn Sunny's name, called them tool and breathed fire on the OotS for not being servile shows how Calder sees himself as above everyone ele and considers others as tools to achieve his goals. It's neat how strong his characterization is with so little screen time. Kudos to Rich.

[gbaji]

(/down with Daylight Shaving)

I'm totally on board with the idea of shaving where the sun dont shine. :smallbiggrin:

[Peelee]

Just a wacky thought: Instead of redefining time and our position in orbit around the sun (to be more convenient to those who define our schedules), why can't those who define our schedules adjust them? (^_^)º

Imean, obviously that would work, but I'm going with what's possible. :smalltongue:

[ziproot]

Fun fact: the US made Daylight Saving Time permanent in the 70s, and it was quickly repealed after people had to commute to work in the dark ({scrubbed}). A majority of US citizens want the changing back and forth to end, but they’re split on what to make permanent. I personally would prefer making Standard Time permanent, as studies show that humans never fully adapt to Daylight Saving Time (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4677771/).

As for what spell Minrah cast, that was protection from evil (panel 7) (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1298.html).

[Provengreil]

Standard t-rex grappling or fighting an old+ red dragon doesn't work in the rules, but it's possible if the t-rex is advanced to Gargantuan size, which seems reasonable since it and the dragon look comparable in size. T-rexes can be advanced up to 54 HD

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

There was also more than a little debate in the last few threads as to Calder's actual size category. It's quite possible he's not as large as his apparent age and spell levels suggest he could be, especially if he took the subtly implied mindbender levels and they do not count as monster HD, which would advance size. Also makes his breath weapon a little more survivable.

If that's in play, then a t-rex has much more of a chance than than the book stats imply.

But there's also another factor: Bloodfeast isn't wild. He was trained by the Empire of Blood and may well be carrying a nonstandard stat block for his creature type. He almost certainly has improved grab and a pretty good strength score, and it wouldn't change his size, but some of the other stuff in there might be different in a way that's helping him.

[elecampane]

So glad the ridiculous argument from the previous thread, saying "a 78+ Hp Allosaurus maybe perhaps got stabbed with a nonmagical greatsword, he might be dead", got laid to rest in this comic.
So sad the new completely bonkers argument has taken over this thread. Seriously, "OOTS should be held to the standards of modern-day employers with HR departments because real-life employers read this comic and that might inform their actions" is completely inane-sounding to me. Like, OOTS use child labor, have a convicted mass murderer in their midst, a non-convicted (albeit repentant) genocidal mage, and don't even get me started on the sexual harassment violations. Not to mention all the stealing, plundering, defying authorities and so on and so forth.

And, like, them agreeing to Elan doing teambuilding exercise instead of suffering through a meeting he didn't want to attend and would not contribute to is indeed them accommodating him. I don't understand how the takes "Elan is very capable and is the only one of the Order deserving to be a leader" and "Elan depends on others to make him do hard things or chew hard things to little pieces so he can digest them" are coming up simultaneously in the same argument. Because the second argument is exactly what "they should've found a way to include Elan in a meeting against his wishes" essentially is.

Also, the assumption that they didn't ask Elan to cast greater dispel magic on Sunny because they forgot he could is too out of nowhere. The chance of dispel magic working depends on difference between caster levels of the original spell caster, and the caster of dispel. Calder's at least level 15 (Ocular ray), possibly 17, so the DC to dispel would be 26+ against 1d20+Elan's caster level. Why use a spell that will more likely fail than work, and would take a 5th level slot, when one could use a 1st level spell that will 100% work and also provide continuous protection?
I'll give you one thing: Haley's attacks would probably be more useful than whatever song Elan's playing, and she'd spend her turn lifting Minrah up. If Elan had invested points in use magic device, which is a Cha skill and is a class skill for him, he would be able to use Haley's wands (neither Fly nor Protection from alignment are Bard spells, thus requiring UMD), he would've been able to act better in this situation. But he did not. Suggesting the Order should've used his magic just to make him feel included, even though it would puts everyone in greater danger is just... bad; pretty sure that would be actually criminal in a real-life employment situation.


Standard t-rex grappling or fighting an old+ red dragon doesn't work in the rules, but it's possible if the t-rex is advanced to Gargantuan size, which seems reasonable since it and the dragon look comparable in size. T-rexes can be advanced up to 54 HD

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm
Yes, but Bloodfeast is an Allosaurus. Advancement: 11-20 HD (Huge); 21-30 HD (Gargantuan).




Because more people would be upset at the effects of not having daylight savings time than are upset by having it. Yeah. I know. Crazy, right? But... bear with me here.

Most people dislike the actual time change. And that's a reasonable thing. But it happens 2 days a year. Annoying, but brief relatively speaking.

Most people who dislike something about the actual time and the "daylight" elements of it, actually complain about "standard time" and not the actual "daylight savings time" period of the calendar. And that's what we just normally get in terms of hours of daylight per day. Nothing at all we can do about it (well, except shifting to "daylight savings all the time", which I've heard people talk about, but I suspect they would hate just as much if it were actually implemented, if not more). <...>

Weren't there medical studies that found a measurable adverse effects on human health, brought by this "annoying, but brief" 2 days a year clock-shifts? From myself I can say that my country had relinquished DST some 10 years ago, and I hadn't missed that bastard even for a second since.

[The MunchKING]

But there's also another factor: Bloodfeast isn't wild. He was trained by the Empire of Blood and may well be carrying a nonstandard stat block for his creature type. He almost certainly has improved grab and a pretty good strength score, and it wouldn't change his size, but some of the other stuff in there might be different in a way that's helping him.

If it's all training, what if it's not stat boosts (Which tend to reflect your innate stats), but CLASS LEVELS! :smalleek:

Bloodfeast is going to turn out to have like 10 levels of Fighter on top his monster HD. :smallamused:

[Provengreil]

If it's all training, what if it's not stat boosts (Which tend to reflect your innate stats), but CLASS LEVELS! :smalleek:

Bloodfeast is going to turn out to have like 10 levels of Fighter on top his monster HD. :smallamused:

Well that's not far off from what I'm suggesting, really. Maybe not fighter levels exactly, but warrior (maybe a slight homebrew, like "monster warrior" or "trained beast"): improved BAB to 1 and a remixed feat list alone can close the normal grapple score gap by about 13 or so.

[drazen]

.

Because more people would be upset at the effects of not having daylight savings time than are upset by having it. Yeah. I know. Crazy, right? But... bear with me here.

Most people dislike the actual time change. And that's a reasonable thing. But it happens 2 days a year. Annoying, but brief relatively speaking.

Most people who dislike something about the actual time and the "daylight" elements of it, actually complain about "standard time" and not the actual "daylight savings time" period of the calendar. And that's what we just normally get in terms of hours of daylight per day. Nothing at all we can do about it (well, except shifting to "daylight savings all the time", which I've heard people talk about, but I suspect they would hate just as much if it were actually implemented, if not more). Case in point:

That's "standard time". It would be that dark that early whether we had daylight savings time or not. Or, if we switched to DST all year round, it would get dark an hour earlier in the winter months, and you'd be complaining about driving home in the dark. Or your kids walking home from school in the dark. Or your kids doing afterschool activities in the dark, etc (I'll point out that the absurd solution number two I mention below would actually fix this. Of course, your kids would have to learn stuff 20% faster during the winter months, but it's all relative right?)

I suspect that the vast majority of people actually really do enjoy the fact that daylight extends longer into the evening during the summer months because of daylight savings time, rather than having sunrise occur at like 4:30 in the morning, and would actuallly dislike it if that were removed.

It's hard to say exactly, but I suspect that most people actually do prefer the effects of daylight savings. They just don't like the abrupt time change. And, given the time period, I just happened to be giving this some thought over the last couple days, and have come up with two "solutions":

1. Given that we live in an age with all our clocks being digital and whatnot, just have like "leap seconds" (or reverse) happen every day. We could seriously just adjust the clock skew a tiny bit each day, and none of us would really notice it. Computers don't have a problem with this, since they just count time from an arbitrary starting point anyway (in total seconds since epoc time). What you see on your clock is just the application of a timezone function to that base time. Could be easy enough to do this. Might be an issue having to constantly reset your oven(s) maybe (about the only clocks most people use that don't auto sync to some nntp source).

2. A slight(ly absurd) variation of the above. We actually change the duration of the length of time a second actually lasts at different times of the day througout the year. That way, night and day time are always the same length of time!. I mean, this might wreak a bit of havoc in just about everything, but it would certainly be... fun! (yeah, I may have been in a sillly delerium when I came up with this one). I haven't quite worked out the details in terms of latitudinal effects, but I'm sure we could make it work.

Nitpick: with year-round DST, you're no longer driving home in the dark. However, the kids are waiting for the school bus in the dark, which is why year-round DST was abandoned when attempted in the 1970s.

What's funny is that something like 80% of the people want to abolish the time change but they are evenly divided about HOW to do this. Nearly half want year round DST. Nearly half want year round standard time. A few silly outliers want to split the difference with a 30-minute shift.

As for me, as a golfer, I wholeheartedly endorse the only possible correct solution to this conundrum, Daylight Golfing Time, wherein we set the clocks ahead FOUR to SIX hours so that I can golf until midnight.

In all seriousness, I have long speculated that most peoples' feelings usually strongly depend on which end of the time zone they live in. In Maine, it's dark at 4PM for a couple months of the year. But in western Eastern time it's light past 10 PM in the summer... it's just that most people probably think of that kind of daylight as more of an Alaska/Norway kind of thing.

Most of New England should probably be on Atlantic time, but they're on Eastern time likely due to business with and proximity to New York City.

[DreamCreator]

There is definitely going to be some drama around Serini seeming to have ENTIRELY DIPPED during this fight. Likely to save her own skin. Although I'm surprised she would have left behind Sunny..

The only other possibility I can think of is that she ran off to grab reinforcements or some other magical doodad to help with the fight.

[bunsen_h]

"...and what's a gllrtkyt? I need to do what you say in the order you say it, after all, and I can't close my gllrtkyt unless I know what it is."

Pedantically: the instruction was "turn your gllrtkyt", not to close it.


To be fair, “polymorphed Allosaurus” isn’t exactly that high up on the priority list most of the time.

That depends on whether the situation involves concern about the possibility that one might show up (extremely unlikely, under most circumstances) or about what to do with a temporarily-un-polymorphed allosaurus that is actually in the room. The former is not much of a priority; the latter usually is.


I'm in your camp on this one, I think. Possibly Bloodfeast will have a rematch.

If Calder is killed, I don't think the Order is likely to leave the body lying around. They're aware of the possibility that it could be used against them, V has disintegrated vanquished foes in the past and is aware of the option, and Sunny has unlimited disintegrations available IIRC.


IKR. Of all the things to get upset about! "Oh noes, the Order doesn't model best-practices in workplace inclusion!" Never mind the wholesale plundering and murder of goblins in dungeons... the extra-legal vigilantism... the attempts to foment rebellion and topple foreign governments... impersonating royalty (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0226.html)...

-Ozmar the Fantasy Lawyer

Back at the turn of the century, I worked for a small company whose payroll included a sales... organism. In all his time with the company — I saw about a year and a half of it before the company folded — he never made a sale. (When we were handed our termination paycheques, he was peeved that the other salespeople had commissions but he didn't.) This was at least partially because he spent some of his time trying to make "deals" with "clients" about things that the company had no connection with. On observation, his main role was to attend important meetings with prospective clients, sit in the back, watch all the presentations, then pipe up with bizarre questions that made us look incompetent. I have no idea why he was kept on, nor why he was included in these meetings. Maybe it was some kind of "inclusivity", maybe they couldn't find a way of keeping him out, maybe the people who made such decisions were trying to kill the company. If he'd been kept out of those client meetings, perhaps he would have felt bad, but he'd probably have been able to keep drawing a paycheque for longer.


2. A slight(ly absurd) variation of the above. We actually change the duration of the length of time a second actually lasts at different times of the day througout the year. That way, night and day time are always the same length of time!. I mean, this might wreak a bit of havoc in just about everything, but it would certainly be... fun! (yeah, I may have been in a sillly delerium when I came up with this one). I haven't quite worked out the details in terms of latitudinal effects, but I'm sure we could make it work.

In years gone by, there was a well-known internet kook named Alexander Abian. He was a math prof, and I can't critique his work in his own field, but I can comment on his supposed scientific concepts. He was regularly ending his messages with comments like "ALTER EARTH'S ORBIT AND TILT - STOP EPIDEMICS OF CANCER, CHOLERA, AIDS, ETC. / VENUS MUST BE GIVEN A NEAR EARTH-LIKE ORBIT TO BECOME A BORN AGAIN EARTH". All that we need to do to resolve the DST issue is to change our orbit: get rid of the eccentricity, and straighten up that axis of rotation. :smallsmile:

[Ruck]

Did you make a fresh account containing the author's name just to accuse him of criminal advocacy over letting a lighthearted manchild not attend a meeting that put much more serious characters to sleep? And then say that his current course of action is informed by missing information about the team member that he skipped the meeting with, observing those same capabilities in action during play?

Apparently so. I don't think there's much more to say.

[Gusmo]

I predict Calder dies, but comes back undead and allied to Xykon.

[Ruck]

Also, after moving further north and with more extreme differences in daylight length, I wouldn't mind a permanent Daylight Saving Time. I'm just tired of the back-and-forth changes. But I also don't like the sun going down at 4 in the winter.

[gbaji]

Weren't there medical studies that found a measurable adverse effects on human health, brought by this "annoying, but brief" 2 days a year clock-shifts? From myself I can say that my country had relinquished DST some 10 years ago, and I hadn't missed that bastard even for a second since.

Can't speak to medical studies (nor how reliable vs cherry picked they may be). I can say that the number one issue I have is when they switch back to standard time, and... depite the fact that everyone knows what day the time changes on (like well in advance even!), somehow the city/state (or whomever does this) can't figure out to change the time the street lamps turn on. Do they not have some kind of computerized system that determines when the street lamps come on? Maybe not. And sure. I'd assume that this also happens in the morning hour when we switch to DST (do the lights turn off before dawn? I'm not generally awake and outside that early).

Dunno. I think that most people don't really understand the effect of having or not having DST in effect (relative to the various alternatives folks have proposed). The negatives are the clock change. Period. The actual effect on daylight and when dusk/dawn comes, is pretty overwhelmingly possitive (IMHO of course!).

If we actually went to year round DST in say Seattle, you'd have dawn hitting at 8:57AM in the middle of winter. If we went to year round ST, Seattle would have dawn hitting at 4:11AM in the middle of summer. What DST does is smooth that out, making the earliest dawn 5:11, and the latest dawn 7:57 (in Seattle, where it rains a lot anyway, so...?)

Where I live would be less problematic, but still not great. If we went to year round DST, we'd have dawn hitting at 7:50AM in winter. If we went to year round ST, we'd be hitting dawn at 4:40AM in the middle of summer. Once again, DST smooths that out making the earliest dawn 5:40, and the latest dawn 7:04 (in Sunny San Diego, where I live).

So for the continental US, it's actually a pretty decent system. Assuming that most people aren't actually doing a whole lot of productive stuff outside the home that early anyway (which the vast vast majority are not), there's a ton of value in not having all of that daylight "wasted" while we're all snug in our beds.



Nitpick: with year-round DST, you're no longer driving home in the dark. However, the kids are waiting for the school bus in the dark, which is why year-round DST was abandoned when attempted in the 1970s.

Yeah. I suspect that's where most of the "OMG! My kids will have to wait for the school bus in the dark" assumptions comes from. I haven't run like all the different latitudes, but (as you can see from my quick dump of some data, and folks are free to check their own city/zip here (https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa)), in most more northern latitudes the latest dawn occurs in ST anyway, so DST doesn't have this effect (except if applied year round or course!). And at my latitude, the latest dawn is 7:04, which is not exactly super late. I suppose if your kid has a really long bus ride and maybe a walk to the bus that might be an issue. But honestly? If he's walking in the dark because dawn doesn't come until 7:04, he's probably also walking in the dark because it comes at 6:50 (which is the latest dawn in ST where I live).

And, of course, as you get further south, dawn comes earlier anyway, so the problem becomes moot.

But yes. You are absolutely correct, that if we went to either DST all year round *or* ST all year round, we'd have one problem or the other, and tons of people would complain about them.

[arimareiji]

Imean, obviously that would work, but I'm going with what's possible. :smalltongue:

Thank you for a good long dark laugh. :smallbiggrin: *applauds*


…although maybe if they ever invent a way to charge people a subscription fee for it?

[Peelee]

Thank you for a good long dark laugh. :smallbiggrin: *applauds*

And I'm fighting for that laugh to be in the daylight! :smalltongue:

[Space Sorceress]

And I'm fighting for that laugh to be in the daylight! :smalltongue:

But think of the Vampires, Peelee! The Vampires!!

#isSwedish

[bunsen_h]

Also, after moving further north and with more extreme differences in daylight length, I wouldn't mind a permanent Daylight Saving Time. I'm just tired of the back-and-forth changes. But I also don't like the sun going down at 4 in the winter.

It is better to don a blindfold than to curse the brightness.

[Peelee]

#isSwedish

You have my condolences. HEYO!

[Space Sorceress]

You have my condolences. HEYO!

XDDDDDDDDDDDD

eyes watering

thanks

[Doctor West]

Another day, another person reaching further than a half-ogre with a spiked chain (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0216.html) just so they have something to be angry about. :smallsigh:

[Edric O]

Apparently this discussion has veered off into some other topics. But I'm a simple flumph. I just came here to say

<Dalek voice>

EXTREME-INATE. EXTREME-INATE. EXTREME-INATE.

[Wraithfighter]

Honestly, I just don't get why anyone would prefer a high level spell with a chance of failure being cast by a high-level party member over casting a low-level spell with a 100% success rate being cast by a lower-level party member.

The only real advantage Greater Dispel Magic has over Protection From Evil is range, which would've been useful if Haley hadn't been able to give Minrah a lift, but most other times its a pretty bad case of overkill. Maybe something that Roy could've thought about using in a previous strip, but it absolutely makes sense that he'd try to make the preferred solution work over the risky-and-expensive one.

[Ruck]

It is better to don a blindfold than to curse the brightness.

Well, I'm having more of the problem described by the original saying. The 5 AM to 9 PM sunlight in the summer is fine with me. (And to be overly literal, I do have electricity, but I'm inclined to be a late-night person which means in those short days I really get very little sun.)

[Psepha]

Honestly, I just don't get why anyone would prefer a high level spell with a chance of failure being cast by a high-level party member over casting a low-level spell with a 100% success rate being cast by a lower-level party member.

The only real advantage Greater Dispel Magic has over Protection From Evil is range, which would've been useful if Haley hadn't been able to give Minrah a lift, but most other times its a pretty bad case of overkill. Maybe something that Roy could've thought about using in a previous strip, but it absolutely makes sense that he'd try to make the preferred solution work over the risky-and-expensive one.

Another reason that Prot. Evil is the better choice is that it has a duration. With a dispel they'd be at risk of Calder just immediately dominating Sunny again - the Order doesn't know Calder's spellcasting level or available spell slots, so they'd be gambling on a mindbender not having more mind control available - which Serini specifically told them to be careful of, and should have remained a concern since at the beginning of the fight Calder wasn't in the AMF.

[talkamancer]

The 5 AM to 9 PM sunlight in the summer is fine with me.)

In London on 21st June we get 16H40 of daylight and on 21st December only 6H55. I'd be happiest if someone found a way to float us towards the equator down the Atlantic for the winter.

[Kardwill]

I actually see this as the rest of the Order growing in their undersatnding of Elan, and accepting that while he does things in his own way, those ways are just as valid as the ones they use. So... His way is to not sit in a boring meeting and ramble on about character stats, but to get to know people in his own way. He's a free thinker. Heaven forbid we let him be himself.



One of the biggest signs of the Order respecting Elan's abilities and way of doing things is Belkar attending the Stroy Recap class. And Roy deciding that yeah, listening to Elan till late at night is a good use of Belkar's time and someone else will do the recon.



An interesting possibility. One could argue the damage caused by the stress could be regenerated, though, and the demand for additional sustenance should be significant in any event.

In fact, I recall some mass-media using that as a story by-product...the thing regenerating needed lots and lots of food to get better. Abominable, maybe?

Though I grant my original question was, at least in some regards, an editorial comment...I do find the topic very interesting.

So, would adding Troll-ish regeneration extend, shorten or have no impact on a halfling lifespan? Is it dependent on when the grafting occurred? Didn't some version(s) of (A)D&D Trolls also have a disease or poison effect from their claws?

- M

I don't think regenerate would help against aging. A true resurection can recreate from scratch the entire body of someone who died centuries ago, and yet it won't work on someone who died from old age.
So, lifespan in D&D sounds more like a "lifeforce/soul" situation, rather than a biology problem

[Unoriginal]

Great page. Feels amazingly dynamic and fast-paced.

I was thinking that before, but given how the fight is going I think we're going to see a demonstration of "how does the post-character development Order of the Stick deals with a defeated but not dead enemy, at the eleventh hour". Especially since it's more than likely Calder will NOT surrender on his own volition this time.

Last time the Order as a whole had to think about that was before the Azure City siege. Since then, Vaarsuvius and Belkar have become less kill-happy, Durkon and Roy have expressed the desire to do something about the whole adventuring-means-killing-people question, and there are other people' input to consider (Serini will advocate for killing, the others I'm not sure but I'd say probably not).


The way Calder keeps referring to Sunny as "aberration" is really starting to tick me off.

That's the literal name of Sunny's creature type, and Calder isn't allowed to call them their species' name because lawyers.

[Kardwill]

That's the literal name of Sunny's creature type, and Calder isn't allowed to call them their species' name because lawyers.

That's not a good name, though. Calling someone a freak of nature "because that's their creature type" really sounds like a slur. That sounds like calling someone different a Primate, which is technically correct (we all are members of the Primate family), but has unfortunate undertones.

I guess it depends on your sensitivity, but I think "you minion" would actually be less demeaning.

[Unoriginal]

That's not a good name, though. Calling someone a freak of nature "because that's their creature type" really sounds like a slur. That sounds like calling someone a Primate, which is technically correct, but...

Sapient aberrations in 3.X are generally quite proud of being aberrant relatively to the rest of the world.

As in, "we built temples dedicated to how freakish we are, and you should worship us for it" proud.



I guess it depends on your sensitivity, but I think "you minion" would actually be less demeaning.

Being told you are different from the rest and outside the norms is more demeaning than being told you're a subservient underling (with implied lesser importance)?

Depends on sensitivity indeed.


Not that I'm defending calling others "aberration" if it's meant as an insult or slur. But it's clearly not meant as one here.

[danielxcutter]

Another reason that Prot. Evil is the better choice is that it has a duration. With a dispel they'd be at risk of Calder just immediately dominating Sunny again - the Order doesn't know Calder's spellcasting level or available spell slots, so they'd be gambling on a mindbender not having more mind control available - which Serini specifically told them to be careful of, and should have remained a concern since at the beginning of the fight Calder wasn't in the AMF.

To be fair, Calder can’t use it on Sunny again in the AMF. But it’s still a good option for many reasons, yes.

Also re: “Aberration” - Calder’s an ******* and Evil, this has been established already. He probably doesn’t know Sunny’s name, but that’s likely just because he never bothered to ask.

[gerryq]

Looks like Bloodfeast won the grapple, and the sword didn't stab him.


If it wasn't RPG rules it would be, you don't come back from a neck bite like that. His only hope would be to somehow get a domination off despite the AMF onto a cleric and get healed.

Still, I suspect that Calder will live through this somehow. Simply killing him would feel....off, given how well characterized he already has become in just 5 pages.

Tricky business if he does, though. If he promises to defend the area against Team Evil, could he be trusted? Or would he give them all the information for vengeance, and join them if possible?

[danielxcutter]

Personally I think Calder’s going to die here. Considering what happened to him last time he surrendered I don’t think he’d do that again.

Heck, I honestly wouldn’t blame him for that. Even for an Evil bastard like him, being frozen but aware for decades is a nasty fate.

[brian 333]

I'll be honest I just assumed Haley picked up Minrah because she was closer and not in the anti-magic field. Probably the correct tactical choice and if I was Elan's player I wouldn't be at all mad about it.

Haley picked up Minrah because Roy told her to do so. And He specifically asked Minrah to cast Protection From Evil, which is not a Bard Spell.


IKR. Of all the things to get upset about! "Oh noes, the Order doesn't model best-practices in workplace inclusion!" Never mind the wholesale plundering and murder of goblins in dungeons... the extra-legal vigilantism... the attempts to foment rebellion and topple foreign governments... impersonating royalty (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0226.html)...

-Ozmar the Fantasy Lawyer

Do you work with the Jones, Rodriguez Legal Partnership, LLC? Or are you an independent? If the latter, I will recommend you to the Stark family concerning a hostile work environment issue with their employer.


I was concerned then. I emailed Rich and sent a letter. Radio silence. Time for a different approach.

Why do people think it is okay to demand that artists create anything but what the author wishes to create? Politely phrased demands are still infringements on artistic license. The artist, not the audience, gets to dictate what is created.

You may judge or critique the work by any standard you wish, and you may do so publicly. If you are or own a venue where works of art are displayed, published, or sold, you may choose which works you will sponsor.

What you may not do is approach an artist with demands to include or exclude elements so that the work confirms to your ideals. Any laws which allow or encourage this behavior are wrong and should be stricken from the books.

Assume I write a textbook teaching businesses to exclude people based on issues having nothing to do with capability. You may publicly expose my work. You may disallow its use as a guide for your company's HR department. You may not demand that I rewrite it to conform to your ideals.

TLDR: Censorship is bad, m'kay? Even if you have good motives, m'kay?


Daylight Savings Time was implemented to maximize natural lighting during work hours. Back when, if you were not there to answer the phone, you missed the call.

Nowadays, when you actually clock in is not relevant. Your phone has a call log, and you will be able to access your email account whenever you want, even if you don't go to work at all. Having everyone on a team or crew that works in tandem is still important, but if you are not a train company, having everyone working according to a single clock in New Delhi is no longer necessary.

Back when I was in construction, we would adjust our schedules to begin work at dawn, which allowed us to maximize the daylight available for overtime. We really didn't care about DST, because we couldn't start work in the dark but we wanted to begin work as early as possible. (Which sometimes meant going to bed in daylight when working in Montana.)

I say, leave the clock on Standard Time, or GMT, or whatever, and allow companies to decide when their work-day starts. It will cut down on the morning line when I want my coffee, which will make everyone happier.

Finally: I like to art, and drawing an animal with something in its mouth is hard. I have to admire The Giant's art.

And Calder gets to learn how it feels to be Extremeinated!

[Elkad]

In London on 21st June we get 16H40 of daylight and on 21st December only 6H55. I'd be happiest if someone found a way to float us towards the equator down the Atlantic for the winter.

As a pre-teen, a 16 hour day, a couple hours of twilight, and "be home when the street lights come on" during summer break was glorious. (Washington state, USA in my case - at 48°N) You could roll out of the house on your bike at 5am, meet your friends who did the same, and not be home till nearly midnight, not having interacted with an adult for the entirety. (carefully scrounge food about 2pm at the house of whoever's parents were both at work that day).

But changing the start and end times with DST wouldn't change the duration.

[Provengreil]

Tricky business if he does, though. If he promises to defend the area against Team Evil, could he be trusted? Or would he give them all the information for vengeance, and join them if possible?

Too many possibilities to say for sure.

However, him surrendering gives the narrative options in several arcs:

Serini fixing past mistakes, and making new choices when faced with the same problems.
Durkon and Roy actually negotiating with hostiles.
Vaarsuvious and their stunt with the dragons.
Belkar's development, especially if Calder takes out Bloodfeast or, Twelve forbid, Mr. Scruffy before surrender.

Furthermore, if his surrender includes an exit or if he just flatly escapes, he likely runs into TE and continues to contribute that way. Either he strains the power struggle between Xykon and Redcloak, or maybe even manages to contribute to the MitD somehow.

Comparatively, him dying in combat really only states that the order can tackle big threats (already covered if he surrenders/runs anyway) and if Xykon comes across his corpse, maybe a zombification. But he's already done the zombie dragon thing, he doesn't like recycling tricks.

[Peelee]

Having everyone on a team or crew that works in tandem is still important, but if you are not a train company, having everyone working according to a single clock in New Delhi is no longer necessary.
Of course not! Everyone works according a single clock at the Greenwich Royal Observatory. :smalltongue:


I say, leave the clock on Standard Time, or GMT, or whatever, and allow companies to decide when their work-day starts.

I'm sorry to be the one to disillusion you, but companies have been able to decide when their work day starts for quite some time now. And they (like your Montana example) currently seem to not care about whether it's DST or not.

[gerryq]

I was concerned then. I emailed Rich and sent a letter. Radio silence. Time for a different approach.

@Heroic Lich: Rich’s Comment on stress wasn’t related to Durkon. It was a comment from 2013 in which he claimed “you reveal are who you are under stress” to which he qualified “regardless of what the majority feels”. Roy revealed he felt Elan didn’t count. He shouldn’t be allowed to take that back because it gives the employers reading the comic an excuse. And Roy has proven he can’t be better first by not adjusting the meeting and then by choosing Minrah over Elan. Roy doesn’t deserve to be leader.

Elan doesn’t want to be leader because Elan has been conditioned by his training and employment to herald the “great hero” even if said hero is mean to him like Sir Francois was and Roy continues to be by failing to put procedures in place. It’s no coincidence all of Elan’s greatest achievements occur when he is AWAY from Roy or when Roy is incapacitated. Tarquin got that. Tarquin understood that all Elan needed was the confidence and he could do wonderful things. But yet we’re supposed to view HIM as the bad guy as opposed to the one who doesn’t think Elan counts?

@ozmar: United Kingdom.


Tarquin probably has a proper workplace relations tribunal too. He'd want master-slave relations to be streamlined.

[gerryq]

If the Calder phase ends soon with his demise, only two factors could be affected:


A giant Tyrannousurus (can it be shrinked?) that otherwise can't leave the room.
Serini perhaps trusting the Order even more than before?

... and so, I don't see this as more than an appropriate level random encounter...
What narrative purpose do you see in it so far? if none, then Calder isn't over yet?

I just hope this isn't where Belkar bites it...

[Shining Wrath]

Of course not! Everyone works according a single clock at the Greenwich Royal Observatory. :smalltongue:



I'm sorry to be the one to disillusion you, but companies have been able to decide when their work day starts for quite some time now. And they (like your Montana example) currently seem to not care about whether it's DST or not.

Quibble: the actual master clock for planet earth is a merge of over 100 atomic clocks, and that merging is done by BIPM - Bureau Internationale de Poids et Measures, en Paris. That's right -
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS THE FAULT OF THE FRENCH! Sacre bleu!

[Lumix19]

Maybe I'm overly optimistic but I'm going to take this as a sign that the Order stands a very good chance of beating Team Evil now. If it wasn't for Oona I'd say the Order would be almost guaranteed a win.

[Kardwill]

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS THE FAULT OF THE FRENCH! Sacre bleu!

Mwahahaha! All according to plan!

[Space Sorceress]

... [Xykon] doesn't like recycling tricks.

"Only two things matter: force in as great a concentration as you can manage, and style. And in a pinch, style can slide.

... In any battle, there's always a level of force against which no tactics can succeed." - Xykon, Black Mage extrodinaire

[Peelee]

Quibble: the actual master clock for planet earth is a merge of over 100 atomic clocks, and that merging is done by BIPM - Bureau Internationale de Poids et Measures, en Paris.

For accuracy, sure, but we don't measure plus or minus hours by Paris Mean Time. We keep accuracy based on atomic clocks, but we work off the GMT clock in London.

Which may as well be Paris, really.:smallamused:

XDDDDDDDDDDDD

eyes watering

thanks

I'm half Austrian, and i greatly enjoy the European cultural practice of knocking all European countries at every opportunity.

[The MunchKING]

Sacre bleu!

Your Cheese is Sacred?? :smallconfused::smallconfused:


Is this that "Holy cheese" people keep telling me the Swiss have? :P :P

[Space Sorceress]

I'm half Austrian, and i greatly enjoy the European cultural practice of knocking all European countries at every opportunity.

Oh I thought it was just the British who did that (those *******s)

I for one am glad it's equal-opportunity discrimination :smallamused:

[Shining Wrath]

My understanding as an American is that European nations hate their neighbors, like the next country over; e.g., the French hate the Germans, like the Poles.

[Unoriginal]

Your Cheese is Sacred?? :smallconfused::smallconfused:

The "bleu" is an euphemistic swear word. Like "heck" or "dang" in English.



Is this that "Holy cheese" people keep telling me the Swiss have? :P :P

As a Swiss, I can confirm we have that. We call that "regular, basic cheese".


My understanding as an American is that European nations hate their neighbors, like the next country over; e.g., the French hate the Germans, like the Poles.

Oh nah, we European (geographically) hate everyone, it's just in "nested doll" fashion.

Person A hates Person B from the next village over, A & B are united in hate of C from the next valley over, ABC are united in hate of D from the next region over, ABCD are united in hate of E from the next country over, ABCDE are united in hate of F from two countries over, etc.

[alceryes]

Oh nah, we European (geographically) hate everyone, it's just in "nested doll" fashion.
Person A hates Person B from the next village over, A & B are united in hate of C from the next valley over, ABC are united in hate of D from the next region over, ABCD are united in hate of E from the next country over, ABCDE are united in hate of F from two countries over, etc.

I'd hate to be Z when this hate train comes 'round the corner.


Sorry, I'm a little late to the party. EPIC strip!
I loved the apparent switcharoo in #1298. Elan being Belkar and Belkar being Elan. :smallbiggrin:

[KorvinStarmast]

His attention span does not allow that I think that this is the issue which got sand into someone's craw: the infantilization of a male who is (or who has developed into) a swashbuckling hero.
Also suspect that the complainant doesn't care for the image at the top of the current page of Haley doing the swoop/kiss move on Elan.

This is D&D. Given the choice, you boost strengths to infallibility, not weaknesses to mediocrity.
Like this (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html) Particularly on a forum heavily populated by opitimizers. :smallbiggrin:


BurlewContact, you may want to start a new thread and lay out your analysis of the comic more thoroughly. Make a clear argument, link comics that support your premises, and suggest what ought to be done. People may agree if they understand what you're arguing for. Good suggestion.

But there's also another factor: Bloodfeast isn't wild. He was trained by the Empire of Blood and may well be carrying a nonstandard stat block for his creature type. He almost certainly has improved grab and a pretty good strength score, and it wouldn't change his size, but some of the other stuff in there might be different in a way that's helping him. Good thought, I had not considered that.

OOTS use child labor, have a convicted mass murderer in their midst, a non-convicted (albeit repentant) genocidal mage, and don't even get me started on the sexual harassment violations. Best to stop there.


I don't understand how the takes "Elan is very capable and is the only one of the Order deserving to be a leader"
and
"Elan depends on others to make him do hard things or chew hard things to little pieces so he can digest them" are coming up simultaneously in the same argument.
Because the second argument is exactly what "they should've found a way to include Elan in a meeting against his wishes" essentially is. "Deserves to be the leader" is a failed premise from the get go, in terms of what leadership itself entails.
Elan used his own initiative (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1069.html)to fight the tough lady frost giant when Roy was getting his butt kicked: first, he healed Roy in a cool fashion (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1070.html), and then he disabled the frost giant using a bard spell. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1071.html) (Mind you, he of course began by daydreaming and almost blowing the whole battle). (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1065.html)

Suggesting the Order should've used his magic just to make him feel included, even though it would puts everyone in greater danger is just... bad; pretty sure that would be actually criminal in a real-life employment situation. It might even get the manager fired to so badly employ his/her assets. :smallyuk:

I predict Calder dies, but comes back undead and allied to Xykon. It's been done, with the Silver Dragon. I don't think that will happen.

It is better to don a blindfold than to curse the brightness. Indeed.

Especially since it's more than likely Calder will NOT surrender on his own volition this time. I read Calder as intelligent. He might recognize a losing battle in progress, and choose "survival" as his best option.

That's the literal name of Sunny's creature type, and Calder isn't allowed to call them their species' name because lawyers. Yes, per strip 32.

He probably doesn’t know Sunny’s name, but that’s likely just because he never bothered to ask. Correct. They have not been properly introduced. (I also doubt Calder cares what Sunny's name is).

Haley picked up Minrah because Roy told her to do so. And He specifically asked Minrah to cast Protection From Evil, which is not a Bard Spell. And now we will hear the complaint that Roy is micromanaging his team ... :smallyuk:


You may judge or critique the work by any standard you wish, and you may do so publicly. If you are or own a venue where works of art are displayed, published, or sold, you may choose which works you will sponsor. What you may not do is approach an artist with demands to include or exclude elements so that the work confirms to your ideals. Any laws which allow or encourage this behavior are wrong and should be stricken from the books. Whole post was good, thanks.

And Calder gets to learn how it feels to be Extremeinated! Which is the best part, since we've been waiting for this event - the return of Bloodfeast - for a few hundred strips.

[ozmar]

Reasonable accommodation for Elan would be not requiring him to attend meetings where he would not want to contribute...

Could I get my manager to give me reasonable accommodation like this?

-Ozmar the Sick-of-Meetings

[bunsen_h]

I guess it depends on your sensitivity, but I think "you minion" would actually be less demeaning.

From the point of view of strict practicality, if Calder had stuck to a one- or two-word term ("slave", "minion") he might have been able to get out a command in the second panel.


Personally I think Calder’s going to die here. Considering what happened to him last time he surrendered I don’t think he’d do that again.

Heck, I honestly wouldn’t blame him for that. Even for an Evil bastard like him, being frozen but aware for decades is a nasty fate.

Do we know for sure that he was aware for decades? Page 1295 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1295.html) implied that he didn't know how long he'd been stuck there. Though it would be challenging to keep track of time, under the circumstances, if he'd been conscious-but-contained for that long.


They have not been properly introduced. (I also doubt Calder cares what Sunny's name is).

"It isn't etiquette to cut any one you've been introduced to." -- Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll

[Faldrath]

Before the thread was derailed, I had said that I thought that Roy might try to negotiate with Calder again if the dragon submitted. But then someone mentioned that this would be the perfect time for Serini to show what an epic rogue can do... and given that Serini did say she wanted to kill Calder before, I think she might take the opportunity for a sneak attack here - maybe even as Roy tries to talk to Calder.

[ozmar]

Do you work with the Jones, Rodriguez Legal Partnership, LLC? Or are you an independent? If the latter, I will recommend you to the Stark family concerning a hostile work environment issue with their employer.

Independent practice, but I definitely think you have a good case against Stark!

-Maester Ozmar, Order of the Copper Chain

[Tzardok]

Oh nah, we European (geographically) hate everyone, it's just in "nested doll" fashion.

Person A hates Person B from the next village over, A & B are united in hate of C from the next valley over, ABC are united in hate of D from the next region over, ABCD are united in hate of E from the next country over, ABCDE are united in hate of F from two countries over, etc.

And everybody hates the French. :smalltongue:

[Provengreil]

Before the thread was derailed, I had said that I thought that Roy might try to negotiate with Calder again if the dragon submitted. But then someone mentioned that this would be the perfect time for Serini to show what an epic rogue can do... and given that Serini did say she wanted to kill Calder before, I think she might take the opportunity for a sneak attack here - maybe even as Roy tries to talk to Calder.

Honestly, I don't see it. A dual wield sneak attack monster might have some points to make here, but Serini has leaned hard into deception and poisons and the like. She can maker her presence felt but it's not likely to change anyhting.


And everybody hates the French. :smalltongue:

Except that one guy from The Patriot. He's cool.

[Unoriginal]

I read Calder as intelligent. He might recognize a losing battle in progress, and choose "survival" as his best option.

He is intelligent, but also prideful, angry and the last time he surrendered ended up in a decade-long nightmare that he declared prefering getting killed than experiencing.

I wouldn't be surprised if Calder goes "kill me and let's be done with it" and/or Serini enthusiastically going "kill him and let's be done with it" too, and then Roy says "no" and give Calder a chance to talk it out without anyone charging at another with an axe.

[arimareiji]

Oh nah, we European (geographically) hate everyone, it's just in "nested doll" fashion.

Person A hates Person B from the next village over, A & B are united in hate of C from the next valley over, ABC are united in hate of D from the next region over, ABCD are united in hate of E from the next country over, ABCDE are united in hate of F from two countries over, etc.

So do Americans, we just do it in our own unique gaslighty fashion. "National Brotherhood Week" by legendary snarktastic piano comedian Tom Lehrer from half a century ago:

🎶 But during
National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week
It's National Everyone-Smile-At-One-Another-hood* Week
Be nice to people who are inferior** to you
It's only for a week so have no fear
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year

* - If you get to see a video such as the Copenhagen concert, he adds a deliciously-insincere smile to this line
** - And to this line, he parodies a bigot looking down on someone
(For the record, he recently made all of his work public domain.)

Edit to add:

Could I get my manager to give me reasonable accommodation like this?

-Ozmar the Sick-of-Meetings
If only. The hours and hours of meetings talking about how to be more productive will keep expanding until productivity improves. (0_o)

[Mordar]

I don't think regenerate would help against aging. A true resurection can recreate from scratch the entire body of someone who died centuries ago, and yet it won't work on someone who died from old age. So, lifespan in D&D sounds more like a "lifeforce/soul" situation, rather than a biology problem

But does resurrection rebuild from scratch? I think it effectively just restores the condition of the body that it was just before death...so if your body is about to give out just based on degradation of systems (not pathology, poison or trauma), resurrection would just bring you right back to the moment before your body gave out and then it gives out again.

Aging can be considered in part a degradation of system components based on imperfect regeneration of those components, damage to non-refreshed components, and loss of function. Perfect cellular regeneration would correct some of these issues, and refreshing components that normally cannot be refreshed (like teeth, some neurons, etc) beats these down...and prevents or delays loss of function.

So True Rez brings you back to body condition at the time of death...regeneration rebuilds each individual component before death occurs to optimum function...within the limits of what it can manage.

So my pre-theory is that Troll systems minus regeneration might be functional for 20-40 years, but with regen it is 3x-5x higher.

- M

[Precure]

I don't hate anyone. :smallconfused:

[bunsen_h]

I don't hate anyone. :smallconfused:

Tom Lehrer: "I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!"

EDIT:

So do Americans, we just do it in our own unique gaslighty fashion. "National Brotherhood Week" by legendary snarktastic piano comedian Tom Lehrer from half a century ago:
(For the record, he recently made all of his work public domain.)

His own website (https://tomlehrersongs.com/) has lyrics, sheet music, and so on.

[Peelee]

Oh nah, we European (geographically) hate everyone, it's just in "nested doll" fashion.
I always got the impression it was more like fraternal hate. Europeans can make fun of all other Europeans, but they'll all go for the Americans if they try to edge in, for example.

And everybody hates the French. :smalltongue:
That's where I fail. I quite like the French.

So do Americans, we just do it in our own unique gaslighty fashion.
I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne Yakov Smirnoff:
"In every country, they make fun of city. In U.S. you make fun of Cleveland. In Russia, we make fun of Cleveland."

[Fish]

So, would adding Troll-ish regeneration extend, shorten or have no impact on a halfling lifespan?

You would need to compare lifespans with a halfling without regeneration who had sustained the same injuries.

This is called a con-troll group.


I just hope this isn't where Belkar bites it...
Of course not.

Belkar is going to ride the dinosaur into the disabled stasis circle, dragging Calder with them, and get frozen in place when the circle reboots. Thus, Belkar draws his last breath ever and has no more birthday cake.

[Kofiman]

Did you make a fresh account containing the author's name just to accuse him of criminal advocacy over letting a lighthearted manchild not attend a meeting that put much more serious characters to sleep? And then say that his current course of action is informed by missing information about the team member that he skipped the meeting with, observing those same capabilities in action during play?

{scrubbed}

Notice how an important argument like:

"Level one spell that always works"

was ignored.

In addition, the first post did not present an argument, simply picking the desired topic of conversation "Inclusion! Inclusion! Inclusion!" Instead of making an actual argument in favor of Greater Dispel Magic, such as 'It's a ranged spell, and would free up Haley's turn.'

{scrubbed} This is why there's no actual argument being made in favor of Greater Dispel Magic, {scrubbed}

[KorvinStarmast]

"It isn't etiquette to cut any one you've been introduced to." -- Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll FWIW, you quoted Ruck but I think it was me you were quoting. Multiquote stuff happens to me often.

He is intelligent, but also prideful, angry and the last time he surrendered ended up in a decade-long nightmare that he declared prefering getting killed than experiencing.

I wouldn't be surprised if Calder goes "kill me and let's be done with it" and/or Serini enthusiastically going "kill him and let's be done with it" too, and then Roy says "no" and give Calder a chance to talk it out without anyone charging at another with an axe. I can see Rich writing it that way.

If only. The hours and hours of meetings talking about how to be more productive will keep expanding until productivity improves. (0_o) NNoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo......!

Tom Lehrer: "I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!"
He was an integral part of my early education. Base 8 is just like Base 10, if you are missing two fingers!

I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne Yakov Smirnoff:
"In every country, they make fun of city. In U.S. you make fun of Cleveland. In Russia, we make fun of Cleveland."
Ian Hunter and Drew Carey may not agree with Yakov:
https://youtu.be/1qDkZnpOiS8

[drazen]

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}


{scrubbed}

Haley could have covered Elan's skills easily, they had the telepathy as a backup, and most importantly, Elan asked (implicitly) if he even needed to be in the meeting. The last time we saw Elan in a meeting on-panel, it was a flashback where he was daydreaming about what flavor clouds are (his reasoning being something like: vanilla is the obvious choice, but is that too obvious?).

{scrubbed}

[Doug Lampert]

I always got the impression it was more like fraternal hate. Europeans can make fun of all other Europeans, but they'll all go for the Americans if they try to edge in, for example.

That's where I fail. I quite like the French.

I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne Yakov Smirnoff:
"In every country, they make fun of city. In U.S. you make fun of Cleveland. In Russia, we make fun of Cleveland."

I was once at Dark Carnival, a book store in Berkley, when Terry Pratchet was there to do a signing.

He mentioned how before he left England for the USA, people warned him, "Be careful, they're wierd over there."
So, he did the NY, Atlanta, Miami portions of the tour, and mentioned this to people, "They don't mean us, they mean the West Coast."
So, he flew next to Seatle and Portland (Oregon obviously), and mentioned this to people, "Oh, they don't mean us, they mean California."
Next up was the San Diego and LA portions of the trip, "Oh, they don't mean us, they mean the Bay Area."
Next up was San Fransisco, "Oh, they don't mean us, they mean Berkeley."
So now he was in Berkeley, and having related this story, asked: Who do we blame? Dark Carnival wasn't that close to campus, so we discussed it and decided it was probably the university, but someone pointed ut that we could narrow it down further.

The center of wierdness for the entire universe is the Intersection of Telegraph and Bancroft in Berkeley California.

So, now you know, if you need to make fun of someplace, it's the Intersection of Telegraph and Bancroft in Berkeley California. They're wierd there.

[KorvinStarmast]

So, now you know, if you need to make fun of someplace, it's the Intersection of Telegraph and Bancroft in Berkeley California. They're wierd there. I think I was drunk there once. Also, Weird not Wierd. (For some reason).

[Shining Wrath]

People used to make fun of Cleveland - you know, burning rivers and all that.
Now I see people trying to make fun of San Francisco - homeless people and all that.

The people trying to make fun of San Francisco have never stood on the Golden Gate Bridge and looked across the Bay sparkling in the sunlight as the city rises like a fairy tale from the water. It's easy to do from a distance. It's quite a bit more difficult if you've actually been there.

[Mordar]

You would need to compare lifespans with a halfling without regeneration who had sustained the same injuries.

This is called a con-troll group.

Utterly brilliant. Makes me legitimately happy someone inspired me to think of troll questions. You have my thanks, if those are any value to fish.

- M

[brian 333]

...So my pre-theory is that Troll systems minus regeneration might be functional for 20-40 years, but with regen it is 3x-5x higher.

- M

Rapid growth and regeneration is called cancer. Look at even young trolls and you can see the irregular-shaped moles and lesions that indicate advanced melanoma.

Regeneration shortens total lifespan, and helps to increase the per-patient total expenditure on pharmaceuticals.

[Unoriginal]

Utterly brilliant. Makes me legitimately happy someone inspired me to think of troll questions. You have my thanks, if those are any value to fish.

- M

Little known fact: after the trolls healed her, Serini thanked them by teaching them how to swindle people with schemes and scams, something she was well-suited to teach, as an Epic Rogue. The surprising part is that they became quite adept at it despite living in an isolated village in the middle of nowhere.

She also taught them how to stealth better, and to this day it's still hard to find the remote Con Trolls.

[pendell]

You would need to compare lifespans with a halfling without regeneration who had sustained the same injuries.

This is called a con-troll group.



This made my day; thank you.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[gbaji]

Person A hates Person B from the next village over, A & B are united in hate of C from the next valley over, ABC are united in hate of D from the next region over, ABCD are united in hate of E from the next country over, ABCDE are united in hate of F from two countries over, etc.

So... How do we measure the ratio of "people we hate" to "people we are united with"? Is it all about scale?


The people trying to make fun of San Francisco have never stood on the Golden Gate Bridge and looked across the Bay sparkling in the sunlight as the city rises like a fairy tale from the water. It's easy to do from a distance. It's quite a bit more difficult if you've actually been there.

Yeah. San Fransisco, like many things, looks much much better from a distance than up close.

[Mordar]

Little known fact: after the trolls healed her, Serini thanked them by teaching them how to swindle people with schemes and scams, something she was well-suited to teach, as an Epic Rogue. The surprising part is that they became quite adept at it despite living in an isolated village in the middle of nowhere.

She also taught them how to stealth better, and to this day it's still hard to find the remote Con Trolls.

After that stretch your tendons and ligaments might need some regenerative therapy of their own.

Serious question: Someone help me with the title pun. I don't see Bloodfeast as red, so the obvious (Red Dragon vs Red Dinosaur) doesn't land for me, and I can't track anything being read in the strip.

- M

[Wintermoot]

After that stretch your tendons and ligaments might need some regenerative therapy of their own.

Serious question: Someone help me with the title pun. I don't see Bloodfeast as red, so the obvious (Red Dragon vs Red Dinosaur) doesn't land for me, and I can't track anything being read in the strip.

- M

You may not "see" Bloodfeast as Red, but he is Red. Just a different shade of red than the dragon. I'm assuming that the Red vs Red title, while referencing the red dinosaur vs the red dragon, is also meant as a shout-out or comment on Red vs Blue and the recent fall/dissolution of Rooster Teeth, the creators of Red vs. Blue. But it could also just be coincidental.

[Belsirk]

[Wrong topic ]

[Bird]

You may not "see" Bloodfeast as Red, but he is Red. Just a different shade of red than the dragon. I'm assuming that the Red vs Red title, while referencing the red dinosaur vs the red dragon, is also meant as a shout-out or comment on Red vs Blue and the recent fall/dissolution of Rooster Teeth, the creators of Red vs. Blue. But it could also just be coincidental.
Bloodfeast is more recognizably red when outside of the AMF. I actually thought the second "Red" could be Haley, though, since she shows up (in a supporting role) in the last panel.

[Kish]

I think Calder's going to die in this fight. In the abstract, everything said about how negotiating with him could say something about various other characters is valid...

...but he wasted very little time establishing that he's actually profoundly evil, and I don't think Rich would have done that if he was going for "and then Roy made a deal with Calder."

[Wintermoot]

Bloodfeast is more recognizably red when outside of the AMF. I actually thought the second "Red" could be Haley, though, since she shows up (in a supporting role) in the last panel.

You know what they say. When the goat turns, red strikes true.

[Mordar]

Bloodfeast is more recognizably red when outside of the AMF. I actually thought the second "Red" could be Haley, though, since she shows up (in a supporting role) in the last panel.

I went back and looked at the EoB appearances to and really see brown, but I understand, and now have learned about Rooster Teeth.

- M

[DavidSh]

I was once at Dark Carnival, a book store in Berkley, when Terry Pratchet was there to do a signing.

He mentioned how before he left England for the USA, people warned him, "Be careful, they're wierd over there."
So, he did the NY, Atlanta, Miami portions of the tour, and mentioned this to people, "They don't mean us, they mean the West Coast."
So, he flew next to Seatle and Portland (Oregon obviously), and mentioned this to people, "Oh, they don't mean us, they mean California."
Next up was the San Diego and LA portions of the trip, "Oh, they don't mean us, they mean the Bay Area."
Next up was San Fransisco, "Oh, they don't mean us, they mean Berkeley."
So now he was in Berkeley, and having related this story, asked: Who do we blame? Dark Carnival wasn't that close to campus, so we discussed it and decided it was probably the university, but someone pointed ut that we could narrow it down further.

The center of wierdness for the entire universe is the Intersection of Telegraph and Bancroft in Berkeley California.

So, now you know, if you need to make fun of someplace, it's the Intersection of Telegraph and Bancroft in Berkeley California. They're wierd there.

Times change, but I'd guess the genre-savvy Terry was adapting for his audience the classic (1940) intro to "--And He Built a Crooked House":


Americans are considered crazy anywhere in the world.

They will usually concede a basis for the accusation but point to California as the focus of the infection. Californians stoutly maintain that their bad reputation is derived entirely from the acts of the residents of Los Angeles County. Angelenos will, when pressed, admit the charge but explain hastily, "It's Hollywood. It's not our fault -- we didn't ask for it; Hollywood just grew."

The people in Hollywood don't care; they glory in it. If you are interested, they will drive you up Laurel Canyon "-- where we keep the violent cases."

[Bird]

You know what they say. When the goat turns, red strikes true.
Good quote. I'm sure I had that in the back of my head.

Just in case anyone is interested, Bloodfeast's main colors seem to be a85c44 (https://www.color-hex.com/color/a85c44) and 884434 (https://www.color-hex.com/color/884434). Though both contain lots of red, I agree he's a pretty brown-looking archosaur. (He is also a pretty, brown-looking archosaur, and what a pretty archosaur he is.)

[Ruck]

I think Calder's going to die in this fight. In the abstract, everything said about how negotiating with him could say something about various other characters is valid...

...but he wasted very little time establishing that he's actually profoundly evil, and I don't think Rich would have done that if he was going for "and then Roy made a deal with Calder."

...unless, say, Durkon and V take the lead in making a deal, showing V's further growth in respecting life and showing Durkon that, hey, maybe he can convince Redcloak in the end. Plus the fun of the party's two least-charismatic characters taking the lead in negotiations.

(I don't actually think that will happen, but it occurred to me as I was reading your post. I also think Calder will likely die, but I feel like there must be some way in which his presence leads to further exposition about the Scribble, though that could just be as simple as "and then Calder's comments about surrendering to the Scribble lead Roy et al. to prod Serini further for details on the Scribble.")

[The MunchKING]

The "bleu" is an euphemistic swear word. Like "heck" or "dang" in English.

Oh sure, but the joke was Bleu cheese.

In a literal sense Bleu is just French for Blue, right?

[brian 333]

Little known fact: after the trolls healed her, Serini thanked them by teaching them how to swindle people with schemes and scams, something she was well-suited to teach, as an Epic Rogue. The surprising part is that they became quite adept at it despite living in an isolated village in the middle of nowhere.

She also taught them how to stealth better, and to this day it's still hard to find the remote Con Trolls.

You just couldn't con-troll yourself there, could you?


...Serious question: Someone help me with the title pun. I don't see Bloodfeast as red, so the obvious (Red Dragon vs Red Dinosaur) doesn't land for me, and I can't track anything being read in the strip.

- M

My vote is Haley being the second Red. My first thought was Calder vs. Sunny, but Sunny is orange.


You know what they say. When the goat turns, red strikes true.

Eugene says that. Nobody else says that. Though, Calder does have a chin-beard...

I had a mental image of Bloodfeast being reduced to lizard form, swallowed whole by a contemptuous Calder, then reverting to full size when Sunny gazes upon his gullet.

Two giant legs tear through Calder's abdomen, the massive allosaurus head splits the neck wide open, and Blood feast has an instant suit of Red Dragonskin armor.

Teary-eyed Belkar says, "That's m'boy!"

[Peelee]

Oh sure, but the joke was Bleu cheese.

In a literal sense Bleu is just French for Blue, right?

Yes. It's a case of watering down an exclamation by replacing the original words with other words that rhyme. Several American exclamations have similar deviations.

[pendell]

I think Calder's going to die in this fight. In the abstract, everything said about how negotiating with him could say something about various other characters is valid...

...but he wasted very little time establishing that he's actually profoundly evil, and I don't think Rich would have done that if he was going for "and then Roy made a deal with Calder."

Well, what would be the basis of a deal?

"Surrender, and I'll fight Team Evil?" But why would we trust Calder to honor that deal, as opposed to defecting to the people who would happily help him kill Serini?

I just can't think of anything Calder has to offer that might convince the Order to spare his life. Even if the paladins walked in. Paladins are supposed to be Lawful Good, not Lawful Stupid. We've already disposed of the worst possible portrayed paladin in the person of Miko Miyazaki; O-chul and Lien have a bit more common sense than that. They have no mechanism to restrain an evil doer on this scale AND prep for team evil at the same time.

Remind me, just how strict is the Paladin code? Are Paladins expected to accept surrenders even when there's no reasonable way for it to work? I could see them pushing for surrender if Calder was alone and Team Evil wasn't here about to destroy the world. As it is? I think the paladins would be forced to find some kind of workaround. Or simply leave the room and let their Non-good teammates take care of business (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0595.html).

I guess it all comes down to whether the 12 gods are going to treat this as if they were law robots (and there's only one alignment in the chart like that) or if they are going to filter the law through common sense. I'm guessing the former. And in the worst case, I think I'd rather the paladins leave the team than leave Calder at my back.

So if there IS some way for Calder to get out of this alive by surrendering, I'm not seeing it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Provengreil]

After that stretch your tendons and ligaments might need some regenerative therapy of their own.

Serious question: Someone help me with the title pun. I don't see Bloodfeast as red, so the obvious (Red Dragon vs Red Dinosaur) doesn't land for me, and I can't track anything being read in the strip.

- M

The antimagic zone is making everything pale as a visual effect. Try comparing Calder's non AMFed hues from a few pages ago and this (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0784.html) shot of Bloodfeast.


Well, what would be the basis of a deal?


I don't see that Calder has anything to offer in a transactional sense, but that doesn't mean that the Order won't accept a surrender anyway. As I pointed out above, Roy, Durkon, Serini, and Vaarsuvious all have a character motivation to speak further if Calder is willing to cease hostilities.

Also, the other option is a deathmatch with a very scary foe, and every round increases the risk the Order loses someone permanently and the resources required to recover while making no progress at all towards their actual goals. On the tabletop, I'd probably let him be tomorrow's adventure to conserve every ounce of fight that I have for the upcoming endgame.

[alceryes]

Do you think Bloodfeast's sudden transformation (and subsequent attack) could qualify as a surprise attack?
RAW would say no since mini Bloodfeast is definitely seen, but in this situation what was seen is definitely NOT what Calder experienced. He seemed surprised.

[Provengreil]

Do you think Bloodfeast's sudden transformation (and subsequent attack) could qualify as a surprise attack?
RAW would say no since mini Bloodfeast is definitely seen, but in this situation what was seen is definitely NOT what Calder experienced. He seemed surprised.

As a DM I'd have ruled it so, but IIRC surprise attacks won't do much against dragons unless you're getting sneak attack dice.

[alceryes]

As a DM I'd have ruled it so, but IIRC surprise attacks won't do much against dragons unless you're getting sneak attack dice.

True. Maybe he just got better chance to hit.

[Mordar]

The antimagic zone is making everything pale as a visual effect. Try comparing Calder's non AMFed hues from a few pages ago and this (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0784.html) shot of Bloodfeast.

I did go back and check previous appearances and it just reads brown to me, but I am not complaining. One man's umber, or something.


True. Maybe he just got better chance to hit.

Don't halflings get a bonus with thrown allosauruses? I believe under most rulesets that conveys.

- M

[Throknor]

...unless, say, Durkon and V take the lead in making a deal, showing V's further growth in respecting life ...

The same V that was ready yet again to kill Serina for the vile crime of upstaging them (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1247.html)?

[The MunchKING]

The same V that was ready yet again to kill Serina for the vile crime of upstaging them (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1247.html)?

She quite literally tried to "immobilize her harmlessly". It's Hailey that wanted to put a few ranged attacks into Serina.

[Peelee]

She quite literally tried to "immobilize her harmlessly". It's Hailey that wanted to put a few ranged attacks into Serina.

Last panel.

Though that (and Haley's comment) is obviously hyperbole.

[The MunchKING]

Last panel.

Though that (and Haley's comment) is obviously hyperbole.

"posthumous divination". I thought she was talking about removing the mimic posthaste. And that the "Earlier suggestion" she was willing to entertain was moving slowly to stay as a group.

that'll teach me not skim V's verbose speech bubbles.

[Envyus]

So while I know the story trumps the rules and all that, I feel like putting some pure game analysis in here. And assuming Calder is a Wyrm (as it lets him cast 8th level spells) this fight is not going as poorly as it looks for him.

Bloodfeast is likely advanced to Gargantuan but despite the pin it’s unlikely to have done much damage because Calder has DR 20. Everyone ganging up on him now that he’s grounded also likely won’t be able to do much to him because of the DR 20 and all of their magic gear being tuned off by the anti magic. Like the few hits they got on him prior don’t look to have done much, Calder has like 600 Hp and is very likely still above half.

[The MunchKING]

I don't know if he is a Wyrm though, as he's stated to have class levels, and from what I saw, mindbender lets you get spells like you got a level in your spellcasting class. SO if he put a bunch of levels into it, it would be like sorc levels + HD/Age spells for how many spells he could cast.

[Envyus]

I don't know if he is a Wyrm though, as he's stated to have class levels, and from what I saw, mindbender lets you get spells like you got a level in your spellcasting class. SO if he put a bunch of levels into it, it would be like sorc levels + HD/Age spells for how many spells he could cast.

Nothing suggests to me he has class levels. Some people theorized he has class levels and I don’t agree with them.

[Naysmith]

...unless, say, Durkon and V take the lead in making a deal, showing V's further growth in respecting life and showing Durkon that, hey, maybe he can convince Redcloak in the end. Plus the fun of the party's two least-charismatic characters taking the lead in negotiations.

I quite like the idea of V trying for mercy even to the wicked in a complete 180 from their previous approach. Though I would add the refinement of V (or possibly Durkon) interrupting some attacks to ask Roy and/or Serini for a merciful solution, rather than an unprompted surrender that seems vanishingly unlikely.

[danielxcutter]

Nothing suggests to me he has class levels. Some people theorized he has class levels and I don’t agree with them.

Why don’t you? It fits his abilities.

[hamishspence]

Everyone ganging up on him now that he’s grounded also likely won’t be able to do much to him because of the DR 20 and all of their magic gear being tuned off by the anti magic.

DR/magic is considered Supernatural rather than Extraordinary and will be turned off in the antimagic field too.

[danielxcutter]

Also being grappled is probably a significant AC penalty. I don’t remember the specific rules though.

[Conit]

Elan excludes himself from the meeting because he didn’t feel confident attending. The first instinct of the Order SHOULD be to adjust the meeting to accommodate Elan’s anxiety and impaired following ability and make him feel comfortable attending.
You're saying Elan is not confident attending the meeting because he's been made to believe he won't be contributing anything, which is a fair interpretation.
But here's how I interpreted it. Elan is not confident attending the meeting because he knows he won't be contributing anything. Look at how Serini describes the meeting "a plan to plan a plan", they're strategizing. Elan's expertise is on what would make a good story, but Elan himself has acknowledge that doing something because it makes for a better story often puts people in danger (see 938 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0938.html)), so creating a strategy based on it making a good story is a bad idea. Conversely, a person devising a strategy, and executing it without flaw not a great story. A good story is antithetical to a good strategy, so Elan does not have the strategic insight to contribute anything of value to that conversation, and Elan knows this.
When Elan suggests a plan it's usually total nonsense (see 80 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0080.html)) and Elan is well aware of that. When Roy seems to seriously consider one of Elan's plans, Elan is genuinely concerned (see 1027 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1027.html)) because he knows what he just said should not be taken seriously.
That doesn't mean Elan's input on a plan isn't valued by Roy or the party, we see in 1218 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1218.html) Roy relying on Elan's bardic expertise to decide the next course of action. Elan is extremely valuable for providing feedback on a plan, but basically useless for the creation of that plan.

Planning is not where Elan thrives, in fact quite the opposite. Elan's strength is spontaneity. When plans fail, Elan is almost always the one who pulls some surprise out his pocket (see 223 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0233.html), 386 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0386.html), 445 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0445.html), 478 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0478.html), 767 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html), 794 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0794.html), 930 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0930.html)). Elan's not a planner, that's why both of his opposites (Nale and Tarquin) are such meticulous planners. Elan is a wildcard, and in a universe where a plan's success is totally reliant on what will make a better story? (see 836 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0836.html)) you're always gonna want to have a wildcard.
So not only would Elan participating not be beneficial, it would actually be detrimental. Again Elan's strength is spontaneity, if everyone knows all his abilities and items, then they're no longer a surprise and if Elan can't do something surprising then he's much less effective.

You say Roy and the party are not accommodating for Elan, however I argue they actually are accommodating for Elan by allowing him to not attend the meeting.
Imagine you're the boss of some tech start-up and you had the world's greatest coder on your team, tell him to code anything and he'll have it done in a hour, but he has absolutely no insight when it comes to designing an application (ex. he could code a search bar for a web browser easily, but ask him if a web browser should have a search bar and he'd have no clue). Would you force him to attend the design meetings, where he can't contribute and will feel worthless, or do you let him not attend those and instead just do what he's good at?

I think this is actually a good message for neurodiverse people. A neurodiverse person often cannot contribute to a team in the same way a nerotypical person could. What's being shown here is, it's ok to not be able to contribute in that way, you don't have to, that doesn't mean you're not valuable to the team.


Who remembers when Elan was ordered by V to run a mile to get Durkon to unpetify Haley when he could have Song of Freedom’d her out himself? Clearly no one. It’s never been acknowledged in comic and the Order are letting history repeat.
I don't think we can blame the party for Elan forgetting his own abilities, that's literally one of his most well established character traits, he even straight up chooses to not realize things because it makes a better story (see 793 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0793.html)). This is a strength btw, it makes him more spontaneous which again is his strong suit.
Also Song of Freedom requires a minute long uninterrupted performance, there's no way Elan could go 10 rounds without getting interrupted by Zz'dtri, Qarr, or Yuk Yuk. Even if Elan could do the full 10 rounds, V would still tell him to go to Durkon because he can free Haley and wasn't aware of the Linear Guild's presence, so all Elan using song of freedom would do is waste a minute.


But they are fictional. It doesn’t matter what they do. What matters is that Rich Burlew, a person in the real world, is advocating for criminal work practices and portraying them in comic as acceptable. OOTS has a big reach amongst neurodiverse people and people who work with, live with and employ neurodiverse people. In that context, such behaviour would be criminal and Rich is portraying it as acceptable.
I fundamentally disagree with the sentiment of this. I believe an artist can portray something as acceptable, or even portray it as something good, and still not be advocating for it. Look at The Punisher comics, a core theme of those comics is deplorable irredeemable criminal gets away with disgusting crime through judicial loophole. Frank Castle decides if the legal system won't enforce the law, he must be the one to do it.
Often the people Frank Castle kills are completely irredeemable, and the world is genuinely better off without them. The Punisher comics seem to portray Frank Castle's vigilante justice as not just justified/acceptable but also a genuine benefit to society. However the comics' authors are usually not advocating for vigilante justice, in fact many of them actively condemn it.
One can argue that, even if the artist isn't advocating for it, it's still irresponsible to portray a harmful thing as acceptable because it could influence people to believe it's acceptable. However the problem becomes should art be censored from portraying harmful things as acceptable because some people might actually believe it? If so, then shouldn't we be censoring theft (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0577.html), murder (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0648.html), leaving someone to be tortured and killed (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0612.html), lying about suffering from a mental illness (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0288.html) (this one's deemed acceptable by literal gods (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0407.html)), disenfranchisement of a political opponent (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1000.html) (through attempted murder), or what about the destruction of an uncountable number of universes (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1139.html). This stance is honestly quite similar to Miko's ideology.
There's also the fact that it's very difficult if impossible for an artist to control how someone interprets their art.


Elan’s certainly not getting a happy ending in a workplace where your employer shouts at you that you don’t count and then continues to treat you as second class without consequence.


You speak of context regarding Roy’s view on Elan. The context that matters is Rich saying that stress brings out the true person. This means regardless of what Roy says and does prior and subsequent, he believes Elan doesn’t count. That’s the real Roy. And I think, in real life, that an employer who says that, that’s him DONE. Expelled. Dismissed from leadership. And of the other members, Elan is best positioned to replace him as leader.
I don't think "stress brings out the true person" applies to that event. Yes Roy was stressed, but Roy was also angry, even more so than he was stressed, and most people would agree you're not your true self when you're angry. Roy was furious at himself for "letting" Durkon die, that's why he said that.

I've never begged for a reply before but I spent no joke 10 hours writing this comment, so please reply so I can know I didn't just waste half a day.

[Diachronos]

That's not a good name, though. Calling someone a freak of nature "because that's their creature type" really sounds like a slur. That sounds like calling someone different a Primate, which is technically correct (we all are members of the Primate family), but has unfortunate undertones.

I guess it depends on your sensitivity, but I think "you minion" would actually be less demeaning.

Wow, it's almost like dragons, especially chromatic dragons and especially especially ANCIENT chromatic dragons, think that literally every other creature in existence is beneath them and unworthy of even the tiniest shred of respect...

[Bird]

I've never begged for a reply before but I spent no joke 10 hours writing this comment, so please reply so I can know I didn't just waste half a day.
Obviously, that wasn't directed at me, but FWIW, it's a great post. It's thoughtful, well-supported, meaningful and compassionate.

I feel sort of bad that you spent your day on it, because whenever I've done something similar, I've always ended up regretting it.

I hope you get the reply you're looking for, though, and again, great post.

[Kardwill]

Wow, it's almost like dragons, especially chromatic dragons and especially especially ANCIENT chromatic dragons, think that literally every other creature in existence is beneath them and unworthy of even the tiniest shred of respect...

Well, that's exactly what I meant. Calling Sunny "aberration" to their face plays into the idea that to Calder, everybody else is just a tool or a plaything. Not a person, but a thing to be used and discarded. Hence the "Dragon gotta dragon"

[Unoriginal]

Well, that's exactly what I meant. Calling Sunny "aberration" to their face plays into the idea that to Calder, everybody else is just a tool or a plaything. Not a person, but a thing to be used and discarded. Hence the "Dragon gotta dragon"

So why is it ok to call Calder "Dragon"?

That words implies someone who greedily hoard riches and react violently to anyone who'd threaten or even touch the smallest ammount, after all.

[Kardwill]

Once again, Belkar demonstrates that he cares about his little friends - although I'm not sure Bloodfeast the Extreminator counts as little at this moment.


And he even does that without death threats!

Pre-Durkula Belkar would have talked about flossing with their entrails, so threatening to break their teeth is progress, I guess :smalltongue:

[Kardwill]

So why is it ok to call Calder "Dragon"?

Well, I'm not calling Calder "dragon" to his face (Or doing anything in Calder's general neighborhood, really. Mostly because I like my organs non-incinerated ^^)

[Provengreil]

So why is it ok to call Calder "Dragon"?

That words implies someone who greedily hoard riches and react violently to anyone who'd threaten or even touch the smallest ammount, after all.

As a form of address? It's not, and I don't think I've seen anyone do so. He introduced himself in his first appearance after all. As a description? It's pretty accurate, he's a dragon through and through.

In Sunny's case, their creature type is aberration and it's therefore an applicable adjective. It is not an appropriate form of address, and we are supposed to take Calder using it that way as a sign of arrogance and dismissiveness.

And sure, he hasn't exactly had time to learn Sunny's name here, but that's his fault.

[brian 333]

So why is it ok to call Calder "Dragon"?

That words implies someone who greedily hoard riches and react violently to anyone who'd threaten or even touch the smallest ammount, after all.

Squire Molehill, I dub thee Sir Mountain.

[Conit]

Obviously, that wasn't directed at me, but FWIW, it's a great post. It's thoughtful, well-supported, meaningful and compassionate.

I feel sort of bad that you spent your day on it, because whenever I've done something similar, I've always ended up regretting it.

I hope you get the reply you're looking for, though, and again, great post.

Thanks. Even if I don't get a reply back from the guy, I'm glad to know there's at least one person who's read the comment and thought about it. That's enough for me to know it wasn't a complete waste of time, so again thank you.

[Provengreil]

Thanks. Even if I don't get a reply back from the guy, I'm glad to know there's at least one person who's read the comment and thought about it. That's enough for me to know it wasn't a complete waste of time, so again thank you.

Check your forums inbox.

[ozmar]

If only. The hours and hours of meetings talking about how to be more productive will keep expanding until productivity improves. (0_o)

And HR Sensitivity Training will continue until morale improves... :smalltongue: :smalleek:

-Ozmar the Politically Correct


That's where I fail. I quite like the French.


Not even the French like the French...

-Ozmar the Francophobe


Nothing suggests to me he has class levels. Some people theorized he has class levels and I don’t agree with them.

I think Mindbender is an actual prestige class from Complete Arcane? Not that it's definite, but when Serini says "He's a bit of a mindbender..." I read it as Calder has taken this prestige class. If so, then he has class levels. Note that this class advances spell-casting every other level. So its plausible that Calder is a less-than-ancient dragon with ten levels of this prestige class.

-Ozmar the Pedantic

[Peelee]

Not even the French like the French...

-Ozmar the Francophobe

Marianne does, and that's enough for me. :smalltongue:

[Cryos]

Yeah! Get em! Die dragon, die! I wonder if they'll use this strategy with Bloodfeast again, maybe not since it would be dramatically unsatisfying but this was still a great checkov's pet

[Peelee]

Yeah! Get em! Die dragon, die!

I choose to interpret this as "the dragon, the!" :smallwink:

[Shining Wrath]

So... How do we measure the ratio of "people we hate" to "people we are united with"? Is it all about scale?



Yeah. San Fransisco, like many things, looks much much better from a distance than up close.

I haven't been there for a few years, but it's a lovely town up close as well. People hating on the city who haven't been there are weird.
On social media I once had someone tell me downtown Denver was a hell-hole because politics stuff. I said "Hey, I walk down the 16th Street Mall twice every day as part of my commute, and I've never been bothered at all". Didn't matter to them; they'd been told Denver was full of crime, so therefore, my life experiences didn't matter.


Oh sure, but the joke was Bleu cheese.

In a literal sense Bleu is just French for Blue, right?

Right, but it was also the name of a dog. A French King's dog. The priests of the court didn't like the exclamation "Sacre Dieu" (Holy God!), so the nobles switched to swearing by the king's dog "Sacre Bleu!" (Holy Blue, or Holy Dog).


You're saying Elan is not confident attending the meeting because he's been made to believe he won't be contributing anything, which is a fair interpretation.
But here's how I interpreted it. Elan is not confident attending the meeting because he knows he won't be contributing anything. Look at how Serini describes the meeting "a plan to plan a plan", they're strategizing. Elan's expertise is on what would make a good story, but Elan himself has acknowledge that doing something because it makes for a better story often puts people in danger (see 938 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0938.html)), so creating a strategy based on it making a good story is a bad idea. Conversely, a person devising a strategy, and executing it without flaw not a great story. A good story is antithetical to a good strategy, so Elan does not have the strategic insight to contribute anything of value to that conversation, and Elan knows this.
When Elan suggests a plan it's usually total nonsense (see 80 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0080.html)) and Elan is well aware of that. When Roy seems to seriously consider one of Elan's plans, Elan is genuinely concerned (see 1027 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1027.html)) because he knows what he just said should not be taken seriously.
That doesn't mean Elan's input on a plan isn't valued by Roy or the party, we see in 1218 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1218.html) Roy relying on Elan's bardic expertise to decide the next course of action. Elan is extremely valuable for providing feedback on a plan, but basically useless for the creation of that plan.

Planning is not where Elan thrives, in fact quite the opposite. Elan's strength is spontaneity. When plans fail, Elan is almost always the one who pulls some surprise out his pocket (see 223 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0233.html), 386 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0386.html), 445 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0445.html), 478 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0478.html), 767 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html), 794 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0794.html), 930 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0930.html)). Elan's not a planner, that's why both of his opposites (Nale and Tarquin) are such meticulous planners. Elan is a wildcard, and in a universe where a plan's success is totally reliant on what will make a better story? (see 836 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0836.html)) you're always gonna want to have a wildcard.
So not only would Elan participating not be beneficial, it would actually be detrimental. Again Elan's strength is spontaneity, if everyone knows all his abilities and items, then they're no longer a surprise and if Elan can't do something surprising then he's much less effective.

You say Roy and the party are not accommodating for Elan, however I argue they actually are accommodating for Elan by allowing him to not attend the meeting.
Imagine you're the boss of some tech start-up and you had the world's greatest coder on your team, tell him to code anything and he'll have it done in a hour, but he has absolutely no insight when it comes to designing an application (ex. he could code a search bar for a web browser easily, but ask him if a web browser should have a search bar and he'd have no clue). Would you force him to attend the design meetings, where he can't contribute and will feel worthless, or do you let him not attend those and instead just do what he's good at?

I think this is actually a good message for neurodiverse people. A neurodiverse person often cannot contribute to a team in the same way a nerotypical person could. What's being shown here is, it's ok to not be able to contribute in that way, you don't have to, that doesn't mean you're not valuable to the team.


I don't think we can blame the party for Elan forgetting his own abilities, that's literally one of his most well established character traits, he even straight up chooses to not realize things because it makes a better story (see 793 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0793.html)). This is a strength btw, it makes him more spontaneous which again is his strong suit.
Also Song of Freedom requires a minute long uninterrupted performance, there's no way Elan could go 10 rounds without getting interrupted by Zz'dtri, Qarr, or Yuk Yuk. Even if Elan could do the full 10 rounds, V would still tell him to go to Durkon because he can free Haley and wasn't aware of the Linear Guild's presence, so all Elan using song of freedom would do is waste a minute.


I fundamentally disagree with the sentiment of this. I believe an artist can portray something as acceptable, or even portray it as something good, and still not be advocating for it. Look at The Punisher comics, a core theme of those comics is deplorable irredeemable criminal gets away with disgusting crime through judicial loophole. Frank Castle decides if the legal system won't enforce the law, he must be the one to do it.
Often the people Frank Castle kills are completely irredeemable, and the world is genuinely better off without them. The Punisher comics seem to portray Frank Castle's vigilante justice as not just justified/acceptable but also a genuine benefit to society. However the comics' authors are usually not advocating for vigilante justice, in fact many of them actively condemn it.
One can argue that, even if the artist isn't advocating for it, it's still irresponsible to portray a harmful thing as acceptable because it could influence people to believe it's acceptable. However the problem becomes should art be censored from portraying harmful things as acceptable because some people might actually believe it? If so, then shouldn't we be censoring theft (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0577.html), murder (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0648.html), leaving someone to be tortured and killed (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0612.html), lying about suffering from a mental illness (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0288.html) (this one's deemed acceptable by literal gods (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0407.html)), disenfranchisement of a political opponent (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1000.html) (through attempted murder), or what about the destruction of an uncountable number of universes (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1139.html). This stance is honestly quite similar to Miko's ideology.
There's also the fact that it's very difficult if impossible for an artist to control how someone interprets their art.




I don't think "stress brings out the true person" applies to that event. Yes Roy was stressed, but Roy was also angry, even more so than he was stressed, and most people would agree you're not your true self when you're angry. Roy was furious at himself for "letting" Durkon die, that's why he said that.

I've never begged for a reply before but I spent no joke 10 hours writing this comment, so please reply so I can know I didn't just waste half a day.

This is very well researched indeed and well argued. I don't think the person you responded to will care, though. Some people just want to be mad at the world.

[Kardwill]

I wonder if they'll use this strategy with Bloodfeast again, maybe not since it would be dramatically unsatisfying but this was still a great checkov's pet

Yeah, I guess something will happen that will make this a one-shot thing. I just hope it's not something bad happening to Sunny or Bloodfeast.

[Dummy]

"You know what equals power? Power. Power equals power. Crazy, huh? But the kind of power? Doesn't matter as much as you'd think. It turns out, everything is oddly balanced. Weird but true. For example: Right now power takes the form of a... "
Magic inmune Allosaurus.

Hey, that could work better against the Evil Group than just having Sunny there as an obvious target. Is kinda tricky for an undead sorcerer and a pure spellcaster cleric to fight against Bloodfeast without their spells and supernatural abilities. Sure Oona and Greyview are there too, so is not a flawless strategy, but still a pretty cool one.

[Timy]

Right, but it was also the name of a dog. A French King's dog. The priests of the court didn't like the exclamation "Sacre Dieu" (Holy God!), so the nobles switched to swearing by the king's dog "Sacre Bleu!" (Holy Blue, or Holy Dog).



Wow !

What is your source ?

I never heard of that explanation and apparently neither did the internet... I can't find anything except the fact that due to being an anagram, the auto-correct can swith god for dog if misspelled :p

Funnily, according to wikipedia, english-spoken people use more the word "sacrebleu" than the french because of several fictional french-spoken characters using it (FYI : nobody says that in France ^^)

[urbanwolf]

Because Bloodfeast was breed in a kingdom with a massive budget and manpower what kind of thing could they have done to make them better?

Warbeast training would have a high skill check but not impossible. +1hd +3 str and con. Permanent greater magic fang and improved natural armor. Would not matter in the amz, but could explain how he hurt a vampire in his lizard body.(pierced its DR hitting would be easy with all his hitdice) We can assume that they are not awakened.

[pendell]

You're saying Elan is not confident attending the meeting because he's been made to believe he won't be contributing anything, which is a fair interpretation.
But here's how I interpreted it. Elan is not confident attending the meeting because he knows he won't be contributing anything. Look at how Serini describes the meeting "a plan to plan a plan", they're strategizing. Elan's expertise is on what would make a good story, but Elan himself has acknowledge that doing something because it makes for a better story often puts people in danger (see 938 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0938.html)), so creating a strategy based on it making a good story is a bad idea. Conversely, a person devising a strategy, and executing it without flaw not a great story. A good story is antithetical to a good strategy, so Elan does not have the strategic insight to contribute anything of value to that conversation, and Elan knows this.
When Elan suggests a plan it's usually total nonsense (see 80 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0080.html)) and Elan is well aware of that. When Roy seems to seriously consider one of Elan's plans, Elan is genuinely concerned (see 1027 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1027.html)) because he knows what he just said should not be taken seriously.
That doesn't mean Elan's input on a plan isn't valued by Roy or the party, we see in 1218 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1218.html) Roy relying on Elan's bardic expertise to decide the next course of action. Elan is extremely valuable for providing feedback on a plan, but basically useless for the creation of that plan.

Planning is not where Elan thrives, in fact quite the opposite. Elan's strength is spontaneity. When plans fail, Elan is almost always the one who pulls some surprise out his pocket (see 223 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0233.html), 386 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0386.html), 445 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0445.html), 478 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0478.html), 767 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html), 794 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0794.html), 930 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0930.html)). Elan's not a planner, that's why both of his opposites (Nale and Tarquin) are such meticulous planners. Elan is a wildcard, and in a universe where a plan's success is totally reliant on what will make a better story? (see 836 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0836.html)) you're always gonna want to have a wildcard.
So not only would Elan participating not be beneficial, it would actually be detrimental. Again Elan's strength is spontaneity, if everyone knows all his abilities and items, then they're no longer a surprise and if Elan can't do something surprising then he's much less effective.

You say Roy and the party are not accommodating for Elan, however I argue they actually are accommodating for Elan by allowing him to not attend the meeting.
Imagine you're the boss of some tech start-up and you had the world's greatest coder on your team, tell him to code anything and he'll have it done in a hour, but he has absolutely no insight when it comes to designing an application (ex. he could code a search bar for a web browser easily, but ask him if a web browser should have a search bar and he'd have no clue). Would you force him to attend the design meetings, where he can't contribute and will feel worthless, or do you let him not attend those and instead just do what he's good at?

I think this is actually a good message for neurodiverse people. A neurodiverse person often cannot contribute to a team in the same way a nerotypical person could. What's being shown here is, it's ok to not be able to contribute in that way, you don't have to, that doesn't mean you're not valuable to the team.


I don't think we can blame the party for Elan forgetting his own abilities, that's literally one of his most well established character traits, he even straight up chooses to not realize things because it makes a better story (see 793 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0793.html)). This is a strength btw, it makes him more spontaneous which again is his strong suit.
Also Song of Freedom requires a minute long uninterrupted performance, there's no way Elan could go 10 rounds without getting interrupted by Zz'dtri, Qarr, or Yuk Yuk. Even if Elan could do the full 10 rounds, V would still tell him to go to Durkon because he can free Haley and wasn't aware of the Linear Guild's presence, so all Elan using song of freedom would do is waste a minute.


I fundamentally disagree with the sentiment of this. I believe an artist can portray something as acceptable, or even portray it as something good, and still not be advocating for it. Look at The Punisher comics, a core theme of those comics is deplorable irredeemable criminal gets away with disgusting crime through judicial loophole. Frank Castle decides if the legal system won't enforce the law, he must be the one to do it.
Often the people Frank Castle kills are completely irredeemable, and the world is genuinely better off without them. The Punisher comics seem to portray Frank Castle's vigilante justice as not just justified/acceptable but also a genuine benefit to society. However the comics' authors are usually not advocating for vigilante justice, in fact many of them actively condemn it.
One can argue that, even if the artist isn't advocating for it, it's still irresponsible to portray a harmful thing as acceptable because it could influence people to believe it's acceptable. However the problem becomes should art be censored from portraying harmful things as acceptable because some people might actually believe it? If so, then shouldn't we be censoring theft (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0577.html), murder (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0648.html), leaving someone to be tortured and killed (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0612.html), lying about suffering from a mental illness (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0288.html) (this one's deemed acceptable by literal gods (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0407.html)), disenfranchisement of a political opponent (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1000.html) (through attempted murder), or what about the destruction of an uncountable number of universes (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1139.html). This stance is honestly quite similar to Miko's ideology.
There's also the fact that it's very difficult if impossible for an artist to control how someone interprets their art.




I don't think "stress brings out the true person" applies to that event. Yes Roy was stressed, but Roy was also angry, even more so than he was stressed, and most people would agree you're not your true self when you're angry. Roy was furious at himself for "letting" Durkon die, that's why he said that.

I've never begged for a reply before but I spent no joke 10 hours writing this comment, so please reply so I can know I didn't just waste half a day.

I do NOT have ten hours to respond, but I wanted to recognize and the you for your efforts in writing this post. I hope the person it is written to will read it and , at least, consider your arguments even if they don't agree.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Tubercular Ox]

{scrubbed} I doubt he's going to engage with what Conit said. If he does it's going to be because I called him on it. Am I helping yet?

To Conit: As people keep saying, you have a lot to be proud of in that post. Don't let BurlewContact's failure to engage upset you.

[bunsen_h]

Nothing suggests to me he has class levels. Some people theorized he has class levels and I don’t agree with them.

For page 1297 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1297.html), there was a long discussion about whether Calder casting the Polar Ray from his eyes indicated that he had a special feat or if it was just how Rich was going to depict such spells for bonus stylishness. But on page 1296 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1296.html), Calder cast from his hand/claw. So that does seem to suggest that Calder casting from his eyes involved actual game mechanics, which has implications for his minimum level. I don't know how the details work themselves out.


Planning is not where Elan thrives, in fact quite the opposite. Elan's strength is spontaneity. When plans fail, Elan is almost always the one who pulls some surprise out his pocket (see 223 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0233.html), 386 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0386.html), 445 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0445.html), 478 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0478.html), 767 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html), 794 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0794.html), 930 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0930.html)). Elan's not a planner, that's why both of his opposites (Nale and Tarquin) are such meticulous planners. Elan is a wildcard, and in a universe where a plan's success is totally reliant on what will make a better story? (see 836 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0836.html)) you're always gonna want to have a wildcard.
So not only would Elan participating not be beneficial, it would actually be detrimental. Again Elan's strength is spontaneity, if everyone knows all his abilities and items, then they're no longer a surprise and if Elan can't do something surprising then he's much less effective.

Hmm. I'd argue that Elan's "secret plan" involving Julio Scoundrél was a long-term plan, well executed. But it's a different form of planning. I'm a poor chess player; I can't keep track of a bunch of possible future moves and counter-moves. But I'm generally pretty good at pulling together a variety of factors in a creative way that blind-sides colleagues and opponents. In my employment, several times we've been blocked by some intractable problem. I've come up with solutions that were bizarre and kludgy, but also stable, robust, and maintainable. A couple of times, some person who was new to the team has been boggled by them and criticized them, then had the situation explained. "Hey, if you think you can come up with something better, feel free. Don't forget that you have to work within the following constraints... No? Then perhaps you should apologize...?"


I've never begged for a reply before but I spent no joke 10 hours writing this comment, so please reply so I can know I didn't just waste half a day.

Well, I appreciated it.

[Tubercular Ox]

{scrubbed}

He kept changing his argument to match the things people appeared to be upset about.

[Mordar]

Thanks. Even if I don't get a reply back from the guy, I'm glad to know there's at least one person who's read the comment and thought about it. That's enough for me to know it wasn't a complete waste of time, so again thank you.

Any time spent improving one's use of the written word cannot be a complete waste of time.

Additionally, we get to discuss the potential impacts of adding regeneration to a halfling on said halfling's natural lifespan. So also not a waste!


I choose to interpret this as "the dragon, the!" :smallwink:

Thanks, Sideshow Peelee.

- M

[Shining Wrath]

Wow !

What is your source ?

I never heard of that explanation and apparently neither did the internet... I can't find anything except the fact that due to being an anagram, the auto-correct can swith god for dog if misspelled :p

Funnily, according to wikipedia, english-spoken people use more the word "sacrebleu" than the french because of several fictional french-spoken characters using it (FYI : nobody says that in France ^^)

My high school French teacher. And I don't remember her source.

Poking around the internet found French people saying that this version is an urban legend.

[Peelee]

My high school French teacher. And I don't remember her source.

Poking around the internet found French people saying that this version is an urban legend.

As i said earlier, it's just a rhyming alternative. Americans have similar phrases replaced with rhyming versions, which are similarly rarely used.

[KorvinStarmast]

In Sunny's case, their creature type is aberration and it's therefore an applicable adjective. It is not an appropriate form of address, Face palm time. For Calder, it is, and that's what matters. You are free to follow your own norms and customs.

Warbeast training would have a high skill check but not impossible. +1hd +3 str and con. Permanent greater magic fang and improved natural armor. Would not matter in the amz, We can assume that they are not awakened. Neat idea.

Elan's "secret plan" involving Julio Scoundrél was a long-term plan, well executed. Concur

Additionally, we get to discuss the potential impacts of adding regeneration to a halfling on said halfling's natural lifespan. So also not a waste! To which I respond "die, halfling, die...with fire!" :smalltongue:

[Lord Torath]

"die, halfling, die...with fire!" :smalltongue:Or, in German the halfling, the... with fire! (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0157.html)

[DavidSh]

To which I respond "die, halfling, die...with fire!" :smalltongue:


Or, in German the halfling, the... with fire! (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0157.html)

I'm too slow, but I was going to suggest that Serini is "die Haflingin". Or maybe "die Halblingin" -- I'm not sure how far the translation out of English went, and my knowledge of German is faded in any event.