Why Does Belkar Favor Ranger over Fighter?

[Logalmier]

It seems like Belkar doesn't make use of many of the benefits of Ranger class, he doesn't have an animal companion (short of Mr.Scruffy), he doesn't have any ranks in survival and he has an ability penalty in one of the ability's that is most important for a Ranger! The only thing Belker cares about is a high base attack bonus and stuff that will let him kill stuff with ease (well, with more ease anyways). So I ask you this, why didn't Belkar chose the fighter class over the Ranger one? What benefits does he see in Ranger that he makes use of that he doesn't see in fighter? Any ideas?

[Killersquid]

Kobolds as a favored enemy.

[Zocelot]

Killing a lot of weak things, due to more attacks.

[Logalmier]

Kobolds as a favored enemy.

Good point.

[Green-Shirt Q]

He can track down his enemies and feed them their livers. As said in "On the Origin of PCs".

[Logalmier]

He can track down his enemies and feed them their livers. As said in "On the Origin of PCs".

He dosn't have any ranks in survival, and he as an ability penalty. Furthermore in one the next panels he says "Well if I had known that then I would have pretended to be good at it in the first place.", implying that he isn't a good tracker.

[tyckspoon]

He can track down his enemies and feed them their livers. As said in "On the Origin of PCs".

Although supposedly part of the reason for being a Ranger, Belkar does not actually have any ranks in Survival. Plus a negative Wisdom modifier.. so if it comes to rolling, he actually has a pretty good chance of failing to notice fresh prints in snow (DC 5).

[Logalmier]

Killing a lot of weak things, due to more attacks.

Fighters get just as many attacks attacks as Rangers.

[Green-Shirt Q]

He dosn't have any ranks in survival, and he as an ability penalty. Furthermore in one the next panels he says "Well if I had known that then I would have pretended to be good at it in the first place.", implying that he isn't a good tracker.

Well, we all KNOW that Belkar isn't a good tracker. What if Belkar picked the class with the intention of becoming a good tracker, and is just too lazy to do so?

I dunno. Just my guess. I don't think we will ever really know why Belkar likes being a Ranger more then a Fighter. All we can do is guess and wait for the Giant to make a comic sometime that will go into Belkar's backstory and explain why he wanted to be a ranger, which I doubt the giant will ever do.

[Greg]

Fighters get just as many attacks attacks as Rangers.
Combat style.

[BardicDuelist]

Combat style.

Fighters can take TWF earlier than rangers by spending a bonus feat (well, a ranger can spend his normal feat, but why would it?).

Simply, fighters get the same number of attacks as rangers.

[Behold_the_Void]

Fighters aren't good at stealth, rangers are.

[Killersquid]

Fighters aren't good at stealth, rangers are.

Belkar doesn't do stealth, he burned down a tent when he was supposed to sneak into the bandit camp.

[Kai Maera]

Belkar doesn't do stealth, he burned down a tent when he was supposed to sneak into the bandit camp.

The fight against Miko.

[Killersquid]

The fight against Miko.

Ok, 1 for 1, you got me there.

[theinsulabot]

Belkar doesn't do stealth, he burned down a tent when he was supposed to sneak into the bandit camp.

incorrect sir. on multiple occasion belkar has proven to be quite capable of his stealth feets, he just doesnt always have the patiance to wait untill he is set up for a sneak attack.

also, on multiple occasions, belkar has screwed up a party stealth check because the intention of said party was to slip by un noticed when belkar would prefer to butcher and maim his way through. for example, when he and Hailey were sneaking though azure city

[Roderick_BR]

Probably sounded like a good idea at the time. In the first comic you see him stating "I've been on this ranger crap for 3 years now". He just wanted to look cool, without bothering to "optmize".

[Kish]

Too lazy to go to Fighter College.

[EponymousKid]

In any case, Belkar's too small for a sword, or anything like that, and he can't possibly be anything approaching strong, either. I

Then again, he's got a level or two in barbarian....

[Essej]

STR based TWF. He doesn't have to pump up his DEX as a Ranger.

[Hallavast]

He fancies himself a "striker" rather than a "defender". Obvious really...:smallcool:

[Grey Watcher]

Ok, 1 for 1, you got me there.

Also, this fight (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0107.html).

[Killersquid]

Oh, forgot about that. Seems Belkar is much stealthier than I remember. But...if he's a ranger, where's his animal companion? He should have one by now.

[Solo]

Oh, forgot about that. Seems Belkar is much stealthier than I remember. But...if he's a ranger, where's his animal companion? He should have one by now.

You mean Mr. Scruffy?

[RTGoodman]

The Giant sort of answered this in the site FAQ



Q: In Strip #X, why didn.t character Y take action Z? If they had done so, they could have avoided a whole lot of trouble.

A: You just answered your own question. The strip is ABOUT the trouble these characters get in; if a tactic would result in an effortless solution to their latest problem, there would be little point in showing it, see? The characters are woefully inefficient as a result, and often take actions that are rarely seen in a real D&D game, like running away from moderate danger or .forgetting. major abilities for the sake of a joke. But their foibles are what fuel the humor.

It's not the exact same situation, but the spirit of the answer applies nonetheless. If Belkar was just a Fighter, well, where's the fun in that, especially when we already have Roy for the jokes about Fighters (usually at his dad's expense)?

[holywhippet]

It's probably worth noting that Belkar chose his class when they were still running under 3.0 rules - rangers weren't as good back then. My guess is he likes the mixture of stealth and raw attack power the class offers.

[Jonathan327]

Fighters get feats.

Rangers get Favored Enemy.

Belkar doesn't care much about feats--he forgot he even has evasion. However, we know he holds grudges. Favored Enemy definitely fits.

Does he use the class to its intention? Of course not. But the class itself fits his needs well enough, and when mixed in with some barbarian, it fits him even better.

[Killersquid]

You mean Mr. Scruffy?

...Dammit.

Mr Scruffy is barely a companion, he belonged to Shojo, and he's a normal house cat, can wouldn't his companion...be stronger?

[Solo]

...Dammit.

Mr Scruffy is barely a companion, he belonged to Shojo, and he's a normal house cat, can wouldn't his companion...be stronger?

Going toe- to -claw with the goth chick isn't strong enough for you?

[Gitman00]

I think a great deal of the humor (and drama) in the strip comes from the fact that all of the main characters are woefully underoptimized, and they make the best of it.

Haley is an archer rogue who doesn't carry a melee weapon, and therefore eliminates the flanking sneak attack, one of the most important combat abilities for a rogue. She also burned a feat to pick up the longbow weapon proficiency, when a shortbow would have served just as well for what she does. Vaarsuvius specializes in Evocation, probably the worst school of magic to specialize in. Roy does pretty well for himself, but as a level 13-14 single-class fighter he's hardly a munchkin. Durkon isn't too bad either, but he has an abysmal Charisma score, so he's not getting much out of his Turn Undead. Elan is a freaking bard, with a negative intelligence modifier. And then you have Belkar. A ranger with no ranks in survival, a Wisdom penalty which prevents him from casting spells, who chose Two-Weapon Fighting (with daggers, no less) instead of Archery when he's a member of a race with a Dex bonus and a Str penalty. Not only that, he multiclassed to Barbarian after eleven levels of Ranger, thus sticking himself with a 10% experience penalty.

The thing is, these aren't character sheets drawn up by someone trying to optimize their party. They're characters, in a work of fiction. If they were perfectly optimized, where would be the tension in the story? What would keep you coming back to read the comic?

[Sir_Elderberry]

I'm shocked that the oracle isn't Pun-Pun. Seriously.

[Demonicbunny]

Maybe he likes the extra skillpoints a ranger gets over a fighter?

Move Silently
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Craft (Disturbing Mental Image) :belkar:

[Tempest Fennac]

Someone suggested a while back that Belkar was a parody of players who made 3.0 Rangers for the TWF feats without bothering to look at the other abilities. Admittedly, Belkar would have been better off taking the Magicless ranger variant (his Wis penalty wouldn't have been as much of a problem, and he would have got other abilities as well). Unless he was somehow able to get Weapon Specialisation, he would have also ben better off with more lethal melee weapons while carrying a Composite bow for ranged combat.

[Kato]

Okay, let's summarize.. B likes to kill stuff. In an awesome way, which means you so NEED TWF, just because it's way more awesome. And gives a damn about bows, cause this means you must be very good to stick your weapon in your opponents eye. Nope, standing next to him and cutting his spleen is just the way he likes to fight. So, why not fighter? Possibly at a low level he considered the advantage of TFW and Ambidexterity better than taking them later... Or he is just too dumb to realize his mistakes. Also, not everything is about maxed out states. He just went the way he liked the most, hehe.

[Liwen]

I got a way simpler theory : He's just stupid

[Klose_the_Sith]

I got a way simpler theory : He's just stupid

How dare you! Blasphemer! Thou shalt not speak ill of thine sexy shoeless god!

[John Campbell]

Favored enemy, free TWF feats, an almost-reasonable skill point allotment, and a class skill list that doesn't completely suck. (And those last two are extra-important for Belkar in particular, because I suspect he's got an Int penalty, too.) And now an animal companion.

[Eric]

A ranger with no ranks in survival, a Wisdom penalty which prevents him from casting spells, who chose Two-Weapon Fighting (with daggers, no less) instead of Archery when he's a member of a race with a Dex bonus and a Str penalty.

Actually, look back at #1. Belkar had shortswords. Weapon shrinkage...

Honestly, the characters picked what they wanted. They didn't have access to PHB (until after they were P's).

Rich *may* have picked Belkar as ranger just to get that one joke.

But, as with V's indeterminate gender, the joke took a life of its own and would Belkar be as cool if he'd munchkin'd his way to The Sexy Shoeless God of War?

No.

[Eric]

Maybe he likes the extra skillpoints a ranger gets over a fighter?

Move Silently
Hide
Craft (Disturbing Mental Image) :belkar:

And Cullinary Chef. Don't forget the cooking...

[Raging Gene Ray]

I got a way simpler theory : He's just stupid

Belkar doesn't need any brains. Ever try to stab something with your brain? I did once. I sure did feel stupid afterwards.

[The Extinguisher]

Because there is already a fighter in the strip.

[Kish]

Actually, look back at #1. Belkar had shortswords. Weapon shrinkage...
3.0 edition. Shortswords wouldn't have been light for Belkar. His daggers shrank because 3.5 introduced different sizes for the same weapon, so that he was suddenly using two "small daggers," instead of dual-wielding two daggers.

[spalding107]

funny thing how that changes huh? Hmmmmmmmm......

[Ninja]

does it even matter???

[thereaper]

Belkar wanted to excel in two-weapon fighting. Belkar wanted to be able to sneak up on things and stab them in the eye. Belkar wanted to be able to hold grudges. Therefore, he became a ranger. Sure, it's not optimal, but no one in the strip is optimized.

V wanted to blast stuff. Therefore, he specialized in evocation.

Haley wanted to be a sneaky archer-thief. Therefore, she became a rogue.

Roy wanted to use his ancestral sword the way his ancestors did. Therefore, he became a fighter.

Durkon...Hmmm...We don't really know anything about why he became a Cleric, do we (except maybe that he wanted to serve Thor)?

And Elan...Well, he wanted to play his Banjo and use cool spells like Summon Plot Exposition. :smallbiggrin:

[EponymousKid]

Well, Haley's father was a first edition thief, for her, it's like the family business.

And she needed, and still needs, to steal as much money as possible, for his sake.

[ericgrau]

Elan is the only sub-optimal character. The rest are at least okay. I consider it a strength of the comic when there's a the lack of cheese and lack of building according to popular fads. Most of these popular build techniques actually suck.

TWF is not an argument for a ranger. The fighter can get TWF and much more with feats to spare. And weapon spec usually trumps favored enemy, unless the party is always fighting the same enemy. It works for Belkar though, since there are so many goblinoids around. Stealth is the best reason to take a ranger, and it does seem to come up often enough.

I wasn't gonna bother responding to the popular misconceptions about optimization, but then I got an idea. Let the comic do it for me. I chose Gitman's post b/c it's long and I'm too lazy to quote multiple people:


I think a great deal of the humor (and drama) in the strip comes from the fact that all of the main characters are woefully underoptimized, and they make the best of it.

Haley is an archer rogue who doesn't carry a melee weapon, and therefore eliminates the flanking sneak attack, one of the most important combat abilities for a rogue.
She sneak attacks quite frequently using other triggers. And she flanks too. In keeping with my theme, I'll skip the detailed arguments and just mention that focusing on melee with the fragile rogue is a dumb idea.

She also burned a feat to pick up the longbow weapon proficiency, when a shortbow would have served just as well for what she does.

Looks like a shortbow to me.

Vaarsuvius specializes in Evocation, probably the worst school of magic to specialize in.
She banned conjuration too, btw. V dominates all the encounters using evocation spells. And no, evocation is one of the best, as is well known outside of the internetz. Another fad.



Roy does pretty well for himself, but as a level 13-14 single-class fighter he's hardly a munchkin.
Thog: "Fighter level 3 dumb. Thog not take. Thog take 2 levels for bonus feats."
Roy: "Hey, some of my best friends are 3rd level fighters! Let me introduce you to something you missed! Weapon specialization!"
(Roy proceeds to beat on Thog)
Not to mention the fun poked at a spiked chain half-ogre for being built entirely around a single technique. So in every encounter he has to repeatedly walk backwards... Roy calls this cheese too.


Durkon isn't too bad either, but he has an abysmal Charisma score, so he's not getting much out of his Turn Undead.
Doe he really?

Elan is a freaking bard,
Yeup, and the comic openly pokes fun at his weakness, unlike the other characters. The comic partly fixes it with a prestige class, at which time Elan mentions, "I thought prestige classes were only for munchkins."


And then you have Belkar. A ranger with no ranks in survival, a Wisdom penalty which prevents him from casting spells, who chose Two-Weapon Fighting (with daggers, no less) instead of Archery when he's a member of a race with a Dex bonus and a Str penalty. Not only that, he multiclassed to Barbarian after eleven levels of Ranger, thus sticking himself with a 10% experience penalty.
"I am a sexy shoeless god of war!"
I guess he got away with it all?? Actually none of those choices are sub-optimal. Multiclassing penatlies are commonly house-ruled away. In the very 1st comic Belkar is hit with "weapon shrinkage", suggesting that his weapons are as large as the rules allowed. Before shrinkage they were already kinda small. I'm gonna guess they're halfling-sized shortswords (as small as human daggers) rather than longswords now. Comic says nothing else other than that Belkar is an effective fighter, so I won't get into why those are good choices here.

So, like other things in popular dnd culture, "optimization" is another source of humor for the comic.

[Draz74]

Core-only Ranger spellcasting is pretty lame, anyway. To sum up the whole list of reasons:


Favored Enemy (plenty of reason all on its own!)
Access to TWF without high Dex (so he can concentrate on boosting his Str)
Animal Companion -- nothing wrong with it being Mr. Scruffy!
Stealth skills -- which he's really pretty good at, when he has the patience
Overall skill point quantity (besides stealth, he has excellent Climb and Jump skills, and I'm guessing Swim and maybe Ride aren't bad either)


He's also been known to use Track (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0474.html) (successfully, in spite of not having a decent Survival check), wild empathy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0335.html), and evasion (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0469.html). Even if these aren't reasons he chose Ranger, at least they're ways he's taking advantage of not being just a Fighter. And his Dex, while probably lower than Strength, seems at least high enough that light armor isn't too much of a problem (yay halflings).

Edit:
Haley's bow is indeed a longbow (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0454.html). Durkon has, according to his own words, "no Charisma," which really just means "not good Charisma" (somewhere in the 8-11 range, I suspect). He probably has Extra Turning to make up for it, though. I'm not going to take time to argue about Evocation and Weapon Specialization being weak options, but ... they really are (although not as bad as they're often portrayed in exaggerated arguments). Good point about V also banning Conjuration.

[Guyinthestreet]

Maybe Mr Burlew thought that it would be dull to have two fighters in a party.

[pjackson]

Belkar's player skimmed the class descriptions in the PHB, saw that evil rangers could take favoured enemy humans, and decided that a evil halfling who goes around murdering humans would be fun.
Character optimization did not come into it.
I know a player like that.

[Angela Christine]

Maybe Belkar didn't have a choice. Maybe he wasn't able to get into fighter college, something that fighters in their part of the world apparently have to do (unless they multi class to fighter later).

Remember when Roy was talking to thog? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0064.html
:roy: Y'know, what I can't figure out is how a subliterate thug like you made it through fighter college.

Belkar isn't as dumb as Thog, but he isn't very bright either. And just personality wise, I can't see Belkar attending any kind of college. Frat parties, sure, but not organized lectures. :smallwink:


Multi-classing is usually easy, but in the OoTS-verse it seems that to get that first class level you have to join an actual guild, or at least have a mentor. Belkar may have joined the first violent guild that would have him.

[Kish]

In the very 1st comic Belkar is hit with "weapon shrinkage", suggesting that his weapons are as large as the rules allowed. Before shrinkage they were already kinda small.
Not suggesting that. Rich has made it clear that they're daggers.

Weapon shrinkage indicated that in 3.0 edition, Belkar used daggers because they were the same size as short swords would have been for a human ranger, then 3.5 edition introduced different sizes for the same weapon and suddenly Belkar's weapons were smaller and did less damage than the "small short swords" he would have chosen if he'd chosen his weapons in 3.5ed.

[Wreckingrocc]

Vaarsuvius specializes in Evocation, probably the worst school of magic to specialize in.You're wrong.

Necromancy.
Elan is a freaking bard, with a negative intelligence modifier.
I think you're sorely mistaken. Bards, wizards, clerics, and druids are the BEST classes in the player's handbook, no questions asked. Elan is freakin' amazing, and the only reason he took the PrC was so that he could FIGHT, which is not what bards are based around. Try to actually read the bard class features next time, Mr. Belkar. (See above)
And then you have Belkar. A ranger with no ranks in survival, a Wisdom penalty which prevents him from casting spells, who chose Two-Weapon Fighting (with daggers, no less) instead of Archery when he's a member of a race with a Dex bonus and a Str penalty. Not only that, he multiclassed to Barbarian after eleven levels of Ranger, thus sticking himself with a 10% experience penalty.
Uhh, Yeah. Belkar sucks orange balls. If he used the point by system, he burned ALL of his skill points for 16 strength AT BEST. Not to mention that he is a small character, does not gain bonuses from sneaking, etc. Belkar would be horrible in a real game, and how he is still alive has baffled me for a long time. I actually screamed "YES! THANK YOU SO MUCH! IN YOUR FACE! THIS COMIC WAS JUST REBORN AS THE AMAZING THING IT WAS FOR THE FIRST 300 PAGES!" out loud when he got revoked from the OOTS. I was so sad afterwards. It made my day, and then evaporated :(

The thing is, these aren't character sheets drawn up by someone trying to optimize their party. They're characters, in a work of fiction. If they were perfectly optimized, where would be the tension in the story? What would keep you coming back to read the comic?
Yes. We all would. Have you ever been on the A&C forum? The funniest comics there are the ones with overpowered characters and ridiculously weak monsters.

Okay, let's summarize.. B likes to kill stuff. In an awesome way, which means you so NEED TWF, just because it's way more awesome.
Wrong. Belkar DID like to kill things in an awesome way for the first 60 pages. Read the DID there. Then he killed things in a Belkar way, which wasn't funny, but didn't piss me off at all. Now, he mindlessly kills stuff, and makes most of the readers want him dead, because the joke is SO overused and not-funny that he DESERVES to die.

And gives a damn about bows, cause this means you must be very good to stick your weapon in your opponents eye.Really? I have NEVER seen Belkar use a bow. Care to back up that argument?

Nope, standing next to him and cutting his spleen is just the way he likes to fight. So, why not fighter? Possibly at a low level he considered the advantage of TFW and Ambidexterity better than taking them later... Or he is just too dumb to realize his mistakes. Also, not everything is about maxed out states. He just went the way he liked the most, hehe.I agree with the bold print. For the Italic print: Yeah. And what he likes is stupid garbage that isn't funny.

Belkar is just horrible in every way, and he isn't funny. I hope he dies soon :D I'd cry tears of joy. Belkar is doing about 1d2+5ish damage with every hit on enemies with his main hand weapon. That's bad for a third level character, LET ALONE an11-15th. It's just SAD. Not to mention his low skills, non existant spell list, etc. Belkar sucks. I have made my point. Elan rules. V rules. Haley sucks. Roy sucks. Durkon is OK (He should have taken Divine Metamagic feats).

[Kato]

@Tired:

I don't completely agree with you...

First I'm not sure if it's that easy to judge the worst school of wizardry... I don't like necromancy either, but it has some spells. So do most others. I usually dont use divination that much, but still...

I like bards, though... I don't know his stats, but if I was Elan I'd used my high Cha score to become a sorcerer once I got everything a bard has to offer. But some fighting is better for being a hero, isn't it?

B probably didn't go for STR but DEX, taking weapon finesse... this way he didn't have to waste all of his points and can still do some decent damage, taking into account he's using magic weapons... though, he probably has no high scores in anything else, maybe some Int or Con or so...

I probably didn't make my point clear... B does NOT use bows, cause you can't cut out someone's spleen with one and make a hat out of his head. I never said he'd use any, as it's not his style.

And I DO like him, even though he's just some freakish bastard... killing people... I don't know why, but still... *shrug* I also like 8-Bits Black Mage... (Fueled by love, hehe...)

[Tempest Fennac]

I'm assuming that point buys weren't used due to how different the Order member's stats seem to be. (Roy appears to have a much higher value due to his mental stats, while V only seems to have good Int.) While there's no evidence to suggest a lack of magic weapons, I'm tempted to assume that Belkar's daggers aren't enchanted due to magic items apparently being quite rare in OotS.

[Eric]

3.0 edition. Shortswords wouldn't have been light for Belkar. His daggers shrank because 3.5 introduced different sizes for the same weapon, so that he was suddenly using two "small daggers," instead of dual-wielding two daggers.

Fair enough.

[desperately thinking of a way to regain dignity]

At least I have a life, rather than remembering a stupid RPG!!!

[did it work?...]

:smallbiggrin:

[Eric]

Thog: "Fighter level 3 dumb. Thog not take. Thog take 2 levels for bonus feats."
Roy: "Hey, some of my best friends are 3rd level fighters! Let me introduce you to something you missed! Weapon specialization!"
(Roy proceeds to beat on Thog)
Not to mention the fun poked at a spike

Now compare that to a Fighter3/Cleric10.

Buff spells.

WS.

High BAB. (difference more than made up with buffs).

Better (much better, though this has always been a problem with D&D: they ALWAYS over-hork the priest.maybe to counter the "devil-worshipping baby-eaters" meme. It doesn't work) saves.

[Logalmier]

People, people, this was meant to be a discussion on why Belkar chose a silly class for him, not on which classes are best. Lets not escalate this into an angry discussion of which classes suck and which don't.:smallsmile:

Anyways, I see many points about Belkar. However, I think that Mr.Scruffy isn't his animal companion, I rather think that Belkar won his friendship with his wild empathy ability (you notice that he leaps down to join him in comic 570 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0570.html)).

I also think that Belkar probably does like the skill points that the Ranger class gives. As seen in comic 176 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0176.html) he probably put them to use with his Leap Attack feat (I'm just guessing that he has this).

[someonenonotyou]

because hes lazy http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0126.html

[ericgrau]

Edit:
Haley's bow is indeed a longbow (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0454.html). Durkon has, according to his own words, "no Charisma," which really just means "not good Charisma" (somewhere in the 8-11 range, I suspect). He probably has Extra Turning to make up for it, though. I'm not going to take time to argue about Evocation and Weapon Specialization being weak options, but ... they really are (although not as bad as they're often portrayed in exaggerated arguments). Good point about V also banning Conjuration.
Huh whaddya know. Maybe she wanted the range?? Turning isn't incredibly useful anyway. Evocation isn't the strongest option around but it's fairly good, still enough to mop the floor with the monsters. I've done the numbers to death and weapon spec is a lot stronger than people think; it's really a must have. We're talking +7% to +12% effectiveness (by % increase in damage). Most other feats tested around +5-7%. The rest of the tree is good too for that matter. And not only did V ban conjuration, V did it partly b/c teleport used to be a transmutation spell. Heh.

As for Belkar, I think people have already given plenty of good reasons why it was good for him to pick ranger. Even if it might not be perfect.

[Wreckingrocc]

*Not close to perect*

Corrected for you.

[Leeroy_Jenkins]

Because Belkar forsaw 4e and knew a ranger-daggermaster (via rogue multisplash) would be ROXXORZ.

Too bad the Giant didn't impliment the upgrade....

[holywhippet]

Because Belkar forsaw 4e and knew a ranger-daggermaster (via rogue multisplash) would be ROXXORZ.

Too bad the Giant didn't impliment the upgrade....

I'm not quite sure why people would expect OOTS to switch to 4E rules. Elan would vanish because there are no bards yet. Belkar would vanish because there are no barbarians either.

[Witrana]

Well, Haley's father was a first edition thief, for her, it's like the family business.

And she needed, and still needs, to steal as much money as possible, for his sake.

I'm wondering if we're ever going to get back to that or if that's been handled in one of the Giant's books...?

[SolkaTruesilver]

I'm wondering if we're ever going to get back to that or if that's been handled in one of the Giant's books...?

Hehe.. don't worry about it. Girard's gate is in the Western Continent, and Tyrania is also on the same continent. My guess is, some minor plot points will be resolved over there... :smallbiggrin:

[Kish]

Rich wouldn't introduce a plot thread online and make it disappear in one of the printed books.

That said, I have to say it puzzles me when people think plot threads which haven't been visited in a while must be gone. Remember how long it took for the cursed girdle to reappear after we saw Elan take it?

[Ninja]

there is a simple answer to all this. this comic started out as a joke, simply to make a laught at some rules of D&D... Rich decided later to give it a meaning, but at the begining it was just a joke and as such he didn't realy think much about the characters... just samo besic stuff... like race and class...
also to all the people sayin some things just don't make sence let me say something i also said in another thread: it's a friggin comic!!! it doesn't need to make sence... its suposed to be fun...

oh, yeah and Belkar rox!!! killin that gnome..... funniest moment in the whole comic..... he was all like "meh, whatever, splortch" and the girls were like :smalleek:......

[Maagnar]

... because Rich wanted to make jokes about rangers at the beginning, and the characters are not at all optimized because this is a comic & story and not a game of D&D? He can have any feat the writer wants him to have and he can hit/miss whenever depending on how the story goes... He's not restricted to actually having to follow the rules...

[Leeroy_Jenkins]

IIRC, the 3.X PHB fluff says something like: "Halfing rangers are legendary. As in, you'll hear tales of them, but never meet one."

Well, if that isn't a throwing down of the comedic guantlet, what is?

[Zolem]

Here's one for you guys.

HES A CHARECTER IN A COMIC AND HES THERE SO RICH CAN POKE FUN AT HIM! My God you people are arguing like Belkar is real. He's a fictional charecter. They do what they are written to do. They have no free will. If RIch wants them to suck, they suck. If he want's them to rock, they rock. The end. So stop this complealtly pointless arguing.