#52 Panel 12: If Durkon had more ranks in the Knowledge(Religion), ie if he was better at that skill, he'd know that Loki is an evil god, and an enemy of Thor.
#55 Panel 9: The two monsters in this panels are flumphs, another example of an outdated monster from an earlier edition. They have good reason to be saddened by Nale's description, because flumphs are Lawful Good, and pretty weak.
#59 Panel 14: In D&D, a natural roll of 20, that is, 20 on a 20-sided die before bonuses, is always a success, no matter how difficult the action taken is. This means as long as something isn't completely impossible, the chance of success is at least 5%.
#62 Panel 4: As Haley explains here, damage reduction is a defensive quality of certain monsters to shrug off damage from weapons. Most of the time, these monsters have a vulnerability to certain types of weapons, that bypasses their damage reduction.
Panel 8: With the Manyshot feat, Haley can shoot multiple arrows in one attack. If the attack is successful, both arrows will hit.
#64 Panels 2-5: Thog and Roy are discussing character optimization. The Barbarian class has great advantages, notably the ability to enter a rage, boosting Strength and Constitution in a big way for a short while. The Fighter class has more combat feats, special talents the character can choose to improve his fighting prowess. Thog is a Barbarian who optimized by taking a "dip" of 2 levels of Fighter, for 2 bonus feats, but stopped there since the 3rd Fighter level doesn't carry a bonus feat. However, Roy, as a straight Fighter, uses the Weapon Specialization feat that only Fighters of level 4 or higher can learn.
#65 Panel 5: Elves are immune to Sleep spells. Forgetting this is particularly ironic from Vaarsuvius, who is an elf.
Panel 10: Since Zz'dtri is a thinly veiled copy of Drizzt (see #44), Vaarsuvius invokes intellectual property law to have him removed from the scene, as happened to the mind flayer in #32.
#68 This strip illustrates the four basic directions of moral and ethics in the D&D game: Evil, Good, Law, and Chaos (on both axes, the intermediate position is called Neutral). Like many characters before him, Elan finds that Law and Chaos aren't always very clear concepts.
#70 Panel 12: The sylph's eyes turn blue when she uses magic.
#71 Panel 5: A little bit of foreshadowing from Belkar in this panel.
Panel 7: The goblins are carrying boxes labeled "this side up" (upside down, of course), "magic tomes" and "DVDs".
#73 Panel 5: The
Atkins diet was extremely popular in the US in 2004, the year this strip was written.
Panel 7: WWTD is a parody of the classic phrase, WWJD (
What Would Jesus Do).
#74 Panel 12: A Saving Throw (or Save for short) is a roll to determine if a creature is affected by some magical or other effect. There are 3 types of Saving Throws: Will (for mind-related effects), Fortitude for health-related effects) and Reflex (for effects that can be defended against with a fast reaction). In the 2nd edition of the game, Saving Throws mechanics were quite different, and the Sanctuary spell didn't allow one at all.
#75 Panel 6: When resting for an extended period of time (at least one night), characters naturally heal a few hit points, but this is a much slower method than magical healing. Leaving the cleric behind is an exceptionally stupid mistake.
Panel 6: Epic levels belong to Epic rules, a special set of rules meant for extremely powerful characters (beyond level 20).
#76 Panel 5: Darkvision is a special ability of certain creatures to see in the dark. It doesn't need to be "turned on", but it is indeed used rarely, since adventuring parties nearly always are composed of a mix of difference character races and few of them have this ability.
Panel 10: Dwarves' "stonecunning" ability gives them an innate feeling of the way stone constructions, tunnels, etc. are made.
#77 D&D cleric can convert any of their memorized spells into Cure Wounds spells, so this healing sequence could go on for a while. It is possible to kill an all-cleric party, but it takes more patience than the monster in this strip has.
#82 Panel 1: Like dwarves, goblins have darkvision. But this ability is foiled by magical darkness.
#83 Panel 10: Dwarves are naturally resistant to poison, getting a +2 bonus to saves against it.
#84 For you non-US readers, in panel 4 the "right to the pursuit of happiness" refers to one of the most-often quoted phrases from the US Declaration of Independence.
#85 The last panel is a reference to H.P.Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu.
#86 Typical dungeon plans, especially those from the early days of the D&D game, don't include any sort of bathroom facilities. Most adventuring groups end up making fun of that quirk at some point.
#87 Panel 6: ECL (Equivalent Character Level) is a characteristic of some monster races, which have more inherent power as humans. In order to make for a balanced party when such races are played, players have to add their race's ECL + their class level to calculate their total level. Other players not using a powerful race will thus need to have a higher class level to be about equal in character power. V's class (wizard) is a primary spellcaster, generally considered to be among the more powerful, which is why Belkar speculates V's presumed "half-camel" race cannot also have high ECL. Naturally, the point is moot since the half-camel race doesn't exist.
#89 Panel 10: V uses an illusion spell to point the way.
Panel 12: An Invisibility spells ends whenever the invisible creature makes an attack. However, attacking an invisible creature carries a 50% miss chance.
#90 Panel 2: The goblins here have apparently read their own entry in the Monster Manual, which states their Intelligence is usually 10, an average score. Xvarts are another race of goblin-like creatures.
Re: The Annotated Order of the Stick - A Companion Guide
Reply With Quote