MitD XIII: Learning is happening

[Keltest]

This. As the MITD keeps marking extra doors both Redcloak and Xykon are going to start getting suspicious of each other. Recasting this spell could easily be part of scenes showing this kind of situation.

Even without the MITD's interference, Xykon is no longer confidant of his control over Redcloak. Showing him taking these kinds of precautions would not be an unreasonable scene.

[lio45]

For the sake of simplicity and keeping in line with the loose rules of "MitD isn't something Rich made up", we're assuming that if that panel has relevance to MitD, then it will not be a homebrew spell.

I totally disagree with your logic here. You absolutely cannot jump from "Rich made up Xykon's Moderately-Escapable Forcecage" to "Rich claims to have invented the ideas of paladin and samurai".

[Keltest]

I totally disagree with your logic here. You absolutely cannot jump from "Rich made up Xykon's Moderately-Escapable Forcecage" to "Rich claims to have invented the ideas of paladin and samurai".

I believe the point was more along the lines of "since we don't know what the MITD is and can or cannot do, using a homebrew ability on it that has not been explicitly explained as a clue is cheating, so its probably not homebrew since Rich wont cheat."

[Squire Doodad]

I believe the point was more along the lines of "since we don't know what the MITD is and can or cannot do, using a homebrew ability on it that has not been explicitly explained as a clue is cheating, so its probably not homebrew since Rich wont cheat."

Pretty much this.

It does assume some things though. Like that Rich is treating the panel as a hint concerning MitD, or at least that he's working within the "rules" (MitD is not homebrew, and so interactions will not suggest that he is) that are associated with MitD.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I believe the point was more along the lines of "since we don't know what the MITD is and can or cannot do, using a homebrew ability on it that has not been explicitly explained as a clue is cheating, so its probably not homebrew since Rich wont cheat."

Or, put another way, until such time as we get some kind of evidence that this is some souped-up permanent mind-control-anything spell, it seems far more reasonable to assume that it is not. The bottom line is that a panel shows MitD with swirly eyes. Since undead don't get those, nor do golems to the best of my recollection, I don't see a reason to assume other non-regular-mind-controllable individuals such as plants would get swirly eyes. Thus, my vote in favour of continuing to exclude creatures not subject to regular mind control.

Grey Wolf

[Crusher]

For the sake of simplicity and keeping in line with the loose rules of "MitD isn't something Rich made up", we're assuming that if that panel has relevance to MitD, then it will not be a homebrew spell.

You know, that's a pretty good argument. We've SEEN MitD be affected by a mind-control spell, and clearly Xykon intended it to be a long-term contingency (with "long-term" being defined as "longer than the 1 minute/level durations Control Plants and Control Undead have"). Having MitD turn out to be something immune to mind control spells with longer durations than, oh, 30 minutes or so, would kinda fly in the face of "Rich making something up".

Kinda like if MitD turned out to be an earth elemental, which doesn't normally eat or sleep. Then, after the reveal, we'd find out it had some obscure template that forced it to eat and sleep. Sure, it'd be valid, I mean, its Rich's story. But it'd be a jerk move because it would mean all the times he included scenes of MitD eating or sleeping, it was purely to troll us rather than provide actual clues.

Same thing, really.

That having been said, Xykon has, iirc, 2 unknown 6th level spells and 1 unknown 8th level spell. I wouldn't be completely shocked if one of those turned out to be a homebrew "Xykon's extra, extra long duration Suggestion spell" which Xykon researched after getting bored with recasting it over and over and over and over (since, at Xykon's level, Suggestion lasts about a day and Geas would last a few weeks). Its been, what, 40 years since Xykon first cast it on MitD? That is one hell of a lot of Suggestion re-casts. Admittedly, this doesn't address Xykon failing to use this spell on anyone other than MitD. I can see him not wanting to use it on Redcloak (who likely has a formidable Will Save as a near-Epic cleric), but possibly other folks.

I view that sort of homebrew as being ok (since its basically a convenience thing for Xykon) as opposed to a homebrew that allowed him to Suggest constructs or something else normally immune which is narratively deceptive.

[Squire Doodad]

I view that sort of homebrew as being ok (since its basically a convenience thing for Xykon) as opposed to a homebrew that allowed him to Suggest constructs or something else normally immune which is narratively deceptive.

If it's homebrew in terms of length and the end result is essentially the same as if MitD was being Suggestion'd weekly, and there's some mention of it before the pay off, then its pretty much fine.
If its homebrew in terms of the range of possible targets, that is where it begins to become an issue.

[Crusher]

Dude, if you're going to try to play the Geas card, you need to address the "other issues," not just wave your hand and say that the reasons your preferred explanation doesn't work are not worth your time to acknowledge.

Ok, now I can read these properly. You raise four points against Geas, I think. The casting time, MitD being aware of it, whether Geas is brokenly OP, and why doesn't Xykon use it on more people?

First off, casting time I've addressed. To recap, it has a 10 minute casting time but in the strip it only seems to take a few seconds to cast. My answer on this is that no one else was around when Xykon cast it on MitD, and MitD was clearly dazed by the casting. As a result, maybe the actually casting process took longer than it appeared in strip since no one was really sitting there watching Xykon. The Giant has noted that the strip doesn't always conform precisely to D&D rules, and its possible this is one of those times. Its a plausible answer but not a great one.

Second, MitD being aware he's under the influence of Geas. With Geas, you know you're affected by it. The fluff notes a clever person might be able subvert the intent of the Geas, which wouldn't be possible with something like Suggestion where the target explicitly doesn't know they've been enchanted. When MitD's eyes stop being swirly in the strip, he's doesn't seem to know what's happened (or, that time has passed, in defense of point #1).

I have two overlapping explanations for this. #1, MitD is confused a lot, and if anything was confused even more back in the early SoD days. Its possible he knew he was enchanted in some fashion even from the start but he didn't know what that meant or how he should feel about it. His response wasn't so much lack of knowledge of what happened (which, if true, would then be a minus for point #1) as simple confusion at everything (which is kind of his MO anyway).

#2 Maybe MitD DOES know on a day to day basis that he's compelled to eat RC if he betrays Xykon. How would it affect things? MitD isn't very introspective, and doesn't sit around thinking very much at all. He may well be aware of the Geas in the back of his mind, but talking about it to anyone (except Xykon, who doesn't talk to MitD much anyway) would likely get back to RC in short order, getting MitD in trouble. MitD wouldn't really have a way of solving it, so he'd likely just try to ignore it. As long as RC doesn't try to betray Xykon, its a non-issue, so why worry about it?

Third, isn't Geas kinda brokenly OP if you use it correctly? Well, I don't think we've explicitly seen it in action (other than the Mark of Justice on Belkar, and that was clearly a homebrew effect) so we don't really know the limits on it in the Stickverse. It says it can cause "Almost any other course of action", but if I was DM I wouldn't allow "Obey my every command" as a valid instruction because its an on-going thing rather than "to carry out some service or to refrain from some action or course of activity" as the fluff says.

But its not my world to DM, its Rich's. So, I have no idea. Maybe Geas *can* be used in that broken a fashion.

Fourth, why doesn't Xykon use it on more people? Maybe because talking people into doing things really isn't his thing? 99% of the time, its actually easier for him to kill the person and then raise them as a zombie than it would be to cast Geas on them to force them to do his bidding. In fact, "99%" in terms of time, effort, and spell-slots, is probably understating it so he really wouldn't need it very much.

Lastly, on general "Suggestion vs Geas" points, I'd say the two big advantages Geas has over Suggestion are duration and saving throws. Assuming Xykon's command is open-ended, Geas's duration is 24x as long as Suggestion, which is handy when we're talking about someone as easily bored as Xykon. Also, MitD, being a powerful creature, might have decent Will saves and would probably occasionally save against Suggestion, which is not a problem with Geas.

On the other hand, Suggestion might fit MitD not knowing what happened to it a bit better, and its cast-time is more in line with what we've seen. I don't really see the other two points as being significant factors.

I think both of them have plusses and minuses, and they're probably the two best candidates among listed spells (barring someone getting creative with a Craft Contingency epic feat for Xykon which would allow him to have maybe Contingecy'ed... something onto MitD. Dominate Monster would have been snazzy, but Xykon's 9th level spells are all spoken for, so maybe not). Having thought about it, I suspect the ultimate answer is going to be a homebrew Xykon's Extra-long duration Suggestion spell that's level 6 or 8 and has a duration along the lines of 1 week per level, rather than 1 hour. Otherwise I lean towards Geas but see the attractiveness of Suggestion.

[Kish]

I was under the impression--mainly because I don't remember this "Xykon might recast it every week or so" thing being suggested at any time before--that "it has to be some kind of homebrew spell" would be pretty noncontroversial. So, some information gained there, though I would point out that standard Suggestion played a central role in the fight with the young black dragon, it had a saving throw, and the young black dragon knew Vaarsuvius had cast it.

[Squire Doodad]

I was under the impression--mainly because I don't remember this "Xykon might recast it every week or so" thing being suggested at any time before--that "it has to be some kind of homebrew spell" would be pretty noncontroversial. So, some information gained there, though I would point out that standard Suggestion played a central role in the fight with the young black dragon, it had a saving throw, and the young black dragon knew Vaarsuvius had cast it.

If its homebrew in duration, that's not an issue for the most part as long as it is functionally the same as "recast Suggestion X times". If it is homebrew in targets (targets constructs, undead, and plants), then that would be fairly controversial because it would violate the assumption that MitD is guessable (essentially acting as a spell equivalent to the Bingosaurus/Bink's Mystery Sword).

This still assumes the panel is actually about MitD at all whatsoever and not pure character development for Xykon. As I put it earlier:

For the sake of simplicity and keeping in line with the loose rules of "MitD isn't something Rich made up", we're assuming that if that panel has relevance to MitD, then it will not be a homebrew spell.

(I'll take "Squire Doodad's Spell of Plot Convenience" for that )
In essence, while MitD could have been hit with a homebrew spell, if we want to consider it as a valid source of assumptions, we need to assume that it is also not homebrew so as to prevent a Bink's Mystery Sword style scenario. The including duration into the "is it homebrew?" equation is really more for simplifying the discussion, though there's another upmteen arguments to be made about the plausibility of Xykon having Control Plants or anything like that.

[Kish]

This still assumes the panel is actually about MitD at all whatsoever and not pure character development for Xykon.

It also assumes that the main point of the panel is something entirely unrelated to "if the creature in the darkness ever learns of Redcloak betraying Xykon he'll immediately be compelled to eat him and spit out his holy symbol," which I would have considered the obvious default takeaway, for my part.

[Keltest]

For my part, I don't think there is such a thing as a throwaway scene for the purposes of this thread. There are scenes that have data (ideally new data) and scenes that do not. This scene falls under the former category, which makes it useful to our purposes. Whether or not a scene was intended primarily to be a clue seems beside the point to me. Rich wouldn't just accidentally give away a clue while constructing another scene; if its in a scene, its deliberate.

[Squire Doodad]

For my part, I don't think there is such a thing as a throwaway scene for the purposes of this thread. There are scenes that have data (ideally new data) and scenes that do not. This scene falls under the former category, which makes it useful to our purposes. Whether or not a scene was intended primarily to be a clue seems beside the point to me. Rich wouldn't just accidentally give away a clue while constructing another scene; if its in a scene, its deliberate.

Pretty much: regardless of whether or not the scene is meant to have value, the only way it should not have value would be if Rich made a mistake concerning the MitD. While that is hypothetically possible, in such a situation we should not be talking about the panel. Thus, if we are talking about the panel and how it correlates to the MitD, then we need to assume that it is a scene with information relevant to MitD.

[Kish]

For my part, I don't think there is such a thing as a throwaway scene for the purposes of this thread.

o_O

Entirely independently of the vote, one thing that I'll say right now, is that I think anyone who is treating "If you are looking for moment-to-moment rules accuracy from this comic, you probably should stop reading. You are guaranteed to be continually frustrated and disappointed, because I don't care about that at all." as somehow suspended whenever the creature in the darkness is on-panel, is on a collision course with disappointment.

Rich is aware of this thread. Rich is generally supportive, or at least not opposed to the existence, of this thread. But I'm confident that the number of times Rich has ever, or will ever, thought anything equivalent to, "This is the scene I want to write, but minute parsing of the rules would suggest something inaccurate about , so I'll write something different instead" is zero.

(Although, back to discussing the vote, I don't think the scene in question was a "throwaway scene," any more than the scene where Xykon beats down Dorukan was. It was a scene that established that the creature in the darkness will be compelled to attack Redcloak if he concludes Redcloak is betraying Xykon. A scene which leads you straight into the weeds if you ignore the OotS plot information in it, pull out a Player's Handbook and start trying to derive information about D&D rules from it, is not the definition of a throwaway scene.)

[Grey_Wolf_c]

o_O

Entirely independently of the vote, one thing that I'll say right now, is that I think anyone who is treating "If you are looking for moment-to-moment rules accuracy from this comic, you probably should stop reading. You are guaranteed to be continually frustrated and disappointed, because I don't care about that at all." as somehow suspended whenever the creature in the darkness is on-panel, is on a collision course with disappointment.

Rich is aware of this thread. Rich is generally supportive, or at least not opposed to the existence, of this thread. But I'm confident that the number of times Rich has ever, or will ever, thought anything equivalent to, "This is the scene I want to write, but minute parsing of the rules would suggest something inaccurate about , so I'll write something different instead" is zero.

There are close to infinite ways in which any given scenario can be written. Therefore, I cannot imagine under what circumstances would Rich go for "Xykon uses a spell that will mind control MitD, despite his base creature not being subject to mind control spells" when he could have written any other of the myriad of ways in which Xykon could compel MitD to obey him, from cowering him into obedience to taking his teddy bear hostage.

Rich is not slave to the D&D rules, sure, but there is also no reason for him to go out of his way to break them when the scene could perfectly work without breaking them in the first place. And most importantly, when he does break the rules, he has been quite good at lampshading it.

ETA: Furthermore, he is very much shackled by established conventions of the comic itself. He has stuck with the swirly eyes and the x-ed eyes because he made a joke of it once. He has also not used swirly eyes on undead or golems when they were placed under control by a character. D&D rules or not, he stands by what he has done before, which again bring me back to "he wouldn't have shown MitD with swirly eyes if he was not regular-mind-controllable".

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

o_O

Entirely independently of the vote, one thing that I'll say right now, is that I think anyone who is treating "If you are looking for moment-to-moment rules accuracy from this comic, you probably should stop reading. You are guaranteed to be continually frustrated and disappointed, because I don't care about that at all." as somehow suspended whenever the creature in the darkness is on-panel, is on a collision course with disappointment.

Rich is aware of this thread. Rich is generally supportive, or at least not opposed to the existence, of this thread. But I'm confident that the number of times Rich has ever, or will ever, thought anything equivalent to, "This is the scene I want to write, but minute parsing of the rules would suggest something inaccurate about , so I'll write something different instead" is zero.

I don't usually take part in these discussion because I have nowhere near the knowledge of D&D trivia to bring anything meaningful to the table but I want to say this:

The MitD's nature is a guessing game between the author and the readers, much like a the murderer's identity in a modern murder mystery novel with the various abilities and stats of the monster being the clues. As such, while the Giant can (and probably has) given intentionally misleading clues, he will not give outright false ones. In this particular case, not adhering to the rules would do the story a disservice because it would make the mystery unsolvable.

[Darth Paul]

For my money, it works out like this: SoD was written well after the point where Rich had decided on what the MitD is; part of SoD is the MitD's origin story; any information in it that pertains to MitD therefore is probably carefully written to be accurate as far as the capabilities or vulnerabilities of the MitD.

I think the one thing we can expect is that he would NOT be shown as vulnerable to mind control, as a throwaway gag, even if the particular spell used is a throwaway gag.

[Squire Doodad]

For my money, it works out like this: SoD was written well after the point where Rich had decided on what the MitD is; part of SoD is the MitD's origin story; any information in it that pertains to MitD therefore is probably carefully written to be accurate as far as the capabilities or vulnerabilities of the MitD.

I think the one thing we can expect is that he would NOT be shown as vulnerable to mind control, as a throwaway gag, even if the particular spell used is a throwaway gag.

Erm, to clarify, is what you're saying that MitD would not be shown as [vulnerable/not vulnerable] as a throwaway gag, unless he actually is [vulnerable/not vulnerable]?

[Darth Paul]

Erm, to clarify, is what you're saying that MitD would not be shown as [vulnerable/not vulnerable] as a throwaway gag, unless he actually is [vulnerable/not vulnerable]?

No, no- I'm saying his vulnerability was not shown as a gag at all.

I did say that Xykon having a spell that came out of nowhere and is never seen again, and appears only for the sake of mind-controlling MitD, might be considered a throwaway gag. I came to that conclusion given the amount of effort spent trying to fit it into the rules and the fact that the Giant disregards the exact rules for the sake of story when it suits him.

So, whether there's a spell in the RAW that can compel the MitD to wait for decades for Redcloak to betray Xykon, and then eat him when he does, is beside the point. The fact that he got swirly-eyed when Xykon cast the spell is the important thing to take away from the scene. He is vulnerable to mind-affecting spells. It was not a gag scene.

[Squire Doodad]

No, no- I'm saying his vulnerability was not shown as a gag at all.

I did say that Xykon having a spell that came out of nowhere and is never seen again, and appears only for the sake of mind-controlling MitD, might be considered a throwaway gag. I came to that conclusion given the amount of effort spent trying to fit it into the rules and the fact that the Giant disregards the exact rules for the sake of story when it suits him.

So, whether there's a spell in the RAW that can compel the MitD to wait for decades for Redcloak to betray Xykon, and then eat him when he does, is beside the point. The fact that he got swirly-eyed when Xykon cast the spell is the important thing to take away from the scene. He is vulnerable to mind-affecting spells. It was not a gag scene.

I see, that clears it up.

[lio45]

For the record, I'm with Grey Wolf and Fyraltari on (paraphrasing) agreeing that Rich's general looseness with D&D mechanics and rules is indeed suspended whenever MitD is concerned, on account of Rich being on record that MitD is guessable and nothing in the comic does (or ever will) clash with what MitD is.

[Keltest]

For the record, I'm with Grey Wolf and Fyraltari on (paraphrasing) agreeing that Rich's general looseness with D&D mechanics and rules is indeed suspended whenever MitD is concerned, on account of Rich being on record that MitD is guessable and nothing in the comic does (or ever will) clash with what MitD is.

I'm not sure I quite agree with that. Rather, I think Rich will be explicit whenever he deviates from the rules or stats, such as with the MITD's size. He is abnormally small. If we didn't know this, we would be refusing everything bigger than medium or large as being too big to fit under the umbrella. But he told us, so we know not to exclude those creatures out of hand, and the game remains fair.

[Ruck]

o_O

Entirely independently of the vote, one thing that I'll say right now, is that I think anyone who is treating "If you are looking for moment-to-moment rules accuracy from this comic, you probably should stop reading. You are guaranteed to be continually frustrated and disappointed, because I don't care about that at all." as somehow suspended whenever the creature in the darkness is on-panel, is on a collision course with disappointment.

"I will say this about the MitD: It is possible to guess."

If Rich threw out rules accuracy for whatever MITD's species was for scenes involving the MITD, it would not be possible to guess.

[Riftwolf]

Does anyone think Xykons enchantment will appear in the webcomic rather than solely in SoD? I'm just wondering if it's either a plot point that'll need to be addressed in comic (which also gives a hint to MitD) or if that's on SoD solely to hint at MitD (but would be a red herring plotwise as Xykon isn't going to be betrayed).
If it's the second, it doesn't matter what enchantment it was, it's just an enchantment to show MitD is vulnerable to enchantment. If it is plot relevant, Xykon will have to cast it in the webcomic, and might even name it (was Xykon epic when he cast the enchantment? Because if he was bets are off about spell name as epic magic is a custom spell list both in-comic and RAW)

[Fyraltari]

I'm not sure I quite agree with that. Rather, I think Rich will be explicit whenever he deviates from the rules or stats, such as with the MITD's size. He is abnormally small.

When did the Giant say that? If that's from the "my father was big", that may just be because the MitD hasn't seen his father since he was a child*. Or not, I think it is intentionally ambiguous.


*I, for one, still have a hard time reconciling people's description of my late grandfather as a frail and small man with my memories of a kilometer-tall ogre.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

When did the Giant say that? If that's from the "my father was big", that may just be because the MitD hasn't seen his father since he was a child*. Or not, I think it is intentionally ambiguous.

It is also Oona's far less ambiguous declaration that he is not full grown.

Grey Wolf

[lio45]

I'm not sure I quite agree with that. Rather, I think Rich will be explicit whenever he deviates from the rules or stats, such as with the MITD's size. He is abnormally small. If we didn't know this, we would be refusing everything bigger than medium or large as being too big to fit under the umbrella. But he told us, so we know not to exclude those creatures out of hand, and the game remains fair.

Yeah, of course. I figured that was totally clear (albeit implicit) in my post already, but if it's not, then let me say that the precision you're adding is something I was already in agreement with. So maybe I should rephrase as "Rich won't ever sneakily deviate from the rules whenever MitD is concerned, because he stated it was guessable thus he's committed to keeping it guessable".

And BTW, in the specific case of your example, I wouldn't even consider Rich deciding on having a child of a species being arbitrarily smaller than a fully grown adult of the same species "deviating from the rules", since the rules don't even cover (as this thread has already discussed/established) that and it's pretty much common sense that a child of most (biological) species would be smaller than an adult of same species.

[Aspheric]

Does anyone think Xykons enchantment will appear in the webcomic rather than solely in SoD? I'm just wondering if it's either a plot point that'll need to be addressed in comic (which also gives a hint to MitD) or if that's on SoD solely to hint at MitD (but would be a red herring plotwise as Xykon isn't going to be betrayed).

If the effect of that spell is still on-going, then I would expect to see it. Given that the scene Thor exposits here was first shown in SoD and was restated for the online readers, I doubt that we wouldn't at least see a flashback, or Xykon casting the spell again, or something to that effect.

That said, unless I'm missing something, there hasn't been any proof that this spell is still active.

[Squire Doodad]

If the effect of that spell is still on-going, then I would expect to see it. Given that the scene Thor exposits here was first shown in SoD and was restated for the online readers, I doubt that we wouldn't at least see a flashback, or Xykon casting the spell again, or something to that effect.

That said, unless I'm missing something, there hasn't been any proof that this spell is still active.

In so far as I am aware, that is correct: there's only been one instance of Xykon mindcontrolling MitD, and while it seems plausible that it is still in effect, there's little to actually suggest that.

[Darth Paul]

I'm not sure I quite agree with that. Rather, I think Rich will be explicit whenever he deviates from the rules or stats, such as with the MITD's size. He is abnormally small. If we didn't know this, we would be refusing everything bigger than medium or large as being too big to fit under the umbrella. But he told us, so we know not to exclude those creatures out of hand, and the game remains fair.

Reading down the thread again, I was struck by the phrase "abnormally small". From whence do you derive this, Keltest? Granted that MitD is smaller than an adult of his species, as cited in many places (notably Oona's stating he will grow bigger, and we take her as an expert), why say he's "abnormally" small? An adolescent human is often smaller than their parent, yet we usually don't think of them as "abnormally" small; often they would not be a full size category smaller.

I apologize if I seem to be harping on this, but it could be an important distinction. It's just that your word "abnormally" threw me for what might have been an unintentional loop.