OOTS #497 - The Discussion Page

[Mugen Nightgale]

Holy crap! Horace IK'd the caster! Awesome!

[Vulion]

Woot! Roy and Grandfather kung-fu action! Go, Fighter family, go!

[Deathwisher]

"Beats me. Let's find out together" Hilarious!

[Mercutio]

Awesomist Grandpa in the whole wide world

[Lord Zentei]

The sad truth of the evil adventuring party is most evil PCs really are that dumb. :-p (Mostly cause of the players though.)

Some people are forgetting that Roy's Grandfather would probably be 1st ed fighter. Not 3.5. I was hoping there would have been some jokes about that. "Back in my day we just had specialization" type jokes. If my jokes are stolen I'm totally calling you out on it too. :-p

That joke was done with the captive dirt farmer.

"Back in my day we just had our Nonweapon Proficiencies and we liked them!"

[Mercutio]

i have a question though how does Horace have his sword back isnt it in the real world with haley im just saying...

[Lord Zentei]

i have a question though how does Horace have his sword back isnt it in the real world with haley im just saying...

It's presumably a Celestial replica of it, like the armor Roy is wearing.

[Mercutio]

.. Ah then why dosent roy have a sword as well

[kukn]

"Plane Shift!" Awesome :D

I laughed out loud at that bit. And the short work + fishing punchline + overall grandfather coolness made for a great strip. Thumbs up! (And thumbs up for some action, it was getting too peaceful...)

[Lord Zentei]

.. Ah then why dosent roy have a sword as well

Because there can only be one Greenhilt Blade (in a given plane)!! It is special and stuff!!


Nah, Horace probably just commissioned a replica when trying out the Dungeon of Encounters that Only Just Challenge You, or whatever it was called.

[Deathwisher]

.. Ah then why dosent roy have a sword as well

Perhaps because his grandfather already has it. Sort of like: there can only be one copy of the object in any given plane of existence. It is a bit weak, but that is the best I can come up with

[Mercutio]

Perhaps because his grandfather already has it. Sort of like: there can only be one copy of the object in any given plane of existence. It is a bit weak, but that is the best I can come up with

Crap posibly

[Mr. Goodwraith]

Very glad the Evil Adventuring Party didn't pop into Eric's room a few minutes earlier, when he was alone.

For the Motivational/Demotivational Posters, instead of "PLANE SHIFT - It happens," etc., I'm surprised no one has done just plain "SHIFT HAPPENS."

Urgh..."plain shift"...sorry, the *really* bad pun was unintentional...

[Doug Lampert]

I knew that Roy would meet his grandfather. Seriously, if that Plane Shift thing happens to me in the afterlife I'm moving to a new heaven.

Why? You don't think it was coincidence that they popped into the center of a group that enjoys fighting and needed about 12 seconds to kill them all do you?

This is a level of reality that has whole dungons full of encounters just powerful enough to really challenge you but not to actually win. Why do you assume that this ever happens in Celestia to anyone who won't enjoy it.

More a very UNLUCKY adventuring party -- I mean they plane shift into a RANDOM part of the first level and have the bad luck to appear in front of a level 13 warrior, an archon, and what is probably an epic warrior from the third level of celestia...

See above. That wasn't bad luck, the celestial realms are almost entirely under the control of Good deities. The Good deities don't have internal feuds serious enough to interfere with them screwing with that sort by dumping them into exactly the wrong spot. Hoping at random into celestia to kill the inhabitants is notably stupider than having your character stand on a mountain top in a lightning storm waving a sword over his head yelling "Thor is a Wuss". Some things are just asking for it.

[crinkle]

That...was extremely random.

It's good to see the grandfather, though. I was wondering if he'd show up.

I loved the "Frankly, I'm still surprised that he still liked girls" line. It's so typical old/conservative/manly-man-ish that for some reason I found it amusing.

Heh, I took it as a Dumbledore reference myself.

[Dervag]

Honestly i seriously think Roy is not suddenly going to be rezzed in 3 comics from now. I mean, how would his body get past an entire city full of hobbo's, an ocean and a fleet of ships in such short time :D

Not to mention that in the time all this business in Celestia takes place, on the mortal realm its still resting time for figures like Durkon.

Remember how we saw Nale's date with Haley right up until the point where Elan came crashing through the window, and only then did we see the strips explaining how Elan escaped from jail and came to be able to crash through the window?

Something like that might happen.

[jamroar]

Why? You don't think it was coincidence that they popped into the center of a group that enjoys fighting and needed about 12 seconds to kill them all do you?

In a metagaming sense, Planeshift is a hilariously inaccurate spell like Wish. Blind casual shifting into hostile outer planes without valid plot reasons is liable to get you into the deadliest encounters the sadistic powers that be (that is, the DM) can come up with, like what just happened.

[atteSmythe]

My takes:

ZOMG RANDOM is exactly the point of the joke. Unlike running up or sneaking up on a party, planeshifting has no warning. There's nothing linking it to anything that's happening in the destination plane...this is the other side of what good adventurers do all the time, and I think it's great to see it from the other point of view. Going along your business and then *wham* adventurers killing everything in sight!

Secondly, I think it makes perfect sense, given the explanations we have, that Roy's grandfather has the ancestral sword, but Roy doesn't. Roy's still fixated on the moment of his death, and he dropped the sword while he was unconscious. Grandpappy, however, seems to envision himself in the prime of his fighting days...you think that's air they're breathing? ;)

[Mercutio]

My takes:

ZOMG RANDOM is exactly the point of the joke. Unlike running up or sneaking up on a party, planeshifting has no warning. There's nothing linking it to anything that's happening in the destination plane...this is the other side of what good adventurers do all the time, and I think it's great to see it from the other point of view. Going along your business and then *wham* adventurers killing everything in sight!

Secondly, I think it makes perfect sense, given the explanations we have, that Roy's grandfather has the ancestral sword, but Roy doesn't. Roy's still fixated on the moment of his death, and he dropped the sword while he was unconscious. Grandpappy, however, seems to envision himself in the prime of his fighting days...you think that's air they're breathing? ;)

Never thought about it that way now im sad

[krossbow]

Remember how we saw Nale's date with Haley right up until the point where Elan came crashing through the window, and only then did we see the strips explaining how Elan escaped from jail and came to be able to crash through the window?

Something like that might happen.

Great, now I keep imagining Elan and durkon plane shifting in just as Grandpa is about to start training roy. :p

[WuanAnselm]

Now THAT was filler =P

Still awesome to finally see Roy's grandpa tho'

[Frozen_Northman]

Rich Burlew and Roy Greenhilt - working together to show how an enemy can be "drawn and quartered."

[Maratanos]

Spoiler

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I'd say that's a safe bet - and should Roy have a son some day, a stack of gold says he'll go against dad and toss spells for a living.

Spoiler

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My stack of gold says that Roy would be OK with that. I get the feeling he's smart enough to realize the lesson to learn from Eugene and learn it.

[cloneof]

Go, Go Family Rangers!

[Lord Zentei]

Go, Go Family Rangers!

They're fighters.

[silvadel]

Casting Spider Climb requires the subject eat a spider. This is a great way to get the party to trust you. Then feed them black widows. Does this qualify as alternate spell use?

Actually, handing them the black widow to eat and then casting giant vermin instead of spider climb is a little more apt.

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As for the sword, If they have an area of monsters just hard enough to give you a challenge, they need a store that has "arms without costing you a leg".

[madmotoristmonk]

Wahahahahahah, I wonder who they were....silly mid level evil doers and neer' do wells, plane shifting is for epic level neer do wells and evil doers

[David Argall]

How the **** is this *filler*!? We meet a new character, who is developed immediately because he is thrown into a situation where we can learn something about his disposition and abilities. We even learn something about his relation to his son and now his grandson.

And in a strip, maybe two, maybe none, the character will vanish from the story, effectively never to return.
There is no apparent role for Gramps in the story beyond this one-shot. We have Roy as the fighter, so he is not getting raised, and once this heaven series is done, we don't expect to be back. So there is no future for this character. And if at the end of this book somebody discovered there were 201 pages and they only wanted to print 200, we seem to be able to just snip this page out without trouble.
So all we have here is a nice little strip that takes up some space.

[Porthos]

i have a question though how does Horace have his sword back isnt it in the real world with haley im just saying...

You're overthinking this.

When Roy died, he dropped his sword. When Roy appeared in heaven, his Spiritual Self Image was the same as the exact moment of his death. Horace, having been around the Celestial Block a few times, imagines having his sword with him, so therefore he has it.

In other words, all Roy had to do was think he had a sword, and he would have had it. But because he is a newly minted soul, straight from the Prime, he hasn't learned all of the Celestial Tricks yet....

.... either that, or Rich thought it would be funnier to have Horace toss him a sword in the middle of a battle.

[kitsune106]

Totally enjoyed the comic today. Although, if you have evil parties planeshifting into heaven, are there good parties that planeshift into hell to try to kill things to get XP?