MitD XIV: High In Protean

[lio45]

The clues are not "is not quite fully grown", but "my father was big" and "so small, though". To me, that doesn't sound like there are just two feet missing, it sounds like lampshading that the MitD is one size category smaller than listed. So I would not consider medium size creatures any more and I find huge to be more plausible than large.

To reuse Ruck's words against Grey_Wolf's point that "it's more plausible that..." wrt MitD's size, it doesn't need to be probable, it merely needs to be possible.

Given the confirmed fact that MitD is a child and currently smaller than his father, it seems obvious we can now lift any (high bound) formal restriction on size (IIRC, the size criterion dates back to 10+ years ago when we had no idea MitD wasn't just a normal fully grown adult of his species - that criterion is dated garbage now).

The low bound, obviously, should stay - and in fact, probably should be even higher (i.e. the standard creature should be at least one size LARGER than what MitD is right now).

[Mightymosy]

More significantly, it isn't enough. True, the distance and the cartoon-cutout effect are for narrative/comedic effect; but if the point of the scene is to show MitD is powerful by knocking them through the wall, he should be able to break the wall; and D&D does model that sort of thing.

In order for telekinesis' violent thrust to even be capable to do enough damage to actually break through a typical masonry wall (hardness 8 and 90 hit points, so 98 damage), it'd have to throw a "hard, dense object" that weighs 425 pounds...exceeding the spell's 375 pound upper limit.

Its psionic cousin, telekinetic thrust, has a malleable limit....But it doesn't change that Miko is certainly not an object, much less one hard and dense and a boulder, that weighs 425 pounds. To say nothing of the other implications; such as that telekinetic thrust is used for...telekinetically thrusting. I could accept (with an undisclosed number of eye rolls) that MitD might normally use telekinesis' sustained force to interact with his environment due to some undisclosed limitation of his limbs, and goofed up when he tried to tap Miko and Windstrider; but throwing stuff is all telekinetic thrust does.


Meanwhile, a Strength score of 32 is sufficient for a Large creature to be capable of breaking through that masonry wall with sheer force.

For all this talk how much strength is required for Mitd to hit Miko through a wall, has anyond ever calculated how much HP and Constitution Miko and Windstriker would require to survive being hit so hard to break through a stone wall and survive the fall (on the head, no less - oh and he horse falling on Miko even)?

I am trying to get this strength discussion into perspective.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

For all this talk how much strength is required for Mitd to hit Miko through a wall, has anyond ever calculated how much HP and Constitution Miko and Windstriker would require to survive being hit so hard to break through a stone wall and survive the fall (on the head, no less - oh and he horse falling on Miko even)?

I am trying to get this strength discussion into perspective.

Fall damage caps at really low damage - a level 14 paladin such as Miko wouldn't be in danger from any fall. The horse is probably protected by the standard pet immortality clause and Wiley coyote physics.

Grey Wolf

[Ruck]

Fall damage caps at really low damage - a level 14 paladin such as Miko wouldn't be in danger from any fall. The horse is probably protected by the standard pet immortality clause and Wiley coyote physics.

Grey Wolf

Also, maybe some wibbly-wobbly celestial-mounty stuff.

[LadyEowyn]

To reuse Ruck's words against Grey_Wolf's point that "it's more plausible that..." wrt MitD's size, it doesn't need to be probable, it merely needs to be possible.

Given the confirmed fact that MitD is a child and currently smaller than his father, it seems obvious we can now lift any (high bound) formal restriction on size (IIRC, the size criterion dates back to 10+ years ago when we had no idea MitD wasn't just a normal fully grown adult of his species - that criterion is dated garbage now).

The low bound, obviously, should stay - and in fact, probably should be even higher (i.e. the standard creature should be at least one size LARGER than what MitD is right now).

I agree with this. We have three separate statements (MITD saying his father was huge; Oona saying MITD is “so small”; and one from the calendars) saying that MITD is small for his species, so Rich has been pretty clear that “creature type is too large” isn’t a disqualifying factor for what he could be.

If he looks medium-sized, his creature type must be at least Large.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Rich has been pretty clear that “creature type is too large” isn’t a disqualifying factor for what he could be.

No he hasn't.

Grey Wolf

[lio45]

No he hasn't.

Grey Wolf

Wait, you're actually trying to argue that we don't have any reason to believe that MitD can be (way, if needed) smaller than a full-sized adult of his creature type?!?!?

LadyEowyn is correct - MitD is a child, and is obviously physically smaller than what the Monster Manual says is the size of whatever he is.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Wait, you're actually trying to argue that we don't have any reason to believe that MitD can be (way, if needed) smaller than a full-sized adult of his creature type?!?!?

No, I am not. My argument was done in page 9, and neither you nor LE have argued anything back with anything other than assertions.

GW

[lio45]

The argument you made on Page 9 is bad, because as I explained already, it rests on

what is more plausible[?]

, and the actual question to ask here is whether it's possible, not more plausible or more probable.

The reason we have, for example, set a STR limit at 30, is that it's considered by consensus to be impossible for MitD to do what he did in the Tower Scene with less STR than that, not merely improbable.

This is the logic that should be used for all these FBS deal-breaking criteria, by their very nature. We only want to disqualify using actually disqualifying criteria; we don't want the list of hard deal-breakers to be longer than only the actual deal-breakers.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The argument you made on Page 9 is bad, because as I explained already, it rests on , and the actual question to ask here is whether it's possible, not plausible.

The reason we have, for example, set a STR limit at 30, is that it's considered by consensus to be impossible for MitD to do what he did in the Tower Scene with less STR than that, not merely improbable.

This is the logic that should be used for all these FBS deal-breaking criteria, by their very nature.

According to you. But then, according to you, the thread consensus on this topic, which we have voted on three times and you have participated in at least the last two of, is:

garbage

So as far as I am concerned, you have burnt all your bridges. Plausibility is as valid a metric as possibility, and you asserting otherwise over and over and calling anyone esle's position garbage is not going to change it.

Grey Wolf

[Squire Doodad]

‘Tis because it’s not that, I give approximately 0% chance of it happening (fight me one person who has it is a guess in Crusher’s post).

"Bartender! Put down "Carbosilicate Amorph" as my third guess! I need to prove a point in a stupid argument"

I don't think it has any actual explanation for the escape scene though, given that they're basically super strong, super fast blobs of brown goop.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

"Bartender! Put down "Carbosilicate Amorph" as my third guess! I need to prove a point in a stupid argument"

I don't think it has any actual explanation for the escape scene though, given that they're basically super strong, super fast blobs of brown goop.

The standard explanation is that it used a teraport which is a hand-sized electronic device that teleports you and/or others. We've known for some time that carb-amorphs can interface with electronics, even though Schlock himself didn't seem to be aware of it until fairly recently. A carb-amorph figuring out how to do it would count as "discovering powers they didn't know they had".

Grey Wolf

[catagent101]

The problem with MiTD's species being Gargantuan or even Colossal is that the decrease in size necessary for MiTD to be anywhere near the size we need him to be severely decreases his Strength score. To go down from Gargantuan to Large is a decrease of 16. To go down from Colossal to Large is a decrease of 24. This is a lot. Heck, oftentimes a decrease of 8 is enough to disqualify a monster. The neothelid just barely makes it with 30 Strength, and if you take it down from Gargantuan to Huge it ends up with 22 Strength, which is below Roy without his Belt of Giant Strength. And while Roy has chipped masonry in his fight with Durkula, he hasn't destroyed a wall with a light punch yet.

The question I have is what monsters does the size requirement prevent from fitting that can actually scale down to MiTD's size? Are there any we haven't considered yet because of this?

[Squire Doodad]

The standard explanation is that it used a teraport which is a hand-sized electronic device that teleports you and/or others. We've known for some time that carb-amorphs can interface with electronics, even though Schlock himself didn't seem to be aware of it until fairly recently. A carb-amorph figuring out how to do it would count as "discovering pwoers they didn't know they had".

Grey Wolf

So the assumption that he was carrying one around/one was embedded into his body sounds good enough that if Rich reveals it to be the case I wouldn't complain, though it sounds like this raises flags for why Rich would let MitD do this if the scene is meant to double as a hint.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The question I have is what monsters does the size requirement prevent from fitting that can actually scale down to MiTD's size? Are there any we haven't considered yet because of this?

Not that I'm aware of, but there are a few monsters that were removed from the FBS list when the size requirement was voted in. The one that sticks in my mind is the Dread linnorm, mostly because it was a particular early favourite of mine (before someone pointed out it's ludicrous size to me... it looked smaller in the pictures, I swear). But there was at least one or two others, IIRC. None of them would've scaled down well, I don't think - but feel free to go back to the dawn of time and check the early threads (you can tell they are early ones because the category was called "forerunners")

So the assumption that he was carrying one around/one was embedded into his body sounds good enough that if Rich reveals it to be the case I wouldn't complain, though it sounds like this raises flags for why Rich would let MitD do this if the scene is meant to double as a hint.

::shrug::? Honestly, I've been defending the carb-amorph on merits for as long as it has been around, but I don't think anyone really ever bought into the idea that Rich would borrow a carb-amorph from Tayler. It's sort of a more serious version of the potted plant, but nothing more than that.

Grey Wolf

[Squire Doodad]

Just checking: the SF in the Amoprh's FBS con list is "Science Fiction", right? It's not something else? I'd recognize sci-fi easy but SF seemed weird for some reason

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Just checking: the SF in the Amoprh's FBS con list is "Science Fiction", right? It's not something else? I'd recognize sci-fi easy but SF seemed weird for some reason

Correct. But gone ahead and written it out (unlike changing the scene name, this is easy enough to do).

GW

[lio45]

According to you. But then, according to you, the thread consensus on this topic, which we have voted on three times and you have participated in at least the last two of, is:


So as far as I am concerned, you have burnt all your bridges. Plausibility is as valid a metric as possibility, and you asserting otherwise over and over and calling anyone esle's position garbage is not going to change it.

Grey Wolf

Inertia is a big factor, from what I've observed. Thread consensus is just that, thread consensus. There's no such thing as "Thread Consensus Infallibility Dogma".

For example, imagine that Rich in the next comic introduces the unarguable fact that MitD at the moment of the Tower Scene comic had a Super-Epic Ring of Ultra-Extreme Strength on him that gives the bearer +50 STR.

The correct response to this new evidence is obviously to immediately eliminate "creature must have minimum 30 STR" from the list of criteria.

But in the real world that is this thread, the above is not guaranteed to happen - it depends on a handful of fallible humans making the right call, and some of them might be attached to the 10 year old criteria for irrational reasons.

Hope the distinction is clear...

[LadyEowyn]

No, I am not. My argument was done in page 9, and neither you nor LE have argued anything back with anything other than assertions.

GW

I provided three pieces of evidence, two of which indicate that the MITD is not merely a juvenile, he is unusually small for his species to the point where other characters comment on it.

(The one from the calendars is the 2016 calendar, and is Qarr saying he recognizes MITD but “Aren’t you a bit on the short side, though?”)

I don’t see why Rich would deliberately keep bringing up the fact that MITD’s size is notably smaller than his character class if it wasn’t a meaningful point.

It’s not about him just being a juvenile, it’s about the author (who is usually pretty cagey on MITD hints) going out of his way to tell us “Ignore size constraints, folks!”

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I provided three pieces of evidence, two of which indicate that the MITD is not merely a juvenile, he is unusually small for his species to the point where other characters comment on it.

(The one from the calendars is the 2016 calendar, and is Qarr saying he recognizes MITD but “Aren’t you a bit on the short side, though?”)

I don’t see why Rich would deliberately keep bringing up the fact that MITD’s size is notably smaller than his character class if it wasn’t a meaningful point.

One category smaller is already meaningful. Each category doubles the size of the previous. As we have argued, if MitD is expected to double in size by the time he becomes a full grown that's still make him Large. For him to become larger than Huge, he'd need to become more than four times taller than he is now. I think that even a 50% growth spurt is perfectly correctly described as "much bigger", by the basic rules of English language, if nothing else.

Grey Wolf

[LadyEowyn]

We’re just going to have to disagree on this one.

[Darth Paul]

I provided three pieces of evidence, two of which indicate that the MITD is not merely a juvenile, he is unusually small for his species to the point where other characters comment on it.

(The one from the calendars is the 2016 calendar, and is Qarr saying he recognizes MITD but “Aren’t you a bit on the short side, though?”)

The size classes are so flexible, though, that Large encompasses what we might normally think of as a huge (not in the sense of a size class, just a description) creature. 16 feet tall, occupying 10 square feet, and weighing 2 tons is fairly "huge" in my book. In the memory of an MitD growing up, when he was still possibly size M but only 4 feet and 60 pounds... that leaves an impression. Oona might think that's a big critter, as well.

I'm only pointing out that it's very possible (or plausible, if you like) for all the descriptions to be internally consistent and still fit a creature of size class L. And the best part is that such a creature loses only 8 STR scaling down from L to M. If we're talking about a Protean, for example, that's still a very respectable 45; more than enough to slap Miko and Windstriker Wile E. Coyote style through the wall.

[Squire Doodad]

I provided three pieces of evidence, two of which indicate that the MITD is not merely a juvenile, he is unusually small for his species to the point where other characters comment on it.

(The one from the calendars is the 2016 calendar, and is Qarr saying he recognizes MITD but “Aren’t you a bit on the short side, though?”)

I don’t see why Rich would deliberately keep bringing up the fact that MITD’s size is notably smaller than his character class if it wasn’t a meaningful point.

It’s not about him just being a juvenile, it’s about the author (who is usually pretty cagey on MITD hints) going out of his way to tell us “Ignore size constraints, folks!”

I took that to mean "MitD is smaller than usual". Not that it means "MitD is not even a quarter the size of his normal brethern".

[LadyEowyn]

Oh, I agree that Large is plausible (I was thinking the MITD looks Medium-sized, so anything above Medium is plausible.)

I’m just not willing to exclude anything just for being too big, because by my reading of Rich’s hints, even a normally Gargantuan-size creature has already been explained by saying not just “he isn’t full grown” but “he’s weirdly small for an [X]”.

I took that to mean "MitD is smaller than usual". Not that it means "MitD is not even a quarter the size of his normal brethern".

It could mean either. My view is that I’m not going to exclude options based on one specific factor when it looks like the author is deliberately saying “ignore this factor”.

[Squire Doodad]

It could mean either. My view is that I’m not going to exclude options based on one specific factor when it looks like the author is deliberately saying “ignore this factor”.

Large and even Huge in my book are perfectly plausible.

On the other hand, for the sake of this thread I feel like we have to put some stricter than normal limits to an otherwise broad list of possibilities. I think I wrote this a bit better before somewhere, but I'm not about to check I'm afraid. In either case, feel free to suggest something that's very big, but that doesn't stop size from being an issue, especially if it also isn't well past the limit.

[Darth Paul]

The main issue with any very big creature, as far as I see it, is that the more it scales down to fit under the umbrella, the more Strength it loses. So you have to have an extremely strong creature in the first place to go through this process and still fit the Tower hitting scene, or else add a template like Dungeonbred for which we have no evidence at the moment.

For convenience, here's a summary of my thoughts on minimum STR vs Size:

STR | Size Class

30 | M
38 | L
46 | H
54 | G
62 | C

So no creature of any size is truly ruled out, but the bigger they get, the harder it is to fit them into the agreed-upon best fit Strength qualification. But for a candidate who has the STR and adequate explanations for the other big scenes, size as an adult shouldn't be the sole barrier. And the higher the STR the better, since 30 is just scraping by, IMO.

[Squire Doodad]

Hold still while I find a 83 STR candidate that fits everything but the size

[Darth Paul]

Hold still while I find a 83 STR candidate that fits everything but the size

Take your time, I'm here all week. Tip your webserver.

[3Power]

Also I agree that the tower scene is not depicting MitD casting a spell to push Miko out, as he established the premise himself and definitely was trying to "hit". I'm okay with telekinesis as an idea if the given candidate largely uses telekinesis instead of actual limbs, assuming someone has the stats to back it up.

I mean, every naga variant that lists sample spells inevitably has mage hand on their list. Unfortunately the same can't be said for telekinesis, but the precedent for moving things with their mind is there.

Now then, I wanted to bring something up that I just discovered while looking at the relevant books to confirm that. I looked at the original epic level handbook entry for ha-naga and I found something very interesting in the stat block.

It turns out that in 3rd edition, all Naga (meaning both the ha-naga and the generic naga from the monster manual, had a space half the size of their creature size's normal space, with the word "coiled" written next to it in parenthesis. This means that a Large size naga (10 ft by 10 ft) occupies a medium size space. (5 ft by 5ft) Whereas the colossal ha-naga (30 ft by 30 ft)occupies the same space as a huge monster (15 ft by 15 ft).

Now I know what the response is going to be. "That's 3.0 rules, it doesn't apply to 3.5!" Yeah yeah, I know. I'm also not bothered by it. There's a precedent for naga fitting into spaces smaller than their size category would indicate and it's in the officially published stat block for the creature, even if it was later errata'd in the update booklet and the srd.

[lio45]

Plausibility is as valid a metric as possibility, and you asserting otherwise over and over and calling anyone esle's position garbage is not going to change it.

Grey Wolf

The bolded part is hilariously incorrect: possible/impossible is objectively a MUCH stronger metric than plausible/less-plausible-but-still-possible.

The way this thread is treating the upper size limit is equivalent to seeing a scene that suggests that MitD probably has >30 STR, then based on that scene, putting "must have at least 30 STR" in the list of hard deal-breakers.

And what Darth Paul says is not true - the size criterion is there (#6). What Darth Paul describes is actually what would be the case if LadyEowyn and I had our way: "So no creature of any size is truly ruled out, but the bigger they get, the harder it is to fit them into the agreed-upon best fit Strength qualification."

Right now, creatures that are too big ARE ruled out, on that sole basis.

It's an obvious mistake, but since "it goes against thread consensus" it stays like that. (I feel like Galileo back when "thread consensus" was geocentrism. :P)