OOTS #1219 - The Discussion Thread

[Fishman]

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm#track

Rangers get Track at level 1...

Yes, but what Belkar is doing is not tracking, but un-tracking, a different skillset not included in the tracking rules. Hiding the trail is not included in the Track feat. Belkar seems to have learned some of the wrong lessons from his tracking training.

[bunsen_h]

We've seen traps that give Stoneskin and Haste to a guardian monster in the dugeon, or shoots darts with strength-draining poison to the adventurers (the same trap that bunsen_h mentions). It probably won't be an exact repeat of those effects of course.

That wasn't one of my examples. That's a third one that uses a sticky food/sauce (honey) to attract monsters (fire ants).

[Thermophille]

If I remember correctly, Symbol spells and a lot of other similar magic traps say in their description that they can only be detected by a Rogue (barring certain magical detections, obviously).

Assuming that these haven't been employed by TE, they do not know about the trap, even after crossing dozens of them. This in turn implies that it's not immediately evident, possibly a detection of some sort.

One person (forgot who) mentioned that the invisible folks who grabbed the paladins might be guardians of the gate who use this detection to monitor the gate's defenses. If this is the case, I find it likely they did so to prevent TE from noticing them, since they obviously wanted the paladins alive.

[Petrocorus]

Team Evil is grossly undersized. Less so lately, though, thankfully for them. If MitD's neutral and doesn't outright help the Order, Xykon and Redcloak are going to suffer terribly from the action economy advantage the Order has. ..........I also seem to recall Xykon taking a good hit in pretty much every fight. Aside form fire, his immunities haven't been massively handy.

And the Spellplinter Maneuver has certainly not been introduced just to be used only once against Durkula.

[mormon_soldier]

He had to be manipulated into it, but https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0022.html shows that he's been able to track for nearly 1200 strips :P

I was just wondering why Roy is always surprised when Belkar is good at something. (I.e., BRitF, UD, here). Now I remember why.

[The MunchKING]

People keep saying that the OOTS doesn't know what the red X means, but they figure it out in comic 1198. So they do know what it means.

I thought O-Chull told them about it.

EDIT: No, technically it was Lein, and she didn't actually provide the details of "big Red X".

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I love all the speculation that is going on in this thread and I'm excited to see what twists and turns the dungeon holds. I also really appreciate seeing the Order working together, something we really haven't seen much of since Book 5 (so, a few years now).

[danielxcutter]

And the Spellplinter Maneuver has certainly not been introduced just to be used only once against Durkula.

Yes, but if I’m right and it’s based on(if not a straight renaming of) the Mage Slayer feat, Xykon has a very good chance to make his Concentration check. Undead use their Charisma bonus for Concentration, and even Durkula made it once. Xykon has a Charisma bonus in the low stratosphere.

And like, the Order has trouble doing anything to him at all. The clerics are too underleveled to have a realistic chance of constantly hitting him, most of V’s spells won’t work and the IFCC can pull them out of the fight whenever they want, and the rest have trouble with so much as scratching him.

[Alexandrite]

Definitely not thinking that trap is a damage based one. The dungeon might have been built to honor Kraagor but it was still built by a rogue. The Order might have a pretty big surprise waiting for them at the end of this.

If this is the key to the gate though, then it seems strange to me that none of the more observant members of Team Evil would have noticed it by now.

[greenfunkman]

The 'symbol' spell from v3.0 has the following "Note: Magic traps such as symbol are hard to detect and disable. A rogue (only) can use the Search skill to find a symbol and Disable Device to thwart it. The DC in each case is 25 + spell level, or 33 for symbol"

http://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/pla...032/index.html

None of the effects listed look like a good match, however. Was there a v3.5 equivalent? 2 searches got me nothing.

[greenfunkman]

The 'symbol' spell from v3.0 has the following "Note: Magic traps such as symbol are hard to detect and disable. A rogue (only) can use the Search skill to find a symbol and Disable Device to thwart it. The DC in each case is 25 + spell level, or 33 for symbol"

http://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/pla...032/index.html

None of the effects listed look like a good match, however. Was there a v3.5 equivalent? 2 searches got me nothing.

Ah, I see, they split it up into separate symbols. Example: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Symbol_of_Weakness

...has the same Rogue- only Search restriction.

So I guess its a new (epic?) spell with the symbol spell qualities.

[M.A.D]

So if every room has the exact same trap, does that mean the only way to really access the gate room requires bypassing it?

And it also means they're heading right towards the gate?

[Metastachydium]

Again, exact same logical fallacy. "Bypassing this trap is required to access the gate" and "Bypassing this trap leads to the gate" are two different things altogether. Just because the setup requires a rogue, doesn't mean that having a rogue would give you instant access to the gate. You'd still need to figure out the right door first, or stumble upon it in any case.

And high level characters, much less rogues, aren't standard issue. That's a pretty baseless affirmation.

Would you agree that
1. a regular dungeon-delving adventuring group will most often have a rogue;
2. (as pointed out before) an adventuring party entering the tomb on its own volition is more likely than not to be high level;
3. and therefore such a party will almost certainly have a high level rogue?
Also, the line of runes is small, but not exactly hidden. I'm not even sure it takes a high level rogue to notice it.

As for the third party, well, these doors have been penetrated quite a few times over quite a long period of time. So if that rule is calling someone, that someone isn't responding, and hasn't in ages, and there's little reason to believe that this activation would be any different than any of the previous ones.

We don't really know that. The Voices, for instance, could be a response team of sorts (although personally I don't think they are).

[Blatt]

Here's a theory... the trap teleports the gate to another, unoccupied, dungeon; if the gate happens to be in 'this' dungeon. So you can search ALL the dungeons and not find it. You would need to search all dungeons SIMULTANEOUSLY to find it.

[woweedd]

We found the one area of tracking Belkar's good at. God, everyone's just being oddly-competent today.

[Metastachydium]

Here's a theory... the trap teleports the gate to another, unoccupied, dungeon; if the gate happens to be in 'this' dungeon. So you can search ALL the dungeons and not find it. You would need to search all dungeons SIMULTANEOUSLY to find it.

Y'see, I have some difficulty believing that Serini, a rogue, invented a simplified version of the Ritual's arcane half and cast it on the Gate.

[Goblin_Priest]

Hypothetically? It tags you as you enter, crossing one way, and prevents you from crossing the other way if you aren't tagged. Of course if that's the case, the OoTS are in trouble if they try to leave in a hurry, because Haley is going to prevent it from tagging them.

The problem with a system that tags the pass-byers is that any form of tagging would force a save (will, probably). Thus, powerful intruders would simply resist the effect. And I don't recall well but I think your character knows when he makes a save?

Yes, but what Belkar is doing is not tracking, but un-tracking, a different skillset not included in the tracking rules. Hiding the trail is not included in the Track feat. Belkar seems to have learned some of the wrong lessons from his tracking training.

True, I don't see any description for hiding tracks in the track feat or the survival skill, but rangers get track at first level, advanced track later, and a bunch of hidey stuff. If we leave RAW for a moment, which this comic does every now and then when it makes sense or makes a better story, "Belkar using his hidey skills and tracky skills in a novel combined manner to display his growth as a ranger" seems plausible to me.

Yes, but if I’m right and it’s based on(if not a straight renaming of) the Mage Slayer feat, Xykon has a very good chance to make his Concentration check. Undead use their Charisma bonus for Concentration, and even Durkula made it once. Xykon has a Charisma bonus in the low stratosphere.

And like, the Order has trouble doing anything to him at all. The clerics are too underleveled to have a realistic chance of constantly hitting him, most of V’s spells won’t work and the IFCC can pull them out of the fight whenever they want, and the rest have trouble with so much as scratching him.

I don't think Durkula made it. Wasn't the interpretation that the spell only works on spells cast defensively, and that Durkula just chose to take the attack of opportunity? In any case, it needs not work 100% of the time, like it did in the illusion. Xykon only gets 1 turn per round. Even with quickened spells, that's a maximum of 2 spells per turn. With this manoeuver and people like Haley preparing attacks of opportunity, his effectiveness should be reduced.

Would you agree that
1. a regular dungeon-delving adventuring group will most often have a rogue;
2. (as pointed out before) an adventuring party entering the tomb on its own volition is more likely than not to be high level;
3. and therefore such a party will almost certainly have a high level rogue?
Also, the line of runes is small, but not exactly hidden. I'm not even sure it takes a high level rogue to notice it.



We don't really know that. The Voices, for instance, could be a response team of sorts (although personally I don't think they are).

No, I wouldn't agree. Not all parties have rogues, not all parties are high level, not all high level parties that do have rogues have single-classed rogues, not all parties that do have single-classed rogues will have super high spot checks and will always spot the trap, and so on, and so on. Roy couldn't see the runes even when pointed to them by Haley. Nobody else so far seems to have made any mention of them either. The DC can be assumed to be pretty damn high. And even if the runes are spotted, its not guaranteed the rogue will know what they do. So considering the number of doors, even if they spot the runes on the first door, odds are any intruders will need to try a huge number of doors before they stumble upon the right one. Meaning that since these are magical traps, odds are eventually there'll be failures and mishaps. Even a party with a powerful rogue, not knowing what the runes are for, might just end up no longer bothering with them.

An extra layer of defense is an extra layer of defense. Doesn't matter how bad you think it is, if you draw a venn diagram of "parties with potent rogues" and "parties strong enough to defeat the big monsters inside", you've now got a pool of candidates much smaller than either original categories.

[Metastachydium]

No, I wouldn't agree. Not all parties have rogues,

I said dungeon-delving parties and most often. Please note that even if a party knows there's something important inside, they are unlikely to know how exactly that thing is defended. Dungeons have a tendency to contain traps, even te Tomb has at least one. And rogues are a lot better at trapfinding than others.

not all parties are high level,

Irrelevant. Again, a low-to-mid level party has meager chances of surviving a single Tomb dungeon, let alone most of them if they are unlucky.

not all high level parties that do have rogues have single-classed rogues, not all parties that do have single-classed rogues will have super high spot checks and will always spot the trap, and so on, and so on.

Now, that's a point.

Roy couldn't see the runes even when pointed to them by Haley. Nobody else so far seems to have made any mention of them either.

Nobody else has trapfinding as a class ability.

The DC can be assumed to be pretty damn high. And even if the runes are spotted, its not guaranteed the rogue will know what they do. So considering the number of doors, even if they spot the runes on the first door, odds are any intruders will need to try a huge number of doors before they stumble upon the right one. Meaning that since these are magical traps, odds are eventually there'll be failures and mishaps. Even a party with a powerful rogue, not knowing what the runes are for, might just end up no longer bothering with them.

Yeah, if one does not know what an obvious trap does, ignoring the trap is a solid choice.

An extra layer of defense is an extra layer of defense. Doesn't matter how bad you think it is, if you draw a venn diagram of "parties with potent rogues" and "parties strong enough to defeat the big monsters inside", you've now got a pool of candidates much smaller than either original categories.

Look, I can see your point, and I do not wish to quarell with you. I'm merely on the opinion that this particular extra layer would make precious little difference, and more importantly if the Order were to find the Gate now just because Haley is a rogue, well, that would just feel cheap. If they don't find it, on the other hand, and the trap is indeed the key to finding it, they won't learn what the trap does, and we are back to your „odds are any intruders will need to try a huge number of doors before they stumble upon the right one. Meaning that since these are magical traps, odds are eventually there'll be failures and mishaps. Even a party with a powerful rogue, not knowing what the runes are for, might just end up no longer bothering with them.”

[Potatopeelerkin]

Look at 'em, working together like a functional team. *Sniff* They grew up so fast.

[TuringTest]

Look at 'em, working together like a functional team. *Sniff* They grew up so fast.

Isn' it? It has become a recurring joke that they're competent

[Goblin_Priest]

Got me to read the trap finding rules. I thought the skill just granted a auto check and a bonus on it, maybe that's some pathfinder stuff. Instead, they get some form of exclusivity.

But that brought me to see the parts about disabling traps... Haley seems to make it sound easier to bypass than to disarm, but you actually need to roll much higher to do that, and it doesn't take any less time. I'm not sure what to make of this.

Look, I can see your point, and I do not wish to quarell with you. I'm merely on the opinion that this particular extra layer would make precious little difference, and more importantly if the Order were to find the Gate now just because Haley is a rogue, well, that would just feel cheap. If they don't find it, on the other hand, and the trap is indeed the key to finding it, they won't learn what the trap does, and we are back to your „odds are any intruders will need to try a huge number of doors before they stumble upon the right one. Meaning that since these are magical traps, odds are eventually there'll be failures and mishaps. Even a party with a powerful rogue, not knowing what the runes are for, might just end up no longer bothering with them.”

It'd feel cheap to you if the Order got access to the Gate thanks to their combined efforts and increased skills paying off?

The only way I could see that is if we spin that into "then Team Evil would never have been able to find it anyways, so it negates the stakes". Which I guess would be a fair point. But on the other hand they've got a pretty badass bugbear community on hand, so... maybe eventually? Isn't rogue their favored class?

If this is what you mean, then personally I wouldn't completely dismiss the "gate hiding mechanism" possibility, but it would give more credence to alternatives, such as "monster respawn mechanism". Which could play well into a confrontation between the Order and Team Evil. The major obstacles to this theory is that the characters just established that it wasn't the time to confront Team Evil yet. But... maybe someone can help me out, but I can't really see why. Sure, there are unresolved ploint points, but what else is the Order supposed to do? Just sit it out until these resolve themselves on their own? They came here to stop Team Evil. Now that they are here... I kinda expect them to want to stop Team Evil.

The other possibilities that were mentioned were an alarm, which I find unlikely because those traps are constantly getting triggered, it'd seem kinda pointless to have something that rings every day, especially if you'll never do anything about it. Potentially the alarm could be more specific, telling race, alignment, and level, or something like that, but if it needs to scan, then it grants a save, and I'm not inclined to believe these traps are save-based. The last possibility that was mentioned that I can think of is a tag, which runs into this exact save problem. If you have a defense that requires foes being tagged before punishing them, then you are not only allowing two saves when you could have just had one, but you also aren't going to be able to tackle anything strong enough to tackle your monsters (any tagging would be Will negates).

As a sidenote, while I personally like Rich's writing and think most of his stuff is great, there have been occasions where I was rather disappointed with the twists. Nobody's perfect. For example, the resolution of the Durkula problem always bothered me. To pull off his "Durkon takes over from within", which while having some build-up to didn't really feel like the denouement that was being set up, what was also required was that everyone in the order keep rolling nat 1s on all of their saves (or just about), and then completely throwing out the window all of the build up lore on how vampiric inner workings (speed of thought) worked. So it's not impossible later denouements also be somewhat unsatisfying.

[Peelee]

Got me to read the trap finding rules. I thought the skill just granted a auto check and a bonus on it, maybe that's some pathfinder stuff. Instead, they get some form of exclusivity.

But that brought me to see the parts about disabling traps... Haley seems to make it sound easier to bypass than to disarm, but you actually need to roll much higher to do that, and it doesn't take any less time. I'm not sure what to make of this.

I don't see that as her making it seem like it'd be easier. I see that as her thinking it'd be more tactically sound. Roy wants to just spring it, likely out of time crunch and figuring it won't be too bad. Haley responds that in the same time as disarming, she could bypass, meaning it'd still be up for anyone who follows. Which fits in perfectly fine with the rules.

[Schroeswald]

Got me to read the trap finding rules. I thought the skill just granted a auto check and a bonus on it, maybe that's some pathfinder stuff. Instead, they get some form of exclusivity.

But that brought me to see the parts about disabling traps... Haley seems to make it sound easier to bypass than to disarm, but you actually need to roll much higher to do that, and it doesn't take any less time. I'm not sure what to make of this.

How I read that is if Team Evil, or Kermit and Scooter, or Sabine or whoever ends up going into that place after them, they will trigger the trap unless they bypass/disable the trap.

And for the record, I’m not really sure what it will do, but my personal theory is that whatever the trap does, it means that Team Evil finding the gate through their original strategy is much harder than expected, if it’s possible at all, and that having a rogue disable the traps just means you’re facing what we thought you would be facing before the strip, just now you need a high level rogue to disable it and never fail at doing that.

[Metastachydium]

It'd feel cheap to you if the Order got access to the Gate thanks to their combined efforts and increased skills paying off?

The only way I could see that is if we spin that into "then Team Evil would never have been able to find it anyways, so it negates the stakes". Which I guess would be a fair point. But on the other hand they've got a pretty badass bugbear community on hand, so... maybe eventually? Isn't rogue their favored class?

There's that too, but I was mostly referring to the idea that they'll find the Gate via blind luck (Team Evil opened good doors at the right time, and the Order chooses the right one out of the two, all by accident).

If this is what you mean, then personally I wouldn't completely dismiss the "gate hiding mechanism" possibility, but it would give more credence to alternatives, such as "monster respawn mechanism". Which could play well into a confrontation between the Order and Team Evil.

Yeah, I wouldn't completely dismiss the former either, I just don't necessarily like its implications.

The major obstacles to this theory is that the characters just established that it wasn't the time to confront Team Evil yet. But... maybe someone can help me out, but I can't really see why. Sure, there are unresolved ploint points, but what else is the Order supposed to do? Just sit it out until these resolve themselves on their own? They came here to stop Team Evil. Now that they are here... I kinda expect them to want to stop Team Evil.

Dunno. Locate the paladins? Talk to the Voices? Meet up with the Ally that Was Promised? Haves some key revelations (and I'd agree disarming the trap might help with that)? Deal with the IFCC?

The other possibilities that were mentioned were an alarm, which I find unlikely because those traps are constantly getting triggered, it'd seem kinda pointless to have something that rings every day, especially if you'll never do anything about it. Potentially the alarm could be more specific, telling race, alignment, and level, or something like that, but if it needs to scan, then it grants a save, and I'm not inclined to believe these traps are save-based. The last possibility that was mentioned that I can think of is a tag, which runs into this exact save problem. If you have a defense that requires foes being tagged before punishing them, then you are not only allowing two saves when you could have just had one, but you also aren't going to be able to tackle anything strong enough to tackle your monsters (any tagging would be Will negates).

Fair points. I'm not sure I like the alarmist position all that much either.
Still, the alarm thing could still work, since the bugbears were very obviously not searching the place systematically, while Team Evil is opening doors with a breakneck speed. A new faction interfering with what's going on would also help give our heroes something to do with the rest of the book until they get to fight the Bony Bastard, Redcloak or both.

As a sidenote, while I personally like Rich's writing and think most of his stuff is great, there have been occasions where I was rather disappointed with the twists. Nobody's perfect. For example, the resolution of the Durkula problem always bothered me. To pull off his "Durkon takes over from within", which while having some build-up to didn't really feel like the denouement that was being set up, what was also required was that everyone in the order keep rolling nat 1s on all of their saves (or just about), and then completely throwing out the window all of the build up lore on how vampiric inner workings (speed of thought) worked. So it's not impossible later denouements also be somewhat unsatisfying.

Again, fair enough. (As a sidenote, Durkon's defeating Greg looked fine to me, because it did get a build-up of sorts. What I didn't really like was the resolution of the Council vote, where the the solution to the problem was based on some obscure rule (Council needs an intact table) we simply could not know about or expect, as there were no hints whatsoever that anything like that could happen.)

[Feruk]

Look at 'em, working together like a functional team. *Sniff* They grew up so fast.

So fast? Seventeen years since they started, from a quick google. I'd hope that a team could grow up in that timeframe :P

[danielxcutter]

I don't think Durkula made it. Wasn't the interpretation that the spell only works on spells cast defensively, and that Durkula just chose to take the attack of opportunity? In any case, it needs not work 100% of the time, like it did in the illusion. Xykon only gets 1 turn per round. Even with quickened spells, that's a maximum of 2 spells per turn. With this manoeuver and people like Haley preparing attacks of opportunity, his effectiveness should be reduced.

No, that’s not really in line with how it works. It looks like when Durkula casts, Roy swings his sword so it interrupts the casting and the spell fizzles. That’s how Mage Slayer works; you can’t cast defensively in the range of it so you have to make a Concentration check with a DC of 10+damage taken. Roy deals fairly good damage, but both Durkula and Xykon have high DR that his sword can’t penetrate and he can’t Power Attack too much if he wants to hit them. Also Haley literally can’t even scratch Xykon, what do you mean?

[Ghosty]

Again, I don't play 3.5, (except vicariously through reading this strip, and reading the rest of you talk about it) but it looks like two different DC rolls by Haley to bypass these runes. First is a Search check, and because she 'hasn't been keeping it maxed', and didn't take very long to formally search the entryway, I think that implies the Trap DC isn't very high. She's still a high-level (near Epic?) Rogue though, with plenty of traits that would help her Search score for this.

To temporarily bypass the trap requires a separate Disable Device check. We've no information about how little or much she's paid attention to keeping that high. Though she was recognizing and bypassing a bunch of spell-casting traps in the pyramid. I don't know if there are separate DC values for detecting versus disabling a given trap. Like this tape's hard to see but easy to break, and vice versa.

Rangers can Search too, for simple mechanical traps. They don't easily get a lot of the synergistic feats that Rogues do---and as noted upthread, they can't see magic traps like Explosive Runes or Symbols at all---but they could get by, conceivably. RedCloak could use his Search skill like a Rogue if he had cast Find Traps, but Search isn't a class skill for him. How high would it be, really?

What you all say about high level NPC adventuring parties, and their having Rogues, makes sense. Does that imply none have visited the Tomb since construction? I mean, why would they have heard of it in the first place?

[Wildstag]

I don't think it's possible to legit level to lvl 50. When the CRs are too distant you just don't get any XP. It's already hard to gain XP at levels below 30, I'm not even sure there's any monsters with a CR above that. Just reaching level 30 requires insane amounts of time chasing extremely rare opponents. For level 50, you could go kill all the gods and still not be close to your target.

FWIW, there's a level 64 wizard in the Epic Level Handbook, even if he isn't statted out. He makes a godawful spell that isn't worth the research, but hey, he exists.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Fourth thought: the trap does absolutely nothing. It is there only to delay any team who has a rogue and who does not just charge ahead like Kraagor would have. The gate can only be reached if you get there within X rounds of the door opening for the first time since the last respawn, and every 2d4 you waste disarming traps or taking too long to complete the fights count against you.

Grey Wolf

[Thermophille]

Considering that Haley can disable it in "Less than a minute, even.", I don't think that's likely. If it was a stalling tactic, it would be a little more obvious (detectable by a ranger like Oona, for example), and take far longer to disarm.