OOTS #1241 - The Discussion Thread

[Ninja Dragon]

The way I see this is moving to the diplomatic field, with either the Order or the paladins puilling it off. It's more interesting than having the party just defeat Serini the first time they meet, imo.

The order has an insane difference in information over Serini that makes her entire struggle pointless (like how the gods are about to undo everything or how their world's only hope of survival depends on defeating Xykon and making a deal with RC). So I'd like to see them delivering her the news.

EDIT:

Yeah, but in Endgame Thanos hadn't already put down half his opponents in the first thirty seconds. I'm really not seeing them pulling through outside of, I dunno, either turning Sunny against Serini or the IFCC making sure V doesn't get wiped. That's about it.

That's just because the "encounters" of Infinity War were structured differently than OOTS ones (it took hours of fighting mooks while Thanos slowly collected the gems), because at the end of the film, Thanos dealing a bigger defeat on the good guys than any character in this comic has had except for the Snarl. And the Avengers never had a chance of beating Thanos, we saw them try and fail over and over for almost 3 hours.

[Fyraltari]

Hel, yes, which is why this is even more frustrating - they were getting things done, and now they're back to being crushed into paste by every major encounter they come across.

This is their first fight since they thwarted Hel's plan and it's not even over yet. Or are you complaining that Durkon and Minrah didn't beat Redcloak, Oona and Xykon by their lonesome?
Also, I ahev to challenge the nothion that somebody is "crushing into paste" someone who's just made them abandon Plan A. I mean, Serini's not doing too hot either, right now.

Also they didn't really beat Tarquin that hard, they just ran away. And as the other guy said, that was years ago.

The guy screaming impotently in the desert looks defeated to me. What does "this was years ago" (in real time, not in-universe time, mind) matter when you've just admitted they spent said time beating another villain?

[Sloanzilla]

I mean if we can't show good guys look like they are about to lose before overcoming a given obstacle and then winning, we're really going to have to shorten an awful lot of books, movies, video games, comics and other sources of material.

[Kerching]

It also feels a bit disappointing for the Order to keep getting their butts handed to them... but it's really only because we have to wait for each strip to come out. It'll be much faster archive binging in the future

[TRH]

Why is everyone assuming Durkon made his save against petrification? Because it sure looks like he's failed with 80% of his body stone.

[The MunchKING]

That's the joke. See Belkar's comment.

Oh I thought Belkar was mocking Elan for being a surrender-happy Bard rather than a fighting type like him.

[Psyren]

Why is everyone assuming Durkon made his save against petrification? Because it sure looks like he's failed with 80% of his body stone.

He's still talking. Every other petrification we've seen has been instantaneous, including cutting people off mid-sentence. My money is on he made the save.

As for how easily Sunny got the others - everyone else got hit with their weak save (or in Minrah's case, was low level.) Sunny does not seem to be a standard beholder so the DCs on their eyes might be boosted.

And lastly, for the poison(s) being so effective, Serini is an epic rogue after all. Her save DC may as well be "no."

[Khay]

This is why I hate fighting behol- uhm, eye thingies. It's just an endless list of really annoying magical effects.

Hopefully, this time our heroes will finally learn to not stumble blindly into every trap set for them. Or grow some saving throws already. Either one.

[Jay R]

Yeah, but in Endgame Thanos hadn't already put down half his opponents in the first thirty seconds.

Be careful with your phrasing. In fact, Thanos had already put down half his opponents, and indeed, half of the entire universe before the first thirty seconds of that movie.

I'm really not seeing them pulling through outside of, I dunno, either turning Sunny against Serini or the IFCC making sure V doesn't get wiped. That's about it.

I don't see it either. But we don't have to, yet. Maybe they will wake up chained like O-Chul and Lien. Then they will escape, or learn a crucial fact from Serini, or tell her one. Remember that she doesn't intend to kill them -- jump dump them far away.

Maybe a single moment of anti-magic and Bloodfeast is in the fight.

Maybe Xykon will find them and they will all have to work together against him -- or flee together.

But whatever happens, it won't wrap things up, and it won't make things easier, and you won't see it coming.

This isn't a game with a sequence of encounters each of which is defeated straightforwardly on the way to the next.

This is a story. There will be complications and reversals and failures before we reach the ending.

This is not the "climactic finish" part of the story. This is the "add complications and obstacles that seem insurmountable" part of the story.

[DLcygnet]

Ah, what a fun strip. You can make all the best plans in the world, but the enemy gets a vote too. And odds are, they won't follow your plan.

Narratively speaking, I agree that Bloodfeast won't be unleashed here. There aren't a lot of good ways to get him OUT of that chamber (at least not without destroying the Swiss cheese cliff side and exposing the entire operation and potential location of the Gate to Xykon as soon as he steps out of his current dungeon. They'd barely have enough time to remove the shackles from the Paladins and put the band back together. Wait a minute!

Sunny is hurt and it looks like Serini is about to fail a grapple check. Everybody else being taken out could mean...

A, Full-Frontal Lady Rogue on Rogue action sequence!!! Those dagger skills could come in handy right about now.
B, Everybody gets mind wiped & sent home only for Blackwing to remind them of everything. Or an IFCC extracted V. Except nobody will have seen Serini, leading to a serious Whodunit mystery. Page count would likely end up too high. Plus, I don't see the IFCC intervening quite yet since Xykon hasn't been sitting on his butt (and the gods are 1 vote away from wiping out the planet anyway). Xykon is a few more X'd out caves from blasting the entire cliff in frustration and figuring the deception out anyway and these guys are patient.
C, Haley tumbles away and whips out a wand of dispel magic, freeing half the crew and exposing Serini.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Haley: Durkon, take down Elan before he can dispel our buffs!
Durkon: What now?!
Elan: Too late! Greater dispel magic!
Minrah wakes up, Belkar and Scruffy refocus, and Bloodfeast extreminates.

Okay, so both Sunny and Serini have taken their turns.

Belkar's action seem limited to varieties of cowardice.

Elan's next action will presumably be harmful, but I don't see Rich letting dominated Elan do anything too creative.

Haley can maybe use one of her wands? Four are unaccounted for; obscuring mist might be helpful; fly isn't useless in this situation, but doesn't seem like the best choice. Also, I think her bow is going to fall back down as the I assume the telekinesis was of the Violent Thrust variety.

But Durkon, he should be able to do an area dispel, which I think can potentially undo everything but the poison sleep effects?

You know it's impressive that V can circle faster than Sunny can spin.

That seems to be a consistent thing with eye-centric magic/super powers across stories/genres.

Once the eyes start effecting something, it takes all day to look somewhere else.

[Schroeswald]

Just a fun roller coaster of different people winning and losing!

[Dion]

How does V evade the AMF?

Possibly a readied action?

But then how do they cast a spell in (presumably) the same round?

Haste?

Edit: prismatic spray was first. I need to learn to read, the read again, *then* post. But still, V is taking a lot of actions here. Wizards generally don’t get to evade area effect spells without some kind of readied action like “I get ready to run when I see sunny turn”

[Jason]

Standard 3.5E beholder eyes are:
Main eye: Anti-magic cone
1. Charm monster - used on Mr. Scruffy
2. Charm Person - used on Elan. Twice now
3. Disintegrate
4. Fear - used on Belkar
5. Finger of Death
6. Flesh to Stone - used on Durkon
7. Inflict Moderate Wounds
8. Sleep - used on Minrah
9. Slow - used on V
10. Telekinesis - used on Haley's bow (and to let Sunny pick up things in earlier comics)

Since Sunny only has 8 eyestalks I'm guessing #8 is either Finger of Death or Disintigrate, and that Sunny doesn't have an Inflict Moderate Wounds eye either.

[urbanwolf]

Looks like sunny got hit by yellow, and maybe green. Yellow is 80 electric damage or 40 is she saved. Green if it hit her is poison that kills so she must of saved for that one so 1d6 con damage. Sernie should of been in the cone too, but it looks like she was not touched.

Spray has a 1/8 chance to hit with two rays.

[Dion]

Can beholders be resurrected?

[Jason]

Can beholders be resurrected?

Resurrection will work on a beholder, yes, so will raise dead.

[SlashDash]

Haley got her bow disarmed by Telekinesis. I guess that leaves her wands, but I don't really see how the Order's getting through this at all considering the entire party's been incapacitated.

She also has a dagger that we have seen her train with at the end of last book.
It has to come into effect sooner or later. Though since it was also clearly pointed out to be Adamantium dagger, I'm assuming it will come into play later on.

Regardless, keep in mind that we've seen the order use outside the box thinking when it comes to magical items. Remember tricking Tarquin to capture the smoke arrow?

A strip ago we saw Elan take down the anti magic field with a simple perform check.

Just because you can't think of something creative the party can do, doesn't mean there isn't stuff they can do.

Hel, yes, which is why this is even more frustrating - they were getting things done, and now they're back to being crushed into paste by every major encounter they come across.

Also they didn't really beat Tarquin that hard, they just ran away. And as the other guy said, that was years ago.

Tarquin was abysmally crushed. He went after them to kill Roy and force Elan to be the party leader. He failed. Roy still leads the party and Elan is just a supporting character. We last saw him whining that he has no idea what to do. That is the very definition of defeat for the type of character Tarquin is.

And while we're at it, of course the party has to meet tough challenges. Battles go back and forth for a reason. Otherwise it will be boring if they just meet a bunch of goblins and V will blast them with a single fireball.

Besides, the party isn't out yet. We have multiple members of the party still standing and enchantments can be broken.

I mean it's like you read just a couple of pages from the battle with the linear guild in Tarquin's palace and think that Haley is turned to stone, Roy is losing in the arena, V unable to hit Z and Durkon being drained by Sabine and assume the party is totally crushed.
They got better.

Yeah, but in Endgame Thanos hadn't already put down half his opponents in the first thirty seconds. I'm really not seeing them pulling through outside of, I dunno, either turning Sunny against Serini or the IFCC making sure V doesn't get wiped. That's about it.

Again, just because you can't see something doesn't mean there isn't a solution.
I can think of loads of solutions.

Again, Haley's smoke screen could debuff Sunny's aim. They could - now that they have a light source - realize the door is blocked by Mimi and attack her, which will allow them to get out of the trap and spread out to weaken's Sunny's reach (as V implied)

They could get Bloodfest involved (doubt it though)


They could dispel Serini's invisibility somehow and hit her with something.
Or even just realize who she is and start talking to her and explain the things she doesn't know like the gods position. Notice that this battle has a bigger focus on Haley, Belkar and Elan.
There is a reason why the three chaotic members are more prominent in a battle after you saw the enemy make a mockery of paladins.

[Alexandrite]

Might be time for the ol' bag of holding. Does Haley still have those wands?

With how helpful-unhelpful Sunny is I could totally see him saying "I'll help :D!" and putting the anti-magic back on Haley... and the rest of the party. I don't really think the dinosaur is going to be unpolymorphed here but that'd be funny.

[Anitar]

I never thought I'd have to correct a bard on word-usage, but "surrender" alone is 3 syllables.

When Elan is being controlled, he can lie as much as he wants.

[Kantaki]

This is going by approximately 3.5e rules and they’re levels 14-16, so should have probably made a couple. I think the beholder specifically targeted the weak throws, Haley with the strength, Elan and Bella’s with will, ect.

Don't let Belkar hear you call him that.

Charmed Elan is just delightful though.
I think the way he acts says a lot about both Elan and Sunny.
"We surrender" is probably what he's supposed to say/do while "two syllables" is Elan's own contribution.

[drazen]

I would think Haley's next move is Fly wand + boots of speed + adamantium dagger.

Serini is lacking in a LOT of information though. Primarily that her desire to protect the gate is useless if they don't end the threat here and now. The gods will destroy the world should Redcloak get anywhere near it. The ritual takes weeks, ending existence takes them less than 15 minutes, per Loki at the Godsmoot (although he is also incapable of telling the truth except to rub things in Thor's face...).

[Emmit Svenson]

Sunny has two small eyestalks less than a standard beholder, possibly because she is immature. The three standard beholder eye rays she hasn't fired are Finger of Death, Cause Moderate Wounds, and Disintegrate. I imagine the eye she held off with could just as easily be Finger of Death as Disintegrate.

The antimagic field of the central eye suppresses magical effects, it doesn't end them. So if Bloodfeast gets unmorphed, Sunny could look elsewhere or close her center eye.

[gerryq]

If it ends in diplomacy and Serini allows the Order to carry on working to defeat Xykon, surely Serini would have no reason not to help them subsequently? That would be a very big power boost, and I'm not sure it works well with the storyline. But if they defeat her without killing her, the problem is the same.

I suppose it's possible to come up with a motivation for Serini where she says "Okay, go try to defeat Xykon but I'm having no part in it". But it's not terribly logical to me.

[Werbaer]

How does V evade the AMF?
Possibly a readied action?

The party was no longer in the AMF when Sunny looked upwards in panel 3.
V had a Fly spell active, which was surpressed by the AMF. When sunny looked away, V was flying again without need to use an action.

[Ninja Dragon]

If it ends in diplomacy and Serini allows the Order to carry on working to defeat Xykon, surely Serini would have no reason not to help them subsequently? That would be a very big power boost, and I'm not sure it works well with the storyline. But if they defeat her without killing her, the problem is the same.

I suppose it's possible to come up with a motivation for Serini where she says "Okay, go try to defeat Xykon but I'm having no part in it". But it's not terribly logical to me.

Xykon is so broken and there are so many factors that could make this more difficult (IFCC, Monster in the Darkness, whatever is going on inside the rift, etc) that I think we can afford to get an epic ally or two and still make this a difficult endeavor.

[Peelee]

Yeah, but in Endgame Thanos hadn't already put down half his opponents in the first thirty seconds. I'm really not seeing them pulling through outside of, I dunno, either turning Sunny against Serini or the IFCC making sure V doesn't get wiped. That's about it.

I haven't even seen the movie and yet I still know that Endgame literally started with Thanos already having half his opponents down.

And, that aside, you and I clearly have wildly different definitions of "crushing into paste."

[Ionathus]

Love this strip. This fight has been so much fun! V's aerial acrobatics are particularly impressive from an art standpoint: something about that "chase sequence" is really exciting!

Also, who else is sick of the Order getting flattened into a thin paste and only managing to get away by the skin of their teeth? Because I sure am.

I wouldn't call it a "thin paste" either, but I do get your point. I'm a little flabbergasted that a beholder can aim 7 eye rays while blinded and only 1 of the 5 high-level adventurers make their saving throw (Minrah and Mr. Scruffy aren't held to that high of a standard). But then, they've been fighting unfair opponents for quite awhile. The main bad guy is an Epic-level Lich Sorcerer, one of the most OP things in the game! And in the last book, Rich showed to full effect how creatures like Vampires can abuse their abilities to make a totally unfair fight. Because winning (or at least doing well) when the odds are stacked against you is a Hero Thing.

This is where OotS differs from actual D&D: most players seem to enjoy feeling competent, whereas the goal of a fictional work is (usually) to have major fights be as tense as possible. That's only annoying to me if there's no reason for the fight to be hard, aside from plot contrivances to artificially make it so. But here they're being ambushed by a beholder and an epic-level rogue in a specific ambush scenario tailored to their enemies' strengths. It's honestly impressive how much of a fight they're putting up.

And, frankly, my money's still on them either winning, or on fighting Serini & Sunny to a standstill before diplomacy kicks in.

It seems like the Order follows the classic dramatic pattern of losing to a villain, getting away, then winning the next round. Which is not something that is unique of OOTS and is standard across all media.

"You fool! Don't you know Evil always triumphs in the middle?!"

Not really. I have no use for trivial fights.

The Avengers should fight Thanos's army, not a high school team. A horde of Ultrons, not Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots.

The Frost Giant ambush was fairly trivial for the order, but it kept getting messed up by Andi. I liked how that sequence's complications showcased the Order's competency, while still providing a more interesting battle than a straightforward curb-stomp. Pretty sure that Rich had something in the book commentary about how he wanted to give them an "easy win" to show how much they'd grown.

Don't worry. Rich is driving.

Love this.

Yeah, but in Endgame Thanos hadn't already put down half his opponents in the first thirty seconds.

I'd argue this is actually wrong on two counts.

Spoiler: Endgame

Show

At the start of Endgame, Thanos has, uh...pretty definitively put down half his opponents already.

And in the final battle of Endgame, Thanos opens the fight with an orbital bombardment! As a result, most of the team is buried in the rubble and can't come out to play, leaving Cap, Thor, and Tony to face Thanos alone.

[danielxcutter]

I meant the big F-ass army, not just the Avengers.

[InvisibleBison]

And lastly, for the poison(s) being so effective, Serini is an epic rogue after all. Her save DC may as well be "no."

Why do you think so? Rogues don't any ability to boost the save DC of poisons they use, and they're no more able to create or buy high-DC poisons than any other character.

She also has a dagger that we have seen her train with at the end of last book.
It has to come into effect sooner or later.

Given that the Giant has stated that conservation of detail is overrated, I have to disagree.