OOTS #1242 - The Discussion Thread

[WindStruck]

One way I could see this playing out is that they neutralize all of Sunny's first volley, Serini orders Sunny to fire again with all the rays, including the presumably-lethal #8, and Sunny, being more good than Serini objects and bows out of the fight.

Perhaps! Or maybe the odds will be more in the order's favor next time, and some of the beams might miss, and/or they pass their saves.

[Yuki Akuma]

Restoration won't be enough on Roy. Sure, it might wake him up... but even if the poison did no HP damage (and so he didn't need a Cure), he'd fall straight back down again. Need a Neutralize Poison first to avoid that.

Poison does its damage once when it hits, and then one minute later. So he'll be fine for five or six rounds without needing a Neutralize Poison.

[Alexandrite]

There's a lot more telling rather than showing on this page than the comic usually has. I can see some of it is for humor, but still.

Nice to see the Order turning things around after their mass saving throw failure, anyway.

[JonahFalcon]

Just occurred to me if Elan never met Therkla, he'd never have Neutralize Poison as one of his spells....

[Skull the Troll]

There's a lot more telling rather than showing on this page than the comic usually has. I can see some of it is for humor, but still.

Nice to see the Order turning things around after their mass saving throw failure, anyway.

How would you show Belkar's apathy without words in a stick comic?

[urbanwolf]

Heal would cure the poison and remove the poison damage.

[Lheticus]

Does anyone else think it's hilarious that Belkar has basically been temporarily transfigured into a into a member of the Neutral Planet?

[Patterned_Pike]

I really like seeing Minrah immediately apologize to Belkar as she hits him with an emotion spell. It's nice to see the acknowledgement that it's kind of a morally ambiguous kind of magic.

[Thecommander236]

I guess Durkon did fail his save after all. Disappointing.

It DOES mean he can't rage though.

Rage isn't going to matter for a target you can't hit.

I am entirely happy with this turn of events. Also Bloodfeast in the second panel is somehow adorable.

Bloodfeast is a good boy.

Hmm.

I don’t think Xykon and Redcloak use mind-affecting abilities a whole lot. And stuff like Magic Circle Against Evil would help in a pinch.

Xykon has Symbol of Insanity that he used to kill 95% of the Sapphire's Guard's living paladins. I think that counts.

One minute per level.

For Mass Death Ward, that is correct. They're fine on that.

As always when second-guessing casters, it comes down to what spells they have prepared. Calm Emotions does strike me as a somewhat odd thing to have prepared for the situations the Order might expect from their plans for the day, though.

Why, she specifically said at one point that every member of the Order has weird mental issues. She and Durkon would've come up with a balance of spells and Calm Emotions for a mentally unstable group is something she would reasonably want.

Fair. The implication I got was that it was a standard action, just the wire "freedom" (as Holy Word, for example), but I'll cop to there being nothing to really indicate that otherwise.

I'm on your side here.


Also, I thought Durkon got off Cure Poison in the last page, but he botched the spell when he got Flesh to Stoned. Didn't noticed that. Roy definitely still has the poison effect on him what with the green bubbles and everything.

[Devils_Advocate]

Bloodfeast is a class feature?

Mr. Scruffy is definitely Belkar's Animal Companion, but don't Rangers only get one of those?

I guess "Handle Animal as a class skill" is a class feature...

Wild Empathy is a Ranger class feature that I'm pretty sure Belkar used on Bloodfeast.

But unlike in the case of an Animal Companion or a Familiar, I wouldn't describe that by saying that Bloodfeast is a class feature, if you want to get pedantic. And getting pedantic is at least part of what a lot of us are in this discussion to do.

Elves are typically immune to sleep effects

Elves are only explicitly immune to magic sleep effects, thus excluding non-magical poison.

The only poison effect in the Rules As Written that knocks people out (and isn't just tons of mental ability score damage) is explicitly "Unconsciousness" rather than "Sleep" so that elves aren't immune to it - considering the primary poison that does that is Drow poison, and they like to use it on above-ground elves.

I imagine that drow also like to use sleep poison on other drow, and that their own as well as other elves' immunity to sleep magic contributed to drow developments in this field.

After all, country music has a lot to say about America.

...not much actual variety of things to say, mind you, but that never stopped it.

"You know the words, you know the phrases."

[Doug Lampert]

[MISSING_THE_POINT=THIS_POST]

Steve Goodman would like a quiet word ... can you cast the speak with dead spell?

Speak with dead won't work, it doesn't actually speak to the dead guy.

Speak with Dead
Necromancy [Language-Dependent]
Level: Clr 3
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: 10 ft.
Target: One dead creature
Duration: 1 min./level
Saving Throw: Will negates; see text
Spell Resistance: No

You grant the semblance of life and intellect to a corpse, allowing it to answer several questions that you put to it. You may ask one question per two caster levels. Unasked questions are wasted if the duration expires. The corpse’s knowledge is limited to what the creature knew during life, including the languages it spoke (if any). Answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive. If the creature’s alignment was different from yours, the corpse gets a Will save to resist the spell as if it were alive.

If the corpse has been subject to speak with dead within the past week, the new spell fails. You can cast this spell on a corpse that has been deceased for any amount of time, but the body must be mostly intact to be able to respond. A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all.

This spell does not let you actually speak to the person (whose soul has departed). It instead draws on the imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse. The partially animated body retains the imprint of the soul that once inhabited it, and thus it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive. The corpse, however, cannot learn new information.

Indeed, it can’t even remember being questioned.

This spell does not affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature.

Note the bold.

[/MISSING_THE_POINT]

[Marsala]

Man, Serini cannot hit Haley at all. If she somehow manages to lose the battle, it will be because she wasted dozens of attacks on Haley instead of just taking out the rest of the Order.

[WolvesbaneIII]

[MISSING_THE_POINT=THIS_POST]



Speak with dead won't work, it doesn't actually speak to the dead guy.



Note the bold.

[/MISSING_THE_POINT]

I get that, but there was that one joke where roys dad scolded him for not speaking with dead before, as in talking to him.

it was a joke in comic, and there was the instance where RC used the spell to speak to a goblin about where xykons keys were. the dead goblin was annoyed about being interupted from his rest, but I could see this as a gag too.

outside of jokes, does this spell have the same effect, or is it restricted to comedy? rule of cool? rule of dramatic effect? etc etc?

[Squire Doodad]

I, as Squire Doodad, am very proud of Belkar's little brooch doodad. They are doing a great service to the field of doodadery.

As always when second-guessing casters, it comes down to what spells they have prepared. Calm Emotions does strike me as a somewhat odd thing to have prepared for the situations the Order might expect from their plans for the day, though.

Since this is the same spell loadout as they were packing to talk to Redcloak, it'd come in handy for diplomatic reasons in a variety of middling-probability scenarios.
I can easily imagine a scenario where Redcloak agrees to Durkon's plan, and then has a panic attack about the idea of fighting Xykon.

[JonahFalcon]

Belkar: Tell my wife, "Hello."

[F.Harr]

It's like a puzzle, ain't it?

[Alexandrite]

How would you show Belkar's apathy without words in a stick comic?

I thought his dull expression and flat "Oh, I'm being attacked" "Meh" "I guess" dialogue got the message across well enough without him going on to say "this is how I'm feeling right now".

The average reader can probably also figure out that Belkar's clasp removed the charm Elan was under, but he at least already likes to talk a lot. Summon Exposition is a Bard class skill.

Ultimately this doesn't matter that much, but the comic's writing is almost always at a very high standard so it's noticeable when something could've been done better.

[DreamCreator]

Wow, Bloodthief took initiative in a positive way, showing that it is one of the most capable members of the party. In fact, it seems that there is an inverse relationship between someone's duration with the Order and their effectiveness.

I also like how these strips are good examples of how action economy plays out in encounters.
If Serini had really prepared for this fight, she would have had several creatures around to tie up the Order. Or at least throw a tanglefoot bag. Who would have thought a paladin would have been prepared for an ambush than an epic rouge?

That reminds me that there is still (what I believe to be) an Earth Elemental, or perhaps a Mimic, covering the door. The order is not aware of the presence of that creature. That means it has the element of surprise and is potentially anotehr very powerful creature for them to deal with.

But if it enters the battle, the Order will also know why they couldn't Stone Shape the door, and they will be more likely to be able to get out.

Hmm.

I don’t think Xykon and Redcloak use mind-affecting abilities a whole lot. And stuff like Magic Circle Against Evil would help in a pinch.

Remember Symbol Of Insanity? The Order isn't a room full of low level Paladins, but he may pull that one out again.

[Wraithfighter]

I'd say that the nice thing about Calm Emotions is that it's an AOE that neutralize a wide variety of stuff, and it's only a 2nd level spell. Minrah's not going get much use out of any second level spells against Xykon and Redcloak, so her spell list is going to be largely support and buffing... and since you don't have to prepare healing spells, why not grab it just in case you need to neutralize something instead of casting Cure Moderate Wounds?

[RatElemental]

I thought his dull expression and flat "Oh, I'm being attacked" "Meh" "I guess" dialogue got the message across well enough without him going on to say "this is how I'm feeling right now".

The average reader can probably also figure out that Belkar's clasp removed the charm Elan was under, but he at least already likes to talk a lot. Summon Exposition is a Bard class skill.

Ultimately this doesn't matter that much, but the comic's writing is almost always at a very high standard so it's noticeable when something could've been done better.

The only place it seems to come up unprompted is when he says he's indifferent to Mr. Scrufy trying to kill him. He says he's not worried in response to Elan telling him not to worry, and clarifies when Elan expresses confusion with what may be a futurama reference. Before that he just said he was okay doing something Minrah told him to do in response to her telling him to do it.

[RMS Oceanic]

For all the talk of poison, I don't think we've seen any evidence from the paladins that it did any damage to them. While it's operating off poison rules, I think it's just acting as a tranquilizer.

As for how they can do this over several rounds, it's because Haley is keeping Serini and Sunny focused on her.

[danielxcutter]

Well, the Total Defense action would certainly help. Not sure if it'd be fun for me to do it, but I guess this is a story and not a game. Also it's been like two rounds I think?

[Fyraltari]

Well, the Total Defense action would certainly help. Not sure if it'd be fun for me to do it, but I guess this is a story and not a game. Also it's been like two rounds I think?

Since Sunny's mass attack? If so couldn't they have attacked again?

[danielxcutter]

Since Sunny's mass attack? If so couldn't they have attacked again?

Oh, got confused because Serini's been shooting at her almost exclusively after dropping Roy.

[Charity322]

I love Bloodfeast in the last panel; still hanging on while basically being thrown around by the lashing tail. XD

[Morquard]

As always when second-guessing casters, it comes down to what spells they have prepared. Calm Emotions does strike me as a somewhat odd thing to have prepared for the situations the Order might expect from their plans for the day, though.

It might also be that Minrah has the Law domain as one of her two domain choices (could totally see that), and Calm Emotions was the better choice of the two spells she gets there
(Yes Thor is not lawful, but the dwarves very much are)

[elros]

Man, Serini cannot hit Haley at all. If she somehow manages to lose the battle, it will be because she wasted dozens of attacks on Haley instead of just taking out the rest of the Order.

I know things in the comic happen to further the plot, and I am a quite rusty about 3.5 ranged combat rules, but I find it amazing that an epic thief is not able to hit a single target even once.
When you consider that Serini's gate defenses required a high level rogue to recognize and disarm the trap, you would think that the defenses after that would be designed specifically to stop a rogue who is dodging.

[Flechette63]

Elves are only explicitly immune to magic sleep effects, thus excluding non-magical poison.


I imagine that drow also like to use sleep poison on other drow, and that their own as well as other elves' immunity to sleep magic contributed to drow developments in

I was all set to disagree with that reading based on the elf stat block but then I read the description of Drow poison and I'm forced to agree. Still odd since the description I'm looking at for Drow poison specifies the unconscious condition (the root of my quibble) so the bit clarifying that nonmagical sleep works seems slightly off to me. Still, I learned something today. Been a while since I played 3.5 and we never really dealt with that ability in game.

[Liquor Box]

Protection from evil actually protects from all mind controlling effects not just from evil. The evil protection part comes in as an ac and saving throw bonus as well as forbidding summoned creatures other than good ones from touching you.

Why do you think the protection from evil clasp didn't protect Belkar from the fear effect?

[hamishspence]

Why do you think the protection from evil clasp didn't protect Belkar from the fear effect?

Because "fear" is not exercising ongoing mental control.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/pr...onFromEvil.htm

Second, the barrier blocks any attempt to possess the warded creature (by a magic jar attack, for example) or to exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster ongoing control over the subject, such as dominate person).

If the beholder's Spell-like-Ability is the same as the spell (except for being a ray rather than a cone), then it's necromancy, not enchantment:

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fear.htm