MitD XVIII: It's utterly unreasonable to expect us to have been paying any attention

[Kish]

Could be read as what, now?

[Tzardok]

If I understand Precure's argumentation correctly, it goes like this:

• MitD saves O-Chul and V using powers it doesn't know about
• Neither Xykon nor Redcloak suspect MitD of being the culprit, which means they don't know about that ability either
• Both Redcloak and Xykon have been established as knowing what species MitD is
• Therefore MitD may possess abilties that its species usually doesn't have
• Therefore all statements Redcloak and Xykon make about MitD's capabilities are suspect

[Ruck]

[*]Neither Xykon nor Redcloak suspect MitD of being the culprit, which means they don't know about that ability either

I don't think this follows. They don't suspect MitD because so far he's been entirely ineffective at doing anything, much less doing anything of his own volition.

[Tzardok]

I agree. I just tried to represent what I see as another one's argument as neutrally as possible

[Peelee]

I agree. I just tried to represent what I see as another one's argument as neutrally as possible

What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

[Keltest]

What makes a man turn neutral? List for gold? Power? Or was he just born with a heart full of neutrality?

All I know is my gut says "Maybe."

[Tzardok]

What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

I dunno, man. All I can tell you is that I'm Playful Evil with Serious Good tendencies.

[Beni-Kujaku]

What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

I guess that could be a domain power for LG, LE, CG or CE clerics.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

If I understand Precure's argumentation correctly, it goes like this:

I can't say I understood Precure's latest post, so I am going to assume this is sufficiently accurate and address it.

Neither Xykon nor Redcloak suspect MitD of being the culprit, which means they don't know about that ability either

Incorrect. RC doesn't suspect MitD because he wasn't there to watch the event, when he did come back it was hardly a priority, and in any case, any wizard capable of teleporting into the tower can be presumed to have a means of egress (Contingency, for example). RC has no reason to suspect MitD at all. Xykon was there but immediately assumes that MitD has done nothing as usual.

Both Redcloak and Xykon have been established as knowing what species MitD is

No, they haven't. RC has, but while MitD assumes Xykon might know, there is no reason to think Xykon cares about it. He cares about power, and in MitD's case that power comes in the form of megaton punches.

Therefore MitD may possess abilties that its species usually doesn't have

Obviously, a conclusion based on incorrect premises doesn't follow. But beyond the shaky logic, the real issue with this statement is that it implies that the Escape isn't an actual clue for MitD's species. I am suspicious of any argument that is based on declaring any MitD scene to be ignorable, and especially one of the central ones. "Oh, no, the escape scene is not a clue, because maybe MitD has a ring of wishes stashed about his person" is a weird way for Rich to approach a guessing game he expects someone to figure out. Especially since he could have set up the scene in a way in which MitD's species was central to it (which is, in fact, exactly what I think happened).

Therefore all statements Redcloak and Xykon make about MitD's capabilities are suspect

This wouldn't follow even if all the other statements were correct, and it certainly doesn't follow ones that aren't.

Grey Wolf

[Ruck]

What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

All I know is my gut says "Maybe."

If I don't make it, tell my wife "hello."

[Tubercular Ox]

Right, because Rich should be assumed not to understand D&D rules by default, especially as they relate to whatever he picked for the creature in the darkness.

No, I'm talking about before he picked the Protean, when he was first reading its monster entry while asking himself if this was a good fit for what he wanted. The Protean has a massively open-ended ability printed on it. The fear that it could do anything would be there. We know it would be there because so many people come into this thread asking if it can do anything that Ruck suggested enshrining the chore of telling them otherwise in the thread title.

So who told Rich otherwise? Who reassured him that no angry fans would come after him after the reveal for missing a really obvious solution to a scene? Present-but-unresearched abilities that he's not in control of threaten the tension of the plot at every moment. And researching the abilities makes the Protean an order of magnitude more effort to write than any monster whose abilities are all printed in one spot.

[Kish]

No, I'm talking about before he picked the Protean, when he was first reading its monster entry while asking himself if this was a good fit for what he wanted. The Protean has a massively open-ended ability printed on it. The fear that it could do anything would be there. We know it would be there because so many people come into this thread asking if it can do anything that Ruck suggested enshrining the chore of telling them otherwise in the thread title.

So who told Rich otherwise? Who reassured him that no angry fans would come after him after the reveal for missing a really obvious solution to a scene? Present-but-unresearched abilities that he's not in control of threaten the tension of the plot at every moment. And researching the abilities makes the Protean an order of magnitude more effort to write than any monster whose abilities are all printed in one spot.

I don't know how anyone could logically have gotten from your post that I responded to to this, but. If one is sending information back in time so that Rich isn't concerned about "angry fans coming after him," the thing to send back in time would be, "Well before you start the last book of your series, you will be so used to fans screaming about everything from being confused by Belkar's 'short swords turning into daggers' for the weapon shrinkage joke, to their thinking Anti-Magic Field shouldn't override Forcecage, to protesting every time you have an 'evil' creature not act like a murderbot, that you will be completely inured to it."

Also, Ox, it's been documented that negative campaigns don't get people to vote for the campaigner's desired candidate, you know. Jabbing at and trying to undermine the protean, even if you are completely successful, might lead to a surge in relatively popularity for the infernal and slaad but will not lead anyone to the candidate you want. Not to imply that you're pushing one specific candidate just because your sig says you are.

[Precure]

Could be read as what, now?

Could be read as "it's a power MitD has due to his latent sorcerer levels, instead of a power he has as part of his species" since no one seems to know that he has that power.

• MitD saves O-Chul and V using powers it doesn't know about
• Neither Xykon nor Redcloak suspect MitD of being the culprit, which means they don't know about that ability either
• Both Redcloak and Xykon have been established as knowing what species MitD is
• Therefore MitD may possess abilties that its species usually doesn't have
• Therefore all statements Redcloak and Xykon make about MitD's capabilities are suspect

I wouldn't express it like that, but mostly correct.

I don't think this follows. They don't suspect MitD because so far he's been entirely ineffective at doing anything, much less doing anything of his own volition.

That doesn't contradict anything. They are underestimating his abilities due to how ineffectually he acted before.

[Kish]

Okay, so are you arguing for a specific creature, Precure?

[Precure]

Okay, so are you arguing for a specific creature, Precure?

Protean with sorcerer levels enough to cast Wish, if it's possible rule-wise. If it can't be a sorcerer, then no.

[Tubercular Ox]

Also, Ox, it's been documented that negative campaigns don't get people to vote for the campaigner's desired candidate, you know. Jabbing at and trying to undermine the protean, even if you are completely successful, might lead to a surge in relatively popularity for the infernal and slaad but will not lead anyone to the candidate you want.

Gosh, I hope that's what happens! Can you imagine if they all voted for my candidate? I might have to listen to their complaints instead of dismissing them.

"Hey, TB, how many sheets of paper does it take to fully summarize all of your candidate's powers?"

"Go away, Slaadist, you're just another Outsider here."

I hope Precure is smarter than to arm you with a way to change the subject.

[Tzardok]

Protean with sorcerer levels enough to cast Wish, if it's possible rule-wise. If it can't be a sorcerer, then no.

I mean, there's nothing that prevents proteans from having class levels, but I greatly dislike any explanation that is based on abilities that need training in some way, like class levels.

(Besides the fact that this feels overly narrow. You could just as well assume that the MitD has latent Wilder or Psion levels and manifested Reality Revision. It after all does the same thing as Wish.)

[dancrilis]

Yes, of course; just like if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

Personally, I'd veto both "A Protean in a world of unlimited conveniently-homebrewed creatures" and "A Protean that has swallowed a scroll of Wish earlier off-panel". I'd rather cast my vote for a heavily templated potted plant (and for Crusher: note the conditional tense.)

I don't particularly like the protean as an answer as you can kindof jury-rig it to be anything.

Is there way for Protean to have (or turn into somehing that have) high Sorcerer levels?

Kindof - there are (at least) four ways to effectively achieve this, all have various issues with them.

1. Homebrew creature with an extraordinary ability to cast as a sorcerer
- Drawback: Requires hombrew.
2. Take the Swallow Whole (Ex) power from a gibbering orb and eat a sorcerer.
- Drawback: Requires eating a sorcerer and powers only last 24 hours.
3. Take the Mock Divinity (Ex) power from a lilitu, the Siphon Spell Power (Ex) from an Ur-Priest - and cast whatever you want up to 5th level, add in the Planar Travel (Ex) from an Umbral Bolt and you might be able to argue for 7th level spells.
- Could be argued that Planer Travel does not grant access to cast spells of 7th level and so can't be gamed to work with Siphon Spell Power, also could be argued that the Protean cannot take Siphon Spell Power (Ex) as it comes from a class rather then a creature type (it still comes from a creature in the since of a Human Ur-Priest is a creature).
4. Take levels as sorcerer.
- Drawback - not so much a drawback but as this is true of nearly any intelligent creature it probably doesn't need to be stated and I have merely wasted my time writing it.

I would advise being confident in your players reactions before using any of these options but frankly if you have played to the level where you are dealing with a CR29 creature you likely have a very good understanding of them (and probably have a host of homebrew creatures that you have used in your game so you can justify option 1).
If you are simply telling a story then any of the above would work fine (might cause an internet disagreement if anyone is reading your story but I wouldn't worry too much about that).

[Doug Lampert]

If we're munkining ways to get sorcerer on a Protean by stealing extraordinary class abilities by emulating a member of that class, then Sorcerer spell casting itself is, I think, an extraordinary ability (it's a class ability not otherwise specified as natural, spell-like, or supernatural), so presumably you can take the entire spell-casting of any character type.

I would probably call foul on this if someone did it in a game, but I think it's rules legal.

[Peelee]

If we're munkining ways to get sorcerer on a Protean by stealing extraordinary class abilities by emulating a member of that class, then Sorcerer spell casting itself is, I think, an extraordinary ability (it's a class ability not otherwise specified as natural, spell-like, or supernatural), so presumably you can take the entire spell-casting of any character type.

I would probably call foul on this if someone did it in a game, but I think it's rules legal.

Extraordinary Abilities (Ex)
Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical

Would you like to claim that spellcasting is nonmagical?

[Kish]

I'm pretty sure I've never seen an Ex, Su, or Sp tag on any class ability, and correspondingly that "Class, abbreviated Cl." is its own ability type.

Protean with sorcerer levels enough to cast Wish, if it's possible rule-wise. If it can't be a sorcerer, then no.

If you're giving him 18+ class levels (which he got where? Remember the creature's reaction to the idea of there being scary monsters in Xykon's tower?), why Protean? He (not it) has done nothing that an epic-level sorcerer of any race couldn't do.

[dancrilis]

If we're munkining ways to get sorcerer on a Protean by stealing extraordinary class abilities by emulating a member of that class, then Sorcerer spell casting itself is, I think, an extraordinary ability (it's a class ability not otherwise specified as natural, spell-like, or supernatural), so presumably you can take the entire spell-casting of any character type.

I would probably call foul on this if someone did it in a game, but I think it's rules legal.

I could be wrong but I don't think unstated defaults to extraordinary, and so spells are not extraordinary.

You can see an example of this under cleric aura is listed as '(Ex)' where spells are not.

[Jasdoif]

an extraordinary ability (it's a class ability not otherwise specified as natural, spell-like, or supernatural)

If there's a default I'm pretty sure it'd have to be natural, as extraordinary/supernatural/spell-like get marked (Ex)/(Su)/(Sp) and natural doesn't have a similar tag.

[InvisibleBison]

If there's a default I'm pretty sure it'd have to be natural, as extraordinary/supernatural/spell-like get marked (Ex)/(Su)/(Sp) and natural doesn't have a similar tag.

Yes, this is correct: "Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like."

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I don't particularly like the protean as an answer as you can kindof jury-rig it to be anything.

No you can't, as I have explained way too many times to keep count of.

If you're giving him 18+ class levels (which he got where? Remember the creature's reaction to the idea of there being scary monsters in Xykon's tower?), why Protean? He (not it) has done nothing that an epic-level sorcerer of any race couldn't do.

I too would like to know why section 2d - Class Levels, which like all augments can be appleid to any and all creatures, is targeted exclusively at the protean. Particularly in view that class levels are the weakest of all augments, given that MitD has not done anything to gain any XP at all in-comic, and has never demonstrated any class level abilities, regardless of what his base species is.

And of course, see above for my opinion on any explanation that renders an entire MitD scene irrelevant because its explanation does not depend on the base abilities. This whole subthread is predicated on the assertion "meh, the escape scene is irrelevant to the guessing game, because any creature we pick could be said to have 20 levels of pure caster gained off-screen".

Grey Wolf

[dancrilis]

No you can't, as I have explained way too many times to keep count of.

Well I did say kindof - but for clarity what can't I jury-rig it into?

[Kish]

Well I did say kindof - but for clarity what can't I jury-rig it into?

I believe Grey Wolf is rejecting "protean which copied an ability from this monster my brother-in-law made up for his campaign" as functionally turning "it is possible to guess" into horsecrap, and thus being the kind of ripoff Rich will not do. Thus, if the creature is a protean, he is a protean who can explain everything with official monsters' abilities.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Well I did say kindof - but for clarity what can't I jury-rig it into?

Into using wish. Into becoming a dragon. Indeed, into any creature that has more than 4 Ex abilities, or any number of non-Ex abilities. Or, in fact, into looking like anything but a protean. Amongst other things.

And yes, as per Kish's comment, "oh, I posted this cat with wish as an ex ability" does not count, because I really, really doubt that when Rich said he didn't invent MitD's species, he was going to loophole-abuse his way into "I invented this other creature, which has all the abilities I need, and MitD is just copying those".

GW

[dancrilis]

I believe Grey Wolf is rejecting "protean which copied an ability from this monster my brother-in-law made up for his campaign" as functionally turning "it is possible to guess" into horsecrap, and thus being the kind of ripoff Rich will not do. Thus, if the creature is a protean, he is a protean who can explain everything with official monsters' abilities.

If its a protean do you expect Rich to write an article explaining all the various clues and scenes and which creature(s) the abilities came from?

He might - I am not saying he wouldn't, but if he doesn't then whether the creature ability came from a game he played in the 1990s or not doesn't really matter he will have people saying 'proteans cannot do that' and other people stringing along whatever list of unusual abilities needed to say 'yes they can - under these conditions' which might include homebrew or might not - I have given a method above for them to have nearly spellcasting at all, or seperately any spellcasting at all up to 7th level - and I didn't need homebrew for either.

Into using wish. Into becoming a dragon. Indeed, into any creature that has more than 4 Ex abilities, or any number of non-Ex abilities. Or, in fact, into looking like anything but a protean. Amongst other things.

The Gibbering Orb example mentioned above allows it do to any of that - via eating a spellcaster which can cast shapechange and wish (edit: there is an arguement that could be made that if it took the ability copying a Gibbering Orb who had already fed it would gain the ability without needing to eat personally, and so have permanent access to such powers - I don't like this arguement but it isn't entirely unfair to extrapolate based on how the protean ability seems to work in the lore).
The Divine Mockery plus others example comes close by allowing access to polymorph.

[Kish]

If its a protean do you expect Rich to write an article explaining all the various clues and scenes and which creature(s) the abilities came from?

Of course not.

He might - I am not saying he wouldn't, but if he doesn't then whether the creature ability came from a game he played in the 1990s or not doesn't really matter he will have people saying 'proteans cannot do that' and other people stringing along whatever list of unusual abilities needed to say 'yes they can - under these conditions' which might include homebrew or might not - I have given a method above for them to have nearly spellcasting at all, or seperately any spellcasting at all up to 7th level - and I didn't need homebrew for either.

Both you and the ox have this weird idea that Rich must care a lot whether some readers are going to be willfully obtuse. Doesn't matter? It will matter totally whether Rich actually made the creature something that could be figured out, and not in the least that some readers will inevitably shake their fists and go "but you contradicted this assumption I made, that's the same as lying!"

Look, in this strip, one of two things happens. The ancient black dragon casts Anti-Magic Field, nullifying the Forcecage, a ruling which at least one person thought was wrong as the similar spell Forcewall is specifically immune to Anti-Magic Field. Rich brushed the objection off, saying "I don't."

Or: The ancient black dragon casts Ihateverboseelves, a spell which just happens to render Vaarsuvius helpless.

Which one of those actually happens?

Is there a difference there? I'd say saying that there is no difference between "Protean mimics this documented Ex. ability" and "Protean mimics this homebrew ability" is functionally identical to saying "no, there is no difference," and in both cases it's an answer that doesn't even come from a solar system I recognize.