OOTS #1277 - The Discussion Thread

[Tzardok]

Wrong word there. A tenant lives in a place owned by a landlord. The fiends do not live in V's place, V (for a short period) exists in theirs. I will suggest that "V's landlords, the Demons Three" fits better there.

How about debt holders, or if you want to be fancy, obligees? V after all owes them something, and it's their choice when they'll call in the debt.

[Resileaf]

I know that, but my point is we have options to do this besides "random dudes with no characterization" too. Of course the least satisfying way of executing this wouldn't be satisfying, that just means you shouldn't do it that way.

What other options? The only people who have the power to be of use that we have seen during the course of the story are the high priests of the pantheons, and every single one of them is stuck at their Godsmoot and will be until long after the plot is resolved.

[Jay R]

Vaarsuvius was about to go over some ideas. But no one else in the comic cared.

I suspect that a better description would be this:

Vaarsuvius was about to maunder on at absurd length about hypothetical methods that don't affect the plot and that the Order doesn't need to know, and Rich didn't want to mess with it. He had Vaarsuvius mention that it could be done, and moved on.

[If you want Vaarsuvius to mention something briefly, then you need to have somebody cut V off. "Briefly" is not the Vaarsuvian way.]

[brian 333]

Now, question.
Serini said that there are only an handful of monsters in the backstage, that is where they are at the moment.
But, the dungeon is able to regenerate its monsters, and clearly a clean dungeon can't repopulate by itself. Monsters are often fast-grower and can have abundant cubs, but you still need to preserve some fertile couple.
Plus, such an high number of monsters, most of which are carnivorous, needs food. Plenty of food. And for economic reason, they can't just prey on themselves, and the occasional bugbear is just an appetizer.
So, somewhere that is NOT the backstage, there must exist a giganormous breeding farm, somehow automatized. The biggest Minecraft farm of mobs ever seen.

Is this a correct guess, or I'm missing something?
Is Redclock going to win the gauntlet just to being zerg rushed by all the Monster Manual epic digest?

Why can they not be magically created monster's which have a property of being resurrected after an interval?

Or, the monster's access the dungeon from outside, where their non-swapover entrance is located. Cleaning it out makes room for more to move in.

[enq]

So I don't think this has any plot relevance, but I think I passed a Spot check on a delightful detail: Serini's pillow is a mimic.

Spoiler: Reasons

Show

It's looking angry in panels 5, 6 and 7. It also doesn't seem to be resting as flat as you would expect.

[RatElemental]

We know. The heroes know and now V's tenants (the Demons Three) know.

Tenants? The IFCC aren't inside of V and if the gods are blocking the dark one from scrying into the dungeon then I assume it would be keeping the IFCC out too.

[Precure]

Can someone translate Serini to me?

[Canisius]

One thing I can't figure out: if Oona and her tribe use the dungeons to get supplies by killing mobs, wouldn't she already know where the final dungeon is?

[Going Hereward]

I liked the shell game callback.

[DavidSh]

Can someone translate Serini to me?

I think "tweeby shoe-doubler" is a twist on "Goody Two-Shoes", with a soupçon of halflingish dislike of shoes in general.

[Jasdoif]

One thing I can't figure out: if Oona and her tribe use the dungeons to get supplies by killing mobs, wouldn't she already know where the final dungeon is?

Why would she? Oona says the monsters come back after a while, and that she's there to make sure there are still monsters for the clan after they're done; reasonably they start from the easiest doors to reach each time and stop when they have enough of whatever they're after, which is clearly before they've been through all the doors...which is what's necessary to find the entrance to the final dungeon, apparently.

[Kish]

One thing I can't figure out: if Oona and her tribe use the dungeons to get supplies by killing mobs, wouldn't she already know where the final dungeon is?

1) Killing mobs would only get them anywhere in Greysky City.
2) To reach the final dungeon they would need to explore every single dungeon. I would not be surprised to learn they have never actually explored even one dungeon, just gone in a little way, killed some of the enemies (who are established dangerous enough for Xykon to get XP from overcoming them), and left.

[Cryos]

Honestly starting to dislike Serini right now, then again I'm not surprised she'd rather be cagey and unhelpful considering her stance on letting Xykon win even if Belkar convinced her the gods will push the history eraser button

[JonahFalcon]

Honestly starting to dislike Serini right now, then again I'm not surprised she'd rather be cagey and unhelpful considering her stance on letting Xykon win even if Belkar convinced her the gods will push the history eraser button

Ever heard of PTSD or survivor guilt? Remind me not to suggest working in a VA hospital.

[Psyren]

What other options? The only people who have the power to be of use that we have seen during the course of the story are the high priests of the pantheons, and every single one of them is stuck at their Godsmoot and will be until long after the plot is resolved.

The apparent disconnect in your imagination here lies with your definition of "having the power to be of use." Sigdi's extended extended family was much weaker than the Order, yet the Order still wouldn't have beaten Hel without them. And it worked narratively because the Dwarves were fighting for their own destiny. The Order's souls are not the only ones in the balance here, everyone's are.

[Resileaf]

The apparent disconnect in your imagination here lies with your definition of "having the power to be of use." Sigdi's extended extended family was much weaker than the Order, yet the Order still wouldn't have beaten Hel without them. And it worked narratively because the Dwarves were fighting for their own destiny. The Order's souls are not the only ones in the balance here, everyone's are.

They are a large group of low-ish level dwarves who will die to a single AoE from either Xykon or Redcloak who only did as well as they did because the vampires were not prepared to fight an army (if vampire exarch had managed to cast horrid wilting, there would have been a far bigger body count than just Kandro, not to mention he didn't have the opportunity to make the majority of his spell preparations). Not to mention that they're already busy making sure the vote is safe from the potential of Hel's plot continuing, so they're also out of the story anyway.

[Psyren]

They are a large group of low-ish level dwarves who will die to a single AoE from either Xykon or Redcloak who only did as well as they did because the vampires were not prepared to fight an army (if vampire exarch had managed to cast horrid wilting, there would have been a far bigger body count than just Kandro, not to mention he didn't have the opportunity to make the majority of his spell preparations). Not to mention that they're already busy making sure the vote is safe from the potential of Hel's plot continuing, so they're also out of the story anyway.

I never said anything about fighting Xykon or Redcloak. So again, imagination disconnect.

[Resileaf]

I never said anything about fighting Xykon or Redcloak. So again, imagination disconnect.

Considering that fighting and beating Xykon is basically all that's left to do (convincing Redcloak to accept Durkon's deal aside), I struggle to figure out what else summoning people in is supposed to accomplish.

[Psyren]

Considering that fighting and beating Xykon is basically all that's left to do (convincing Redcloak to accept Durkon's deal aside), I struggle to figure out what else summoning people in is supposed to accomplish.

IFCC?
Tarquin?
Gods?
Snarl?

No, Xykon is not even close to "all that's left."

[Sigako]

Now, question.
Serini said that there are only an handful of monsters in the backstage, that is where they are at the moment.
But, the dungeon is able to regenerate its monsters, and clearly a clean dungeon can't repopulate by itself. Monsters are often fast-grower and can have abundant cubs, but you still need to preserve some fertile couple.
Plus, such an high number of monsters, most of which are carnivorous, needs food. Plenty of food. And for economic reason, they can't just prey on themselves, and the occasional bugbear is just an appetizer.
So, somewhere that is NOT the backstage, there must exist a giganormous breeding farm, somehow automatized. The biggest Minecraft farm of mobs ever seen.

Is this a correct guess, or I'm missing something?
Is Redclock going to win the gauntlet just to being zerg rushed by all the Monster Manual epic digest?

Here it is implied Serini just manually restocks the dungeon every now and then bringing fresh monsters from elsewhere, so no automatic respawn.


Bugbear explorers: the wording implies you must personally visit every single dungeon (reasonable assumption: personally accompany someone who already did it) to trigger the passage to the final dungeon. Bugbears are only interested in harvesting monsters from time to time - they enter a few doors at a time and wait for a while for restocking to occur. Combined with the short lifespan of goblinoids, a single bugbear is unlikely to get to the final dungeon.
Even if some of them did, but there's no indication that the dungeon is final at the entrance, they would just see an even tougher and meaner monster, scratch their heads and nope back to the village, because there's no profit in trying to fight that.




And now a theory: we will see Trigak again.

[KorvinStarmast]

How about debt holders, or if you want to be fancy, obligees? V after all owes them something, and it's their choice when they'll call in the debt.

Lien holders? (Wait, no, Lien has a boyfriend already...)

"Briefly" is not the Vaarsuvian way.]

Except once...

So I don't think this has any plot relevance, but I think I passed a Spot check on a delightful detail: Serini's pillow is a mimic.

Spoiler: Reasons

Show

It's looking angry in panels 5, 6 and 7. It also doesn't seem to be resting as flat as you would expect.

Well done!

Here it is implied Serini just manually restocks the dungeon every now and then bringing fresh monsters from elsewhere, so no automatic respawn.

OK.

And now a theory: we will see Trigak again.

More likely Trigak's niece.

[bunsen_h]

I think "tweeby shoe-doubler" is a twist on "Goody Two-Shoes", with a soupçon of halflingish dislike of shoes in general.

I'd originally assumed that it was just a halflings-vs.-shoes thing. But I like the "Goody Two-Shoes" concept better.

[Resileaf]

IFCC?
Tarquin?
Gods?
Snarl?

No, Xykon is not even close to "all that's left."

Even assuming the archfiends appear in person, they are a problem far beyond what anything but epic level characters can challenge.
Tarquin's presence in the story is over. Whatever else is left to be done with him will be done off-screen to deny him his desire for immortal glory through stories.
What's anyone going to do about the gods? They're gods, there's literally nothing mortals can do about them.
The Snarl's not a thing to fight. It will be sealed through Redcloak's help, or will destroy the world.

[danielxcutter]

Actually, the general CR for archfiends in their true forms are "only" like late-20s~early-30s. They're not gods, and the IFCC are relative newcomers.

[Psyren]

Even assuming the archfiends appear in person, they are a problem far beyond what anything but epic level characters can challenge.
Tarquin's presence in the story is over. Whatever else is left to be done with him will be done off-screen to deny him his desire for immortal glory through stories.
What's anyone going to do about the gods? They're gods, there's literally nothing mortals can do about them.
The Snarl's not a thing to fight. It will be sealed through Redcloak's help, or will destroy the world.

1) Yet again you're approaching "challenge" purely as a one-dimensional roll-initiative sort of affair. Imagination.
2) That may be so, but until he's actually been dealt with narratively, he is an antagonist that exists.
3) What's anyone going to do about the gods? How about talking to them, offspring to parent? They're not omniscient.
4) Not only are there more options than these two, we don't even know that Redcloak agreeing to help would even solve everything. For one thing, there is the question of what purpose the planet-within-the-rift will end up having. Imaginaton.

[Resileaf]

1) Yet again you're approaching "challenge" purely as a one-dimensional roll-initiative sort of affair. Imagination.
2) That may be so, but until he's actually been dealt with narratively, he is an antagonist that exists.
3) What's anyone going to do about the gods? How about talking to them, offspring to parent? They're not omniscient.
4) Not only are there more options than these two, we don't even know that Redcloak agreeing to help would even solve everything. For one thing, there is the question of what purpose the planet-within-the-rift will end up having. Imaginaton.

Repeating "Imagination" does not an argument make.

[tanonx]

I'm sorry, I'm confused. Where did I mention Dungeons and Dragons? I said that's not how Sending works.

Since we're already getting into the weeds of addressing fine details, I think I can make a case in this regard... this comic demonstrates that a name, class, and scrawled picture is enough to use Sending. Explicitly nothing else that would differentiate your intended recipient from any other being of their type.

Now, the comic implies name and class don't qualify as "familiarity" for Sending. Combined with the spell description, which never requires a name and implicitly covers creatures that wouldn't have one anyhow, we can safely say the name isn't a requirement, simply a way to identify a specific creature.

We can also say that Roy has seen the High Priest of every deity in the Northern Pantheon. I'm not sure if we can technically say he's capable of scrawling an image of them, but if we make that leap of logic, we can conclude that they're eligible for Sending. And, in turn, that said priests are able to pass the Sending on, and they've got a whole organization capable of electing High Priests and setting up moots.

I know it's only every divine caster in the Northern Pantheon (presumably further limited by the ones whose deities voted not to destroy the world), plus anyone in the other pantheons they decide to reach out to, but last we checked a single esoteric Paladin order would've done the trick, so arguing that they said every caster seems a bit too much of a technicality, even for this. We have roughly 50% of the Northern Pantheon (Loki's followers never said no take-backsies, but anyone who'd like to defy their deity's plans is free to sit it out), anyone affiliated with the Southern Pantheon who didn't vote no, but would like to scry-and-die (a real tactic referenced in-comic) the masterminds who destroyed Azure City and deliberately wiped out a fellow religious order, and the reps from that one Pantheon that nobody really cares about I guess. Maybe they're bitter enough about their lack of strip time to let this one ride.

Then we can start on how well V remembers prominent arcane casters. I'm sure V doesn't have a keen memory for little bits of trivia like that, it won't take long.

Anyway, the conclusion here is this: With what we know from the explicitly-stated workings of Sending in the comic, we can safely say that the Order of the Stick could significantly bolster their forces by use of Sending to gather allies.

The point I'd ultimately like to make with this fun bit of theorycraft, though, is this: "Like D&D unless noted" doesn't work cleanly enough to demand rules compliance from forum spitballing, because it's a blanket for things the Giant doesn't want to think about and tinker with, not a fanatical dedication to the 3.5 ruleset, complete with footnotes for deviations. Nobody ever explicitly erased "you can’t use a symbol of death offensively" to make the Bouncy Insanity Ball work, we learned it wasn't in play when we saw it happen. In the over-a-decade since the old quote came about, there are plenty of instances where he recommends you just assume things shook out however you think they ought to have, including the most recent Q&A about six hours ago.

We all know we're not engaged with the ruleset like we used to be. It's not hurting anyone to say it out loud.

[Resileaf]

We can also say that Roy has seen the High Priest of every deity in the Northern Pantheon. I'm not sure if we can technically say he's capable of scrawling an image of them, but if we make that leap of logic, we can conclude that they're eligible for Sending. And, in turn, that said priests are able to pass the Sending on, and they've got a whole organization capable of electing High Priests and setting up moots.

As it just so happens, they cannot make a sending to any of the high priests. There are abjurations in place that block all contact to the Godsmoot (not from, it's technically possible that one of them might contact Roy, but I don't see why anyone but Veldrina would and even then he gave her specific instructions on when to call him).

[Peelee]

Since we're already getting into the weeds of addressing fine details, I think I can make a case in this regard... this comic demonstrates that a name, class, and scrawled picture is enough to use Sending. Explicitly nothing else that would differentiate your intended recipient from any other being of their type.

Now, the comic implies name and class don't qualify as "familiarity" for Sending. Combined with the spell description, which never requires a name and implicitly covers creatures that wouldn't have one anyhow, we can safely say the name isn't a requirement, simply a way to identify a specific creature.

We can also say that Roy has seen the High Priest of every deity in the Northern Pantheon. I'm not sure if we can technically say he's capable of scrawling an image of them, but if we make that leap of logic, we can conclude that they're eligible for Sending. And, in turn, that said priests are able to pass the Sending on, and they've got a whole organization capable of electing High Priests and setting up moots.

I know it's only every divine caster in the Northern Pantheon (presumably further limited by the ones whose deities voted not to destroy the world), plus anyone in the other pantheons they decide to reach out to, but last we checked a single esoteric Paladin order would've done the trick, so arguing that they said every caster seems a bit too much of a technicality, even for this. We have roughly 50% of the Northern Pantheon (Loki's followers never said no take-backsies, but anyone who'd like to defy their deity's plans is free to sit it out), anyone affiliated with the Southern Pantheon who didn't vote no, but would like to scry-and-die (a real tactic referenced in-comic) the masterminds who destroyed Azure City and deliberately wiped out a fellow religious order, and the reps from that one Pantheon that nobody really cares about I guess. Maybe they're bitter enough about their lack of strip time to let this one ride.

Then we can start on how well V remembers prominent arcane casters. I'm sure V doesn't have a keen memory for little bits of trivia like that, it won't take long.

Anyway, the conclusion here is this: With what we know from the explicitly-stated workings of Sending in the comic, we can safely say that the Order of the Stick could significantly bolster their forces by use of Sending to gather allies.

The point I'd ultimately like to make with this fun bit of theorycraft, though, is this: "Like D&D unless noted" doesn't work cleanly enough to demand rules compliance from forum spitballing, because it's a blanket for things the Giant doesn't want to think about and tinker with, not a fanatical dedication to the 3.5 ruleset, complete with footnotes for deviations. Nobody ever explicitly erased "you can’t use a symbol of death offensively" to make the Bouncy Insanity Ball work, we learned it wasn't in play when we saw it happen. In the over-a-decade since the old quote came about, there are plenty of instances where he recommends you just assume things shook out however you think they ought to have, including the most recent Q&A about six hours ago.

We all know we're not engaged with the ruleset like we used to be. It's not hurting anyone to say it out loud.

Assuming all of this is correct (i do not), you can then proceed to my second point - namely, that the Order was unable to convince people when they didnt have any restrictions on how to describe the problem, so why do you think they would suddenly be able to when they are limited to 25 words? And if the high priests were willing to Send to their underlings to help, they would have done it already when Roy was at the Godsmoot.

Your conclusion, even if it worked (which, again, i doubt - you yourself noted that for someone unfamiliar, they needed a name, race, class, and visual depiction. They were able to draw Durkon after adventuring with him for two years. Roy saw the high priests for a few minutes and only even got one of their names, IIRC), requires the characters to act contrary to how they have akready been established to act, and assumes that a minimal amount of explanation that the world is at stake will convince hoards of people deapite that this world has an "apocalypse of the week". Among the NPCs, nobody knows about how serious it is and the ones who do don't care. At least, not enough to get involved or others involved.

[JT]

Maybe. I read it so long ago, about 20 years ago if not more. If not infinite, then too large to be explored by usual means.

Ditto. So I had to go and find a copy and quickly skim it until I found the chapter where Smash the (half) Ogre catches the Night Stallion.

It's on a (possibly) infinite plane, and Smash has a conveniently infinite ball of string (which can conveniently be divided in halves when needed). He also knows that for "reasons" the Night Stallion will not cross his path -- and for convenience ;) the string line counts as his path, whether he has walked it or not. (Do you notice a lot of "convenient" things here?)

So, after walking in a straight line for a while and realizing brute force won't work, Smash divides the ball of string in half, and rolls the half that's connected to where he had been walking. He then puts his ear to the ground to identify whether the Stallion is on the left or right side.
So it's not that he counts half of the plane as "searched" ... it's that he has divided it with a line that the Stallion won't cross, and identified which (infinite) half the Stallion is in.

He then repeats this (dividing his remaining half-ball of string in half again) with the half-plane that the Stallion is in, and gets him "stuck" in a single quadrant of the infinite plane.

Then -- perhaps because Mr Anthony realized that a quarter, eighth, sixteenth, or even sixty-fourth of infinity is still rather infinite, he cheats. Smash rolls a curve ball with the string, so it goes beyond where Smash "estimates" the Stallion to be, and then intersects one of the other dividing strings. Thus, he isolates the Stallion into a finite portion of the infinite plane which can be divided further to finally catch the Night Stallion.