Concerning Belkar and stabbing

[BRC]

So, this is kinda old stuff, and I'm silly for questioning this, but how much damage is Belkar doing with those daggers of his. Yeah, the giant intentionally dosn't follow the rules exactly, and he hasn't statted out any of the characters (with good reason), but I feel like checking this out anyway.

Here we see Death's lil helper taking down Wights in one shot without any problems. Now, according to the SRD a Wight has 26 HP. Belkar is small sized, so his daggers deal 1d3 damage, they appear to be visibly identical to mundane daggers, which means that they probably don't have any energy damage enchantments on them, which means that the damage is coming from +x enchantments and belkars strength bonus.

Assuming Belkar is getting max damage on every hit, he's still short 23 damage to drop a wight with one shot (as he appears to do),
Now, Roy's running around with a +5 greatsword that deals extra damage to undead and evil outsiders, which for these purposes let's call a "+5 sacred greatsword" (Sacred is from Libris Mortis, weapon is good aligned and does an additional 1d6 damage to undead and 2d6 to evil outsiders for a +1 bonus), that's a +6 weapon, so I think we can call both of Belkar's daggers +4, which means he's only dealing seven damage on a max roll, still 19 points shy of dropping a wight in one hit.

Alright, now let's give Belkar a strength bonus, I mean, he's got a negative wisdom and a pathetic charisma, so his good stats must have gone somewhere. Assuming that somewhere is Strength and that he rolled an 18, which due to his being a halfling would give him an unmodified 16 strength, for +3 damage with those daggers of his. Now, he dosn't appear to be raging against those Wights, but for the purpose of argument let's say he is, giving him +2 strength (I doubt he's got the 11 barbarian levels needed for greater rage). Throw on a Belt of Giants Strength (+4) and the Belkster is at 22 Strength against those wights, giving him +6 damage.

For those keeping score, weve got
Max roll (3) + enhancement bonus (4) + Strength Score (6)= 13 damage, half of a wights hit points. Even assuming he's got two favored enemies, and made them both undead (unlikely knowing him), he's still only hitting for 17 damage, shy by nine. So either those Wights are weaker than normal, or Belkar automatically deals +9 damage on account of being Belkar. Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter.

[AstralFire]

He probably has Favored Enemy (Things that Move) and has stacked it a bunch of times. And gets crits on them.

Before you say "WAIT, UNDEAD ARE IMMUNE TO CRITS!" I say "That was always dumb anyway because anything with a frail humanoid shape has some big weak spots for balancing compared to a living gelatinous cube."

[CyberRebirth]

He probably has Favored Enemy (Things that Move) and has stacked it a bunch of times.

LOL, I agree completely

[XenoTherapy]

Belkar gets a +plot to any damage roll.

[Calinero]

Or, just to kill the joking, the wight might have already been injured somehow...?

Nah. He got damage bonuses for use of pineapple.

[Wyvern_55]

That's not taking into account any bonuses to strength that he might have taken on levels 4,8 and 12, chances are he's power attacking as well, plus he might have any number of obscure feats to improve his damage.

Or we can just sit back and enjoy the comic without worrying too much about it, I personally prefer that method. (Though the rules lawyer in me does jump occasionally.)

[tribble]

why are Belkar's daggers +4?
Is it possible to take favored enemy:Humanoids? because if so, then the belkster seems to have it.

[Chronos]

He could be using Power Attack, and just never bothered to look up the 3.5 rules change that it doesn't work with light weapons any more.

[Wyvern_55]

We have no evidence that Belkar has or does not have magic daggers, but its likely considering that most of the group has magic weaponry or magic equipment.

Also, yeah you can have humanoid as a favored enemy, but you have to be specific (i.e. Humans, Halflings, elves, etc) Belkar's is unspecified, and I kind of like it that way, though he does seem to like killing kobolds and humans a lot.

[Mastikator]

It's possible to take "humanoid" favored enemy, but you have to choose a race (human/elf/dwarf/gnome/orc etc). No question that he put all his favored enemies as different kinds of humanoids or other sapient quasi-humanoids (goblinoid/giant etc).

[Sstoopidtallkid]

It's possible to take "humanoid" favored enemy, but you have to choose a race (human/elf/dwarf/gnome/orc etc). No question that he put all his favored enemies as different kinds of humanoids or other sapient quasi-humanoids (goblinoid/giant etc).

I'm betting on Goblinoid, Human, and Kobold, with the bonuses, of course, going into Kobold.

[Fawkes]

While you do raise valid points, BRC, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the wights in question were not all killed with one shot. The first one was stabbed and slashed (possibly with Smite Evil) and the second was hit several times (note the markings on its face as Belkar jumps). The third may have suffered damage from being hit in the face with a pineapple, the deadliest of all fruit.

[Ricky S]

AS was said before his daggers are small thus doing 1d3 damage each. They wouldnt do that much damage each round even criting on 3 i.e. 2x3 +2x3 so it is basically 12 damage a round. Plus any strength bonus he would have which is probably +3 considering it is likely that he is str 16 so thats an extra + 3 damage taking the total up to 15 (As stated before, he might have ignored some 3.5 rules or it could be homebrew). Well it doesnt add up to a lot of damage but maybe those wights, goblins, whatever he wants to kill, have rolled low on their hit dice? Although he could have taken the Sociopath Feat which gives +10 damage on all weapons as long as you act like a sociopath. Basically the amount of damage doesnt add up but it would be assumed that the characters are fighting for longer and the only reason you dont see it is because it would take up too much space in the comics.

[Lord Seth]

So, this is kinda old stuff, and I'm silly for questioning this, but how much damage is Belkar doing with those daggers of his. Yeah, the giant intentionally dosn't follow the rules exactly, and he hasn't statted out any of the characters (with good reason), but I feel like checking this out anyway.

Here we see Death's lil helper taking down Wights in one shot without any problems. Now, according to the SRD a Wight has 26 HP. Belkar is small sized, so his daggers deal 1d3 damage, they appear to be visibly identical to mundane daggers, which means that they probably don't have any energy damage enchantments on them, which means that the damage is coming from +x enchantments and belkars strength bonus.

Assuming Belkar is getting max damage on every hit, he's still short 23 damage to drop a wight with one shot (as he appears to do),
Now, Roy's running around with a +5 greatsword that deals extra damage to undead and evil outsiders, which for these purposes let's call a "+5 sacred greatsword" (Sacred is from Libris Mortis, weapon is good aligned and does an additional 1d6 damage to undead and 2d6 to evil outsiders for a +1 bonus), that's a +6 weapon, so I think we can call both of Belkar's daggers +4, which means he's only dealing seven damage on a max roll, still 19 points shy of dropping a wight in one hit.

Alright, now let's give Belkar a strength bonus, I mean, he's got a negative wisdom and a pathetic charisma, so his good stats must have gone somewhere. Assuming that somewhere is Strength and that he rolled an 18, which due to his being a halfling would give him an unmodified 16 strength, for +3 damage with those daggers of his. Now, he dosn't appear to be raging against those Wights, but for the purpose of argument let's say he is, giving him +2 strength (I doubt he's got the 11 barbarian levels needed for greater rage). Throw on a Belt of Giants Strength (+4) and the Belkster is at 22 Strength against those wights, giving him +6 damage.

For those keeping score, weve got
Max roll (3) + enhancement bonus (4) + Strength Score (6)= 13 damage, half of a wights hit points. Even assuming he's got two favored enemies, and made them both undead (unlikely knowing him), he's still only hitting for 17 damage, shy by nine. So either those Wights are weaker than normal, or Belkar automatically deals +9 damage on account of being Belkar. Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter.

It might have just been that one particular Wight. He kills three wights in that strip, observe:

First Wight (panel 4) is hit by Belkar (once) and the Paladin.

Second Wight (panel 5 and panel 6) is either two or three hits depending on how you look at the sixth panel.

Third Wight (last panel) goes down in one hit. Of course, the joke wouldn't have worked as well if he hadn't killed it in one hit...

[Tholok Razescar]

These seem like valid theories.
However.
Belkar is an awesome, ass-kicking character.
This has to be reinforced.
The wights were not very important.
Think Ensign.

See where I'm going with this? The ammount of damage he deals isn't important - it's the fact he's a small, double-wielding, buzzcutt'd furious ball of ... not very righteous genocide.

That gives him like, infinite damage against cannonfodder.

Maybe it's that. Favored Enemy: Cannonfodder.

[Demented]

What about... power attack?

For that last wight, wouldn't he'd lose damage for being level drained, making his damage bonus even more extreme than it's made out to be?

[Silverlocke980]

To be honest, Belkar can probably kill things because he hates them to death.

Or, alternatively, he's got a ton of feats to let him either crit things in front of him, attack multiple times, or simply deal more damage. I doubt Belkar would ever touch a feat that did not lead to more things getting hurt more quickly.

[Jenx]

He kills them in one hit because actual D&D battles with many creatures usually take a lot longer then it would be interesting to read in a strip.

Soo yeah, as already pointed - he gets a +plot bonus to all his actions.

[Tempest Fennac]

The Oracle made a comment about being used as a magic dagger depository (or something similar) after he was raised, so they may be magic. Also, Power Attack doesn;t work with light weapons, Demented.

[Mike62]

To be honest, Belkar can probably kill things because he hates them to death.

Or, alternatively, he's got a ton of feats to let him either crit things in front of him, attack multiple times, or simply deal more damage. I doubt Belkar would ever touch a feat that did not lead to more things getting hurt more quickly.

He did take at least one non-damaging feat. Craft: Disturbing mental image.

[Dr. Simon]

He kills them in one hit because actual D&D battles with many creatures usually take a lot longer then it would be interesting to read in a strip.

Soo yeah, as already pointed - he gets a +plot bonus to all his actions.

This is true, I would say, of any "one-hit kills" in the comic.

Anybody here visit ENWorld?
Anyone read any of the "Story Hour" posts?

These are usually people turning their tabletop RPG games into a readable format. The more successful ones are those that abstract the combat and cut to the exciting bits. The boring ones are those that give a blow-by-blow account of the combat as it happened in game.

I refer you also to this.

[Underground]

How much damage does a dagger in your throat deal ?

[Majorman]

Halflings have a strength penalty, so I bet Belkar has a Weapon Finesse feat and uses his awesome Dex bonus instead (and he's got to have great Dexterity, cause he doesn't wear a metal armor). Also, he probably went mad when the 3.5 rules negated the use of Power Attack for small weapons, so he slayed the guy who came up with it and then made the WotC publish the 4E rules. Haven't checked them yet, so I can't say if they meet Belkar's demands.

It is also very possible that Belkar rolls a 4-sided die, since I have never seen a 3-sided one (and I doubt that anyone else has, for that matter).

[AstralFire]

I forget, isn't he Ranger/Barb multi?

[Mercenary Pen]

He did take at least one non-damaging feat. Craft: Disturbing mental image.

You call THAT non-damaging. It just does damage which cannot be expressed in terms of HP. Probably forces a will save to resist some effect against mental ability scores...

[Wreckingrocc]

Before you say "WAIT, UNDEAD ARE IMMUNE TO CRITS!" I say "That was always dumb anyway because anything with a frail humanoid shape has some big weak spots for balancing compared to a living gelatinous cube."

That's why they changed it in 4e. Now a crit 1-shots them, no matter what.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

It is also very possible that Belkar rolls a 4-sided die, since I have never seen a 3-sided one (and I doubt that anyone else has, for that matter).

Seriously? I've seen a bunch of those.

[Fawkes]

Seriously? I've seen a bunch of those.

A three-sided figure can't exist. It's a geometric impossibility.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

A three-sided figure can't exist. It's a geometric impossibility.

They're essentially triangular prisms. Only 3 sides that the die can actually land on. Just like a D2(coin) actually has 3 sides, it's just that one of the sides doesn't matter.

[Mercenary Pen]

I thought for a d3, you just make a triangle out of cardboard, then stick a matchstick (without the head) or a dowel through it to create a spinner... Technically not a die, but neither is a d2.

The fact remains, neither d3 nor d2 should have been instituted on the grounds that they are not generally made commercially.