OOTS #1277 - The Discussion Thread

[Kish]

A child could have seen it.

Probably not me as a child, and definitely not me as an adult. But I'm sure there are a number of children who would have gone "they have to go through all the dungeons to find the prize!"

[danielxcutter]

Also, hindsight is +20/+20. If that hasn't happened yet though I don't expect a lot later.

[Metastachydium]

Well, that puts paid to the "it's really under the statue" nonsense at long last :D

[Raging.] What statue? There is no statue!

If only there were some way to hide at least one entrance. With illusions, say.

Could that be a job for Aquaman Eugene? Not likely, but hey.

Are we sure that the Bugbears do full clears?

Why would they? Oona is mostly interested in preserving the flow of monsters, a philosophy that seems to clash with "exterminate everything and hope it all grows back". Lots of shallow dives also sounds less resource-intensive.

But the whole point is that the Scribblers didn't want anyone to get to the Gates.

Citation?

Also, the reason why the Scribblers didn't just bury the Gates under several hundred feet of solid bedrock is the possibility of requiring to access them for whatever reason, such as maintenance

Let's see. Girard's was encased in a pillar. Serini's accessible, but it might take more effort than Serini herself can manage if it takes getting through all dungeons within a timespan. In other words, half the Gates were left out in the open and the other half were made quite difficult but not impossible to safely access.

More importantly, everyone was ultimately on board with the "let's split up, never to meet again" thing. Whta kind of maintenance can a Paladin, a Rogue or a sub-epic sorcerer do on something made by epic and arcane and divine magic? The whole "maintenance required" argument rests on a very shaky foundation. I'm not seeing it.

[Resileaf]

Let's see. Girard's was encased in a pillar.

A very accessible pillar, easily destroyed by a guy with a sword rather than needing a team of excavators (not to mention that wizards and sorcerers would easily be able to use spells to remove the stone if needed).

[danielxcutter]

Oh, I was misremembering, Shojo only talked about why Dorukan put a self-destruct button on his Gate.

Serini did say that she's opposed to destroying her Gate because hers is the last, but honestly I doubt that.

[SlashDash]

The whole "maintenance required" argument rests on a very shaky foundation. I'm not seeing it.

I don't think it's maintenance as much as the ability to destroy the gates. Remember that unlike the other gates, Dorukon's gate was destroyed through a self destruct button that its creator left behind - clearly he assumed there would be a need for him to destroy the gate.

That point was brought up at the trial in Azure City. The scribbles made it intentional so the gates would be accessible to be destroyed if needed.

[Peelee]

Let's see. Girard's was encased in a pillar.

Thin, easily tearable lead sheet (as we see Roy tear it easily).

Dorukan, Soon, and Girard could have built theirs into walls or floors. Serini could have encased hers in the multidimensional stone mountain. They didnt, despite these things being presumably quite simple to do.

So, again, citation? Because aint nobody says that in the comic, to the best of my knowledge. If you can prove me wrong, please feel free to do so.

[Metastachydium]

I don't think it's maintenance as much as the ability to destroy the gates. Remember that unlike the other gates, Dorukon's gate was destroyed through a self destruct button that its creator left behind - clearly he assumed there would be a need for him to destroy the gate.

That point was brought up at the trial in Azure City. The scribbles made it intentional so the gates would be accessible to be destroyed if needed.

Actually, Shojo said they are equally baffled by the self-destruct rune.

Thin, easily tearable lead sheet (as we see Roy tear it easily).

Dorukan, Soon, and Girard could have built theirs into walls or floors. Serini could have encased hers in the multidimensional stone mountain. They didnt, despite these things being presumably quite simple to do.

So, again, citation? Because aint nobody says that in the comic, to the best of my knowledge. If you can prove me wrong, please feel free to do so.

Dorukan's was weird on many levels; Soon's point was not accessibility but (as per Hinjo) some kind of "moral lesson" to rulers and Girard's was built into a wall. Of sorts.

[Wintermoot]

Because the gates exist physically and can't be moved, there's only so much you CAN do to protect them and render them inaccessible.

Someone suggested encasing them in thousands of tons of stone or concrete. Great. I have a spellcaster with fifth level spells who can deal with that. I bet i could do it with second level spells if I really put some effort into it.

Ultimately, that's kind of what Serini did. She encased the gate in some kind of bulwark of dimensional stone that, we don't know the particulars of, but seems to prevent easy teleport, phase, passwall, location, etc like effects to bypass.

Let's say she just stopped there. Encasing it in thousands of tons of dimensional stone. Let's assume that stone shape and other magic for altering stone also doesn't work. Great. Now I'll get to it with a team of enthralled dwarven miners and some alchemical bombs.

This entire dungeon set up IS a way of delaying the person. Because they see it and they think, "aha! I can solve this by dungeon delving" and waste time doing that when they could just blow their way to the center if they weren't distracted.

It's really quite clever.

Ultimately, we have two truths:

Because the gate exists and can't be moved, there is no perfect defense that can't eventually be bypassed or blunt forced through. Each scribbler built the best defense they could with the resources they had with the design philosophy of "destroy what we can, delay what we can't"

This is a self-aware stick figure d&d parady universe that is bound by certain laws of how such a universe works. One such law is "great prizes are guarded by dungeons that can be delved through"

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm quite sure that in short order we'll have any number of people claim to have seen this coming without being able to provide any such posting to previous claims. With lots of "it was obvious" and "a child could have seen it" qualifiers.

You know what, I really thought my "it was one-in-three chance, it ain't that impressive to guess right" would be good enough. But since this sounds like a challenge:

Hel, for all we know, the only way to find the rift is to fight your way through all the tunnels.

GW

In your face!

GW

[Wintermoot]

You know what, I really thought my "it was one-in-three chance, it ain't that impressive to guess right" would be good enough. But since this sounds like a challenge:



In your face!

GW

Hadn't even read your post when I posted that. Lol.

No! My beautiful face!

[Peelee]

You know what, I really thought my "it was one-in-three chance, it ain't that impressive to guess right" would be good enough. But since this sounds like a challenge:



In your face!

GW

Put me in Camp Not Misdirection.

We've already done that with Girard; no reason to do it again. And, no, putting a hundred doors up and saying "Pick a door, any door" isn't misdirection. It's flat out telling you what is going on.

Now it could be a shell game, but I also doubt that. No, it's behind one of these doors. And what better way to test physical might than to force somone to fight. Over and over and over again. If you fail at Door Number 22? Well, you obviously weren't really strong enough, now were you?

....

Maybe Kraagor had endurance as a feat and this is Serini's way of honoring THAT.

I think this is the best way anyone has put it so far. I fully agree with this assessment.

Hey, would you look at that, i suspected I was on board with the "fight em all" idea but couldn't find it, and you made it nice and convenient for me to locate!

[lukeskylicker]

I'm quite sure that in short order we'll have any number of people claim to have seen this coming without being able to provide any such posting to previous claims. With lots of "it was obvious" and "a child could have seen it" qualifiers.

A child could have seen it that's what makes twists like these work, they're obvious when you know the answer. It's the tomb of Kraagor the Barbarian, in what universe is the solution anything other than conquer all the dungeons? Wish I was in that one cause I didn't see this coming.

[Beni-Kujaku]

That is an excellent plot twist.

But also, that means that if they hide one of the doors, then Team Evil will fight through all of them and will not find the Gate. Now, how to do that? Painting crosses doesn't work anymore. Illusions to make the door invisible? Come on, that's a quinton we have here. It has True Seeing at will. But there is one weakness in Team Evil's method: they skip the doors they already fought through. Do they remember these doors? Absolutely not, they just go in, look to see if there are monsters left, and go back outside.

That leaves a hole: if the OotS goes through, what, the 13th door from the end and fights through the first room (they can definitely do that. Even if they're not as strong as Xykon+Redcloak+Oona, fighting half a dungeon when Team Evil was doing 5 per day is quite reasonable), then when Team Evil goes there, they skip it. No illusion here, and Pass Without Trace may be doable if they increase Belkar's Wisdom (alternatively, hope they don't ask Oona to scout in every dungeon).

Then, they do all the doors, and notice that the Gate wasn't there. Of course, Redcloak gets angry, and understands that it was all a shell game, eventually finds the backstage, and goes there with Team Evil, just in time for an actual ambush and the final battle.

[Ruck]

Am i really the only one reading the penultimate panel as the author telling us it doesn't matter? The whatsadoodle switch whixh automatically triggers whenever someone getd to the back toom a a dungeon, why not. The mechanism wont really change anything.

Yeah, but I still want to know how it works.

In particular, though, I want to know if/how bypassing the swap-overs and going backstage affects this.

In support of this, I'll point out that MitD's "much bigger" dad is still unaccounted for. I've long thought that MitD was alone in the jungle because his dad got poached by Serini's monster accumulation for her dungeon.

GW

It's been suggested quite a few times, but I struggle to understand what it would add to the story. Or, to be more precise, I think it would devalue MitD's journey if he finally switched sides because of something to do with his dad, rather than because of his character journey and making the decision he ultimately feels is right regardless of whatever the people around him tell him, either way. I suppose that doesn't preclude him showing up somehow, but I struggle to imagine what real, effective narrative role he could play beyond a reunion.

(Admittedly, a bit of that resistance is because the idea often comes up in the MitD thread, so my first thought is usually "Okay, but how does / would that point to a particular species?")

On another topic, really enjoy Serini immediately recognizing that Vaarsuvius is intelligent enough to have accurately deduced the answer.

[yokyok]

Serini's accessible, but it might take more effort than Serini herself can manage if it takes getting through all dungeons within a timespan.

Serini wouldn't kill the monsters, though. She would just pass through, or herd them somewhere else, if necessary. The monsters only impede everyone else.

[Peelee]

That leaves a hole: if the OotS goes through, what, the 13th door from the end and fights through the first room (they can definitely do that. Even if they're not as strong as Xykon+Redcloak+Oona, fighting half a dungeon when Team Evil was doing 5 per day is quite reasonable), then when Team Evil goes there, they skip it.

Seems like they're going through every door no matter what, and also numbering each one as they do them one-by-one.

[Lexible]

> Goat-smacking fleece folders!

GASP! Such language!

[Lexible]

The right door is always the last place you look.

That is almost always the case no matter what, because one generally stops looking when one finds what one is looking for…even when the last place you look happens to be the first place you look.

Did you mean something like "You have to look at every place, and the door will be at the last place (out of all possible places) you try?"

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It's been suggested quite a few times, but I struggle to understand what it would add to the story. Or, to be more precise, I think it would devalue MitD's journey if he finally switched sides because of something to do with his dad, rather than because of his character journey and making the decision he ultimately feels is right regardless of whatever the people around him tell him, either way. I suppose that doesn't preclude him showing up somehow, but I struggle to imagine what real, effective narrative role he could play beyond a reunion.

It would continue to be character development. For example, if his dad is more of the kind of monster RC and Xykon where expecting (pre-lowered expectations). Assertive, for example. Or independent-minded, chaffing under Serini's imprisonment (and shortly thereafter under the Quinton's imprisonment). I wouldn't expect his dad to be the catalyst for the heel-face switch, just another stepping stone in his journey towards internalizing that his "friends" are not his friends.

Teal deer, more character development is more good.

GW

[Cazero]

Two questions come to mind.
1) How in the nine hells does team Evil have enough spell slots for all the doors? Surely they will need a break soon?
2) Doesn't bypassing monsters with walls of force like the quinton is doing cancel their progression? Surely you're supposed to defeat all monsters properly like a barbarian would, not stroll around in the safety of a force bubble?

[enq]

It's been suggested quite a few times, but I struggle to understand what it would add to the story. Or, to be more precise, I think it would devalue MitD's journey if he finally switched sides because of something to do with his dad, rather than because of his character journey and making the decision he ultimately feels is right regardless of whatever the people around him tell him, either way. I suppose that doesn't preclude him showing up somehow, but I struggle to imagine what real, effective narrative role he could play beyond a reunion.

I know someone made a similar argument against "What if Belkar and Serini are related". Was that you too? I like your sense for good story over random plot twists.

Also, I want Roy to wake Serini up a third time before this is over. It will be amusing.

1) How in the nine hells does team Evil have enough spell slots for all the doors? Surely they will need a break soon?

This quinton can create a functionally infinite number of forcewalls with just a thought, letting us contain the defenders and walk past them.

[Doug Lampert]

A child could have seen it.

Probably not me as a child, and definitely not me as an adult. But I'm sure there are a number of children who would have gone "they have to go through all the dungeons to find the prize!"

I'd considered it and dismissed it, because anything that opens the way after you do all the dungeons has to be added, and why make it POSSIBLE to get to the gate by doing the dungeons when you don't have to make it possible to do it that way?

In hindsight, I can see a reason, there's plenty of informational magic and the oracle out there, someone could have a way to ask, "How can I find Kragor's Gate," that gives a true answere; and if you just bury it in a mountain of dimensional stone, then they get "dig right there", if you put in a bunch of dungeons then they get, "Run the gauntlet".

[Wintermoot]

Two questions come to mind.
1) How in the nine hells does team Evil have enough spell slots for all the doors? Surely they will need a break soon?
2) Doesn't bypassing monsters with walls of force like the quinton is doing cancel their progression? Surely you're supposed to defeat all monsters properly like a barbarian would, not stroll around in the safety of a force bubble?

1> they aren't casting any spells. they are walking in, having the quinton push every thing up against the walls with walls of force, walking to the end, and walking back out. They think they are looking for the gate, they don't realize yet that they are checking off each door to get through "the gauntlet"

2> We don't know yet. My personal guess is the "lock" saying they've been through that dungeon is either tied to stepping over and back again through the swapover, or some other hidden marker point they pass when they get to the last room in any given dungeon. Although "having to kill everything" fits thematically with the Kragorr approved gauntlet, at this point finding that out would cancel out the "peril" of what team evil is doing and I don't think the story will do that. I think we have to assume that team evil's current strategy is working by whatever criteria the dungeons are using to determine one has completed it. Narratively, as Elan would say.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

2) Doesn't bypassing monsters with walls of force like the quinton is doing cancel their progression? Surely you're supposed to defeat all monsters properly like a barbarian would, not stroll around in the safety of a force bubble?

Not if "progression" is measured, for example, by reaching the last room of each tunnel. That would just mean Serini didn't think of someone summoning a creature with infinite force wall spells when she set up the progress check, or even if she did, she didn't know how to check "is every creature I put in the tunnel dead" and ahd to go with the approach she could build.

GW

[Doug Lampert]

It would continue to be character development. For example, if his dad is more of the kind of monster RC and Xykon where expecting (pre-lowered expectations). Assertive, for example. Or independent-minded, chaffing under Serini's imprisonment (and shortly thereafter under the Quinton's imprisonment). I wouldn't expect his dad to be the catalyst for the heel-face switch, just another stepping stone in his journey towards internalizing that his "friends" are not his friends.

Teal deer, more character development is more good.

GW

Another obvious possibility of tMitD's dad shows up is that the Monster has as part of its contribution, convincing dad to not kill the good guys.

Dad could be important, not as a catalyst of a heal-face turn, but as on obstacle that the heal-face turn eliminates.

[Tala Goodweed]

For someone who English is not his first language. Can you please explain what is the revelation in this comic?
To what kind of Gauntlet is Roy talking about.

I only know a Gauntlet is like a glove.

So I would appreciate for someone to help explain this comic.

Thanks!

[Jay R]

Also, this means that while he couldn't have known it, MitD's tactic of painting extra doors would have prevented Reddie and Bones from ever finding the last Gate.

Very true. Good point.

["Reddie and Bones"?]

And thus, MiTD actually contributed!

Because his sabotage means that Team Evil has no idea what dungeons were cleared already, and thus, have to start over to ensure that nothing was missed.

Basically, whatever the clock is, he reset it.

Oh, good point. Well done! Go, MitD!

That's only true if Serini knows the order in which they are searching the doors. Are they going left to right? Top to bottom? Counterclockwise in a circle? If the target is a specific door, the search pattern matters. If it is not one particular door, it doesn't.

Correct. But Serini said she could give a time estimate without this information. Therefore this possibility is not the truth.

Ok, how does this "explore every dungeon to get to the final one" works, in terms of implementation?

Is there some pressure plate in all of the dungeons (that resets after a day or two, otherwise the bugbears would have discovered the gate long ago), and when they are all pressed down the door appears?

: Now, there are several intriguing mechanisms by which this could be the case, such as —

I conclude from V being cut off that Rich believes that revealing the mechanism (or possibly that even inventing the mechanism) will not improve the story. So he has V state that it can be done and moves on.

Or possibly, he decides that it will make a great reveal later in the story.

Either way, there is no answer until Rich decides that there is one, decides what it is, and decides to tell us. Until and unless that happens, the final dungeon is revealed by Schrödinger's Mechanism.

I agree with your last sentence. But why would she make it possible for others to make progress? Hey, you beat all the fake dungeons, so I'm going to reward you with access to the real one because...?

I once took a class on stage combat. The instructor demonstrated a move in which the sword went over the opponent's head to attempt to hit the off side. I asked, "How doesn't he just hit the head at that point?" The instructor responded, "Because then the fight would be over."

Why would people provide clues to getting into their treasure?
Why do bad guys build unnecessarily slow and escapable death traps for James Bond?
Why are D&D encounters CR-appropriate?
Why does the Riddler send Batman riddles to his crimes?
Why do only six Old West villains attack the sheriff who has a single six-shooter?

Because the author wants the story to end when it's supposed to.

[Peelee]

For someone who English is not his first language. Can you please explain what is the revelation in this comic?
To what kind of Gauntlet is Roy talking about.

I only know a Gauntlet is like a glove.

So I would appreciate for someone to help explain this comic.

Thanks!

A gauntlet can also be a long and difficult ordeal.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

For someone who English is not his first language. Can you please explain what is the revelation in this comic?
To what kind of Gauntlet is Roy talking about.

I only know a Gauntlet is like a glove.

So I would appreciate for someone to help explain this comic.

Thanks!

A gauntlet also means a series of hard tests that must be taken one after another.

GW