The OotS Thread III

[xthetenth]

I'm kind of expecting Tarquin to get one of those nature of evil/power speeches from Xykon sometime, maybe soon. Between him and Durkula there's a lot of diet evil running around.

[Simon_Jester]

I actually don't think of Tarquin as diet evil, more like, well... lawful evil. Evil that is organized, that is capable of functioning within a social milieu instead of being all about personal self-gratification. Xykon is a textbook CE villain, by contrast.

Then again, from Xykon's point of view, maybe that does make Tarquin "diet evil."

[Lord of the Abyss]

915 up!

To quote someone on another board, "Just in case we forgot that Tarquin, in addition to being a magnificent bastard, is also an asshole. "

[Vaporous]

Nale learned to be insanely petty over minor slights from daddy.

[Tiriol]

I suspect that Tarquin is going to end up having just as an anti-climatic death as his evil son. He might be intelligent and charismatic, but it won't do one bit of good with someone as dangerous and cruel as Xykon, who isn't stupid, either. I can see it already: Tarquin being the "awesome" self and then Xykon simply blasts him to oblivion for standing in his way or getting him annoyed. Tarquin and Nale are, after all, suspiciously similar (both seem to rely on very heavy-handed genre saviness: whereas Tarquin goes out of his way to avoid the usual evil overlord failures, Nale just went straight for them to use them effectively) so a similar fate for both colossal assholes wouldn't be out of place.

[Serafina]

So, Bozzok is paying to have Haleys father imprisoned? Interesting...
It certainly shows that Ian isn't half as clever as he thinks - but neither is Bozzok, given that it cost him one of his best thieves.

[Crazedwraith]

We're not done with Ian and Co? This plot line just keeps dragging and dragging. How long is the book going to be now?

[Serafina]

Seems like a good time to end the book to me. New plot hooks (next gate, rescuing Ian), new location (next gate) and some major characters just got offed.

[Crazedwraith]

That's a good point, I'd assume that the Ian thing would have to be dealt with in the current arc, unless he's going to make a break for the northern continent as well.

[Welf]

So, Bozzok is paying to have Haleys father imprisoned? Interesting...
It certainly shows that Ian isn't half as clever as he thinks - but neither is Bozzok, given that it cost him one of his best thieves.

It was explained earlier that Ian was more popular than Bozzok and he feared a rival.

I wonder if Ganji and Enar will return? They are bounty hunters after all.

[Spekio]

To quote someone on another board, "Just in case we forgot that Tarquin, in addition to being a magnificent bastard, is also an asshole. "

I have nothing to add to that.

[Vaporous]

New comic up.

Uh, welp. That went south in a hurry.

Whoever called "Tarquin didn't realize Elan isn't the hero." wins the pool.

[PainRack]

That......... kinda terminal.....

[Darmalus]

I feel bad for all the mooks who are going to die flailing at high level characters they have no hope of hurting, let alone killing.

[Vaporous]

New comic up.

D'oh. Somehow I linked to the previous comic by mistake, and then missed the edit window. Fixed.

[Crazedwraith]

Well shit. This would be a good time for V to turn up.

Also has anyone noted Belkar doesn't seem to have been healed by Durkon at any point. We've seen Roy, Haley and Elan drinking potions. Belkar still has bite marks and last we heard was on low HP.

[Lord of the Abyss]

"Make a note of the bunny thing, that's good stuff", hah! And a jump into the Rift is suddenly looking more reasonable.

I feel bad for all the mooks who are going to die flailing at high level characters they have no hope of hurting, let alone killing.

Actually, the mooks do as a group have the ability to hurt them. This old OOTS even detailed how, just with goblins not human soldiers.

[Spekio]

The worse thing is: It would make for a good story.

[Simon_Jester]

Roy and Durkon are in good shape and well armored- they can at least hope to survive until something else about the situation changes. After all, the archery will only last so long, with those velociraptor cavalry charging right in against them.

Belkar, on the other hand, is probably screwed- he's still wounded, never really got a chance to recover from his injuries.

So this would be a plausible moment for the last stand of the sexy shoeless god of war.

[Grumman]

I feel bad for all the mooks who are going to die flailing at high level characters they have no hope of hurting, let alone killing.

Actually, the mooks do as a group have the ability to hurt them. This old OOTS even detailed how, just with goblins not human soldiers.

The others aren't in such a good position but Durkula is, for all intents and purposes, immune. The enemy needs natural 20s to hit, then they need to do more than 10 points of damage to get past his DR, then they need to do that fast enough to overcome his Fast Healing 5 and 10 temporary hit points every round. If Tarquin's army had twenty Tyrannosaurs devoted just to killing Durkon, he'd walk out of it without a scratch.

[Imperial Overlord]

I feel bad for all the mooks who are going to die flailing at high level characters they have no hope of hurting, let alone killing.

Actually, the mooks do as a group have the ability to hurt them. This old OOTS even detailed how, just with goblins not human soldiers.

The others aren't in such a good position but Durkula is, for all intents and purposes, immune. The enemy needs natural 20s to hit, then they need to do more than 10 points of damage to get past his DR, then they need to do that fast enough to overcome his Fast Healing 5 and 10 temporary hit points every round. If Tarquin's army had twenty Tyrannosaurs devoted just to killing Durkon, he'd walk out of it without a scratch.

This assumes the only thing they'll do is hit him with nonmagical weapons and don't try anything like setting him on fire or hitting him with a bunch of low level spells when that doesn't work.

[Irbis]

Roy and Durkon are in good shape and well armored

I wouldn't call Roy in good shape - he downed what, 2-3 potions? That's about 30% of his HP total if he rolled well. Durkon is in better situation, yes, and can hold off the mooks for a bit as long as either of two heavyhitters standing on top of the crater won't decide enough is enough and one-shots him with spell.

Whoever called "Tarquin didn't realize Elan isn't the hero." wins the pool.

But Tarquin realizes this perfectly. He sees his son being sidekick to Roy, and he knows that makes him a sidequest, something not important to overall picture. By getting rid of Roy, he shifts his son to the spotlight, making Xykon sidequest and himself main target. This gives him what he wants.

Also, to be honest, T. is kinda right. That encounter with Elan did made them both heroes playing first fiddle. What Roy has still to offer story-wise? Some snarkiness? He said to his dad he pees all over the oath and does it only because Xykon is bad, closing that chapter, he might well have been relegated to the status of unimportant sidekick several hundred strips ago, as he spent second last book dead then last book being in prison or background of more important events. Cut out Roy and last 400 strips change little, Elan and Dad drove them forward.

[Simon_Jester]

Roy and Durkon are in good shape and well armored

I wouldn't call Roy in good shape - he downed what, 2-3 potions? That's about 30% of his HP total if he rolled well. Durkon is in better situation, yes, and can hold off the mooks for a bit as long as either of two heavyhitters standing on top of the crater won't decide enough is enough and one-shots him with spell.

Ah. I had inferred from the lack of visible wounds that Roy was in reasonably good condition. Usually, when a character in OoTS is badly beaten up and reduced to a fraction of their total hit points, it shows.

Also, to be honest, T. is kinda right. That encounter with Elan did made them both heroes playing first fiddle. What Roy has still to offer story-wise? Some snarkiness? He said to his dad he pees all over the oath and does it only because Xykon is bad, closing that chapter, he might well have been relegated to the status of unimportant sidekick several hundred strips ago, as he spent second last book dead then last book being in prison or background of more important events. Cut out Roy and last 400 strips change little, Elan and Dad drove them forward.

Storywise, Roy is still the guy who keeps the team focused. He's the tactician. When Roy was killed, the Order lost all direction and broke apart, and none of the disparate groups were very effective at accomplishing their goals, either. It took the extremely drastic and desperate step of V brute-forcing events with the power of the soul splices to get things moving again.

When Roy was imprisoned by Tarquin, yet again the Order became comparatively directionless, and accomplished very little, until Roy was freed.

So I disagree, I think Roy is still an important part of the story.

[Welf]

Storywise, Roy is still the guy who keeps the team focused. He's the tactician. When Roy was killed, the Order lost all direction and broke apart, and none of the disparate groups were very effective at accomplishing their goals, either. It took the extremely drastic and desperate step of V brute-forcing events with the power of the soul splices to get things moving again.

When Roy was imprisoned by Tarquin, yet again the Order became comparatively directionless, and accomplished very little, until Roy was freed.

So I disagree, I think Roy is still an important part of the story.

During the last confrontation with the Linear Guild was only part of the team, not the leader. He defeated his evil opposite, but didn't add much to the rest. V defeated Z on his own, Elan and Haley confronted Nale and Sabine. And finally it was Maltak and T that brought down Nale. Indeed the order did not accomplish much while Roy was away, but it was that time when Elan made the next jump in growing as character. If Roy does again, Elan is forced to take over the lead and become a true hero.

[Irbis]

Ah. I had inferred from the lack of visible wounds that Roy was in reasonably good condition. Usually, when a character in OoTS is badly beaten up and reduced to a fraction of their total hit points, it shows.

Well, these are most likely Cure Serious Wounds. 3 CSW is about 9d8+, a bit over 40 HP. Roy probably has over 100.

Storywise, Roy is still the guy who keeps the team focused. He's the tactician. When Roy was killed, the Order lost all direction and broke apart, and none of the disparate groups were very effective at accomplishing their goals, either. It took the extremely drastic and desperate step of V brute-forcing events with the power of the soul splices to get things moving again.

I wouldn't say that. Darth V didn't really changed anything - see strip 646, OotS were reunited by Elan and Haley already. V got "help" from the devils way too late for that, you can even say they did collected payment for virtually nothing

When Roy was imprisoned by Tarquin, yet again the Order became comparatively directionless, and accomplished very little, until Roy was freed.

On the contrary, when Roy tried to save Elan/Haley, he landed his ass in prison. They not only freed themselves, got valuable plot lead, but were about to bust out Roy too. In fact, Roy was mostly plot device, first as dead body, then prisoner. Elan from strip 1 would do nothing, from last one is very close to being a protagonist, not sidekick.