The OotS Thread III

[Kuja]

it's just showing where Bloodfeast was running, like one of those Family Circus comics with Billy. Team Tarquin had to keep portalling to keep up. V was hanging back to use lightning bolts on the bad guys when Belkar got Bloodfeast to take off.

[Serafina]

Oh dear....the LAST time a member of the order was turned into a lizard (purple or not)...well lets just say that Tarquin should now be doomed!

[Simon_Jester]

Well, at least Bloodfeast is likely to survive this way, although come to think of it that's probably desirable from Tarquin's point of view too.

[Ralin]

Is there a "Portal" psionic power I can’t remember or is that just Burlew’s way of portraying Dimensional Door?

[Rogue 9]

Is there a "Portal" psionic power I can’t remember or is that just Burlew’s way of portraying Dimensional Door?

It's not dimension door. We saw Nale cast that shortly before his death just a few pages ago and it looks completely different.

[Grumman]

Is there a "Portal" psionic power I can’t remember or is that just Burlew’s way of portraying Dimensional Door?

Their current hopping around could be achieved with Psionic Teleport. The arrival of the army would require something more significant.

[Serafina]

She's using an updated 2nd Edition power - the same she used to bring in the army earlier.
The advantage appears to be that it maintains the momentum of the person using it - in other words, you can use it to charge through the portal.
Now the power should be 9th level, thus making her waste plenty of power points, but it is possible that it is instead lower level and that the army-transporting is a augmented version - so we can't say for sure how expensive the whole chase was for her.

Mind, it IS possible that she is using some other psionic power - but given that
- it looks exactly like the portal used to bring the army through
- Psions have limited powers known, so only having one scalable, versatile power is a huge advantage
- she also used this power to brink Kilik and Miron back from the Kingdom of Blood, thus demonstrating that it scales
it is very likely that yes, she is using Wormhole here.

[Sharp-kun]

I don't see the Order winning a fight with Tarqin and Co.

Metawise I view them as the previous campaigns party - the PC's who have had their epic quest and are now in their epilogue where they're enjoying their reward. When they go down they're going to go down in style, not a fight in the desert with a weakened Order without them all being there (Catgirl Assassin hasn't shown up).

[Civil War Man]

It would be one of the most fitting karmic deaths for Tarquin. He's so single-minded in attempting to force his view on what the narrative should be that the only ending that makes sense for him is to utterly fail at it. A fight in the middle of the desert, far away from his army and his seat of power. He even made the rookie mistake of setting himself up as an unstoppable juggernaut going up against a group of weakened, bloodied, and tired heroes barely holding on by the skin of their teeth. Him getting killed in this battle would be the most anticlimactic death for him short of him getting curbstomped in one round by Xykon.

[Sharp-kun]

A fitting death for him would be to have the epic battle he wants, only for Elan to not tell the tale and have him be forgotten.

[Irbis]

Metawise I view them as the previous campaigns party - the PC's who have had their epic quest and are now in their epilogue where they're enjoying their reward. When they go down they're going to go down in style, not a fight in the desert with a weakened Order without them all being there (Catgirl Assassin hasn't shown up).

Mr Sword & Board is missing too. I also really don't see Psion wasting half of page to extract promise from T for it to have no consequence later. Nah, this fight isn't going to be decisive IMHO, not in next 10 pages.

[Gaidin]

There's also the fact that those two are really not wanting to be there right now. They have nothing invested in this should he die. Kill Tarquin and the fight's over.

[Grumman]

There's also the fact that those two are really not wanting to be there right now. They have nothing invested in this should he die. Kill Tarquin and the fight's over.

That's what I'm hoping for. I like Laurin. She was ready to go after Nale for killing Malack, but hopefully she'll recognise Tarquin's death as being his own damn fault.

[Rogue 9]

927 is up.
Spoiler

Figures that the actually effective parts of the prismatic spray would miss Tarquin and friends. They can tank the damage colors all the live long day.

[Kuja]

That angry expression on Tarquin's face in the last panel is satisfying beyond words.

I don't know if V could really have hoped for a better result, to be honest. All three of the bad guys are likely to have strong Will saves (but trikey didn't) and unless he rolled really well on his Reflex Miron just took 80 damage. For a wizard that's nothing to sneeze at, even at level 20.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Can you imagine if this climatic battle ends with Tarquin, exasperated and furious shouting to Roy
"Why won't you DIE?!"
To which Roy replies
"Because I'm the hero" and then kills Tarquin.
THAT would be poetic

[Ahriman238]

Pretty much. Everyone is hurt, Roy is safe and the uber-tough mount is gone. Not bad for one spell. Still going to have to fight for their lives.

[Crazedwraith]

The dude hit by lightning is Team Tarquin's magic chap right? The first couple of times I looked at that I thought that it was Roy. Opps. Racial profiling is bad kids.

But damn, Roy must be just hanging on hit point wise at this point. The fight has been rough on him, especially given the healing potions. They've probably knocked more hit points off him than he has.

[Simon_Jester]

927 is up.
Spoiler

Figures that the actually effective parts of the prismatic spray would miss Tarquin and friends. They can tank the damage colors all the live long day.

I don't know; Tarquin seems to have brought along a couple of primary spellcasters. If they blow their saves, direct damage might actually bang them up moderately well. The real danger is that they'd retaliate by blowing away V with more powerful spells. On the other hand, their psion... I forget her name... is likely to portal them all out rather than fight to the death; Tarquin and his friends are all too savvy to risk much in a fight.

[Isolder74]

Tarquin at this point has cashed in his usual genre savviness for his personal ego at this point. Now that he's found out Roy is that leader of the group rather then Elan, he's now obsessing over that fact. This is not going to end well. I do not see the rest of his buddies wanting to back him up on his new obsession.

[Ralin]

The whole thing about direct damage spells being ineffective mainly applies to monsters. Against PCs and things built like PCs they can be substantially more effective.

And this is leaving aside the fact that we're talking about Order of the Stick Land, where direct damage is an effective option in general.

[PainRack]

Tarquin:Damn it Elan, I'm only trying to help!
:D:D:D

Also, is Lesser Confusion supposed to do that? I thought what confusion does was it makes the target mill around or attack anyone including allies or flee.

[Ralin]

Tarquin:Damn it Elan, I'm only trying to help!
:D:D:D

Also, is Lesser Confusion supposed to do that? I thought what confusion does was it makes the target mill around or attack anyone including allies or flee.

Or flee or attack the caster, yes. "Throwing one's rider" sounds like a reasonable interpretation of "Attack the nearest creature" to me.

[Civil War Man]

I don't know; Tarquin seems to have brought along a couple of primary spellcasters. If they blow their saves, direct damage might actually bang them up moderately well.

This is true. Miron, for example, appears to be either a Druid, Sorcerer, or Wizard if we just go by the spells he has cast (Greater Dispel Magic and Baleful Polymorph). If we assume 20th level, no multiclassing (for consistent hit die size), max hit points per level, and enough magic items or ability stacking to get his Constitution up to 18 or 19, that single Prismatic Spray would still have taken out a third of his hit points in a single round if he's a Druid, and half of his hit points if he's a Sorcerer or Wizard. This also assumes he took the full 80 damage from the yellow beam, since his reaction looks like he both failed his save and did not think to ward himself against electricity before the start of the fight.

[Darmalus]

Tarquin at this point has cashed in his usual genre savviness for his personal ego at this point. Now that he's found out Roy is that leader of the group rather then Elan, he's now obsessing over that fact. This is not going to end well. I do not see the rest of his buddies wanting to back him up on his new obsession.

Yeah. He was fun and interesting while a cool and cunning operator. Now that he's just another generic reckless obsessed bad guy I really don't care what happens and just want him out of the way so something interesting can happen.