OotS examples of breaking the rules?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Don't let the rules get in your way. Ever.

That's all I'm saying.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Owl's Wisdom is not a dismissible spell.

 

[Presto2112]

Owl's Wisdom is not a dismissible spell.

Hey, thanks! I've been trying to collect all my houserules into a document, and that's one I was missing.

"All spells with a duration longer than 'Instantaneous' and shorter than 'Permanent' are dismissable by the caster of the spell."

I never understood why some are and some aren't.

 

[Peni Griffin]

I liked it more when it was based more on humor than plot.

But the plot is the humor. The plot is funny. Silliness gets old quickly; an overall driving plot that is also funny is absolutely necessary to maintain a long-term humor strip in this medium, to which people have to consciously return day after day after day, through late postings etc.

Also, there is a metalevel of enjoyment in the discussion. Nitpicking the rules is how a lot of people enjoy the comic and is part of the humor of it for them. Many people who seem to be taking the story "too seriously" are laughing at themselves as they nitpick; others find the humor spoiled if it is inconsistent. This is partly a recognition of the skill needed to pull off a humorous story in absolute consistency with a set of arbitrary rules and also ties in to the universal tendency to attempt to predict the plot in a series. If the series pulls a suspense thread out too long with no resolution or does not develop plot points logically according to the internal system, the audience begins to feel the futility of its speculation, gets bored, and loses enjoyment, but a properly paced series can mulitply the enjoyment of the audience by giving them lots of opportunities to create metaseries rewards for themselves in discussion threads.

Stories are the most important thing in my life. I wouldn't want to be part of a genre subculture where at least a few people didn't take them "too seriously."

 

[Epiphanis]

Has Burlew ever provided stats for the characters? I particularly wonder about Roy. He's apparently a straight-up fighter with Power Attack, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization (greatsword). He's apparently more intelligent then Vaarsuvius (to go by the Mind Flayer incident). Yet I've never seen him use any Combat Expertise-style feats. This suggests a far-from-optimized build...

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Hey, thanks! I've been trying to collect all my houserules into a document, and that's one I was missing.

"All spells with a duration longer than 'Instantaneous' and shorter than 'Permanent' are dismissable by the caster of the spell."

I never understood why some are and some aren't.

Mostly I agree, but there are some where it can make sense. Fly, for example. You really do have to trust someone with your life to cast Fly on you if they can dismiss it any time they want. (Well, for the old versions, anyway.)

 

[orsal]

He's apparently more intelligent then Vaarsuvius (to go by the Mind Flayer incident).

My reading of that was that Roy was a more balanced meal than Vaarsuvius, from a mind flayer's perspective. Their nutritional guide recommends a diet balanced in three major food groups: intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. Vaarsuvius may be much richer in one food group, but Roy, with all three of those stats above average, provided better balance.

 

[SPoD]

Has Burlew ever provided stats for the characters? I particularly wonder about Roy. He's apparently a straight-up fighter with Power Attack, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization (greatsword). He's apparently more intelligent then Vaarsuvius (to go by the Mind Flayer incident). Yet I've never seen him use any Combat Expertise-style feats. This suggests a far-from-optimized build...

All of the characters are far from optimized, probably because optimized characters wouldn't be funny. They'd just dominate every combat with a mandated 20% expenditure of resources, instead of any battle being a crapshoot (and often running away from danger). I mean, a halfling two-weapon fighting ranger who didn't put skill ranks in Survival? A wizard who focuses on Evocation at the expense of other, more utilitarian schools (and who is barred from Conjuration)? A rogue who focuses on archery and thus denies herself Sneak Attack much of the time because she's more than 30 feet away? A bard? They don't know the meaning of the word "optimized"!

Only Durkon comes close to being what we might normally think of as optimized cleric, although even then, he avoids the "super-optimized" cleric builds that start to drift away from the typical cleric archetype (like Cleric Archers and such). He's your basic cleric who isn't particularly poorly built, which just happens to stand out in this group.

Interestingly, I think the PCs are mostly poorly constructed, but those poor builds are cunningly utilized for the skills they have, while the villains are often highly optimized but poorly utilized. I'm thinking of powerhouses like Xykon or Sabine that don't use their abilities to the full extant because of laziness or what have you. Which sort of reflects most D&D games I've seen, where the PCs each have their own player who can devote all of their playing time to maximizing their effectiveness, while the DM is statting and playing all of the NPCs at once and doesn't have time (or desire) to utilize each one for maximum effect.