OotS #435

[DaveMage]

Ah...., evil goodness....

 

[el-remmen]

Wow!
A strip that centers on Belkar I actually liked.

-- el-Belkar is only good used sparingly-remmen

 

[iwatt]

Go Belkar Go!!!

"Why isn't he Jolly???"

 

[KB9JMQ]

Another one for "Why isn't he jolly?"
ha ha ha

 

[drothgery]

Belkar's still a vicious, evil SOB who deserves to die.

That doesn't mean he's not funny.

 

[Asmor]

Wouldn't the two evil things be yugoloths, or at least some sort of neutral fiend? Devils are lawful and demons are chaotic... Given that Modrons (lawful neutral) and Slaadi (chaotic neutral) represent their respective ethos, I'd assume these things should be neutral evil.

Also: Awesome strip. "You have a duty, Belkar. A duty to serve the Greater You!"

 

[mmu1]

Belkar cracks me up, but it bugs me every time I see him kicking butt in combat, because it just doesn't make sense within the D&D ruleset.

For some reason - maybe because I got a chance to see a dual-wielding halfling ranger in play not too long ago, in RL - he's the only character in OotS my brain tends to over-analyze like that, but I can't shake the thought he actually ought to be worthless. He doesn't seem to have terribly high strength, from all the complaining we know he doesn't really have any magic items of note, and favored enemy bonuses or Rage can only explain so much. (Does he even rage? Is it just that you can't really tell, with Belkar?) Which means he should be doing a lot of 1d4+jack, with those puny little shortswords - hardly enough to be slaughtering things left and right. He'd need 2 or 3 solid blows to drop a 1st level fighter...

Not that it really affects my enjoyment of the strip, but I just can't get rid of that nagging voice in the back of my mind.

 

[Kestrel]

Any panels with Belkar are good panels. Belkar rocks!

He drove his angel bonkers! Love it!

 

[Celebrim]

Not that it really affects my enjoyment of the strip, but I just can't get rid of that nagging voice in the back of my mind.

Well, if it makes you feel better, one of the running jokes of the series is that the characters (and not merely the players) can port in rules from any earlier edition or splatbook if the characters can find them. Game books work something like the character enhancing magical Tomes of 1st edition. If the character gets to read them, then they can use the rules from them to enhance themselves.

So its quite possible that Belkar is still using the 3.0 version of power attack, and that plus improved critical would do an interesting amount of damage. And that's to say nothing about any broken goodness from third party material that he might have along the lines of Elan's 'Dashing Swordsman' prestige class.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Belkar cracks me up, but it bugs me every time I see him kicking butt in combat, because it just doesn't make sense within the D&D ruleset.

For some reason - maybe because I got a chance to see a dual-wielding halfling ranger in play not too long ago, in RL - he's the only character in OotS my brain tends to over-analyze like that, but I can't shake the thought he actually ought to be worthless. He doesn't seem to have terribly high strength, from all the complaining we know he doesn't really have any magic items of note, and favored enemy bonuses or Rage can only explain so much. (Does he even rage? Is it just that you can't really tell, with Belkar?) Which means he should be doing a lot of 1d4+jack, with those puny little shortswords - hardly enough to be slaughtering things left and right. He'd need 2 or 3 solid blows to drop a 1st level fighter...

Not that it really affects my enjoyment of the strip, but I just can't get rid of that nagging voice in the back of my mind.

Well, he has rage, a high Strength, and possibly some nice feats (after all, he might have some fighter levels too, since it's not like he needs to, y'know, cast spells or track or anything). Also, his complaining doesn't mean that he doesn't have some of the "basic" buffing items (a Strength booster, etc.).