OotS 448

[ThatGuyThere]

The Guard DID put up a struggle.

For the few rounds it took all the Sapphire Guard to succumb to insanity, Xykon wasted a 9th level spell on a disrupted Meteor Swarm, was smote (smited? whatever...) twice, tripped, thumped in the chest (no big deal for his DR) and generally quite on the defensive. Sure, maybe he was feelin' the guard out, lettin' his Symbol have it's time... ...but then, why bust loose with spells later?

Nope, Xykon met formidable resistance, in the form of over thirty fifth through seventh level multiclassed Paladin / Whathaveyous, willing to fight and die to stop him. It's just that as a Quabillionth (estimated) level Wizard Lich, they were, at best, a temporary setback.

Xykon said it himself - he's only here for amusement. He could have just rained fire and brimstone from the heavens and emptied the room, but wanted to give it that personal attention it craved.

(Why the Hobgoblin army? Why *not* a Hobgoblin army? Xykon is *the* D&D bad guy - why *wouldn't* he want a Hobgoblin army? Besides, once he was fully recovered, one gets the impression redcloak had far more interest in the army than Xykon did.)

 

[Klaus]

Besides, I think that any encounter between a 20th some-odd level BBEG and 20-30 some odd level 10ish npcs SHOULD be handwaved. It is NOT the NPCs job to save the day. That's what the heroes are for.

No one is asking that. But if you write yourself into a scene that *has* to be handwaived, you might as well not have written the scene at all. Write a scene that doesn't *have* to be handwaived. If this scene is the purpose of the Sapphire Guard, they'd have to be extremely well-prepared, with stuff like Prayer (+1 luck to saves), Magic Circle Against Evil (+2 resistance bonus to saves), Eagle's Splendor (+2 bonus to saves through Divine Grace)... If Xykon has Cha 20, the save DC for the Symbol is 23. A 6th-level Paladin with Wis 12 and Cha 14 and the above effects will have a Will save of +10. More than 35% of the paladins present should have simply passed the save. That would be something about 15 Paladins (without factoring in those higher than 6th level). Of the 25 that fail their saves, 4 attack the caster anyway (as Act Normal and Attack the Caster), 6 attack the nearest creature (who in turn attack back, taking 12 Paladins out of the battle) and the rest babble about.

Rich did awesome strips for a while, but this one was very badly written.

Plus the Paladins would need a Spot check to be able to see the rune in that bouncing ball, and we all know Spot is a cross-class skill to Paladins.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Rich has done hand-waving before, usually for the purposes of comedy or speeding scenes. He doesn't follow the rules all that closely, especially when it comes to statistics (he generally obeys how spells work though, except for when a certain CG deity gets drunk).

You knew Xykon'd stop the pally anyway; he could have dropped a Forcecube scroll on him and that would have been that. For the purpose of plot, it doesn't really matter how the uber-lich stops the comparative weakling.

On a similar note, if more paladins had saved vs the insanity, we'd end up watching pages of Xykon slaughtering paladins with spells. That might be fun for a few scenes, but we'd have to skip rounds of him casting spells in the interests of not boring the audience to tears.

 

[PoeticJustice]

I get the feeling that people didn't like this one because it was vaguely disturbing, whereas most OotS are light-hearted and fun.

If you feel cheated, you probably were, but then again, what else would you expect from a villain?

Personally, I love this strip. Initially I felt very strongly that they had a chance, but you can literally feel Scarface's horror when the chaos erupts. He turns from risking his life to protect the Gate to risking everything to destroy it . And then he fails. Masterful Villainy, Mr. Burlew! Bravo! You are a DM after my own heart.

 

[Falkus]

I dislike this strip because it makes absolutely no sense given what we already know about the Sapphire Guard. They've had literally decades to prepare for this attack, and they never once considered that they might be fighting a high level spell caster?

On a similar note, if more paladins had saved vs the insanity, we'd end up watching pages of Xykon slaughtering paladins with spells. That might be fun for a few scenes, but we'd have to skip rounds of him casting spells in the interests of not boring the audience to tears.

If he'd done it right, we wouldn't seen the scene period (particularly that ridiculous ball). He'd just cut away to something else, and have all the dead bodies discovered later, with Xykon gloating over them. That would be dramatic.

The symbol of insanity, however, turned it into something that was neither humorous nor dramatic.

 

[Klaus]

On a similar note, if more paladins had saved vs the insanity, we'd end up watching pages of Xykon slaughtering paladins with spells. That might be fun for a few scenes, but we'd have to skip rounds of him casting spells in the interests of not boring the audience to tears.

Xykon throws the ball.

Scarface goes "huh?"

Xykon explains about the Symbol of Insanity.

Scarface goes "We've prepared our entire lives for this moment! Don't you think we'd be prepared?", showing that most of the paladins made their saves, and those that didn't are being subdued through Hold Person, Calm Emotions and whatnot.

Xykon: ">sigh< Guess Paladins really ARE no fun at all..."

Panel of Xykon shapechanged into a Red Dragon (complete with wee crown on his head), burning and clawing and biting every paladin in the room).

Panel of Xykon back in lich form: "I take that back. Paladins ARE fun after all!"



Shows Xykon is silly, shows the Sapphire Guard are (were) competent, shows Xykon is still a badass spellcaster, shows that Xykon is a silly badass spellcaster.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

It was a little horrifying. In a good way!. Go Roy! Destroy Xykon! We're all rootin' for you!

 

[Professor Phobos]

Very good. One of the best strips so far, and that's saying a lot. I like that Xykon's re-established as a threat; Redcloak was stealing some thunder there for a while. Now they both have thunder.

 

[Delta]

Anyone else wonder what would happen if some spellcaster dispelled the captain dude with his sword in mid-swing?

Again, dispel will not help. According to the paralyzing touch description, "Remove paralysis or any spell that can remove a curse can free the victim (see the bestow curse spell description). The effect cannot be dispelled."

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lich.htm

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Scarface goes "We've prepared our entire lives for this moment! Don't you think we'd be prepared?", showing that most of the paladins made their saves, and those that didn't are being subdued through Hold Person, Calm Emotions and whatnot.

They make their save against Xykon's symbol of insanity, but fail it against a much lower level caster's hold person?