OOTS 652: No Respect for the Wicked

[Elphilm]

Xykon is always powerful, effective, and intelligent in the rare times when he actually becomes interested enough in the action to care about what is happening. The Xykon in the current strip is precisely the same character that you see here, here, and here, for example.

 

[Bullgrit]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I've thoroughly enjoyed all 652 OotS strips and the OotS books I've read (haven't read Start yet). I think Rich is well telling a magnificent and humorous story, and I have absolutely no complaints about any of it.

I should just stop reading these ENWorld threads about the strips because invariably I get annoyed by all the people who complain about the comic.

Bullgrit

 

[Elphilm]

Well, compared to the OotS forum these threads are actually refreshingly civil...

 

[Largomad]

I don't have the book "Start of darkness" in front of me (at work now).

But Xykon more or less says as he fights against dorukan, "There is not finesse or strategy that could not be defeated by the right quantity of brute strength, so energy drain"

Well if this worked against an epic mage, why it hasn't to work with two ?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I've thoroughly enjoyed all 652 OotS strips and the OotS books I've read (haven't read Start yet). I think Rich is well telling a magnificent and humorous story, and I have absolutely no complaints about any of it.

I should just stop reading these ENWorld threads about the strips because invariably I get annoyed by all the people who complain about the comic.

Bullgrit

Count me in among the fans that don't have anything to complain.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

This fight's pretty dissapointing. Everyone's saying V has this coming, and that s/he thinks s/he's a hotshot. Excuse me, but V's been messing up and eaten humble pie the entire strip. It's been a constant amazement on my part that V can have such a high int score, and yet consistently be so dumb and worthless.

Xykon is the primadonna that can do no wrong and always seems to one-up everyone els,e all while being a cocky bastard about it. But because he's the BBEG he gets a pass on this, while V's derided for it. Such hypocrisy...

I suspect that to put this in professional wrestling terms, this sequence of events is V putting Xykon over. Xykon is allowed to be a total jerkass primadonna because it gets him 'heat', and makes the readers of the strip hate him just a little bit more. On top of that, as I said in the previous OotS thread, people are underestimating Xykon. This was never going to be a cakewalk for V.

From a tactical standpoint, even if Xykon is a bit of an idiot who tends to have a severely limited attention span, Red Cloak is not. I am thinking that the vast majority of the fans of the strip never thought of something as simple as a few magical traps preventing a Timestop.

V is not finished yet, but he obviously does not have the upper hand as easily as many thought. And me?

I am rooting for Team Evil!

END COMMUNICATION

 

[yesnomu]

From the SRD, Energy Drain only works on living creatures--it seems like fiat to let it apply to the Soul Splices.

Anyway, I'm expecting her to throw out a teleport back to the group and dismiss her splices, properly humbled.

If she had prepared properly (including taking a damn rank in Concentration, come on!) she could have wiped the floor with that joker. Death Ward would have made all the difference. Then summon a Gold Dragon or two, Prismatic stuff, the works. Ah well.

 

[freyar]

From the SRD, Energy Drain only works on living creatures--it seems like fiat to let it apply to the Soul Splices.

Anyway, I'm expecting her to throw out a teleport back to the group and dismiss her splices, properly humbled.

If she had prepared properly (including taking a damn rank in Concentration, come on!) she could have wiped the floor with that joker. Death Ward would have made all the difference. Then summon a Gold Dragon or two, Prismatic stuff, the works. Ah well.

Outsiders are living (SRD: "Unlike most other living creatures, an outsider does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit." My bold.) So I'm guessing the souls are something like petitioners.

 

[jmucchiello]

From the SRD, Energy Drain only works on living creatures--it seems like fiat to let it apply to the Soul Splices.

Yes, that is a disappointment. Likewise, at a minimum the splices should be incorporeal and spells against them would have an automatic 50% miss chance as well.

But since there are no publicly available rules about how soul splices work, we can't really argue for or against how it is playing out (or how Rich is "interpreting" it).

 

[evilbob]

If a situation like this whould have occured in a D&D game, I'd call it strongly rail-roaded and would find it as a player (being involved with my PC or not does not matter) really annoying. As it is a comic with a story, I don't really like this strip because the overwhelming power of Xykon and his continual luck versus strong foes is too obvious (as it has been earlier for various situations).

So I'm wondering how a party like the OotS should be able to defeat an extremly powerful, effective, intelligent lich like this Xykon portraied in the recent strip. Unless Xykon suddenly shows some of his mannerisms again or some sort of artefact, magic, and/or pure luck is on the side of his foes.

Yeah, this is another one of those strips that I don't like because story requirements have taken a backseat to plot logic. Effectively, V has to lose because otherwise the story would suck. We've also gotten foreshadowing of this via Roy, and of course the "deal with the devil" thing cannot work out positively or what kind of precedent would that set?

On the other hand, they've already set V up as being a being powerful enough to kill thousands of creatures from half a planet away and to take down an ancient dragon without batting an eye. Yes, 1/3 of his power apparently took off but he's still so over-the-top powerful that he could easily take down some low-level gods. But the BBEG of the story? Nope, sorry, he's completely out-classed - and for no other reason that "because the story demands it."

This isn't the first plot hole in OOTS nor, I am sure, will it be the last. But I still enjoy the comic and enough really awesome things happen to more than make up for the dumb railroaded moments.