OotS 957 is up

[Abraxas]

Wheee!

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0957.html#

 

[MarkB]

Ahh, classic Belkar. The "Not Found" screen was a nice touch.

 

[Kramodlog]

You can't use enchatments to make people do suicidale stuff.

OotS is ruined for me for ever!

 

[MarkB]

Good point. On the other hand, at the characters' current level, jumping out of a moving airship and falling about 100 feet into an ocean probably wouldn't actually be fatal.

 

[Remus Lupin]

I love Durkon's "I'm trying to pretend to be friendly" smile.

 

[Nagol]

You can't use enchatments to make people do suicidale stuff.

OotS is ruined for me for ever!

It looked like Command generously interpreted. Nothing in 3.5 suggests enchantments can force such actions in general -- some spells like Suggestion specifically prevent it.

It's also possible the vampire just used Dominate -- simple and easy.

 

[Remus Lupin]

Yeah, I had sort of assumed it was dominate. Also, I suppose you could argue that "Jump overboard" unlike "stab yourself in the throat" is not directly suicidal. Like they say it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.

 

[Nagol]

Yeah, I had sort of assumed it was dominate. Also, I suppose you could argue that "Jump overboard" unlike "stab yourself in the throat" is not directly suicidal. Like they say it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.

Dominate does fall into the "Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out" problem set. So I'm going with Command used in a more pre-3e way.

 

[Dioltach]

My though was Dominate. Doesn't Belkar have a Ring of Jumping or something that would make it less likely for him to end up dead?

 

[MarkB]

Going by this image from the previous strip, the airship is cruising maybe about 100 feet above the water.

When falling into water, the first 20 feet are ignored and the next 20 feet deal non-lethal damage. So Belkar is, at most, taking 6d6 lethal damage and 2d6 non-lethal damage, averaging 21 points of real damage and another 7 points non-lethal. Belkar would notice that, but it's nowhere near lethal at his level.

Furthermore, his jump overboard might well be considered a deliberate dive into water, in which case he can avoid all damage by succeeding at a Tumble check, the DC at this height being 25 (15 base, plus 5 per 50 feet of drop).

Add all that together and it does look like leaping into an ocean from a moving airship is not, in fact, a self-destructive act for any reasonably high-level D&D character.