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inthesto posted:The most optimized character is Durkon, but that's mostly a function of his class being the hardest to screw up. Originally he was, probably since his duel with Miko he's just turned into a duel wielding murder machine. He's still dumping skillpoints into god knows what. e: yeah, #262 is where Belkar goes on his solo rampage and it becomes apparent that he can handle himself in combat. e2: oh, high ranks in hide and move silently, that's right. Belkar is a Ranger/Barbarian who's been built like a ninja. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Aug 12, 2012 |
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Aug 12, 2012 00:47
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Remember: Belkar has no ranks in survival, thus wasting his free Track feat. He doesn't know that he can cast spells and was not aware that he could have an animal companion until he picked up Mr. Scruffy, which is a relatively recent development. I also cannot recall any mention of racial enemies, camouflage, or evasion. There is literally no indication that Belkar is a ranger other than dual-wielding - which incidentally is insanely bad on small characters. Keep in mind he still lost to Miko in the end. Miko is a paladin/monk, another laughably bad multiclass.
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Aug 12, 2012 01:15
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inthesto posted:Remember: Belkar has no ranks in survival, thus wasting his free Track feat. He doesn't know that he can cast spells and was not aware that he could have an animal companion until he picked up Mr. Scruffy, which is a relatively recent development. I also cannot recall any mention of racial enemies, camouflage, or evasion. There is literally no indication that Belkar is a ranger other than dual-wielding - which incidentally is insanely bad on small characters. The whole point of that fight was that he was trying to bait Miko into killing him. The point is laboriously made that he's just toying with her and deliberately loses.
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Aug 12, 2012 01:19
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inthesto posted:Remember: Belkar has no ranks in survival, thus wasting his free Track feat. He doesn't know that he can cast spells and was not aware that he could have an animal companion until he picked up Mr. Scruffy, which is a relatively recent development. I also cannot recall any mention of racial enemies, camouflage, or evasion. There is literally no indication that Belkar is a ranger other than dual-wielding - which incidentally is insanely bad on small characters. He's used evasion before, but as I recall he was surprised when he did it.
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Aug 12, 2012 01:26
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inthesto posted:Remember: Belkar has no ranks in survival, thus wasting his free Track feat. He doesn't know that he can cast spells and was not aware that he could have an animal companion until he picked up Mr. Scruffy, which is a relatively recent development. I also cannot recall any mention of racial enemies, camouflage, or evasion. There is literally no indication that Belkar is a ranger other than dual-wielding - which incidentally is insanely bad on small characters. He successfully evades a fireball from the Eye of Fear and Flame clone of Xykon.
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Aug 12, 2012 01:26
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If you want to run with the 'metaphor for actual player' allegory, Belkar does fit the new player archetype exceedingly well. The narrative: He comes to the table, has no idea what he's doing. Aragorn's a ranger, that sounds cool, go with that. 2 swords or a bow? 2 weapons is always better than one, right? He picks Halfling and Chaotic Evil alignment for the 'lulz'. His skills are picked based on what sounds cool - tracking seemed lame, so did an animal companion. Points in profession: Gourmet Chef, again, for the 'lulz'. He throws his stats all in Strength and Dex so he can be a murder happy ninja - he doesn't need mental stats, he's there to kill things. He's not completely dense, so he does listen to the other players to help him out a bit with optimization, and catches on with it, and develops into a reasonable player, but still stubborn in his ways and original choices - that would require admitting he made a mistake, and some people just can't do that. He gets needled into character development, saying he has to stop being a psychopath, but he won't just accept a cheesy redemption, either.
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Aug 12, 2012 01:44
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Alchenar posted:Originally he was, probably since his duel with Miko he's just turned into a duel wielding murder machine. He's still dumping skillpoints into god knows what. Thing is though, Two-Weapon Fighting is really bad on most characters, rangers included. It increases the number of attacks you make, but that doesn't necessarily mean that those extra attacks will do anything more than tickle. Usually, you need some form of a large amount of damage that you can apply to each attack you make in order to justify spending feats and money on a second weapon. Rangers don't really have that (though at least they don't spend feats on it). Belkar's got his weapon damage die (on a small-sized dagger, which is not a high-damage weapon to begin with), his strength bonus (on a race with a strength penalty, and halved for his off-hand attacks), and his weapon enhancement bonus (which he has to buy twice), plus any miscellaneous bonuses to damage he has, such as Favored Enemy (which maybe +2 or +4 if the target is a human, goblinoid, or undead), rage, or spells and bard song. So he's looking at somewhere in the vicinity 1d3+10 for his main-hand, 1d3+5 for his off-hand in usual circumstances, and then increasing them by about five to seven in best circumstances (rage, bard song, favored enemy). Assuming he goes all-out full-attack on an enemy standing there, he might do something like 75 to 100 points of damage in a round in the best circumstances and assuming all attacks hit, otherwise it drops to below 50 points of damage in a round, or below 10 or 20 if he has to move more than 5 feet in a round. Given that the party is somewhere around level 15 (Power Word: Stun is an 8th level spell, Holy Word is a 7th level spell), this is not exactly an inspiring amount of damage to put out. Not coincidentally, most of his biggest solo combat victories (the Hydra, Sexy Shoeless God of War, the Thieves' Guild) have all been against opponents he hilariously out-leveled, who had paltry amounts of hit points and would have only been a meaningful threat to a party ten levels lower. And since he favors a "death by a thousand cuts" approach to damage, anything with a decent source of damage reduction he can't breach (like Xykon, with DR 15/Magic and Bludgeoning) is something he can't do any meaningful damage to. Because it's a story, he looks like an impressive murder machine because a kill is a kill. From a game perspective, he's a poorly-built character who keeps getting into comically softballed fights against laughably weak opponents (and somehow comes out of these one-sided fights with injuries). But it's a story, not a game, so it has different needs. So yeah, attempting to analyze the characters in this comic is not only  as hell, but it takes something out of the tension in the story.As an aside, Two-Weapon Fighting is actually pretty decent on rogues, since if you're flanking, under Improved Invisibility, or your opponent is blinded/stunned/flat-footed (say hello to Glitterdust, Color Spray and Grease, some of the crown princes of lower level spells) you can apply sneak attack to all your attacks that round and actually start eating face assuming you're properly built for it. But going past that into being incredibly highly optimized also sucks something out of the story. "The seas part and the air itself seems to scream in horror as the form of the eldritch aberration rises from the depths of its primordial prison, intent on sacrificing the kingdom to the abominable gods which lie beyond the void. Its many tentacled limbs twist and writhe as it turns its multifaceted eyes-" "I cast Rhino's Charge, activate Divine Might and then charge, using Smite Evil and adding the bonus from Lead the Charge. Does it have more than..."  "...250 hit points?""Well... no."
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Aug 12, 2012 03:01
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inthesto posted:The most optimized character is Durkon, but that's mostly a function of his class being the hardest to screw up.
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Aug 12, 2012 03:25
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CapnAndy posted:Since Elan took Dashing Swordsman he's been the most optimized character. He's running everything he does off of a single sky-high stat. Also, the in-universe... I don't wanna say "discrimination", but jabbing against Sorcerers is interesting, considering that, even played really basic and blast-y, they're still a drat potent class.
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Aug 12, 2012 05:17
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Eh, sort of. His ability to add his charisma bonus to damage allows him to go from minimal damage to moderate damage, but unless his prestige class gives him other abilities, that just means he's breaking even with others. Even with the ability to add his charisma modifier to things like attacks or saves (which we have no indication that he can do), unless he has some method of capitalizing on it such as the ability to spam attacks or critical hits, he's not exactly what I'd call "optimal", merely "functional." It's one of 3e's oddities. Given the way ability scores work, you can use almost any ability for almost any option, but unless you have a impressively high stat or some interesting synergies going on, you're going to be spending an impressive amount of character resources just to break even with the starting capabilities of another character (who can spend those same character resources on actual improvements).
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Aug 12, 2012 05:32
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Well, Elan is immune to damage from broken glass so he can jump through windows in a dramatic fashion. Speaking of poorly optimized characters my first one was an aasimar sorcerer who picked up dragon disciple and when the party was at level 9 he couldn't cast anything higher than level 3 spells. 
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Aug 12, 2012 09:21
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LightWarden posted:"The seas part and the air itself seems to scream in horror as the form of the eldritch aberration rises from the depths of its primordial prison, intent on sacrificing the kingdom to the abominable gods which lie beyond the void. Its many tentacled limbs twist and writhe as it turns its multifaceted eyes-"
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Aug 12, 2012 11:08
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Colon V posted:Also, the in-universe... I don't wanna say "discrimination", but jabbing against Sorcerers is interesting, considering that, even played really basic and blast-y, they're still a drat potent class. What? Xykon is literally one long love letter to the Sorcerer class.
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Aug 12, 2012 11:19
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He said "in-universe".
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Aug 12, 2012 11:48
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NihilCredo posted:He said "in-universe". Yeah, and then he said 'potent class'. Xykon is a testament to that. Wizards especially snub sorcerers because in-universe wise they get their power for nothing. Xykon points out how dumb that is.
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Aug 12, 2012 11:58
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I just assume Belkar is one of those guys who just always rolls well. Every group has one. The one in my college group was named Clayton and was also a tall, handsome and successful composer. gently caress him. Edit: Just checked facebook, he's now gotten pudgy and is working as a dog groomer. I feel better now. Eifert Posting fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Aug 12, 2012 |
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Aug 12, 2012 12:35
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If you want to laugh at a poorly optimized character made by a new player, I'm in a game with a halfling paladin. When confronted with a small dwarf child his first reaction was "I kill her". I don't know what he thought a paladin does.
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Aug 12, 2012 17:18
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Shugojin posted:If you want to laugh at a poorly optimized character made by a new player, I'm in a game with a halfling paladin. When confronted with a small dwarf child his first reaction was "I kill her". Did the little dwarf girl had a beard? If she did not, I understand why he thought she was an aberration.
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Aug 12, 2012 17:32
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Shugojin posted:If you want to laugh at a poorly optimized character made by a new player, I'm in a game with a halfling paladin. When confronted with a small dwarf child his first reaction was "I kill her". I once played with a guy who rolled up a paladin. He killed a caravan driver for charging him a fee to ride along during the trip because the paladin didn't offer his services to help guard it. Paladins, man.
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Aug 12, 2012 17:34
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Shugojin posted:If you want to laugh at a poorly optimized character made by a new player, I'm in a game with a halfling paladin. When confronted with a small dwarf child his first reaction was "I kill her". Mazzy Fenton would be so ashamed. Is there a limit on LizGrimReaper's ability to raise mummies? It looked like he had a small army of them.
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Aug 13, 2012 01:02
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There isn't, but he needs to use his Command Undead ability to command them, and assuming he's in the level 16-24 range he can only give commands to two of them per use.
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Aug 13, 2012 01:19
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NihilCredo posted:There isn't, but he needs to use his Command Undead ability to command them, and assuming he's in the level 16-24 range he can only give commands to two of them per use.
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Aug 13, 2012 04:20
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So... how many strips is it since an OOTS plan went entirely their way? 500? 600? In other news, I just got my Kickstarter shipment in NZ, and it is hilarious reading them in chronological order - Redcloak goes from a properly tragic, almost Shakespearean figure who's sacrificed everything he's ever loved for a goal that might not even exist (in SoD), to a slightly sarcastic middle management goblin in DCC. And yet it kind of works. With goodwill and a little squinting, you can just about read Redcloak as being deliberately dead inside up until he charges into the city about halfway through War and XPs.
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Aug 13, 2012 05:50
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Also, it looks like an age-old not-really-question has been answered. At this rate the next comic is going to let us know what gender V is. Edit: I guess this answers the level question: everyone in the linear guild is on equal footing level-wise with the OotS, with the exception of Tarky. Unless Zz'drti is bllinded. Alliterate Addict fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Aug 14, 2012 |
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Aug 14, 2012 01:33
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Ursine Asylum posted:Oh drat, am I the one that gets to call out an update? Sorry, I already did. Top of page 352.
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Aug 14, 2012 01:48
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Cat Mattress posted:Sorry, I already did. Top of page 352. Whoops. Looks like the Awful app kicked me ahead a page. My bad, disregard my lateness to the party.
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Aug 14, 2012 01:55
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Toussaint Louverture posted:I just assume Belkar is one of those guys who just always rolls well. If this was an actual game of D&D I'd just assume that the DM feels sorry for the new guy with the terribly-built character and keeps giving him encounters with a bunch of underlevelled opponents so he can have fun. 
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Aug 14, 2012 14:36
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Suaimhneas posted:If this was an actual game of D&D I'd just assume that the DM feels sorry for the new guy with the terribly-built character and keeps giving him encounters with a bunch of underlevelled opponents so he can have fun. I always assumed that Belkar was a Ranger that was built like a Fighter. So he may have rather impressive close combat abilities.
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Aug 15, 2012 06:46
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I think he's more of a ranger built like a barbarian. There aren't very many close combat abilities he could have except maybe power attack, leap attack and possible shock trooper (unlikely). But I'm no expert on dnd so I could be missing something.
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Aug 15, 2012 09:32
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Wakka wakka wakka!
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Aug 15, 2012 09:43
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I don't like this new superstition, can we just go back to asking if Rich's insides have turned inside out again?
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Aug 15, 2012 09:54
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Rich just posted a Kickstarter update so he's okay. Also, he's making progress on belkar.pdf, so yay! (Those bonus stories are what I'm looking forward the most out of the whole Kickstarter thing.)
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Aug 15, 2012 11:12
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Seriously. I don't read Goblins on purpose
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Aug 15, 2012 11:15
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Cat Mattress posted:Rich just posted a Kickstarter update so he's okay. Also, he's making progress on belkar.pdf, so yay! (Those bonus stories are what I'm looking forward the most out of the whole Kickstarter thing.) I kind of wish those people chose other, more interesting characters for those short stories  I have faith in Burlew's storytelling, but for now I can't imagine a good story focusing on Belkar.
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Aug 15, 2012 13:17
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Look. Only post Goblins if someone asks about Rich.
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Aug 15, 2012 13:33
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Endless Mike posted:Look. Only post Goblins if someone asks about Rich. How about "never post Goblins."
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Aug 15, 2012 14:07
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Post kobolds.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:10
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greatn posted:Post kobolds.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:18
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Endless Mike posted:Look. Only post Goblins if someone asks about Rich. It's important that the proper rituals be observed, otherwise the summoning will never work.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:19
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Colonial Air Force posted:How about "never post Goblins."
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Aug 15, 2012 14:21
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