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Wanderer posted:Remember, V has a Ring of Wizardry from their initial raid on Xykon's dungeon, so he has more spells on deck than you might think. Likely V's third level spells are doubled, maybe fourth. Though this is the kind of fight where V needs higher level spells capable of shutting down a caster in short order, loads of lower level spells are great if V can fire them off with impunity. Ideally V needs time to seriously boost her saving throws unless V has Mind Blank as someone mentioned, Mind Blank + Quickened Something Or Other.. Edit: Gentlemen, Power Word Stun At a minimum unless Laurin has spell resistance somehow we're looking at 1d4 rounds being out of action (if V has it). Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Dec 9, 2013 |
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Dec 9, 2013 19:47
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Raenir Salazar posted:Edit: Gentlemen, Power Word Stun At a minimum unless Laurin has spell resistance somehow we're looking at 1d4 rounds being out of action (if V has it). Oddly enough, V DOES have this spell.
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Dec 9, 2013 20:03
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Glory of Arioch posted:Oddly enough, V DOES have this spell. I meant to mean if V has it memorized, as V is not a Sorcerer. 
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Dec 9, 2013 22:03
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I didn't donate to the kickstarter, but are the PDF comics and whatnot available elsewhere?
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Dec 10, 2013 00:59
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Anatharon posted:I didn't donate to the kickstarter, but are the PDF comics and whatnot available elsewhere? Nope, they're exclusive to the backers. Your best chance to get them is to hope that once they're all done, they'll get collected into a print book (like SS&DT).
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Dec 10, 2013 01:02
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Apparently he won't be planning on doing a collection so I guess it'll be his loss.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:12
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Anatharon posted:Apparently he won't be planning on doing a collection so I guess it'll be his loss. Kickstarter FAQ posted:Can I get a print copy of "How the Paladin Got His Scar"? So, no plans, but he hasn't ruled out the possibility, as far as I know.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:16
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Burlew constantly pissing money away by refusing to go digital in the year of our Lord two thousand and thir-loving-teen is a constant refrain, sadly.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:34
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CapnAndy posted:Burlew constantly pissing money away by refusing to go digital in the year of our Lord two thousand and thir-loving-teen is a constant refrain, sadly.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:36
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The Leper Colon V posted:S'not like it really stops the pirates, anyways. Not since the invention of a machine called a goddamn scanner. I'm surprised he's never done a test of a pdf release of (say) OtOoPCs to see how it impacts his book sales; but he's adamant about how he wants to run his business. Reminds me of David Dunham and King of Dragon Pass, he was selling his (totally brilliant) 1999 game by hand-burning off CDRoms and mailing them to people, convinced that it could never be put online, even as a google for 'KoDP torrent' got like 400,000 hits. Oh, and: Hm.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:00
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sebmojo posted:Reminds me of David Dunham and King of Dragon Pass, he was selling his (totally brilliant) 1999 game by hand-burning off CDRoms and mailing them to people, convinced that it could never be put online, even as a google for 'KoDP torrent' got like 400,000 hits. Oh, and: Hm.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:09
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The Leper Colon V posted:To be fair, 200MB was a lot in 1999. It was more that they couldn't ... decompile it? Or something? Because the company that made the software they'd made it with had gone out of business. It all worked out well in the end, the ipad version is completely brilliant and it's on GOG too - apparently he's made a quarter million pounds out of the re-release, which is very well deserved.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:18
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CapnAndy posted:I love that, on a meta level, Tarquin's been offered chance after chance after chance to just pack it up, call it a day, and come back for a final battle in the next book. He's such a meta character, it's fitting that there's a whole level of "dude, look at all the exit points you could have taken, but noooo, you had to keep on pressing the issue until there was no way the story would work without you dying here and now". Yeah, I like this way of looking at it. The only meta way Tarquin could live after this is if Order of the Stick was run by executive mandate, like a TV Show, because story wise he's forced himself completely into a corner. He wants to be the biggest threat ever…and by making himself a threat that cannot be ignored he's gonna be dealt with decisively, just like how Nale wanted to put on the big boy pants and got himself shanked moments later.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:30
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Further to discussions about pdfs:quote:Suffice to say, digital pdf downloads are not in the works at this time. My concerns are not piracy; the majority of people who are not willing to pay for content simply don't read the stuff that doesn't get posted here, and the rest, I can't stop. No, my concern is that printing is a very difficult business with very, VERY thin margins of profit compared to the amount of money invested. And those margins are mostly dictated by the economy of scale: printing 5000 copies of a book may only cost 30% less than printing 10,000, and printing 20,000 may only cost 60% more. But they all sell for the same price. So, my printing business only functions if I can sell ALL of the copies that I print, and I estimate the print run as exactly as possible.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:44
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Oh, right. His logic of "most of my comic fans are online, therefore no one wants an online version of my other comics  "MikeJF posted:No, his logic is 'I want to print books because I like them, so I'm gonna force you to buy books so printing them will be economical'. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 02:46
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No, his logic is 'I want to print books because I like them, so I'm gonna force you to buy books so printing them will be economical'. It still doesn't make sense at all because even if he was selling few enough books that it wasn't economical and was just a vanity thing, the near 100% profit margin on the digital converts would more than compensate and I don't think there's any scenario where he wouldn't ultimately be making more money. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 02:54
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MikeJF posted:No, his logic is 'I want to print books because I like them, so I'm gonna force you to buy books so printing them will be economical'. Well this isn't entirely fair, his perspective is a little backwards but I've read it as "Most people want to hold an actual book in their hands, I can't do this unless I sell close to 100% of the print run. Digital sales may make it so that even 50% won't sell, so I can't do digital sales." The rest is just window dressing but he's prioritizing the customers who want books over those who want convenience. It annoys me slightly too, as when I ordered Start of Darkness and OOTPC's it took two bloody goddamn months for it to ship/reach me and I live in Canada.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:18
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The Leper Colon V posted:S'not like it really stops the pirates, anyways. Not since the invention of a machine called a goddamn scanner. But I am seriously not paying loving 30 bucks for a physical book, ever again. sebmojo posted:Further to discussions about pdfs: "Look, the profit margins on print runs are very, very slim, and a shift of a thousand here or there is literally the difference between making any money or losing it. In the mean time, the margins on digital are much, much better and run on a literally infinite scope where it doesn't matter if I sell one copy or one trillion. However, for some reason, that second sentence never seems to occur to me. Oh well back to somehow mentally reconciling 'digital copies will sell' with 'digital copies will not make me any money', bye now!"
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Dec 10, 2013 03:30
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He knows digital copies will make him money. He would rather sell the physical books.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:33
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Raenir Salazar posted:Well this isn't entirely fair, his perspective is a little backwards but I've read it as "Most people want to hold an actual book in their hands, I can't do this unless I sell close to 100% of the print run. Digital sales may make it so that even 50% won't sell, so I can't do digital sales." The rest is just window dressing but he's prioritizing the customers who want books over those who want convenience. The thing is, if he made a loss on printing because of the fewer print sales and sold all the others as digital, he'd still make more money than the current model! 
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Dec 10, 2013 03:34
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Also peculiar how he believes that a reader will only want one or the other. Personally, I wouldn't buy both, but I feel like there's plenty of evidence to the contrary that there are plenty of people who would buy both, especially if bundled.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:37
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ImpAtom posted:He knows digital copies will make him money. He would rather sell the physical books. MikeJF posted:The thing is, if he made a loss on printing because of the fewer print sales and sold all the others as digital, he'd still make more money than the current model! Noah posted:Also peculiar how he believes that a reader will only want one or the other. Personally, I wouldn't buy both, but I feel like there's plenty of evidence to the contrary that there are plenty of people who would buy both, especially if bundled. CapnAndy fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 03:38
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I don't own any of the books. I'd buy them online.
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Dec 10, 2013 04:06
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Noah posted:Also peculiar how he believes that a reader will only want one or the other. Personally, I wouldn't buy both, but I feel like there's plenty of evidence to the contrary that there are plenty of people who would buy both, especially if bundled. You'd think that people paying 1.2 million dollars to Kickstarter would have tipped him off about the likely demand, but eh. Rich is a very particular individual. It seems self defeating to not at least experiment with digital sales (say, on his least popular book) but I'm sure he's worked it out to his own satisfaction.
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Dec 10, 2013 04:07
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sebmojo posted:You'd think that people paying 1.2 million dollars to Kickstarter would have tipped him off about the likely demand, but eh. Rich is a very particular individual. It seems self defeating to not at least experiment with digital sales (say, on his least popular book) but I'm sure he's worked it out to his own satisfaction. The whole point to the Kickstarter was that it was a reprint drive - it was about funding the printed books first and foremost. Using that dollar amount to suggest ebooks would have a lot of demand is missing the point of the whole thing. I think ebooks would be awesome just to make the print-only stuff more accessible, but I have to respect his dedication to getting physical books out there - it's a dying medium that doesn't deserve to die. Call me a hopeless romantic like Rich, but you just can't replicate the feeling of reading a book on a computer or kindle, and I'm glad someone out there feels the same way.
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Dec 10, 2013 04:24
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CapnAndy posted:Then he should just say that instead of trying to dress it up as "this is what I have to do to stay afloat, because: He does. It is what he needs to do to stay afloat if he wants to sell books. As he says, he knows how many he can print and sell. Even if digital sales don't cannibalize his actual profits they can make it untenable to print books because bulk book printing can often be far cheaper. It's obviously important to him to print physical books so that's unlikely to change. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 04:31
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Zonekeeper posted:The whole point to the Kickstarter was that it was a reprint drive - it was about funding the printed books first and foremost. Using that dollar amount to suggest ebooks would have a lot of demand is missing the point of the whole thing. The Kickstarter was intended by Rich to fund the reprint, but it turned into a YAY OOTS lovefest, was what I was meaning. He ended up scuppering himself by overpromising unfortunately, but he got the books reprinted which was as you say his original idea. And we got loads more strips, so it worked out well for us too 
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Dec 10, 2013 04:31
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Raenir Salazar posted:It annoys me slightly too, as when I ordered Start of Darkness and OOTPC's it took two bloody goddamn months for it to ship/reach me and I live in Canada.
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Dec 10, 2013 04:58
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Check out some of the business threads over at tradgames and you'll find that Rich's sort of business logic is depressingly common in the hobby. 
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Dec 10, 2013 06:04
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Zonekeeper posted:Call me a hopeless romantic like Rich, but you just can't replicate the feeling of reading a book on a computer or kindle, and I'm glad someone out there feels the same way. Also I would argue a book is exactly the same on a proper sized kindle outside of nostalgia, but I've yet to see anything that replaces reading a graphic novel on proper paper at a feasible price.
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Dec 10, 2013 06:28
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Spiderdrake posted:It's not romantic, it's nostalgic, with all the meaning that entails. Rich grew up reading books so he wants his work to be in print, and isn't willing to risk that feeling. I can totally get that, because it's a personal connection. There is also a certain amount of prestige in being a Published Author that just isn't there for online publishing. Any idiot can digitize their horrible stories and sell them on Amazon. Exhibit A: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3400124&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 
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Dec 10, 2013 08:47
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See also: why the strips are .gif instead of .png (Rich is a total Luddite and it's infuriating) Did anyone ever hear how much money Rich ended up making on the kickstarter after costs? Some of his comments on the Christmas OOTS sale suggest he's not really much better off than before. I mean most small businessmen would have managed to get financially secure after shipping over a million dollars worth of merchandise, but this is Rich we're talking about, so...
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Dec 10, 2013 10:49
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Any time I spend bitching about how Rich doesn't sell .pdfs is wasting valuable time that could be spent bitching about Rich's update frequency.
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Dec 10, 2013 10:50
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DoctorTristan posted:See also: why the strips are .gif instead of .png (Rich is a total Luddite and it's infuriating) He reprinted everything but made basically zero extra money after (higher than expected) expenses.
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Dec 10, 2013 11:02
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I imagine if he really, really needed the money he'd start selling pdfs.
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Dec 10, 2013 11:47
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sebmojo posted:He reprinted everything but made basically zero extra money after (higher than expected) expenses. Dude wanted glossy, high quality printing on thick paper that was 100% recycled at a cost competitive with most graphic novel trade paperbacks. He cut corners nowhere except the price. You do the math.
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Dec 10, 2013 12:10
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He could have done a lot better if he'd gone less crazy with his additional rewards. I mean I pledged for a set of books and ended up with two colouring books, two sets of sticky notes and two sets of stickers thrown in at no extra cost to me. It's as if he saw his marginal costs dropping as the print runs grew larger and was determined not to make any money off that.
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Dec 10, 2013 12:56
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DoctorTristan posted:Did anyone ever hear how much money Rich ended up making on the kickstarter after costs? Some of his comments on the Christmas OOTS sale suggest he's not really much better off than before. I'm not sure, but probably not THAT much, he can't afford to print Book 5 at the moment, which is why he's offering a bunch of holiday merchandise.
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Dec 10, 2013 14:26
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I hope Rich's business model is okay.
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Dec 10, 2013 14:51
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Jimbone Tallshanks posted:I hope Rich's business model is okay. I think its health is roughly comparable to that of Rich himself.
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Dec 10, 2013 14:57
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