Order of the StickFollow

SpoilerHey. His cross class knowledge (architecture and engineering) skill sure helped him defeat Thog. One of the running gags of the strip is that none of the characters are optimized for their class. Oh, why are we using spoiler tags again?

Geez. Another new comic

I'm predicting that Roy and Durkon will wear each other out, with Roy gaining the upper hand, then Durkon will harm himself back to full health (harm?), with a "Hahah. I'm a cleric. Moron!". Then things will look bad. And then (and I can't believe I'm saying this), Belkar will show back up and save the day. He's one of the bodyguards too, so he can attack Durkon. Which should tip the scales. Maybe.

Or something completely different will happen.

I'm holding out for Belkar bouncing off an airship balloon to safety and then jumps through a glass / stained glass window. That satisfies both the need for drama and comedy.

I thought that at first, but if you look at the panel again you'll notice that the temple has a windy path leading down below it, with it perched on top of the mountain. In the next comic, you can see them descending the ladder towards a windy path that appears to lead *up* from the spot they went down to (see portion of path to the left and behind Roy's head). And in the next comic, you can see that they are running to the temple entrance from said path. So, as loath as I am to admit that Lolgaxe may be right, he... um... may be right. Based on the apparent steepness of the last part of the ascent, the airship could be well below the level of the window that Belkar fell through, and still be a rope ladders length above wherever it was they dropped them off at initially.

It would make much more logical sense for V to be watching and just feather fall Belkar, grab him with a grippy hand spell or something, and plunk him back into the fight (after talking to Belkar and assessing the situation, of course). But the whole bouncing off the balloon bit would be more dramatic and fits into the whole bit about the Mechane always arriving "just in the nick of time". If it was Elan falling, there'd be no question as to which would happen. With Belkar? Not sure that's quite his style. Getting unceremoniously dumped into the fray by the scruff of his neck might actually be more appropriate.


Agree on the dying bit, maybe. Too easy though, especially with the presence of so many high level clerics to easily resurrect him. Also, they're presumably already going to use that bit on Durkon to get him back for the final gate section of the book (emphasis on presumably, but he's running out of room in the story for more plot twists on the whole Darkon thing, and frankly the only way to resolve this bit is for Darkon to die. Well, almost the only way). Having two characters die to be resurrected in the same time and place just seems like overuse of a plot device. I'm thinking Belkar's death with be more dramatic, and represent a completion of his whole "I'm pretending to be a good party member just to thrown them off, but for some reason it's actually making me into a good party member" bit (which has been hinted at a couple times). Maybe that happens now, but I suspect it'll occur at some point during the fight at the last gate.

Yeah, but how well would it work during the Kobayashi Maru?

They're really ratcheting that drama up, aren't they? That's really the only reason I believe it'll end in something goofy.

Apparently new-fangled energy drain doesn't work like in the olden days and doesn't remove a feat unless 24 hours go by without Restoring it and you blow a Fortitude roll. I only know this because I asked elsewhere, wondering the same thing.

If you're a spellcaster and hit with an energy drain, you lose the spell in your top slot but you don't actually lose the slot or ability to cast spells of that level. If you just got a new spell level but had two slots (say, via a Ring of Wizardy) and were hit with an energy drain, you'd lose one of the spells but still be able to cast the other.

Annoying and disadvantageous but not nearly as bad as the old school "Welp, look like you just lost 3,000 xp"

Also, Durkon gains 5hp for each level he takes from Roy (two per successful hit).

And... Another new comic up. Hah. Guess Durkon shouldn't have had that second snack.

And the Harm spell's tendency to be overpowered rears it's ugly head.

New strip is up. Plot, plot, plot...

SpoilerNot sure if this was addressed in the main comic but in The Origin of the PCs, it's explained that the high priest of Thor received a prophesy that Durkon would bring "Death and Destruction" to the dwarf lands. Their plan to avoid this was to effectively exile Durkon to the human lands on a supposed indefinite mission to learn about them knowing that Durkon's honor would prevent him from returning unbidden. Of course, prophesies being what they are I guess that only set it all in motion and they would have been better off keeping Durkon under house arrest and feeding him through a slot. They've changed high priests since then though so it's possible that Durkon will never know why he was thrown out.

Anyway, even "Darkest Moment Durkon" doesn't seem the type to destroy the world out of a moment of pique.

"You are who you are on your very worst day." I like that.