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This is the thread for discussion of The Order of the Stick plot, characters, etc. We have a separate thread for discussing game rules and mechanics. Excessive rules discussions here may be thumped as off-topic.

OP edited to make this header - Fighteer

edited 18th Sep '17 1:08:08 PM by Fighteer

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#24651: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:16:05 PM

Belkar will no linger exist in the world of the living, in any form.
This may be getting into rules discussions, but are there reasonable ways this could happen relatively soon?

Like, is there anything in the current battle that could kill him permanently?

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#24652: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:16:48 PM

Of course, that raises the question of whether Rich is the type of author to follow the letter or the spirit of the prophecy, and I seem to recall him expressing disdain for writers who pull those kind of "by the letter" fast balls as lazy.

^ Yeah, just about anything. That's why Roy has him making dust clouds behind cover instead of fighting. It's not that there needs to be some special way of preventing him from ever being rezed, something just needs to actually put him down, because the Order has no intention of rezing him after his death even if they had the resources, which they presently don't.

edited 16th Sep '13 2:19:17 PM by Wryte

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#24653: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:17:26 PM

[up][up]Almost anything could kill him; his Con score is low enough that he's got crap all for hit points and would fail almost any level-appropriate Fortitude save. Given the minimum 5 percent chance of any attack hitting (without cover/concealment), enough rounds of combat against Tarquin's army and the Scratch Damage alone will take him down.

The question is, having been killed, would he stay dead?

edited 16th Sep '13 2:18:17 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#24654: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:17:33 PM

The psion or maybe Miron (depending on what he is and what spells, if any, he has) are the only ones with that capability.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#24655: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:17:57 PM

Regular arrows can kill him permanently, since nobody's likely to want to bring him back.

edited 16th Sep '13 2:18:39 PM by Gilphon

Hodor Cleric of Banjo from Westeros Since: Dec, 1969
Cleric of Banjo
#24656: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:23:50 PM

I could be wrong here, but I don't think that when the time comes, Burlew will have the other members of the Order deliberately not raising Belkar/reacting to his death with indifference.

Besides making them seem extremely unsympathetic to the audience, I feel anything shown in the "happy ending illusion" is likely not to happen, at least in that exact way (as a comparison, note how in the illusion, Tarquin gets Elan and Nale to reconcile).

So, I predict/hope that when Belkar does die, Roy will be very shaken up about it.

edited 16th Sep '13 2:25:11 PM by Hodor

Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#24657: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:30:26 PM

That's not really an accurate comparison, though. The Tarquin thing in the fantasy is a direct result of Elan wanting his father to essentially be someone else. The party's reactions of Belkar's death and funeral in the fantasy world are wholly their own, save for V, so there's no reason to think it's not a reasonably accurate representation of how they would react if Belkar dropped dead right now.

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#24658: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:32:44 PM

Actually, I expect everyone else (except maybe the new, vampired Durkon) to be more upset than Roy, because none of them know the full details of the prophecy about Belkar's death. Roy has basically marked Belkar off as dead, and we know how he is about categorizing things.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#24659: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:35:16 PM

Haley does, at the least. At the end of the last book when she asked Roy what they were going to do about Belkar after his killed the Oracle, he said they were going to run out the clock on his prophecy.

Hodor Cleric of Banjo from Westeros Since: Dec, 1969
Cleric of Banjo
#24660: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:35:24 PM

[up][up][up] Well, I think that in general I wouldn't expect anything from the illusion to play out the same way as reality. Like for instance, even though from the illusion we now know how Roy would go about fighting Xykon, it will play out at least somewhat differently in reality.

In that specific case, part of it was that everyone in the party wanted to believe that Durkon was alive (especially Roy), and to justify that, the illusion had Belkar as a despicable liar (especially in the Roy-centric part of it).

edited 16th Sep '13 2:35:34 PM by Hodor

Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#24661: Sep 16th 2013 at 2:37:21 PM

I sort of expect Roy to get an alignment hit from his cavalier attitude toward Belkar's demise, especially given the irony that Belkar really has been moving - slowly - along the path of starting to care about other people.

I say irony here because of the line of the diva about putting it down as an attempt to reform an evildoer. Associating with the good guys is paying off for Belkar and Roy (and the others) are too prejudiced against him to appreciate it.

edited 16th Sep '13 2:40:16 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#24662: Sep 16th 2013 at 3:30:48 PM

I'm honestly expecting something to happen to Belkar's soul - eaten by the Snarl maybe? - to justify why he doesn't get raised. If he dies before the mission's complete, then leaving him dead actually deprives them of a valuable party member; Roy would be shooting himself in the foot to leave Belkar dead out of spite.

Belkar dying during the climax might be different, but I kind of find it hard to believe that Elan and Haley, at least, wouldn't want to recruit Belkar for their shiny new questline of dealing with Tarquin and the Western Continent. Haley, of all people, should respect how valuable a fighter Belkar is, given that the only reason she's alive today is because Belkar slaughtered half the Thieves' Guild.

Belkar is a valuable resource, and I have trouble believing that the entire team would just go, "Meh, leave him where he lies," when Belkar dies.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#24663: Sep 16th 2013 at 3:33:33 PM

To be fair, Belkar's development toward not-as-Evil has been largely indistinguishable from his previous normal behavior if you're not privy to his personal thoughts and moments, with the exception that he's also been less stupid in the same time frame.

^ It's less out of spite, and more out of the fact that he's a godawful person whose few redeeming qualities are enough to justify associating with him for the greater good, but not bringing him back from the dead.

edited 16th Sep '13 3:35:59 PM by Wryte

ApplelightLimited Ahoy hoy! from In the skies above. Since: Oct, 2011
Ahoy hoy!
#24664: Sep 16th 2013 at 4:50:36 PM

What's the dwarfs name again?

Im starting to think he's my favorite.

My fanfic outline. RIP Posey
Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#24665: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:01:14 PM

[up]Durkon Thundershield? Interesting choice, considering he hasn't had much character development ever. Well, until very recently, I guess. Up to then, he's was pretty much "a dwarf".

ApplelightLimited Ahoy hoy! from In the skies above. Since: Oct, 2011
Ahoy hoy!
#24666: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:05:05 PM

It's his attitude and outlook on life that does it I think. It might be because I played dwarfs in fantasy though.

My fanfic outline. RIP Posey
Joesolo Indiana Solo Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Indiana Solo
#24667: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:08:25 PM

[up] ditto, minus playing dwarves.

I'm baaaaaaack
ApplelightLimited Ahoy hoy! from In the skies above. Since: Oct, 2011
Ahoy hoy!
#24668: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:10:36 PM

He strikes me as both the most emotionally mature one in the group and probably the nicest too.

Still can't quite wrap my head around the concept of a dwarf casting magic though...

My fanfic outline. RIP Posey
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#24669: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:15:58 PM

I've got a ''WorldOfWarcraft'' alt who'd have some choice words for you on that subject. :P

ApplelightLimited Ahoy hoy! from In the skies above. Since: Oct, 2011
Ahoy hoy!
#24670: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:17:52 PM

Next you'll be telling me they have Cavalry!

What a world. tongue

edited 16th Sep '13 5:18:36 PM by ApplelightLimited

My fanfic outline. RIP Posey
Clarste One Winged Egret Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
One Winged Egret
#24671: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:18:00 PM

Clerics don't use magic. Sort of. It's not arcane magic, anyway. They specifically get a penalty to only arcane magic. Divine magic is fine, and dwarf clerics are a time honored tradition somewhere.

WarriorEowyn from Victoria Since: Oct, 2010
#24672: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:34:55 PM

Regarding previous discussion of Belkar:

He hasn't been making a concerted effort to be good. Since Durkon's death he's been making a concerted effort to be useful (i.e.: contributing to the success and survival of the party, himself included), which is certainly an improvement over much of his previous behaviour being actively detrimental to the party's goals, but is closer to "finally meeting a minimum acceptable standard" than "praiseworthy". And he's only been behaving in that way for a couple hours, not for a significant amount of time.

Prior to that, Belkar's actions in the 'fifth book' were:

- Being deeply useless - despite supposedly attempting helpfulness - for finding things in Sandsedge

- Being friends with a slaver and being entirely willing to let him enslave innocent people; then killing that friend and desecrating his corpse when the friend threatened Belkar's pet cat; and then utterly failing to comprehend the moral difference between "saving people from slavers" and "wanton murder", and failing to comprehend the idea of a freely given gift; and gloating that his "reform" con is succeeding.

- Stealing more bread than he could even eat from other prisoners, for his own amusement, and attacking weaker prisoners, also for his own amusement.

- Getting Roy stuck in a gladiatorial combat with Thog that could have killed Roy, again for his own entertainment and contrary to Roy's express orders.

- Helping free two bounty hunters because their predicament reminded him of his cat

- Healing his cat.

The last two are, at least, neither evil nor counterproductive, but on the whole it doesn't look anything like a sustained pattern of either moral reformation or contribution to the team. He's only become consistently useful since Durkon's death, and we've seen no indication of him being anything but Evil in his behaviour to people who aren't part of the Order, not has he demonstrated anything resembling remorse for being a psychotic mass-murderer for his entire previous adult life.

In contrast, V has done ONE very terrible thing and demonstrated extreme remorse for it. I think different attitudes from the rest of the party toward the two of them are warranted.

Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#24673: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:44:20 PM

^^^ Sure do. They ride giant rams. But before we veer any further off topic, PM me if you want to any more in depth on Warcraft dwarf culture. :P

^ That about sums it up.

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#24674: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:44:37 PM

[up][up] A couple of hours? Really?

I mean, I know Webcomic Time is a thing, but OOTS doesn't have it that bad. Belkar's been trying to "be useful" for several weeks now. tongue note 

edited 16th Sep '13 5:50:38 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
ApplelightLimited Ahoy hoy! from In the skies above. Since: Oct, 2011
Ahoy hoy!
#24675: Sep 16th 2013 at 5:45:22 PM

Wha...whu...I've only ever thought of donkeys to mules for them. tongue

My fanfic outline. RIP Posey

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