The Order of the Stick: Rules Discussion

Oh yeah, nice catch. Maybe she should have taken the sonic damage bow instead...

I'm not sure I would call it the climactic moment in itself, but I do think it might be more significant than the elemental. After all, it was sent there on a mission from Hel.

Naaaah, not Evil enough to replace the Belkster.

Now, if they stay at range, this fight will probably go a lot worse for them, I would think. The Order's damage at range comes from spells (which are not very effective against the death-worm), Haley's bow and possibly Durkon's Hammer of Thunderbolts (Roy can throw his sword, but that generally only works once a round). If the worm Summons Undead in the first round (they take up to 10 rounds to arrive), the dread wraiths will be hard to deal with for the Order if the worm then continues blasting them with Unholy Blight (possibly causing saving throw penalties as well) and Hold Monster or Mass Hold Monster. We know the Order's Will saving throws as a whole are not the highest from watching them get dominated by vampires, so they are likely to be weak against Hold Monster. Against a paralyzed opponent without a high Fortitude save, even two dread wraiths (who can fly) are pretty much instadeath, as they drain quite a lot of Constitution per touch.

Durkon, Roy and Vaarsuvius are most likely to be proof against such tactics, as Durkon has good saves on Fortitude and Will, Vaarsuvius might be able to avoid getting paralyzed and help deal with the potential wraiths and Roy has been shown to have respectable Will saves as well. However, as long as the vampires are still around, they'll be exposed to those ranged attacks as well (including from Gontor, the 13+th level cleric). So unless they can get access to sunlight fast, ranged combat looks like a losing prospect, to me at least.

Regarding the swallow attack thing: seems like it would be a fair balance to give people swallowed after someone had already cut themselves out a slightly reduced escape DC to get out through the existing wound. Remove this for regenerating creatures.

What are the standard rules if more than one person is swallowed at once? Do they still need to make separate escape rolls even if one of them manages to cut the stomach open?

Yep, the "muscular action" closes the hole too quickly for anyone else to use it.

So, I know the joke about Nale's classes is that he took a more convoluted approach to being a Bard like Elan but how does that work out?

You asking how that works, or how badly he screwed himself over?

Erm, the former for how that joke works (How do Nale's classes correspond to a Bard) but the latter also sounds interesting.

Edited by fredhot16 on Jun 2nd 2020 at 4:08:09 AM

A bard is a weak spontaneous-type spellcaster with some sneaking skills and combat abilities on the side, in addition to a few unique musical abilities. Nale is a multiclass sorcerer (spontaneous-type spellcaster), rogue (sneaking), and fighter (combat). This leaves him being basically a bard but more complicated. There are a couple key differences, though: Bards can't be Lawful (Nale is Lawful Evil), bards get some healing spells that sorcerers don't, and rogues get sneak attack while bards don't.

As to how he screwed himself over, well, every level he gains, he has to pick one of his three classes to put it in. He’s only 1/3 as good a sorcerer as a single-classed sorcerer of his level would be, and likewise for the other classes, but he still has to fight level-appropriate encounters. This is the trap of multiclassing, and it’s rare for more than two classes to be worthwhile (as I understand it; I haven’t actually played much D&D).

Bards are also not as good at any one thing as the dedicated classes are, but that’s the point; they’re the “jack of all trades” class. Their skills synergize better.

And there's the old mantra of MAD, which Nale has trapped himself with a bad case of. In order for his build to work, he needs good Strength and good Dexterity and good Charisma. Whereas a Bard can get by with just good Charisma. Especially a Bard like Elan, who Prestige Class'd his way into being to use Charisma on his melee attacks.

Also: mutliclassing comes with XP penalties, so Nale is gaining levels slower than a single-classed character. Or, he would be if he wasn't a personal nemesis and therefore gaining levels at exactly the same rate as Elan. Hmm. I would if that's why he was so committed to the Evil Opposites theme.

Edited by Gilphon on Jun 2nd 2020 at 1:17:38 PM

Stupid D&D question: Would there be any point in someone who wanted to be a wizard putting their first level into some combat class and then all their subsequent levels into wizard? Just so that had some minimal self-defense ability even in cases of anti-magic fields or running out of spells? Or would that be a really stupid thing to do?

Just asking because V’s utter helplessness in the absence of magic has been an issue before.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 5th 2020 at 5:06:10 AM

Would there be any point? Yes. It's generally thought of as a really bad build choice to make, though, because there's very little that you can get from multi-classing that's worth slowing your spellcasting progression by one level.

And it seems fairly unlikely that V has the stats to get much value out of level in, say, Fighter. Certainly they couldn't get enough value to turn the tables on any creatures powerful enough to use anti-magic field or exhaust their spell slots.

Edited by Gilphon on Jun 5th 2020 at 6:40:27 AM

The reverse is more likely to be useful — a mostly-physical character taking a single spellcasting level.

I think 4e gave the Warlock a 1st-level spell that scaled with character level, which made that a popular choice for this tactic.

Thank you!

Time for a bit of geekery about the latest strip. Spoilers ahead; I'll folderize the details.

Can the spell be disrupted? Redcloak's concentration, I mean?

Yes, with an attack of opportunity. However, Durkon did not attempt to use one, because he was too far away, caught flat-footed, or did not have a melee weapon equipped. Now that the spell has already been cast, there's nothing to be done.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 3rd 2020 at 1:22:08 PM

Just curious if he can still try if he survives the first round.

Implosion can't target the same person twice in the same cast.

Yes, the spell requires concentration to target additional creatures after the first, but "[y]ou can target a particular creature only once with each casting of the spell." [1]

If Durkon succeeds at his Fortitude save, he can not be targeted a second time regardless of whether the caster keeps their concentration.

What are we basing Durkon's level on? Just because he's already been raised twice recently and lost two levels out of it.

And if Redcloak tries to cast it a second time? If he had another Implosion ready?

If he's at least level 18, he could cast a second implosion, but at some point, you have to consider that level 9 spells are a cleric's most powerful spells and using two level 9 spells on the same adventurer is probably something of a waste, especially since he's probably meant to use them in the dungeon explorations.

I was going to say that Redcloak is probably still level 17, since the last time we saw Implosion he specifically said it was a new spell level, but he has been spending most of his time since then dungeon crawling against monsters strong enough to give Xykon XP, so nevermind.

Technically at 17, he can still cast it twice since implosion is his domain spell, so he could prepare it as both domain and non-domain spell.