Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes

At last. Someone finally explores the Fridge Logic of dungeons that keep resetting themselves. And Dies-Like-A-Fox is so cute here.

Fox is level 6. Level 6. The main cast has finally worked their way up to 3 (and could stand against the entire elite guard at levels 2 and 3), and she's already six. Wow. She probably kicks all kinds of ass.

Not the entire guard. The barracks fight was just against their trainees. The guard as a whole would have simply slaughtered the GAP were it not for the Deus ex Machina effect of the Shield of Wonder and Thaco sowing confusion by releasing the prisoners.

Level 6 is a big deal, though, when compared to 2-3 and especially the one hit die monsters that goblins normally are. Fox is hampered by the lack of any meaningful gear, though she still has the hit points and BAB that come with a higher level.

Besides, in a way having no magical equipment is liberating: All you have to do in a dungeon crawl is get further than the first party or individual to not make it through and you automatically go up in strength. If she cared to, she could become appropriately armed before she left this room.

Well, sure, they can probably scavenge a bunch of useful gear here, and I'm certain that Fox, at least, will be Genre Savvy enough to do this.

Though she also just yelled at everyone for examining the salvagable equipment, so she may be intentionally forgoing it.

Okay, the end of Tempts Fate 9 is hilarious. Considering that the whole thing is a parody of Bad Writing, it's thematically appropriate for the supremely powerful dragon to be sucked into a Plot Hole. And yes, it's a good thing he didn't kill Will Wheaton.

"Hey neat, it's Michael Bay." Hehe.

What's Troy a reference to?

Heh, I noticed this before but forgot to mention it: apparently the dragon has Captain America's shield. Random Shout-Out?

Back to the main story, Dellyn Goblinslayer doesn't look too happy. I have a feeling that Minmax and Forgath might get more of a reception than they're really expecting.

http://goblins.keenspot.com/d/20100302.html

Minmax, you have entirely redeemed yourself to me. I don't know if "redeem" is the right word, because I never liked you. Okay. You have moved from the "ass who takes up precious panels" to "a man I begrudgingly respect and now care about." I never thought you could pull it off. Well Done, Minmax, well done. For me, this is your crowning moment of awesome. Way to find a moral line you won't cross and do something stupid about it. "If you can't do something smart, do something right." Sorry, if I am incoherent a bit. I am almost spinning with glee. Poor kin is my favourite character in the series. It broke my heart when she got captured again, and I have been hoping, just hoping, that Forgath would do something to help her, once he had the leash. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect this. Yay!

Minmax was always just a little too stupid and a lot too self-centered to realize anything he was doing was wrong. He was doing bad stuff, but he was as far away as you could get from self-identifying as anything except good. Of course when he runs into someone who's truly a bastard and doesn't hide it from himself or others, he'd fight the guy.

If anything, that scene was way too unsubtle for my tastes, but I'll forgive it on account of both of them being drunk.

Goblinslayer should win if they really do go one-on-one, but Forgath's probably going to help and, more importantly, Forgath's almost certainly gonna drop the leash. On purpose or accident is up for grabs. I doubt anyone's gonna join on GS's side after his recent debacle and with Kin running loose.

Yeah, certainly not a subtle bit of dialogue, but it was a great scene for Minmax and after learning explicitly what GS does with Kin, it was good to see him get his.

I wonder if Forgath, Minmax and Kin will escape Brassmoon, (or even try to, as Minmax may get carried away with going after Goblinslayer and Forgath might go to help him) although I don't think they will get off that easily.

Two possible thoughts for the future: 1) I wonder if Minmax will be thrown in prison, and we will see the preview that Thunt gave us with Forgath coming to visit Minmax' cell.

2) I wonder if Forgath and Minmax will have their sympathies swung back to the goblins by seeing exactly how goblins and other "monsters" are being treated by the locals. We know Forgath has to die at the hands of Kore at some point, so it may well be that he will once again become more sympathetic to the GAP, and an excellent way to do that will be seeing just how the "good" guys are treating the "monsters".

I'm wondering if they might somehow wind up having a nonviolent discussion about the goblins with a freed Kin. After being run out of town, of course.

Seems pretty unlikely, honestly.

Ah, yes, I'd almost forgotten about the Minmax in jail scene — this would seem to be the obvious lead-in to that. And while Minmax is still blindingly stupid, it's refreshing to know that there is a line he won't cross.

It was a terribly unsubtle scene. The way GS talked was painful. But ultimately I think the explicit statement by GS was good storytelling (and I am all about good storytelling). I need sleep, so I won't go into why. But, I do love the five panels of Minmax's face. I can read his mind.

Panel 1: That just ain't right.

Panel 2: He's a high level adventurer, and she's walking xp.

Panel 3: But that still just ain't right.

Panel 4: He's so badass, and, except for that, awesome.

Panel 5: But that just. Ain't. Right!

• Cue window smashing*

edited 3rd Mar '10 9:43:25 PM by DivineVirus

The thing is, Goblins is an unsubtle comic. Criticizing it for that is like criticizing the sky for being blue. We all know that Goblinslayer is a Jerkass verging on Complete Monster, but Minmax and Forgath didn't. What's more, there was a definite twist present in the scene — it was actually set up to make us feel sympathy for Goblinslayer and make plausible the idea that he might join up with Minmax, only to pull the rug out.

It's an extremely effective scene.

Well, well. Guess we get to see who's the toughest warrior in town after all.

This post was thumped by the Merciless Hammer of Doom

I'm afraid Minmax is going to lose this fight. He's lower level than Goblinslayer, I think , and GS ain't unarmed.

On the other hand, Minmax is munchkinned thoroughly enough to be worth maybe a level and a half above what he should have. He'll still lose to GS if nobody interferes though.

I'm certainly curious about how things will resolve themselves. Due to a sneak peak from Thunt that I alluded to in a previous post, we know that Forgath and Minmax will survive this encounter. However, I have to agree with the general opinion that regardless of how specialized Minmax is for combat, odds are that Goblinslayer will take him down.

On a side note, if Goblinslayer can't beat Minmax, then he's done as a threat. It will make twice that he'll have been defeated by supposedly considerably lower level opponents that he should have been able to beat, and it will break any ability I have to view him as a credible enemy. Of course, that could be the point, a loss to Minmax could be the final step in Goblinslayer's Humiliation Conga, and a perfect way to kick him out of the plot for good.

However, if Goblinslayer does beat Minmax, then letting him live strikes me as going against Goblinslayer's MO. He strikes me as the sort who fights with the intent to kill, and doesn't have mercy on an incapacitated or unconscious foe. So how exactly can the fight end/Goblinslayer win without killing Minmax? Only a couple of possibilities are jumping out at me.

One is the timely arrival of a force of the city guards to break up the fight, which may lead directly to the scenes from Thunt's previews of this book with Minmax in jail. The problem with this is that the City Guard may be no more willing to stand up to a pissed off Goblinslayer than the people in the tavern.

A second idea is that Goblinslayer will be restrained by some other force. Not sure how it would happen.

Third idea is that Forgath either pulls Minmax out or they run for it when Minmax starts getting beat down, but as angry as Minmax is it might not happen, either because Forgath can't pull him away from the scene or because Minmax refuses to run.

On the comic itself it was a great update. The people reacted perfectly, (and perfectly logically for when you can see a powerful madman like Goblinslayer is pissed off) and I loved the attention to detail in their expression as the crowd gathers and then departs. Dialog was great, and stayed well in character, (including Minmax' frustrating but oh so in character lack of explanation to Forgath) and the last panel is just epic.

I'm very curious to see how it'll play out, and looking forward to the next update.

Mostly I just note that Forgath's not holding onto Kin's leash anymore.

Yes, Kin is rather conspicuously absent from the last panel. What's interesting is that Forgath was holding the leash earlier, so the omission is either deliberate (and will set up a sequence with Kin attempting to flee and/or hide) or an accident that will get fixed once Thunt notices.

As an aside, does anyone besides me think that Thunt has far too much fun drawing some of his action scenes, like that final panel? It's just too lovingly drawn.

Also, while Goblinslayer is definitely powerful, he's also very poorly optimized for fighting high level opponents, to judge by his choices of weapon and armor and the difficulty he had in facing Thaco. Plus, he's drunk, which may convey combat penalties in Thunt's house rules. Minmax, on the other hand, is such a Munchkin that he can probably beat characters several levels higher. I still expect him to lose, but not in a Curb-Stomp Battle manner.

However, even if Goblinslayer wins, he doesn't necessarily have to kill Minmax — he might even consider it more fitting punishment for daring to assault him if Minmax were thrown in prison and "played with" a bit.

Heh. Good chance there's a flaw or ACF somewhere that actually lets you do that. I expect that to be a Brick Joke later, though.

^Contrived dungeon riddle trap, perhaps?