# Order of the Stick - Book 5 Discussion Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 31, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323 "2009-08-31T04:09:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 378
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7542 "2013-09-27T14:03:23Z")
Do D & D rules have morale checks for large groups of combatants? I ask because V just fried several more of Tarquin’s troops; at what point will their morale break? Why would anyone else walk in there knowing that there is a wizard who would be all too happy to fry you without a second thought? ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7543 "2013-09-27T14:59:37Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Do D & D rules have morale checks for large groups of combatants? > > I ask because V just fried several more of Tarquin’s troops; at what point will their morale break? Why would anyone else walk in there knowing that there is a wizard who would be all too happy to fry you without a second thought? “[We’ll fight the guy with the big sword - he can only kill **us**. Your old man can have our whole families wiped out.](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0918.html)” ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7544 "2013-09-27T15:23:38Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Do D & D rules have morale checks for large groups of combatants? I asked this in post #7281 and there were some good responses. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7545 "2013-09-27T16:07:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Garula** : > > The Familicide spell would likely be limited by HD (Hit Dice) rather than number of individual entities. Except dragons have tons of HD, and we saw how many of them it wiped out. Most humanoids, by comparison, have only 1 HD each. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7546 "2013-09-27T16:46:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Except dragons have tons of HD, and we saw how many of them it wiped out. Most humanoids, by comparison, have only 1 HD each. Haerta probably had the spell affect a number of HD based on caster level. With the soul splice, that caster level went into the stratosphere, allowing for a lot of black dragon doom and still plenty left over to kill the Draketooths. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7547 "2013-09-27T16:56:20Z")
I apologize for having such a short attention and memory span. Why are the Pterodons translucent? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7548 "2013-09-27T16:58:36Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I apologize for having such a short attention and memory span. Why are the Pterodons translucent? The air is translucent, not the pterandons. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7549 "2013-09-27T17:02:13Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I apologize for having such a short attention and memory span. Why are the Pterodons translucent? It’s just their wings, which are thin membranes. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7550 "2013-09-27T17:12:07Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > The air is translucent, not the pterandons. I don’t agree. Look at the second to the last panel again. There is a pterodon front and center, right above the word “zap”. You can see through it’s left/port side wing, and see the tail feathers of the pterodon behind it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7551 "2013-09-27T17:35:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **yellowjacketcoder** : > > Haerta probably had the spell affect a number of HD based on caster level. With the soul splice, that caster level went into the stratosphere,… Mostly due to Haerta’s own caster levels. She’s stated to be by far the most powerful of the three. Even without getting into just how much is “by far”, her caster level with the splice was certainly less than four times what it was without. Also, there really isn’t any easy way to make an epic spell that depends on caster level directly. The usual way to scale them with level is to just make a new spell, with a higher DC, once the old one isn’t cutting it any more. ---
**Author:** ![shantih](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@shantih](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shantih)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7552 "2013-09-27T18:44:15Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I don’t agree. Look at the second to the last panel again. There is a pterodon front and center, right above the word “zap”. You can see through it’s left/port side wing, and see the tail feathers of the pterodon behind it. Like **Miller** said, it’s the wings that are translucent, not the bodies. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7553 "2013-09-27T18:56:32Z")
[Here’s a picture of a man holding a bat wing](http://www.winchestermarketing.com/ngwenya/gfx/handad1.jpg), to give you an idea of the effect that Burlew is trying to create in the comic. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7554 "2013-09-27T19:07:57Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Here’s a picture of a man holding a bat wing, to give you an idea of the effect that Burlew is trying to create in the comic. Holy crap! I’ve never seen that feature in bats before! Ok. I see that now. (RE: strip #921.) The riders’ starboard-side legs are not visible through the mounts’ bodies. Thanks! Edit: **Miller** , I copied and pasted (without keeping the embedded link) your post because hitting the “quote” button brought up a lot of nested quotes besides yours, somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7555 "2013-09-27T19:17:10Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > But the more people you kill, the harder it is to know who the original target was. When V killed the dragon’s son, the dragon knew that a mage that was in her home was the killer. When V used Familicide it could have been a rogue mage targeting that dragon, or it could have been a mage targeting Draketooth, or it could have been someone taking a shot at Tiamat herself. But when the dragon wanted to locate her son’s killer, she just went to the Oracle. Magic opens up all kinds of possibilities. So I don’t think anyone could count on killing a few million people and not being found out. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7556 "2013-09-27T19:38:10Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > Edit: **Miller** , I copied and pasted (without keeping the embedded link) your post because hitting the “quote” button brought up a lot of nested quotes besides yours, somehow. Hmm. That’s odd. It doesn’t do that when I quote my own post. Did you perhaps accidentally hit the multiquote button on a different post in the thread? ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7557 "2013-09-27T19:58:45Z")
The last time I used multiquote for a reply was in the “Willing to be teleported- as in Star Trek?” thread here in Cafe Society, but nowhere else. Here is what I get when I hit the “quote” button on post #7552: > [@mlees](#): > > I don’t agree. Look at the second to the last panel again. There is a pterodon front and center, right above the word “zap”. You can see through it’s left/port side wing, and see the tail feathers of the pterodon behind it. > [@Chronos](#): > > Mostly due to Haerta’s own caster levels. She’s stated to be by far the most powerful of the three. Even without getting into just how much is “by far”, her caster level with the splice was certainly less than four times what it was without. > > Also, there really isn’t any easy way to make an epic spell that depends on caster level directly. The usual way to scale them with level is to just make a new spell, with a higher DC, once the old one isn’t cutting it any more. > [@Miller](#): > > [Here’s a picture of a man holding a bat wing](http://www.winchestermarketing.com/ngwenya/gfx/handad1.jpg), to give you an idea of the effect that Burlew is trying to create in the comic. I don’t think I would have used multiquote on myself. Anyway, I figured you had gone back and edited post #7552, with invisible-to-me broken quote-coding remaining in there, somehow. So I took the quick and easy way out, and cut/paste to quote. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7558 "2013-09-27T20:15:51Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > The last time I used multiquote for a reply was in the “Willing to be teleported- as in Star Trek?” thread here in Cafe Society, but nowhere else. That would do it. There is or should be a checkbox below the post-editing box when that happens that says something like _“You have quoted x posts that are not part of this thread; deselect these posts?”_ ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7559 "2013-09-27T20:34:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That would do it. There is or should be a checkbox below the post-editing box when that happens that says something like _“You have quoted x posts that are not part of this thread; deselect these posts?”_ You’re right, and it’s doing the same thing when I hit the “quote” button on your post, just now. I do not see any check boxes anywhere, other than “Automatically parse links in text” and “Disable smilies in text”. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7560 "2013-09-27T20:40:33Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That would do it. There is or should be a checkbox below the post-editing box when that happens that says something like _“You have quoted x posts that are not part of this thread; deselect these posts?”_ Whelp, I logged off of the Dope, cleared browser cookies, logged out of windows (XP). Logged all the way back in, and the quote function is working correctly now. Sorry for the distraction, folks. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323/7561 "2013-09-29T05:46:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It sounds like a Dick Tracy villain actually. 😃 To be fair, he kinda looks like a Dick Tracy villain too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323.md?page=377) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/order-of-the-stick-book-5-discussion-thread/508323.md?page=379)