Have you seen him perform? He couldn’t charm more than one single commoner out of a burning house.
Is he? I mean, it sure appears that way, but it’s never explicit, the way that V’s raven is his familiar. This might be the first hard evidence for Mr. Scruffy’s animal companionhood; being able to survive a crossbow bolt is unlikely for a one-half d8 housecat, average hit points 2, with a maximum of 4.
ETA: Actually, a small-size hand crossbow only does 1d3 damage. It’s possible for a bog-standard housecat to live through it.
That’s a rules joke, not an Elan joke. The “Suggestion” usage of bardic music only affects one target, regardless of skill ranks. For an example of a good performance by Elan, see Oh Buddy Roy.
Just another point on Belkar’s afterlife: imagine if he pitches up at the Chaotic Evil afterlife and they punt him over to Chaotic Good…where eventually Elan’s going to turn up. An eternity with Elan - hell could be preferable.
I don’t think it’s Belkar’s time to die yet. My guess is the point of this plotline is to get Belkar involved in the quest. Up to now, he’s been mostly going through the motions - he doesn’t have any personal problem with evil winning and he doesn’t grasp the implications of the universe being destroyed.
But now they’ve hurt his cat. From this point on, Belkar will be doing everything he can to destroy Yukyuk, the Linear Guild, the IFCC, Tarquin and Malack, Team Evil, the Goblin horde, the demon roaches, Girard, House Kubota, the Sapphire Guard, the Flumphs, Stanley the Tool, the Dark Warriors, the Jägermonsters - he’s not going to worry whether somebody had anything to do with Mr Scruffy’s attack or is even in the same webcomic.
Even if he was and had the additional hit points to go with it, assuming Belkar is around 14th Mr. Scruffy would get 8 d8/2 HP. (average 16, or “Commoner’s Worst Nightmare” range :p)
Which nevertheless isn’t really going to do the trick to survive even a single sneak attack from a high level character - assuming Yukyuk took 6 levels of Ranger to get Improved TWF and a better BaB/second attack before going Rogue (which is what I would do), that’s still 8-10 levels worth of rogue for a 5d6 Sneak Attack (average 17.5), plus the crossbow’s d3 damage, plus the enchantment on the crossbow (likely +3 or +4 at this level), plus Point Blank Shot (another +1 damage), plus possible magical bolt, buff or randomly tricked out equipment…
(full disclosure: I’m currently playing a two-handed dart throwing Arcane Trickster in a Pathfinder campaign. Even for such a gimpy build, it’s pretty amazing how much damage you can pull out of a stack of non-magical d4 weapons if you put your mind to it :p)
…Dammit, you’re right. Shoulda checked the wiki instead of “remembering” class features of a class I never played. For some reason I was convinced the bonus HD were of the pet’s base type, not d8s no matter what the pet was. That makes some of them way more viable than I thought. Didn’t help to also forget cutting the effective AC bonus in half on account of Belkar being a ranger rather than a druid :smack:.
Boils down to the same average of 16 HP though. But I appreciate the correction !
Is it canon though, that characters have to announce in strip “Sneak Attack” in order to get credit for it? No announcement, no sneak attack bonus, which, as you both note, otherwise would be fearsome. Not that the characters in OOTS obsess over optimization anyway, spiked chain wielding half-ogres aside. Also, if YukYuk has enchanted crossbows, wouldn’t he then have defeated the DR from V’s Stoneskin? Really, I’m just surprised he didn’t poison the bolts, as I thought that was about the only reason to use a hand crossbow.
Stoneskin is 10/Adamantine, not 10/magical. He could have used adamantine bolts of course but those don’t grow on trees, whereas magical weapons are a dime a dozen at these levels :).
As for the yelling sneak attack thing, I take it more as a running joke/paradox (since sneak attacks should be, y’know, sneaky) - as well as a comment on players themselves perhaps. Least I have been known to spontaneously yell “sneak attack[, bitch] !” on occasions the dice were kind to me :).
Ultrafilter, I think Finagle is referring to how fast Haley was mowing down the members of the Thieves’ Guild, and inferring that she couldn’t done it without her attacks being unannounced sneak attacks. (Or maybe the bow is just that badass.) Plus you have the joke in the final panel where they pretty much say that announcing is nice, but not required.
From the OOTS forums, regarding the fate of Belkar, one very interesting way to bring Belkar back from the dead, while still fulfilling all of the terms of the Oracle’s prophecy, would be for both Belkar and Blackwing to die, V to take an improved familiar (if such is allowed—I thought you got one familiar and that was it?), and for Belkar to come back as V’s imp or quasit familiar. Imps don’t need to breathe, and they’re not of this world. Also gives V a big blinking sign that hir alignment got changed by the whole familicide thing. Not familiar with 3.5, so I’ve no idea that’s feasible, but it seems an elegant solution.
I think he’s going to be put in a situation where he’s going to have to make the choice to save Scruffy’s life or one of the OOTS party, perhaps V. As part of his character arc, he chooses to save the OOTS member, and dies doing so, say when his barbarian rage runs out. Hard to reconcile the prophecy and the elapsed time in the strip otherwise.
Enhancement bonuses on missile weapons and ammunition don’t stack in 3.5. The bolts could have enhancements like Flaming or Shock on them, except we’d see special effects for that in the comic. And besides, magical ammunition like that is expensive even for a high-level character: Affordable, but something you’re going to save for important fights, not just some random housecat you’re chasing down for the fun of it.
Look at the last panel. “You don’t have to shout out your attacks, this isn’t a manga.” Not a sneak attack in this case, but pretty much the same thing.
Pretty sure those aren’t sneak attacks. The targets can see Haley coming (so they aren’t flat-footed) and they aren’t flanked (which wouldn’t matter since she’s using a ranged weapon anyway). I think those kills are just because Haley is a high level PC, specialized in archery, with a powerful magic bow.
No. Quite different. I’m not going to trawl the archives but I’m pretty certain that there is another scene somewhere where a fighter-type yells “Power attack”, and as in the strip you linked to is told the same thing. On the contrary, despite dozens of times where various rogueish people HAVE yelled “Sneak attack” nobody has yet told them they don’t need to.
