Order of the Stick - Book 5 Discussion Thread

New Strip

Edit: Elan is such a badass. I loved the look on Julio’s face, and the desperate pleading of a man that knows he’s lost trying to salvage anything. But I think Elan went from a boy to a man in this strip.

Also, Haley is one creative and dangerous mofo.

EDIT 2: I wonder if this is the last strip of the book.

New as of post 8436.

edited to respond to edit

No, see post by Peter Morris just after the strip was posted.

Dammit, I miss an update and think I am finally the guy to be the first to respond. blarg

I didn’t want to raise false hopes of a new strip. But since yellowjacketcoder already posted, I’ll ask if anyone else noticed Burlew switched graphic formats. He’s always posted as strips as GIFs but he’s posted the last couple of strips as PNGs. Any ideas why he would make this switch?

He did have the tech problems last month. He may have switched machines and software.

I think it’s related to that crash - he mentioned having to recreate the last couple of strips from the online versions. He might have switched formats because he’s worried about that happening again, and it’s easier to recreate the strips from a PNG than a GIF.

He had no choice but to change software; he mentioned that the software he used no longer works on newer machines, which is why he was using an old one.

I’m the exact opposite. Whenever the thread is bumped, I pop over to Feedly and check the feed to see if there’s been a new post. Wonderful feed, because Burlew never pushes anything to it other than a new comic.

If I open the thread, I might get spoiled. If I go to my feed reader, I absolutely won’t.

New strip!

With a terrible pun at the end!

C’mon, if it hadn’t been a terrible pun, the dentist would have been performing a root canal on the wrong patient.

A nice funny page in the nick of time after all the commotion before the icy talons of death approached.

So many jokes. Julio as the most interesting man in the world spoof is a great poster.

Once and for all we know that they are not going into the rift. I predicted it over and over, guessing what Rich will do next is frustrating. But a lot of damn fun.

So, does V eventually realize that Blackwing snagged an ioun stone?

Hell, I knew that weeks ago. It was clear in #920 that it wasn’t in the cards, but seemed to me unlikely even before that. But I’m glad it’s well and truly dead conversationally, at least for now.

I suspect that V grasped the significance of the ioun stone immediately. S/he may also conceive it to be rightfully the property of Blackwing though. Best not to be pushy about such things.

Ah. Lauren took a -1 hit from Durkon and now she’s lost yet another level. Is she capable of transporting armies or parties now?

-2 from Durkon. The loss of the Ioun stone only reduces the power of her powers, not the quantity.

So everyone gets healing potions except Belkar, because of the ‘stupid blood drain.’ We know that Belkar will be dying sometime fairly to very soon; is this Rich just messing with us some more and drawing out the dramatic tension, or is there a real reason why Belkar is still vulnerable?

Also, while I could totally see that Tarquin won’t be seen any longer in the strip, I could also picture him deciding to take the risk of traveling into the Rift so as to spring out on Elan when least expected. Possible?

That’s pretty significant for a psion, though. Many of a psion’s most powerful powers are lower-level ones that are augmented up to be more powerful, and your manifester level limits how high you can augment them. So it just might render her unable to transport armies.

I think it’s just Durkon not being available yet to fix up Belkar, so Belkar gets something to bitch about. And Rich fucking with us.

Doesn’t she just need to go a cleric before 24 hours is up to get the negative levels removed? I’m fuzzy on how this works, but I recall something of that sort.

I think blood drain does constitution damage. If Belkar was hit for enough of that, it would have severely impacted his HP pool. Stat damage can’t be healed by potions.

I was convinced they were going into the rift. Even when the airship showed up I guessed that somehow it would take the gang into the rift.

This was my official eating of the hat that it won’t happen now.

Ok the brow is salty from sweat anybody have any pepper or garlic and lemon?