Also, Implosion is not necessarily fatal, although Redcloak is undoubtedly high enough level that Durkon would need a metric shit-ton of HP to take that kind of hit. 10hp damage per caster level, I believe.
@Gyrate, that’s possibly a spoiler.
Please, everyone, first few comments after a new strip should be blurred.
(At least if the contain comments on the plot. Saying “great strip” or similar should be okay.)
Open request: Could people announcing the new strip please make some effort to make it stand out: Either
surround it with smileys 
use BigT’s markup template,
capbold NEW STRIP in the same post.
Or something else. Just do something, please.
In the past, it was easier to blow up the text and such. (Plus Burlew updated so damned infrequently that seeing the thread bumped pretty much meant a new strip got posted.)
I’ll try some of your suggestions should I again be first to post a new update.
It just straight-up kills, with both level and HP completely irrelevant. But it does absolutely nothing on a successful save, and Durkon (being a dwarf and a cleric) probably has at least a decent save bonus.
Either way, of course, this negotiation is now over, which narratively, seems like something of a waste. I’m sure that it eventually won’t seem that way (because Burlew is a good enough writer), but I eagerly await seeing how.
This seems to be narratively close to the previous one, perhaps he’d already thought it through before he started drawing it.
But yeah, yay faster pacing!
[SPOILER]Still has about a 2 out of 3 chance of killing Durkon outright, which I don’t think will happen. From the GITP forum, there came the point that Roy got swirly eyes during a Dominate attempt, but then shouted that he could multi-task, and that was how Burlew chose to show how Roy made a Will save.
Maybe the next strip has Durkon burping, and saying he’d felt queasier after his Aunt’s terrible cooking?[/SPOILER]
Oh, are we still spoilering things?
The visuals of a Protean in stick-world would provide sufficient drama and entertainment. The uneasiness I have with Zeus is that the reveal borders on cliche – though that’s probably not an issue given Burlew’s skill with trope inversion.
Before the art upgrade, I thought we’d be seeing a cubist interpretation of the Hagunemnon. Now I’m less sure.
For those interested, there’s a brief review of the main hypotheses here: Monster in the Darkness | Order of the Stick Wiki | Fandom
Interesting that, for Alessan’s Zeus theory, that that article specifically states that MiTD is not a deity (although no reason why is given).
I doubt Durkon is out of it if only because he hasn’t had the chance to play his best card: If the universe is remade, The Dark One will likely die with it. Also, I’d certainly hope he’s wise enough to buff up on the resistances before sitting down to chat with the enemy (Protection from Evil? Resistance? Guidance? Somethin’?)
It says:
MitD is definitely NOT a: deity, construct, elemental, ooze, plant, undead, or vermin. He is also unlikely to be a non-native outsider, as non-native outsiders do not need sleep and thus would not become sleepy.
But doesn’t give reasons for most of those.
Interesting question. I know in 2.0 and earlier, which buffs to cast at the start of a dungeon dive, or right before you know you’re going to fight, but I don’t know the equivalents in 3.5. Like, e.g., does Bull’s Strength last long enough? (And after looking it up, 1 min/level sounds like a ‘cast this right before the fight’ buff.)
A lot of those hang their hat on Monster-San getting swirly eyed when Xykon told him to devour RC if RC ever betrayed Xykon. Most of that list are immune to that kind of mental compulsion.
From a writing standpoint, we’ve seen Team Evil buffing up before going into the cliff dungeons so I think it’d fall under the “3.5e is a framework, not a hard set of story rules” principle.
(I’ll admit I’m not going to look up every spell’s duration or guess at how long it took them to start really fighting inside)
Playing with some numbers here.
Figure Durkon is, what, level 16-17? Do we know? That’d give him +10 on fort saves. Add another +2 for dwarven magic resistance, and another +4 for a high con score (which he oughtta have by now), and we’re at +16 before any spells kick in.
The spell DC for Implosion from a caster with, let’s say, a 26 wisdom would be 27 (10+9+8). That’s approaching the outer limits of what a non-epic character can have as wisdom (absent some sort of absolute silliness, which Burlew isn’t inclined to). So there’s already a 50% chance of Durkon making the save.
But that picture doesn’t suggest that a save would be made. So how could Durkon prepare for, and defend against, Redcloak’s attacks?
Fortunately, when Redcloak got Implosion as a spell, eight years ago, there was a thread on the subject. I don’t know Durkon would be defending entirely against implosion, but there’s some stuff he probably did as prep:
-Greater Spell Immunity, giving complete immunity for 2-3 hours against 3-4 specific spells of eighth level or less. This wouldn’t help with implosion, but I bet Durkon has it up.
-Death Ward. Again, despite some folks’ confusion on the subject, almost certainly wouldn’t help against Implosion, but he should have it up.
-Spell Resistance: Gives him spell resistance of somewhere around 28 or so (assuming 16th level). This isn’t terribly hard for an 18th-level caster to overcome, but even if Redcloak has a 1 in 3 chance of losing a spell, it’s worth it.
-Protection from evil, or some other means of gaining resistance bonus to saves. A +2 is trivially easy for Durkon; a +4 (as from a cloak of resistance) shouldn’t be too hard.
All that said, while I expect Durkon to go in with magic armor up to his eyeballs, that last panel is pretty alarming.
It is alarming, but this is Book 7 Durkon - he’s learned enough by now not to go in without some form of protection and an extraction plan. Next panel, we’ll see what they are.
We haven’t seen everything from Durkon, including his Paladin companion. So together they’re probably up to something we haven’t yet seen.
But more importantly, Redcloak isn’t stupid. So there’s probably a legitimate reason he’s imploding Durkon beyond “bored now. Enemy go floop.” He already knows (or strongly suspects) that Durkon has died once before. How else could he communicate directly with Thor? So if he’s died and come back once, he can do it again. Redcloak’s either using this as a delay tactic or as a test to learn something about the other side.
It’s from a splatbook, but there’s a 6th level cleric spell called Superior Resistance that lasts for 24 hours and gives a +6 resistance bonus to saves. No reason for a high-level cleric to not have that up.
Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the case. He’s not going to abandon the Plan, which means he has to kill Durkon, because Durkon’s a temptation. All of Redcloak’s character arc has led to this point - he’s so committed to the Plan, and he’s justified so many sacrifices and atrocities, that he can’t bring himself to veer from the path he’s on, because that would mean admitting he was wrong. It’s all classic tragic villain stuff.
Here’s a possibility: Xykon is about to join them. That might also explain Durkon’s look in the penultimate panel, and he might even fail his save deliberately, so Xykon doesn’t know he was there.