Oh, and Thog? Is he really sentient enough to even have an alignment? He’s more of a happy-go-lucky blunt instrument that can sometimes be dangerous. Sometimes.
Burlew has said in the FAQ or maybe somewhere else that he purposely doesn’t have levels for the characters. He justs keeps 'em weak enough for dramatic tension but strong enough that he doesn’t eliminate funky skills from the pool of possibilities. IOW, don’t try too hard to make them fit a certain level because there probably will be discrepancies.
Chaotic Stupid?
Despite the vagueness of OotS levels, Belkar is probably lower level than the others – he’s chosen a very poor multiclass scheme, since neither Rogue nor Barbarian are halfling favored classes. We know he’s Rgr 9/Brb 1 (he just picked up evasion), but that’s probably about it.
Durkon, though, was casting a 7th-level spell (control weather) back in Cliffport, so he’s probably on the high side of 13th.
All this fighting about going up and down levels.
Couldn’t somebody at TSR look it up in a thaursas?
Rich Burlew had been planning to release them as a compendium, but with Dragon folded there aren’t enough strips. He says he’ll think of something (I’m guessing a bonus section in some other volume).
Remind me again what a Challenge Rating is and how it relates to experience? I played back in the old days when things had a set XP value.
In theory it’s listed as the difficulty of “an encounter”. It’s given a numerical valuation (from about 1/4 to 1/2 to 1, then in increments of +1 up to whatever). A “normal” challenge is about equal to the characters’ average level, and assumes you don’t get to heal, get new spells, etc, after every fight.
This doesn’t always work in DnD, as parties will (wisely) game things to prepare as much as possible for every encounter. And things like puzzles or traps are supposed to be listed as “Encounters” with a challenge rating but this is gets pretty hazy. In this fight, are the hobgolbins considered to be one big encounter? Or a lot of little ones? How many?
In short, it’s a very complicated way for the GM to justify giving you any amount of XP he feels like. But the reason is that back in the day, a smart group of orcs (oxymoron, i know) could actualy do some damage to a mid-level party. Maybe not a huge amount, but if they were cunning and whatnot they could inflict a lot more than they had any right to. These days they pretty much can’t.
Durkon cast Control Weather from a scroll, and the class-and-level geekery thread puts Belkar at Ranger ≥11/Barbarian ≥1, based on Rich’s analysis of the off-screen Miko fight. Rich indicated that, at the time of the Order’s capture by Miko, Belkar had 11d8 + 1d12 + Con bonus for hit points. He just went several levels without noticing that he had Evasion.
Awww. sniffle
No, I do not have something in my eye.
(spoilered, in case someone reads this before the comic)
[spoiler]I was fully expecting a predictible joke with Roy talking to a favored childhood pet.
<sniff>…well played, Giant…[/spoiler]
Damn…I didn’t check it this morning (his update schedule is slightly unpredictable) and now I’m misting up just before I have to leave my office to go home and pass in front of everyone to get to the door…
Missed the edit window:
Looks like baby bro made an appearance hiding behind mama’s chair in this comic.
I had to read it two or three times to make sure I wasn’t missing the joke. But there wasn’t one! Sincerity! Just when you least expect it! Burlew, you sly bastard!
What I thought was leading up to was
Grandpa Greenhilt – which would’ve been nice, giving Roy a real role-model to follow –
But this was good.
Not only was it very touching, it was like getting run over by the backstory train. It explains so much about Roy’s character and his relationships with others.
And it raises/answers very interesting questions about what life is like in a world where resurrection magic is a fact of life. They already addressed some of it by requiring a fortune in diamonds to even try, but this adds to it.
Well, now you got both.
Heh - I’d forgotten about that flashback - look at Young Roy - he had a 'fro!
