>>97444633>tfw I realize that I've been reading this webcomic for nearly 10 years now
>>97444633Sunny about to save the day?
Really wish the Order would be more consistently competent. Very annoying to just see them get rolled all the time.
Never played 3.5, I guess rapiers and bows have Strength requirements? Roy's got that belt that either increases your Strength by 2 or sets it to some number, so he's got a guaranteed value floor, he's only dazed (can't take Actions, but can defend normally).
>>97445119to be fair we did just get off months of them beating up a dragon with class levels and this page is an ambush round
>>97445208Their dialgoue about this is more about the effects of the Blasphemy weakening them. In 3.X, Composite Bows commit to your Strength for use though.
>>97444633>trying to backstab the one guy who has Improved Uncanny DodgeShit Belkar, get it together.
>>97445297That was just his attack of opportunity
>>97444633Why didn't you just jump into his crotch(daggers first) and bisect him from there while calling him a bigotted heighteist? Old Belkster would have done that
>>97444753The paladins are out of focus.also kitty kot is alive, hooray!
>>97444633Consider all of the work it's gonna take to undo how fucked up the team is going to be after this.Ain't no way the final confrontation of the dungeon is the Order, already half-spent, vs Team Evil in a direct fight. At least, that's not going to be what defines it.
>>97444661fucking newfag
>>97445828there's no need for curse words gramps
I guess the demons are also going to pull V into the green room to keep him out of the fight?
upscale.>>97445119this does feel a bit like the miko fight(s) from way back when. Fated to lose.
>>97445857They're more likely to pull V in to tell them Nale is going AWOL.
>>97445875I don't think they care what Nale does, as long as the end result they want gets ticked. He wasn't given instructions on how he had to behave, just that he had to do the job. This scheme he's trying is his own idea, and he hasn't failed or fully derailed his ability to succeed yet.
>>97445875But isn't Nale supposed to let the gate break? The order is specifically trying to stop that, so killing them is within the scope of what they would want.
>>97445861Now imagine why they're so reluctant to get into a fight with Redcloak without a sufficiently stacked deck.
>>97445861Only now did I get the gag with the bird and Durkon.
this situation would still be incredibly easily retrievable with any subset of items serini is supposed to have which means this will go on for 6-12 months and she will do nothing
>>97444633Damn, imagine taking advantage of Minnah while she's like that.
>>97444661faggot newfag
>>97444633Wasn't Durkon already defeated like this? Feel like it's been more than several times with the energy drain and he was drained to death by the vampire. Is this also a part of the joke?
>>97445208It's more like, in 3.5 if your attributes are drained or damaged enough you get basically crippled. And/or die, I think that was CON.
>>97444633>Thog>Powerful Charge>Leap Attack>CleaveThog doing Thog things.
>>97447798Unlike Energy Drain and the like, Blasphemy does not inflict negative levels. Though, one of the effects that it inflicts is Weakened, which can drop one's Strength score pretty dramatically, but not actually for all that long.
Why did Belkar drop his protection from evil in the last panel? And he's neither surprised nor affected by the spell, why is he not doing anything?
>>97448550He's not doing nothing. He moved, and he even actually got an attack in on Thog as he went by.
>>97448673the attack was probably Belkar's free reaction as Thog ran past himso that's not Belkar's doing as far as action economy is concerned
>>97445861>miko fightand this time we won't get a round by round breakdown from Rich...
>>97447993Thog Thog and Thog OKThog Leap all nightThog Cleave all day
>>97444633Epic level rogues aren't worth shit
>>97445236>the Order finally beats them and moves on>next page>Tarquin: "HEEEEEEEYYYYY WHAAAAAAAAT'S UUUUUUUUUP IIIIIIIIIIIT'S MEEEEEE"
>>97450177>the final dungeon is a boss rush
>>97450210https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nHAde9X_D4
Sneak attack or whatever I guess.
>>97450210>>97450264>DRAGON MAN>DEVIL MAN>DAD MAN>CLOAK MAN>SKULL MAN>COUNCIL MEN>DR WIRY
>>97450210>the last boss is the snail
>>97450210Technically, they were running to set up to become Xykon's Final Boss encounter before he seizes the gate. Before the Nale shit
>>97451216>the last boss has complex motives
>>97445119It wouldn’t be Oots without Rich violently throwing us out of the story.
>>97450378I can't not read this as a heavily distorted scream
>>97444633post yfw rich dies right before he gets to the villains going through the killer dungeon
So Sunny was just banished, right?
>>97451556Don't have an image with enough meh energy to convey it. I've been checking that site since 2006, and it's been steadily decelerating for so long I think oots is about to become its own prequel. At this point, I do an annual catchup and I swear they take less time with every pass.
>>97444661>10 yearsWhen I've first started reading it, Roy was still dead
>>97451792To be fair, the pace was pretty decent prior to Rich's thumb injury.
>>97451859Fair, and I totally get it. Decade isn't that long for healing most tendon injuries. Though, I'm not talking entirely release pace, but story pace too. What happened over the last, dunno, fifty pages felt like a decently-long session, you know?
>>97451312I read it as that The Protomen song with the robot master names too, fuck
Did they finish fighting the dragon yet
>>97445119This one isn't on them, this is them dealing with a completely busted spell.
been reading it since 2004. before the first linear guild reveal which was comic 43
>>97445208>>97452131 is correct. The order is taking a beating rn, but dazing 5/6 of the party with no save is kinda bullshit. Anyways, the paladins and the beholder have yet to arrive, their resources haven't been drained by fighting a dragon, and I'm pretty sure they have no obligation to show mercy on fiends. So this is far from the one-sided gank it initially looks like.
>>97451718Sunny is an abomination, not an outsider.
>>97451960It has stretched out in terms of story things too, to some extent. The story was less complex way at the start, so it was probably much easier for Rich to write pages. But, I think there's also a reality to how complicated stories with lots of characters need time (in the telling of the story) to do it well. There are a lot of plot threads and character threads that he's put together, and it takes a while to go through all of them in the storytelling.I think we'll have a much clearer understanding of what was bad pacing or was kind of superfluous when it's all over, but it seems to me like he does a fairly good job of staying on track with always putting down something that goes somewhere on any given page (minus that recent AI joke page).
>>97453264If you own any of the main story books, you can see from Rich's commentary that he basically stopped self-editing his story structure during the fifth book. In the earlier books, he talks a lot about stuff he had to cut and ways to make the story shorter, and that stuff is basically gone in books 5/6. It's unfortunate because the plot is still pretty good when it's actually moving, it just has to be interspersed with several strips of the order & friends fucking around accomplishing nothing.
>>97452190what do you think about the story?
>>97452190>ancientfag
>>97453264>bad pacingA very common comment from people binging to catch up is that the pacing is actually pretty OK when you don't have to wait for new ones
>>97444633I do like that Belkar is completely oblivious to the blasphemy. He didn't just not get affected but even didn't notice the giant wave of red vile energies blasting the entire party.
>>97447227You have no more than 10 minutes, possibly as little as 1.I'm sure you could do it, anon. I have faith in you.
>>97445119They handled the dragon pretty well, and this is the first round of ambush.>>97445875Nale's still on mission. Plan A was to join forces and have Sereni lead them to the gate, but this Plan B is to wipe out its immediate defenders and find it himself.
>>97453264>>97453897In some cases, yeah. Reading Blood Runs in the Family as one unit is almost butter smooth and a lot of the "wasted time" is actually foreshadowing for the vamp reveal and setting up Durkon's arc. On the other hand, there's a fair bit of fat that could be trimmed from Utterly Dwarfed- specifically the airship drama that adds multiple pointless pages about minor characters who have no story agency and Helga mercing Durkon immediately after resurrecting him. As much as I enjoy the resolution of the Darkon arc, actually reading through the book again is kind of a slog.The book between Paladin Blues and Blood Runs (who's name I can't recall) is also really badly paced. Intentionally so and the pay off of power-mad V almost makes it worth it, but it's undeniably a slog.
>>97455284It's two books. No Cure for the Paladin Blues goes into War and XPs, and then Don't Split the Party.
>>97455284I can excuse the airship bickering because it's the same sort of low-level pettiness that the party used to run into all the time. People running off on their own, sabotaging each other, making big plays without agreeing on goals or methods. If you look at is as a foil to how seamlessly the party handles the encounter beyond that it's a nice benchmark of progress.
>>97452190I think I've been reading since 2007 or there about. Was linked to it from VGCats I'm pretty sure.
thog when?
>>97457097be the change you want to see in the worldalso, does anyone else think that the walls in this strip are oddly tilted in comparison to the floor or is it just me? is it the aftermath of the blasphemy or just an error?
>>97458654I'd say it's intentional to try and add to the feeling of disorientation. Note that the panel that's centered on Belkar is completely normal, because he's unaffected.
>>97458685but in the second to last panel, the brick lines align with the floor even though there are three affected characters
>>97458742Yeah, cause Nale and Sabine are the main focus of the panel.
>>97451289The Nale shit, whatever happened there...
>>97455284I re-read everything since #0001 last month in a couple days and I think you're full of shit.
>>97458654>I can't even>I think you accidentally your bowNice.
>>97459685Explain yourself
