Order of the Stick 1041

Or it's a hint.

He's fucking with Xykon and marking off more doors than they went through.

How many doors did it mark? It's pretty easy to mark one X in two strokes.

Ahh. Got it now. Thank you.

>I just started reading this comic last year. I don't think I've made it past the first 50, but it looks like it doesn't really increase in quality and in fact becomes more wordy. Should I bother?
decide for yourself

He also didn't leave any footprints.

He's marking off more doors than they've actually been through, so they end up exploring less of the dungeon and are less likely to find the gate.

Eventually they may mark off everything without finding the gate, and since they haven't been keeping good track, they'd have to start all the way over.

... Or Xykon will realise they're way ahead of schedule and beat the shit out of the MitD.

Of course that's me assuming he can actually defeat it...

That assumes that Xykon counted the number of doors. Which there's no way he would.

Redcloak would be more likely to catch on, but he might not until they're closer to having all of the doors marked.

He can't.
Otherwise his plan for keeping it around makes no sense.

So did the MitD do that because fuck Xykon, or out of compassion for the monsters they've been slaughtering?

Either, or both, and there's also embracing O-Chul's lessons, as points out

So any theories for what MITD is?
I haven't memorized the monster manual of any system because I'm a bad GM

Whatever it is, it's of unusual intelligence for whatever it is, its habitat isn't the rainforest, it seems to be able to teleport/send people away, cause earthquakes, and can eat basically anything.

It also doesn't leave footprints, but if I remember properly can stomp(I'm thinking back to when it caused the earthquake, did it stomp?)
And may have more then one arm

>that last panel

Best guess is that it's somehow related to the snarl. It's too plot important and too well kept under wraps for anything else.

Also implied to have cast Wish.

xykon is somewhere around the 21st-27th level range, right? in order for him to receive experience, even a meager amount, the enemy has to be within 8 level steps. putting the creatures in their somewhere around 13-19 range. the order of the sticks average level is about 13 or 14 is the OotS to weak to tackle this level of dungeon?

He cast Maximized Energy Drain when fighting evil V, a 12th-level spell. That requires three epic feats. He gets one a feat at lvl 21, a bonus feat at 23, and a feat at lvl 24. He is 24 minimum. That fight was a while ago though. Theoretically I don't think there's a cap for how high he could be currently.

He's a sorc.

He cast a maximized energy drain in the duel with V, so he's at least 24th level.

Lich template gives a level adjustment of +4, IIRC, so we're talking 28th at least, and possibly higher.

> the order of the sticks average level is about 13 or 14 is the OotS to weak to tackle this level of dungeon?
I think they're more 15th-16th now, they were at around 13th back when they were defending the city against the horde, but that was a long time ago.

>is the OotS to weak to tackle this level of dungeon?

Very probably.

But we've also known for a while they're too weak to tackle Xykon, so the end result is probably going to involve turning the MitD against him somehow.

Fuck off /tv/.

I just put it down and never bothered to pick it up again until recently.

That's definitely a possible consideration, but it's hard to tell.

Really, we just need to go through and start eliminating creatures that don't at least match up to what we do know and what possibilities exist.

to be fair though, Xykon is horribly optimized so its not nearly as uneven a battle as his level makes it appear

So what edition is this implied to be based off of? 3.5 with some homebrew?

Xykon's gotten quite a substantial power creep since the start of the comic.

Remember, the Order DID defeat him once. Roy bopped his head off his shoulders and hurled his bony ass into the first gate.

Guess that's why Xykon got those boots.

>Xykon's gotten quite a substantial power creep since the start of the comic.

So have the order, I mean, the first few panels involve them running from some gobs and ogres, implying they're like level 2-5 or so. By the time they're fighting those forest bandits, they're already much tougher.

I always kind of figured that first dungeon was more for gags and that the stuff in it should be viewed very loosely for "canon" purposes.

>Remember, the Order DID defeat him once. Roy bopped his head off his shoulders and hurled his bony ass into the first gate.

Not really related, but got me thinking, there's also the weird shenanigans with the greenhilt sword. Especially since the oath is against Xykon, personally, some sort or uberhit, combined with that throw sword maneuver he was practicing in the afterlife, will probably come up in the final fight somehow.

Pretty much.

Xykon fucked around instead of winning properly (as usual), rolled a 1 on his grapple check and got thrown into a gate that oneshot him.

Shit happens.

Yeah. The very first strip has them upgrading from 3.0 to 3.5; the comic has been going a really long time.

There's a non-canon bit in a print-only book the writer did where the Order take on their 4th Edition counterparts, but the main run of the comic is all 3.5 based.

Well, it wouldn't be if the Order weren't also horribly unoptimised (Vaarsuvius is an Evoker with COnjuration and Necromancy barred).

Though Burlew has repeatedly emphasised he cares very little for that kind of thing, seeing as how it makes the conflict far less interesting.

>Though Burlew has repeatedly emphasised he cares very little for that kind of thing, seeing as how it makes the conflict far less interesting.

Makes sense. Very rarely do the roadblocks the party encounters have to do with their class breakdown and optimization.

Roy and Belkar are two of the strongest combatants in the Order, despite, you know, being a Fighter and a Ranger in 3.5.

I don't think he can. Every time someone sees what it is, they remark on how powerful it is/ surprised Xykon even has this thing following him around.

Oona just remarked it's small for it's kind, but it will get much bigger.

Who knows what the little fucker is.

>Redcloak would be more likely to catch on, but he might not until they're closer to having all of the doors marked.

And there's the fact that Xykon will most likely dismiss his concern, because that's what Xykon does.

It's kind of moot though, since Rich isn't strictly following D&D rules anymore.

I haven't seen that one. Has he done a 5e comic, or does he not care at this point?

He's also pointed out that a lot of the mathematically best strategies involve magical touch attacks or save or die effects, which are boring to draw and to look at in comic form. He even makes a joke of it in #456.

He also makes the point that the versatility of spells available (especially when considering splatbooks, but with Core as well) makes it hard to write plots that wizards can't deal with easily, especially when you get to higher levels. Thus, the Order is around Level 16 right now and is unlikely to hit 20 before the finale. With V being an Evoker and Durkon (assuming he is resurrected) being lower level, their access to high level magic will be limited.

>Roy and Belkar are two of the strongest combatants in the Order, despite, you know, being a Fighter and a Ranger in 3.5.

I mean, they are.
But only because the party also includes Elan and Haley.
Both V and Durkon have consistently upstaged both of them (A joke is even made about it, with Durkon slaughtering several Goblins ever swing, and Belkar stabbing a corpse)

I can't remember because it's been forever, but 5e came out during a really long stretch of the plot where meta-jokes about the system were pretty rare. Only now are they coming back in any significant number.

I think he doesn't care. He stated he wouldn't do the update to 4e because he'd have to waste 50 strips explaining everyone's new abilities (seeing as a lot of the audience doesn't play D&D) and he'd have to become familiar with the system itself. The same still applies.

In addition, the strip has changed from a gag-a-day focused on making fun of D&D rules to an actual long-term story with complex plotting and characterisation that happens to be set in a world running on D&D rules.

Besides, the entire reason for the fight against their 4e versions is that there isn't enough time for both version to exist (i.e. players have limited free time to spend on playing both 3.5e and 4e) so they solve the problem by going and defeating comic book characters, video game characters etc.

Weren't they around mid-level by the time they came to the first town? Roy was using great cleave in the first dungeon, which means he was at least fourth level, but he also got weapon specialization meaning he was at least level 6 by then. If I had to guess (and if early strips can be considered fully canon) they probably ran from half of those fights for the sake of conserving resources rather than a sign of weakness.

In any case they've won a LOT of fights since then, seen a through quests to completion, and survived a war (mostly). The Order is probably in the mid-teens by now.

Did anyone work out what the damn thing is yet?

>with Durkon slaughtering several Goblins ever swing, and Belkar stabbing a corpse
When was that?

Are there any DnD creatures that are purely magical/psychic entities? Or some sort of weird aberration? If MITD is some sort of lump of magic energy or hovering Lovecraftian tentacle ball it could explain all the different spells/magical powers, the lack of footprints, the ability to hold things more than once and the severe reactions some people show upon seeing it.

I used to think it might be an Atropal, but there's a comment somewhere that it's unusually intelligent and Atropals are extremely intelligent by default.

Oona did.

There's been a dozen threads worth of speculation and argument on this over on the Giantitp forums.

There's no one candidate that seems to tick all the boxes, but the things that seem most likely are an Athasian Nightmare Beast, a Hagunemnon, A Hunting Horror from CoC, a White/Black Saad and an Uvuudaum. All of those ideas have significant problems with them.

I still maintain the simplest answer is the most likely: the monster is Rich's own invention and has no real connection to any existing creature you'll find in a monster manual.

I also doubt we'll ever know what it looks like. I would hope at this point Rich is an experienced enough writer to know no matter what it is or what it looks like, it'll be underwhelming. It's hidden under an umbrella for a decade.

Except Rich has confirmed that he didn't invent the monster, he knows exactly what is is (and has since the transition to a more plot-oriented comic around strip #100), has been dropping hints about what it is since then, and it is possible (though unlikely) to guess what it is.

He also claims that the answer will be satisfying, which is obviously a matter of personal opinion (I'm on your side, that it wont be) but I believe the rest of it.

>I still maintain the simplest answer is the most likely: the monster is Rich's own invention and has no real connection to any existing creature you'll find in a monster manual.
He confirmed this was not the case, and it will be revealed at some point.

I'm just throwing this in, but could it be possible that MITD is just marking the same door three times? Like there's less dungeons than there are doors?
I think that MITD isn't doing this consciously.
Perhaps it has some kind of True Seeing or x-ray vision on, but can't consciously correlate two facts he may experience with it. It's very dumb, after all.
Also, to verify this superb creature, have you all considered that perhaps it's a completely different creature, even a neutral or good monster, affected by Feeblemind to make it easier to command?
Such powers do not sit well with the concept of a sentient creature not being able to use them with sufficient cunning.

Egg on my face, I guess.

Though I still think it'd be better if it was his own monster.

Again, look carefully between the 6th and last panel, and count the number of red X's from the 6th panel, compare it with the last panel.

Burlew said that it isn't a made-up monster, just an obscure one.

>unusually intelligent
That could work the other way too, as in "an unusual level of intelligence for that creature", what with the MitD being thicker than two short planks

Xykon also has Epic Spellcasting, which puts him at 27+.

Depends whether you're using the colloquial term for intelligence or D&D intelligence. Because in D&D terms, the Monster seems to have high Int (it learns stuff really quickly) but low Wis.

>it learns stuff really quickly
Does it?
Sure seemed to take a while to realise what O-Chul was on about (and his name), if anything I'd say WIS is higher, from what I recall of both the monster and WIS

Either way, "unusual" can equally be unusually high or low.

Whatever it is, IIRC it's still a child/young monster, isn't it?

At this point I think the monster is just pretending to be dumb.

O'chul made note that he was a fast learner when they were playing that game with each other and the MitD went from knowing nothing to incredible competence in a few games

So perhaps it's unusually intelligent for its age? Interesting questions about just how smart a full grown MITD is supposed to be then.

MITD isn't that stupid, just a bit naive.
>Atropal
Well, probably everything fits except the earthquake stomp (btw.. in which strip it happened?)
Man, it's ugly as fuck.

Living wish spell

Oona said the monster looked majestic, which isn't normally how you'd describe an atropal.

I don't think that living spells eat.

Oona IS a bugbear, though. Not sure that they share our definitions of 'majestic'.

Oona is an evil bugbear and atropal is quite god-like evil being. Bugbears and other goblinoids may look at things differently.

He only needs to wish for it at one point.

Wasn't it said somewhere that the monster was going to grow? Atropals don't really grow. Also, an atropal seems a bit too obvious. I think it'll be something really damn obscure.

Right, indeed,I forgot about that.
Plus there is a thing that trappers somehow found A FUCKING GOD-LIKE CREATURE IN THE FOREST AND THEY DIDN'T SHIT THEMSELVES.

Wasn't that in Azure City, where Belkar was still Geased?

That was actually during the first fight with Xykon. Belkar's proven himself equally as strong a combatant since, since he's been shown to slaughter enough goblins to make a mountain out of their corpses while only wielding daggers.

I still don't know how the fuck he's doing that with just two 1d4 weapons.

I'm not 100% positive but that should be from the battle in Xykon's throne room all the way back during the first few strips.

Didn't he have a level or two of barbarian?

He does, but we've never seen him actually rage. Even raging shouldn't add more than like one or two damage to his daggers. Is he just Power Attacking all the time or something?

I just leave it here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarrasque_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)

>Tarrasque
>Obscure

I've been pondering the idea of a baby terrasque for a while. The thing is, Tarrasques are stupid and can't talk.

Consider that many of creatures in Rich world talks even if by monster manual they should not.

Damage dice dont mean dick past like 6th level in 3.5. d4 and d8 has an effective 2 damage increase. Whoop de doo. By 15th level there are plenty of other places to get far more damage.

Yeah, but the MitD is more than just a bit talky. It knows about the Astral plane's properties, and even a bit about arcane vs divine magic.

More than one door is marked by the MitD, meaning that either it has very good dimensional senses and knows when the party has entered bits of the dungeon that are shared by other doors, or he's fucking with the evil party.

Hopefully a blackguard doesn't start spamming "detect good" all over the place or there might be trouble.

MitD is obviously not evil to everyone. They keep him around because he at least seems easy enough to control in spite of his disposition

That still doesn't answer
>Tarrasque
>Obscure

Tarrasques are possessed of animal intelligence, so "Awaken Animal" might work on them.

Bigger trouble is that you don't HAVE baby tarrasques - there is simply "THE TARRASQUE", no cunt to punch, no balls to punish, no children to produce.

>Awakened Tarrasque
I'm reminded of a copypasta.

The OotS is around level 15-16 at this point. I believe V, Elan, Belkar, and Haley are 16, while Roy and Durkon are 15 due to death and ECL shenanigans. V cast a level 8 spell during the desert book, which confirms at least 16.

With all the time and encounters between then and now we can probably pretty safely say 17 at the least.

Remember, most primary spellcasters get their new spell levels at odd numbers. So V would get his 8th level spells at 15th level.