Order of the Stick #1046: Literally Heartless

Order of the Stick #1046: Literally Heartless

Wow, literally page of text and nothing of value being said.

Remember when this comic used to be fun to read? I do.

Also, we again being emotionally manipulated. For example, in this comic Daddy is completely right - predictable effect is much more better than unpredictable, all else being equal. But he is jerk, so we are led to thought "no, he isn't right because he is jerk, emotion magic is better". Pathetic.

Found the wizard.

And the moral of the story is that asspull magic > statted magic?

Why again this comic wasn't ported to 5e? At least we would get some comedy gold when casters understand they can't buff themselves to heaven anymore and have to find new tactics.

More like asspull magic > no magic.

Same reason it wasn't ported to 4e

>Same reason it wasn't ported to 4e
Which one? Because this story would be times more comedic, if they had to deal with this edition change shit.

One of the first few strips is the game being ported over to 3.5 from 3e.
Also, the game it's based on, IRL, took place entirely in 3.5

someone make an edit already

Found the wild mage.

OP here.

Reminder that Eugene's wife jumped right on the afterlife cock carousel the moment she died.

Probably wouldn't have done that if Eugene had been a better husband.

Speaking of which, how does that afterlife work in that regard? Does it spawn NPC beefcake and cheesecake for everyone who wants it, or are the lawful good autists doomed to be wizards in the afterlife too, or what?

Everyone becomes really attractive in the afterlife. And you don't have to worry that they're an asshole under the surface because they're IN HEAVEN.

Now I have this sudden mental image of Celestia(tm) brand toilet paper: wipes assholes shiny clean.

>Everyone becomes really attractive in the afterlife.

Not true.

Everyone appears as their ideal version of themselves.

user, whose ideal version of themselves is ugly? Besides shitheads like Eugene who were born 60?

I usually like to play Devil's Advocate for Burch but this is one of the most wooden exchanges he's written in a while. No one talks likes this.

This dialogue is WoW RP-tier.

People who don't care about physical appearance?

I guarantee you even humble people have a subconscious ideal self-image. It's Heaven, the entire point is you did well in life so you get rewarded with the hot body you always wanted.

Rich's Heaven is also on tiers, which people ascend based on their personalities. The rewards get less physical and more spiritual the higher you go up, and you go up on your own time. Mrs. Roy is having too much fun getting plowed by knights so she's still on the first level. Eugene was technically "Good" but he's a prickly bastard who can't let go of his pride, which is why he's still sitting around at the gate.

I think the fact that he flaked on his blood oath has more to do with him sitting at the gates instead of chilling in the afterlife than the fact that he's a jackass.

Also she'd have to leave Roy's baby brother behind. I don't imagine kids ever get too bored of playing with blocks and having fun forever.

But Roy got let in.

The difference is, Roy tried to fulfill the blood oath and died trying. Eugene avoided fulfilling it and started a family instead, so he's stuck at the gate.

Roy didn't flake. He failed, but he literally died trying to fulfill the oath. The whole conversation he had with the archon was about how intent is actually pretty important.

It wasn't Roy's bloodoath, but he still did his absolute best to fulfil it, and died in the trying. You get major points for trying to be Good.

Eugene ignored the oath for most of his life and then dropped it on his son to take care of.

To be fair it's almost entirely Eugene being an ass. It's not hard to figure out to skim his dialogue here.

The whole "I'm letting the Chaotic Evil Ranger/Barbarian halfling stay in the group because I'm one of the only people that can keep him reigned in and pointed at a greater evil." thing probably helped too.

I thought it was long established Roy is as Lawful Good as you can get without turning into a caricature.

>reestablish things we already knew once again
>nothing of value being said
I don't even wait for this comic anymore.

Yeah, but he was also at risk of having been marked as Lawful Neutral, seeing as his lists of charges were:
Resisting Arrest.
Impersonating a King and taking gifts intended for said King.
Dangling an Oracle (the Kobold asshole) from a window.
Abandoning Elan to a bunch of bandits (he did rectify it by coming to his senses though, but only just barely).
Knowingly and willingly associating and cooperating with an evil adventurer. (got around it by having it listed as attempted redemption of an evil person).

And that's not counting everything that's happened after Azure City.

Probably both has other dead people (perfectly matched to you in personality) and whips something up wholecloth in a pinch.

5e is complete fucking shit, it would be an embarassment for OOTS to switch.

Yeah I remember that. They told him they were considering bumping his ass down, but overall he managed to swing Lawful Good. I feel he's earned that alignment.

Thog edit incoming.

too much words near end

not thog enough

the best part of this is that now Belkar is slowly turning Neutral.

not due to Roy exactly, but the cat and his team in general now matter to Belkar alot.

Durkon getting turned enraged Belkar most of all, because he admired him.

so Roy has slowly helped turn a potential force for evil into an actual good or neutral force.

>Durkon getting turned enraged Belkar most of all, because he admired him.

Literally the best part of the Durkula arc desu

Legitimately thought, from the thumbnail, that V was pregnant (or had just vored something large enough to give them a stomach bulge) and was standing staring evilly at a picture of haley with a smug expression on their face.

Sorcerer, actually.

it still is, you just have a stick up your butt. =b

>Does it spawn NPC beefcake and cheesecake for everyone who wants it

All NPCs in the afterlife are PCs who died in campaigns.

...

So is that him just making a threat or did he take Favored Enemy or some such?

Have we figured out exactly what the sword does?

I wonder why Cruella is part of the standard here. All she's really guilty of is petty cruelty and greed. It's not like she plunged any kingdoms into chaos like Ursula or Malificent

First thog. Probably did way too many d jokes.

We're talking about a bitch who literally wanted to kill puppies dude.

Like, Ursula was power hungry and wanted revenge, Malificent was petty and jealous, but Cruella literally and actively wanted to kill puppies. We can argue about the scales of evil here, insofar as the scale of which the evil impacted the world, but in terms of degrees of evil, in terms of on a scale of Jesus to Soros "how evil are you"?

Killing puppies so you can be more aesthetic is pretty fucking high on the scale.

Not-thog edit here.

>predictable effect is much more better than unpredictable, all else being equal.
But all else is not equal, that's the point. From the relationship perspective, Grandpa Greenhilt's approach leaves him with no family, no love, no meaningful human interaction... and from the combat perspective, normal magic is going to be almost useless against a skilled full caster like Xykon, especially with lich immunities added in, but a magic weapon that's specifically designed to fuck the shit out of undead will kick his ass. In the first scenarios, the most you could argue is that there is equal merit in both approaches... I personally value family and love much higher, but I at least admit that others might have different priorities, so I won't try to claim that either is objectively better than the other.

In the second scenario, however, the unpredictable option is still objectively better, because while unpredictable, it's the only option that actually has an appreciable chance of winning the day.

>measured in kilonazis

>wooooooords words words

I shouldn't have laughed, but I did.

Like I said, pretty cruelty. I just don't see how that matches up to shit like repeatedly manipulating people into practically selling their souls and damning them to an eternity as weird polyps.

>I wonder why Cruella is part of the standard here.
Because it's a joke.

I think part of the idea is he's the "offspring" of Cruella and Sauron, meaning he's a mix of two different kinds of villainy.

Sauron is the dramatic, oppressive, jackbooted kind of evil. The guy throws people into concentration camps and executes anyone who's not strong enough to be a slave. Belkar is confrontational and violent and lives by his anger and hatred in a lot of cases.

Cruella is the petty, arrogant, and vain kind of evil. She's the person who literally planned to skin puppies just so she could have a pretty coat. She's not interested in domination through brute force, just wrapping people around her finger and treating friends as disposable resources. Belkar has some delusions of grandeur but he's not a total would-be overlord. Much of his more evil tendencies are motivated by a sociopathic view of people.

He shows traits you'd associate with both kinds of characters.

Might have taken one of those feats that allow you to treat undead as living for crits and sneak attack.

I'll have you know I hold my one-off single panel jokes to very high standards, thank you very much.

That's a pretty interesting way to look at it. In that respect I guess that kind of almost thoughtless cruelty would be a good complement to a more high minded, ambitious evil, so the resulting entity has a fuller and more rounded depth of evil.

Now I'm kinda curious how one would go about breeding a being of perfect evil.

It turns out it's man.

Prefect.

This is the one.

...

>hivemind

>newfag

>ass confidence.
bahaha.

Let's consult the RPG authority on the matter.

Somewhat. It's a +5 Greatsword Weapon of Legacy. When it's legacy powers are active it glows green and seems to add bonus damage to Undead and possibly Evil Outsiders.

It also appears to be capable of casting Haste and some form of Healing spell on its wielder.

I've always assumed he actually has Undead as one of his favored enemies. Alongside Kobolds.

y, one of his favored enemies is undead

So... is V the female or male parent?

Yes.

hasn't been revealed, both V and their partner are androgynous, V only ever says partner when reffering to them, the kids are adopted so they could be a same-sex couple (or not), and elvish seems to have no words for 'mom' or 'dad' only 'parent' so the children give no indication

Favoured Enemy gives a bonus to Sense Motive in 3.5.
Belkar propably has +4 (since he can increase the one he just picked), so the vamp couldn't pass a bluff test against him.

Read the comic

Petty cruelty is one of the most pure displays of evil.

Being cruel for no reason other than it makes you happy is, while not the MOST evil thing you can do, one of the most PURELY evil things you can do.

The male. He is into logical thinking, has a career and agency. Plus he never mentioned a "hidden" bisexual side and lesbian affairs.

...

>uh I just assumed your gender
Holy shit 100/10

Remove "look back and"?

Belkar is the best part of OotS, IMHO. I'd stop reading it if it wasn't for him. Sexy shoeless god of war.

Where are the bonus strips of the oots meeting their 4e counterparts? I've never been able to get ahold of them.

Edit of another stripe

It's all the fucking extra o's that makes it. It calls to mind the image of an delusional guy wearing a bedsheet as a ghost costume and calling out "woooooords!" from under your windowsill

So what actually gets passed onto the reader here?

Roy can activate his legacy weapon.
It has a per day limit.
Ghosts can only haunt when alone.
V regrets not making time for family.
Roy's dad is a shit.

How would you convey this information, Veeky Forums?

A 35-page short story.

You used to wait for this comic?

I gave up on it a long time ago.
In fact, lately I only know it updated because Veeky Forums posted a thread about it.

It actually ends up being a nice surprise.
Great way to kill a couple minutes.
Yeah, I only really appreciated OotS when I stopped caring about it.

Source on this?

Might possibly be kill puppies for satan, I don't really know.

>Besides shitheads like Eugene who were born 60?

You'd be amazed how many of those there are.

>tfw have been reading OOTS faithfully since 08
>tfw enjoy the characters and the setting
>tfw don't mind the wall of text, since it fleshes out the characters well

Good, you have something you enjoy. Don't lose that.

>vore as a verb
Even other vorarephiles look down on you.

technically it's an adverb.

I don't mind walls of text when the text is actually interesting.

I still enjoy the comic, but lately Rich has been writing a lot of very wood, exposition-laden conversations which don't sound anything like how normal people talk. Part of me thinks this is because the GitP userbase is fucking retarded and will come up with millions of asinine theories for anything which isn't explicitly spelled out (like when they started arguing Haley is half-celestial because her dad used a heaven euphemism for her mom's death).

But I still think he could handle the conversations a little more fluidly.

In that user's use, it's a verb in past tense (had vored). More specifically, he uses it as a past participle.
In "accepted" usage, it's a noun, often with adjectives to distinguish category (hard/soft/oral/unwilling, etc). Rarely, I've seen "vorish" as an adjective form. Never seen it used as an adverb, though.

What's that from? Looks kinda like futurama.

That's because it's futurama