New Order of the Stick Strip Up


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Could be Rich did it as an indicator that it's Durkon's memory - not a real time event. Also - I can't speak for everyone else - but after having seen so many desert browns and tans during the last several months of strips, the change to all those blues and white shades kind of throws me off.


It's alive! Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!
... by which, of course, I mean "undead".
(Great comic.)


Sebastian wrote:
Is it just me, or does the style of the art seem different to anyone else? I can't quite put my finger on it, but the close image of Lil' Durkon in the bottom right corner of the first page seems off. Not a complaint per se, just curious if anyone noticed a difference.

For one thing, arms are no long single lines...

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

I found the art thread Alex mentioned above, and it was helpful. It'll take some getting used to, but it doesn't seem inherently worse (or better) to me.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

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More skin color, background have more perspective. More like another 'art upgrade' than a real style change.


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bugleyman wrote:
For one thing, arms are no long single lines...

Yea - noticed that too. Instead of everyone having black lines for arms, it looks like everyone has skin tone arms to match the rest of their bodies. Probably be noticeable when we get a full view of the OOTS team themselves.


I think this is the saddest opening strip for any of the OOTS books.
Maybe followed by SoD or possibly DstP. I have a feeling this is going to be a rather tragic book compared to its predecessors (except SoD).


Mama's only got one arm...


I'm dotting this thread because the gitp forum is just... mad. And huge.

And I thought the FAWTL thread was bizarre...

Also, what's the publishing schedule for the strip these days? I started reading OOTS years ago, got up to date then 'life happened' for a couple of years. I've now caught up again...

So this is the first time ever I've had to wait for a new strip :-)


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Dazylar wrote:
Also, what's the publishing schedule for the strip these days?

Although Rich generally promises at least a couple of strips a week, it can go to extremes. You'll have a strip every other day, then one in a month. Bottomline - it's out when it's out - but at least he tries to be conscientious of that.


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Dazylar wrote:

Also, what's the publishing schedule for the strip these days? I started reading OOTS years ago, got up to date then 'life happened' for a couple of years. I've now caught up again...

So this is the first time ever I've had to wait for a new strip :-)

If you come to these forums daily, don't bother checking the GitP site. Just look for the burst of activity in this thread. That's how I do it, so I don't suffer any disappointment when i check the site when there's no update.

Liberty's Edge

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Dazylar wrote:


Also, what's the publishing schedule for the strip these days? I started reading OOTS years ago, got up to date then 'life happened' for a couple of years. I've now caught up again...

So this is the first time ever I've had to wait for a new strip :-)

I have the RSS feed for the strip on my old LiveJournal friends page, so I see new strips there.


Shadowborn wrote:
Mama's only got one arm...

Maybe she lost it in a heated battle with a particularly severe tree root incursion.


We are all aware that there are evil trees in D&D, right?

I wonder...

Liberty's Edge

I think we're in for more flashbacks of Durkon's memories and family story. Like how his mother lost her arm, how his father died, how Durkon became a cleric of Thor. The memories are likely drawn from Durkon's mind by Durkula's will (as the previous strip mentioned) but if there are more and more of the heroic style, it might be enough to strengthen Durkon's will and enable him to overcome Durkula at the crucial moment.

Interesting bit of Durkula's mind/soul/self being made entirely of negative energy. I wonder what the mechanical consequences can be.


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The black raven wrote:

I think we're in for more flashbacks of Durkon's memories and family story. Like how his mother lost her arm, how his father died, how Durkon became a cleric of Thor. The memories are likely drawn from Durkon's mind by Durkula's will (as the previous strip mentioned) but if there are more and more of the heroic style, it might be enough to strengthen Durkon's will and enable him to overcome Durkula at the crucial moment.

Interesting bit of Durkula's mind/soul/self being made entirely of negative energy. I wonder what the mechanical consequences can be.

I think its is just interpretation of positive/negative energy divide by Rich. If souls indeed is essence of life and we know that living creatures are powered by positive energy then one of possible interpretations would be that undeads have souls composed of negative energy. The novelty part of this story would be that undead gets a new negative energy soul instead of having the original soul corrupted from positive to negative energy. Not so novelty, though, as it would be similar to vampires from Buffy (and some other sources) which are demons (in a wider sense of evil supernatural entities than D&D narrow meaning of demon) possessing dead (or not so dead) bodies.


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Quote:
And I thought the FAWTL thread was bizarre...

Not sure if we should be proud or not =)


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Orthos wrote:
Quote:
And I thought the FAWTL thread was bizarre...
Not sure if we should be proud or not =)

Proud. Definitely proud! :-)

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

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Nuts!


Thor's, to be precise!

EDIT: Also, I wasn't weirded out by anything... until Roy's arms. I don't know why those in particular, but that's... just... odd... now... Everything is still awesome, though, and I still like the new art style. :D


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I think belkar noticed that he used the wrong swear word. Nuts instead of taint... Bravo Durkon, Bravo.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
I think belkar noticed that he used the wrong swear word. Nuts instead of taint... Bravo Durkon, Bravo.

I was thinking the same thing - maybe Durkon's info dump is intended to give him the "wrong" information - to trip "evil Durkon" up.


I suspected as much myself.

However, I also think this is the in-universe set up for the looming Belkar tragedy. Mind you that no one - not even Roy - respects Belkar at this point... Durkon is all of their friends.

And it's only now, at this point, that Belkar is actually starting to become... wise.

Recall, when he received a simple +4 increase to his wisdom, it was like an enlightenment of peace and prosperity for all beings. It's quite possible that, in the course of recent adventures, during one of his dings, he added a point to his wisdom stat.

... or, if less mechanically, that he's just become a better person.

... just in time for people to find him effectively worthless and disgusting. I suspect either he'll be a Cassandra-figure (ironic for a number of reasons, actually); or he'll actually be smart about it and let the evidence build up to pitch his case... after it's too late; or he'll get too fed up with the situation (possibly including parts one or two) and take Durkon's life himself... either proving to Roy that he was correct (and thus sending Roy into an even darker place), probably costing him his life, or causing Roy (and/or another member of or the rest of the Order) to turn against him themselves.

I suspect that dream of he, Shinjo, and the cat isn't going to be that far-fetched after all.


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The speed of thought? I think for some people that might actually be kind of slow.


There's a lot here!
This strip confirms the theory that the only influence the living person has on its vampire is a temporary one, explaining why there was no apparent struggle between Malack and the lizardfolk. It also confirms that all (or almost all) OOTS vampires work like this. Although, it doesn't rule out my theory that Hel made this particular vampire a special case (that "normal" OOTS vampires are possessed by a generic evil negative energy spirit, while Hel intervened to insert her own creature in Durkon's body).

One one hand, this is good news for the Order: it means that anyone who knows enough about undead would understand the current situation. On the other hand, Belkar, Elan, Haley, and Roy all lack Knowledge (Religion), and it looks like V doesn't have enough either, or V would have told the others. The good news is that they are going to the Northern continent, where the High Priest of Odin is, and hopefully he would know how OOTS vampires work (and be able to cast resurrection).

Dazylar wrote:
Orthos wrote:
Quote:
And I thought the FAWTL thread was bizarre...
Not sure if we should be proud or not =)
Proud. Definitely proud! :-)

Is there a Best FAWTL Book tournament? Nope, only OOTS is awesome enough to have one of those!


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137ben wrote:
Is there a Best FAWTL Book tournament? Nope, only OOTS is awesome enough to have one of those!

Irrelevant. FAWTL does not write books. FAWTL exists merely to maintain the condition of FAWTL. When that thread breaks 100k posts and people start complaining of FAWTL, then there will be room for comparison.

Grand Lodge

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137ben wrote:
100k posts? Lame, the OOTS forum has (as of this writing) 758250 posts. OOTS is still more awesome.

You realize that FAWTL is on it's 6th thread, which is at 104,511 posts right now.

One-sixth of FAWTL is nearly one-seventh of their entire forum.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
137ben wrote:
100k posts? Lame, the OOTS forum has (as of this writing) 758250 posts. OOTS is still more awesome.

You realize that FAWTL is on it's 6th thread, which is at 104,511 posts right now.

One-sixth of FAWTL is nearly one-seventh of their entire forum.

I wasn't trying to start a "forum superiority war"! :-)

And what happened to 137ben's post? Deleted presumably.

Anyway, when I said OOTS forum was huge, I meant, based on it being a forum for a webcomic, it's scope is huge and I didn't want to get sucked in (my time being a premium already). FAWTL is a similar eternity well. That's all.

(Don't get me started on TV Tropes, either. Why I downloaded the app onto my phone I have no idea!)

I think everyone should be proud of their favoured forum! But not too proud, as I hear the internet is a big place, and as a repository of people's comments and opinions possibly dwarfs everything else combined! Have I just made a impredicative self-reference? Hope so!

Anyway, I've already got used to the new art - the last three panels look fab to me.


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... there's an app for tv tropes?

... oh. Oh, no.

Grand Lodge

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What hath science wrought!?


Is there an app for viewing and editing the trope about there being an app for tvtropes?
And what would the reaction on FAWTL be to the creation of such an app?!?

Dark Archive

you're all doomed


Too late!


lol


Digging up an old debate:

I've been rereading OOTS lately and I ran across this reference in strip 364 where Roy's sister implies that he "couldn't cut it" as a spellcaster. Possibly more to show that he might have been the one experimenting when his little brother was killed.

Silver Crusade

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The doctor is in.

Shadow Lodge

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Breaking the fourth wall is great, and I'm happy to see Banjo again.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

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Dragonborn3 wrote:
Breaking the fourth wall is great, and I'm happy to see Banjo again.

That's Doctor Banjo. He didn't go to clown medical school for years to take that kind of disrespect.


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The character got a name. Of course Felix will live.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

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The stabbing with the scalpel is a nice touch.

Silver Crusade

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I think this means they leveled up recently. Elan didn't have such powerful healing spells before, did he?

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

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Maybe. They were 13th level at the Battle of Azure City, and that was some time ago. It only takes 10th level for a bard to have 4th level spells like cure critical wounds, so its possible he's had it for awhile.

Haley's comment does imply he's taken more healing spells lately, but it could also just mean he's been called on to use them more often, since Durkon has a more limited supply of them.

Let's assume the former, though, since that lets us draw conclusions, whereas the latter doesn't.

Gaining a new 4th level spell happens at levels 10, 11, 13, and 19. (In 3.5, which was less generous to Bards than Pathfinder.)

I doubt they're 19th already, just because we would have seen Varsuvius and Durkon casting 9th level spells once they were past 17th.

Of note, though, Bards can retrain a 4th level spell at 17th level, so maybe they just ticked over to 17th, and we just haven't had a chance for V or Durkula to cut loose with higher level spells. (V more likely than Durkula, since Burlew might make Durkula buy off his level adjustment before gaining more cleric levels.)

Or I'm over-analyzing the whole thing.


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Elan took more healing spells after dealing with that 1/2 Orc ninja who had the hots for him.

Grand Lodge

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Mentioned here.

Since he only gets 2 5th level spells at Bard 13, he would have swapped his spell at 14th, the next point at which he had an opportunity. No idea why he didn't just take cure critical with his 13th level increase in spells known.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

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I forgot he had prestige class levels. He mentions planning to swap a 4th level spell for Cure Critical, but he's still not allowed to swap 4th level spells until he has 6th level spells, so that's only at 17th (or I guess 20th) level of Bard.

And since he mentions learning two new 5th level spells, that panel occurred just after gaining 13 levels in bard (with some unknown number of Dashing Swordsman).

Two possible conclusions here:

1) Elan is at least 17th level of bard, plus some of Dashing Swordsman (possibly making the party 20th level, nearing the end game), and we should see 9th level spells immiently.

2) Burlew forgot/deliberately ignored the rule about bard swapping spells only two or more levels below their highest spell level and Elan swapped at 14 levels of bard, making the party as a whole somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-17th level.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

TriOmegaZero wrote:
No idea why he didn't just take cure critical with his 13th level increase in spells known.

He addresses that: he took neutralize poison instead.


Beautifully funny Rich if you are reading this. Love the line beginning: "I choose to focus..." - Not wishing to give a spoiler here.

Grand Lodge

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Ross Byers wrote:
He addresses that: he took neutralize poison instead.

Ah, of course.


I don't suppose we will be lucky enough to get a Banjo vs Hel fight sometime in the future.

Silver Crusade

Drock11 wrote:
I don't suppose we will be lucky enough to get a Banjo vs Hel fight sometime in the future.

Based on today's page, I suspect Banjo has given up his divinity for a new profession.

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