In which Duke Nukem carefully considers a dorito
February 6, 2015
6:49 am
sorry it’s a bit late, I spent my comic-drawing time is Portland and Seattle with my webcomicbros Tish, Amanda, and Bea.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Updated Mondays or whenever I feel like it
Jared’s gonna get shanked before the night is done…
Either that or Riddick gets frustrated enough to replace all those normal chickens with Legend of Zelda chickens. “The chickens attack, everyone dies.”
HA! In my world when I created a one-off NPC, I’d inevitably name him “Fred.” And, just as inevitably, my crew of rambunctious players would incite a riot and Fred (among others) would end up attacking them.
Finally, they started attacking as soon as the NPC identified themselves as “Fred..”
The Polymorph spell wears off, they turn back into level 20 blood knights or whatever.
Oh. That’s a great idea, I’m stealing that!
Or the Twilight Princess variant where Jared must play as the chicken for a few rounds – there’s potential there, as have you ever seen a chicken use its Stealth skill?
Now that you mention it, no. They must be AMAZING!
yes yes i have sneaky little buggers they can fly a little bit too if they really want to enough to get em into a tree
Chickens are even worse than vorpal bunnies…Remember Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail?
Even better, later on, the GM can keep teasing the guys about how their entire party got wiped out by getting hen-pecked to death.
:D
But that wasn’t a vorpal bunny, that was the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog
Yes, and its effect on King Arthur’s knights and/or men-at-arms was markedly similar to the description of the Vorpal enchantment from the D&D 3.5 DMG.
It’s been nicknamed the vorpal bunny for a while now, and that’s the best thing to ever come from the stupid enchantment.
Yes, but they’re both so easily confused with Dire Hares, being pallete swaps. I’m betting that Killer Rabbits are the footsoldier variant, and the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog was at least a miniboss. Vorpal Bunnies are later game monsters, with ridiculously high attack and antiarmor scores, but drop almost everything else, making it a priority to kill them before they can attack. They get phased out when our heroes get better armor, but are still dangerous in swarms until the endgame. Dire Hares would be the elite class, with fairly good stats all around, and show up toward the beginning of the endgame, but don’t have quite the same offensive power as Vorpal Bunnies, and so end up as late game cannonfodder.
And now you know.
And knowing is half the battle! G.I. JOOOOOOOEEE! YOOOO JOOOOOOOE!
The other half is killin’ s**t, but Joe never told ya that, did he?
“Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog” would be a reference to a *specific* individual…”vorpal bunny” is a reference to the entire *species*
Since Arthur & his knights killed that *specific* bunny, you can’t throw it at *your* party of intrepid adventurers…But you CAN use another member of the species against them.
;)
You know what I say? I say this whole damn discussion is completely ridicul—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!
Look if you’re dying, you wouldn’t bother to type ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!’
…unless maybe you were dictating.
Poor Riddick. The elephantaur sneaking up on chickens just by itself can’t be good for the cohesion of his world, but he draws the line at there just not BEING any chickens.
Question.. does Riddic’s head become a pulsating disco ball when he is angry and sweaty enough while there is sufficient light?
I respect Riddick for sticking to his morals. My advice? Set the town guards on ’em for chicken theft.
Alternately, his mass of chickens attracts a rare and dangerous chickening eating Jabberwock subspecies.
Chicken Defense Force Initiative. A giant chicken monster that appears out of nowhere and wrecks your shit up.
That’s one neat looking elephantaur.
The rest of the party’s gonna be hired by the villagers to stop the villain who’s trying to ruin their livelihood, aren’t they?
Best plot twist ever!
I feel Riddick’s pain, man. I’ve run games like that before.
It’s all fun until someone yells, “SCREW THIS, I’M OUTTA HERE!!” XDDDDDDD
I like how Riddick is committed to fair DMing and reasonable world management in the face of even the worst player ridiculousness. That’s the sign of a Grade A DM.
Sort of fair, but if one player’s monopolising an entire session, that’s unfair on a different level. At some point I’d cut to black and say “right, you keep on doing that for some time; now, Commander, what are you doing?”
To which his answer would be, “I’m watchin’ my Elephantaur Rogue sneak up on fukkin chickens from outside th’ range he said would count as detectin’ him, ‘cuz what the fuk else could I possibly be doin’ that’s more awesome than that?”
peasants gotta have poultry
Yeah, but Jared is taking too much advantage of what *must* be a limited supply of chickens…I call “Fowl Play” on him for that.
As a GM I feel for Riddick. Of course I run a Pokémon D20 but still I have had problems with people. By the way my friend who DMs D&D would love it if you could share the Bisontaur sheets
Here’s what my DM wrote up;
Bisontaur
Ability Scores: +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int -2 Dex
Size: Large (-1 to attack and AC, -4 stealth, +1 CMD and CMB, ability score adjustments due to size already factored in above)
Base Speed: 40 ft speed
Stability: +4 CMD vs Trip and Bull Rush
Medium Torso: Bisontaur’s upper body is the same size as that of a Medium creature. As such, they weild weapons as if they were Medium and have a reach of 5 ft.
You’re a Dude Growing Out of a Bison: Seriously though, how do you climb up a rope? -4 climb
Ferocity: If the hit points of a BisonTaur fall below 0 but it is not yet dead, it can continue to fight. If it does, it is staggered, and loses 1 hit point each round. It still dies when its hit points reach a negative amount equal to its Constitution score
Thank you very much, I am sure my friend will make good use of this
You need to release a race sheet for the Elephant Centaur.
Then we can all be stealthy elephant centaur rogues.
I imagine it would be similar to the Bisontaur, just larger.
You should rename your Bluff skill to “Buffalo”.
Bluffalo.
Thunderbluffalo!
Was looking at that, and the CMD CMB stuff made me realize that it was 4.0 which was why it seemed off to me. I learned and prefer 3.5 (5.0 is interesting but no current group to play around with it to learn it) and taurforms usually have way higher strength bonuses.
Not 4.0, Pathfinder. Usually given the moniker “3.75”.
Or ‘3.P,’ for fewer syllables and a rhyme for good measure. ‘3.PF’ for greater accuracy; I never hear it called 3.75 anymore.
You and your Metrics. 3 and 3/4.
it’s pathfinder.
You run a Pokemon D20? Dude, that’s awesome.
That is too funny! And I don’t play D&D. (I played maybe two very short sessions like 30 years ago.)
Eugh. Memories of Fable just arose. “Chicken Chaser.”
brings to mind a song i heard way back in the 70’s… sneakin’ chickens on my farm, they don’t do me no harrrrm……
I am angry right along there with Riddick. I used to play with someone exactly like this, and they just made the games long and boring. It really ruins the pace of a game, and it loses it’s humor very quickly.
I don’t know about your player, but in Jared’s case it’s obviously a problem of familiarity and that he was likely thrown arse first into the game without fully knowing the rules, with the more experienced players willing to teach him as the campaign progresses in small bits, as they become relevant.
What Jared is doing is using behavior learned in one type of RPG, like Skyrim, and applying it to D&D in regards to his goal of “being sneaky as a big not-sneaky thing”. I’m pretty sure Jared doesn’t actually know how to level up your stealth skill in D&D, but he knows from experience (real life and other games) that you get better at a thing through practice. Jared wants his elephantaur to be the sneakiest person ever so he’s practicing his sneaking is a generally harmless way, much to poor Riddick’s frustration.
If anything Riddick should help focus Jared’s sneaky agenda in a more constructive way: point him (and the party) towards a goblin camp and have him sneak up to them for whatever reason. Jared is simply testing the waters since he’s go no direction right now. And while Jared doesn’t have direction, he does have a fire lit under him. That he’s at least interacting with the game world instead of being passive is fantastic for a new player. Just point him in a direction Riddick, and watch the feathers fly.
At least he’s not trying to sneak into the viscount’s mansion and cause the PCs trouble by stealing a piece of art then pawning it off. Worst case scenario, Jared’s PC is going to get scolded by a rather irate and very confused farmer.
Also it could be worse: Jared could realize that this is a fantasy world and decide to decline the call to adventure entirely and take up raising dire pigeons. Which could be an adventure in itself, in all honesty.
Honestly, if a character in one of my games showed that much dedication to practicing his skills in-game, I might just throw a +1 or +2 competence bonus his way. Not unbalancing, but rewards the player for trying to roleplay.
“The Gian Chickendemon looks toward the party and sees (number of players in the party-1) beings approacheing it”
“We are one more”
“The Elephantaur instinctively isn’t seen by the Chickendemon”
Your reasoning could work if Riddick doesn’t specifically say that he already explained it is not how the game works. The problem, then, is not with familiarity and not knowing how it works, but rather ignoring how it works.
Old habits die hard
Pokemon EV training my friends. You want to level your pokemon so they get extra speed bonuses? Have them fight certain pokemon. He prob sees this as a form of that. He knows there is leveling, exp, and skill points… and the rest is flying over his head.
Just tell him that “Chickens are too low level for you to get exp. from sneaking up on”
Of course, then he’ll try sneaking up on the Undead Elder Void Dragon King or some equally ridiculous boss with a level over 9000…
Maybe he just likes collecting chickens? He recreationally rearranges pigeons after all.
If you ever hit above level 30 in a D&D campaign stop planning and go play a god sim. Seriously four reasonably well optimized adventurers can rival gods and if you want to get even cheesier a level 5 kobold can rival elder gods himself. Look up Pun-Pun if you get a chance just never try to play it unless you want your DM to throw books at you.
honestly even moderately optimized characters in the range of level 15-20 get out of hand quickly. Levels 5-13 tend to be the sweet spot (though I enjoy the higher powered games occasionally, I can’t imagine trying to actually utilize the ELH rules).
I gotta say, today’s strip is the one that made me laugh the hardest so far, it was GLORIOUS! X3
Elephant Centar is the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen you draw, or will probably ever draw in your whole life. I laughed out loud when I saw it.
I am loving this! Damn it Jared! LOL
This is the most beautiful thing. The Dorito was a lovely finishing touch.
“This Dorito… it speaks to me.”
I agree. Now I can’t stop thinking about the Dorito.
As far as Riddick goes, I think there are many GMs like that, who are really dedicated to their craft, and won’t shift the world around just because one of the players is just going off doing whatever.
Riddick is doing it right; he just had the *misfortune of being stuck with Jared.
*debatable
Riddick just hasn’t considered the fact of “reality” that no matter how big or small the city/town/village is, there’s a limited “environmental niche” that simply can’t support an unlimited amount of chickens. Once Jared has stolen all of the chickens, there’s none left to sneak/steal.
But then Jared would probably just let all of them go…And start all over.
:/
That Elephantaur is awesome!!! Also, this portrayal of Riddick feels very spot on. He’s angry and violent but, as the movies have proved time and again, he’s actually a pretty nice guy all things considered.
He needs an alien dog now….
Unsatisfied with pigeons, Jared is now exploring Riddick’s world to find The Fattest Chicken.
I can honestly see Jared breeding the Fattest Chicken with the Fattest Pigeon using a Pokemon excuse.
I am sorry my reaction would be “sorry kid, your character trips, falls and dies cocking on his own blood after his spine fractures…make a new character….also, coincidentally all Centaurphants have been infected by a Genophage spell so as they are not a viable race for character creation…and from now on I am only accepting warriot character sheets”
….
You’re joking. You’re joking, right? I thought such GMs only existed in 4chan’s horror stories.
I am a VERY accomodating ST (I ST NWoD games and allow ANY template from the big 3 to the minor supernaturals down to Duguthims and revenants)….but someone THAT daft and annoying? Yeah I’d be a dick to him.
aka “STOP HAVING FUN IN A WAY I DON’T APPROVE OF. THAT ISN’T FUN”
…actually sounds about par for what I’ve heard of about NWOD players in general.
Having fun? Sure….breaking the flow by, say, playing a winter court changeling who does nothing but stop everyone in the group every 3 minutes to find children to scare even while not needing to feed on their emotions because “that’s how I roll” and/or too inept to understand a simple “that is NOT how you level up your skills”….yeah no.
@crimzontearz: Geez, remind me never to play in any game where you’re the GM; GMs like you are the reason one of my friends is reduced to incoherent rage whenever he looks at the charms section of the Exalted corebook.
yes, because stopping EVERYONE as often as a guy such as the one I described would is actually fun right?
we are also not talking about hyper draconic rules here…..we are talking about “hey, dude, this does not level up as Skyrim, overly using your skill will have no effect on progression”
Riddick also has the option of awarding XP in accordance of “diminishing returns.” Just as a 10th level fighter really earns no XP for killing a handful of goblins, Jared would also earn less XP as he levels up his stealth (especially against chickens).
That sound a lot like Nethack.
Goddamn auto correct….CHOKING
After much thought and deep consideration, Duke decided to eat the Dorito. He deliberated a bit longer before deciding he enjoyed it.
So he reached for another Dorito…And even went so far as to lightly apply some cool ranch dip, admiring the textures & contrast of the whole before eating that too.
“I will take this Doroto…
…
…
…AND EAT IT.”
Is the Dorito a stealth reference to Nerdy Show?
I have not played DNF, but by all descriptions of it, this strip’s use of Duke may be better than that entire game.
DNF is just an average game. People got all bent out of shape because of how long they’d been waiting for it.
That, and the Hive level was pretty vile. Combined with the strip club level right after it, I caught a serious case of mood whiplash. It wasn’t the worst game I ever played, but it was a budget title at best.
The Hive level was nothing new, Duke Nukem 3D has basically the same thing. people got mad at Duke Nukem for being Duke Nukem.
Yeah, but it was taken to an even further extreme. Having Duke go “Oh yeah!” and “You’re not even human anymore!” during the mercy kills didn’t sit well with me. As for why I went for those actions, they would have exploded and spawned a rampaging alien baby. The game penalized you for not doing that.
Duke was Duke, but the game still had some moments that left me wondering what the developers were thinking.
Also, dissing power armor when you have regenerating health that acts like Halo power armor made no sense.
I laughed out loud at this!
This is the best story arc I’ve seen here!
Riddick is much more patient than I’d be.
I was eating a torta (a burrito that’s on a breadroll instead of wrapped in a tortilla for anyone that was thinking I misspelled tortoise) when I read this… ow..jesus chunk of steak up my nose…laughing that hard.
Here in Texas, we call tortas sandwiches. No real reason for that, considering most tortas are decidedly not your average sandwich.
This is exactly how I play D&D. Jared is a man-child after my own heart.
LOL me too..I remember we killed some stone giants so I decided to try and cut them up for rations..Or was it ogres..Anywaus everyones like “WTFH ARE YOU DOING MAN!”
Eventually a party member tied me up…Also I often left booze as payment/recompense(irony being irl I pretty much never drink) and was generally all around insane..Such as sleeping in holes thus avoiding the need for bedrolls…
I am that guy where if it seeks funny or completely insame I will do it…I eventually tried to move into our bag of holding.
Man I need to play D&d or pathfinder more.
Let me guess…Chaotic Neutral, right?
You’d probably need to bring something like a scuba tank to live in a bag of holding; extradimensional storage doesn’t come with air.
Saying “No More Chickens” virtually guarantees that all the other players start looking for chickens too. If something is important enough that the GM hides it, then it must be important enough to search for! If you can’t find them, no matter how hard you search, it must mean they’ve been mysteriously hidden and it is time to take the village apart! Plus if something is annoying the GM, then that is a worthwhile reward on its own.
“Annoying the GM is a worthwhile reward on its own.”
Maybe once in a while, but it’s bstill pretty dickish if you don’t have a better reason.
As a DM, he’s not very good at this…All he’d have to do is tell Jared that he already stole all the chickens in the village & there aren’t any more. Sure, poultry is a staple & part of the core economy of a village, but there can only be so much infrastructure to support so many chickens.
Not only that, if Jared tries to sell chickens back to the people in the village (even if he mixes them up a lot), *someone* is bound to notice who stole all their chickens.
He’s simply forgotten that, in AD&D, the GM is god…But when the god of the game doesn’t even know how his own world works, the players win. So, somewhere along the line, the village militia (or whoever is charged with the duty to keep the peace) will throw Jared’s character in jail, maybe with the rest of his party…GM wins.
I don’t think you can call barring the players off from adventure “winning” getting the players towards the adventure you spent time on would be “winning”
Well that can be accomplished by having the guards escort them out of town rather than throw them in the pillory.
Or heck, just have the rest of the party move along to some exciting new thing and say they’re going to leave Jared’s character behind if he doesn’t drop all those chickens and follow along. Give a curious player something more interesting to pursue than chickens and they typically forget all about the chickens pretty quickly.
Or, if using my example of tossing Jared in jail for petty theft, have him hauled in front of the magistrate the next day. Petty theft isn’t really serious, but the judge could either exile the party from town or, better yet, give them a quest that gets them out of town on the pretext that they have to succeed in order to suspend the punishment of law.
In the examples I used, “GM wins” is in reference to the GM wins back his control over his own world. It’s up to the GM to provide a sense of continuity, but when the players take that away, the the GM loses.
Funny enough, they just statted chickens in Pathfinder. They got a +5 Perception, so sneaking up on one is no easy feat for a 1st level character.
I like to imagine Jared rolls like 18+ every time he’s trying to sneak up on a chicken and then nothing but like 3’s in combat. And they all get mad at him for wasting his good rolls.
Sounds like one of my friends who likes playing Betrayal at House on the Hill.
He gets downright crappy rolls for Skill checks (roughly 70% of the time, even with 5+ dice, he rolls a 1), but makes really good rolls for checking if the haunt begins.
The reaction is what you’d expect: “Oh, NOW you roll high. Thanks a lot. *glares*”
“Roll for Stealth to avoid being detected by the suspicious Bisontaur.”
“I GOT A FOUR!”
You. YES.
Hang on, wouldn’t an elephant centaur be so out of place trying to be sneaky that they’d get by through Refuge in Audacity?
WTF?: When trying to spot an Eletaur that’s actively sneaking, you take a penalty based on your intelligence modifier. (Yes, really stupid people gain a bonus)
Jared is my spirit animal.
Speaking as someone who’s only on nodding terms with actually playing tabletop RPGs (and is badly addicted to original Final Fantasy), I adore this strip. Also, I would buy a Commander Badass t-shirt with a tabletop RPG reference in a heartbeat.
Also, the final Boss should be an Elder God of Chickens enraged by the perfidy of the elephantaur.
Something like this, maybe?
Summoning starts here.
Oh sweet Celestia, I have literally been laughing for ten minutes straight and my face is starting to cramp up! That glorious beast/man with an armfull of chickens is too beautiful for words.
OMG is that … The Fattest Chicken?
I’d like to request the “Poultry is a very important part of their infrastructure, they can’t just NOT have chickens.” word bubble, with two d20 die (or one d20 and a d3) be placed as a design on a T-shirt so I can send it to my friend who is EXACTLY like Riddick as a DM.
They invited Johnny Bravo to this shindig once, but he and Duke had a near existential breakdown when they saw each other. Fortunately they were saved when Johnny got a call from Velma and had to leave on a date.
Like, Velma set him up with a date, right? She is WAY out of his league.
Not that I adhere to any concept of leagues, but.. C’mon, he’s Johnny.
I think I know why he’s considering the Dorito so closely. Dorito is Frito-Lay which is Pepsi. Duke normally drinks Coke, as seen in Duke Nukem 2, so he wouldn’t have eaten Doritos before.
had a fun thought, anyone want me to toss together a 3.5 chicken of legend? (found some stats someone made for a chicken and then I’ll apply the monster of legend template to it)
DO IT
(please)
Yes do it!
And so we have them: The Fattest Chickens
Dammit, now I want Doritos.
Wouldn’t people notice a giant bisontaur sneaking up and grabbing all their chickens? I think law enforcement needs to intervene, here.
I’m not allowed to play DnD anymore with some groups. I’m the guy who will take an idea, and break it beyond reason. The Undead raising Dread Necro whose undead are on steriods… that’s me. The Warblade who is a master of every weapon, that’s me. Eventually my chars get hit with the nerf bat or the DM takes them to turn them into villains.
Ohmy god yiur in Washington you going to emerald city comiccon
That may not be hope his game stats improve but that would be how the characters skills improve in game. Jared’s roleplaying just fine.
I’d be a hated GM by these people. I have a little thing called “common sense.” I’ll obey the Rules As Written, but not if they break the game. This situation? I calmly and repeatedly explain that the reason he is failing to sneak up on anything is that he is very, very stealthy… for an elephant. Compared to many things that are NOT elephants, however… perhaps he should always keep in mind that he is an elephant.
Really, picture this if the game goes further. They are about to be discovered in the large chamber and this elephantaur rogue hides behind the throne. The throne designed for a medium sized creature. There’s ornate and then there is “Why?” When he tries that, and he’s going to try that, the guards quietly surround him (distracted enough that the other players might be able to slip away) and then ask, “Were we just supposed to not talk about you, then? Was that your plan for this?”
It’s called the impossible DC. Although the impossible DC is officially listed as a DC of 40 it should always be remembered that that is the bottom bracket. This category goes all the way up to “There is not enough dice on the planet to make you succeed.”
You’d have a problem with an elephant hiding, but I’d bet you wouldn’t have a problem with the wizard breaking the laws of physics on a regular basis because of the “it’s magic” excuse. If a fleck of bat guano can be turned into a pinpoint sphere of fire that explodes like a hand grenade, and you can recreate a Pink Floyd show by waving your bare hands, then why can’t an elephant hide in the corner?
DMs that use the “common sense and reality” arguments are why martials can’t have nice things. Meanwhile, casters can do anything they want because magic doesn’t have to play by those rules.
Yep. These same sorts of arguments also tend to be why even normal rogues can’t have nice things. “I don’t care what your stealth check is, you can’t sneak down that hallway with a guard at the door!” “Oh, wizard has invisibility? Go right on ahead”
There’s a big dichotomy of magic vs mundane in D&D that is to some degree inherent to the system, but gets magnified dramatically by bad DMs.
I am a DM that Runs on common sense but I let crap like this slide for one reason, it amuses me. People in my D20 find amusing me is worth while
Rule #0 of tabletop: All other rules may be broken in the name of having fun.
Amen to that
The Invisible Wizard forgets to also stay quiet. the guard pinpoints the wizard’s location by the sound of his footsteps & breathing…Chances are, even Rouge/Wizards may not think to do BOTH at the same time.
By continuing to act normally, the wizard thinks he’s succeeding…Right up to the point when he gets close (to pass by the guard) & the guard slips a fast dagger-thrust into the wizard’s guts.
Leaning a bit forward as blood flows off the dagger’s blade, the guard whispers “You’re as loud a a stampede of charging wildebeast, but you’ll be quiet now.”
After all, Rulers who don’t have guards with alertness don’t usually last long as rulers…
The elephant’s size is already factored in to his -4 to stealth checks, and the fact that he’s and *Elephant* is further reflected in his penalty to dex. There is no need to cripple a already sub-optimal character further by making his primary role plain impossible!
“There is not enough dice on the planet to make you succeed.”
Or…
“There is not enough dice on the planet to roll the damage you take.”
I think that the best part of this comic is that Jared has apparently managed to successfully catch a massive armful of chickens as an elephant man, despite Riddick’s insistence that he isn’t getting any Stealth boosts from his constant practice. That means sneaking up on chickens (which is a lot harder than it sounds, speaking from personal experience) is his base level of skill as an Elephantaur Rogue.
You draw really nice chickens!
Hmmm, dorritos.
We have a weird group. Last game night one of our players couldn’t show up so we spent some time just BSing and working out character details. Well, one of our players (whose name also starts with a J, just sayin’) has a thing about chickens. “How many chickens does this cost” is a line he’ll throw around pretty often, being amazed at how cheap chickens are compared to almost everything else.
Well, this particular night we just eschewed chicken pricing and went straight to chicken COMBAT. “How hard would it be to fight 1,000 chickens?” was how the night started, and just went downhill from there.
For anyone who’s curious, and uses Pathfinder, that’s about a level 9 fight. I wish I was kidding.
You’ve clearly never pissed off the chickens in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
That’s definitely a level 9 fight. Chickens are just usually hard to piss off all at once.
There’s a reason folks in my group get jumpy whenever cuccos are mentioned.
Somehow, you seem to have advocated my earlier joke about adventuring parties getting hen-pecked to death.
Cheap chickens seems to be a thing in a number of tabletop games. I noticed I could buy huge numbers with my starting money in Earthdawn.
As for the combat, I suspect dealing with 1,000 chickens in Earthdawn would actually kill you very quickly unless you could kill them all in the first round on a high initiative roll, because of stacking penalties for each additional attack suffered per combat round. You’d very quickly be unable to avoid getting hit by each new attack, and even if they never deal more than 1 damage, you can’t possibly soak that every time for a thousand dice rolls.
Even if you say only a dozen or so have enough room to make attacks at any time, you’ll still get worn down stupidly fast. Your only hope is AoE spam.
That head and trunk seem really small for an elephant, -taur or otherwise. If I was playing one, part of the fun would be having an extra limb.
Riddick could just say the squawking of all the chickens he is already holding gave him away.
I love all the Badass GMs who’re all, “OMG I would smite Jared into a million bazillion pieces!”/”I would use common sense to punish him somehow, like, the party gets thrown in jail because he grabbed some chickens!” Lighten up, assorted Francises. The worst GM is the one who punishes his players for trying to play.
Jared’s not actually doing all that much wrong. His ideas are dumb, but dumb can lead to fun, so long as you don’t let your game go totally nutty.
Here’s how ya handle Jared: Let him roll to grab some chickens. It’s hard, what with their +5 bonus. He gets a -1 to each subsequent chicken, since he insists on holding onto them (maybe he’ll learn to put them down after he’s caught them! Stimulus -> Lesson!) If he catches some number of chickens, give him a +1 on Stealth just for the fuck of it. He’s the party Rogue anyway; he needs to be stealthy.
If he gets all five or if (when) he fails, have the old farmer come out, and rather than panic and call the guards and have everything descend into a first-game-TPK nuthouse, he goggles at the strange giant stealing his chickens, and politely (what, he’s gonna yell at the elephantaur?) ask the nice young pachyperson to please put down his livelihood. Maybe suggest, “If ya wanna sneak up on somethin’, them worgs in the woods’re better practice than my poor hens!” You know, in a “you’re-hero-enough-to-handle-them” tone, not a “go-get-yourself-killed tone.” Fun is had, positive interactions with the townsfolk are had, plot hooks are had. Net gain.
Then you tell Jared he really just can’t get anything more from chicken-pickin’, and if he keeps at it, he’ll upset the farmer, who seems like a nice guy. If he REALLY insists, it’s time for an “Excuse us from the table” moment and a private sit-down with Jared: “Hey man, I’m trying really hard to accommodate you here. I made you an Elephantaur and let you be a rogue. I let you pick up chickens for fun. Now please try to participate in the adventure and listen when I tell you how the rules work. The game kinda falls apart if the players don’t work with the GM a little.” If THAT doesn’t work, Jared is not invited back.
In this game, the Commander is actually a more toxic player than Jared is. In the previous comic, he was utterly tickled that Jared is being difficult, even though it was clearly stressing Riddick out. Now he’s being openly confrontational when Riddick gets short with Jared, even though Jared has already been told that’s not how the game works. A good player would try to help Jared vibe rather than take his side against Riddick. MY “hard-ass GM” moment would be to tell Commander not to peanut-gallery, not to tell me how to run my game, and for the love of god not to try to make “Salty” happen. And that shit I’d do without taking him aside. Players who snip at the GM for trying to move the game along can have a nice reality check, and if they don’t show up next game, there’s always more players.
I am absolutely loving this session. Though I can’t decide if the Commander’s expression is due to boredom at watching continuous stealth rolls vs livestock, or he disapproves of Riddick discouraging Jared’s fun.
Oh, Riddick, how quickly your rails have left you. He’s gotta learn that players will always find a way to make shit of all varieties happen and it’s Supergods job to balance it out however he can all the while doing what I call, ‘GM-ing by the seat of his pants.’
It create interesting campaigns. I’m currently running one based in Greyhawk. I started it as a simple monster den elimination mission to get the ball rolling because everyone loves some early combat. It went like that, but at the end every surviving Goblin and Bugbear, of which there were a surprising many, were intimidated into swearing fealty to one PC. Now he’s got a legion of Goblins, Gnolls, Kobolds, some Bugbears, Ogres and so far one Troll singing praises of the Dread Necromancer Willem de Fluffy as they travel across the Domain of Greyhawk into the Abbor-Alz Mountains to eliminate a hoard of Undead nestled there.
So yeah… Shit’s happening.
Now everyone is speculating which class Duke is playing.
Duke, who is obviously a body builder: “…One Dorito is 13.3 calories and 1.5 carbs. One gram of protein in every five Doritos. This is Dorito number 8, so that will make…”
I didn’t realize that’s Riddick. Now imagining these lines in Vin Diesel’s voice makes this 100% funnier.
Duke is clearly a warrior. His stats are so awesome that contemplating a dorito is more important then actually chastising a elephantaur on the the value of physics and laws of gravity. (seriously can’t figure out HOW he snagged all the chickens.)
this would be the point where the DM has a citizen of the town realize all the chickens are gone and confront Jared about it.
He hides.
‘In which Duke Nukem carefully considers a dorito’
Way to go Coela… how to not talk about the Elephantaur in the Room. :)
Eli…
Early on I annoyed my DM like this. He punished me by making the next attack against me an automatic critical hit. I took 18 damage on a 5th level character. It was not fun.
The way the first panel is drawn, I thought it was a picture of a chicken that laid a cupcake. Cupcake laying chickens would totally make sense in Jared’s D&D game.
Hahaha it’s one of THOSE games! Not that I’ve played, just read all the DnD comics I could stand for a few years.
I didn’t play because DnD is an operating system, the characters are the programs, and my brain is NOT a computer. … Sadly. :(