The rulebooks explain that undead have very low charisma scores, but they offer nothing in the way of explanation as to why the other people at the table are so lacking in it.
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“Is there someone else we could talk to?” LOL an NPC with some sense.
very nice.
I note the DM sneaking in a MP reference right under his players noses. I laughed.
“Can’t ethereal”
Best line ever
Hi Shamus, just wanted to say that I’ve been following DM of the Rings almost from the beginning and I love it. I’ve never played any sort of D&D or RPG, but many of my friends have and even I can appreciate it.
Thanks for the great work!
So now Aragorn gets buckets and buckets of… ectoplasm. And skulls. Try spending that at the bars and brothels…
Heh, I love that Legolas and Gimli have become barely-leashed dogs!
Not as funny as that idiot Aragormless saying “Shake on it?” then following up with “Fair enough”.
Imagine. “So you guarantee this car for 7 years or 100 000 miles?”
“Yep”.
“In writing?”
“Nope”.
“Fair enough”.
Brilliant!
Steve.
[Shamus] I love the sense of menace on panel 3. I realise you meant it as a total failure on the part of the King Af All Bones to make his diplomacy or bargain checks, but I read it in a more…Call of Cthulhu framework.
“We have a deal. Heh. Heh. Heh.”
Steve.
Loving the strips, as always. The plethora of people attempting to comment with nothing more substantial than “first” irritates me, though… to the extent where I’ve stopped looking at the comments anymore.
Great as always. Legolas and Gimli growling in unison makes me giggle.
Why was my comment removed? I was clearly NUMBER ONE. Great Job By The Way
A rule I made a while back: If you’re going to FIRST POST, you have to have something useful to say besides FIRST POST. This is to fix the problem where the first five comments were all people trying to claim FP and nothing else.
Actually, since he’s clearly manifested, he’s incorporeal. :p
First I was an LotR fan (thirty odd yrs ago)Then I discovered D&D then AD&D. Now I am an old fart, but I think this strip is genius.
Well Done Shamus!!
MP reference just slayed me – keep up the good work Shamus!
Gimli’s a dwarf, yes, yes, I know, but he still looks unusually small in panel 2 compared to the gigantic ghost just behind him and to the viewer’s right. Is that an artifact of stitching together shots or is that a flaw in the moviemaker’s magic?
14th.
I wonder what kind of “stuff” they’re actually going to get from the dead guys.
MarkB Says:
June 13th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Actually, since he's clearly manifested, he's incorporeal. :p
OOOOKAY! Anal Retentive Much!?
“Anally retentive” needs no hyphen.
Osvaldo: Probably a bit of both. The shot of Gimli is a composite of 3 different images.
Shamus: Just because you asked for it, I got only half the page when I first loaded. Yes, the first two panels, then a lot of whitespace, and your comment at the end of it. But it looks like the connection’s a bit funky on my end, and reloading the page did the trick, so never mind. :-P
Haha! Brilliant. I also loved the shot of Gimli and Leggylass growling like leashed dogs. Grrr.
In the second panel, Gimli does look even shorter than usual. I think its just the way the frame was stitched together, with Leggo in the foreground, Aragorm in the middle ground and Gimli way in the back background.
And I was so expecting the Green Ghost King to go: “The elf wants to kill us *again*? We’re already dead! Bwahaha!”
(Insert creepy screencap of the GGK dislocating his jaw and laughing maniacally (sp?). That one always gave me the shivers, hehe.)
Nah. This version is a lot funnier. And the very very last screencap of Aragorm going: “Shake on it” made me giggle. :D
P.S. I heard rumor of the DM slipping a Python quote in there somewhere? It must have been hiding behind the tree, cause I didn’t spot it. =\
Gimli's a dwarf, yes, yes, I know, but he still looks unusually small in panel 2 compared to the gigantic ghost just behind him and to the viewer's right. Is that an artifact of stitching together shots or is that a flaw in the moviemaker's magic?
I interpretted that ghost as being in front of him, just that we can see Gimli through the ghost.
By the way, Shamus, I really appreciate removing the first posters. They make me not want to read the rest of the comments, which is unfortunate.
I always just made fun of the first posters…
“First Post!, I mean Second,… er… ¿20th?”
I’d just like to say that I really like how you’ve “hidden” the comics. I like to save up reading them for the end of the week, but I also like to check the site for other updates. Now that they are not fully posted on the main page, I can scroll through today’s/yesterday’s posts without worrying about my attention prematurely wandering towards DMotR.
I’m impressed Aragorn’s player made it through all the backstory to figure out what to do. Maybe he did get the Cliff’s Notes version after all.
“Is there someone else we could talk to?”
“No. Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.”
/me ducks
Shamus,
you’re awesome and I love your sense of humor. I’m also very greatful you’ve removed the first posters. It’s a stupid thing to take pride in. The comments should be all about YOU and your brilliance and humor and just plain wonderfulness!
(yeah, even I’m getting sick now, but you really do ROCK)
Just when I thought this couldn’t really get any funnier, you’ve gone and proven me wrong. The MP reference is awesome!! The last panel has got to be the best though. I snarfed water on my screen when I read it >.
Bah only half my post came through. The other half said Warning! DO NOT attempt drinking while reading this comic. May cause electrical equipment failure, lung failure, or a party foul.
Oh, I kinda’ miss the FIRST posters. It was sort of a traditon, and they were enthusiastic. How about we keep the first ‘first’ poster & throw away the ersatz first posters?
33rd Post!
Shamus, This one was magical in how funny it was in such a small space. Does it mean we won’t see Leggylass putting an arrow through one of the ghosts’ heads?
love it! and why have high charisma when you can have high dex or strength or any of that other seemingly important stuff?
I wonder how that stuff thing is going to work. Aragorn’s
character surrounded by rusted ruined old weapons and armour or Aragorn surrounded by disappearing Ghost who have no stuff and nothing except fear to give.
“So to lift the curse you want our aid in battle and all our stuff? I guess we have a deal.” *whispered* “Not like we HAVE anything, heh heh heh . . .”
I’m sensing the GM is setting up the players via the King of the Dead.
“So we have to agree to give you our stuff.”
“Yeah!”
“Suuuure, we’ll give you our stuff.”
“OK!”
-The Dead army fights, then dissipates into the mist-
“Hey…where’s the stuff?”
GM cackles.
Great work, Shamus!
Im thinking that the setup is:
“Its a deal then. All our belongings and we fight for you. Meet us outside after you collect our posseions”
-Ghosts dissipate-
“Well, weres the loot?”
-rumble, rumble, rumble; skulls begin to rain from the cieling-
“Sweet zombie Jesus, save us!”
LOL! Loved the strip – and if you -do- give them the ghost’s ‘stuff’ then there will actually be a reason for the scene with all those skulls from the ‘extended version’ [well, a better reason than P.Jackson had, IMO]
I also see a (parapharased)Princess Bride quote “I don’t mean to be rude, but . . .” Isn’t that what the Man in Black says when Inigo is trying to hurry his climb up?
The “Can’t. Etheral.” line was the cream of the cream. I’ll count it into my all-time favorites!!!
Roger Says: I'm impressed Aragorn's player made it through all the backstory to figure out what to do. Maybe he did get the Cliff's Notes version after all.
I thought this comic was the Cliff’s Notes version :D
I’m left wondering if Lego-lass was growling because he wanted to kill the ghosts or because Aragorn called him a chick again.
The PCs are lacking in Charisma because they’re usually not bards or sorcerers. And no saves depend on charisma so it’s usually a pretty safe dump stat. So when they go around the place behaving like magpie-gorilla hybrids, it’s ROLEPLAYING.
I’ve been following this comic for a while. Brilliant job.
You do know that Can’t Incorporeal showed up in Order of the stick episode 292, about 57 weeks ago, just over one year. Its not like the joke is in any way new.
Hmm. Any chance 90% of that “stuff” is cursed? (*wicked laugh*)
I thought Stonergorn was the one who pictured the battle of Helm’s Deep as a great big game of Nethack. He should know better.
Aragorn seemed to be able to grab the Mountain King’s face jsut fine in the movie. I guess the sword allows him to manipulate ethereal creatures.
Tsetut:
It’s still funny even if your being picky
Technically speaking, the line from OOTS was: “I can’t shake hands, I’m incorporeal.”
Much of the humor of Shamus’s version lies in its brevity.
“The PCs are lacking in Charisma because they're usually not bards or sorcerers. And no saves depend on charisma so it's usually a pretty safe dump stat. So when they go around the place behaving like magpie-gorilla hybrids, it's ROLEPLAYING.”
And the sad thing is, Charisma is more valuable in 3.0 and 3.5 than it used to be. Paladins used to have to have a 17 or better in Charisma, which had virtually no in-game benefits, unless your DM was a knob and actually used the NPC Reaction Roll charts.
Nice job Shamus, strip rocks.
Think the click through is a good idea, and I for one am all for you, as owner and moderator of this site, removing comments where you see fit (Including first posts!)
Oh man Shamus! the fortune cookie at the end makes this comic gold… actually, its better than gold. its platinum!
tsetut,
As someone once pointed out “of course the Simpsons already did it, they’ve been around for like 20 years”. Now apply to rpg humor and keep it to yourself.
Pimp!
i just stumbled on to this from a posting on techreport.com about online comics. http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/12632
great work keep it up.
i was disapointed after hour of reading there was no more next button on this comic. i eagerly await more.
57th (approximately). Take that, ya wannabe firsties.
About Charisma being a dump stat: I dunno… just about every character I have played needed high Charisma for skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, etc., not to mention magic in some cases. I admit I do find it frustrating when my low-Cha fellow party members mess up a negotiation where I could have succeeded.
It wasn’t until Gimli’s “horse f***ers” DMotR episode a while back that I was inspired to say deliberately stupid things when *I* rolled a 1 on a Diplomacy check. Thanks Shamus. -A
Shamus, do you mind if I compose for my personal use comic album from your work?
Actually, I would prefer buying that as ready made album once the serie is completed, but I guess that you are that much at the edge of violation of copyrights that any book print company wouldn’t take the risk and you making money out of it might be the drop causing copyright holders to interfare.
Is it just me or does everyone in this encounter, PCs and NPCs, all have low charisma scores? :D
In the old Unearthed Arcana rules, when they introduced the Illusionist class, they made Charisma their primary attribute. For example, bonus spells were based on charisma. The only character I had with a decent charisma was my Illusionist, who eventually became my most powerful character. Now I have to convert him into a 3.5 character if I want to keep playing him, and that creates a dilemma. Do I keep his stats the same, and make him a sorcerer so that he maintains his spell-casting benefits, or do I switch his scores so that his intelligence is replaced by his charisma since “illusionist” is now a wizard sub-class and depends on intelligence as their primary attribute?
Any thoughts?
Loot-loving Pcs…it´s the GM´s duty to get back at them eventually ;) I´ll wait and see :P
“Oh, I kinda' miss the FIRST posters. It was sort of a traditon [sic], and they were enthusiastic. How about we keep the first “˜first' poster & throw away the ersatz first posters?”
Meh, they deserve nothing. If they truly belonged, they’d be fighting for the 20th post so they’d have a nat 20.
HOT CHIC!
*dies in a fit of giggles*
Re: #61
Shhhh!
Don’t give them MORE ideas!
This “First Post!” nonsense is so irritating that I’m tempted to suggest that blog engines should start automatically discarding any comment with it…
Alas that would open a big can of worms, as we would start getting the likes of “First_Post!” and “Fisrt Post!”…
Quite tragic, and a grave illustration of that popular science snippet: “A drop of engine oil pollutes a gazillion gallons of drinking water.”
Sorry for the rant. Great (as in awesome) work!
Ithelog: help yourself. Really I don’t see myself as having the *eight* to say no to such a deal. I’m using someone else’s work to make this derivative work without permission. I’d have to be quite an ass to insist that nobody mess with it now.
“A drop of engine oil pollutes a gazillion gallons of drinking water.”
I’d drink it. What would happen to me if I did?
Anyone fancy a regex contest? You could probably get better results by smashing the text (with tr()) into [firstpo] then applying a similarity score.
/\b[1i!](st|ts)\b
/\b[f4][i1!]r[s5][t+].p[o0][s5][t+]\b/i
/\b(([1i!](st|ts))|([f4]|[i1!]|r|[s5]|[t+]){4,5}.{0,3}(p|[o0]|[s5]|[t+]){3,4})\b/i
I find it most interesting how Legolas’ player has stopped contesting Aragorn’s impression that his character is female. :O
Also, whenever a DM agrees too readily to a player’s bargain, BEWARE! You can bet the DM’s got a nasty surprise or a double-cross up his sleeve. (I know I certainly would!) :P Curious how Gimli’s player didn’t pick that up, though.
On Charisma and dump stats: After I introduced psionics into my campaign, my players have learned NEVER to use Charisma as a dump stat again. Why?
Two words: Ego Whip. Fellow psionics-using DMs will understand what I mean. *evil grin*
Hi Shamus.
There were routing problems between Comcast and Global Exchange in Dallas where the mu.nu servers are located. I had a number of people reporting problems getting to mu.nu sites.
It all seems to be fixed now.
Well, if they can go around casting Shivering Touch on anything with scales and a breath weapon…
@brassbaboon
If the llusionist is a prepared caster, go for Int. If he’s a spontaneous caster, leave Cha as his casting stat. Alternatively, ask your DM if you can make him whatever class most closely follows the flavour and mechanics of the Illusionist, but keep Cha as the casting stat regardless.
67 Alexis Says: June 14th, 2007 at 5:09 am
“A drop of engine oil pollutes a gazillion gallons of drinking water.” I'd drink it. What would happen to me if I did?
I was surprised to learn that drinking too much water can kill you, irrespective of automotive lubricative content. BTW, Fred (#65), I believe the actual ratio is one drop of motor oil to 10 duotrigintillion gallons of water. (I looked that up on Googol.)
We never had a dump stat when I first started as a player. Our GM was all about the psionics so we learned quickly to spread the love to Charisma. Mind you, that GM was a total railroader, and used his own characters as the unkillable NPC badguys. I had to stop playing D&D with him simply because of his vindictive streak and ego issues.
That being said: Psionics ftw!
Finally reached the latest page. Fanfic is usually boring but this rocks. Shamus shames us all by creating great stuff. Awesome! (Or as we Finns say: hykerryttävän mahtavaa!)
I knew that this strip was great when our gaming group started quoting it in all our games.
Great work Shamus
“67 Alexis Says: June 14th, 2007 at 5:09 am
“A drop of engine oil pollutes a gazillion gallons of drinking water.” I'd drink it. What would happen to me if I did?”
Well, not a lot if you like your water with a hint of diesel bouquet. The damage from a single drop is more of a problem for the organisms that live in the water.
Unfortunately, no engine ever leaks only a single drop. So, soon you find that when you finish your shower, you smell like a pit crew, your skin is damaged, & your intestinal tract has become most lively! Not to mention if there are other additives to the oil that cause you & your kids to drop IQ points like a fighter dumping intelligence stats!
Love the Ghost king :D
Some classic lines in there Shamus, keep up the awesome work!
:D
RE: the Oil
Sorry for the tangent, but Scarlet Knight (#75) reminded me: last night on the season opener of Last Comic Standing, a comic was saying…
“Oil spills don’t bother me because we cook fish in oil. They’re not dying–they’re marinating! What we need is a lemon wedge spill.”
I laughed. [/tangent]
[Shamus] I applaud you in your ruthless weeding out of those “First Post!” first posts and urge you to ever greater feats of dilligent deleteing, but not for any of the daft reasons anyone else has given.
I usually get in around 3-10 (ish). Every post you delete brings me closer to the shangri-la first post, which I covet with all my heart.
It’s all I have to live for since that wretched “ring” fiasco cleaned me out.
Steve.
71 Browncoat Says:
I believe the actual ratio is one drop of motor oil to 10 duotrigintillion gallons of water. (I looked that up on Googol.)
Ha!
Sutremaine:
I don’t want to have a single DM house rule approach, I want the character to be accepted without comment really for any campaign I might want to put him in. So the “use Charisma as spell casting stat for a wizard” is probably not going to work. I have done a sample conversion as an Illusionist-specialist wizard, and he seems to be playable, but it just feels weird moving his stat from Cha to Int.
Five second search: “One pint of motor oil can produce a slick large enough to cover one acre of the ocean's surface…One gallon of used motor oil can contaminate one million gallons of drinking water…Used motor oil may contain toxic contaminants including lead, magnesium, copper, zinc, chromium, arsenic, chlorides, cadmium, and chlorinated compounds.”
Source is a recycling center and I noticed two “cans” and a “may” in there…but I’d still like my water oil-free.
I know, I know – you didn’t really care.
brassbaboon,
can’t say I’m up on the new rules, but go with what feels closer to the original character.
I always liked the illusionist and did’t care for the way later revisions changed spell availabiliy for some classes.
It’s a game, do whatever makes him or her fun.
Wonderful, excellent, spectacular strip there Shamus.
I haven’t played pnp D&D in years but I have been following your strip from the beginning and I can still relate to almost all of what this poor DM is going through. I know because I was exactly that kind of player :)
I had two character types when I played: Fighter or Wizard. When I was a Fighter I always rushed into a dungeon first before waiting for the rogue to check for traps and I always looted first, again before the rogue checked for traps :) in the end my DM made me loot a pair bracers that permanently changed my characters sex (at least until I could find a high level cleric that could remove my curse, strangely enough we never seemed to encounter one of those).
Heh. I don’t even think of this as “fanfic.” I think of it as “Richly deserved satire.” Fanfic is usually a little kinder to the original source material… (and i confess i think of it as a derogatory term) …this delightfully skewers both the original plot and all later versions, leaving me giggling like a madman for the rest of the day.
Love the comic, as always.
However, I’m commenting because this is the first time I noticed the polyhedral dice next to the posted comments. That’s awesome.
To Hendrake : I spent 15 years working in poison control centers; caring is good. Welcome aboard.
My dear Hendrake, as someone – possibly W.C.Fields, possibly not, once said “Water is fithy stuff. Fish pee in it.”
I’d stick to grog, ale and rubbing alcohol.
In fact I do, which is why I’m blind, have a liver made entirely of concrete and can survive temperatures low enough to freeze the thingumybobs off a brass wotsit.
Steve
I love the new custom messages (Or at least, relatively new. I haven’t seen this one before though).
“My Server weeps for mercy.”
That’s awesome. Do we get anything past that?
“The rulebooks explain that undead have very low charisma scores…”
Not necessarily. Let’s see….
*grabs the Monster Manual, Libris Mortis and maybe even the campaign notes for the all-undead-and-necromancer-PC’s campaign he’s running now*
Skeletons? Meh Charisma.
Zombies? Crap Charisma.
Ghouls? Great Charisma.
Ghasts? Great.
Shadows? Decent.
Deathlocks? Decent.
Brains in Jars? Excellent.
Wights? Decent.
Allips? Friggin’ awesome.
Spectres? Good.
Necropolitans? Meh.
Liches? Decent.
Spectral Lyrists? Awesome.
Mummies? Good.
Ghosts? Meh to Decent.
Vampires? Great.
Vampire Spawn? Decent.
Crypt Chanters? Godlike.
Entombers? Good (despite having their lips sewn together, even).
Bleakborn? Good.
Necromentals? Crap.
Bodaks? Meh.
Atropal Scions? Godlike.
Devourers? Excellent.
Mohrgs? Meh.
Dream Vestiges? Godlike.
Slaughter Wights? Excellent.
Nightshades (all sorts)? Friggin’ awesome.
Entropic Reapers? Good.
Hulking Corpses? Sucky.
Angels of Decay? Friggin’ awesome.
And the list goes on. As you can see, the majority of undead types have better-than-average Charisma with scores falling anywhere in the 12-to-20 range. Lesson to be learned here: If you’re a player in an all-undead campaign, let the ghoul(s) do all the talking and move your lich to the rear of the party when it’s time to parlay. (But keep the Fireball spells handy in case the ghoul rolls a 1 on his Diplomacy check. ;-P )
(No, I don’t know why liches only average around a 12 or 13 Charisma. I always thought they’d be some pretty suave devils.)
I’m not sure why undead have such good Charisma scores, including some of the types which can’t even speak. It must be that intimidating presence; When a freak from beyond the grave puts down the human leg he’s noshing on and saunters up to you with something to say, you tend to give the ghoul your undivided attention. >;-)
Wall of text ends. Next guy.
Lich is a high level template, you can’t just have “a lich” the way you have “a mummy” or “a ghoul”. If you only apply that template to wizards, yeah they won’t have great charisma, because apparently they’re all geeks. The rules say that any caster of level 11+ can become a lich though. Try applying the template to a level 11+ bard or sorcerer and tell me they have no charisma. Hell, even a cleric has CHA as a secondary stat.
Ah, but Ed… There was no next guy. What then?
Funny if the Dead had nothing to give them. I bet I can guess Aragorn’s words straight up:
Aragorn: I HATE THIS CAMPAIGN!!!
grrr it wnt let me see the comic i keep tring to refresh
btw AESOME comic
Awesome comic man
#89 Ed: Liches don’t get much in a way of ability bonuses(from being a lich) anyway. But you seem to forget that sorcerers can become liches too.
This is amazing especially the fact that aragorn still thinks legolas is a girl! xD
Lol “The dwarf thinks I should leave you to your damnation, and the hot chick wants to kill you outright.”
xDD
First!
(laughter)
This is actually kind of tense. Till the punchline, I mean.
Hay, 100th comment ^^
101st!
The last panel made me laugh pretty hard.
> /\b(([1i!](st|ts))|([f4]|[i1!]|r|[s5]|[t+]){4,5}.{0,3}(p|[o0]|[s5]|[t+]){3,4})\b/i
( [f4]|[i1!]|r|[s5]|[t+] ) is an over-construction of [f4i1!rs5t+], similarly with how you match post.
anyway, I'd probably simplify the 1st/first distinction thusly: [f4i1!rs5t+]{3,5}
your whole regexp fails to match people simply posting "first" so I'd change it up a little:
m{
\b
[f4i1!rs5t+]{3,5} # first or 1st, with 'l33t' variations of first
( # ...optionally
.{0,3} # 1-3 random interspersing characters (probably . ! or whitespace)
[po0s5t+]{4} # post, with 'l33t' varations
) ?
\b
}imsx
the ‘code’ tags I put around that post failed somewhat, but my regexp had decent indentation originally :)