Rusty & Co.
Monstrous Misadventures! Updated every Wednesday at noon, EST.
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Yeah, that’s gotta be the Princess in disguise. Mimic’s probably figured it out already.
Ridiculous polearm tricks are more Maddie’s wheelhouse though …
You don’t suppose Ruffenuff is Maddie’s father, do you?
Hm, ‘I AM your father’. Now, where have I heard that? ‘Mads, I AM your father.’
‘I am MADS father.’
‘I am anti-MADS father hyped up on growth potions.’
Nope, it won’t fly. Too unbelievable. Also, presumably anti-Mads had no father. Or possibly an anti-father. Uncle-father? Um.
You’re implying that Madeline is capable of deception….
I kind of get that feeling too, but the nose and posture aren’t quite right. My wild, uninformed theory is that the Princess hit her head when she got field goal’d by the Calamituses (Calamiti?) and ended up with amnesia. Then, with no memory and probably out of some kind of necessity, she kicked ass all the way to the top of the power structure of the black market in the two and a half months since she went missing. She’s certainly badass enough to do that, but it wouldn’t explain why she’s suddenly slouching and has a sharper looking nose.
Hasn’t Princess always slouched? Or perhaps it’s effects from the genre shift?
I had to go back and check, but she stands up fairly straight. She spent a lot of time slumped in her chair during the games, though.
Could be a mask. Or an illusion.
She’s in disguise. Like the second time she appeared.
Notice that the last time, she wore a pointy hat in disguise, too.
She’s upped her disguise game a bit, then. Ragnar appears to be wearing shoulder pads under the robe (you can kind of see in some panels), which would compensate for the difference in the shoulder breadth, the different nose could be a part of the fake beard, and the slouching could be intentional. It’s all possible, we’ll just have to see how it shakes out.
Please, there’s no way that’s the Princess. The creator of this comic is all about the twists and turns and the surprises. In fact, if the creator is reading these, I’m sure he’s laughing about it thinking to himself “That’s a good guess, but you’re way off.”
All of a sudden the one person who can stop Stabbs like that and somehow also is the mob boss of the fish people turns out to be the Princess? Since the Princess was borderline of being nothing more than a one dimensional trope to begin with, that would just be a hack writing job.
Creator of the comic, if you’re reading this, I can’t wait to see what kind of twist you pull with ‘Nuff! I’m thinking maybe it’s the Druid’s dad? That would be a slick twist.
Pretty sure Tarta’s dad would be a dwarf. And while I’m not entierly sold on ’nuff being the princess, she certainly has been established to be an extremely scary combatant. Stronger than stabs and right up there with cube in terms of being a combat powerhouse.
I’m in oar of his talent!
Yes, he really put the paddle to the metal
I really expected his last line to be …”Oar else.”
Only those with need to row row that.
Sorry to be THAT guy, but how can a rogue toss 5 daggers at level 10?! With rapid shot it should be three, TWF maybe one more. Flurry of blows?
And does she get sneak attack against the oar? In this case it is probably made out of adamantium for not being obliterated…
Sorry again- it was stronger than me…!
Yeah, you know how The Order of the Stick only vaguely follows the rules for 3.5 D&D? This one’s even less constrained by them. Story and humor are more important than D&D rules.
Princess discovered a powerful prestige class in third-party sources: DM’s Girlfriend. If this stuff bothers you, I recommend assuming Stabs discovered a similarly-third-party prestige class that allows her to chuck daggers like nobody’s business.
Considering she could make 9 stabs, that we can see, in her first appearance in Level 4, this is her running low.
If you wanted to shoehorn this into actual rules you could claim each dagger represents 1 damage from the standard d4. She got 5, so that could be 4 from main attack and 1 from a offhand bonus attack (or any combo therein), no sneak attack ’cause no allies close enough and the lack of advantage. And the “oar” is clearly a monk that lowered the damage with deflected arrows which works perfectly well on daggers. Or you know rule of cool.
They’re Halfling daggers, so they weigh 40% less. Well, Halfling less a little.
“And does she get sneak attack against the oar?”
I don’t think an item without internal organs is susceptible to sneak attacks. Also, its holder is clearly not in a position where its dexterity bonus may be negated. Not surprised, not flanked…
Plus, the paddle wasn’t the target of Stabs. In the context, it’s more like a shield. Um, now you make me wonder if we should track damage to weapons and shields during a fight.
Even so, an item has something most regular foes don’t have, damage resistance. You could swing an axe at a kobold and cut them in half, but target their wooden sword and it may barely get chipped.
That is, if you roll plenty of ones on your damage dice.
I have bad memories of a puny wererat I threw at my players, all level 1 without a single silver weapon among them. Because of its DR 5, it took them half an hour to kill it.
> Um, now you make me wonder if we should track damage to weapons and shields during a fight.
I suspect most DnD GMs deliberately don’t bother because it’s tedious numbers-keeping, and doesn’t lend well to the heroic fantasy feel that most DnD players are going for.
Not that I imagine the creator bothered with this – but BAB +7/+2, TWF, rapid shot, some sort of speed or haste effect – that’s 5 attacks.
Stabs wouldn’t even need Haste for this. Improved TWF supplies the fifth attack just fine.
Throwing kinves…that’s a paddln’
Maybe … a Paddling Paladin? A Paladdling?
Notably, ‘Nuff hasn’t actually attacked Stabs or Mimic yet. He’s only nullified Stabs’ most common and lethal form of attack, establishing that they are no threat to him thus any offerings of a peaceful solution are genuine on his part. If he wanted to hurt or kill them…they’d be hurt and killed right now.
Yeah, but is that “I don’t want to hurt you because I care about your wellbeing”, or “I don’t want to hurt you because it’s tedious to clean blood off of a wooden floor”?
Why can’t it be both?
The words ‘private interrogation room’ tends to imply that being hurt is in their near future and being killed may happen if the answers aren’t to ‘Nuff’s liking.
With any luck, Nuff is actually the Princess or some other ally in disguise, and she just wants a place to talk to the gang in private.
The blood on the door would then be there to keep up the guise. That said, why is the door so small? It’s as if it was meant for small people…
Little-known “fact”: The blood is actually a wine spill caused by a hammerhead shark man trying to carry a keg through the door. The resemblance to blood proved handy for intimidation purposes, so the spill was left as is.
Morning, Nice day for fishing, ain’t it? Hua-Ha
I too, think it is the Princess. I looked back at the polls and she’s been suspiciously absent from each one…