Just how much mental damage did Derek manage to repair so far? None? Is Madeline still as clumsy and stupid as she was by the end of the previous chapter?
The clumsiness and the passivity were both new. Maddie never shirks at taking action, no matter how vague her understanding of what’s actually going on. (And her instincts are good enough that she’s never ended up hurting innocents by mistake.)
In 5th edition, paladins don’t actually *need* a high Wisdom any more. And being clueless about how other people will react to what you say seems more like a Wisdom issue than Intelligence. (Or it could be a sign of a low Charisma, but I think we’re all agreed that that’s not Maddie’s problem.)
I’m not sure how all this would be represented in D&D ability scores (and it stands to reason that not every high-Wisdom character will behave the same as another high-Wisdom character, or likewise for low-Wisdom characters), but there’s definitely [i]something[/i] to Madeline’s way of thinking that’s remarkably acute. Time will tell whether it proves useful on this particular adventure…
I’d suggest she’s rather average (maybe the low end of average, but not tanked) in both intelligence and wisdom. Her force of personality and convictions, aka CHA, bends reality, so that’s way up there. However, while she’s neither stupid or foolhardy, she’s not breaking ground in intelligence and routinely does things like ‘take me to your artifact’ up there.
Just idle speculation, but I’d guess the following: Reasonably high Str, High Dex (blocking thrown daggers with a swirling weapon and turning someone’s head around via polearm takes solid Dex), massive Cha and Con (aforementioned force of personality, and the amount of punishment she can endure), Low end of average Wis/Int.
I’m not sure whether Madeline’s hilarious cluelessness is better classified as Intelligence or Wisdom, but it’s definitely worse than “low end of average”.
She’s excellent at Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma, and may or may not have decent Wisdom (3.5e paladins do require it, and the comic has been sending mixed signals about what Madeline’s Wisdom, it doesn’t help that I’ve always had a hard time pinning down the exact difference between Intelligence and Wisdom). Her Intelligence is tanked because it’s the only score she can afford to dump. (Dexterity is also typically considered a reasonable dump stat for paladins, since they can wear heavy armor and so aren’t so reliant on Dexterity for AC, but as you point out Madeline is clearly far more dextrous than the average paladin.)
Of course, the nature of a comedy strip means that Madeline can be totally oblivious to things that realistically even most idiots would realize (a hoe isn’t a sword!), while still noticing other things that are theoretically less obvious, further complicating things.
By the way, it was Cube that did the turning-someone’s-head-around thing. Madeline kept cutting off the head even though she could tell it wasn’t working but didn’t think of the solution. However, she’s shown plenty of other examples of impressive Dexterity, such as fighting while balancing on a tightrope.
Yeah, the lunchbox does look the most worrying. Though in our world, lunchboxes are usually made of plastic, and though that’s kind of an anachronism in a D&D setting, such anachronisms have already been established as being canon in this comic…
I prefer to believe, largely because I love her so much, that Madeline is actually fairly smart, but she just plays dumb, A.K.A. obfuscating stupidity. This way, she can get people to underestimate her and reveal things they otherwise wouldn’t, and she can be as direct as a paladin would like to be and get away with it, like here. After all, “It is sometimes the height of wisdom to feign stupidity.” – Cato the Elder
Madeline isn’t going to pretend to be dumb. It’s not nice to lie 🙂
However, I do think she’s smarter than she looks. Not because she’s deliberately concealing her intelligence, but because her mind is just focused differently from “smarter” people – she notices things others would miss, and misses things others would notice. Being “dumb” has its advantages: you don’t get distracted overthinking things, for example.
She’s trying to be nice, and it’s not nice to attribute malicious thoughts to others. She’s giving everybody the benefit of doubt. Way too much of it. And in the previous chapter she gave far more than usual.
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Just how much mental damage did Derek manage to repair so far? None? Is Madeline still as clumsy and stupid as she was by the end of the previous chapter?
This seems pretty standard for Maddie. Go back and look at her in the vampire hipster chapter.
Maddie’s never been smart. It was just the clumsy part that was new.
The clumsiness and the passivity were both new. Maddie never shirks at taking action, no matter how vague her understanding of what’s actually going on. (And her instincts are good enough that she’s never ended up hurting innocents by mistake.)
High-Wis, high-Cha, high-Benevolence, low-Int.
I dunno, she blew that save vs. domination pretty hard.
Everyone rolls a natural 1 sometimes.
She did snap out of it rather easily from just a few words, rather than needing a Dispel Magic effect.
In 5th edition, paladins don’t actually *need* a high Wisdom any more. And being clueless about how other people will react to what you say seems more like a Wisdom issue than Intelligence. (Or it could be a sign of a low Charisma, but I think we’re all agreed that that’s not Maddie’s problem.)
While Madeline has certainly done some things that are suggestive of being poor at both Intelligence and Wisdom, I’ve noted that she does have pretty good combat intuition and can use surprisingly creative tactics, such as exploiting the environment and creative dodging to defeat her opponents rather than continuing to fight them directly, or using Cube as a trampoline (twice!).
Besides, her ditziness has mostly been played for comedy and only rarely caused her friends any actual trouble, and sometimes she was even right. During Circus Minimus, Roxy was just as guilty of being unreasonably overcautious as Madeline was of being reckless, so both of them were pretty much necessary to balance each other out (and Madeline was the more reasonable one, since she let Roxy talk her out of it, whereas Roxy had to be physically carried into action). The worst she’s done is thwart Mimic’s attempt to bluff past the kraken and then stopped fighting him even though he was still trying to kill Mimic… and then that actually worked out when she successfully convinced the kraken to let Mimic go and throw him to where he needs to be.
I’m not sure how all this would be represented in D&D ability scores (and it stands to reason that not every high-Wisdom character will behave the same as another high-Wisdom character, or likewise for low-Wisdom characters), but there’s definitely [i]something[/i] to Madeline’s way of thinking that’s remarkably acute. Time will tell whether it proves useful on this particular adventure…
I’d suggest she’s rather average (maybe the low end of average, but not tanked) in both intelligence and wisdom. Her force of personality and convictions, aka CHA, bends reality, so that’s way up there. However, while she’s neither stupid or foolhardy, she’s not breaking ground in intelligence and routinely does things like ‘take me to your artifact’ up there.
Just idle speculation, but I’d guess the following: Reasonably high Str, High Dex (blocking thrown daggers with a swirling weapon and turning someone’s head around via polearm takes solid Dex), massive Cha and Con (aforementioned force of personality, and the amount of punishment she can endure), Low end of average Wis/Int.
I’m not sure whether Madeline’s hilarious cluelessness is better classified as Intelligence or Wisdom, but it’s definitely worse than “low end of average”.
She’s excellent at Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma, and may or may not have decent Wisdom (3.5e paladins do require it, and the comic has been sending mixed signals about what Madeline’s Wisdom, it doesn’t help that I’ve always had a hard time pinning down the exact difference between Intelligence and Wisdom). Her Intelligence is tanked because it’s the only score she can afford to dump. (Dexterity is also typically considered a reasonable dump stat for paladins, since they can wear heavy armor and so aren’t so reliant on Dexterity for AC, but as you point out Madeline is clearly far more dextrous than the average paladin.)
Of course, the nature of a comedy strip means that Madeline can be totally oblivious to things that realistically even most idiots would realize (a hoe isn’t a sword!), while still noticing other things that are theoretically less obvious, further complicating things.
By the way, it was Cube that did the turning-someone’s-head-around thing. Madeline kept cutting off the head even though she could tell it wasn’t working but didn’t think of the solution. However, she’s shown plenty of other examples of impressive Dexterity, such as fighting while balancing on a tightrope.
I hope none of those things they’re asking Rusty to sign are made of metal.
That lunchbox looks rather ferrous and edible, unfortunately for the owner. Fortunately, it’s night, so I imagine it’s well past lunchtime by now.
Yeah, the lunchbox does look the most worrying. Though in our world, lunchboxes are usually made of plastic, and though that’s kind of an anachronism in a D&D setting, such anachronisms have already been established as being canon in this comic…
Sintetic materials are already a thing in this canon. Used to envelop Cube.
Honestly if they really are fans of him. Having something partially rusted by him is way better than a plain old autograph.
Sure, assuming that he can stop at “partially” 🙂
He can. He has a hobby of “antiquing” things by carefully licking them.
I just realized that the two little rectangular things are gnomish baseball cards, featuring Rusty. 🙂
Madelin and Y.T. are playing well off each other… Y.T.’s savviness versus Maddi’s ditziness, this can lead to some hilarious antics.
Yes. And YT researched the vampires before getting to the castle, so she’s probably wise to some of the possibilities.
“take us our artifact” in the 2nd to last panel is missing the word “to” after “take us”
Fixed. Thank you.
Also (notwithstanding Tiffany’s lissssp), it should be “Who’s taking my bag” rather than “Whose taking my bag” in panel 1.
Also fixed. Thank you.
this is going to be a good dynamic.
I was just about to say the same thing. I can tell that these two are going to play well off each other.
Can Rusty write, or will he have a similar autograph to Adorabat’s?
I prefer to believe, largely because I love her so much, that Madeline is actually fairly smart, but she just plays dumb, A.K.A. obfuscating stupidity. This way, she can get people to underestimate her and reveal things they otherwise wouldn’t, and she can be as direct as a paladin would like to be and get away with it, like here. After all, “It is sometimes the height of wisdom to feign stupidity.” – Cato the Elder
Madeline isn’t going to pretend to be dumb. It’s not nice to lie 🙂
However, I do think she’s smarter than she looks. Not because she’s deliberately concealing her intelligence, but because her mind is just focused differently from “smarter” people – she notices things others would miss, and misses things others would notice. Being “dumb” has its advantages: you don’t get distracted overthinking things, for example.
Or maybe good just means being adorable and innocent and bringing a smile to everyone’s faces. 😀
She’s trying to be nice, and it’s not nice to attribute malicious thoughts to others. She’s giving everybody the benefit of doubt. Way too much of it. And in the previous chapter she gave far more than usual.
Giving people the benefit of the doubt is easy when you have a supernatural power that can completely remove all doubt about whether someone is evil 🙂
If snakes COULD sweat, we’d be able to tell that YT is just a bit rattled.
Now I want a Rusty Lunchbox w/ thermos!