The nobles of Talithar really like magic classes for several reasons. One, it’s flashy, 2, the equipment requirements are a bit more lax while the power is still very high, and the third reason- might be a spoiler so maybe we’ll mention that later.
Artificial Incident
“Thank you for the firepower; I’ll put it to much better use than you were going to.”
I do so love a quality repurposed explosion. 😀
You can have your fireball back now.
Plus they can stay far away from combat like the cowards they are. And if its level based spell learning they dont even need to study. Little to no practice as all they need is to shoot a spell they only have to work on their aim, if even that with aoe’s. No need to physically practice and figure out combos or tactics.
I hate to be the first to say it. Unethical use of control spells, like hold person, (For a mild example).
even with the bracelet storages ?
They have a smaller capacity than the Bag of Holding. I assume that even the paired bands have less space than the Bag of Holding, but in exchange you don’t need to waste time rummaging through it for stuff (small things anyway). Trying to pack in a bunch of random bits and bobs that are also likely low-leveled would be a waste of space (although gifting magic gear to her friends wouldn’t be bad).
Mostly correct! A single band has less space than a backpack of holding, and a backpack of holding has less space than a bag of holding. There are different tiers of each as well, so a fully upgraded single band might hold as much as a tier 1 bag of holding or more, there are certainly much larger bags of holding than there are bands of the magician’s highest tier. Even linking the storage of the two bands and both being fully upgraded, there is a limit to her space, and while it is vast, she always keeps a lot of equipment and items in storage at all times. So she isn’t working with an empty stash. She has to be picky about what all she does pick up, but she’ll get everything she can and if need be, destroy the rest. Also a note here- the spell doesn’t damage worn equipment – but can break/destroy it so it doesn’t drop from an NPC or monster. So, in the game Hellfire Explosion would not be as popular with players for trolling or PVE, because it doesn’t break Adventurer gear when they die- because adventurers take their stuff with them when they die, and it destroys would be drops from those who would normally drop worn items. The trade off though is that its strength is much higher than most spells of its own tier. Making it pretty popular as a PvP spell.
did the sword do something to the spell?
Probably not, but she’s a spellthief.
Nah. Kaytlin used her “spell stealing” ability to yank it away from Mr. Mage before he launched it, and then used it on him so he sees how it feels.
I wish I could have made it clearer, I think people who watched me draw it probably got it though XD – The person who cast the spell is dead, there’s no reason to then blast them with an explosion. The explosion targeted an entrance way where others were coming from. I actually drew the whole entrance- only to cover it up with an explosion XD. I did add the exploding burning/disintegrating form of an enemy into the flames showing them as a sword and shield wielding enemy being ingulfed by the blast- you can make it out a little bit – but the effect to make it look like he was obliterated along with a few allies pretty much wiped out the entire shield- but you can still see the “sword” in a vaguely humanoid shaped decimated object XD. I had to make a decision though- do I make it as clear as possible and do a before and after, or do I go with the more fun to draw larger panel displaying the destructive power of the spell? I have a weakness for wanting to paint out effects like this ^_^; – sometimes it comes back to bite me!
It feels like that would be more of a pacing issue of a weekly comic as opposed to a daily comic or an actual comic/graphic novel. To keep the plot moving at a good pace you need to keep scenes snappy so a lot of the exposition is carried out by dialogue and less environmental story telling. Not a balance I envy you trying to strike but you’ve done alright so far even if this one threw me a bit and took some of the commentary to clear up. At first I thought she’d fired the spell into a lab and that was collateral damage since she can’t hold them for long but after reading the commentary that makes a bit more sense. Perhaps if Nyna had said “their equipment” instead of “the” but both are correct and more a matter of choice in diction.
I’m looking forward to wednesday’s comic and appreciate the work you do.
Toasty!
Not sure if magic is stat linked in this setting. Guessing not, as a caster with high intelligence wouldn’t be in that predicament.
Not sure how you come to that conclusion but I’d love to know more about your thought process on this. It is true that not all spellcasting is Intelligence based. The idea that someone can just be so smart that they wouldn’t find themselves in a bad situation though is a rather unusual concept to me. Arrogant spellcasters are a very common theme in fantasy, despite their intelligence, their situation isn’t always dictated by some infallible logic that protects them from poor decisions, or dealing with pressures associated with unfamiliar situations. The idea that very intelligent people just don’t get into trouble/bad situations etc doesn’t make sense to me. I am curious to know what you think should happen, or think about what reasons could a spellcaster have for being in such a situation. I am concerned your thought assumes a lot about what magic they have, how paranoid they are, what kinds of daily rituals they preform, and an assumption that they had some foresight into something happening that had never happened before.
Personally, when I see a situation like this in a story, I try to think of why they are in that predicament, and think about the things surrounding the situation. Using this as an example, I would think “Why is this person running and chanting a spell? Well, they may have been caught off-guard and felt the distance they had to a threat was not safe to cast from. They are out of breath, so maybe they don’t have a lot of stamina, or have been running for a long time. Judging from the name of the spell- it sounds pretty powerful, so they must feel it’s needed, so they are probably desperate. If they are running in the first place, they must lack the ability to create a defense or lack a spell that would allow them to escape, or they have already used up any magic that could do so. They seemed to gauge the distance correctly, as they were able to cast their spell before being struck, they just didn’t know that the sword wielding foe could steal/disrupt magic.”
Rather than thinking something shouldn’t be, I find it best to think how something could be. This informs me more about the thought process of the person who created it, rather than making me assume a mistake, or the intelligence of the character because a decision they made was clearly not optimal, when you already know the outcome. I don’t think being smart protects someone from making poor choices. If it did, a lot of these people wouldn’t be working for a country that enslaves and murders people as part of their modern economy.
I believe you’re conflating INT and WIS. Intelligence and wisdom are related, but they’re not the same thing.
A low INT high WIS character might not be able to get to 1X3 on the multiplication table before getting the answer wrong, but they are savvy enough to not go down a dark alley at night unless they have no other option or just randomly poke bushes with a stick just to see what happens.
A high INT low WIS character might have memorized the content of every book in the Neverwinter library, but because of that would probably think it’s the best idea since sliced bread to go full-tilt know-it-all when in dialogue with a dragon or other entity that could squash them flat if provoked.