Book 2 – Page 103

[technojunkie]

Since Ace is back, Parson is now severely outgunned. .

I dunno about outgunned.

As far as stacks go, he's got a full stack, including a warlord with an unknown leadership and of course Jack. He's adding his CW bonus and 'special' ability/bonus. Jack aside he has 6 capable melee units and whatever moves he manages to pull off.

Slately has 3 or 4 infantry, one of which appears to be mortally wounded in panel 4. We don't know what, if any leadership Slately is providing.

From a numbers standpoint, without ace and the battle bear,Slately is outmatched. With Ace on scene the holly shortcake doll will even the odds, we don't know stats, but I'll bet that with the dollamancer bonus Holly is going to be pretty tough. Lets be generous and say she evens the odds. The battle bear is tied up holding Ace and I wouldn't expect it to engage unless it puts him down, but either way it leave Ace vulnerable to attack which is just what Parson would do. even contending with Slately's ray gun, he needs to divide and conquer.

[effataigus]

Don't have much to add cept that that achieve had only one of four bars lit up. Clearly the last achieve in Battle Royal is to kill a king, but I wonder what the other two bases are

[bladestorm]

I think Parson was lowering his sword in panel 6 in anticipation of some talkamancy when he got pew'd on.

Overall this page is epic, and definitely worth waiting for.


Regarding total unit numbers, this page gives a good overview:

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -01-16.jpg

You can see Parson has 1 warlord and 8+ infantry - panel 10 shows 7 + 1 tiny sliver of a shoulder and torso on the far left, other angles don't show as much but may be showing different sides of the room.
King Slately has 3 infantry, and now 1 dollamancer and presumably 1 regular doll and 1 heavy doll.

I'm making some assumptions for which units are infantry and which are warlords, but I think I have it correct.



Edit: I think Ace just broke a rule, according to this page:

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -01-22.png

"Incapacitation could take a number of forms. All of them meant that you could not move, could not initiate engagement or disengage, could not personally fight or cast."

I'd love to have some clarification on this. I have my own guesses but there's just too many things it could be.


Another edit:

If Parson is a wild card, then he only needs an Ace, King, Queen, and Jack.


Bluh I can't think straight tonight. Edit edit edit edit...

Plenty of systems have rules regarding similar situations, especially systems that have initiative.
Option 1: Healing counts as a free action if it is done outside of an engagement. The doll that was healed had not engaged yet.
Option 2: This falls under the caster abilities that can be used offturn, and are thusly not subject to incapacitation status.
Option 3: Healing certain units becomes automatic under certain conditions (eg a certain amount of damage, and in the presence of a specific caster type), but is only effective once. Any further damage much be manually healed via spell.

[Morni]

Edit: I think Ace just broke a rule, according to this page:

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -01-22.png

"Incapacitation could take a number of forms. All of them meant that you could not move, could not initiate engagement or disengage, could not personally fight or cast."

I'd love to have some clarification on this. I have my own guesses but there's just too many things it could be.

I beleive they keyword here is the use of the "or" instead of the "and".

Maybe being incapacitaed happens if one or more of the following is true:

• cannot move
• cannot initiate engagement
• cannot disengage
• cannot fight personally
• cannot cast personally

Ace cannot move right now, the bear is moving for him.

[Salem]

"... could not personally fight or cast."

I beleive they keyword here is the use of the "or" instead of the "and".

The whole thing falls apart with an and. Or is the functional statement. If you read it can not fight and cast that implies that a unit can fight or cast it just can't do both. That would be my argument in table top for breaking the spirit of the rules. (Or in a card game for that matter not that it would come up in l5r)

Don't have much to add cept that that achieve had only one of four bars lit up. Clearly the last achieve in Battle Royal is to kill a king, but I wonder what the other two bases are

Naw, it's an x-box achievement Parson is player 1. Which could either have broad meaning, such as there are no other stupidworlders, and that Charlie learned kill from Dorothy. Though I'm pretty sure no bets are on that. That in breaking away from fate parson became a player and is the first person to do it. That it's an MMO style game and parson is the only one playing on this console or most likely just a visual effect.

[Finn MacCool]

it could also mean that he has yet to hit a queen, a prince and a princess.

[Staberinde]

Rob, if you create a frame with the Parson kicking Stately with the `achievement unlocked` bar on top of it, I think it would make an excellent t-shirt (or mug or whatever). I'd buy it.

[Denar]

My mad theory, based on an idea pointed out by other posters - the winning hand.

The defeat the ultimate antagonist (whether it's Charlie or whoever), will have the team of: Parson as "the wild card" as he is often described (i.e. the Ace), Tranemis as the King, Jillian as the Queen and...

Jack as the Jack?

Dunno who the "ten" might be, if we're going for a Royal Flush. Maybe the combination of Wanda/Stanley/another attuned, who use their Tools to create the large army?

[bladestorm]

My mad theory, based on an idea pointed out by other posters - the winning hand.

The defeat the ultimate antagonist (whether it's Charlie or whoever), will have the team of: Parson as "the wild card" as he is often described (i.e. the Ace), Tranemis as the King, Jillian as the Queen and...

Jack as the Jack?

Dunno who the "ten" might be, if we're going for a Royal Flush. Maybe the combination of Wanda/Stanley/another attuned, who use their Tools to create the large army?

Ace attuned to the Shoes, Stanley as the king with the Hammer (or if a King kills Stanley and attunes, but that violates the balance of Tools vs Royalty), Wanda as the Queen/Mistress, Jack attuning to an unknown Tool, and Parson as the Wildcard.

How would Ace even get the shoes? He'd need something like a scroll that would send him to wherever the Shoes were, then a way to get back.

[Suitesned]

Can units move to other areas of their city off-turn? I see one way for Parson to get out of this is to surrender so he and his units can be moved to a different part of the city where there might be ways to put out the fire. I can see Ace making a fire hose. I can't see any arrangement being make until Slately is gone though. He won't stop until he or Parson is dead.

[ShieldOfAthena]

Don't have much to add cept that that achieve had only one of four bars lit up. Clearly the last achieve in Battle Royal is to kill a king, but I wonder what the other two bases are

I thought that was rather obvious. "Hit a King" is one, so the other three are clearly "Hit a Queen" "Hit a Prince" and "Hit a Princess." Then you will have "Battle Royal"ed.

[eras10]

I liked this comic so much I finally got Customer Service to find my missing activation email and am making first comment ever. With a flight tomorrow AM at that.

A few points.

There's no way the tiny handful of remaining living units are putting this massive fire out now. Parson's only way out is to take control of the city and then flee.

- what exactly happened to the sizable pile of infantry that used to be in the dungeon? When Wanda took it, there were tens, if not hundreds down there. Did Sylvia call them back up? They'd be handy right now.

- Jack is due to die, folks. I'm tired of Gobwin Knob having so many unique advantages. Foolamancy has been the key piece of 75% of Parson's gambits.

- I loved this update. Both the art and the dialogue were top-notch.

- Did you see how heavies stomped the infantry with Tramennis? There's no way holding up Ace fully occupies that battle bear. That would be silly.

- Whoever pointed it out was right, the Staff of Suckage was broken in book 1 when Wanda fell. Where the heck did Parson get a new one?

-this is really off topic, and I love this comic, and setting up an internally consistent and complex game system while writing a comic novel is a near-impossible task, so I love Rob's work, but I have been waiting to complain about this for a long time - there's no way this whole book 2 plan makes sense from a numbers point of view. When Wanda raided the garrison, how many dwagons did they have? 50? 100? can't be too much more - 26 griffons and 6 megalogs was a 'signficant force' that was going to hurt them bad. So take 20% of that and make them yellows (it's not like yellows were important to the plan). Maybe 30%, be generous! How many infantry could Gobwin Knob kill with crap? (they started evacing right away)... Jetstone had its entire capital fight force - literally thousands of units - against 50-70 dragons and... a few hundred infantry? Yes, dragons are tough, but... there's no way you kill hundreds or thousands of infantry with 10-15 dragons bombing for a few rounds. Gobwin knob should have been massively, Book-1 style outnumbered.

I'm not even going to get started on the 800 archers running out of arrows before managing to kill Wanda on a near-empty field, even with four casters in the immediate vicinity - why would you blanket an entire area with arrows from 1000 feet up instead of sending down a party to nab her.. you know, waiting until she decrypts everything before you start shooting?

I loved it anyway, it was a great and fun plan, even if there's no way in heck it works.

[vrellum]

It's hard to say who has the upper hand now. Before Ace returned it was undoubtedly Parson, but now it might not be. The doll seems to have been Holly's special gift to the Slately and it might (might not) be and unusually well made one. It certainly looks pretty tough right now. The battle bear looks a little scorched, but mostly OK and Slately has an uber pistol that might or might not run out of ammo. However, we know it was able to one-shot archons and I doubt that any of Parson's troops are tougher than them, with the possible exception of Parson and the warlord.

Also, it looks like loyalty might be pretty low for the decrypted. I'm not sure how the rules work, but they are off turn. So they can't leave the city, even if they capture it. They would have to put out the fire and I don't see that as a realistic possibility. So unless they defect or surrender to Jetstone, I think they are going to die. Couple that with the fact that Parson tried to abandon them all to their deaths and I think there is a strong chance that some of them do turn.

Also, Slately doesn't look nearly as foppish anymore and that is probably a result of sign-a-mancy, indicating that he has become a more capable warrior. I'm sure that he got enough XP fighting the Archons to level, and I'm not sure what the mechanic is, but Bogroll leveled twice, immediately when he killed Ansom. So presumably Slately leveled several times as well.

I suspect that if Slately can manage to shoot the warlord, then it will be a romp for Jetstone. If the warlord manages to stay alive, then the bonus he confers to his troops makes them pretty tough. Parson... well he's a great mind, maybe even a formidable warrior, but he gives a crappy bonus. Even to troops in his stack.

[atalex]

I am wondering if Parson is acting (as usual) under flawed information. He clearly believes that killing the King means winning the battle, but that is no longer the case. Killing Slately means Trem becomes king, the side lives on, and, I assume, the remaining JS forces are NOT paralyzed, which is normal upon the death of the ruler. Thus, Parson MUST kill every JS force in the city, including Ace and his bear.

[Allsardane]

As an individual who has been sword fighting for a long time IRL (Note, I am not claiming to be any good at it, just that I keep going back for more)-

A general rule- if you can do it with a baseball bat, you can do it with a sword. Similar weight (3-5 pounds), length, balance. How many of us can reverse their grip on a baseball bat just with a simple twist and gravity? I know I do it with my chef knives all the time in the kitchen when I want to feel awesome.

Switching your grip to a blade downward position is not very offensive, but it works well if you need to make a quick stab at a similar-sized person's legs or if you are in a hallway and have something in your other hand you can use to protect your face or harm theirs.

Really the biggest issue with him switching his grip down isn't that he did it. More importantly you should wonder why he decided to engage the king with a kick when his sword was pointing at his own legs. His two options here are chance stabbing himself in the thigh when he kicks OR accidentally stabbing the foolamancer behind him when he naturally moves his hand (and sword) behind him to make sure he doesn't stab himself in the thigh.

[Lamech]

As an individual who has been sword fighting for a long time IRL (Note, I am not claiming to be any good at it, just that I keep going back for more)-

A general rule- if you can do it with a baseball bat, you can do it with a sword. Similar weight (3-5 pounds), length, balance. How many of us can reverse their grip on a baseball bat just with a simple twist and gravity? I know I do it with my chef knives all the time in the kitchen when I want to feel awesome.

Switching your grip to a blade downward position is not very offensive, but it works well if you need to make a quick stab at a similar-sized person's legs or if you are in a hallway and have something in your other hand you can use to protect your face or harm theirs.

Really the biggest issue with him switching his grip down isn't that he did it. More importantly you should wonder why he decided to engage the king with a kick when his sword was pointing at his own legs. His two options here are chance stabbing himself in the thigh when he kicks OR accidentally stabbing the foolamancer behind him when he naturally moves his hand (and sword) behind him to make sure he doesn't stab himself in the thigh.

That would fit well with my theory of Parson has no idea what he's doing.

[Beeskee]

He doesn't know what he is doing with a sword, and said as much in Book 1. "Pointy end away from user" is the extent of his knowledge. I was a bit surprised he didn't take SOME combat training in the summer updates from, well, any warlord available, but ideally Ansom.

[effataigus]

-this is really off topic, and I love this comic, and setting up an internally consistent and complex game system while writing a comic novel is a near-impossible task, so I love Rob's work, but I have been waiting to complain about this for a long time - there's no way this whole book 2 plan makes sense from a numbers point of view. When Wanda raided the garrison, how many dwagons did they have? 50? 100? can't be too much more - 26 griffons and 6 megalogs was a 'signficant force' that was going to hurt them bad. So take 20% of that and make them yellows (it's not like yellows were important to the plan). Maybe 30%, be generous! How many infantry could Gobwin Knob kill with crap? (they started evacing right away)... Jetstone had its entire capital fight force - literally thousands of units - against 50-70 dragons and... a few hundred infantry? Yes, dragons are tough, but... there's no way you kill hundreds or thousands of infantry with 10-15 dragons bombing for a few rounds. Gobwin knob should have been massively, Book-1 style outnumbered.

Welcome to the forum.

Mostly I agree with you. There is one Erfworldy tweak to my perceptions that would make a lot of the numbers add up however: if AoE's hit all units within a stack regardless of how many units are in that stack. We know the stack bonus maxes out at 8, but I don't recall an upper limit on stack size. Anyway, if so, this would explain how a handful of S-bombs managed to do as much damage as it did. It would also explain how the exploding greens managed to essentially wipe GK off the JS map without croaking the nearby battlebear or incapacitated caster (i.e. neither unit was in the exploding stack nor engaged with it). In both cases, the opposition wasn't expecting AoE attacks, and therefore wouldn't have a great reason to spread out forces between a bunch of stacks.

The other thing that is required for me to make this all make sense is to allow that many of the units are making sub-optimal decisions. None of them have the advantage of our viewpoint or our ability to see this going down in ~1/10000ths time. Admittedly, I don't recall this allowance being necessary in book 1.

[Noigel]

Noigel: Pretty sure his loyalty is way up there with Slately/Tramennis and the only thing that would turn him would be decryption.

ManaCaster: I'm pretty sure his loyalty isn't quite as high as Slately/Tramennis. One is the leader of the side, the other is its heir and Chief Warlord. In contrast, Ace was widely hated until very recently.

Was saying his loyalty "for his current rulers" is high... NOT that his loyalty is comparable to Slately's or Tramennis's loyalty.

Edit: I think Ace just broke a rule, according to this page:

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -01-22.png

"Incapacitation could take a number of forms. All of them meant that you could not move, could not initiate engagement or disengage, could not personally fight or cast."

I'd love to have some clarification on this. I have my own guesses but there's just too many things it could be.

Another option: Perhaps with the bear carrying him... he is considered to be riding a mount? Do we have any "incap on a mount" rules?

[Bloodsausage]

Technically speaking, isn't the Achievement just wrong? Parson kicked a double, not the actual king. Although I suppose for all other intents and purposes the double has been functioning as the king...