Grrl Power #1243 – Firebreak
Yeah, I know Sydney still has possessed eyes. That will be addressed on the next page.
“Fire Jail” I assume involves a moat, and the guards would be firefighters. Maybe there’d be one of those shower heads that lowers the water pressure so much that the water falls slower than the pull of gravity should provide. By which I mean those rainfall showerheads. In my opinion, a shower should have so much pressure that if you have a tiny cut on your forehead, you’ll be peeled like a banana the moment you stick your face in the stream.
Another Pathfinder session, this one was rather combat heavy, and I’m playing a monk who mostly attacks with Flurry of Blows, and spends a lot of Ki on extra attacks, and we have a party member with a wand of Haste, and a Cleric who does uh, some blessing that lets you pick from a list of bonuses, like extra move speed, extra attack, bonuses to hit or save. I don’t recall the name of the spell, and I’m not sure the blessing attack bonus and the haste would stack, but the GM allows it so I regularly get 5 attacks in a round. Which I normally need in order to eke out 2 actual hits a round.
5, 20, 17, 17, 4, 10, 19, 17, 12, 9, 18, 18, 19, 1, 1, 3, 12, 10, 1, 1, 8, 15, 15, 20, 20, 14, 11, 11, 8, 1, 3, 12.
Non-combat rolls average to 12.6. Combat rolls average to 10.5. I started off really strong, but the 5 1’s normalized the distribution. Still, overall average was 11. Honestly I’m a little disappointed that I rolled better than usual that game because I like having D20 Persecution Complex, but I realize that tracking all my rolls means I can’t rely on confirmation bias to support it.
The new vote incentive is up! This is a bit of a weird one as it’s a character that hasn’t appeared in the comic.
It’s my Ifrit Pathfinder 1e monk, Fray! Ifrits don’t really make great monks in Pathfinder, as player characters they get a +2 to Dex and Cha, but -2 to Wis. For monks, Dex is good, Cha is largely irrelevant, but Wis is important as it can add to your AC and also has something to do with Ki points I think. But I didn’t care. I wanted a character with dark blue/gray skin and glowing orange hair, so that’s what I picked. (I don’t think Ifrit even really have dark skin, so maybe she’s 1/4 Drow? Don’t care. I think she looks cool.) Will she show up in the comic? I mean… maybe? Probably in a Dabbler flashback, but who knows?
As usual, Patreon has her in delicto flagrante.
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Get Dwarf-In-The-Flask’ed, BITCH!
when do sydneys eyes go back to normal?
Well, first she needs to finish Millicent’s questline and get the unalloyed gold needle.
Next, comes the hardest part: she’s got to beat Malenia. Fucking Malenia.
So, she can try to tough it out, or wait for Goku, or LetMeSoloHer.
Theeeeen you reload the area so the Crimson Rot bloom is there, and it’ll let you transform the unalloyed needle into Miquella’s Needle.
Then the second hard part of beating Placidusax, as you need to clear his arena in the ‘past’ in order to use the needle on yourself.
And from then all other endings are availible again, as well as the eye effect goes back to whatever status adjustment is next in line for priority. In my playthrough, I kept the dragon eyes, I thought they looked the coolest.
Actually, the needle can be used in the arena regardless of Placi being alive or not – common misconception.
Please someone tell me the nerd trivia that I am missing context for? Thsnk you in advance.
It’s an Elden Ring reference – eye color is actually lore relevant and has the potential to change throughout the game based on different triggers.
Ah, Dice Persecution Complex. Good old DPC.
Couple of my players have that, and since we play online these days, I added a dice roll tracker to FoundryVTT.
Turns out the player that complained about terrible dice luck the most was actually one of the luckier ones (but did have the longest sting f 1’s in a row, which was memorable). Almost all of them were running above the 10.5 average a completely fair D20 should give statistically, though usually not by much (10.61, 10.8, etc. and since, everyone’s averages have been creeping steadily towards 10.5) Confirmation bias is a hell of a thing.
Return to nothing
You’re right, blessing of fervor and haste explicitly do not stack (on the extra attack bonus – you can find non-overlapping modes which you can stack together)
I’m noticing that Sydney still has fire-eyes… how long is that going to last? And what kind of side effects will it bring?
…or is that just from the food?
That will be covered next page. See author commentary.
During the possession she may not have needed glasses. Different eyes!!
That will soon go away.
Honestly, I like the ways the fire-eyes look on Sydney.
So was Dabbler’s head jewelry/anti mind control thing that fire starter stored as small form?
Lapha jumped ship.
But forgot to look before she leapt.
And she went from the frying pan (of dying) into the lava (of being imprisioned).
To be fair it was this or be the first demon fire AI to die from spicey food
Is it just me, or is Dabbler WAY cuter in sweats than in whatever extremely revealing and intentionally sexy outfit she’d normally wear?
It’s just you. Well, also that her eyes were drawn proportionally larger than normal in that first panel. But canonically speaking, Dabbler is always as cute as can possibly be perceived by the viewer’s senses.
I believe the commenter meant OOC rather than IC.
And I agree, she looks a lot more appealing than normal here.
yes the sweats bring from out of our league to relatable and possible
Absolutely not just you. While I do appreciate the effort that goes into looking your best for going out, I personally find a woman wearing comfy clothes with just-woke-up hair to be incredibly sexy. No disguises, no fake persona, just “this is me”.
I agree with you. But then again, in her own quirky way, I think that Sydney is one of the sexier members of the team, even if she doesn’t have Dabbler’s … assets.
I hope that burning spice helped clean up Dabblers sinuses.
Wow, she actually almost killed herself.
Also sad and impressive with how easily she rolls with it.
She has apparently had the type of life that she does not consider worth living. I am hoping she has a redemption arc.
Fire jail, or as the hip kids call it… Hell
Or “a Sound proof, one way glass covered fireplace in the Archon lounge.”
Depends on if she actually produces any heat or not.
It’s Texas most fireplaces are ornamental and at best used once or twice in the holidays because we have no chimney sweeps.
No flaming out for you.
Aww, even I got a little teary eyed for this sad, sad girl. She needs a break.
Oh yeah, Pathfinder is pretty complicated. Defo not supposed to stack, but House Rules are awesome. DPS, that’s a new term to me. We actually all had favorite dice. On that note about dice, if you get the chance – I got to *strongly* recommend going over the dice system in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire system. I’m genuinely amazed they can make a system like that both simple and address a major flaw in most dice systems: their lack of integration with *actually roleplaying*.
If it helps, I found a page about that dice system:
https://sw-eote-srd.vercel.app/core-rules/core-mechanic/dice-pool
Looks complicated at first, but it seems like something people could get used to quickly.
Hi
nothing to do with today’s page, but am I the only one having RSS problems ?
my rss hasn’t updated for weeks, and as I don’t use social networks, it means I’m not alerted for new pages
thanks
The RSS feed for new comic pages is up to date, so presumably you’re having some kind of caching problem, you’re pulling the wrong feed, or whatever you’re using as a reader isn’t pulling the feed. I don’t think the URL has changed… Maybe it’s only being served via HTTPS now, and supported bare HTTP before? Maybe try resubscribing to the feed?
ok thanks. I’ll be searching on my side then (not the first time my rss client has problems, but I needed to be sure)
It’s not DPC if your dice really *do* hate you…
That’s why you need a ‘dice bag of holding’ and a ‘dice prison’ to put those misbehaving dice in a time out and have plenty of eager new dice available to prove that they do love you.
The magical AI has been put in firejail after she was snapped.
If she doesn’t cooperate they will probably put her in a flatpack.
(computer nerd humor)
The cleric stuff sounds from the special bonus from the Madness Domain, so Gyronna and Lamashtu come in to my mind… Well, i am not sure, only had chance to play Pathfinder with the PC versions (Kingmaker & Wrath of the Righteous). Haste and blessing stacking is depending on what kind of bonus the blessing gave you, but usually only one of them is effective.
Pathfinder: Look up a spell called Snake Swiftness & Mass Snake Swiftness & ask if there’s anyone with it on their spell list. The martial types in my old game loved it when the druid cast it.
And at least Lapha has some sense of self-preservation.
I think it’s an old 3.5 spell.
It’s not bad but it looks like it’s strictly inferior to Haste once you get access to that (except where characters move rather than full attack)
So the heroes want to torture now. :p
So Dave likes “Powerwasher strength” showers?
*Builds Lego Tower of Sauron with containment field. Uses as talking centerpiece for DND sessions.
Glad to see that Dabbler seems to have gotten over her hangover. Maybe the spicy food helped?
what does it say that an entity whose race commonly features a flame-like eye, should lose to Sydney Scoville and her extreme tastes in extreme taste?
Ifrit’s can make good monks in Pathfinder 1e. If you use the scaled fist archetype. they use their charisma modifier instead of their wisdom modifier for their monk abilities. Just something that might be useful next time you create one… or if your dm will let you switch to an architype mid game lol.
WARNING: THIS IS WHAT EARTHLINGS EAT.. Do not posses their superheroes!
Fire Jail is a Legend of Zelda dungeon right?
Wait a second! If Lapha can mind-wipe someone during forced expulsion, can her kind also do that at-will?
Meaning, if Lapha had jumped onto Maxima, was able to access her memories and control her, and managed to maintain control long enough to sell Max into slavery, she could have mind-wiped Max on the way out, so the buyer would have Max (or anyone, really) as a blank slate?
Not gonna lie, that’s legit terrifying.
Really hoping that was Lapha just bluffing, and not something her race can actually do. Then again, if it was, then that would be a huge reason why bodyjacking is not cool, and why it took them so long to become their own race with the freedoms they now have. Lapha could be really setting her race back if word of her actions gets out; don’t know if the freedoms could be rescinded, but if the idea gains enough supporters, well~.
They probably can but generally would not, and self-police themselves not to do that sort of thing… for fear of losing their newly-won freedom in galactic society. Or possibly because most people are not criminals.
That would make her kidnapping-and-selling-into-slavery plan a lot more viable. And since they were created as control systems, that seems like a reasonable ability for them to have. The basic premise of the comic is that “society doesn’t operate without some level of trust“, and that something or someone being dangerous doesn’t mean we have to live in fear or oppress people. Killing people is easy, and yet for some reason, most people go about their day without killing anyone.
I almost could feel sorry for Lapha given the shit start she had in life. But then I’ve known people who have had shit starts to their lives who decided not to be a shit person because of it.
And plenty of people who never became awful people because their life was just rosy, but might have been awful under worse circumstances. Different people have different thresholds before they crack. While we should strive to both make a better world, and more resilient people, we shouldn’t blame just one or the other when something fails.
I do feel sorry for her, specifically for what she assumed would be her final words, because I’ve been at that level of despair. During my worst hours I’d wished I was never born, and only spite kept me from suicide. The problem is, when you’re only living on spite, part of you is doing the long gambles because jackpot or die stops feeling like a risk and starts feeling like the lose condition can’t really be any worse than just keeping on like you already are.
When you’re at that rock bottom, it feels like there’s no spare energy or time for compassion wasted on ‘poor bastards’ who are still doing a hell of a lot better than you are.
Oh, I get it.
The fire eyes are a “Possession Warning Alarm” put in place by Dabbler.
It might just be the default setting, or it might actually change theme based on what is posessing.
They don’t seem to be, in
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-930-emergency-escape-lizard/
Garamm get’s the flame eyes when he’s possessed
Okay, back to the second immediate problem: there is a bunch of Demon and Succubi students on the loose, with knowledge that could ignite an interstellar war. Can something be done about that ASAP?
Does the flame eyes mean syd has a copy of Laphas* memory?
Maybe even a slice of mama now?
Maybe something more simple, like…
Mom is that you?
You know Sydney would call her bunny
I wonder if Maxima was telling the truth when she said that Lapha could be forcibly extractedl I will admit that I did not think about Sydney’s method, but I did imagine that someone on the Twilight Council could do an exorcism. What might protect that person from getting possessed, I don’t know.
Later, I thought that maybe the one who can do actual magic might be able to safely extract Lapha, but the “how” might take some time to figure out.
Also, I think that if Sydney picks the passive thing on the shield during her next upgrade, she might acquire some default protection, including protection from future possession.