Arc-SWAT was invited to the vault partially because The Council is allies with them even if they’re a little stand offish with them on occasion, but also because obviously they’re handy as bodyguards. Doesn’t mean they can’t be scared by their bodyguards. I think being scary is kind of a fundamental requisite for bodyguards. I wonder how often people get scared of their own bodyguards? Firing a bodyguard has to create some tense moments, but I assume the best way to do that is hire the new guy first, and if something goes down it’s like part of the extended interview.

The original script for this page had Ingsol ask in the last panel “And you did that at (X) percent of your strength?” but putting a number on it felt weird, because that guardian was designed to beat up interloping vampires, werewolves, golems, what have you, and they’re mostly all stronger than humans anyway, so unless the weakness aura was enough to make them weaker than a human, they’d still be able to, I don’t know, throw dynamite at it or fire crossbows and what have you. (It was made a long time before there were anti-tank weapons and grenade launchers were invented. Probably time for an update anyway.) So a 75% debuff doesn’t sound like it’d be enough to seriously hamper most supernatural creatures, but a 95% debuff to strength would make what Max just did seem really absurd. She’s incredibly strong but not like, kick Mt. Everest in to the sun strong. So yeah, best not to give it an exact number.

Of course, it’s probably not a straight percent debuff, most game systems have saving throws, or level comparisons, like you have a 50% chance to hit an enemy who is the same level as you, but only a 42% vs one that’s a level higher than you, and a 36% if they’re two levels above you, etc. Or 95% is the limit to any applicable effect, so anything that goes over 95% just serves to eat up levels of resistance, so an Act boss that had a 150% debuff, it would still only affect you to the tune of 95%, but your girdle of strength would have to give you at least a 56% buff before it started counteracting the debuff.

Dabbler’s ear clasp is a Legendary, BTW.

I was hoping to have the vote incentive updated with this post, buuuuut, my parents live in Houston and their house got about a foot of water last week, so me and the wife went down and helped them pull drywall and insulation and move surviving furniture to a place they’re going to lease while everything gets fixed up. Considering they’re among something like 30,000 other people dealing with that, it may be a few months before things get back to normal. Before I went down I tried to buy one of those industrial air movers, but Lowes and Home Depot in Dallas were already cleaned out of anything to do with water mitigation. I’m sure all the drywall in the state is on its way to Houston by now. It’s a good time to be a contractor in Texas I guess.

Anyway, they’re fine and insured and everything will work out, but it took up most of the weekend.

Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.