> [...] that said, isn't Rule One "wear appropriate clothing in the dungeon" ...?? dude, sandals at the very least!
And that is likely part of the reason why Randulf managed to become a veteran of the dungeon. He also made sure that he and Colleen got supplies, bedrolls, trail rations, waterskins, etc. Things that likely seems entirely unnecessary when going down as a new adventurer into a dungeon, especially a dungeon that one can teleport out from. And of course proper protection, armor and weapons.
There can be advantages to not having much equipment, for instance swimming, climbing, carrying, jumping and the like, the latter which helped save the life of Ozzy when he was trapped on the burning scaffolding in page 4-19:
http://www.marblegate.webcomic.ws/comics/147/
. How much equipment, and which equipment you have, involves both strategy, trade-offs and optimizing what you can get and afford. But not having foot gear, at least if you can afford it, is likely indeed a mistake. Going barefoot is likely very tough and a good challenge and gives high status in the barbarian tribes, among what practical advantages it can have (such as cost), but Marblegate is an extremely dangerous place where you really need what help you can get.
This page also very neatly shows the dangers of terrain, obstacles and environment. If they are lucky, the shark ogre will have its feet get impaled by these unintended caltrops as well.
This time, the party cannot be blamed for poor teamwork, they laid an IMO very smart though dangerous plan, and they worked together at least decently well.
There is something to say about caltrops effectiveness as a trap. It stop most walkers dead in their tracks.
Now the time for the tank to Agro so they can drag Ox ass out of the way since they don't have a bard to sacrifice. I would say he could dive in the water do dodge but against a shark like monster, it doesn't seem like a great idea...
To be fair, a spike that large and sharp might have gone through even if Ox had been wearing sandals or boots. Even if it didn't penetrate, a loose object like that would have shifted underfoot, likely causing him to stumble and fall.
There are advantages to going barefoot, but these can be replicated by certain types of footwear such as socks/footwraps (reduced noise), cleats/treaded soles (better grip), or sandals (prevents waterlogging). Overall, I think it would only be worthwhile if you either: a. have a racial aspect that favours it (eg. halflings), b. have had a lifetime of conditioning (eg. barbarians), or c. have abilities that require direct contact with the ground (eg. earthbenders).
Always go for the eyes of the shark it is where they are the most sensitive. Plus also if your that close to a shark ogre thingy you plan may have backfired.
Nice double row of teeths on the monster. Love details like that. Maybe they can be sold for some cash to a wizard that need those things or could be used to make some kind of weapon.
Where is even a weak point on this thing? It's good to go on land and in the water. Though skin, really strong, sharp claws and teeths, very tall with reach, as armor and have apex predator written all over it. Beside the eyes and gills and knees, it doesn't have a lot of place you can hit to significantly hurt it with this party.
I am not certain, but I believe that certain armies in combat in real life, where they had great ranged superiority while defending a poorly fortified location, and their attackers greatly outnumbered them, used a special tactic: They ensured that each wave of attackers would be shot in the same small area that the attackers had to go through before reaching the defenders, such that each wave would cause more and more enemy bodies to pile up in that area and thus create more and more of a hindrance for each wave of attacker, and thus possibly increasing their chances of surviving the onslaught.
Dude, landsharks aren't just an SNL thing. The DnD Bullet has been around since '74, a year before the first landshark appearance on SNL, and there are probably older examples that I don't know of.
The bulette originally appeared in Dragon #1 (Jun 1976), p.19.
Saturday Night Live debuted the Land Shark 8 months earlier on November 8, 1975.
You can see photos of the toys that the brunette, rust monster, and owl bear were based on in this article.
Owlbears, Rust Monsters and Bulettes, Oh My!
https://diterlizzi.com/essay/owlbears-rust-monsters-and-bulettes-oh-my/
D&D Playtester Tim Kask recalls
“There once was an unknown company in Hong Kong that made a bag of weird animal-things that were then sold in what once were called dime stores or variety stores for like $.99. I know of four other very early monsters based on them. Gary and I talked about how hard it was to find monster figures, and how one day he came upon this bag of weird beasts…He nearly ran home, eager as a kid to get home and open his baseball cards. Then he proceeded to invent the carrion crawler, umber hulk, rust monster and purple worm, all based on those silly plastic figures. The one that I chose was known in the Greyhawk campaign as “the bullet” (for it’s shape) but had only amorphous stats and abilities, not being developed. Gary told me to take it home, study it, and decide what it was and what it could do.”
“The bullette (boo-lay), as it was first called, was the first monster I invented. Why is the more interesting part of the story. I had decided to add a feature to DRAGON that would mean a new monster every issue; problem was, I had to launch an issue early because an ad didn’t come in. I wrote it up very late at night; the nickname “landshark” was a reference to a character that the original Not Ready for Primetime Players had done on Saturday Night Live. I went to Dave Sutherland for an emergency drawing (drawings could be submitted to the printers after the copy was set) and he did a dandy job on almost no notice.”
Got a layout comment if it's okay. The layout in 7-10 really bugs me. Specifically it feels like panels 3 and 4 should we switched. Reading order is left to right, then drop down to the next row of panels. So we see:
1. Two characters running
2. Ox is about to be bitten by the shark man
3. Ox's foot impales on a spike
4. Ox swings his weapon to knock the shark man back
But storytelling works better the other way. We should see Ox knocking the shark man back, and then see that in doing so he stepped on a spike. Or at least that's how it seems to me.
I get what you're going for, because in panel 4 Ox's right foot trails off-panel to be magnified in panel 3 where it's shown being impaled, but the cognitive dissonance I'm getting from the reading order keeps throwing me out.
Maybe if panel 3 was lowered slightly so that Ox's leg extends downwards from panel 3 into (magnified) panel 4 it would work better. That way the flow is left-right-down-down/left.
Of coruse, tht would probably require too much redrawing to be an easy fix.
I wonder whether a (thick?) black slightly zig-zag line between panel 3 and 4, instead of the current straight thin black line, might work. Maybe with the inside of the line filled with white. That way, it might help indicate concurrent/simultaneous (and critical) events, as well as pain. Only if it is quick to experiment with, I personally think the page overall is great. I vaguely recall having seen something like that in one comic somewhere.
Thinking about it, maybe fill it with red given that both Ox and the shark ogre feels great pain simultaneously? One could also make the box around both panel 3 and 4 that way, though that might be overkill.
Maybe a gradient filling?
Though it also depends on how much you want to emphasize it.
I love MOST of the armor design in the comic, some GREAT stuff.
Ox's 'facemask', however?
awful.
too small, no padding, no visible, logical means of support, oh and did I mention it LOOKS LIKE A DAMN GROIN PROTECTOR?!
jock-strap on the face.
almost bad enough to distract you from his little girly feet.
seriously, he should tip over, constantly.
body & hands of a barbarian lord, feet of a halfling ballerina.
If it was a lego or a d4 on the other hand...
next you're gonna tell us you're worried you stepped on a crack and broke your mother's back.
More on that later :P
And that is likely part of the reason why Randulf managed to become a veteran of the dungeon. He also made sure that he and Colleen got supplies, bedrolls, trail rations, waterskins, etc. Things that likely seems entirely unnecessary when going down as a new adventurer into a dungeon, especially a dungeon that one can teleport out from. And of course proper protection, armor and weapons.
There can be advantages to not having much equipment, for instance swimming, climbing, carrying, jumping and the like, the latter which helped save the life of Ozzy when he was trapped on the burning scaffolding in page 4-19:
http://www.marblegate.webcomic.ws/comics/147/
. How much equipment, and which equipment you have, involves both strategy, trade-offs and optimizing what you can get and afford. But not having foot gear, at least if you can afford it, is likely indeed a mistake. Going barefoot is likely very tough and a good challenge and gives high status in the barbarian tribes, among what practical advantages it can have (such as cost), but Marblegate is an extremely dangerous place where you really need what help you can get.
This page also very neatly shows the dangers of terrain, obstacles and environment. If they are lucky, the shark ogre will have its feet get impaled by these unintended caltrops as well.
This time, the party cannot be blamed for poor teamwork, they laid an IMO very smart though dangerous plan, and they worked together at least decently well.
Now the time for the tank to Agro so they can drag Ox ass out of the way since they don't have a bard to sacrifice. I would say he could dive in the water do dodge but against a shark like monster, it doesn't seem like a great idea...
NO SHIRT
NO SHOES
NO COMMON SENSE
LOL!
Oof.
There are advantages to going barefoot, but these can be replicated by certain types of footwear such as socks/footwraps (reduced noise), cleats/treaded soles (better grip), or sandals (prevents waterlogging). Overall, I think it would only be worthwhile if you either: a. have a racial aspect that favours it (eg. halflings), b. have had a lifetime of conditioning (eg. barbarians), or c. have abilities that require direct contact with the ground (eg. earthbenders).
oh and sure the half naked dwarf fighting the giant humanoid shark thing is cool i guess
The dungeon crawling is merely incidental.
Where is even a weak point on this thing? It's good to go on land and in the water. Though skin, really strong, sharp claws and teeths, very tall with reach, as armor and have apex predator written all over it. Beside the eyes and gills and knees, it doesn't have a lot of place you can hit to significantly hurt it with this party.
Let's hope the trap is effective.
The only weakness would be the amount it has to eat to stay alive!
Saturday Night Live debuted the Land Shark 8 months earlier on November 8, 1975.
You can see photos of the toys that the brunette, rust monster, and owl bear were based on in this article.
Owlbears, Rust Monsters and Bulettes, Oh My!
https://diterlizzi.com/essay/owlbears-rust-monsters-and-bulettes-oh-my/
D&D Playtester Tim Kask recalls
“There once was an unknown company in Hong Kong that made a bag of weird animal-things that were then sold in what once were called dime stores or variety stores for like $.99. I know of four other very early monsters based on them. Gary and I talked about how hard it was to find monster figures, and how one day he came upon this bag of weird beasts…He nearly ran home, eager as a kid to get home and open his baseball cards. Then he proceeded to invent the carrion crawler, umber hulk, rust monster and purple worm, all based on those silly plastic figures. The one that I chose was known in the Greyhawk campaign as “the bullet” (for it’s shape) but had only amorphous stats and abilities, not being developed. Gary told me to take it home, study it, and decide what it was and what it could do.”
“The bullette (boo-lay), as it was first called, was the first monster I invented. Why is the more interesting part of the story. I had decided to add a feature to DRAGON that would mean a new monster every issue; problem was, I had to launch an issue early because an ad didn’t come in. I wrote it up very late at night; the nickname “landshark” was a reference to a character that the original Not Ready for Primetime Players had done on Saturday Night Live. I went to Dave Sutherland for an emergency drawing (drawings could be submitted to the printers after the copy was set) and he did a dandy job on almost no notice.”
Interesting, there's also a lot of other origins for classic D&D monsters in that link, such as the rust monster and owlbear, thanks for sharing.
It was lethal within 18 seconds.
1. Two characters running
2. Ox is about to be bitten by the shark man
3. Ox's foot impales on a spike
4. Ox swings his weapon to knock the shark man back
But storytelling works better the other way. We should see Ox knocking the shark man back, and then see that in doing so he stepped on a spike. Or at least that's how it seems to me.
I get what you're going for, because in panel 4 Ox's right foot trails off-panel to be magnified in panel 3 where it's shown being impaled, but the cognitive dissonance I'm getting from the reading order keeps throwing me out.
Maybe if panel 3 was lowered slightly so that Ox's leg extends downwards from panel 3 into (magnified) panel 4 it would work better. That way the flow is left-right-down-down/left.
Of coruse, tht would probably require too much redrawing to be an easy fix.
Anyway, thanks for the comic!
Thinking about it, maybe fill it with red given that both Ox and the shark ogre feels great pain simultaneously? One could also make the box around both panel 3 and 4 that way, though that might be overkill.
Maybe a gradient filling?
Though it also depends on how much you want to emphasize it.
Damn, comic creation is not easy :- ).
Ox's 'facemask', however?
awful.
too small, no padding, no visible, logical means of support, oh and did I mention it LOOKS LIKE A DAMN GROIN PROTECTOR?!
jock-strap on the face.
almost bad enough to distract you from his little girly feet.
seriously, he should tip over, constantly.
body & hands of a barbarian lord, feet of a halfling ballerina.