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Cast[]

Transcript[]

Panel 1

Vaarsuvius, Elan, Durkon, Belkar, Roy and Haley are walking along the corridor.
Elan: You guys ever think about hit points?

Panel 2

The panel focuses on Elan, Durkon and Belkar.
Elan: Like, why are they even called that? They have nothing to do with what I think of as a hit-
Elan: -dropping a hot new single that debuts at #1 on the Adult/Pop chart.
Belkar: None of those words are in the Player's Handbook.

Panel 3

The panel focuses even more on Elan and Durkon.
Durkon: Och, it's 'cause tha's how many times ye can get hit b'fore goin' down.
Elan: But...most of us can get hit way fewer times than we have hit points.
Durkon: Aye, but we cannae be hit more than we haf, can we?

Panel 4

The panel expands to include Vaarsuvius.
Elan: I mean, sure we can. It happens all the time. Right before the dramatic turnaround.
Durkon: ...Right. Well, we haf negative hit points fer tha.
Elan: And negative hit points are... the amount of times we already shouldn't have gotten hit?
Durkon: Now yer catchin' on!

Panel 5

The panel focuses on Vaarsuvius.
Vaarsuvius: It is well-known among sages that biology has a distinctly quantized nature.
Vaarsuvius: A single hit point represents the minimum injury possible-the Planck length of life, if you will.
Vaarsuvius: Any attempt to observe an injury less severe than a 1-hp wound would result in it collapsing into a mere scuff or smudge.

Panel 6

The panel shifts back to Elan and Durkon.
Elan: What about when I heal someone, then?
Durkon: Healin' gives yer patient some back tha they lost.
Elan: So they can get hit again.
Durkon: Right.

Panel 7

Durkon turns his head to look at Elan.
Elan: So... healing just allows for more violence?
Durkon: Wha? I guess...

Panel 8

Elan takes his head into his hands as he has a horrible realization, with Vaarsuvius, Durkon and Belkar looking at him.
Elan: I've been enabling physical assault?!?
Durkon: No! Tha's na how it-
Belkar: Wow, I never thought about it like that.
Belkar:I used to hate it when enemies would heal themselves, but now I'll know that it's just giving me more chances to inflict pain on them!

Panel 9

The panel shifts forward a bit, excluding Vaarsuvius while including Haley and a bit of Roy.
Elan: I've been casting Mass Encourage Light Abuse this whole time!
Durkon: Tha's na how it works!!
Belkar: Whoa, calm down, buddy. Just don't increase my capacity for suffering!
Haley: Maybe your temple should start charging gold for not healing. You know, pay us 10 gold or we'll make it so you can be punched 1d8+1 more times.

Panel 10

The panel shifts backwards to show Mr. Scruffy, Bloodfeast, Minrah, O-Chul, Lien and Sunny walking and floating behind the Order.
Lien: Do those guys seem...a little off?
O-Chul: They've been acting as fools since we began crawling in this dungeon.
Minrah: No, no, they told me about this!
Minrah: We just need to get to the end of the page and then it'll skip ahead as if this conversation never happened.
Roy: (off-panel) If it helps, you've never been that effective as a healer.
Elan: (off-panel) It does, Roy. It does.

D&D Context[]

  • As Roy alludes to in the last panel, while Bards like Elan have access to the Cure Wounds spells despite being considered arcane spellcasters, they are usually less effective as a healer than divine spellcasters (e.g. Clerics or Paladins).

Trivia[]

  • In the last panel, O-Chul alludes to the first volume of OOTS, which contains the strips from #1 to #121 under the name "Dungeon Crawlin' Fools".

External Links[]


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