Grrl Power #625 – Uncivil engineering
Letting the two of them duke it out is probably a poor strategy for the team. Maxima cares about her team, but is the least likely to be harmed by a mountain falling on her (besides Achilles of course), and Sciona might actually try and cause one on purpose to kill or at least delay some of the team.
Of course, it’s not like they’re is just going to stand there taking pictures. Well, Harem might. I haven’t really drawn here in the scene yet, but she was at the entrance to the cave in silhouette. It just wouldn’t be very healthy for her to get in between Maxima and someone who even thinks they have a chance at going toe to toe with Maxima.
This page colored by Keith.
So I gave you all the link to pre-order the latest Wearing the Cape book, but one of the editors discovered a last minute fix that was fairly critical, so the pre-order had to be canceled in order to upload the fix. That’s just how Amazon’s process works. Anyway, the book is out, and is available here. I’ll say this because the blurb on Amazon says it, so I don’t consider it a spoiler, but this book isn’t a flashback. It might seem like it is at first, but as usual, there’s something else going on.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
“Might collapse the base” is probably the wrong reason to be mad at Dabbler for acting without alerting everyone else.
The explosion let Sciona know that someone was right outside, and in a position to blow up the mannekillers, and then they had to wait to follow up on moving past the guarded location. That’s the problem, not that the base could’ve collapsed.
Max already alerted them that they had found the base when she not so subtly ripped the front door of its hinges.
And, if not that, Max knows Dabbler has a lot of leathal damage. Some of witch might not threaten the integrity of the mountain over her comrades.
she could have just railguned the puppets. or fireballed. or something else out her gigant bag of tricks without big explosions.
I can’t help but think that the railgun could also cause some pretty huge structual issues.
As railguns, by definition are fragments of metal, powered forward by electromagnets, and from most media in which they are a common occurrence, hit with the force of a small nuclear detonation (Mass Effect, Doom, etc. As in real life, they’re still being researched) The railgun in question could indeed, most likely take down at LEAST a chunk of wall from that range, leading to a cave in.And as someone has said already, mannekillers eatses magics….
Unlike guns based on chemical explosives, there is no upper limit of how fast can projectile from railgun be shot. Except, obviously, speed of light. Which may not be THAT far from SOME weapons in sci-fi …
Unless you’re in space, friction and energy to propel the “bullet” is going to be your upper limit for railgun speeds.
It’s all well and good to shoot a projectile at a fraction of the speed of light, but unless it’s got a very high melting point, you’re going to be shooting a brief puff of gas as your bullets burn up.
Granted, if you’re shooting a railgun, you’re not going to be using lead, but tungsten carbide shatters easily.
You’re not shooting a puff of gas if you fire a railgun projectile at relativistic velocity. You’re firing a projectile that causes so much friction when it hits the atmosphere after leaving the barrel that it will trigger a nuclear explosion right in your face, while simultaneously you’re subject to a brutal reminder of why Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space via his third law of motion, because the amount of force exerted on the projectile is simultaneously being exerted on the railgun (and by extension, you) in the opposite direction, which will launch said railgun and said railgun’s carrier into orbit.
Dabblers railgun appears to circumvent Newtons third law, but I’ll give you the first point. :-)
Dabbler’s Recoilless Railgun™
Does what it says on the butt.
Fun fact, just because no mass can ever reach lightspeed doesn’t mean that you have an upper bound on the amount of energy you can put into a projectile. Quite the opposite really, to reach lightspeed you would need infinite energy, so anything less than infinite energy can be put into the projectile. It just aquires more and more relativistic mass, it would destroy earth long before getting close to lightspeed.
No one seems to have mentioned it yet, but the inaugural What If article on a baseball pitched at 0.9 c covers the implications of this pretty well.
Woo hoo! Way to get to first base!
Sydney, check out this recommendation.
I don’t think the PPO or Max’s gold beams would be any better if they are set high as that would be necessary. The additional problem with the rail gun though is additional collateral damage beyond the mountain wherever it might also hit.
The puppets suck up magic, so no fireball.
there would be AFTER they suck up the magic…
Ooh, shiny eyes.
I think I have said this before, but I do appreciate that Max’s angular face is back!
I wanted to say that, because I was thinking. Do Max and Dabbler look older now? Maybe just more realistic.
Um… Is it just me, or is Sciona’s arm translucent in that last panel?
I’m not sure if that’s a goof or Sciona has some sort of power.
Trick of the light, or artwork: half of it is shadowed by the door, which makes the rest of it look translucent against the rock
I think Dabbler’s a bit too casual about the fact that she’s within arm’s reach of a temporarily super-powered form of a person who’s modus operandi is to shred all opposition into hamburger meat. Also, the fact that Schiona picked Maxima as her first target is the only reason Dabbler isn’t deader than dead right now.
I’m guessing that adrenaline is stopping that fact from sinking in and getting properly processed.
Or maeby the fact that she, althow not with the same def val as Max, she has dodge powers. Like this ones. (Sorry. I do not know how to fancy link)
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1375
there she know that something was going on. That doesn’t help against the door suddenly becoming mobile. The question is how Sciona did aim that.
Luck, or she could hear Maxi flapping her lips (Maxi isn’t the only one with good hearing)
Yeah, it seems that Dabbler, being basically a high level D&D caster, would have contingencied the hell out of everything, while has lead to her cockiness. Which may get her into trouble – but ‘being kicked in the head’, no matter how powerful the kick, is the sort of trouble a high level wizard routinely laughs off.
Umm, no, most wizards, even high level ones, are sorely lacking in the ‘physical defense’ department, in fact, a good kick to the head is usually one very effective way to neutralize them
Obviously it depends on who is doing the kicking. Sciona being a case in point for the exceptions to the rule. But short of those, the high level wizards specified have all sorts of capabilities to avoid harm from a kick in the head.
Stoneskin, to soak up the damage. Mirror Image, so that the kick ‘in the head’ is unlikely to be their own. Likewise many other illusions, invisibility (and improved versions) which can give an overconfident fighter no end of problems in placing that kick effectively.
And for any given toy that such sorts might pick up, to help them overcome the problem, a wizard has a higher level spell that can negate that advantage.
Just look in this comic at the creative use that Opal had for a portal. Pop it in between the offending limb, and your head, and it is your enemy, or their ally, who is actually receiving the blow!
Of course games try to level the playing field. But unless you have games that give superhuman abilities to warrior types (thus including the super genre obviously), then magic users always have a heck of an advantage over their non-magical rivals. Because a magic user can do all of the things a normal person can do. Plus, for those things which require great expertise or strength (or whatever) they can simply use a spell to emulate that.
Warriors though cannot do the same. The most they can do is make good use of magical items that they acquire. But those are borrowed powers, which are not as adaptable as the ones that true magic users can command.
Oh, I forgot to include some of the niftier upper end spells. Shapechange being a great one, to list as a classic example. As a stone or metal golem the kicking will not be doing much harm. As a dragon, the leg just looks like a tasty drumstick being brought up to a convenient eating height. Whilst becoming a giant or a titan will put your head well above the height that anyone other than a high level monk can kick.
But, if the foe looks particularly dangerous, then becoming gaseous is a good trick. Not to mention all the other spells which can keep the kicker so far away that they cannot melee. Ranging from the low level levitation, through flight, and up to dimension door (to get to an inaccessible vantage point, overlooking the battlefield) through the various types of teleport and gate spells.
If they do not even know what planet or plane you are on their kicking is just making a breeze.
Meanwhile the arch mage can be sitting in a secure demi-plane fortress, scrying the pesky kicker, to find their weaknesses, who their foes are and to decide upon a suitable way of disposing of them. Such as by a group of powerful summoned monsters.
Preferably whilst eating popcorn and watching the entrail removal on the crystal ball. Maybe turning on the ‘gloat over foe’ option, if feeling in a megalomaniac mood.
In any of those cases of a prepared wizard, if a mundane is able to get close enough to kick them in the head they deserve a swift kick to the head!
Been reading The Gamer?
The what? o_O
Korean Webtoon. Look it up. If you’re into RPG’s, you’ll probably enjoy it.
Is it translated?
There is an English language Wiki, and I saw a mention of translations. But in the context of not knowing if they were just bad or fan-made. Which was unanswered.
Sounds like a future plot line, actually. >.>
“You must all learn the lesson of Ed Gruberman.”
Fight Fight Fight Fight!
Some tight booties were drawn for this one…
Personally I found Dabbler to be the most bootyful.
so who is going pass the fight to stop the gate being made that let the Demon lords in?
The annoying mascot
Dabbler makes the cutest faces.
Really? The”This is your fault” line?
Shut that BS down.
She’s not wrong though