Grrl Power #559 – The guardian needed an upgrade anyway
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.
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Great answer!
Cookies to those who called this outcome!
Nummy, will have a Shrewsbury, thank you
chocolate chips please!!!
I’ll take Snozzberries thanks.
“The Snozzberries taste like Snozzberries!”
We’ll just serve a round of Pan galactic Gargleblasters. No more than one for each, please.
Oh, and this list of organizations to help them with rehabilitation afterwards.
…if the Council wanted to stop ArcSwat getting in, what with Sydney and Maima, there’s really very little they could actually do *to* stop them.
You mean there’s NOTHING they could do to stop them…………
Heck, Syd alone could easily destroy the Sigil hubs from SPACE and just let nature take it’s course after that……….
I’m sure there is something they could do. For instance…
Uhm…
…
They could ask nicely to please not enter the vault…
That would probably work.
If violence was your last resort, at least you tried some other stuff first. That’s better than not.
If violence is not the answer, then I don’t understand the question.
If violence was not your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Maxim 6. Well played. :-)
Maxim 27
Close on 6 and off by a bit on 27
Maxims
6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
27. Don’t be afraid to be the first to resort to violence.
Though we may be running into this one soon enough
18. If the officers are leading from in front, watch out for an attack from the rear.
They could become their allies, and therefore not give them any reason to WANT to break into their vault. That seems to be working quite well for them, in fact.
You think inside the box, some sort of slight dimensional distortion could throw off aim or a more specific version of veil’s normal function makes it impossible to remember the precise location of it’s hubs.
well for Sydney there is always the something shiny method and then something that gets her to question stuff, like show her some magic and let her ask questions. After that she will have forgotten she wanted to blow them up.
Also there is the old “you can’t kill it, if you don’t know where it is”. That works with Max and Sydney.
Their is only one solution to prevent Arc-Swat from just wiping the floor with the council… Politics
But no man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
Fatality!
This reminds me of the Mortal Combat stage where they fight on a bridge or something and the loser gets thrown off into spikes
I expected Sydney to say “finish him!” when Maxima stabbed it with it’s own blade.
As long as no one has to fight Reptile.
I’d rather deal with Reptile than first generation Noob Saibot
Their Smugness level is 9001
Always good to hear that family and friends in disaster affected areas are all safe.
Best to all as they begin the recovery.
+1 to this.
Hear Hear. +1 as well.
So I think they well be making DAMN sure they keep Ark in the loop here on in considering the guardian was less then a warm up for them. Take it Max still has the pew pew orb on the stuff Syd is NOT aloud to use list eh.
Sydney seems to naturally stay away from the PPO. Not only is it more difficult to use than the other orbs, it’s also the most randomly destructive. There hasn’t been a single instance where using it didn’t go badly wrong somehow, so I assume she’s becoming rather gun-shy about it. The “nuclear option”, one might say.
Not to say she hasn’t gotten some reinforcement from Max, especially after almost starting another forest fire fighting Stretchy McBloodbot.
Yeah, for all her chaotic personality, Sydney’s a defender rather than a destroyer, and it’s notable that the only time she’s used the PPO in anger was in a situation where the boss was unavailable.
Random acts of apocalypse are something best left to Max when she’s around.
Putting level-up points into something you don’t intend to use is counter-productive. Which is the philosophy that got Sydney to use the PPO in combat for the first time after accidentally putting her second level-up point into it. And that philosophy isn’t suddenly wrong just because of a few brush fires.
She did do some damage to the Wars warehouse guardian, blew some chunks out of its armor at least before it got its own force field up. If she’d used the tank-cutter beam instead of trying the new rapid-fire setting with aperture control it might have ended the fight in a hurry. But I’m kind of glad it only took 6 updates for her to pick and then use with an explanation of the new effect the new effect. That’s kind of zippy around here. If she’d used the tank cutter and ended the fight in a hurry we might have still had 10 more updates worth of her reporting on the new effect, testing it in the pool or at the range, whatever.
I’m pretty sure the guardian’s shield was strong enough to counter the beam also. Firing modes would only affect the shape of the attack, not the total output.
That’s a statement without much if anything from canon to back it up.
We have seen the ‘main cannon’ cut a tank in half like it was butter. I think that “like butter” was the sound effect, in fact. And we have seen a hit from one of the fusillade shots damage but not cut through the Wars robot.
Given these two facts, I think that there is enough canon evidence that the ‘main cannon’ would have done similar damage to the Wars robot as it did to the tank, which might have simply destroyed it before it was able to raise the shield.
Hehe, that smug look on Max face. Now for Sydney to check for look, and she can use Dabbler to check for any magic items.
The comm ball already sees magical items with detective mode, remember?
But, it doesn’t necessarily tell her what they are in a form she can understand. If I gave you the magic ability to see the chemical compounds for the main hormones and neurotransmitters in someone’s body floating above their head, you wouldn’t be able to deduce their emotional state without a decent chunk of knowledge in chemistry, biology and possibly psychology.
So, Sydney sees “3 magic rings”, not “The One Ring”, “Evil-Voldy-Horcrux-Ringy” and “Finger Circlet of Hammerspace Access”
I don’t think Max is bluffing or cheating. This guardian looked kind of impressive, but we’ve seen her casually throwing tanks around and carrying huge concrete slabs without any sign of effort. Ripping its arm off and using it as a melee weapon could easily be “weak” Max… it’s not like she picked the whole thing up and body-slammed it..
She did casually kick it off the ledge though…
only after it had been dismembered, disarmed, defeated, and presumably deactivated. not that she couldn’t have anyway, i’m sure, but on basic principal, i assume she’s going to go through due diligence to make sure her rear flank isn’t going to be attacked if at all possible.
Yup, always make sure the one you have already defeated is defeated, or removed from the field
Or, maybe, she’s just tidying up the trash :D
Max’s final action did incur an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for intentionally ‘spiking’ the monster after the end of the battle.
However, the referee does -not- want to tell her this.
“Full power? Ha! Ha ha! Ah haa ha ha haa! HA HA HA HA HA!!!”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1157
Gotta love when Max has these moments.
“It did.”
.
.
.
.
‘Also, I have a bit of a cold.’
She’s just channeling her inner Batman.
Anyone else like “Daaaamn!”
Ingsol, the line is: “Impressive. …most impressive.”
However, although the Council gets points for expecting the unexpected and getting Maxima and crew on site, they lose points for being blindsided by their own Skullguard’s capabilities.
Although I suppose that when you check your vault, you don’t usually wear body armor in case the vault guards have been bribed.
…has anyone checked to see if the vault guards were bribed?
That was the vault guard…
I meant the other persons that are present, like Spider Eye Goggles. Or are those all Council Chairs?
Spider Eyes probably wasn’t a Chair, probably just a tech, but doubtful a guard
Less bribed and more corrupted into reversing it’s programming so it’s hostile to those it’s supposed to let pass
Feel free to rummage thru the guard’s remains at the bottom of the pit for whatever’s left of a payoff. Do note that the bones you find may not all have belonged to the guard.
It just occurred to me that the Council may see the formal organization of ARC as a threat, and all of this is an elaborate plan to test out ARC’s power for future containment. Yes, they need ARC to keep the orc under controll, but their haphazard methods are starting to become extremely suspect.
Perhaps one of those villains plotting a while back is actually a secret cabal within the secret cabal. (Wouldn’t be the first time.)
Ingsol internal monologue…
“Note to self, either ascend to La Magra status or NEVER piss Maxima off”
No, no ‘or’, ascend and never piss off Arc-SWAT (not just Maxi)
…+1…
“Second note to self: Always keep spicy food and shiny things around to bribe and distract Halo”
More like “Second note to self: make up excuse to change undervear NOW.”
If he needs to make a note of that, he probably needed to do so before the whole thing started anyway. ewwwww
I always have a few potential recordbreakers on hand just in case: https://spicefreakblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/01/a-new-worlds-hottest/
Time for the Twilight Council to get a new guardian for the vault…
Time for Ingie to get a new pair of pants, a nice shade of yellow-brown…
Would that be golden brown or simply tan?
Depends on how much he had to drink (not blood)
If it were blood we’d be moving into maroon territory.
More into the tarry black territory. Hemoglobin turns black if it goes through digestion remember?
i am irritated is this Gold sparkel
You mean the sparks coming off of the Guardian’s blade in panel three?
yeah looks strange because its bone something
Had to take another, closer look at panel five, and see that both Maxi and Dabbles kicked what remained of the former Vault Guardian into the pit of arrows (Dabbles with a cute little backwards *DINK* :D)
Dabbles just bounced the head off her hoof into the pit.
I’ll bet Dabs could take the bumper off a truck with a back kick.
A friend of mine once got two cracked ribs from a horse while working with her in a stall. The horse wasn’t enraged or anything, in fact was quite gentle – my friend just hit a tender spot while cleaning her hooves.
Yeah, backwards bounce or kick, not really much difference?
Although giving it a little bit of a nudge would help rather than just stopping it
Military (pick your branch, I prefer the Corps) call this a mule kick. With it we can kick doors down. And while we act like were Superheroes sometimes, our spouses are the first ones to point out were not. I could see Sydney mule kicking the head off with normal strength (with the right timing of course). So as of yet not a good judge for Dabblers raw physical strength, she’s more a brains and beauty person anyway.
Well she is a succubus. Doing things with style is important for her kind.
Sydney had a good reply, Dabbler had a fair one, Max had the best.
Always more fun when something affects a hero, and they simply work though it.
“I did.” Now your are just showing off Max. Did she really get affected by the weakness aura or is she just putting a little fear into Ingsol?
Por que no los dos!
Why not both :)
Max’s reply was a sort of “what, this old thing?” reaction.
I will say this
Because 10% of “fuckoff strong” is still “terrifyingly strong”
“Oh no, I am now no longer the strongest person on the planet by a factor of 10. I guess I’ll just have to settle for a factor of 9.8”
Like a boss
Really, the percentages could easily not matter if Maxima has the ability to pool her super power nearly all into strength alone. It’s almost a sort of anti-debuff on its own.
Not exactly something she likely wants to explain though as that ability appears to be classified.
hmm… something to think about.
the strength from her “pool”, is a form of telekinesis, not an actual “strength”, coming from oxygen fueled muscles. Is that affected? Maxima says “it did”, but we don’t know to what extend.
And now i want to know how the weakness aura works…
This is true. Debuff aura could also have a max subtract amount.
For example : Suck strength from target until target feels like a normal human that just spent two weeks sick in bed. Max power output per target = 700yo vampire.
This would successfully leave most intruders incapacitated, and most that weren’t would be too weak to be a major threat to the construct or other security systems.
Then, one of the most powerful super heros ever born walks in and they are only down by 20% because they were 5x stronger than a 700yo vampire to start with.
Did… Did I just see a Path of Exile joke from Dabbler?
could be Darkest Dungeon as well as enemies there can have up to 200% in both resistance to and in terms of inflicting different status ailments
Either way, I like it.
so… maxima.
Because 10% of “fuckoff strong” is still “terrifyingly strong”
Also, dabbler. gotta have the buffer, in case someone has resistance reduction, or penetration.
Honestly, this is pretty much what happens, when a level 50 hero visits a beginner level area, and stumbles on a super rare, supposed to be unbeatable, boss mob… that is like level 10.
Or, returned to the beginner level specifically looking for that boss, nothing like a bit of karma returned :D
Maybe Ingsol ought to be reminded that Archon’s duty is to respond to “atypical” threats, not just “supervillain” threats.
And we have to assume that it wasn’t just “10% of.” (off?) The effect drove Ingsol to his knees and seems to have had a similar effect on Mr. I Look Like a Werewolf-Demon Composite. Given that as a vampire we can reasonable assume that he has a greater than human strength, and that as an elder vampire his might be even higher than most vampires, and that Mr. I Look Like a Werewolf-Demon Composite appears to have physical power as an attribute, that appears to be a fairly significant veakness *ahem* weakness aura!
I think Mr. I look like…’s name is Chorius.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2187
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2245
Oh, come on…
Succubi love penetration.
Heh, if I wanted to be paranoid, this whole thing could have been a ruse/trap intended to kill Maxima.
If so, it’d have failed spectacularly, but the Council could totally get away with the attempt. “Oh no! The vault is empty! We’ll email you a list of MacGuffins to chase later, if you want to get your Sidequest on.”
Also, any bets on whether Dabbler indicated a piece of jewelry that doesn’t actually do anything just to throw anyone covetous off the trail? Although, I guess if it is a Legendary, it’s recognizable.
That would only work, if it was something like a necklace or a finger ring, something Dabbles would conceivably remove, the earring would just invite someone or something to attempt to remove her entire ear (at the least)
Earrings are just as removable without removing the attached ear as rings are without removing the attached finger.
Little do people know, she wasn’t pointing at the earring. She herself is an enchantress. She enchanted her own ear.
Depends on the earring, have one earring that’s unfortunately been in so long that attempting to remove it will result in either a ripped ear or a destroyed earring (would prefer neither so in it stays)
She has already demonstrated that her gear teleports back to her personal hammerspace if it gets separated from her.
But then her sword didn’t do the same, it hung around at least long enough to bury itself in a tree and for IGetStronger to poke it with a twig to see if he could set off the mammary traps. And you don’t need to set booby traps on items which will teleport back to your own personal hammerspace when they get separated from you. So there’s some discrepancy going on here.
So maybe her tech gear and magic gear operate on different rules? But then we run into that whole “indistinguishable from” law, and begs the question of why can’t she just cast an enchantment on her magical gear that will do the same thing as her high tech gear?
Or maybe she did not want her sword to be affected by the automatic teleportation thing, since it would prevent her from using it as a thrown weapon.
Or because it would allow her to leave it plunged inside an enemy while she has to deal with an airbone one with the railgun crossbow.
or against a sufficiently strong enemy, she might get knocked silly enough to need to scoop it up again a second later.
My theory is, since she stole the sword from another demon, it A) has its own way of making sure only demons use it and/or B) it already had a buncha tech/magic associated with that Dabbler found tricky or scary enough that she reallllllly didn’t wanna mess with it.
Good points too. (the first one mixes with my last one, especially when one remembers that calling something from Hammerspace is not an instantaneous process).
Sorry, Oberon, your comment was not unjustified, but I think it is easy to find reasons why not all her equipment would integrate the “Hammerspace Return” feature… :-)
No need to say sorry, no offense taken. But you’ve got to realize that between super-science, magic, and superpowers that any sufficiently imaginative person can always come up with a plausible sounding justification for anything at all. Unless of course the author sets some limits in place, or makes some explanation about how things work. And then it is always best to follow the rules or explanations you do set in place, rather than setting them in place and then breaking them almost immediately without any explanation of why the rule wasn’t followed.
Going down the road of constant exceptions and a failure to follow rules or ways you’ve defined things as working is what messes up so many continuities. I vastly prefer authors who define their magic/super-science/superpowers/whatever, and then at least make some attempt to tell their stories within that framework.
Niven did a lot of this in his early days, even being able to write locked door murder mysteries which followed the rules of his super-science setting.
Modesitt has done this with several different settings, from his Recluse universe to his Spellsong universe to stand alone settings.
It’s one of the signs of a good author that they are capable of writing an engaging tale while still following the rules and limitations they have set in place. Authors who just pull shit out of their ass all the time and ‘justify’ it with “magic!” or “tech!” or “superpower!”, or who simply never bother to justify breaking rules or things going against the way they have said they should work, will never be good storytellers.
I see and share your opinion. But I think that, here, you may be seeing things too harshly (unless I misunderstand your first post, I reckon you are actually disappointed in how Dabbler’s sword is managed).
I will say two more things about this issue:
1/ Note that, in none of our explanations, the reason given was “because superpowers” or “because magic”. We had good reasons for Dabbler to prefer not to install her “back to Hammerspace” feature on the sword. As we mentioned, she can drop her sword for many reasons (knocked over, having to use all her hands on something else for a few seconds) and, seeing as it takes her more than a short instant to get it back, she may think it better to be able to pick it up, since she may be immediately under attack. Whereas she would be able to take cover if she lost her railgun while summoning it back, since, by definition, she would be involved in a ranged fight (in addition to being able to compensate its absence with some magic missiles, but energy may be an issue in the medium term).
2/ Also, it is something she installs on the devices she builds. I seem to recall she did not build the swords. It’s a sort of Epic Loot or something, is it not? I may be mistaken, honestly, but I really think so. So, can her teleportation feature be added to something that already exists and is already really complex? Honestly, I would find this doubtful (especially since it would have to be added in a way that would not alter the sword’s physical structure – it needs to remain shaped and balanced in a specific way, and with a physical integrity ensuring it remains solid).
So, again, I share your opinion about consistency. I stopped reading books or watching TV series when the writers started to contradict themselves (the most recent example being the first season of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and their time travel rules – which they managed to break over the course of a single, not-that-long season, it must be some kind of record, I think). But, honestly, here, I don’t think it is an issue.
I’m guessing that the object doesn’t teleport back until it is manually commanded, or if it is touched by an organism that’s sentient enough to know how to mess with weapons.
Or, she can use her Cyber-interface to send it back when she wants, just like how Sydney’s balls don’t automatically activate as soon as they enter her sweaty palms
Actually, the reason for that is as simple as “Conjured Items/Items of Holding* + portals/teleportation = catastrophic magical meltdown”
If you attempt to take a conjured item or an item with a holding effect on it though a conjured portal the entire area is gonna wind up as a crater in short order due to the resulting singularity-like Dimensional Rift, said rift also tends to close with an equally catastrophic explosion, which would endanger everyone in the parking lot, even Maxima would not survive being sucked in seeing as the place between dimensions are so hostile to life it makes space seem like a frikkin paradise.
Considering Dabbler Conjured that sword instead of just nabbing it out of Hammerspace, and seeing as she is so proficient with magic I take it she knows about that teeny problem.
*Bag of Holding, Chest of Holding ETC
The ear is actually a high-enchanted prosthetic and the ring is purely decorative
Or, it could just be an effect. Because the real world doesn’t put percentages on effects. That punch? Not gonna knock you out 12.5% of the time.
It could be intelligent/complex enough to expend more energy to increase the effect based on observable data, but having it actually weaken targets by percentages seems incredibly stupid. This isn’t a tabletop game, first few pages excepted.
Or it could be just an absolute effect, like simulating the effects of having 200 tons or something be strapped to you. That would get a good effect but fail to stop absurdly strong people.
Goddamn supernatural races suck in this universe!Why isnt the council extinct by now?….Ok im just going to start pretending that the councils made entirely of wimpy nerds and the normal/strong vampires etc are just patiently waiting for them to darwin themselves out of existance.
They aren’t weak; it’s just that high level Supers are ridiculously strong.
Case in point…
Break out 2 ‘normal’ characters from the D20 system:
(I’ll be generous) a Level 10 Vampire Orc Barbarian from Dungeons & Dragons
vs
A power level 10 Paragon from Mutants & Masterminds.
The Paragon will not only wipe the floor with the Vampire, but also with his 3,871 buddies as well.
And even by superhero standards, Maxima seems to be the furthest extreme of the bell curve, so don’t use her as the benchmark for judging relatives. The typical hero is probably someone more like Anvil or Achilles… one or two good tricks, but not an all-round powerhouse.
Because hideously powerful Metahumans and Aliens are new and very rare in the setting?
Supers have only recently become more widespread. In the past they were one in ten million, now they’re one in ten thousand, add to that the population numbers going up as well and supers suddenly become much more widespread. (Just spitballing some numbers.)
Maxima is highly powerful even among other supers, Sydney is hinted at being well beyond average as well, and Dabbler actually counts as one of the supernatural and can go toe-to-toe with Maxima.
Not to forget, the council members are, I think, more like politicians than they are fighters. You don’t expect a senator to be able to keep up with a soldier.
Tell that to Senator Palpatine :P
Some like Icon and other Vigilance members might disagree with being called “Politicians”. I think the BIG issue they’re having is everything they’ve fought the past couple days have been SPECIFICALLY tailored for MAGICAL beings.
I personally suspect Dabbler is very specifically to blame for the rise in the number of supers.
Also, considering the amount of booty she gets and the amount of booty she gets (no, I didn’t repeat myself), and the fact she wouldn’t want to take a break from either, it would not surprise me if she had some magical item that she quested for that guaranteed that it’s always her partner that gets knocked up instead of her (even if… no, especially if, it’s a dude).
She would have to sleep with literally hundreds per day to even come close to shifting even a small population.
Ignoring that, though, are we expecting the veil to hide a tonne of pregnant men from us?
‘it looks like you’re getting a bit of a beer belly’
“yeah. beer.”
‘ … ‘
There was a really crappy movie called “The Rabbit Test” which dealt with a male pregnancy. It was so bad that the name and the fact that it had a pregnant man in it is all I remember. And I think it was supposed to be a comedy, but I’m not sure. It’s possible I left the theater rather than view the whole thing…
It would never happen, but in a no-holds-barred fight, I think Sydney would beat Maxima.
The best Syd could do at the present time is a draw.
Not because of power.
Because Max is a thoroughly-trained and experienced soldier, and Syd is a kid with some neat tricks.
Come back and ask me again in six months (in-comic time) or six years, and my answer might be different.
She has the skill-set and the resourcefulness to take down large threats like Maxima, but in a fight at that scale I think it will come down to endurance and experience, which are both in Maxima’s favor.
We haven’t seen anything at all that can beat Sydney’s force field, but then Maxima claimed she wasn’t using full power.
Sydney wasn’t able to do much more than inconvenience IGetStronger with her hentacle, and Maxima was easily able to tell how strong it was with Sydney straining to move it while Maxima held it, so I’m going to assume that the same would apply to Maxima being inconvenienced at most with the hentacle.
It’s very likely that she could have blown IGetStronger’s head clean off with the PPO, however, and that should at least be at the “remove Maxima’s clothing” or above level of effect.
there is a reason monsters hide from humans after all, if all monster were as strong of Max they would be in control of the world not humans.
Dabbler’s ear clasp has 135% resistance to debuffs? That’s like giving your 110%, it’s impossible by definition.
Well Dabller is mage. Doing impossible stuff is kind of the definition of magic.
The overkill extra is specifically for when you are hit by a debuff that is up to 100% drained.
It keeps you protected from the debuff when normally it would be impossible to remain completely unaffected.
In many games achieving a 100% value in something can be overcome by strong enemy effects. Mostly from bosses, but sometimes just from special monsters. So stacking up your resistance above the 100% point isn’t as wasteful as it might appear.
In DDO (Dungeon’s and Dragons Online) you can achieve a 100 Fortification score and be 100% immune to critical hits at 8th level. But at 1st level you can drink a potion that adds +2 Intelligence and restores 1 mana every 6 seconds for 15 minutes at the cost of 50 Fortification during that same time. And many bosses have attacks which bypass some amount of Fortification. And so stopping at 100% immunity is not entirely wise.
In short, surpassing 100% resistance means not only is the target in question fully resistant, but the resistance itself is resistant too.
Exactly. In a more close to the genre example, in Champions (at least the version I played a few decades ago) you could buy Armor Piercing for your attacks, which would cut the effective armor in half vs your attacks alone. And you could buy AP resistance (I think they called the effect Hardened) for your armor or force field, which would prevent that cutting in half.
But neither purchase was limited to a single time, lol. If you paid the price each time you could stack up 2, 3, or more AP. And also 2, 3, or more Hardened. No matter how many stacks of AP you had, however, you only cut the defense in half once only, and then only if you had at least one more AP than the defense had Hardened. And of course Hardened did nothing for you at all if the attack didn’t have at least one level of AP…
So it wasn’t terribly efficient to stack multiple levels of either on an attack or a defense, but you could.
The throttles on the USAF F4D Phantom II fighter jet can be set to 104% “full military power”. This was because the engines had been upgraded since the planes were built – and the new engines were a bit more powerful. That fact that a value is expressed as a percentage doesn’t put a 100 limit on it implicitly – it just means that values >100 percent are greater than the original benchmark used to establish scale.
ps: the engine upgrade wasn’t intended to make the engines significantly more powerful, but to make them smokeless. The enemy could easily a black smoky arrow pointing to the exact spot in the sky to target heat seekers. Really had to fix that.
If Dabbler is 135% resistant to debuffs, does that mean she gets stronger if you try to use a debuff on her by 35%? Or does she simply mean that she can block 100% of debuffs, plus an additional 35% just in case they try to overload the protection?
The latter.
Right it’s for stacked debuffs (trap 1 = 80% debuff, trap 2 60% debuff totalling140% debuff.) thus xurial remains only 5% down of course as a succubus she may want to go all the way down. I’ll go whip myself to attone for that one.
I feel as though Dabbler’s Gear Score would be in scientific notation.
Side note, when local stores are out of everything, Amazon almost always has it. Had a winter when we actually needed a space heater (in south Florida) every store within a hundred miles was out. Had one from Amazon the next day.
Too bad Amazon doesn’t deliver gasoline to your vehicle.
…yet.
Who needs gasoline when you can plug it into the wall every 300 miles.
Electric cars get about 100-150 miles per charge. I looked into it because my main long driving use is visiting my parents 160 miles away along mountain roads with no charging stations.
Or you just, instead of a Prius, get an electric with a -proper- electric motor so you can pull a trailer, and then have enough solar to keep it running to offset the drain. (I’ve never gotten why all the solar races keep going for small light vehicles, mathematically speaking, a stripped down semi has a better weight-to-surface-area ratio.)
Because buying more solar cells and a larger vehicle is expensive, and those EV racers want to make some money after receiving the prize.
For commercial purposes, coating every vehicle with solar cells is monumentally expensive and not viable in many regions of the world. It would be a nice option instead of the typical “1500$ extra for a proper paint job.”
Anyway, there’s new batteries on the horizon formed from Lithium glass, assuming the science works out. The fact there are numerous startups working on commercializing the technology suggests it has. This would render the solar panel problem moot.
okay, so, you need to drive with your 150 mile extension cord plugged in, unplug, then drive the other 150 miles to the next place to plug in
The outlets on the walls in my house are closer together than 150 miles. and none of the walls are 300 miles long.
Most likely the way the aura would work is not a percentage but a flat amount. After all, im very sure they are aware of just how strong the physically strongest supernatural beings are, so lets say they have a lifting strength of 10 tons. The weakness aura drops them down by 9.9 tons even. Unfortunately, max can lift over 100 hundred tons. So while she noticed its effect, she was still strong enough to brute force the fight with ease.
Ok guys, you beat the first line of attack. Dont let your guard down please. Sydney, use the damn com orb and start scanning.
Glad to read that your parent’s are insured, the tough part now is to actually get the payout, a lady in Christchurch is still waiting for her payout seven years after the First Canterbury Earthquake
It should be a criminal offense to delay legitimate payments by that amount of time. A missed monthly premium payment might cost the insured any coverage at all even if they made the payment after some insurable event. But the insurance company can hope for death, desperation, or dejection (just giving up after being stonewalled for 7 years) to keep their paid customers from receiving their due in return? Sounds criminal to me.
My bookie would receive a broken kneecap if he took my money when I lost but kept it when I won. Maybe some CEOs need a few broken kneecaps to remind them of their fiduciary responsibilities…
It SHOULD be, but instead of actually doing something that would be helpful, the Republicans just gave the insurance companies more slack right after the disaster happened.
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/04/texas-house-weather-insurance-lawsuits/
There’s a special place in hell reserved for all of them…
… board of directors?
My hometown saw a lot of insurance claims at once after a fire burned half of it in 2000. Even with people actively trying to handle things as best they could, stuff took a while. And that was for a town of 10,000 people.
Exactly this. Even when they ARENT trying to stonewall, there are going to be so freaking many claims to investigate and confirm. They cant just rubber stamp them or else they would lose hundreds of millions to fraudulent claims, but they cant be expected to keep enough staff on hand to investigate 100k individual claims within a month. That would be absurd.
Of course, that doesnt count the sheer number of attempts the insurance companies will make to deny the claims due to all sorts of stupid weasel wording on their terms of service. But luckily in this day and age, that sort of thing gets exposed fast and causes more trouble than its worth.
Actually, in this day and age, the weaseling is pretty bad still. The only insurance I’ve seen working as expected is health insurance since the feds watch them like a hawk and closed most of the loopholes thanks to ACA.
Can’t repair or rebuild if the Insurance company won’t sign off on the damage, some claimants have been denied a payout because they went ahead and did repairs just so they had a healthy home to live in
Well, that was anti-climatic. I must admit, I really hope the council gets a good showing some time as so far the best thing they’ve done is ‘Get Arc-SWAT to help’ which is not a good look for them, especially after rolling over with the reality hacker thing (With Arc-SWAT just taking authority over them). I like Arc-SWAT but it often feels like things come way, way too easily to them.
What is with Dabbler’s leg in panel 4? Her head and arm is “normal”, but her leg looks human. Why would she have only part of her glamour up, especially in this company? On the next panel, the leg is back to normal, well her normal.
Maybe a side effect of her shield being drained too much?
In previous pages it appears that she is wearing pink capri-length leggings. And as always, she makes sure her clothing is exceptionally form fitting.
I’m thinking those are more like yoga pants with shorts over.
She’s wearing a variation of this:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/621
Colour-wise, yes, but not length
I suspect it’s a glamor either way.
If the peach-belt was a glamour, then Sydney would have seen a nekkid Dabbles
good point. then dabs has more than one of those peachy outfits.
There are a couple ursamorphs (bear-shapeshifters) in “Wapsi Square”, they don’t need to wear clothes because they can just form the appearance of clothing when they take humanoid form, butt, after one of them got herself a girlfriend, she found wearing actual clothes more fun (can’t slip a hand under your top in the backrow of a movie theatre if it’s just an illusion ;) )
mr bubble… love it
OMG, Maxima’s line made me laugh out loud!
Freakin’ awesome!
Maxima is smug and sexy… smexy.
Maxima has the most impressive (and funny) line. But I like how the three of them handle the answer to the question.
Hope your parents are able to clean up quickly. One of my friends (and her mom) are flooded out of their home. No idea of when the roads to it will open back up.
Aw, man. That sucks to hear. I’m glad you didn’t mention anything other than property damage, and I hope things go well for them on the road to recovery.
And never fear! Trump has promised to donate a million dollars to relief efforts. And then when reporters asked his press secretary about it the guy who actually owns a charitable foundation (but hasn’t personally contributed to it since 2008) had her ask them if they had any suggestions for places to direct the funds.
I mean, I’m sure any competent reporter would be able to come up with an answer to that question given some time and effort, but you’d think that any charitable foundation would already have the resources for that kind of inquiry already in place. And that the guy who owns that foundation would be well aware of that fact and would have already directed them to do so.
Yeah, I suspect he’ll funnel those funds through his own foundation and therefore back into his own pockets. E.g. ads, what a terrible time for grandstanding. :(
Yeah, that was kind of the point of the questioning by reporters. Because if he directs his foundation to make the donation, it’s not a Trump donation at all since he doesn’t fund the foundation. It’s just his foundation spending other peoples’ money just as they have been doing since 2008 when Trump stopped contributing to the foundation carrying his name.
But he didn’t say “I’ll see that a million dollars goes to relief efforts.” He said “I will donate a million dollars to the relief efforts.”
When he talks about his own money or property, he’s even less likely to tell truth than usual. just add it up: he was, then wasn’t gonna share his tax returns like most presidents lately, he was gonna donate his prez salary and do the job for free; he was gonna get rid of his obvious ragingly egregious conflicts of interests, then didn’t, etc. just read all of his tweets, you can match most good things he says he’ll do with a later excuse why he won’t or didn’t say it.
Yeah. I think the very first one was when he said he was so super rich that he was funding his own campaign for President. He didn’t need corporate donors or money from the party, no sir! And so he wouldn’t be beholden to them, unlike the rest of “the swamp.” Sounded great, but the truth was that almost no donors wanted to support Trump in the primary, and it’s really easy to say that you won’t seek out and don’t need something you’re not going to get anyway.
Once he was the candidate, however, he welcomed corporate donors with open arms, swam in “the swamp” with all the other career politicians, and presented the RNC with the ultimatum that they fund his campaign or hand the election to Hillary. And even so he won while spending just a fraction (less than half) of what Hillary spent.
Maxima. Lol BADASS XD
That’s a great punchline, bravo.
Re:contractors and general repairs situations dealing with the flood:
Ha ha ha ha, no. It’s going to be a huge headache for all involved. I mean sure, they’re going to have work, but there is too much of a good thing, and then there’s a God awful mess of too much of a good thing. I work with these guys on a regular basis, and I work with their customers. The customers are going to be angst, angrey, impatient. Self-important. Blame the contractors for everything. Sure, there be a few good ones, a few moderate ones, a few things where they fuck something up, and then there will be the grabby greedy douches who want to use any little thing as an excuse to get things for free. They may get paid, but they’re going to be a mite miserable most of the time.
Yeah im expecting most of them to basically become like doctors. Do the job, then wait for insurance paychecks to roll in so they get paid. Its not like most of the people involved have enough cash on hand to rebuild their houses after all.Its an ugly risky way to do work, and any contractor knows how bad bill collection can get even under the best circumstances.
Plus the poor employees, you just know greedy owners are going to take on way more than they have the crew to handle just because they cant stand to see a job they arent getting paid for, so everything will be super slow and inefficient as the crew jogs from job to job trying to do a little work here, a little work there, just to keep the customers from being too pissed off.
I had a boss like that once. Low voltage work, mainly fire and security systems. We would basically skip between 3-4 jobs every day doing a few wire runs here and then moving on to there. Then do maintenance calls the rest of the day. Boss spent most of his time on the phone assuring his angry clients that we were totally going to get there soon. Meanwhile every job is taking forever because after driving out, setting up, then having to pack up and drive to the next job, so much time gets lost.
Unfortunately, most people in Houston don’t have flood insurance and a certain orange turdball ended the national flood insurance program a month before the disaster. So there’s going to be a lot of people having to pay out of pocket.
Also, your former boss sounds like a complete asshole. That must have been a miserable job. :/. Are you still in the same line of work?
Lol good answer
Even though Maxima is still insanely strong while being weakened, I don’t see the benefit of her disclosing the fact she can be weakened, surely she has more discipline than that?
Unless she wasn’t weakened and wants to sow some disinformation in that direction.
True.
I dunno, she may have admitted she could be weakened, but she also showed that council crippling levels of weakness still leaves her obnoxiously strong and able to effortlessly do her job. Its like admitting that you can drown and then being worried about guys with sponges somehow managing to pull it off.
I think her response falls squarely in the category of ‘humble brag’.
ˈhəmbəlbraɡ’ / noun:
1. an ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something of which one is proud.
If this was a video series, “It did.” is where someone would edit in one of these: https://youtu.be/KRiOEsyZSX8