12 Dec 2013 - "I know you!"

[Glemp]

If Kore is level 5+ then Kore may get a celestial warhourse or other mount better suited to him.

Given that the mount comes from the paladin's deity, I think its absence says a lot about Kore's paladin-hood.

[YardMeat]

Given that the mount comes from the paladin's deity, I think its absence says a lot about Kore's paladin-hood.

A paladin's abilities come from the divine force of good and the divine force of law, just as a druid's abilities come from the diving force of nature and clerics without gods get their abilities from the divine force of the cause that they champion. They don't get their powers from their deity. As with druids, deities are optional for paladins; they are not the source of their spells or class features, unless some exception was added for mounts later.

Clerics, druids, experienced paladins, and experienced rangers can cast divine spells. Unlike arcane spells, divine spells draw power from a divine source. Clerics gain spell power from deities or from divine forces. The divine force of nature powers druid and ranger spells. The divine forces of law and good power paladin spells.

[Unlucky-for-Some]

No doubt it's a 14 minimum due to Holy Sword. I wouldn't say IME is really based with level though I'm not sure how it works anyways being house ruled. Kore's is likely unique in that it expands with his victims and not personal growth. Likewise with Complains having an extenuating circumstance or Dies that makes their IME more impressive.
Compared to say Big Ears or Goblinslayer's effects being fairly mild.

Haven't we seen some evidence of IMEs scaling up with levels though. Chief and Big Ears both seemed to get larger/more intricate IMEs as they levelled up. Not to the same epic scale as Kore, but he is way higher level than them.

Examples:
This is (I think) the first time we see Chief casting Cure Light Wounds
Then later we see him casting Cure Moderate Wounds

[vonpenguin]

It's related to the character's power I believe, at least that's how Complains phrased it I think. So Level would be a factor, but so would related stats, feat, and special dodads on the character like Complains being demonized and so on and so forth. So a a level 6 Assimar cleric with 20 wisdom might have a more impressive IME than a level 8 half orc wizard with 14 int. Just my theory of course.

[Gryphonic]

Chief's last spell: similar but even larger.

And Big Ears and his IME progression:
Lay on Hands, only a glow.
Lay on Hands, first layer of 'bricks.'
Lay on Hands, walls extending upward.

He seems to be growing a tower.

[Zathyr]

Yeah Thunt has talked about it on the feed. He would have his players pick what color and form they ultimately want their IME to be. It starts off as just the color and becomes more elaborate as they level up. Also, significant events can effect an IME, as we've seen with Complains and the demon tail thing.

Erm, that's what we've been arguing over. I suggested it, and everyone else is pointing out that Kore is probably really slow at travelling in all that armour, and the map Thunt posted makes travelling all the way to the goblin village and back in time to catch the GAP outside the Dragon's Maw entrance really implausible. I do not dispute this, but think that the foreshadowing with him asking Y&B about where the village was was significant to say the least, and that we have not seen how he covers large distances, only after he's covered them.

We have seen him do a lot of walking. He walked into where Hawl and Boulder and those orcs were holed up. And after killing everyone there and grabbing Hawl's map, it wasn't until the next morning when he showed up at the goblin warcamp. Or sometime the next day, anyway. The page in question suggests morning to me. Now I don't think we know where Hawl's Hidey Hole was on that map, so we can't get a very good measure of how fast Kore moves, but we at least know there's travel time involved.

Also keep in mind that Forgath and Minmax went to Brassmoon to get new equipment after the battle, and the GAP had already been in and out of the city before they got there. Our goblins have been moving fairly quickly, for the most part, taking dangerous shortcuts they would normally avoid. Kore has shown no exceptional forms of movement. No flight or teleportation - he had to rip an orc's head through a little window and fumble with the keys before he got that door open, way back when. Then in more recent scenes, waded across the river. Even now he's not moving very quickly to cut off the goblins' escape even though he's already said he wants to kill them before they get into the dungeon.

I'm not saying it couldn't happen. Maybe he has some magic item that takes like 10 minutes to set up that speeds up overland travel. But I'd think anything as big as a mount would be visible when the goblins first spotted Kore so if he did have something like that it would probably have to be smallish and still constrain him to ground movement.

[Asgardian]

Missed that one on the old boards, that is a very plausible theory, with the Greyhawk connection on top, in fact the first one I've come across that does not involve some rule bending or other.
Kore himself has stated that he "suffers no curse". Now, with him not falling under the rule-set of, er, modern day paladins, that may simply be true.

It is interesting, but I still think this all has something to do with the curse. Kore doesn't just say that he "suffers no curse"; he responds by saying that he is not cursed, but gifted instead. A mind altering curse would explain why we have had two characters say that he is cursed while he seems to think of himself as blessed, but does not deny being under the influence of a spell.

If you keep my original theory in mind..lets say the curse is something like "he is doomed to live until he has eradicated all evil" That's live... not heal or become indestructible (that explain the stitches under his helmet and being injured by the rope).

From his perspective,its a blessing as he gets all of eternity to continue his "holy mission" . If hes under the old rule-set, all monsters were automatically evil. However, there's also no good/evil on the alignment axis so he has no sense of what "evil" actually is in the current rules.

By killing every monster he sees without rhyme or reason , he's actually doomed to commit evil acts until hes destroyed . His own dedication to his cause being used against him

At least thats the only 100% rules legal way I can make everything work and stick to Thunt's facts

[Master TMO]

I'm not sure what it means, but I suspect the horns/wings framing Forgath's head in the bottom left corner of the comic might be significant later on. Or maybe Thunt just liked the way it looked.

Also, I wonder how well Oblivious will do against Kore's armor?

[Hertzyscowicz]

That's just the entrance to the Depths of the Dragons Maw.

[spiderwrangler]

That's just the entrance to the Depths of the Dragons Maw.

Well yes... MTMO was just suggesting that there may be a reason that Thunt chose to draw that panel from a perspective that frames it around Forgath's head.

[EatsAPeach]

I'm surprised MinMax could remember the name Vorpal Kickass'o.

I would probably remember anyone who used a Purple Worm Attack┬® against me.

I am thinking that Kore may have a mount stashed somewhere, probably something huge and clumsy and capable of carrying huge loads. To ride, he must disassemble his armor and hang it on the mount(a rhino?), possibly dressing down to chain mail and carrying a projectile weapon. I would suspect that out of his armor he looks nothing like the dread Kore, last of the Red Hot Paladins, and maybe not even much like a dwarf? Before attacking, he parks his mount(Stegosaurus?) somewhere and climbs back into his armor and weapons rigs, then marches thirty minutes to get to his prey.
As to whether or not he's been to the goblin village and killed them all or not, I suspect we are about to hear this from Kore himself. It's either going to be "I just came from killing your families" or else "After I kill you, I'm going for your families." I suspect the latter would make for a more high-stakes fight, as flight isn't an option when you must stop someone cold.
Also, I have figured out how to kill Kore: tell MinMax that he can have Kore's stuff if he defeats him. He will totally defeat him for the loot. Somehow.

[Kamos]

No doubt it's a 14 minimum due to Holy Sword. I wouldn't say IME is really based with level though I'm not sure how it works anyways being house ruled. Kore's is likely unique in that it expands with his victims and not personal growth. Likewise with Complains having an extenuating circumstance or Dies that makes their IME more impressive.
Compared to say Big Ears or Goblinslayer's effects being fairly mild.

Haven't we seen some evidence of IMEs scaling up with levels though. Chief and Big Ears both seemed to get larger/more intricate IMEs as they levelled up. Not to the same epic scale as Kore, but he is way higher level than them.

Examples:
This is (I think) the first time we see Chief casting Cure Light Wounds
Then later we see him casting Cure Moderate Wounds

Heh, I guess that falls under. "Thing you haven't noticed before" thread material for me. Excellent examples.

[Master TMO]

I'm surprised MinMax could remember the name Vorpal Kickass'o.

I would probably remember anyone who used a Purple Worm Attack┬® against me.

I am thinking that Kore may have a mount stashed somewhere, probably something huge and clumsy and capable of carrying huge loads. To ride, he must disassemble his armor and hang it on the mount(a rhino?), possibly dressing down to chain mail and carrying a projectile weapon. I would suspect that out of his armor he looks nothing like the dread Kore, last of the Red Hot Paladins, and maybe not even much like a dwarf? Before attacking, he parks his mount(Stegosaurus?) somewhere and climbs back into his armor and weapons rigs, then marches thirty minutes to get to his prey.
As to whether or not he's been to the goblin village and killed them all or not, I suspect we are about to hear this from Kore himself. It's either going to be "I just came from killing your families" or else "After I kill you, I'm going for your families." I suspect the latter would make for a more high-stakes fight, as flight isn't an option when you must stop someone cold.
Also, I have figured out how to kill Kore: tell MinMax that he can have Kore's stuff if he defeats him. He will totally defeat him for the loot. Somehow.

Not sure how canon it is, but I don't think dwarves like to ride? It was a minor plot point in the Dragonlance series, I think.

[WastesTime]

Dwarves hate riding ever since Tolkien and he is responsible for the fantasy genre as we know it today. So yes - in my opinion Kore travels on foot.

[EatsAPeach]

Dwarves hate riding ever since Tolkien and he is responsible for the fantasy genre as we know it today. So yes - in my opinion Kore travels on foot.

True, and even with these movies changing everything, I'd go with JRRT. Still, Kore may get a mount as part of his paladin deal, even if he just uses it to carry his armor. Or maybe he can't take off the armor? Maybe the armor is the curse?

[vonpenguin]

He could just follow the thought that "evil is everywhere, I must be protected at all times". I mean really, the guy is enough of a munckin to have that weird tower shield deployment system so he can get the bonus and still duel wield. He is totally the type of player to never take off his armor even if it makes no sense to wear it.

[EatsAPeach]

There was a Sean McMullen book where the armor was reputed to have fabulous powers, but when the king put it on he became a sort of robot weapon asking the counselors for his next target. They blow stuff up left and right trying to get him out of it. Maybe Kore put on something he knew was cursed, in order to get some crucial revenge or achieve some task, and now he's doing what the armor wants to do? If he was the last, and had a lot of enemies too powerful for him, he might do something forbidden and unwise.

[willpell]

Still, Kore may get a mount as part of his paladin deal, even if he just uses it to carry his armor.

In D&D RAW, outside the corebook, there are legions of alternate class features that allow Paladins to trade away their Special Mount.

[Steelhaven]

Dwarves hate riding ever since Tolkien and he is responsible for the fantasy genre as we know it today. So yes - in my opinion Kore travels on foot.

I don't recall dwarves disliking riding in the Hobbit. They do it often enough.

[vonpenguin]

True but most post Tolkien writers seem to make every dwarf a Gimli clone, rather than looking at any of his other dwarven characters. Thus Axes, Beards, so on so forth.

[WastesTime]

Dwarves hate riding ever since Tolkien and he is responsible for the fantasy genre as we know it today. So yes - in my opinion Kore travels on foot.

I don't recall dwarves disliking riding in the Hobbit. They do it often enough.

Yes, but they do tend to live in mountains so horses would probably be of little use to them there. Surely they ride several times throughout the Hobbit although I remember that they ride ponies instead of horses (they are smaller and they are better in mountainous regions). Do you imagine Kore riding on Rainbow Dash?

[Zathyr]

Do you imagine Kore riding on Rainbow Dash?

Well, I do now.

[WastesTime]

Do you imagine Kore riding on Rainbow Dash?

Well, I do now.

Oh crap, sorry, Zathyr. I didn't mean to scar anyone's imagination by this rather not pleasant image

[Sidewaysgts]

Was rereading some of the old comics and crossed a page I couldnt help but find amusing

http://www.goblinscomic.org/10022005/

[phreak811]

What Forgath said might put some more light in all this.

All ya D&D masters out there: is it possible for a paladin to do evil because of a curse upon him and stay a paladin?

Not sure this got answered yet or not but the issue here is does he believe what he is doing is evil and same goes for the god he follows. There are rules set forth where a paladin can follow an ideal rather than a God (Paladin of Tyrany, Paladin of Freedom). If so the Kore is following an Ideal and not a God perhaps. The Idea that evil must be eradicated no matter where it seems to be. If the innocent have spent too much time around evil then they must be destroyed because they are infected.