The Linear Guild goes after Elan and Haley. Thog finds a weapon.
Cast
Transcript
- Panel 1
Haley: You know, I had a lot of time while I couldn't speak to think about my life. And more than anything else, I found that I really missed saying just three little words that meant so much to me, personally.
- Panel 2
Haley: SNEAK ATTACK—
Haley: —BITCH!
Haley fires a pair of silver and cold iron arrows into Sabine, "whumpf!!"
- Panel 3
Elan: C'mon, Nale, don't be a Sword Loser!
Nale: Ugh, that was horrible! I swear, I'm going to kill you, then pay a cleric to raise you, and kill you again, just to make you pay for the puns!
- Panel 4
Thog: thog arrived.
Haley: Elan, watch out for Thog!
Elan: It's OK, Haley, he's not armed!
- Panel 5
Thog kicks the door and it breaks off of its hinges.
- Panel 6
Thog: thog improvise!
Elan: Wow, I guess half-orcs really WERE designed for "kick-in-the-door" style...
- Panel 7
Elan: Thog, wait!
Elan: Think for a minute. Didn't we have fun dressing up in costumes and stuff together? You don't really want to hurt me, do you? No Matter what Nale says?
- Panel 8
Thog: thog no want to hurt not-nale. thog like not-nale. thog want all thog's friends to get ice cream together.
Elan: Right! We can all have fun togeth—
- Panel 9
Thog whaps Haley with the door, "WHAP!"
- Panel 10
...and again, "WHAP!"
- Panel 11
...and again, "WHAP!"
- Panel 12
Thog: yay! now ice cream!
Nale: Every once in a while, he reminds me why we hang out with him.
Haley: I liked it better when no one remembered I was still in this comic.
D&D Context
- Rogues sneak attack gives them extra damage dice. At her current level (14?) this would give her 7d6 additional damage to Sabine.
- Half-orcs get +2 to Strength during character creation, making them well suited to "kick-in-the-door" style of play, a type of play specifically called out in the Dungeon Master's Guide (meaning a form of play that focuses heavily on combat and dungeon-delving, with little focus on story).
- Improvised Weapons require a -4 nonproficiency penalty.
Trivia
- The title is a play on a line from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions a prose meditation written in 1624 by metaphysical poet John Donne. The line, For Whom the Bell Tolls, is famous also as the epigraph of the Ernest Hemmingway novel of the same title. The last line of the meditation is: "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."
- This is the first of three strip titles which play on Donnne's Devotions. The others are #586, "No Encounter is an Island Unto Itself", and #1000, "Hel Polls for Thee".
- Haley continues to shoot Sabine with two arrows at once, one silver and one cold iron, like back in #62.