All Comments on 'Outsiders Pt. 04'

So... he was only a single kill away from leveling up when they finished playing D&D? And what I assume would be considered a single level 1 kill at that? Seems like he'd have been bemoaning that fact when the campaign ended at the beginning of the story.

... Or did those five other deaths count towards his xp, too, since he considered each of them to be his enemies and had taken at least some kind of action against all of them? (Would invisibly spying on Simon be enough to count in Ben's favor?)

But even with that rather dubious reading, it still seems like such closeness to lvl 20 should have been a cause for excitement and disappointment well before now.

I hope you plan to address all of this, and I'm really looking forward to how Ben utilizes his new level-up!

At the start of the series, I've written that Ben's character was just shy of levelling up. It was in the second, or third sentence of part one. The campaign he was playing was over and there was no point in moaning over not reaching level twenty when it would have been of no use to him in the game. Since the game was over.

He would have bemoaned not being level twenty, but he was a bit distracted by being a real life level nineteen and he didn't think that he could advance.

Plus, you're forgetting the robots.

In D&D, experience point awards can be and are given away on an ad hoc basis, particularly when the challenge rating of the opponents is far too low for the protagonists. He gained ad-hoc points for destroying the robots and frying a gate full of lunatics, plus offing the rapist paramedic and those put together are over six hundred.

Anyhow, I'm working with the character sheet and spell list I was given in December, as I've already written at the top of part one, (did you read that?) and on that character sheet, the character in question was six hundred and twenty experience points shy of being level twenty. And my friend didn't bitch and moan about not reaching level twenty, so I didn't write Ben doing it neither.

Hope that clears everything up. I'll just remind/inform you all that 3.5 edition rules od D&D (The One True Edition, as my friends and I like to call it) allows for laser and antimatter rifles, machine guns and brand new spells to be added to a character's spell repertoire, among many other things. Some of the aforementioned shall be featured in part six.

I read "leveling up till just shy of epic" to simply mean 1 level up from lvl 20, not a fraction of a level up.

I was under the impression that you'd only get xp for killing enemies, and that just damaging them wouldn't get you anything. Maybe I need to expand my gaming horizons a bit more. Maybe some online, pen and paper D&D (since I don't actually know anyone who plays)? You've piqued my interest enough to check it out.

I did forget about the robots tho. With those factored in, Ben's reactions make much more sense.

I did some reading on D&D before my last comment and none of the other 9th level spells struck me as particularly useful in Ben's situation. If by "brand new spells," you mean "made up by the player," then it'll be cool to see what original, non-xp-costing spells Ben gets for his new slot and a lower level replacement. Maybe something that let's him rewrite or redirect part of these symbols, since he can no longer dispel them entirely?

As always, looking forward to what comes next!

You really look up pathfinder rules, I prefer them to 3.5

Not perfectly familiar with all the rules and regs, but I imagine this is a very important milestone.

As a side note, even if he needed more exp to level, he's been completely quests, avenging people, rescuing them. Stopping bad stuff from happening, investigating. Lots and lots of ways to acquire experience... and now that he knows it... will he reconsider the exp cost of doing certain things now.

The next chapter is going to be so much fun, can't wait for you to tell us what he does next.

The emotional whiplash of this chapter is a bit disorienting - a shit ton of things are happening to and around Ben! Considering all that, I'd say he's handling it pretty well, above avg WIS or not :)

I like that he's not suddenly mr. cool, that he isn't always right or even having a clue as to what to do next. Still, he is accomplishing what he can, and that is the mark of a true adventurer.

Thanks for writing,

J

Krista stole their life savings. How could Ben's dad afford the muscle car?

No, really.Thank you very .much63c8

The more I read this the more it seems like Ben is the sociopath in the story, or at least the one with some form of peculiar mental illness. The girls help him discover the horrid past in his mom's life (thus making it possible for at least have a chance at helping, and maybe also understanding his own upbringing better), and he punishes them for it with hours of fear and feeling like they've disappointed their master? He burns a bunch of people to a crisp on the electric fence and his response is "Oh crud"?? For all his self-righteous moaning about how he's a good guy, he's made so little use of his powers for society's benefit; he could be making so many people's lives better, and instead he hesitantly orders slaves around and goes shopping and wastes his time while people - people he could save - are dying, getting raped, getting screwed by con artists like he used to be, and so much more.

This would be bearable if he wasn't portrayed as if he was a saintly saint with a few minor faults; his actions actually show him to be an unstable, mostly apathetic, immature grown-up child.

(And no, I don't know why I'm so angry about a freaking fictional character, except this story had so much potential with the smart way that D&D powers were rationally explained, magic being explained as manipulation of quantum probabilities, etc. At the rate the story is going, it seems the series might have peaked at that point after all. )

This is a completely amazing tale. Gritty, chocked full of all kinds of action. I'm hooked!

Why is he being such an ass towards his girls when they go to his parents house? Yes they kind of disobeyed his order to watch for outsider murder sprees but I think Krista hit it on the head when she told him they had no idea where to look.

As for the mother its not like they were going to volunteer that they had been domineered by her son. Just tell her how they met, make it up if you have to, and gloss over the sex slave part. Furthermore if they had not gone the story of the assault on the mother may have never come out and the mother would have been mentally stunted for the rest of her life, possibly now they can get a dialog open and maybe involve a therapist to get her the help she may need to be happy.

I was a surprised that the mother was not very supportive of the girls driving/flying hours to see her son three young ladies around his age one of whom is a goddess in human form. Get him that girlfriend/ future wife. I must say that the reaction of the mother to the bully's death was so accusatory toward the girls. I have never knowingly talked to a rape victim but I would think they would be happy that a rapist died I sure am

I liked the scene when Krista said that she "just" stole some money and he went off on how much more it was. But, I wish he'd said that she was his first everything and she'd almost definitely ruined his ability to trust women, or anyone for that matter, ever again. Everyone in his life will suffer for that. I really want to like her (she's objectively "best girl" otherwise) but imo it's unforgivable. Sorry to go all deep on this but it's a little triggering. Loving the story otherwise.

I like how Ben only uses his powers for himself and his harem.