Book 2 – Parson’s Klog 002

[Philile]

I really did not like this update. I'm sure the author intended for Jack to be snarky and lovable, but he comes off as a know-it-all asshole. At this point I would have figured that Parson would have explained that his world did not have arbitrary rules like Erfworld does. I did not expect Jack to have the same attitude as Stanley.

Another issue I take with this update is the confusing dialogue. For example, when Parson asks what the boundary between the airspace and garrison is, Jack "supposed it was the ground". What the hell is this supposed to mean? Is the garrison underground? Can hexes be passed only on the ground, where you pass a barrier visible only to Erfworld-natives? Then Parson switches to talk about projectiles and the effects of boundaries on them. This has barely any connection to the previous statements and only a tenuous connection to the story as a whole because of the previous page, and connection is even more constrained given that the previous talk about arrows was four pages of notes ago and at a completely different setting. Another thing, generally, people don't speak the way they write, and to me the update seems like Parson is updating his Klog through dictation, and I'm pretty sure he's not doing that. So taking the stylistic option of writing the way people speak seems to me to be a poor choice.

In all, this update seemed shoe-horned in to explain Erfworld laws and physics. I don't want to say that Rob is putting in less effort into the text updates than the comic updates, but it certainly seems like this update in particular was rushed.

[KiltedNinja]

{things}

Not bad for your first post You need a *hug*

[Turanar]

Issue 2 title "It's Raining Men" make a lot of sense now ...

Is falling the way to cross hex boundaries off turn ?

[Glory of Arioch]

So, incapacitation is a technical term in Erfworld, not just something Maggie said about Wanda in Book 1 when she ate dirt. Also interesting to see just how lucky Parson was when he fell from Banana.

[enthar]

3/10 for Twoll

At risk of feeding, I respond in the spirit that the original should be taken at face value.

Another issue I take with this update is the confusing dialogue. For example, when Parson asks what the boundary between the airspace and garrison is, Jack "supposed it was the ground". What the hell is this supposed to mean? Is the garrison underground? Can hexes be passed only on the ground, where you pass a barrier visible only to Erfworld-natives?

The thing that separates the garrison (zone in city) from the airspace (volume of air in the hex above the city) is, to Jack's supposition, the ground. This is readily apparent simply by looking at your surroundings. Where the dirt stops, the air begins. This seems inherently obvious unless you are, like Parson, not from around here. Hence, even Jack (whose attitude has never stopped being challenging and cryptic, if not overtly snobbish) might break out a snarky response.

The Dungeon and by extension the Tunnels are underground. I would speculate that an air/dirt interface defines them as well. Hexes can be passed in all three locations- above, on, and below the ground, examples of all three of which have been repeatedly shown in comic.

In all, this update seemed shoe-horned in to explain Erfworld laws and physics. I don't want to say that Rob is putting in less effort into the text updates than the comic updates, but it certainly seems like this update in particular was rushed.

The Klogs, in general, are intended to inform us the humble readers of the rules and physics of Erfworld as Parson learns of them, or rather, as Rob would have us know of them. Thats their point. The Forums have been alive with speculation regarding falling, shooting, gravity, silly uncroaking tricks, and so on for like the last 3 months. This and the previous Klog answered like 90% of those questions. So, rushed it may have been, less effort it might be, but its value to (most) of the community is actually quite large.



Enthar

[BCCroaker]

So, incapacitation is a technical term in Erfworld, not just something Maggie said about Wanda in Book 1 when she ate dirt. Also interesting to see just how lucky Parson was when he fell from Banana.

Parson may not have been lucky as such. He got cuts and grazes from the fall (the only person in Erfworld to bleed). We don't know that Erfworld rules completely apply to Parson. I suspect myself that he won't have a 1 in 3 chance of surviving a 100 foot (30M) drop completely unscathed nor will a 3 foot (92cm) fall kill him.

[WarFAN]

So, this is how it´s going to be:

1) Dwagon´s falling on purpose at Jetstone´s archers.

2) Wanda decrypting them on masse once they have fallen and/or be croaked in Jetstone´s ground.

3) Decrypted Dwagons croaking Jetstone´s garrison unit in close combat.

And all this things will happen in Jetstone´s turn...

[elmagnifico]

I can see going to ground causing more problems than it solves. Jetstone still has a mass of infantry, along with whatever's left of Haggar.

[HailGreen28]

I can see going to ground causing more problems than it solves. Jetstone still has a mass of infantry, along with whatever's left of Haggar.

Yeah, and archers can shoot through boundaries on their turn, so I don't see why Jetstone would put it's archers in the same hex as Wanda to begin with.

But I wonder if Ansom's ordering the fliers to land, while under arrow attack while grabbing Ossomer earlier, gives a bonus to defense against arrows. That it wasn't just a case of intermingling with Jetstone units for cover.

The dwagons spray bubblegum, battlecrap, whatever on the hex walls to make it tough for Jetstone to see what's going on. Wanda's force falls to the ground. Any incapacitated units are healed or if incapacitated croaked by Wanda's side so they can be decrypted along with units croaked by falling. Pray that when Wanda falls, she's OK or can be healed via scroll or whatever........ end result might be Jetstone has to send in an infantry force that Wanda's force CAN fight back against and decrypt while fighting.

Not a great option, but probably better than imitating a clay pigeon. Can't wait to see what the author(s) come up with.

[1condor12]

i think one reason that cities are weird is that they divide themselves into 3 zones instead of 2. in a normal hex there is above the ground, and under the ground. maybe sky is different. but in a normal hex there is no move expended for moving up and down. but in a city the offending units must use move to go up and down. just a thought

[DevilDan]

Parson should scare the bejeebers out of any Erfworlder in his right mind, or out of Jack.

[splintermute]

I think Wanda and Ansom were (un)lucky, but I'm not sure if Parson was in any danger from his Banana experiment. I don't think he 'fell' - I think he just forced a landing, and the injuries he sustained were from rolling off of Banana on the ground.

Also, it might not be a 1 in 3 chance - he did say that height of the fall does have some bearing, but what does it have a bearing on? The two obvious choices are either the odds of death/incapacitation (maybe dropping from 1/3 to 1/20 or something if you drop from only a few feet up), or the amount of injury, if you're lucky enough to just get injured.

[Davre]

Also, does this mean that Bogroll's sacrifice might have been in vain, and that GK was just super lucky that the fall killed Ansom instead of just injuring or incapacitating him? I'd like to think that regardless of the outcome of Ansom's fall, Bogroll croaked him by doing some serious crushing damage.

Maggie said that Bogroll leveled twice before he died by which she inferred that Ansom was dead. Unless he got xp for causing the fall, it would seem he killed him before they hit.

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F132.jpg

Just because it has been confirmed that you can die from falling there's no reason to discard the theory that Bogroll did the actual deed midair.

[gazes_also]

I have mixed feelings on this update, it has both good and bad parts.

The positive. Further information on Erfworld physics, the intentional force theory I put forward is supported here. If you shoot an arrow down towards the air zone boundary it will be stopped because it has intentional momentum, if you drop something it will pass through as it starts with zero intentional momentum and the only force acting on it is the non-intentional force of gravity. This leads to:

The negative. Extremely clumsy narrative device, the equivalent of the wife hiding new shoes in the back of the closet and then wearing them a month later.

"Are those new?"
"These? No, I've had these for ages!"

It just so happens that Parson and Jack discussed what to do if trapped off-turn in the airspace ld of a level 4 city and had Sizemore make bombs for exactly this situation. Way too convenient.
OTOH - if they have them, why didn't Jack mention them in the war council update? " Well, it just so happens that Lord Hamster and I planned for exactly this contingency..."

To be contrarian as usual, the information that the outcome of a fall is random is actually bad news for Wanda's group. Assuming that Wanda can decrypt across zones (it's an Archentool so that really isn't too improbable) the idea of just dropping units from the sky and decrypting them on the ground has taken a big hit. If only a third of those who land are croaked then then the gain is severely limited. Only one third would be decrypted, a third injured with some limited capability, and a third who would be incapacitated, can't fight and can't be dercypted until the next turn, and so are completely useless. Not much of a play.

The option of (ptewy) crapbombs would give the option of a conscentrated strike against a few clustered stacks then decrypting them and turning them against the rest of the ground force, It won't win but would result in some attrition.


'

[BLANDCorporatio]

* tin foil hat on*

(And noticing the avatar)

Welcome to the club!

Extremely clumsy narrative device, the equivalent of the wife hiding new shoes in the back of the closet and then wearing them a month later.

{snip}

It just so happens that Parson and Jack discussed what to do if trapped off-turn in the airspace ld of a level 4 city and had Sizemore make bombs for exactly this situation. Way too convenient.
OTOH - if they have them, why didn't Jack mention them in the war council update? " Well, it just so happens that Lord Hamster and I planned for exactly this contingency..."

What the h, gazes_also, are you doing an impression of me

But seriously, good post and I wish I wrote it.

The intentional aspect of Erfworld physics- I don't think it gets into clumsy territory yet. BUT, it seems doomed to eventually go that way, the way of the turn-based mechanics idea and fully-formedness leading to learning disability idea. An interesting concept that is troublesome to keep consistent while allowing a flowing story.

The point about Jack is excellent. I'm not that miffed by Parson and Jack discussing an actually likely and useful scenario as opposed to the useless fancily perfumed cwap we saw Parson ask about in that one update. But, if that discussion took place, then maybe Jack took a blow to the head in the meantime.

Hmm, I like that interpretation. It explains why Jack is blind to the merits and competence of Scarlet, clearly the best warlord that ever li- but I digress.

It does appear that many of these updates are written in response to forum speculation, and this once it's not just me being paranoid and thinking I'm the center of the Universe. It probably really is the case that one of the purposes of this update was to tell us that the FPACG Armour would not work.

So in a way, my standards for in-between klogs are a bit lower. Klogs are just a bone to throw to us speculators, fan-cruft if you will. They don't have to be actually nutritious.

[badninja]

Nice now I get an idea about what Jack is thinking. I feel that all is helping Parson gave him some nasty ideas and he is going to be one of the more dangerous players in the up coming battle.

[multilis]

The obvious target is the king... croak the king with a suicide rush and with no heir and the side ends.

The question is how you go for it. You can drop stuff, men or even Wanda, if Wanda then may also require a healing spell to get her up and running again.

[splintermute]

To be contrarian as usual, the information that the outcome of a fall is random is actually bad news for Wanda's group. Assuming that Wanda can decrypt across zones (it's an Archentool so that really isn't too improbable) the idea of just dropping units from the sky and decrypting them on the ground has taken a big hit. If only a third of those who land are croaked then then the gain is severely limited. Only one third would be decrypted, a third injured with some limited capability, and a third who would be incapacitated, can't fight and can't be dercypted until the next turn, and so are completely useless. Not much of a play.

It's not that bad. Assuming we're just dropping living units, if a third die, they can be decrypted instantly, if a third are injured, they can fight until they die and then be decrypted, and if a third are incapacitated, they can either be euthanized by GK units and decrypted (friendly-fire exists on Erf), or GK can let the Jetstone forces put them down before decrypting them. Dropping decrypted units would be less productive.

Being incapacitated doesn't make you "invulnerable but useless" until the next turn. You can still be killed - otherwise there would have been no reason to send Sizemore to rescue Wanda after she fell down in tBfGK.


I don't think Sizemore actually made any bombs, otherwise Jack would probably have mentioned them. OTOH, there's nothing in this klog that indicates that Parson actually discussed the bomb idea with Jack - he seems to have come up with the bombs at some point after the simulation.

[the_tick_rules]

Yeah is it supposed to drop midsentence? Oh and is the pic just for looks or a flashback? Cause Jack is kinda not near parson at the moment

I think that the Klogs being shown are all flashbacks. Maybe Parson's reading his Klog for ideas?

It has to be. The klog said level 4 and the jetstone's place is a level 5. Plus Jack is in the field right now.

[teratorn]

Wanda nearly died the last time she "fell," and she just spent the healing scroll on Jack (at the time I wondered what was the purpose of that). Not sure she's willing to try it again.

What if flying units decide to "fall?" Or wanda could dispell dwagon flying capabilities so they would "fall," preferably after they already had been killed and decrypted. A few would surely survive.