#640: "I have a hard time being intimidated by incompetence."
 

Red Mage is generally treated as the team's tactician. Of course, that tends to make him the team's scapegoat as well.

Hm, maybe it's just me, but what we have in this comic smells like a giant clue as to what's to come.

As for red mage the tactician, I love that comparison, although no one understands why. So I cry.

DAMN IT! I wanted the first reply

awsome comic

*coughlaugh* Dangit, I was drinking water! XD

Anyway, it just proves that no matter how much he tries to deny it, BM smells of eldiberies. And probably dirt.

Interesting, that there was an argument about this a couple weeks ago, and now it is in a comic. I see the methods you deploy, Brian. I may gain enlightenment by reading every single post on the forums. Even if it kills me.

Great comic, and I just can't wait to see where this is going.

"Can we get back to the subject at hand?" "Your incompetence?"

Great comic, it was hilarous. Though I sincerely wish that Black Mage finally get the credit he deserves (He DID take on a giant marmoset with two other summons, and destroy a slough of icebergs).

Aw, poor Black Mage. Even if he does completely deserve the stink and/or incompetence related insults directed at him. Which he totally does.

Hm...

For his first hadoken, he DID have to "whip up some magic."

By reading a magazine.

It's times like these that I think poor ole' BM may just be my favorite character.

Wow, I actually liked Thief in this one!

But yeah, I guess I just primarily liked all the Light Warriors making fun of Black Mage, even Fighter! Though, he might not be aware that he is making fun of Black Mage and just making innocent speculation....

heheheheheheh... the matter of BMs stink has returned (as per the ending of the Marsh Cave story arc) lololol!!

"Your incompetence?" "YOUR incompetence!!" LOOOLLLL

Fighter's reallly low-key insight is really cool here. Most of the time he believes anything BM says. Does anyone else see this as more than a little strange?

The Wandering God

8 down, 22 to go.

So what are you counting down to, Jaysc?

Now, I like this comic but not as much as the news accompanying it. I didn't know what ATM stands for. . .

Wow, Thief's a dick.

Anyway, yeah, awesome comic. Good ol' classic comedy with the Light Warriors.

...Um.

I just had a wild speculation enter my head and make a nest there. Without trying to pry into the comic's future in detail, if someone can tell me the answer to this, I'll be pfficially mollified:

We assume, of course, that the game's gonna be beaten by four Lite Warriors. But does this preclude the possibility of a lineup change in mid-game?

Don't mind me if I'm wrong/crazy, it's just I thought maybe Red Mage has been taking a slightly unusual amount of abuse and/or neglect from the other Lite Warriors ever since leaving the Ordeals (remember they ignored him when he came back?). And this strip ending on an angry accusation thrown RM's way just sort of seemed to make a pattern. There is, of course, as good a chance as any that that's just the lack of sleep talking and I imagined all that "pattern" crap.

Well, heck, ya gotta admit, it is Red Mage's fault.

Exchanging insults is one of my many favorite forms of humor.

Ergo: I loved this comic.

Yup. It's "Automatic Teller Machine." For the picky ones among you, you now get to correct anyone who calls it an "ATM machine," 'cause that's redundant.
Makes you think of Fire Emblem, perhaps?

Well, that's half the answer.

Good question. I've asked this two or three times, but I don't think anything good came of it.

Also, who thinks class changes will happen during episode 666?

He's counting down to Class Change.

GREAT COMIC. Loved it. Do a thumbs up. Wait, I'm not supposed to say that part?

Actually, I mean it. I forgive thee for delaying/omitting the class change.

How's he know when the class change will happen? That's weird, how does more than one person know exactly which episode it'll happen during?

Hostility and bad blood is stirring up. The class change has certainly made them more cunning at the mouth. Noteably in Fighter's case.

What're you up to, Brian?

Comic 666 of course. However...I dunno what the "8 down" was for.

Yeah, too bad his math is off.

I bet in Comic 666, all that will happen is that Black Mage will turn good. For one comic. And then everyone acts like nothing happened. And Brian will never answer any posts on it, or post the thread to begin with it.

You know BM could have found a way to set it up to where, when he uses a spell it uses the spell components up without him actually messing with them. Of course if that is the case, & I were him I would get RM to get me an Eschew Materials feat, & then get new robes, & burn the old ones to get rid of that smell.

And has it occurred to anyone how much he must smell, I mean it's a partially medieval setting, even the rich people bathed maybe once a every couple of months.

Plus, it would have to overshadow the fighter-sweat stink, the elfy-forest-smell and the Red Mage brand perfume. They all smell bad!

Actually I think he is referring to this...from Thread: #632: "Maybe less."
At least I think so.

Ah.

Mystery solvified.

But how about 34 comics instead?

Yeah, I am going with the '666 class change' idea as well. Especially since I thought that was going to happen some... 57 comics ago.*

I think Satan's Onion's (wow, that looks like I'm dumb) idea has it's merits, but RM will probably just try to prove that he's too smart, and it's someone else's fault. Or something like that.

As for the bathing stuff, didn't they think that bathing caused diseases, both because of water contamination and because of scurvy?

*Yeah, pity me. My friends and I were talking about class change (had to convert him, y'know, one of the unbelievers) and then we thought up the idea.

yup. and the counter-joke is that kurosen/brian will release the class change on comic 29 just to piss me off :P

Actually, watch it be 665, just to piss people off.
Edit: AH, GOD DAMMIT!! >_<

And I'm pretty sure their reason for not bathing was less logic-oriented and more christianity-oriented... They were trying to avoid the orgies of the roman bathhouses or something like that.

So you've said.

That's a neat idea. Knights and Ninjas get white and black magic, respectively. Fighter might heal his own stab wound, or Thief might, y'know, electrocute Red Mage or something like that.

A Thief with power over magic AND ninja skills?

Hold me, I'm scared.

Well BM will be able to use better weapons, & he can already use Hadoken a Level 9 spell, so who knows how powerful his new spells will be.

Besides Ninjas have very limited magical ability, of course the ninja skills are very scary considering how all the abilities he already has including the Law Ninja.

Actually, he has already used Bolt 3 in the comic, which I don't think can be used by Black Mages in the original. So he already has his magic abilities. I think he will just be more powerful and more able to use his powerful spells. My memory is he could only use some 4 mega spells, so now he will be able to use more.

That is, of coarse, if Brian makes this anything like the game.

I'd flat out be scared if BM was able to cast just two Hadoken's per day.

Actually, Black Mages could use up to FIR3, LIT3, and ICE3 (Firaga, Thundaga, and Blizzaga), but that's as far as their casting ability went. Only after class change would you be able to learn NUKE (Flare).

However, Black Mage has already proven himself capable of casting Flare, and even Meteo (Exploding Tuesday, anyone?), so I'm not quite sure what he'll gain from this, if anything.

Ummm... What did RM do again? I musta missed something obvious.

If by "limited" you mean "all of the level 1-4 black-magic spells", then yes. Ninja gets a much better spell selection than Knight, who only gets stuff he doesn't really need when he finally gets it.

He called "dibs" on the old man's sidequest thing. Which resulted in them going to the Castle of Ordeals. Which as it said in the comic, only got them horrible images that will never leave their minds.

The Wandering God

Perhaps the level 10 spell Ultima? BM has alluded to its existence, and Lich had claimed to have power over 10 levels of magic.

Wait, I was just worried that RM would get tossed out of the Lite Warriors, however briefly. In retrospect, I might've jumped too hastily to this conclusion. But I suppose anything's possible...

Y'know, when it came to the game itself, the one spell that most people were very happy to get when their Thief changed classes, was FAST.

Can you imagine what Thief -- who is already skilled enough to steal pretty much anything -- could do with a FAST spell?

Of course, in the game FAST served only to double the number of attacks made by a single character (thus amplifying damage dramatically). It would still be great with Fighter for that trait, but I doubt Brian would restrain it to that purpose if he did choose to include it in the comic.

Of course he wouldn't, people can use more than one weapon at a time, & both RM & BM have used magic far beyond the levels they should be capable of. Which is why the class change seems insane to me. I mean it seems like they were already nearly as strong as they would be at the end of the game when the comic started.

You do realize that, at any given time, the characters in this comic are as strong or weak as they need to be for a joke to work.

Yeah but I love overanalyzing everything, it's drives my family almost as crazy as I am. Sprite comics are the only place I ever allow plotholes to go unnoticed, and that's still only some of the time

in DnD, the 0th spell level still counts and makes ten.

But this isn't really based off of DnD, unless if you believe RM. And even he doesn't only say DnD, he believes in many different RPG rules controlling this world at once. The Magic levels are based off of the original FF game. There were 8 levels of magic. And Brian tacked on the 9th level, which has the Hadoken, and the 10th level, which has Ultima and Ice 9.

As for whether or not BM gets Ultima? Quite possibly. I don't know what the restrictions would be though, considering that the Hadoken is already once a day. Unless if BM can cast the Hadoken more than once a day as a Black Wizard. That would be scary. And divorce rates really don't need to get any higher.

Ultima is for when hadoken runs out of power.

Just wanted to correct the common myth. There is no evidence that shows people in the medieval time period did not bathe...in fact it's quite the contrary. All evidence shows that matters of hygeine were very important during the time period, including taking baths, shaving, trimming nails, etc. etc.. It was during the renaissance(while technically is part of the medieval time period isn't the entirety) that people stopped taking baths regularly.