Original Commentary

It was Isabel's idea for Brisbane to be a dancer, I think on the principal that he'd look silly when he danced. Characters can have up to two jobs. Most do. BAdams gained the 10 levels of dancer first, then switched to thief exclusively. Rob_64, on the other hand, has been distributing levels intermittently between his Knight and Soldier classes. Brisbane's combination isn't terribly effective. GodzillaTheMovie started as a Battle Wizard then put his next 7 levels into gladiator to make leveling up easier - Battle Wizards are very powerful at higher levels, but they have practically no offensive power when they start. Silver_Blossom gained the Blue Wizard levels gradually, to enhance her cleric abilities. Soldier and Blue Wizard are designed to be second jobs - they're weak but give very nice bonuses to other powers - Terrence

Modern Commentary
The job system is heavily influenced by Final Fantasy Tactics. And the thief class draws from Dungeons and Dragons' thieves who could pick locks, climb walls, move silently, hide in shadows, and do all kinds of other sneaky things.

It also pulls a bit from AD&D 3rd Edition multiclassing, where whenever you leveled up you could choose any class to put that level into.

Brisbane has totally been hardmoding it through the game. Not on purpose; there are folks who have made decent YouTube careers doing this. Brisbane just missed a tutorial dialogue somewhere - Terrence

Original Commentary

Every level you get 4 job points that you can distribute among various skills. Brisbane saw the job point menu, but never noticed the tab there to assign points for his second job. Jake's line in the first panel was, originally, "You tell us this after I use my Wand of Healing. I only had one of those, you know". But I needed to point out that neither dancers nor thieves can wield swords in this game, which does more to point out Brisbane's fortuitous cluelessness - Terrence

Modern Commentary
So is there a way to get through this quest if you don't have a thief (or a similar skill-based character)? Probably not within the time limit - Terrence

Original Commentary

I based Silver_Blossom's "Level up" on that of Maple Story's leveling image. You all should be playing Maple Story... on the Bera server (and only the Bera sever). If you already play Maple Story on the Bera server then, for starters, you have my love and or respect (Pat, you already had both- and you play as much of the game as the game will let you). And contact me or Terry (the 3 players I use are Isabel, Isabelm and IMarks- didn't get too creative on those names). Make sure to mention you're a ND or YSIF reader, because I usually don't respond to people in game (I used to, but got many people asking for stuff from me... "OMG I AM NEWB! MY ACCOUNT GOT HACXORED!", that kind of thing. -Isabel

I actualy had to name the macguffin they were collecting. Sunday, they were "pieces". And the balance isn't as bad as Jake thinks. If they had 4 combat-oriented characters they could've fought their way through. But Silver_Blossom is mainly a healer, BAdams can't fight well, and Rob_64's group combat skills don't help GodzillaTheMovie's magic attacks at all - Terrence

Modern Commentary
I probably maybe should have gone into this a bit more, but Brisbane is mostly useless in combat, Robert's character is mostly focused on buffing other physical attackers, and Jake's character isn't nearly as combat-optimized as his usually are.

They're a ragtag bunch of generalists who got thrown together because of the short timeframe and level requirements. A properly optimized group of mages could've just blasted their way through. Probably - Terrence

Original Commentary

It's kind of hard to show worriedness in someone when you can't see their eyes. Hopefully you all can tell, but if you can't, ol' Rob64 there is worried. -Isabel

I was going to have a comic where the party is attacked by an unending stream of zombies and Silver_Blossom casts a sphere of undead destruction. On hearing the plan, Jake would say "But that has a range of two feet. What about the rest of us?". Then a golden glow fills the entire room and the zombies disintigrate. She replies that she put several points from her Blue Wizard job into Extend Range. This would allow the party a chance to rest and recover magic in what would've been a deathtrap otherwise. But I decided against it because it required a bit more explanation than I'd've liked - Terrence

Modern Commentary
That "unending horde of zombies" comic that I mention in the commentary is the kind of thing that sounds great in theory, mainly because I'm not the one who would have to draw it.

The one rule of FBAO is that the folks who programmed and maintain it aren't very good. They try, though - Terrence

Original Commentary

Ok, having the game deliver that message was cheating, a bit. But how else do I show that it's a fumble while disarming a trap? And that it does maximum damage then, not that it does 1-500 damage and Brisbane got tremendously lucky. I wanted to emphasize that they were fighting not only monsters but also the clock and that clever designers would add a few time-wasting frustrations. Alternate idea: They get through the traps by summoning an animal and having that charge through the corridor, triggering the traps. With the possible explanation that it only works because this is an older area that never got recoded so summoned monsters didn't trigger traps. But that'd be too complicated - Terrence

Modern Commentary
The other influence on this storyline is Knights of the Dinner Table, where the game system is overly complicated and generally cruel. - Terrence

Original Commentary

I hope Terrence doesn't mind some of the changes I made to today's script (mainly just things making it more obvious who's who in the speech bubbles and making sure the reader knows just who Jane is to Jake and why Jane wanting him to do something should instill fear into him). This comic sure took a long time to color- bleh! At least I like how the gas came out... I should have figured Jake would be one to release it... I need to go to bed now. Isabel

Wouldn't be a proper dungeon without a screw-your-teammates trap. And no, he can't just go back and get it. Doesn't work that way - Terrence

Modern Commentary
So Knights of the Dinner Table is a comic book about a group of friends who play a game that's heavily based on first edition Dungeons and Dragons.

We were huge fans whenever we could find a comic book shop that carried it.

This is the kind of thing that would show up in KoDT with some frequency. Most of the players in KoDT would not have put the wand down and the party has wiped a couple times because they're too selfish to pass up a power-up at their friends' expense - Terrence