Triple Crown - Order of the Stick

[Aron Times]

I've given up on Triple Crown Solo and decided to go for Triple Crown instead. Meet the Order of the Stick!

 

Roy Greenhilt - Lawful Good Human Fighter

 

Roy Greenhilt is the main character and co-founder of the Order of the Stick. Roy hails from Cliffport, a mercantile city-state on the Northern Continent. Roy's skin color (black) suggests that his ancestors hail from the Western Continent, but his family is culturally Northern. Basically, he's an Aedyran Ocean Folk.

 

The main plot of the Order of the Stick revolves around his Blood Oath of Vengeance, which is thematically similar to the past-life issues between Thaos and the Watcher's former incarnation. The Blood Oath of Vengeance was sworn by his father, Eugene Greenhilt, to kill Xykon the Sorcerer for killing Eugene's mentor, Fyron Pucebuckle. Upon Eugene's death, it was passed on to his eldest child, namely Roy. Eugene is the equivalent of a lost soul in Pillars of Eternity, a soul that is stuck in what is essentially heaven's waiting room. Roy will also share this fate if he fails in this quest, and so on until a descendant who inherits the oath fulfills it. In PoE terms, Eugene cannnot return to the Wheel until Roy or someone else fulfills the Blood Oath of Vengeance.

 

Roy inherited Eugene's mission to slay Xykon, while the Watcher inherited his past life's unresolved issues with Thaos. It makes perfect sense for Roy Greenhilt to be the Watcher.

 

I was conflicted as to how to build Roy. Should I try to get him as close to his OotS stats as possible, or should I optimize him according to the PoE rules? In the end, I went with the latter, considering that this is a Triple Crown attempt (Expert Mode + Trial of Iron + Path of the Damned). Furthermore, Roy has unusually high stats which cannot be recreated using the point buy system of PoE; he doesn't have any dump stats, in fact, he has high stats in everything. Roy is the equivalent of a D&D character that rolled really well during character creation. I'd have to cheat using IEMod or iroll20s to replicate his absurdly high stats.

 

Roy wields a greatsword, like in the webcomic. If I ever go for Weapon Focus/Specialization/Mastery, the greatsword goes well with the arquebus, so Roy can fire an opening volley, before drawing his sword and charging in.

 

Durkon Thundershield - Lawful Good Dwarf Cleric of Thor

 

Durkon Thundershield is the other co-founder of the Order of the Stick. He is a dwarven cleric of Thor from the northernmmost part of the Northern Continent. I couldn't find any playable god that fits Thor's personality or portfolio (Ondra would probably be the closest), so I went with the god that matches Durkon's personality: Berath (Stoic and Rational).

 

Again, I optimized Durkon based on PoE mechanics. Had I built him according to OotS stats, he'd have high constitution, perception, and resolve, and not much else. I'll have to get him something more substantial than his starting padded armor, though.

 

Elan the Bard - Chaotic Good Human Bard/Dashing Swordsman

 

Elan is the first member of the Order of the Stick other than Roy and Durkon, and was instrumental in helping Roy recruit the rest of the party. He is pretty much impossible to perfectly replicate in PoE because he relies on illusions, which are quite lacking in PoE. After giving it some thought, a summoner chanter would make sense, because most of Elan's illusions are illusory monsters (celestial lion, celestial tree sloth, sexy female half-orc, sexy female chimera, etc.).

 

The Drifter background is the closest approximation of Elan being a traveling minstrel. Also, he's been kicked out of every group he's joined except the Order of the Stick. He has since grown more mature and more competent without abandoning his whimsical and carefree nature.

 

While his hometown hasn't been revealed, the wanted poster in the Western Continent for his twin brother, Nale, describes him as being a Northerner.

 

Haley Starshine - Chaotic Good Human Rogue

 

The second in command of the Order of the Stick, thanks to her conning Roy into giving her the position and co-founder Durkon having terrible Charisma to serve as such. She actually turned out to be not that bad at it when Roy gets killed, and manages to run part of the Azure City Resistance after the fall of Azure City.

 

Before joining the Order, Haley was a member of the Thieves' Guild in Greysky City, and city state on the southern edge of the Northern Continent. The Guild is the de facto power in Greysky, and Haley was stupid enough to announce her plans to leave the guild to her boss. Her boss's right hand Halflings saved her life by telling her to leave town before the Guild's enforcers came to take her out. This means that she can't safely return home ever.

 

These make her a good fit for the Dissident background.

 

As for weapons, I'm thinking of keeping her as a ranged rogue who snipes at enemies who have the right status conditions. I can even have her use a longbow/war bow like in the webcomic, as it's actually a pretty decent rogue weapon in PoE.

 

And finally, I made her a Savannah Folk because Meadow Folk don't have the right shade of red hair for the Starshine family.

 

Vaarsuvius of Ivyleaf - True Neutral Elf Wizard (Evoker)

 

I made Vaarsuvius a woman because I have always seen her as a woman before I discovered her canonical ambiguous gender. Having reread the series multiple times, I now believe that Rich Burlew intended for V to be male, as evidenced by the very early nickname of "V-man," but quickly made him ambiguously gendered after his friends and his early fans got into arguments on whether V was male or female. Or perhaps V was meant to be female, and he had the Order call her V-man to confuse readers.

 

Anyway, Vaarsuvius is an Evoker, a blaster mage, and her stats reflect her focus on damage dealing. As for her background, Scholar isn't available to Aedyrans, so I went with Aristocrat for the +2 to Lore. As for her culture, Vaarsuvius comes from Ivyleaf in the Elven Lands, which is in the northern part of the Western Continent. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any culture that fit her, so I just made her Aedyran to keep things simple.

 

Vaarsuvius is simply named as such because I could only fit "Vaarsuvius of Ivylea" in the name field. Just one letter to many.

 

Belkar Bitterleaf - Chaotic Evil Halfling Ranger/Barbarian

 

And finally, the last member to join the Order of the Stick, and only because he was fleeing the jurisdiction and needed a group to blend into. Not much is known about Belkar, except that he is an escaped slave. He didn't find anything morally wrong with slavery other than the fact that he himself was enslaved, and actually had some ideas on how to improve their business model.

 

I thought about whether to build Belkar as a ranger or as a barbarian. In the webcomic, until very recently, he has rarely used his ranger abilities (Animal Companion, Wild Empathy, Track, etc.) and often just killed everything in sight. In the end, I decided to make him a ranger with a lion companion named Mr. Scruffy. Lions are cats, after all.

 

Roy is level 2, and everyone else is level 1. I'll be updating this thread as I make my way through the game.

[Ceranai]

Im not quite sure i understand, triple crown I thought the three crowns were solo, PoTD and ironman???

[Infares]

Obsidian pls make like a dead goblin hat for Belkar to wear. pls
 

 

Im not quite sure i understand, triple crown I thought the three crowns were solo, PoTD and ironman???

 

Triple Crown is Path of the Damned, Expert, Trial of Iron. Triple Crown Solo is a separate achievement. 

Edited April 10, 2015 by Infares

[Ceranai]

Obsidian pls make like a dead goblin hat for Belkar to wear. pls

 

 

Im not quite sure i understand, triple crown I thought the three crowns were solo, PoTD and ironman???

 

Triple Crown is Path of the Damned, Expert, Trial of Iron. Triple Crown Solo is a separate achievement. 

oh lol i guess expert does make itmarginally harder too, i hate not seeing the range of my own spells

[Tanred]

You'll be doomed.

[Ichthyic]

actually, not being able to see your spell ranges or areas is one of the most challenging features you can add.

you really have to pay very close attention when you play in non expert mode, and try to remember exactly what your range should be with any given spell, and somehow also manage to not hit your own guys, or allies, with them.

it's harder than you might think.

that's aside from any other effects of expert mode that aren't as obvious.

 

[Ceranai]

actually, not being able to see your spell ranges or areas is one of the most challenging features you can add.

 

you really have to pay very close attention when you play in non expert mode, and try to remember exactly what your range should be with any given spell, and somehow also manage to not hit your own guys, or allies, with them.

 

it's harder than you might think.

 

that's aside from any other effects of expert mode that aren't as obvious.

 

 

i guess, ive just played chanter enough that i know all my ranges anyway, at least at min int, normal int and max int. expert also turns off maiming and doesnt allow to to see conversation metadata, both of those things arent particularly important in a solo run though. If im honest msot of the time i forget i have expert mode on, its only when i wanna see the range of an ability i havnt used before that i remember why i cant

[Ichthyic]

how are you going to roleplay belkar?

are you going to have to actually take some chaotic evil choices along the way?

maybe have belkar randomly kill a villager or two?

also, if Roy is the leader, one of his key attributes is his intelligence.  he's actually nearly as smart as Varsuuvius.

there are plenty of intellect checks in conversations throughout the game... I'd put more points into intellect for Roy if I were you.

If I had to guess, statistically translated to POE terms, I would say Roy would have 15 int base at least.  maybe take 4 points from perception, and 1 point from con, and move those to intellect.

seriously.

this roy you have built is too dumb to be Roy.

 

Edited April 10, 2015 by Ichthyic

[general_azure]

Roy needs his greatsword back, imho

[Aron Times]

how are you going to roleplay belkar?

 

are you going to have to actually take some chaotic evil choices along the way?

 

maybe have belkar randomly kill a villager or two?

 

also, if Roy is the leader, one of his key attributes is his intelligence.  he's actually nearly as smart as Varsuuvius.

 

there are plenty of intellect checks in conversations throughout the game... I'd put more points into intellect for Roy if I were you.

 

If I had to guess, statistically translated to POE terms, I would say Roy would have 15 int base at least.  maybe take 4 points from perception, and 1 point from con, and move those to intellect.

 

seriously.

 

this roy you have built is too dumb to be Roy.

 

 

I mentioned this in my first post. Roy is a statistical anomaly, in that he has high stats all around. I simply don't have enough stat points for him in PoE, so I decided to build him as a traditional PoE tank fighter because I actually want to win the game.

 

I'd like to point out that the actual Order of the Stick is made up of very suboptimal characters, and wouldn't be viable for a Triple Crown attempt if I made them as close to canon as possible:

 

1. Roy is a single-class fighter in a world where taking more than two levels of fighter is a trap. On the other hand, he either got lucky with his stat rolls or his player cheated, because he has no dump stats at all, like one of my older characters when I first started playing D&D. IIRC, I didn't roll anything lower than 14, which is insane.

 

2. Durkon uses a weapon his class can't normally use (warhammer), and he wastes his abilities on healing spells when he could go full CoDzilla and wtfpwn the enemy.

 

3. Elan is too stupid to use his class's plethora of mind-affecting abilities and spells to their full potential, and he wastes his time trying to do chip damage with his rapier which could be better used to crowd control and disable the enemy and buff his party to finish them off.

 

4. Haley uses a weapon her class can't use (longbow) and can't get the full use out of even if she took a feat to learn how to use it, since Sneak Attack is limited to 30 ft. (which wastes the longbow's range advantage).

 

5. Vaarsuvius specialized in the weakest school of magic in D&D 3.5 (Evocation) and can't cast Conjuration and Necromancy spells. Conjuration is pretty much the most powerful school in the game, able to replicate the effects of other schools with little to no effort except for Divination (which it doesn't have to since you can't choose Divination as your prohibited school in the first place). It isn't as painful to not have access to Necromancy, but it denies her the use of some potent debuff spells (Ray of Exhaustion, Ray of Enfeeblement, Enervation, etc.).

 

6. Belkar has a downright terrible build, and the fanon explanation for his combat prowess is that his player is cheating and fudging the dice. He's a halfling ranger/barbarian who fights in melee and has a housecat as an animal companion. Halflings are terrible melee combatants, and his uneven multiclassing gives him -20% XP penalty (though not as bad as Drizzt's -40% XP penalty). He also doesn't have enough Wisdom to cast spells.

[b0rsuk]

You are morally obliged to use Bow with Haley and dual daggers with Belkar. It's not impossible to build a melee ranger.

[Aron Times]

You are morally obliged to use Bow with Haley and dual daggers with Belkar. It's not impossible to build a melee ranger.

I actually swapped Haley's and Belkar's starting weapons. Haley started with dual daggers, while Belkar started with a hunting bow. It's not a war bow, but I'll switch Haley over to a war bow once I get enough cash (right now I blew all my money hiring the rest of the party: 1250 gold). The screenshots are from the end of character creation, right before I click Done and the new adventurer pops in in the game world.

 

I also bought a greatsword for Roy at the start of the game. Big mistake, as going for a one-handed weapon, especially the mace, with its 3 armor penetration, would've been better. I found myself regularly missing with the greatsword, whereas in previous Path of the Damned playthroughs, I consistently hit with my single mace.

[Ichthyic]

 

how are you going to roleplay belkar?

 

are you going to have to actually take some chaotic evil choices along the way?

 

maybe have belkar randomly kill a villager or two?

 

also, if Roy is the leader, one of his key attributes is his intelligence.  he's actually nearly as smart as Varsuuvius.

 

there are plenty of intellect checks in conversations throughout the game... I'd put more points into intellect for Roy if I were you.

 

If I had to guess, statistically translated to POE terms, I would say Roy would have 15 int base at least.  maybe take 4 points from perception, and 1 point from con, and move those to intellect.

 

seriously.

 

this roy you have built is too dumb to be Roy.

 

 

I mentioned this in my first post. Roy is a statistical anomaly, in that he has high stats all around. I simply don't have enough stat points for him in PoE, so I decided to build him as a traditional PoE tank fighter because I actually want to win the game.

 

I'd like to point out that the actual Order of the Stick is made up of very suboptimal characters, and wouldn't be viable for a Triple Crown attempt if I made them as close to canon as possible:

 

1. Roy is a single-class fighter in a world where taking more than two levels of fighter is a trap. On the other hand, he either got lucky with his stat rolls or his player cheated, because he has no dump stats at all, like one of my older characters when I first started playing D&D. IIRC, I didn't roll anything lower than 14, which is insane.

 

2. Durkon uses a weapon his class can't normally use (warhammer), and he wastes his abilities on healing spells when he could go full CoDzilla and wtfpwn the enemy.

 

3. Elan is too stupid to use his class's plethora of mind-affecting abilities and spells to their full potential, and he wastes his time trying to do chip damage with his rapier which could be better used to crowd control and disable the enemy and buff his party to finish them off.

 

4. Haley uses a weapon her class can't use (longbow) and can't get the full use out of even if she took a feat to learn how to use it, since Sneak Attack is limited to 30 ft. (which wastes the longbow's range advantage).

 

5. Vaarsuvius specialized in the weakest school of magic in D&D 3.5 (Evocation) and can't cast Conjuration and Necromancy spells. Conjuration is pretty much the most powerful school in the game, able to replicate the effects of other schools with little to no effort except for Divination (which it doesn't have to since you can't choose Divination as your prohibited school in the first place). It isn't as painful to not have access to Necromancy, but it denies her the use of some potent debuff spells (Ray of Exhaustion, Ray of Enfeeblement, Enervation, etc.).

 

6. Belkar has a downright terrible build, and the fanon explanation for his combat prowess is that his player is cheating and fudging the dice. He's a halfling ranger/barbarian who fights in melee and has a housecat as an animal companion. Halflings are terrible melee combatants, and his uneven multiclassing gives him -20% XP penalty (though not as bad as Drizzt's -40% XP penalty). He also doesn't have enough Wisdom to cast spells.

 

ALLL of these things suggest highly, that instead of actually building a team really similar to OOS characters, you should just ignore that and build your min max team to win your triple crown.

 

since you appear to be making a very detailed argument as to why these two things are incompatible in your mind.

 

seriously, this is not the OOS team you have built here.  an OOS team would indeed not be able to do a triple crown run.

 

 

[Exoduss]

I am sorry to be that guy who broke it to you : Your Attribute Builds SUCK massive dong , there was 0 thought put into making attributes matter for your characters and you plan Triple C ? Are you just gona quit the game on every fight that goes south to cheat the achievement ?

[Ceranai]

I am sorry to be that guy who broke it to you : Your Attribute Builds SUCK massive dong , there was 0 thought put into making attributes matter for your characters and you plan Triple C ? Are you just gona quit the game on every fight that goes south to cheat the achievement ?

His build could certainly be improved but it isnt unworkable, i mean he has way too much inteligence between the group IMO, and why he would give a chanted dexterity is beyond me but given that PoTD is just about possible with one highly optimised toon its probably not that hard to do it with a full group even if they arent 100% optimised.

[Exoduss]

Ye er emmmmmm ..... This is triple crown we talking here , you cant die ! Problem with the builds is not Intellect but every character has every single stat over 10 that makes no sense at all , some stats are meant to be 3-4 for some classes srsly !!! All the Triple Crown posts makes no sense nowdays tho as you can quit in the middle of combat and save yourself from restarting the game , so any random party might work i agree to that

[knownastherat]

Actually I like the builds except 10 seems artificial. Good idea and good luck.

[Exoduss]

Heh one day they release patch to fix the triple crown cheat ... All i can hope

[PIP-Clownboy]

 

I am sorry to be that guy who broke it to you : Your Attribute Builds SUCK massive dong , there was 0 thought put into making attributes matter for your characters and you plan Triple C ? Are you just gona quit the game on every fight that goes south to cheat the achievement ?

His build could certainly be improved but it isnt unworkable, i mean he has way too much inteligence between the group IMO, and why he would give a chanted dexterity is beyond me but given that PoTD is just about possible with one highly optimised toon its probably not that hard to do it with a full group even if they arent 100% optimised.

 

 

Well to be fair, I used item spells/scrolls far more often than innovacations on Kana. So Dexterity isn't completely lost on them if you still want to wear the heavy stuff. 

[Ceranai]

 

 

I am sorry to be that guy who broke it to you : Your Attribute Builds SUCK massive dong , there was 0 thought put into making attributes matter for your characters and you plan Triple C ? Are you just gona quit the game on every fight that goes south to cheat the achievement ?

His build could certainly be improved but it isnt unworkable, i mean he has way too much inteligence between the group IMO, and why he would give a chanted dexterity is beyond me but given that PoTD is just about possible with one highly optimised toon its probably not that hard to do it with a full group even if they arent 100% optimised.

 

 

Well to be fair, I used item spells/scrolls far more often than innovacations on Kana. So Dexterity isn't completely lost on them if you still want to wear the heavy stuff. 

 

I dont mean that you should dump dex on a chanter but raising it above 10 is very ineffective, i am a heavy scroll user and at dex ten they cast more than fast enough, its not like you can bring more than 16 scrolls to a fight, and in solo you are gonna want at least one figurine

[PIP-Clownboy]

 

 

 

I am sorry to be that guy who broke it to you : Your Attribute Builds SUCK massive dong , there was 0 thought put into making attributes matter for your characters and you plan Triple C ? Are you just gona quit the game on every fight that goes south to cheat the achievement ?

His build could certainly be improved but it isnt unworkable, i mean he has way too much inteligence between the group IMO, and why he would give a chanted dexterity is beyond me but given that PoTD is just about possible with one highly optimised toon its probably not that hard to do it with a full group even if they arent 100% optimised.

 

 

Well to be fair, I used item spells/scrolls far more often than innovacations on Kana. So Dexterity isn't completely lost on them if you still want to wear the heavy stuff. 

 

I dont mean that you should dump dex on a chanter but raising it above 10 is very ineffective, i am a heavy scroll user and at dex ten they cast more than fast enough, its not like you can bring more than 16 scrolls to a fight, and in solo you are gonna want at least one figurine

 

 

Yeah well this isn't solo. I'm just saying if you wanted to focus your chanter on CC/buffs/debuff instead of damage/healing Dex isn't completely terrible. 

Edited April 10, 2015 by PIP-Clownboy

[Exoduss]

Chanter build is 3 dex , you are forced into 4 if you go godlike anything above that is waste same goes for tank paladins

[Ceranai]

Chanter build is 3 dex , you are forced into 4 if you go godlike anything above that is waste same goes for tank paladins

Thats just not true. at dex three you reduce your chanter to nothing more than a summoning/buff machine. There are several viable builds for chanters so saying that the only way to play them is to dump dex is pretty narrow minded.

 

For example if you dump int you have more than enough points to make them relatively tanky but if you dump dex you lose a lot of dps for not much gain elsewhere. Itdepends how you play them and how you level them up.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Ceranai

[Noctaem]

 

Chanter build is 3 dex , you are forced into 4 if you go godlike anything above that is waste same goes for tank paladins

Thats just not true. at dex three you reduce your chanter to nothing more than a summoning/buff machine. There are several viable builds for chanters so saying that the only way to play them is to dump dex is pretty narrow minded.

 

For example if you dump int you have more than enough points to make them relatively tanky but if you dump dex you lose a lot of dps for not much gain elsewhere. Itdepends how you play them and how you level them up.

 

 

At 3 dex you're making an off-tank chanter.

[Ceranai]

 

 

Chanter build is 3 dex , you are forced into 4 if you go godlike anything above that is waste same goes for tank paladins

Thats just not true. at dex three you reduce your chanter to nothing more than a summoning/buff machine. There are several viable builds for chanters so saying that the only way to play them is to dump dex is pretty narrow minded.

 

For example if you dump int you have more than enough points to make them relatively tanky but if you dump dex you lose a lot of dps for not much gain elsewhere. Itdepends how you play them and how you level them up.

 

 

At 3 dex you're making an off-tank chanter.

 

yea you are, if you dump both int and dex you can make a quite tanky chanter for the front line, i wasnt saying that dumping dex was particuarly bad just that it isnt the only way to build a chanter.