With cat-like thread – Chapter 7, Act 3, Strip 24

And here K’ip and Si’ri successfully continue their stealthy infiltration. Much aided by the fact that Si’ri floats around silently, while K’ip’s cat-like footfall (or pawfall) is practically imperceptible for all but the keenest of ears.

And he can even heighten the effect by walking on all fours, distributing his weight between four limbs instead of two…at the price of some dignity, admittedly, but the idea is that nobody’s gonna hear him, so nobody’s gonna look into his direction, so nobody’s gonna see him with his ass in the air like that. Save for Si’ri, of course, but by this stage of their travels she’d have seen him in so many embarrassing situations already….

But it’s still all in vain, of course, if he happens to roll a natural ‘1’ while walking, and thus critically fails his attempt to put his foot to the floor. You know the situation…you’re trying to put your foot down all tenderly and gently, and then your muscular control goes haywire and you instead stomp like a stormtrooper mounted on an elephant. It happens to the best of us. >_>

Admittedly, this often-mocked feature of AD&D was less a problem of the system as such, and more of a problem with the application by some DMs…but it’s still intriguing to imagine living in a world where no task, be it ever so mundane, has a less than 5% chance of failing catastrophically. I’d imagine that people living in such a place would either be very, very nervous all the time, or completely stoic.

More on Thurs…uh, Monday.

2 Replies to “With cat-like thread – Chapter 7, Act 3, Strip 24”

    1. Doesn’t GURPS use a similar critical success/critical failure mechanism, as far as I can recall? (Admittedly, it’s been a long time…)

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