To be fair, some of these powers DO seem worthy of risking an impromptu watery grave in this sea-covered world for.

However becoming a living rubber band does not seem like one of those.

Rubber gives Luffy arguably the most versatile powerset in the entire one piece universe.

It is a fantastic insulator against electricity, a very good insolator against heat and cold, gives him the power to recover from a mortal wound by eating, aows him to survive his mortal weakness by stretching his neck, and allows incredible speed and physical power. He can also fly my stretching his arms way out over sticks, and letting the wind carry him, like a kite. In theory, he can also float anywhere by inflating his body so there's not enough of him touching the water to harm him.

Seriously. Rubber man is OP. Even for a Devil Fruit user.

all devil fruit powers are OP that's been said previously
the only limit to your powers is how you use them and who you're fighting

Well, then don't forget the guy with the Logia type devil fruit that basically keeps him from drowning because whenever he falls into the sea it immediately freezes.

plus his powers can't be nullified by somebody's battle aura.

Yeah, because having the same powers as Mr. Fantastic would never come in handy.

Nearly all (and possibly all - I just don't know them all) are well worth being unable to swim as well as the whole "passes out if too submerged in water" shtick. Even the Sea Prism Stones (or whatever they are officially called) aren't going to be as inconveniencing as the powers are enabling.

Most of the inconvenience we see in the actual One Piece series comes from plot/setting specifics.

Oh, and "Mihawk's" line runs contrary to history as I have been taught. Granted it was a minor detail, so I could easily be wrong but the "short" version is that if you went overboard, you were dead. Being a good swimmer just meant you died more slowly. They either couldn't or wouldn't come back to pick you up and most of the time you were too far out to swim anywhere.

This is entirely true if the boat is moving, you know, like it should be, but because they were still to attack the floating restaurant boat (don't even get me started), all bets are off.

Stort time is about glaring weaknesses! Let me give you a rundown of my favorite characters' weaknesses. Raxon: Remarkably well balanced, but easily distracted, can be easily tricked, due to his goofball nature.

Ransu: Strong, very fast and agile, but cannot handle deserts or water. Cannot swim at all. And will rapidly starve to death, so any place without abundant food is dangerous to him.

Baird: Extremely paranoid in most incarnations. In this way, he is easily manipulated.

Now for a fun one. A really fun one.

I have a character sheet for an ascended gelatinous cube, that has gained greater enlightenment, and thus is as intelligent as a human. Has a crippling fear of the undead, and freaks the hell out around things like dead bodies and skeletal remains. He, uh... He's a monk. Fighting weaponless is his thing. Considering what a typical dungeon is like, Wobbles is generally only of limited use. The others need to scout ahead and hide any corpses or skeletons, otherwise Wobbles will just "run" in circles, making that damn panic wail sound that makes up a third of his vocabulary. And before you ask, one bone is not a skeleton, thus not scary. A dead animal is not scary, especially if Wobbles killed it, or intends to eat it.

Your turn! Tell about a horrible glaring weakness in an otherwise powerful character!

My crazy, crazy alchemist strike again! Earlier tonight, we met a group of gargoyles in a field, doing their best to pass off as statues. They had excellent disguise roll that fooled all our characters, but it was so obvious, we had a hard time NOT acting upon cplayer knowledge.

So, my character, which has very high intelligence but abysmal wisdom, reasons that since those statues attract attention so much, they're obviously set up as a distraction! So my alchemist turned his back to a group of gargoyles, trying to find out what in the world he was meant to be distracted from...

So the magic-less Warblade, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Paladin, and Barbarian desperately needed a healer, and I made my Favored Soul orc treehugger, because I hate worrying about what spells to prepare. (The Fighter multiclassed to Wizard to eventually become an Arcane Archer, and the DM had another Wizard join up intending to dip Fighter.) It turned out one reason they needed a divine caster was to turn undead... and Favored Souls don't get that; they get energy resistance and bonuses with their patron's favored weapon instead, both of which were useless as his 'orc' side overpowered his 'druidic' side in weapon selection. Fortunately, running away worked well.
Granted, a few more levels and I would've had the spells to spare for just using healing magic offensively, but the game didn't last that long. I generally prefer to defeat an enemy rather than force them to flee, unless the latter'd be particularly humiliating for them.

Isn't it a historical thing that sailors didn't actually need to know how to swim?

many (if not most) sailors during the time period with pirates similar to those portrayed here (Blackbeard and the like) did not know how to swim, because the logic was that if the boat sank you would probably be unable to get to shore before you died (either due to being too far away, or to a storm, or the pirates who just sank your ship), and knowing how to swim would only prolong the inevitable. a fair number of pirates DID know how to swim, many more than regular sailors in fact, but the concept that all sailors should know how to swim is more recent.

From what I understand it indeed is: falling overboard when no one could easily help you meant you were dead. Knowing how to swim just meant you could struggle for life longer, but to little avail.

My current character is a Kobold with great psionic powers. To augment these powers, he built an armored suit from the remains of psionically-powered constructs. Fine and dandy, great in a fight how he can jump in and out of his armor.
His weaknesses? The beings that ran the various original constructs all live in his armor, and frequently talk to him whether or not he is wearing it. Currently, there are five of them, and each has a conflicting opinion on how to handle any situation. The "John Cleese Lancelot" voice likes to outright charge into the middle of any battle, the "Christopher Walkins" voice argues with all the rest, the "Dwarven barbarian" always recommends more mead, the fourth is a dream demon that likes to terrify people. The fifth is based on the "Vicar of St Looney up the Cream Bun and Jam" sketch (Monty Python, go look it up) and thus is rather annoying. He also can barely speak common, and has the maturity of a kindergartner, likely due to all the voices in his head.

Does raging alcoholism count?

I was playing as one of several high school students that were part of a super villain club. And the way things were going was probably going to take it over.

She was a mad scientist of the genetic engineering sort. Amongst other things had put mouths on her hands.

However she was also an extremely depressed and prone to just chugging away. In terms of mechanics it was her "stress explosion". Maid doesn't have damage, it has stress. Incur too much and you have to spend some time doing "something".

Also sometimes she'd just start drinking in the middle of class. Because she was edgy like that.

Yeah. Susan was a fun character.

Hey, I played maid once! I played Rei, a secretly a dude pettanko tomboy. Didn't get very far, though. All I managed to do was ruin breakfast for my master, and accidentally molest the other maid.

It kinda ended abruptly.

Fun game. But you need to set a baseline for how creepy you let things get.

I feel like it should be kind of creepy, but not too much.

When you can accidentally molest another character with a bad dice roll, I would say there is plenty of creepy. Of course, I had botched cooking and gotten onion juice in my eyes, so I was unaware until the other maid bashed me with a hammer. You know, typical anime stuff.

That said, all I did was flail about on my hands and knees, looking for a towel. My hands found a fabric to rub my eyes with. I pulled, and the whole maid uniform came off. I heard a scream. I jumped to my feet and started running. I slammed right into her, and I think you can guess how that went. I opened my eyes, and I was lying on top of a naked coworker, with my hands on her breasts.

And thus, Rei died, through totally no fault of his own.

Seriously. Bad rolls, and anime tropes kept getting in my way.

Yeah. I figure when the system itself is pulling stuff like that you can just overrule that.

If you want to.

If it was me I think I would just no sell all of that.

"Huh. Yeah. I guess this looks pretty bad." *shrug shoulders* *calmly stand up*

And when they get smacked around. "Seems like a reasonable reaction honestly. Can't blame you for that."

Someone needs to play the straight man!


Also sometimes the GM should be like "Yeah no. That doesn't happen." and reroll. If people find they don't particularly care for something.

I strongly dislike the whole "Well, the girls can hit you without repercussions, but if you hit a girl, you are automatically a villain" double standard.

I do not like that, especially when the odds are stacked like that. "Oh, you complimented me for having a nice figure! I have to physically attack you now." Heaven forbid someone be a poor speaker or be nervous.

Heh. Last time I dealt with a female character like that, in a D&D game, she kicked my character in the goolies and caused actual damage, when he said she looked very nice in a real dress.(She was the fighter.)

My response was for my bard to tell her, "Not nearly beautiful enough for that."

Shoving a bucket of water over her head was oh so satisfying, especially when I got a surprise round out of it. Plenty of time to uppercut her in a most unpleasant location, and get the hell out of there.

Note to self: boobs are incredibly sensitive to pain. I dealt exactly three damage. Half what she dealt, but I made up for it through my astounding ability to describe things in excruciating detail. From the way her flesh rippled, to my follow through, which smashed her breast into the edge of the bucket.

For some reason, she didn't seem to like having her physical weak spots targeted. I love the extreme detail technique for describing one single, low damage attack. It may cause very little damage, but if it's something that makes people cringe, you can scare them off of trying whatever they did again.

Also, uppercut to the boob is incredibly painful, but would deal little damage, since I was an unarmed bard, punching a big strong fighter. Even if I had made a crit and max damage, I couldn't have dealt more than ten damage. Fair enough compared to the twelve damage she dealt, but I bet mine was much more satisfying.

You and me both. My take on it is you just shouldn't hit people. And when you would, gender shouldn't be a factor.

"Oh hey got the crap beaten out you because of accidental molestation." That's the most boring possible take on the situation. It's not even as funny as situation being resolved without incident.

Which now that I think about it is the best way to play it off. If any of you guys end up in a similar situation? Accuse your abuser of taking the most boring route in a forced and cliched context. You can also say how the real pain isn't to your genitals, but it's your opinion of the person doing the abuse that took the REAL impact.

It's one thing when it's a misunderstanding, and it's contrived and whatever. It's kind of a natural reaction. If boring in fiction.

It's another when "so a guy says something a woman doesn't like so she starts abusing him. But it's okay for women to do that."

It's REALLY stupid to get violent in D&D. Because if you were a devil in disguise you could really end up hurting them.

Or you know. Be an adventurer. Those are the ones you REALLY don't want to mess with. She's honestly lucky you only took things that far.


Sorry if this opens a can of worms folks.

I actually have a highly amusing way how I would have played that scenario once you landed groping the coworker.

"She lets out a loud moan and asks you to be gentle. Everyone else in the kitchen area is staring at you and her in shock and horror. You have about five seconds to pull back from her before someone reaches for a weapon."

This gives your character time to escape and try to explain himself. And the consequence I would throw in is this:

"(insert the coworker's name here) has become obsessed with you. She follows you everywhere, deliberately putting herself in awkward, suggestive positions in front of you in public places where you are looked at and judged simply for it happening, let alone if you acted on it. She also happens to be your employer's current favorite. Good luck!"

Generally, I think the problem people have with violence against women is the social context. Violence against women by men is far too common and tragic in the real world to be funny. Plus, all too often that kind of violence is sexualized, which is clearly a bad thing, and very different from how men are treated. Male characters are (usually) not molested. You can't claim equality in your setting if you proceed to treat men and women differently (which is why I hate Drizzt stories - women and men are supposedly equal, yet the sexism in the setting shines right through).

The problem here is the context, and not all acts of violence are the same. I don't think anybody has a problem with a powerful, competent male fighter punching a powerful, competent female fighter in a battle, without any sexual context whatsoever.

Consequently, the double standard of women hitting men not being considered a big deal is really based on the sexist view that women can't be a physical threat to a man, so any man experiencing violence at the hands of a woman will be laughed at for "not being man enough." Generally by other men, since macho culture is all kinds of stupid. In the real world, as xuincherguixe said, anybody hitting anybody should be considered a bad thing and nothing to applaud. If you really feel the need to bash some skulls, well, that's what we have D&D for!

Fantasy settings lacking the gender and race context of our world can be very liberating to play. Playing a female character in a setting without the rampant sexism that plagues our society, playing a black character without all the racism, playing a gay character without the homophobia etc. is just... well, fun. So is playing a straight male barbarian who can admit to loving flowers without getting homophobic insults thrown at him. Malg the Flowery Avenger is a very happy character most of the time, because in my setting, his tribesmen don't subscribe to the toxic notions of hyper-masculinity.

Of course, that kind of setting requires everyone in your group to be mature, which I admit can be a difficult group to find.

Well said. And again, her player was inexperienced and assumed the same double standards applied in that world, since she had trouble separating it from real worldgender politics.

She learned pretty quick that her six foot amazon is, in fact, less vulnerable than my five and a half foot bard wearing brightly colored silk parachute pants.

I had to outright tell her that gender has absolutely no bearing on any stats except boob size. I just live for the face someone makes when they finally understand something that's obvious to everyone else.

That said, I later played a pragmatist paladin, who chose to defend women and children first. When called out on it, he explained to this girl's character that he has practical reasons, mainly that if citizens are killed, we would need more to take their place. Thus, protecting women. Children are small, and take up little space. You can hide two children from the enemy in a spot where one adult would fit. Thus, kids are a priority. He was an example of good is not nice though.

i only have 1 problem with this strip, thats REALLY more of a nit-pick, and a minor one at that: it hasnt been confirmed mihawk DOESNT have a devil fruit power. and the way emily said that makes it sound like she would NEVER pick one which leaves her high and dry should mihawk either reveal one or gain one... that being said, its impossible to tell if that WILL ever happen AND it seems super unlikely, just something i thought i couldnt help but point out.

Of course he has a devil fruit power.

He ate the badass badass fruit.

I wonder if that would be a Human Human: Badass Model? It might explain why we don't ever see him using any powers too!

could also be a hat hat fruit. his hat is just so epic it MUST BE SUPERNATURAL.

Considering how wild things get as more and more devil fruit users are introduced, it would make sense that if mihawk is revealed to have eaten a devil fruit Emily could explain it away as balancing the character against the whackiness of the other npcs...

That or as my guess is, Mihawk is going to become a gmNPC for future exposition and leveling up after the GM makes things too tough for everyone.

I think I have enough points for a shameless plug. Go read the legendary pixel crew, DT's other comic.

It's new, and it needs love. Knowing DragonTrainer, it will be full of wonderful D&D humor, and I caught a whiff of 8 bit theater, I think.

Mostly in my comments, where I channel Red Mage a lot so far.

Hmm... DragonTrainer, eh? Mind if I call you Lance?

Yes, I mind if you called me Lance. Call me "Lancelot the Great Knight of the Holy Round Table of Camelot". Don't skip out on the quotation marks, either. >_>

(thx for plug, btw ^_^)

Lance was always my favorite member of the elite four.

Funny thing, I didn't actually have Lance in mind when I decided to go by the username DragonTrainer. It was only later when I was replaying Pokemon Red when I realized that Lance had subconsciously influenced my decision at the time. :p

The most common rational I've heard for it is because Dragons always lose in Fairy Tales. It does help that Pokemon played the Fairy type straight by making them the trickster-fae and not the goody-gumdrops-fae. Y'know?

Sorry! Did not mean to delete that. Argh.

Made a joke implying dragons are afraid of gay dudes, aka fairies. Not my best stuff, but I do like to make a pun here and there. Sorry for not making it more easily understandable.

And sorry for tapping delete when I meant to edit. My phone is always a bit titchy when it's charging.

And yeah. You can interact with the fae, but never insult them, and never, ever try to cheat them.

Above all, know the fae you speak with. Avoid dealing with tahe unseelie unless you must, for they are dangerous.

And yeah, in my stories, both the elves and goblins were unseelie. The pixies, dwarves, and gnomes, on the other hand, were pretty stand up guys, as long as you were friendly, unafraid, and careful with your words. Also, watch your step. The pixie king will kick your ass for stepping on a pixie. And pixies are really freaking powerful for their size.

None of those three races are ones you want to make an enemy of. They are wizards, dorfs, and illusionists, respectively. All very dangerous.

Gnomes... very dangerous. You go first.

And yet, powerful as they are, no fae race wants to deal with dragons. They're freaking huge in my setting. A mere forty year old young dragon in my setting gets three to five attacks per turn, has iron hard scales and damage resistance, high magic resistance, and is basically a six legged taur, standing at eighty feet tall, and one hundred sixty feet long.

You do not screw around with dragons.

A robot in a post apoc sci-fi road warrior esque universe (Mutant:UA)
Death dealing unstoppable killing machine with a passion for explosives...
and arachnophobia.... crippling, run around screaming like a child arachnophobia.
That artificial personality module might not have been the best choice after all.

Our group of merry adventurers was spelunking down a dark cave where we had tracked some missing villagers and my characters superior ability at sneaking meant he was the party scout, unfortunately for the party he snuck by them on his way out because he saw a spider and the group got squashed because they just strolled into the boss room like they were going to the bar.