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Time to deliver the husband back and watch the sitcom.

Cast[]

Transcript[]

Panel 1

Dirt Farmer: Of course, back in MY day, we didn't have these fancy "prestige classes."
Dirt Farmer: You picked a class and you stuck with it, come hell or high water.
Dirt Farmer: Unless you chose to dual-class.
Dirt Farmer: Or become a bard.
Dirt Farmer: But by the gods, that was such an unnecessarily byzantine process that it drove more men mad than I could spit at.
Dirt Farmer: Nope, we didn't cotton to no simplicity of design, nosiree...
Roy: Durkon, next time we go on a rescue mission, be sure to ask Thor for a Silence spell first.
Durkon: Aye.

Panel 2

Elan: Hey, we're back at the dirt farm!
Roy: I never thought I'd be so glad to hear that sentence.
Dirt Farmer's Wife: Oh! My husband! You've brought him back safely!

Panel 3

Dirt Farmer's Wife: Oh, I was so scared! I thought for sure you had gone to the Great Dirt Pile in the Sky!
Dirt Farmer: Ah, quit your crying, woman! I still got all my hit points!

Panel 4

Dirt Farmer's Wife: You won't when I'm through with you! How dare you worry me like that?!?
She slaps him, "SLAP!"
Dirt Farmer: Ooof!

Panel 5

Dirt Farmer: Stop hitting me, you wrinkled harpy! Don't make me smack your ass!
Dirt Farmer's Wife: Ha! Five levels in Commoner, you couldn't hit the broad side of the barn!
Dirt Farmer: Your ass is bigger than the barn!

Panel 6

Dirt Farmer's Wife: Get inside! You're making us NPCs look bad in front of the main characters!
Dirt Farmer: Oh, I'll make you look bad if you don't watch it, shrew!
Dirt Farmer's Wife: Get!

Panel 7

Dirt Farmer's Wife: I'm so terribly thankful you brought him back alive. Is there anything I can do for you kids?
Belkar: Well, actually—
Haley: No, nothing. We're just happy to help. You should go spend some time with him.
Dirt Farmer (off-panel): Spend some time? I got myself captured by ogres so I could be alone for one minute!

Panel 8

Roy: Do you get the feeling this might not have been as good a deed as we believed?
Dirt Farmer (off-panel): Hey, can I hire you kids to rescue me from a horrible witch?
Dirt Farmer's Wife: Only if I can hire them to save me from a half-man, half-chicken!

D&D Context[]

  • In the first panel the Dirt Farmer refers to 1st Edition rules for Dungeons and Dragons in respect to dual-classing (available to humans only) and becoming a bard (which required the character to dual-class as a fighter, then a thief, then a druid, finally becoming a bard at bard college). The bard rules were optional, presented in an appendix to the Players Handbook, and contradicted the main rules, in that half-elves were permitted to be bards, yet half-elves were not permitted to dual-class (demi-human races had a separate set of rules called multi-classing, where they leveled in multiple classes simultaniously). In a sense, the 1st edition bard class was the template for 3rd edition prestige classes: one could not start as a bard, one could only become a bard after gathering the correct prerequisites.
  • Commoner is an NPC class, which are much worse than normal classes and have poor stat progressions.

Trivia[]

  • This is the final appearance of the Dirt Farmer and the Dirt Farmer's Wife. The wife first appeared in #211, and the husband in #218.
  • The bi-weekly discussion page for strips #222-#227 was lost in a purge of the forum at giantitp.com. Exact publishing dates for these strips are not publicly known at this time, though presumably the Giant knows.

External links[]

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