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Ashley definitely going for a Scandinavian type thing, I think. Yasha comes off as a non-native English speaker, Beau comes off as a bro-ette.
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May 5, 2018 18:48
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C1: E40. Holy poo poo, Matt. You monster! 
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May 5, 2018 20:58
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Gaz-L posted:Ashley definitely going for a Scandinavian type thing, I think. Yasha comes off as a non-native English speaker, Beau comes off as a bro-ette. Yeah Yasha has that subdued and weirdly eloquent cadence of someone who learned a language in a school setting. Which is an interesting take on the barbarian archetype and I like hearing it.
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May 5, 2018 21:25
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Yasha seems to be a foreigner to the empire too, so it gives me hope that she'll run into someone speaking her native (non-common) language and basically turn into Pike then, or do some other fun vocal twist. Next week's gonna be a fun test of how smart a wizard Liam's playing Caleb as, he's done some good work with the Cat's paw, but there's a decent variety of spells even at spell level 2 or lower that should be able to make the fight super easy. I was also thinking after looking up the monster's stats that if Nott was able to get it laughing and convince everyone to hold their actions on an attack until after the creature's turn they'd have a super easy win, but no way will that kind of teamwork happen.
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May 6, 2018 00:06
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This last episode is the first time i've felt this is the Critical Role i remember. Less grungy more epic battles and their roles and abilities clearly defined... except Molly who sticks out like a sore thumb of "i dont know how they work, are they a caster or melee or both?" Made all the worse because Fjord is already a melee caster and doing fine.
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May 6, 2018 20:56
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It does feel a bit like Taliesen is regretting the blood hunter thing, because he's relying on vicious mockery to the point he should probably have bitten the bullet and rolled a bard.
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May 6, 2018 21:44
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I think dashing is underrated as a tactical move in 5th edition and most d&d type games in general. Getting a minor hit in on your way to a thing and then get to it next round, or get right there now and be able to chase it down if it moves, get reactions on it, be a target to spread the hurt around, etc. In Molly's case it's particularly egregious because he's doing what's usually a 50/50ish roll to do 4 damage max and cause disadvantage, which is something he can do already on a reaction. It's the circling around that really got to me this time, vicious mockery and I'll just do a little dosey do around the side, oh I'm up and I still can't get to the target better mock again! I do have faith in him to figure it out eventually, I think he's played more D&D than anyone else there except maybe Matt who mostly GM'd, but it kinda sucks having to wait for it. On another front, I have a new appreciation for Nott's build. I really wanted Sam to take that new investigator/detective type subclass after how he kept trying to solve the case with Jester, but being able to cast a few clutch spells and get off 2 crossbow shots a round at ranged or in melee with no disadvantage is a pretty sweet setup. It really makes me worried for him though since he's come way closer to death than anyone else, and with how the latest fights went down with him escaping unscathed from all of them just staying back taking potshots I think he might have noticed too, or maybe it's just that he's finally in an open space with no one firing ranged shots his way and no manticore breathing down his neck.
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May 6, 2018 23:00
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Gaz-L posted:It does feel a bit like Taliesen is regretting the blood hunter thing, because he's relying on vicious mockery to the point he should probably have bitten the bullet and rolled a bard. Its made worse by Jessie having vicious mockery too so its a redundant ability that is a crutch for one that another uses when they need to.
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May 6, 2018 23:13
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Lid posted:Its made worse by Jessie having vicious mockery too so its a redundant ability that is a crutch for one that another uses when they need to. Jester doesn't have Vicious Mockery. It's an ability for variant tieflings only. Jester is a standard tiefling and has Thaumaturgy instead (though I think she would have gotten that anyway as a cleric.) But yeah, I like Mollymauk as a character and I want to know his story, but god his class is awful.
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May 6, 2018 23:28
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I confuse mockery with hellish Rebuke Every Time
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May 7, 2018 00:30
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I just got to the (C181 spoilers) Deck of Many Things bit holy gently caress this show
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May 7, 2018 00:37
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Blockhouse posted:I just got to the (C181 spoilers) Deck of Many Things bit I love that moment so much. Just the gradual ripple as everyone except Sam and Travis realise what is about to happen. And almost everyone's response is difference. Liam is disbelief. Laura is sheer terror. Marisha is giggling. Rothfuss tries to be stone-faced and fails. And the result is Travis completely panicking. Plus the moment where it looks like Grog is going to throw it away and Laura does the most blatant metagame I think they've ever done.
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May 7, 2018 00:41
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Gaz-L posted:I love that moment so much. Just the gradual ripple as everyone except Sam and Travis realise what is about to happen. And almost everyone's response is difference. Liam is disbelief. Laura is sheer terror. Marisha is giggling. Rothfuss tries to be stone-faced and fails. And the result is Travis completely panicking. The full-on admonishing spouse voice "Travis!" absolutely killed me.
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May 7, 2018 00:48
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NowonSA posted:
I took a look at that class he's using and it looks super-not-great. Like pre-errata ranger bad or worse. You do a ton of self damage in order to use a set of abilities that are basically on par with anything most other classes get and you're not really any appreciably tougher for it compared to Paladins or Rangers. They really aught to have d12 for their hp dice on level up. For Crimson Rite you're self damaging and lowering your max hp temporarily for brute fighter damage dice but without the fighter base attacks post level 11. That ghosthunter pact seems like the most consistently useful and the lycanthrope one seems like furry barbarians and could be fun, but man that mutant subclass is *so bad*. None of the side effects for the mutagens are worth it save for like 2. Profane Soul really seems more about doing warlock things while on a d10 hit dice than it is about being a weirdo cursed mutant so I'm sure it's fine for all the reasons that warlocks are fine.
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May 7, 2018 13:45
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Blood Hunter would probably be better as a ranged class - pretty sure there's nothing saying you can't do rites on a crossbow (their kit even starts them with one optionally). Dual wielding is also pretty bad in 5E... and it takes him two rounds to get going. I DM a table of 7 as well, and around 2-3 rounds of combat each is usually what the boss fights come out to. I love the way the Blood Hunter 1.3 stuff is written - it's so Mercer in language. There's even an ability with "form" in the name. As cool as the Mutant class is for Witcher flavor, the mutagens are terrible. The regeneration one is okay? Resisting the side effects is cool I guess. It's nice to have a few spell-like abilities on a martial class.
Firstborn fucked around with this message at 22:56 on May 7, 2018 |
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May 7, 2018 22:48
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Yeah, I get why Matt ruled that Molly can't light the second sword as a regular action (the rules as written do make it clear that bonus actions and regular actions aren't interchangeable) but it's a silly call. It's the difference between Tal having to waste 2 rounds getting set up, instead of just one, and that can make the difference between him having full HP except for the self-inflicted damage, or having taken a couple of big hits that means he can't use most of his cool poo poo.
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May 7, 2018 23:07
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Gaz-L posted:Yeah, I get why Matt ruled that Molly can't light the second sword as a regular action (the rules as written do make it clear that bonus actions and regular actions aren't interchangeable) but it's a silly call. It's the difference between Tal having to waste 2 rounds getting set up, instead of just one, and that can make the difference between him having full HP except for the self-inflicted damage, or having taken a couple of big hits that means he can't use most of his cool poo poo. I run DnD on a weekly basis for pickup groups and I can tell you categorically that if there's one thing that needs to happen, it's a clamp being put on the power of melee and martial classes. now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to create a totally impenetrable dome that I can shoot out of, but nothing else can shoot into so I win by attrition.
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May 7, 2018 23:09
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Sion posted:I run DnD on a weekly basis for pickup groups and I can tell you categorically that if there's one thing that needs to happen, it's a clamp being put on the power of melee and martial classes. So I just started watching critical role (only seen up to s2e8) but man I'm glad I'm not the only one laughing at this kind of stuff. Ah yes, the extremely ineffective character, clearly he needs a larger hurdle to climb over. I feel like I'm enjoying Liam the most if only because he's calling out the repeated dumb things that is bogging down the game. I mean it shouldn't both me but going 4 fights in a row or something where Bo has to just waste their turn doing nothing just had my inner GM groaning. Matt's a great storyteller but stuff like that is no fun for anyone involved.
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May 8, 2018 07:48
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kingcom posted:So I just started watching critical role (only seen up to s2e8) but man I'm glad I'm not the only one laughing at this kind of stuff. Ah yes, the extremely ineffective character, clearly he needs a larger hurdle to climb over. It's not the fault of the GM in this case, it's a DnD thing. Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard. Wizards get stronger on a curve, fighters get stronger on a line because numbers are hard, man.
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May 8, 2018 15:28
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For what it's worth, I think 5e did a lot to even out the curve a little bit and upper level melee classes are pretty drat dangerous (although much more reliant on gear than magic classes). It's far from fixed, but it's better than it used to be. It was a drat crime Grog never got to win any of the battle royales he was in because he very much should have.
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May 8, 2018 15:35
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Beau is also just at the cusp of becoming much more dangerous in a fight. I believe level 5 is where she both gets 2 attacks per action, and her unarmed damage die becomes a d6. Basically, she's gonna be able to do 3 attacks a round, going up to four if she flurries. That's very nasty at low levels.
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May 8, 2018 15:43
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Gaz-L posted:Beau is also just at the cusp of becoming much more dangerous in a fight. I believe level 5 is where she both gets 2 attacks per action, and her unarmed damage die becomes a d6. Basically, she's gonna be able to do 3 attacks a round, going up to four if she flurries. That's very nasty at low levels. Also gets Stunning Strike. Then again, I believe level 5 is a notable jump for many classes.
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May 8, 2018 19:01
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Sion posted:It's not the fault of the GM in this case, it's a DnD thing. Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard. Wizards get stronger on a curve, fighters get stronger on a line because numbers are hard, man. I mean, fighters do get 3 attacks by mid level (or 4 at the very high levels) and magic is much less silly this version by virtue of the concentration mechanic and heavily limiting the number of castable spells per day compared to 3.5. That coupled with a few other things (physical attacks gain extra damage based on str or dex respectively while cantrips and spells don't gain extra damage from int/wis except in a couple of specific cases, stats are hard capped at 20 mostly to the detriment of casters that could break those caps more readily than fighters in 3.5, Ritual caster can be taken on anyone with at least 13 int or wis allowing even fighters to potentially pick up some high grade magic nonsense in the right circumstances) really do help bust the madcap cleric or druid buffstack monsters and untouchable bullshit wizards. In the case of the Blood Hunter and molly, I think part of it is just 5th edition being not as friendly to dual wielding. I think he probably would have worked better as the muscle and went for 2 handed strength build over dual wield. Give him a pike or halberd and let him go full HAM monster slayer. That extra reach would of been exceptionally useful in a lot of cases.
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May 8, 2018 19:59
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Beau is also a Mercer homebrew class so she won’t be as strong as monks usually are.
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May 8, 2018 20:03
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVS1YsOPn0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dP__PTvhD8
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May 8, 2018 22:22
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Ojjeorago posted:Beau is also a Mercer homebrew class so she won’t be as strong as monks usually are. Beau is just a homebrew subclass though. Molly is a full blown homebrew class entirely. Beau will still get all the base monk poo poo that works very well, even if her subclass is kinda weird. She's not in quite as bad a position as Molly is.
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May 9, 2018 00:01
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Y22lHS0ds
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May 9, 2018 01:37
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Sion posted:It's not the fault of the GM in this case, it's a DnD thing. Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard. Wizards get stronger on a curve, fighters get stronger on a line because numbers are hard, man. I mean yeah you're right dnd is a mess but Matt is a very traditionalist GM and tends to make rulings that keep enforcing that for no particular reason. Like the enchanting 2xswords thing. CuwiKhons posted:Beau is just a homebrew subclass though. Molly is a full blown homebrew class entirely. Beau will still get all the base monk poo poo that works very well, even if her subclass is kinda weird. She's not in quite as bad a position as Molly is. Oh I didn't know that Beau was using a homebrew subclass. The problem is monks live and die by the quality of their subclasses, some are really really good and some are incredibly bad so its still up in the air how that would go. Like I said I'm way behind but Molly's ineffectiveness is kinda depressing to watch. kingcom fucked around with this message at 04:33 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 02:14
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To be fair, Beau's subclass is a homebrew that Matt had some help from others in refining, as it's in the published campaign setting book for Tal'dorei. It's all based around giving monks a bit more of a book-learning vibe by letting them use ki points to buff knowledge checks and let them glean stat info about opponents by reading their ki, which is something that mastermind rogues get as well. Edit: Anyone fired up Pillars Of Eternity 2, yet? I still haven't finished the first one, but I had to peek at Deadfire to see how the CR voices/portraits turned out. (I love Obsidian games, so I bought PoI2 because I want to play it, but the CR add-on is a neat little gimmick). Pretty sure the omniscient narrator that reads out non-dialogue, at least in the intro, is Ashley, too. Gaz-L fucked around with this message at 03:23 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 02:36
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Talks Machina this week made me snort laugh. Good stuff. Got me where it counts.
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May 9, 2018 11:40
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Nearly caught up, currently on episode 12; Nott's probably still my favorite, but Jester and Fjord have really grown on me (not that I didn't like them before). Yasha's a little better. I don't recall her (or her player) saying much in the first episode, but now that she's hung around a little longer, said a little more, I get what people meant by her bored affect being deliberate since I have a better sense of who she is out-of-character as well. I'm starting to wonder what's up with Caleb though. His dedication to filthiness is making me wonder if he doesn't have some screwed-up psychological reason for it, like (not to get too dark here but) maybe he's a victim of abuse and is trying to make himself as unappealing as possible? If that makes sense? Pumat Sol was fun but for me the highlight of these past few episodes was unquestionably the botched hospital heist. Re: Mollymauk, I looked into his class after hearing it was homebrew and I feel like Mercer missed the part where high risk characters also need to be high reward. Nothing the Blood Hunter's capable of really justifies all the setup and sacrifice they have to perform to get there - while Nott just gets extra damage by virtue of targeting an enemy adjacent to an ally from several squares away, safely behind cover. Molly's a fun character, the trickster who's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, but yeah, he's pretty badly geared towards fighting pretty much everything.
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May 9, 2018 12:15
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Real deep in campaign 1 right now and every interaction between Pike and Taryon is gold.
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May 9, 2018 13:20
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Oh yeah. the initial reveal of Taryon is- just one of my favourite things about the show. When Laura is so angry she needs to throw something at Sam and it's like- the most ineffectual tissue paper. 'You motherFUCKER.'
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May 9, 2018 13:33
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Sion posted:Oh yeah. "Well, I don't wanna actually HURT him..."  Plus then there's the follow-up of Sam's comedy sobbing the next week. Noxin of Shame posted:Talks Machina this week made me snort laugh. Good stuff. Got me where it counts. In the eyes? 
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May 9, 2018 14:07
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Bad Seafood posted:I'm starting to wonder what's up with Caleb though. His dedication to filthiness is making me wonder if he doesn't have some screwed-up psychological reason for it, like (not to get too dark here but) maybe he's a victim of abuse and is trying to make himself as unappealing as possible? If that makes sense? Oh yeah, the dude's hosed up. Every time he uses fire magic he has a PTSD moment. Though I'm not so sure about the filthiness being part of the backstory from the start, since Liam said he didn't originally envision Caleb as being smelly but he ran with Laura's ad lib in their first meeting.
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May 9, 2018 14:18
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Sion posted:Oh yeah. The slow realization on everyone's face as its happening is magical. Marisha is probably my favorite reaction because she just seems so confused.
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May 9, 2018 14:18
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chitoryu12 posted:Oh yeah, the dude's hosed up. Every time he uses fire magic he has a PTSD moment. Though I'm not so sure about the filthiness being part of the backstory from the start, since Liam said he didn't originally envision Caleb as being smelly but he ran with Laura's ad lib in their first meeting. Well he did say he imagined Caleb as absolutely filthy and in fact he kept telling the artist to draw him dirtier. He just didn't picture Caleb as smelling bad, which is a weird oversight on his part since if somebody is absolutely covered head to toe in filth, they probably do smell like a dumpster. Laura was right on the money.
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May 9, 2018 14:22
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I thought he said the dirt was due to him and Sam's pre-stream session, and wasn't supposed to be a key element of the character until Laura pounced on it, which he wasn't happy about, but decided to take ownership of.
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May 9, 2018 14:31
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Gaz-L posted:I thought he said the dirt was due to him and Sam's pre-stream session, and wasn't supposed to be a key element of the character until Laura pounced on it, which he wasn't happy about, but decided to take ownership of. Has anyone talked about the events of the pre-stream sessions aside from what's been alluded to in-character? I know Jester, Beau and Fjord fought some sort of big snake and saved a dog, but they never really did say what happened to Nott and Caleb the night before they met, nor what Yasha and Molly did aside from "Be in a carnival"
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May 9, 2018 14:38
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I can't speak to Liam's original intentions for the character, but so long as Caleb's backstory remains unexplored on-air, we can assume it's subject to change - as is anything that isn't explicitly stated. We know he was destitute for awhile, that he runs cons with Nott in order to make ends meet, so it could just be a product of his circumstance, but even when landed with money he makes an effort to maintain his filthiness. He declines having his clothes cleaned, doesn't wash his face (and in fact purposefully dirties it), and tries to find several ways to sneak into the restricted, ritzy part of town while refusing to opt for the easy solution of simply dressing nicer (at someone else's expense, even). It's mostly played for a joke, but when Pumat Sol cleans up Caleb with a spell, Nott freaks out and demands to know what's going on, which suggests she's never seen him cleaned up in their entire time knowing each other. The man pursues filth. He wants to be dirty, and my quiet speculation tells me the reason is either heartbreaking or uncomfortable or both.
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May 9, 2018 14:53
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