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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqRaqRSfFd8
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# ? May 17, 2018 13:43 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 15:51 |
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What the gently caress Sam
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# ? May 18, 2018 03:06 |
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I cannot loving believe this is happening right now
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# ? May 18, 2018 03:23 |
Keru posted:What the gently caress Sam Imagine being married to him, or having him as your dad.
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# ? May 18, 2018 03:44 |
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chitoryu12 posted:Imagine being married to him, or having him as your dad. Ugh, yeah. Poor Liam.
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# ? May 18, 2018 03:54 |
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I went to Hupperduk and all I got was this lousy t-shirt
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# ? May 18, 2018 03:55 |
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Caleb's parents *Eric Andre labelled Caleb* Why would Trent do this? - Sam's flask
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# ? May 18, 2018 04:09 |
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This is the best plan ever.
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# ? May 18, 2018 05:44 |
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I'm so paranoid about the Traveler-Archfey connection now that when Jester said the Traveler had told her all about the Feywild I had no clue if it was evidence of the theory or Laura messing with my head. Sam remains the most entertaining all around person at the table, being able to totally land and perfectly time out comedy bits alongside the more emotional reveal of his character's backstory, and coming up with fun angles to work in the combat beyond just punching things that also serve a purpose and are useful tactically. To me he's just a step above everybody else, though they all have their moments. Man that last stinger at the end of the episode was so perfectly done, I keep watching it and grinning ear to ear.
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# ? May 18, 2018 10:12 |
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Todays episode made me remember that my2k does some excellent fanart on twitter and everyone should see it. https://twitter.com/my2k/status/992296731147579395
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# ? May 18, 2018 11:57 |
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"Look, here is my actual definite backstory"
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# ? May 19, 2018 13:37 |
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Finally managed to catch up (to episode 18, at least), and jeez, Caleb. Right after I made that post about his backstory too. My second guess was he did something he couldn't forgive himself for, and welp. On the mechanical side of things, I think the next time I run/participate in a game I'm gonna take a leaf out of Taliesin's book (and I guess Liam's) and suggest people leave some aspect of their background open for the DM to weave into the plot. Most of the people I've played with all tend to compose very self-contained backstories, so it's rare for anybody's past to factor into their present adventures.
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# ? May 21, 2018 13:40 |
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So far all the real story stuff has tied in to some character's backstory in my group. We had all died and come back to life through magical shenanigans, which along with being a neat premise is also a nice workaround to how you can heal massive wounds by resting for an hour and heal completely overnight, which doesn't make a lot of sense typically. One person had a rich noble backstory so that became our first destination to get ourselves set up with some money and a powerbase, and then to save his sick mom we were off to kill a demon who was closely related to another character's backstory (the crazy evil wizard). Mine's going to be a real trip when we get to it, and I've managed to keep it all hidden so far, while the DM still has plenty of room to have it come back to bite me at any time and it would make sense. The Noble in the party was killed by someone but he doesn't know who, so that's kind of that approach of leaving it open for the DM. He has 3 siblings and 2 of them are still top suspects after one of them was ruled out pretty conclusively. He also had us all write up pretty intricate backstories and then we've expanded on them since then, so add that to his like 5-10k words of text across various google docs for the setting and I'm kind of getting the extra-diet Matt Mercer treatment.
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# ? May 21, 2018 14:16 |
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Nott - "I've never eaten a child." Mollymauk - "INSIGHT CHECK!" I love Taliesin so much.
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# ? May 21, 2018 15:22 |
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Insight Check: The Campaign.
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# ? May 21, 2018 15:30 |
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Bad Seafood posted:Insight Check: The Campaign. I mean, so far most of the characters actually have pretty decent justification for not really trusting each other. It's not a slam against them, there's a lot of personal trauma going on in everyone's backstory. I think the way people are starting to become a *little* more forthcoming is actually kind of natural considering how long the characters have actually known each other (which is what, two weeks now in-character time?) and the nature of the poo poo they are hiding from each other. Caleb talking about his past with just Beau and Nott (specifically leaving out the rest of the group) really worked in character, even if asking everyone else to leave the table was probably poor form. That's some heavy poo poo you tell to people one or two at a time and specifically not turn into a public spectacle. Similarly, Molly's original plot reveal for how he came to be who he was (I was a a religious sacrifice caste who stole away) vs the actual reveal (I have no idea who the gently caress I am or why I have this curse) was surprisingly effective. There's a lot of negative things that can be said about the blood hunter class writ large (and FFS Talesin, get him a proper ranged weapon already instead of trying to force that bard cantrip to work) but Molly as a character is surprisingly interesting.
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# ? May 21, 2018 16:10 |
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Don't get me wrong, that wasn't a complaint. I really like how the group is slowly coming together, learning to trust each other; it's the sort of thing I try to do (with varying degrees of success) in my own games. It's just come up enough that I found it funny. It's practically the campaign's catchphrase by this point (though I prefer Nott's "Message received!"). I'm an episode behind the streamed episodes but everyone's done a pretty good job playing their cards close to their chest, revealing things slowly. My favorite little detail so far has probably been Fjord realizing Molly was lying to him, but choosing not to pursue it at the time. I realized then he was gonna wait for Molly to make a mistake, to get the truth out of him then, so every time Molly started talking about his past I tried to mentally track any inconsistencies, wondering when Fjord would shake him down. I don't think I've ever played with anyone with the presence of mind to do that, including myself, but the crew's brought me up to expect it.
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# ? May 21, 2018 16:35 |
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So I bailed with like 10-20 minutes left. Please tell me wherever the hell Nott was going with this is not some clumsy attempt to be analogous to being transgender. Like, tell me it was resolved in a way that wasn't as weird and bad as it felt like it was gonna be.
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# ? May 22, 2018 19:52 |
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Nehru the Damaja posted:So I bailed with like 10-20 minutes left. Please tell me wherever the hell Nott was going with this is not some clumsy attempt to be analogous to being transgender. Like, tell me it was resolved in a way that wasn't as weird and bad as it felt like it was gonna be. I don't think it's going to be explicitly drawing that sort of parallel, but I think her end goal is probably to have Caleb learn True Polymorph and turn her permanently into a halfling. I think Sam is good enough to not gently caress this up. Teddybear fucked around with this message at 20:10 on May 22, 2018 |
# ? May 22, 2018 20:00 |
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I watched the episode and feel like I don't know what you are talking about.
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# ? May 23, 2018 00:09 |
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I understand their concern, or at least what I think their concern is— there’s a way you could play that character that would result in it being a very clunky and very gross “I’m just a halfling born in a goblin’s body”. It could come off as flippant and even mocking of legit dysphoria. The way I think it’s going, it’s more that she’s horrified by her pack and their actions and sympathetic with the kindness of the halfling man she was sent to surveil. She wants to dissociate herself completely with the goblins as best she can, up to and possibly including polymorphing into a halfling.
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# ? May 23, 2018 00:16 |
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Time to put that emmy to use. And while Sam is consistently the most reliable when it comes to working in jokes and weaving the moment, Travis always has been and always will be my favorite. Now that he isn't as narratively bound as he was with Grog, I am super excited to see where he goes. That said, literally any time the table lets Sam and Travis improv together it is pure gold, and I'm kind of curious how slow talking cowboy wisdom and an inescure goblin will mix together. Mechanically their classes pair up really well, so I kind of expect them to get their first few scenes together just from sheer coincidence. Also when the hell is Blindspot going to get canceled already. And final thought, the first campaign ran while I was at my last job and it was really easy to watch every episode as it hit YouTube while working and I stayed on top of it really well. This new campaign I am at a nrw job and my structured downtime/busy work is a lot different so I'm usually a week plus behind on episodes. The 4 minute recap videos are a god send. I'll watch the episode, immediately watch the recap to help seal the plot in mind and make sure I didn't miss anything and then rewatch the recap just before starting the subsequent episode so I'm primed and can follow easier on half attention.
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# ? May 23, 2018 02:31 |
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I’ve been watching some of the earlier episodes since I didn’t start until right at the second campaign. Jesus Christ was Travis incredible from when he got Craven Edge until he killed Kevdak. Sam is excellent as a bard, those two are the definite standouts from the 10-15 episodes I’ve watched lately.
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# ? May 23, 2018 02:38 |
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Dameius posted:Also when the hell is Blindspot going to get canceled already. It'd make things a lot easier but holy cow my enthusiasm just dies when it's a Yasha moment. I can't help but feel like all this secrecy is just a cover for a character that's a complete and utter blank. Like everyone keeps pitching her softballs to let her flesh out the character and we get stuck with five more minutes of hemming and hawing. (It definitely doesn't help that Aasimar are so ludicrously overloaded with bells and whistles. I feel like we got Poochie the Rockin' Dog played by someone with stage fright.)
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# ? May 23, 2018 17:36 |
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Nehru the Damaja posted:It'd make things a lot easier but holy cow my enthusiasm just dies when it's a Yasha moment. I can't help but feel like all this secrecy is just a cover for a character that's a complete and utter blank. Like everyone keeps pitching her softballs to let her flesh out the character and we get stuck with five more minutes of hemming and hawing. Yeah when I think stage fright I think Ashley Johnson.
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# ? May 23, 2018 18:08 |
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If you want to suggest a better concise way to describe someone who for two characters in a row has been like "well gosh uh, I don't know, it's just I uh... well maybe uh" then I'm up for it. I'm sure she's a nice person but Yasha scenes grind the pace to a halt and for all that sacrifice, all we know about this character is backstory, not who they are or how they act or what they value.
Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 18:19 on May 23, 2018 |
# ? May 23, 2018 18:17 |
Nehru the Damaja posted:Please tell me wherever the hell Nott was going with this is not some clumsy attempt to be analogous to being transgender. [rolls for insight check] I kind of got that impression from Nott before, though I still haven't watched episodes 12-15 or so. Sam plays off his disguises copying Fjord exactly (and then later with only small differences) as wacky comedy but I'm not sure. Would the attempt work for you if Sam played Nott as wanting to be a male non-goblin? This and Caleb's german accent + hitler youth background thing are both kind of awkward to me for a D&D game, as is early Scanlon's friendly misogyny, but I am looking forward to seeing where they go with everything. I'm curious if their interactions are fully improv or if they hint at each other where they are going so they can have a small amount of prep for big moments. Otherwise it's hard to tell if that was Beau's personality or simply Marisha being blindsided by Liam's oscar moment, especially with the spotlight off everyone else leaving the table. Did Ashley get a chance to grow into Pike since that campaign went on much longer? I've only seen up to the episode after the airship ride to Vasselheim but she seems most confident and animated when she has a spell idea she wants to do that turns out not to be allowed by the rules or requires a 24 hour cast time or whatever. I like her in her professional voice roles but she definitely seems like she's more up there to enjoy hanging out with her friends and basking in their moments than actively participating herself. Maybe that's just a combination of the constant absences and her always being at the lowest initiative though. I do like Laura a lot better as Jester, she's talking and roleplaying a lot more. At least from the episodes I've seen Vex was 99% archery rolls and the worry about Trinket we've previously discussed. On a final note listening to this show has kind of messed up playing Pillars of Eternity 2 for me as I play spot the voice actor. An imp yelled at a party member in Nott's voice last night.
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# ? May 23, 2018 20:16 |
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I agree re: Ashley. I get that she made a low Charisma character as a means to hide her awkwardness, but personally I still read that awkwardness as her own and not Yasha's. Every time Yasha acts shy or unprepared to talk about something, it just seems like Ashley is unprepared to talk about it. She's clearly a good actress so I wouldn't call it stage fright, but I would say that she's not so great at the improv and thinking on her feet. She really needs to sit down with Matt and work out exactly what she knows about Xhorhas, because that's clearly gonna keep coming up when she's around and if it's all hemming and hawing and whatnot that'll hurt the mood of the moment. And sit with Taliesin and figure out the depths of their relationship, because having someone she could consistently play off of would help flesh her out as a character.
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# ? May 23, 2018 20:31 |
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Nehru the Damaja posted:If you want to suggest a better concise way to describe someone who for two characters in a row has been like "well gosh uh, I don't know, it's just I uh... well maybe uh" then I'm up for it. I'm sure she's a nice person but Yasha scenes grind the pace to a halt and for all that sacrifice, all we know about this character is backstory, not who they are or how they act or what they value. This is part of the reason why I am praying that Beau/Yasha doesn't become a thing. Ashley hasn't gotten a grasp on her character yet but Marisha foisted herself on her immediately. Now the fandom has latched onto it because "omg lesbians" and I can't help but feel like Ashley is getting press-ganged into a romance. It's like Vax/Keyleth all over again - where Liam basically decided for Marisha that they were gonna be a couple - but even more forced. It doesn't help that Beau and Yasha have zero chemistry together. I'm a massive fan of cringe comedy but their awkward interactions are just utterly tepid. I'd much rather Yasha ended up with Jester just because Jester has enough personality for two people and could carry a taciturn partner.
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# ? May 23, 2018 20:40 |
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I'd say in campaign one the best of Pike came from her improv moments with Travis. Teaching Grog letters was a drat genius moment. It does seem like her personality/preference is to boost for her friends to a fault rather than take a spotlight when it comes, and that gets magnified by filming in NYC constantly and missing episodes. Yasha almost feels like a muted straight man in a party of punchlines, so you know, way different energy. Not worse I'd say, just different.
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# ? May 23, 2018 21:05 |
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In It For The Tank posted:It's like Vax/Keyleth all over again - where Liam basically decided for Marisha that they were gonna be a couple - but even more forced. so is this like an actual thing or some weird projection
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# ? May 23, 2018 21:37 |
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I thought the order of events for that went: 1. Liam realized that Vax would develop feelings for Keylith 2. Liam talked to Matt about it, just to make sure it wasn't going to be A Thing 3. Liam talked to Marisha about it. 4. Vax put the moves on Keylith Order of events as I remember them coming directly from Liam in an interview.
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# ? May 23, 2018 21:46 |
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So weird projection then, got it
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# ? May 23, 2018 21:48 |
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Blockhouse posted:so is this like an actual thing or some weird projection Vax's near death experience at the beginning of the Briarwoods arc was the first time there was any hint of a romantic connection between the two, and from there Liam leaned hard into it, doing stuff like kissing Keyleth out of nowhere and cornering her for one-on-one RP in typical Vax fashion until it just became a thing that was happening. Compare to Percy and Vex where it (seemingly) arose organically between the two players rather than one player really forcing it. In It For The Tank fucked around with this message at 22:01 on May 23, 2018 |
# ? May 23, 2018 21:49 |
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Both the players and the spouse of one of the players who was also involved in the game all talked about it before hand and agreed that they were cool with letting it play out and it did soooooo? Like, I get the impression from you that you dislike how Vax initiated the relationship with Keylith, but I fail to see how that translates to the player, Liam, forcing the player, Marisha, into an unwanted situation. The end of the first campaign had a number of navel gazing scenes between the couples and Keylith and Vax both as characters were prime to be susceptible to that kind of woe is me poo poo, part of why, I'm sure, their PCs thought a relationship was worth exploring.
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# ? May 23, 2018 22:18 |
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Liam and Marisha themselves made fun of their characters relationship on a few Talks Machina, likening it to Your First Highschool Romance. Plus, it's still pretty early into campaign 2, so their characters haven't really had the corners smoothed out yet. In the meantime, how great is Nott? She's the best.
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# ? May 23, 2018 22:34 |
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I don't think Nott's motivations are that murky. She's a goblin in a D&D game. People hate goblins, and even other goblins hate her in particular, and the racial dimorphism (?) that exists in D&D means that'll follow her everywhere she goes for the rest of her life. Fjord was teased for his tusks so he removed them. Nott is vilified for her status as a goblin, even by other goblins, so she doesn't want to be one. I don't think she especially wants to be a Halfing so much as she'd rather be literally anything else; a Halfing is just something of comparable stature. She does remind me of Persona 4's Naoto Shirogane, but Naoto isn't trans either (as much as Western fans unfamiliar with Japanese sexual politics like to paint her in that corner). Naoto is a girl who wants to be a police detective, but women on the police force in Japan aren't taken very seriously. She acts like a boy because she believes that's a necessary sacrifice to get what she wants, and being recognized as a detective is more important to her than being recognized as a woman. If being a woman wasn't such a disadvantage in the field she'd chosen to pursue, she'd have no reason to change anything about herself. The catch is she's been playing the part so long she no longer feels comfortable engaging in traditional femininity, so even after the jig is up she retains her masculine persona.
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# ? May 23, 2018 23:44 |
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I didn't like Vaxleth because I felt it very much sprang out of nowhere and both of them regularly talked past one another every time they had issues (they never did resolve Vax's desperate need for faith vs Keyleth's disdain for the gods). I also found their scenes together way more awkward and hard to watch than Perc'ahlia scenes, probably because Perc'ahlia stuff felt like a natural extension of the close friendship they'd always shared. If Vaxleth had continued past the end of the campaign, I feel like it's a relationship that would have fallen apart eventually, but fortunately it never had to.Keru posted:In the meantime, how great is Nott? She's the best. I still don't like Nott that much and I honestly don't understand her story at this point. I don't think it's a metaphor for being trans as much as it is a very different take on PC exceptions to "Always Evil" races (and Matt doesn't believe in Always Evil so I expect that to take a few twists and turns), which could be interesting but it's not yet and it might take awhile to get to that point. Also related to someone else's earlier point - Liam's gone on record as saying his backstory is less Hitler Youth and more KGB. Picture Natasha Romanov as a 32 year old disgustingly dirty man. Caleb is basically a dude who flunked out of the Red Room at the last possible minute.
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# ? May 23, 2018 23:49 |
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CuwiKhons posted:I still don't like Nott that much and I honestly don't understand her story at this point. I don't think it's a metaphor for being trans as much as it is a very different take on PC exceptions to "Always Evil" races (and Matt doesn't believe in Always Evil so I expect that to take a few twists and turns), which could be interesting but it's not yet and it might take awhile to get to that point. Personally, a lot of it is my trust in Sam's ability to play his character, he's been 2 for 2 so far with Campaign 1 and I can't wait to see where he's going with Nott.
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# ? May 24, 2018 00:31 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 15:51 |
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I trust Sam. I'm not like, upset about Nott or anything, I just don't find her interesting yet (and I don't like the alcoholism but he's kind of backed off of that a bit) and I'm not sure how her story could possibly play out. Also ironically, if Nott really wanted to be a different race and didn't care what she turned into, Reincarnation would be the faster option than True Polymorph. Reincarnation is only a 5th level spell instead of a 9th level spell. The only issue is that only druids can use it and also you uh, have to be dead.
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# ? May 24, 2018 00:35 |