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I've been watching the second season of Force Grey. I'd like to see more of Joe after Jocks Machina and this. It's kind of interesting how some of the characters crossover... Brian Posehn with Force Grey and Acquisitions Inc (I've never watched a second, is this good?), Joe M. with Force Grey/CR, then like Strix is on Acquisitions Inc and Chris Perkins' show. I'd watch the full game of Force Grey, they should make it available somewhere. Or ... or is this the full game? I'm unsure of the editing process here.
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Jun 9, 2018 13:20
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Firstborn posted:I've been watching the second season of Force Grey. I'd like to see more of Joe after Jocks Machina and this. It's kind of interesting how some of the characters crossover... Brian Posehn with Force Grey and Acquisitions Inc (I've never watched a second, is this good?), Joe M. with Force Grey/CR, then like Strix is on Acquisitions Inc and Chris Perkins' show. Yeah, Force Grey is all one offs; both "series" are just one adventure split into smaller chunks. Well, technically the ToA adventure was two parts, since they had to do the journey to Omu and entering the Tomb separately. And yes, you should definitely consider watching Acq Inc and Dice, Camera, Action. Chris Perkins is a great DM.
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Jun 9, 2018 16:30
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High Rollers is also pretty good, and is kind of the missing link between full-bore AcqInc wackiness and Critical Role's melodrama. I have a little trouble with streams like DCA when the players aren't in the same room. (Anna Prosser Robinson playing a paladin as a Southern church mom was inspired though, from the episode or two I watched)
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Jun 9, 2018 17:23
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Yeah between Haste and a certain item Molly's picked up he should really just get into the fracas all the time now. Hasted Molly seems like a real beast if he's got 4 attacks and can make most of them with an enhanced weapon with a blood hunter rite on it. I'm looking forward to him being the new Vax with loads of attacks each round, but with that ability being much more effective since it won't rely on sneak attack and should get more juice out of each hit. Not Grog-level juiceiness, but some nice oomph. Taleisin's also working with a bigger hp pool than he might think he has, he doesn't have the defensive options that Zahra or Beau have but he's certainly got enough to soak hits for several rounds. I'm liking Caleb's choice of haste more and more with how many solid targets there are for it, basically everyone but Jester can get a lot out of it. Nott's the sleeper pick since she'd become able to chase down anyone with move+dash, able to keep pace with even that troll while still having an action available.
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Jun 10, 2018 03:06
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I had this argument with people last campaign but rogues are comparatively terrible picks for haste unless you need to focus on moving somewhere very quickly. They only get sneak attack once per round no matter how many attacks they get so you're better off giving haste to someone like Molly or Yasha, who don't get one really big hit but do have higher damage regular swings.
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Jun 10, 2018 04:21
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CeallaSo posted:Yeah, Force Grey is all one offs; both "series" are just one adventure split into smaller chunks. Well, technically the ToA adventure was two parts, since they had to do the journey to Omu and entering the Tomb separately. I breezed through the first DCA just because I wanted to see Strahd played and I'm the only one in my d&d group who wants to kill Draculas. I was very disappointed with the finale. It was so anticlimactic that it removed the veneer of the game being anything but an advertisement. I didn't watch the other ones, maybe it gets better. Perkins DMing his own material should've been more engaging, I'm sorry. Acq Inc I'm hesitant of just because it's probably been 15-20 years since I've found Penny Arcade funny, and that's weird to be able to say about a webcomic. I am eager to find new shows, though, so I'll try High Rollers! I listened to a Dragon Talk on my commute after saying that I liked Arkhan the Cruel, and the episode was a 30 minute interview with Joe Manginello about his character, CR S1 finale, etc. It's endearing how much he likes his character... he talked at length about how his character would've returned to the jungles with Jamilah (Deborah's character), resurrect her chieftain from the dead so that Arkhan could be worshiped as a god (???), etc. He is one of those players who has a very defined plan and history of his character even when he's not playing him, which I never really bothered with unless it was an epilogue or something. It wouldn't surprise me to find that he has played exclusively this character for years, because I cannot see how he would be this attached otherwise.
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Jun 10, 2018 04:34
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CuwiKhons posted:I had this argument with people last campaign but rogues are comparatively terrible picks for haste unless you need to focus on moving somewhere very quickly. They only get sneak attack once per round no matter how many attacks they get so you're better off giving haste to someone like Molly or Yasha, who don't get one really big hit but do have higher damage regular swings. Rogues not getting a lot of value for haste is extremely good advice, they want to use it on Molly or Yasha but actually Fjord is the safest and best choice to be given a larger damage output. A warlock wants to be just dumping eldrich blast as often as possible and since hes a Hexblade he wants to Hex -> Eldrich Blast -> Move Melee -> Double attack with second action. Big damage and he gets a spectre at the end of it from his Hexblade patron power which he can then use in case anything smashes Caleb's concentration and causes the haste to be lost. I heard Matt does a rule that lets casters cast 2 low level spells or something in campaign 1. I have no idea if thats applying to camapign 2 but Fjord firing off 2 Eldrich Blasts onto a Hex'd target then getting 2 more melee attacks is a pretty huge burst opener than gets you an extra ally if it kills something. I just got up to episode 15 and having Liam say Rogues are poo poo late game has pretty quickly confirmed to me that he's my favourite and the guy who gets how poo poo works. kingcom fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jun 10, 2018 |
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Jun 10, 2018 05:44
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They've certainly played fast and loose with haste for a long while, but as I read it you just get one weapon attack action that you can mix in, typically you're tacking it on to your attack action anyway. So I think Fjord could toss some eldritch blasts and then get in and do one attack, but Matt's pretty consistently ruled that you get the hasted attack action only if you did a weapon attack already. Basically who knows how it shakes down until Caleb decides to get Fjord in on the hastey party. Rogues are terrible for haste unless you really need to chase something down and a 60 ft. move action somehow doesn't cut it. Vax was able to basically teleport across the map just with his movement speed by constantly being hasted in campaign 1, and having Whisper was just sugar on top of sugar. When he got those paladin levels and was using oath of enmity to get advantage he basically became a supremely good mage slayer who could take down a low hp enemy very quickly (unless it was you know, Vecna) or sooner with some help. I wish Matt had thrown in a fight in the latter half of Campaign 1 that let Vax really show off how insanely effective he was at chasing down someone. I'm still traumatized from one of my party members deciding to use his rogue movement to run out of town in the middle of the biggest fight of the campaign thus far, so I kind of have "able to make sure no one can run away" as a high-value skill at the moment, certainly for most combats it's not going to be an issue.
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Jun 10, 2018 06:32
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NowonSA posted:They've certainly played fast and loose with haste for a long while, but as I read it you just get one weapon attack action that you can mix in, typically you're tacking it on to your attack action anyway. So I think Fjord could toss some eldritch blasts and then get in and do one attack, but Matt's pretty consistently ruled that you get the hasted attack action only if you did a weapon attack already. Basically who knows how it shakes down until Caleb decides to get Fjord in on the hastey party. Yeah thats fair ruling it to be 1 attack even if the extra attack is coming in from an invocation rather than the extra attack class feature but doing a spell into a melee attack is pretty explicitly something its designed to do. Maybe there some tweet somewhere contradicting that. Your cantrip scaling is designed to straight up advance like a regular attack, especially the Eldritch Blast so it would a bit odd not allowing that. The whole advantage is so you can Eldritch Smite with your one attack (assuming Fjord even picks that up) to get a little more burst damage but sucking up one of the very limited spell slots you have is a pretty big cost in general. I mean the thing is at higher levels there generally isn't a lot of opportunities where chasing someone down is really important. A lot of characters who need to run are probably going to be flying off or teleporting their way of the problem when you reach those levels. Though I guess at that point using haste as your concentration slot is probably a terribly bad idea in general. I don't really blame him if it doesnt come up. The real king mage slayer is probably a Blades/Valor bard with sentinel and dimension door as they can bring a buddy along with the jump and still lock a target down. I suppose Fjord can do the same as well but I'm not sure if he wants to lock up one of this limited slots for that when hes already gotten blink. kingcom fucked around with this message at 08:47 on Jun 10, 2018 |
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Jun 10, 2018 08:41
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CuwiKhons posted:I had this argument with people last campaign but rogues are comparatively terrible picks for haste unless you need to focus on moving somewhere very quickly. They only get sneak attack once per round no matter how many attacks they get so you're better off giving haste to someone like Molly or Yasha, who don't get one really big hit but do have higher damage regular swings. It isn't optimal, but giving Rogues a second chance at sneak attack if they whiff their only attack can pay off. Also for Critical Role you just have to accept that they make decisions based on RP or fun instead of a good understanding of DND Maths. Or you'll go crazy.
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Jun 10, 2018 14:54
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CuwiKhons posted:I had this argument with people last campaign but rogues are comparatively terrible picks for haste unless you need to focus on moving somewhere very quickly. They only get sneak attack once per round no matter how many attacks they get so you're better off giving haste to someone like Molly or Yasha, who don't get one really big hit but do have higher damage regular swings. Xae posted:It isn't optimal, but giving Rogues a second chance at sneak attack if they whiff their only attack can pay off. So, the bolded part’s 100% true — and it’s never bothered me at all. However, my inner Rogue rules lawyer has to clarify that by RAW, Rogues can get sneak attack once per turn, not per round. Meaning they can get it a second time by using their reaction on someone else’s turn, via an opportunity attack, a Battlemaster fighter’s use of Commanding Strike, or through Haste (use the Hasted Action to sneak attack on the rogue’s turn, then Ready their regular Action to sneak attack again later). I haven’t paid attention to how Matt’s ruled use of the Hasted action specifically, but I do believe at some point he became aware of the per-turn sneak attack distinction, allowing Vax and/or Nott to take advantage of that. Firstborn posted:Acq Inc I'm hesitant of just because it's probably been 15-20 years since I've found Penny Arcade funny, and that's weird to be able to say about a webcomic. I am eager to find new shows, though, so I'll try High Rollers! I’d say give Acq Inc a try—I haven’t found PA especially funny in forever either, but I often find the Acq Inc shows funny. Worth noting though is that the style of the content changes a lot over time. It started out as a real basic adventure, basically an opportunity for Perkins to promote a play test of 4e with a group with a range of experience (Jerry was a regular player, Scott hadn’t played in years, and Mike had never touched a TTRPG). Those sessions sound more like listening in on an actual play session. Then they started doing live shows at PAX, which 1) get progressively more loosey-goosey with the rules, 2) tend to be really a single big set piece, and 3) start rotating in guest players, which might help or not. There’s also Acq Inc C-Team, which is a weekly Twitch stream of Jerry from PA DMing another group. I really like that group; Jerry’s DMing style is usually fine but occasionally inches into annoying for me. Here’s a link to some pretty cool, short fan animations from that campaign to give a taste. escalator dropdown fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jun 10, 2018 |
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Jun 10, 2018 16:24
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escalator dropdown posted:So, the bolded part’s 100% true — and it’s never bothered me at all. Edit: I need to read better.
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Jun 10, 2018 16:52
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So I've purposefully not read much outside the OP for spoiler reasons but as someone who strongly prefers to pick a starting point and go rather than picking piecemeal - is starting with Campaign 2 better for a new watcher? I hear a whole lot of "season 1 doesn't get going for a while" which for a series with 3 hour episodes sounds iffy to me.
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Jun 10, 2018 20:20
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TXT BOOTY7 2 47474 posted:So I've purposefully not read much outside the OP for spoiler reasons but as someone who strongly prefers to pick a starting point and go rather than picking piecemeal - is starting with Campaign 2 better for a new watcher? I hear a whole lot of "season 1 doesn't get going for a while" which for a series with 3 hour episodes sounds iffy to me. FWIW I'm also a new watcher (as of when C2: E8 was the most recent thing), went through all of C2 and then back to C1 to mitigate the shakes between episodes. I picked up C1 at episode 27 - the last with Orion - and had no trouble picking up the background and characters of C1. I would recommend going to Ep. 28 though since Ep. 27 is just painful to watch as Orion completes his self-destruct.
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Jun 10, 2018 20:46
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Depending on how much of Orion you can stomach, you could also start on Episode 24 because that's what begins the Briarwood arc.
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Jun 10, 2018 21:31
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the last full episode he's on is the most awkward thing you will ever watch though
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Jun 10, 2018 21:36
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The last full episode with him is fortunately one you can skip as very little in the way of plot happens (they leave Emon and start heading to Whitestone) because Orion takes up 90% of the episode to piss everyone off doing his own garbage that won't ultimately be relevant. Generally I say people should start with either Trial of the Take if they don't know if the show is for them, or if they do know they want to watch but don't want to deal with the unimportant first arc, do what Chitoryu suggested and jump to Episode 24 for the start of the next real arc. That said, starting with Campaign 2 is a very good introduction to what the show will become in terms of production quality and smooth interactions. I recommend it if only so you can see how far they've come since Campaign 1, Episode 1. Plus it's just a natural jumping in point and there are very few callbacks to Campaign 1 so far.
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Jun 10, 2018 22:16
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I liked starting with the beginning well enough, the underdark arc was fun and Tiberius isn't too bad at this point. I'm currently in the Trial of the Take where the first half has Felicia Day and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn guest starring. I'm in no hurry to get through the first season though now that I'm caught up on season 2.
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Jun 10, 2018 22:50
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I started watching about midway through S1 or so, and because of it I can't really go back and stomach Orion eps since even when he's mostly being "good" it's just such a weird vibe to me seeing him there. For that reason I think if you want to maximize your CR viewing just start at episode 1 since for me personally it's hard to be back to the early stuff, which is a shame since I watched the early episodes to varying degrees and there's definitely fun stuff in there, Clarota is a really fun NPC for instance. Conversely, for the people who see the hundreds of hours of content as daunting, just skip to the first non-Orion ep and go from there, or even skip past the Briarwood arc entirely since even though it's cool stuff starts blowing up all over the place soon after it, and it's hard not to be hooked by that.
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Jun 11, 2018 00:17
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bagrada posted:I liked starting with the beginning well enough, the underdark arc was fun and Tiberius isn't too bad at this point. I'm currently in the Trial of the Take where the first half has Felicia Day and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn guest starring. I'm in no hurry to get through the first season though now that I'm caught up on season 2. It's a lot of fun seeing Mary in that arc and then seeing her in Sam's one-shot a few months ago where she was apparently pretty much playing the character she runs in her home game and seeing how far she's come and how fearless she got very quickly. The idea of 'wild magic is an alternate personality that's a loud Noo Joisey rear end in a top hat' is AMAZING
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Jun 11, 2018 00:59
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Or just watch the highlight videos that half a dozen accounts put up. That's what I did, so now I get the in jokes even though I don't have the time to spare to watch the original campaign.
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Jun 11, 2018 02:36
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Blockhouse posted:the last full episode he's on is the most awkward thing you will ever watch though Which episode is this, I need to see it.
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Jun 11, 2018 03:16
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kingcom posted:Which episode is this, I need to see it. C:1, E:27 It's not fun awkward though. Travis looks about ready to punch him at times.
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Jun 11, 2018 03:19
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Hulk Smash! posted:C:1, E:27 they all do it's rare footage of matt actually being mad
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Jun 11, 2018 03:24
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I am on season 1 episode 11. Clarota is my favorite
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Jun 11, 2018 03:27
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I kinda feel bad about everyone else when it comes to Orion, because he was part of the original group when they were just friends playing D&D for fun. And then he let his drug problems and crazy override everything else until he got booted out, and now he's burned so many bridges I don't think most of the cast even talks to him any more. I think it's worse than it ordinarily would be because the cast is extremely close friends that hang out all the time outside of Critical Role, and Orion used to be part of that. His leaving is a lot more personal than a guy simply getting fired from a TV show.
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Jun 11, 2018 03:46
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chitoryu12 posted:I kinda feel bad about everyone else when it comes to Orion, because he was part of the original group when they were just friends playing D&D for fun. And then he let his drug problems and crazy override everything else until he got booted out, and now he's burned so many bridges I don't think most of the cast even talks to him any more. It's kinda amazing how the episodes after Orion leaves are so much... better. Lighter. Enjoyable.
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Jun 11, 2018 03:49
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chitoryu12 posted:I kinda feel bad about everyone else when it comes to Orion, because he was part of the original group when they were just friends playing D&D for fun. And then he let his drug problems and crazy override everything else until he got booted out, and now he's burned so many bridges I don't think most of the cast even talks to him any more. Oh its genuinely heartbreaking to see something like that happen but that episode where one guy spends 2 hours doing poo poo and Travis is dying on the inside from all of this is the most realistic game of D&D you'll ever see so in terms of a historical perspective its insanely good to have something like this recorded for posterity. Having someone just dismantled and removed from a social circle because of a tabletop RPG is an extremely common occurrence. kingcom fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Jun 12, 2018 |
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Jun 11, 2018 03:50
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Teddybear posted:It's kinda amazing how the episodes after Orion leaves are so much... better. Lighter. Enjoyable. And it's still sad that he has to leave, because the big reason I watch Critical Role is the people behind it. All of the actors are incredibly charismatic and kind people who genuinely love the show and interacting with fans, and they do a good job of really making Critters feel like their acquaintances tuning in to watch them have fun. The last episode of the first season is one of the most tearjerking things I've ever seen because of the endless amounts of real emotion pouring out during it. Orion was clearly close to them, and his slow breakdown over the course of the first quarter of the campaign is accompanied by the reactions of his friends. Though at this point, I'm not sure if I could really see the party being any different than it is now. Not unless they feel like hiring Troy Baker.
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Jun 11, 2018 04:00
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Yay a thread! A few times Percy came real close to being Orion 2.0 for me, his character was too self-important and bloviating at times. I think the worst was when he tried to hatch a Rube-Goldberg plan to get Raishan into the anti-magic field under Whitestone and Sam incredulously repeated it back to him. But this was back when I was first binging it, I really like all the characters more or less. The show is a highlight of my week. Is it Thursday yet?
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Jun 11, 2018 22:30
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Raishan was actually in the anti-magic field at one point wasn't she? I distinctly remember Matt describing a green dragon curled up uncomfortably in the ziggurat and I could never loving figure out how she even got down there, or got back out. Percy's plan was stupid but she did manage to get down there once and god only knows how.
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Jun 12, 2018 00:55
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Kraps posted:A few times Percy came real close to being Orion 2.0 for me, his character was too self-important and bloviating at times. I think the worst was when he tried to hatch a Rube-Goldberg plan to get Raishan into the anti-magic field under Whitestone and Sam incredulously repeated it back to him. The trick to this is that he knew Percy would be viewed that way and didn't get weird when questioned about it
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Jun 12, 2018 01:05
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Yeah Percy was supposed to be, to paraphraseTaliesin, a bad person who presents as a better one.
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Jun 12, 2018 01:10
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It's also a good show of one of Matt's strengths as a DM: He'll roll with whatever weird idea or gimmick you have in mind for your character up to a reasonable point. He'll meet you halfway, which means that when he says "No, that won't work" you should just nod and go "OK, better luck next time". Percy would come up with these elaborate contraptions and about 70% of the time Matt would be OK with it, as long he rolled well, 20% of the time he'd force Taliesen to tweak the idea to make it less OP or ludicrous, and 10% of the time he'd go "No, you can't turn coal into industrial diamonds in a hole in the woods, dumbass".
Gaz-L fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Jun 12, 2018 |
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Jun 12, 2018 02:39
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Gaz-L posted:It's also a good show of one of Matt's strengths as a DM: He'll roll with whatever weird idea or gimmick you have in mind for your character up to a reasonable point. He'll meet you halfway, which means that when he says "No, that won't work" you should just nod and go "OK, better luck next time". Percy would come up with these elaborate contraptions and about 70% of the time Matt would be OK with it, as long he rolled well, 20% of the time he'd force Taliesen to tweak the idea to make it less OP or ludicrous, and 10% of the time he'd go "No, you can't turn coal into industrial diamonds in a hole in the woods, dumbass". The Percy/Taliesin ridiculousness that immediately comes to my mind is from episode 99, where Taliesin asks whether he would have the materials on him to make explosives, because an ingredient in dynamite is diatomaceous earth, which can also be used as dehydrating insecticide, so could he rig that up to kill a ton of ankhegs hidden in a sinkhole? Then Pike casts Earthquake and collapses the sinkhole, then Firestorm to kill all the ankhegs that crawl up to the surface, solving the problem instantly. escalator dropdown fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jun 12, 2018 |
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Jun 12, 2018 04:19
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CuwiKhons posted:Raishan was actually in the anti-magic field at one point wasn't she? I distinctly remember Matt describing a green dragon curled up uncomfortably in the ziggurat and I could never loving figure out how she even got down there, or got back out. Percy's plan was stupid but she did manage to get down there once and god only knows how. Yeah, this was before that when they were trying to feverishly come up with plans to kill her.
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Jun 12, 2018 05:07
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What's the M9's next plan? Heading to the next place the Gentleman sent them? I'm still not used to CR not having an overarching world (Conclave, Vecna) or personal (Aramente, Hell) quest.
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Jun 12, 2018 15:15
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Up until the dragons showed up in campaign 1, they were basically just bouncing around each other's backstories until enough world building plot occurred to give them the meta plot for the rest of the campaign that lead to Vecna. I imagine it'll be the same this time around, only we'll get to spend more time with them bouncing through their backstories since this starts at level 2, not ~8-9 or wherever the underdark started, can't remember off hand.
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Jun 12, 2018 15:33
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Yeah, I think the reason I'm not really agreeing with some of the criticism is that the first campaign picked up after something like a year or two of private gaming. They had already gone through their own backstories and become close companions in private and we were catching up to them in the middle of their adventuring. The Mighty Nein is a brand new group that we're seeing form and slowly turn into BFFs from the ground up. You can't really expect that kind of group to instantly have the in-character companionship and trust that Vox Machina had for most of our time seeing them. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Jun 12, 2018 |
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Jun 12, 2018 15:41
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Literally the first episode of the stream was them on a quest to do a solid for one of their groups NPC BFFs. They had been together long enough to not only gel together but to pick up a social network of NPC allies. Then when that is done, they go do a shopping run and we get to meet their other BFF Gilmore and see his Glorious Goods. This time we get to watch them meet Alura and Gilmore et al for the first time. So basically I'm agreeing with you.
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Jun 12, 2018 15:47
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