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Bad Seafood posted:Got a bit sidelined last week (and this week); finally sat down and listened to episode 21. Good times - venom troll's a monster I might have to use in the future - but I've gotta say I have no idea what Beau was thinking with that altercation with Caleb. Dude's concerns were clear and reasonable, She explained it on Talks, her reasoning was M9 aren't Vox Machina, they're not do-gooders out to protect people from the the evils of Tiamat or whatever, they're a bunch of assholes there to do a job and it had nothing to do with the bowl. Tiamat is someone else's problem and keeping the bowl was going to put them in more danger.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 08:38 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 12:41 |
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That poison troll reminded me how much I like monsters that present puzzles to be solved and not just things to be beaten down. We've seen a lot more of that in this campaign than in campaign 1 already with the carpet, will o' the wisps, and now the troll all requiring battle methods beyond "beat it up a lot" and that's actually upped the fight difficulty a lot with both the carpet and troll nearly resulting in a death, and the wisps were pretty nasty too. It's pretty remarkable that despite none of the players being perfect d&d machines always optimizing their turns and spells they've managed to make it through some challenging encounters. The best example of a spell they don't use to it's full potential to me is Nott's hideous laughter connections always immediately being followed up with an attack instead of everyone waiting a round (or using held actions, even better) to effectively treat it as a "stun" effect. At first I was too much in that "optimize everything" dnd mindset to enjoy it, but hey Nott hasn't explained how that poo poo works to anyone and by all appearances Sam doesn't know either, so it becomes a crazy trick that Nott sometimes throws out there to varying degrees of effectiveness. It's starting to help me get into the "this is rapid-fire combat" mindset too, and it also shows how well they can resist metagaming since a spell like that is just perfect metagaming bait if you know how it works, though I'd say it's about 50/50 in terms of who at the table actually has that immediately in mind, probably even lower since I'd only put it at Liam for sure, Taleisin as a "probably knows" and everyone else as "probably doesn't know." There's more tension in the encounters now too since they aren't all combat experts, they're low level, and Matt keeps coming up with crazy stuff to throw at them. No easy revives on the table either, so death's a proper threat, and even when they have the revivify diamonds that one-minute or less timer can become a real issue, or multiple people could get killed, or Jester might just not have a level 3 slot lying around then if it's late into a fight. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jun 14, 2018 |
# ? Jun 14, 2018 09:00 |
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I think if they get a couple of diamonds, then Laura would likely keep the Pearl of Power as an emergency rez source.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 14:49 |
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Also per Talks, Jester will only cast Revivify on someone who bought their own diamond for it.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 14:53 |
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Vex goes to do a cool Robin Hood shot to shut down a trap. Gets 35. Matt describes the cool way her shot moves. Tiberius: I cast telekinesis Everyone: gently caress off she rolled a 35 why are you taking this from her? gently caress tiberius
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 16:04 |
RC Cola posted:Vex goes to do a cool Robin Hood shot to shut down a trap. Gets 35. Matt describes the cool way her shot moves. Why did he do that?
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 16:07 |
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chitoryu12 posted:Why did he do that? He's an egomaniacal dipshit.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 16:09 |
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Teddybear posted:He's an egomaniacal dipshit.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 16:22 |
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Gaz-L posted:I think if they get a couple of diamonds, then Laura would likely keep the Pearl of Power as an emergency rez source. Probably, but it does really make me wonder what their plan is for when Laura's off being a mom and all. In C1, Pike being gone for extended periods wasn't really a big deal because other people had healing spells, which they seem to put a lot of stock in to the point that Laura outright called Healing Word the worst spell for it despite it being objectively the best. Here, it seems to be all up to Jester.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 16:23 |
Dragonatrix posted:Probably, but it does really make me wonder what their plan is for when Laura's off being a mom and all. In C1, Pike being gone for extended periods wasn't really a big deal because other people had healing spells, which they seem to put a lot of stock in to the point that Laura outright called Healing Word the worst spell for it despite it being objectively the best. Here, it seems to be all up to Jester. Bring the baby to the game.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 16:54 |
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RC Cola posted:Vex goes to do a cool Robin Hood shot to shut down a trap. Gets 35. Matt describes the cool way her shot moves. I watched this live and this was the exact moment I turned around on Orion and disliked him all the way to the end.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 17:03 |
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Warm Woolen Pants posted:I watched this live and this was the exact moment I turned around on Orion and disliked him all the way to the end. I just listened and didn't watch. What was the rest of the cast's reactions?
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 17:15 |
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Exasperated but still willing to give him some benefit even if they were really annoyed. But you could tell their patience with him was getting pretty strained to the point of breaking. Edit: to clarify, it was awkward as hell. Like stumbling into a friend fight when you only kind of know the group and only signed up for some couch co-op. Dameius fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Jun 14, 2018 |
# ? Jun 14, 2018 17:17 |
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Dameius posted:Exasperated but still willing to give him some benefit even if they were really annoyed. But you could tell their patience with him was getting pretty strained to the point of breaking. How many times did he say he was doing something, Matt said "nope, you have to do it this way," and then he said "OK then I'm not doing that?" Although I have to admit seeing a party go through a long campaign without any sort of Sorcerer/Wizard arcane firepower (outside of Scanlan's bard spell list) was interesting. There were a lot of creative uses for the bard/cleric/druid/ranger spell lists that you normally wouldn't see beyond "PLAYER MAKES BIG BOOM!"
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 17:32 |
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If you really want to see a DM give up on someone, the moment Matt realizes Orion has been cheating through selective misunderstanding of his spell ring is painful to watch.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 17:43 |
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The ring of spell storing saga was horrifying to watch.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 17:45 |
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Dameius posted:If you really want to see a DM give up on someone, the moment Matt realizes Orion has been cheating through selective misunderstanding of his spell ring is painful to watch. What episode is that? Also I feel like they explained how it actually works at some point out loud
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 18:04 |
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I missed a lot of Orion's bullshit because I tend to watch while doing something else but I remember rolling my eyes into the back of my head when he tried to use telekinesis to invent a cloud of daggers that cuts someone's wings off. Matt leans more toward rolling with wacky narrative tricks than I do and that's fine, but I really don't think that one deserved the benefit of the doubt.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 18:34 |
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RC Cola posted:What episode is that? Also I feel like they explained how it actually works at some point out loud https://youtu.be/zGaISHs2s7Q?t=13303 Episode 21, the Slayer's Take storyline with Wil Wheaton and Will Friedle. I believe it's the only time in both seasons I've ever seen Matt get upset. Frustrated yes, and he plays it off by saying "Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons" once it's been explained, but when you've managed to piss off the human teddy bear known as Matt Mercer...
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 18:34 |
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CobiWann posted:https://youtu.be/zGaISHs2s7Q?t=13303 Just watched that clip. That's brutal and there is no way a power gamer like him wouldn't know that. Also the telekinesis daggers was dumb. You can move one thing a turn dickweed
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 20:32 |
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Remember when Tiberius murdered that old woman?
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 20:46 |
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This all just reminds me of how the Trial of the Take was so much better on the Vex/Scanlan/Grog/Percy team than it was the Vax/Keyleth/Tiberius team. Mary McGlynn and Felicia Day were perfect additions to that group.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 20:57 |
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CobiWann posted:https://youtu.be/zGaISHs2s7Q?t=13303 Between this clip and all the posts, it really reinforces my total lack of desire to go back and watch early campaign 1. I started at episode 38 or 39 (basically going straight into the Chroma Conclave arc at the end of ep 39 and felt like it was narratively a good spot to start, but then again others might have a higher tolerance for Orion trainwreck stuff than me.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 20:58 |
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Malpais Legate posted:This all just reminds me of how the Trial of the Take was so much better on the Vex/Scanlan/Grog/Percy team than it was the Vax/Keyleth/Tiberius team. Those two episodes are some of my "occasionally go back and watch when bored" episodes. They were just so drat FUN.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 21:04 |
I'm watching on the 4th Trial of the Take episode now and have to agree the first two were much more fun. Wil and Will both kind of play assholes, and Vax starts off that way upset about being split up from his sister but quickly realizes that won't really work with this group dynamic. There's some good moments in the episodes but its overshadowed by Orion doing Orion, Wheaton's dice roll melodrama (which I got enough of on his tabletop show after binging through that last summer), and the team's failure to notice the obvious many, many times (trap door under bed, trap sigils flanking the acid hallway, a party member slowly bleeding out on the floor over several turns, and Matt's escalating hints to Will that he should use turn undead on the ghosts so there isn't a TPK. I was waiting for the ghosts to come back while they sat around feasting and resting after spooking them off... I found it worth a watch though as Matt comes up with some ways to punish Orion (slipping in the poo poo to fall off his pillar after boosting out of melee range to avoid a short range cast penalty and having his fly spells instantly fail as they are still in an antimagic field), and the faint cry of despair from the gang not playing as they watch delayed in the other room and realize the flying carpet lost its enchantment. Dunno if spoilers are needed above, but just in case I guess.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 21:22 |
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There are really good episodes in the early stream and Orion even manages to have good moments. But because it does end up the way it does, it's worth knowing what is going to go down before you do watch them. Really, if you don't have the highest tolerance for Orion, I'd recommend just skipping his last episode and reading the CR wiki summary of the episode instead. Since I came in so early, I have seen the first 20 or so epsiodes multiple times because they were background while I worked tickets at work at the time and you really do miss out on some good content by jumping way ahead. That said, if you don't care that much and you don't have the time to watch all of it, jumping in past Orion works too.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 21:56 |
bagrada posted:and the faint cry of despair from the gang not playing as they watch delayed in the other room and realize the flying carpet lost its enchantment. That's the best part of the episode. Just the distant Laura screaming. CobiWann posted:https://youtu.be/zGaISHs2s7Q?t=13303 That's incredibly painful, and it's definitely not just Matt who's getting aggravated.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 22:22 |
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bagrada posted:I'm watching on the 4th Trial of the Take episode now and have to agree the first two were much more fun. Wil and Will both kind of play assholes, and Vax starts off that way upset about being split up from his sister but quickly realizes that won't really work with this group dynamic. There's some good moments in the episodes but its overshadowed by Orion doing Orion, Wheaton's dice roll melodrama (which I got enough of on his tabletop show after binging through that last summer), and the team's failure to notice the obvious many, many times (trap door under bed, trap sigils flanking the acid hallway, a party member slowly bleeding out on the floor over several turns, and Matt's escalating hints to Will that he should use turn undead on the ghosts so there isn't a TPK. I was waiting for the ghosts to come back while they sat around feasting and resting after spooking them off... In Will Friedle's defense, it was his first time ever playing D&D so forgetting he had Turn Undead as a cleric isn't that surprising. It is a little outrageous that not one other person in his highly experienced party thought to mention it to him though.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 23:04 |
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In episode 25 when they are running to the Briarwoods' room Orion whispers something to Marisha and she audibly responds "no, because I don't metagame, like some people". I REALLY want to know what he said because that is such a strong reaction. Orion bad.
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 00:04 |
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Kraps posted:In episode 25 when they are running to the Briarwoods' room Orion whispers something to Marisha and she audibly responds "no, because I don't metagame, like some people". I REALLY want to know what he said because that is such a strong reaction. Orion bad. I don't know what he said but I do know that like everyone had guessed that Sylas was a vampire at that point but there hadn't been any observable evidence by the party except for Vax. Orion started charging his decanter of endless water before they ever reached the room so he was clearly already plotting for a vampire at that point. Maybe Orion asked if she had Sunbeam prepped?
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 00:24 |
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CuwiKhons posted:I don't know what he said but I do know that like everyone had guessed that Sylas was a vampire at that point but there hadn't been any observable evidence by the party except for Vax. Orion started charging his decanter of endless water before they ever reached the room so he was clearly already plotting for a vampire at that point. Maybe Orion asked if she had Sunbeam prepped? To be fair, if my DM told me the villains of this game were a pair of affluent lesser nobles who were weirdly young looking while being very polite and charismatic I'd just kinda assume vampire and any character I've made with average intelligence would also assume that
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 01:04 |
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DarklyDreaming posted:To be fair, if my DM told me the villains of this game were a pair of affluent lesser nobles who were weirdly young looking while being very polite and charismatic I'd just kinda assume vampire and any character I've made with average intelligence would also assume that Yeah thats a giant neon sign for VAMPIRE AND/OR DRAGON right there.
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 01:41 |
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DarklyDreaming posted:To be fair, if my DM told me the villains of this game were a pair of affluent lesser nobles who were weirdly young looking while being very polite and charismatic I'd just kinda assume vampire and any character I've made with average intelligence would also assume that Yeah but the point is that's metagaming and at that point the only thing they knew about the Briarwoods were that they'd killed Percy's family and they'd had a very polite dinner with them and the rest of the Emon royalty. Everything about them screamed vampire to the players who are familiar with vampire literature and movies and whatnot, but in game they were just murderous, lying assholes. Semi-related, I loved that Delilah actually wasn't a vampire herself. After finding out Sylas was definitely a vampire, Vox Machina spent ages trying to figure out what Delilah was. Turns out she's just a stone cold bitch.
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 02:00 |
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CuwiKhons posted:Yeah but the point is that's metagaming and at that point the only thing they knew about the Briarwoods were that they'd killed Percy's family and they'd had a very polite dinner with them and the rest of the Emon royalty. Everything about them screamed vampire to the players who are familiar with vampire literature and movies and whatnot, but in game they were just murderous, lying assholes. And I'll admit that too, the part where it becomes metagaming is when you have your character whip out their trusty silver dagger unprompted (Which Orion totally did in that scene, even if it wasn't an actual silver dagger but a particular spell) It's way more fun for everyone if your character says "I'm thinking vampires? Maybe. I'm prepping for vampires" Before the reveal. Gives everyone a chance to draw their own conclusions
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 02:41 |
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I don't hate metagaming with the rabid hard on that most of the CR reddit does (seriously, they're awful) but there's different kinds of metagaming and Orion did the bad kind. It's metagaming for Jester to know "Hey, I should talk to this stinky guy in the bar and invite him along with us because I know that's really Liam's new character" and it's metagaming for Caleb to go "Yeah I'll go with these loving weirdo strangers and journey with them indefinitely despite wanting to be left alone and stay low key because otherwise I'm not in this game anymore." If they don't do those things then there's no party and the game can't continue. Orion's style of metagaming was "I know beholders have lair actions so I refuse to even go into the temple to fight K'varn even though that's extremely esoteric knowledge that Tiberius couldn't possibly know." It's kind of impossible not to metagame at least a little bit. But it's definitely possible to not be a huge dick about it. CuwiKhons fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Jun 15, 2018 |
# ? Jun 15, 2018 02:48 |
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Oh my god that surprise sketchbook is the sweetest thing-- I can't wait to see what stuff's in there!
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 03:07 |
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CuwiKhons posted:I don't hate metagaming with the rabid hard on that most of the CR reddit does (seriously, they're awful) but there's different kinds of metagaming and Orion did the bad kind. It's metagaming for Jester to know "Hey, I should talk to this stinky guy in the bar and invite him along with us because I know that's really Liam's new character" and it's metagaming for Caleb to go "Yeah I'll go with these loving weirdo strangers and journey with them indefinitely despite wanting to be left alone and stay low key because otherwise I'm not in this game anymore." If they don't do those things then there's no party and the game can't continue. So heres a thing I've discovered from experience, people who complain about metagaming are basically the worst people to play games with and yeah about 5 seconds into the frankly awful CR reddit reinforces that. When you are playing D&D and fighting with extremely iconic and universally known monsters it basically requires you to be completely idiotic to avoid all largerly knowledge. On top of that if you are actually operating in a world with magic and monsters and adventurers, there are probably as many stories as in the real world that talks about what a vampire is and what a beholder is. A lot of D&D's systems are about abstracting things you would know as a mechanic. It's why its always weird not to know the hp or at least rough health of a monster because you, as an adventurer can probably tell when something is looking rough. It's when you hear "a pair of affluent lesser nobles who were weirdly young looking while being very polite and charismatic" you assume vampire because thats the stories we know, would adventures not know about vampires? Would they not know the stereotypical stories? Would they not know a beholder shoots laser beams at you? Hell you probably even know that beholders have weird magic aura that messes up their lair, it why they look all chaotic and covered in organic compounds instead of being just a cave. Hell even if the player had opened up the Monster Manual and looked it up and knew specifically what ability it had and for some reason I was using a stock monster, none of that is bad. What is bad is the difference between an rear end in a top hat and a good player. Both can 'metagame' an equal amount and be fine, a good player will use this and say to the party 'hey those guys really sound like vampires, should i buy some stakes and holy water just in case?' or 'hey beholders have lots of weird ambient magics don't they? Maybe we should come up with a plan to deal with that or investigate exactly what it is before we all go in?' These make the game more enjoyable and engaging, you've created a journey and a path that everyone can engage in and helped further the story because of your metagame knowledge An rear end in a top hat will try to hand down hard and fast decisions,actions or ultimatums to the party based on this knowledge, 'we must all get holy water now to fight this vampire, this beholder is going to have a lair effect that will cause us to have a lower wisdom save so im not going in there and we must go somewhere else'. It locks down the next choice of actions for the group and quickly shafts other peoples decision making. The problem is rarely if ever metagaming itself, its usually because you have an rear end in a top hat. Just like the person loudly complaining about someone metagaming because how could their character know pale aristocrat could possible be a vampire is going to absolutely kill the enthusiasm of a room, that person is also an rear end in a top hat.
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 03:50 |
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Their attempts at persuading this poor woman is giving me life. Edit: YES! I was hoping she'd use sending for this Keru fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jun 15, 2018 |
# ? Jun 15, 2018 04:45 |
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I missed a lot of Orion's bullshit because I tend to watch while doing something else but I remember rolling my eyes into the back of my head when he tried to use telekinesis to invent a cloud of daggers that cuts someone's wings off. Matt leans more toward rolling with wacky narrative tricks than I do and that's fine, but I really don't think that one deserved the benefit of the doubt. That one is definitely a high point in my "Orion is just the worst kind of player" list, partly because it stands out to me and partly because I've forgotten or maybe didn't even see so much of his other bs. Rewatching the clip of the ring of spell-storing stuff is really amazing though, and it's a drat good summary of why Orion was pretty lame and how easy it is to get on the hate train. In the span of literally one minute you have the grave willful misunderstanding of an item, spell, or mechanic, you have Matt super frustrated at best and properly upset more likely, and then Orion does just this perfect angry waving of his hand and staredown at Matt while Matt looks up counterspell on his phone. It's just like a blatant thing of him basically trying to throw this counterspell at Matt in pure nerd rage while Matt just completely misses it (just after 3:42:10 on the youtube video).
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 07:43 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 12:41 |
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I just plain didn't understand what the hell he was doing during the Xvarr fight. I assumed he wanted to try something but going in and blowing up the big bad is surely the point? Not floating around outside going "wibbly".
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# ? Jun 15, 2018 08:26 |