Critical Role thread?

pretty clutch feeble mind

>>51434871
When will Marisha die in a fire? She alone makes the stream nearly unwatchable.

>>51434871
>>51435963
I don't think they'd have made it if Feeblemind didn't go off. Matt looked a bit miffed, but he burned all those resistances on just maintaining concentration, so she definitely deserved getting blown up by a big spell. And Kerrek getting the finishing blow was highly amusing. Raishan ends up dying a dumb beast. If only Marisha's autistic screeching didn't undermine an otherwise tremendous episode.

>>51434871
>tfw not even worried about Scanlan coming back

Barring Sam just saying "No" he's pretty much not gonna stay dead ever. None of them are. Hate how little tension there is with that now.

>>51436822
Funny how resurrection rules change before a major fight in which character death is highly likely to occur. Funny how those rules reduce the DCs of resurrection to something actually possible for characters that have already died multiple times.

Still, adding any element of RNG to resurrection is a big deal. Even a 5% chance of failure is a significant difference from the way resurrection works normally. Though, there's always the possibility that those rolls may be fudged for the sake of a narrative.

>>51434871
how can one person be so terrible

>>51436793
this, even when Scanlan was dead, Kima and Alura were stranded out in the ocean and Keyleth sees them she somehow makes it about herself

I don't think she even does it on purpose

>>51436822
I don't think Scanlan will want to come back

>>51437033
>I don't think Scanlan will want to come back

His big character arc at the moment is that he isn't supposed to die. Also, I think Sam has too much fun playing Scanlan to give up and start over. Right now he's the most interesting character on the squad anyways

>>51434871
I get that this is /tg/ related but what is there to say that hasn't already been said?

>>51436793
I'm just watching the episodes leading up to Thordak and fucking christ she's just so shit when she tries to actually roleplay
Like legitimately incoherent rambling 99%

>>51435963
Total TPK without it. Still had Prismatic Spray, another few legendary Dispel Magics and she'd have a full-effectiveness breath weapon. Hell, there was nothing stopping her from just turning invisible again.

If nothing else, this is evidence Matt doesn't hold back in combat, at least when the enemy has a reason to play smart. Opening up with a hundred damage to everyone in the party, followed by a Disintegrate at the healer.

this show is becoming more and more shit the longer it goes honestly

>>51434871
>want to start watching critical role
>80 episodes, I can do this
>each is 4+ hours long
fuck.

How much will I miss if I just start watching at the most recent?

>>51437358
>Right now he's the most interesting character on the squad anyways
yup, scanlan and grog are basically the only reason i still watch this show

>>51436813
The dragon was getting into position to fire off a Prismatic Spray on their backline when the Feeblemind hit. If she succeeded in casting it it was almost certainly going to be a TPK, especially after their main arcane spellcaster died after eating a Meteor Swarm to the face and then got smacked around like a rag doll.

The dragon had to blow its Legendary Resistances though to keep up the Greater Invisibility concentration, otherwise the dps folks were going to unload on her.

I'm pretty sure her CR was around 25 or 26, which for a party of mostly level 16 and 17s is pretty lethal.

The fact that the random level 7 ally got the killing blow is mind boggling, but made for a great roleplay moment.

I also feel that the Nat 20 to spot Allura and Kima wasn't enough, and that it had to be a DC 30 skill check, which Keyleth barely made, thanks to a high Wisdom modifier and being proficient in Perception.

>>51437431
Nothing of value. Except for those 4+ hours.

>>51437405
>If nothing else, this is evidence Matt doesn't hold back in combat
you know those moments are mega scripted right?

>>51437431
Start with episode 24 or 25, you skip most of the growing pains and the first arc for stream, and pick up at the beginning of the Briarwood arc, probably the best arc in the show up to this point in time.

>>51437431
your better off just picking a story arch and watching it. matt has been bringing back old characters recently though

he dragon arc is WAY too long imo. after the third 4 hour long fight i didnt really care much anymore

>>51437431
Start at the Briarwood Arc, around ep 22-24 or so. Orion Acaba leaves the show around then and things pick up immensely.

You won't miss much that way

>>51437498
Honestly probably the only episodes before the Briarwood arc that are worth watching are the big fight against the Beholder, and the Trial of the Take episodes.

Mary plays an awesome Tiefling Warlock, which makes up for Felicia's horrible Human Wizard (what makes it so bad is that Felicia is playing the character as someone that should be just utterly hated, and it's not hard to hate this character).

Will Friedle plays an awesome Human Cleric, who goes for the cliche 'special snowflake' (which is fine because this is his first character period) but then throws in about 10 tons of straight deadpan sarcasm. Wil Wheaton has normal Wheaton luck, but it's still mostly entertaining, even if he gets on your nerves sometimes.

>>51437520
I'm pretty sure the cast and Matt are sick of the dragon arc, and are going to be happy it's all over with when it's all said and done. There were some good moments along the way, but holy fuck does it drag a ton in the middle, when they are literally unable to get any downtime to work on side stuff or even do something as simple as brew a healing potion because of the ever present threat of dragons vaporizing the last city on the continent.

>>51437573
god i forgot wheaton was in this show, i fucking hate him. they guy is just such a faggot

Also is anyone else starting to get pissed about the shit ton of technical issues constantly?

>>51437618
luckily it was only like 2 or 3 episodes. I skipped them because I can't stand him or felicia

>>51437634
They've had to replace their tech crew two or three times since the show started, and basically every time they've done so it's been plagued by about 10-15 episodes of technical issues every now and again.

The latest issues are because they got rid of most of the old tech crew almost literally right when the holiday break occurred, because the parent company doesn't want to pay people the amount they actually deserve to be paid.

>>51437667
Why have they replaced it previously? Isn't the parent company just them?

>>51437731
nah they got bought by some company a while back, cant remember the name but im sure google will

>>51437731
They used to be a proprietary company owned by Felicia Day and a couple other people, before they sold it to Legendary (which was around the time the first tech team left to do their own RPG channel).

This more recent departure (I think) was because Legendary are cheap assholes and don't want to pay the staff enough money to do their job.

>>51437599
The "dragon threat" was never that bad. They weren't really on a time clock, and the dragons all kind of set up shop and sat around and waited for the party to come kill them.

It really didn't make any sense. Apparently, there are no standing armies ready to repel giant magical beasts, which is odd since it's a fuckin high magic world and the party is constantly encountering such threats.

I mean sure, the king dies, so naturally there's going to be panic and tumult, but the other cities really had NOTHING in their back pockets? Dragons attack the capital and everyone just says "fuck it, guess we worship dragons now lul".

I feel like the show is big enough now that Matt should at least be bouncing some ideas off of another guy or two just to avoid the plot holes. His world is only getting bigger and harder to manage

>>51437847
Most of Emon's standing army was in Singorn (the big elf city) for military drills when the dragons showed up, and instead of sticking around the Singorn high council bamfed the city and the army out to the Feywild to protect it's citizens because all the dragons were going to attack them (a tactic they've done before whenever similar things have happened).

>>51437987
I'm just nitpicking, but it still feels really flimsy to me.

it's of course never going to be perfect as magic and monsters tend to fuck up everything, but in my mind, the scale of things just doesn't match up.

>>51437484
>you know those moments are mega scripted right?
>He still thinks it's scripted
>He doesn't know about actors and improv

>>51438144
I think you mean
>he's never roleplayed before

>>51437358
Sam Riegel's twitter has me doubting

>>51436978
Matt has gone on record that the player has the ultimate say on whether the character even wants to come back at all. If Taliesin had said preemptively "No, Percy's tired and done" then no roll would have been high enough.

>>51437987
>>51437847
My headcanon is that "Draconia" was never powerful at all, and Tiberius was just the Dragonborn version of HFY threads, so even if matt had let him call the "army" in, it would have been like 20 guys with 3 horses.

>>51437431
If you can bare having to pay more attention to what's being said watching at 1.25 speed will shave 80 hours off the viewing time.

I started watching at Episode 68, the fight with Ripley. Any particularly good stuff I should go back and watch?

>>51434871
>Keyleth actually did something useful

One good deed does not absolve the other eighty-one episodes of shit.

>>51437573
>Will Friedle plays an awesome Human Cleric, who goes for the cliche 'special snowflake' (which is fine because this is his first character period) but then throws in about 10 tons of straight deadpan sarcasm.
My companion of melatonin-enriched descent. Kash is definitely great, for his first character I somehow don't even notice the snowflake status 99% of the time.

Sorry, i only watch Rocketbeans and their PnP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1aRZIqH68s

>>51439784

I'd go back and start watching around the time The Briarwoods come into the story, since that's also the introduction of Ripley as a character. I can't remember the episode, sadly, but by that point everyone's got a pretty good groove going, and Tiberius is gone.

I never liked Tiberius.

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So, is he coming back or not? I feel like Sam had a much larger plan for this current story arc to just give in now. But I guess its up to how Kaylie reacts.

I'd love to see a lower leveled party made of all the side characters which affected the main party's character in some way. It would be fun to see that party join up with the main party for a battle.

It could be made up of:
The kid that Vax turned away because he wanted to be just like the heroes in the group he could be a warrior or a dex user. Scanlan's daughter as the bard or thief. The Half Orc that Grog fought at the Slayer's Take who was being taught by a monk. All they would need is a Healer and there's the start of a "They look like us when we started out" moment for the group.

>>51442316
>The kid that Vax turned away because he wanted to be just like the heroes in the group he could be a warrior or a dex user.
The kid came back, he was a mage who sided with the bad guys, they beat his ass and took him back to their base with them to put him back on the right track.

>>51442334
I'm only at Episode 40 so either I haven't gotten to it or I missed it. Well, maybe since he's a mage he could round out that party I mentioned as a ranged attacker.

>>51434871
Can you stop shilling this?

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>>51439685
WRONG

It was all a ruse, Draconia stands

>>51440881
Oh, i posted the live stream. Sorry, here the VOD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbNDSRko5lE

Any advice to someone trying to make a critical role like youtube? I only have one session done so far but I don't know how to get anyone to watch it, I don't care about the monetization angle, I just want people to like it.
We don't move as fast as Matt and co so I edit all the filler out of the recordings so it's just pertinent action and dialogue, anything I can do beyond that?

>>51437431
Nothing of value.

The show is trash.

>>51442352
This.

>>51437431

Somebody on leddit made this slideshow if you want to pick up on a story arc, it tells you everything that happens in the arcs prior to the one you're starting on so that you're not completely lost. (Spoilers, obviously.)

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1V09wMmZAilcQDuWBKhjJF0bvf91xCJWMvG46Fg2LQKs/edit?usp=sharing

>>51437520

This, but with the exception of Raishon being a 10/10 villain.

Up until now, the only time I've felt like the party was in danger was when they decided to pick a fight in the middle of the City of Brass, and that was mainly because of the reinforcements that the guard called.

Even from her first encounter, Raishon was a dangerous villain because she was also a level 20 magic user, could be anyone anywhere because of her polymorph spell, knew of Whitestone despite the magical camouflage, and was actually smart compared to the other dragons who were basically just dragons. Even Thordak's main gimmick was that he was a bigger than normal dragon that glowed a bit.

Each time they fought her, I was convinced it was gonna be a TPK, the first time because they were retarded and fought her after all their casters were spent, but the second time after seeing her fight intelligently during the first fight with high level spells and tactics like dispelling Hero's Feast for her breath weapon.

>>51443331
My favorite part about Raishan as a villain is that everyone was absolutely convinced she was going to betray them. I mean, Diseased Deceiver, how much more obvious could it be.

Now, at the end of the arc, there's no evidence she's been anything but straightforward and honest with the party. They attacked her first, and she even gave several chances to just stick with their original agreement.

The plot twist was that there is no plot twist.

>>51443331
Mercer really pulled out all the stops with that green dragon. She was wrecking their faces both times, it was only that ridiculously lucky feeblemind after she burned through her resistances that saved them. If she'd lived another round the players would probably have been looking down the barrel of a prismatic spray and lost another two or three of their number. After that it's purely cleanup duty.

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So, as far as villains go... The Conclave was pretty much shit. Absolutely none of them had any presence except Raishan. Didn't get all the excited for the battle with Thordak, just kinda happened. Hoping their next arc has a bad guy with some good build up. It was kinda silly having everyone freak out over Thordak and his cronies for them all to be beat up and killed so easily. Like, how the fuck do you make getting to the dragon as simple as going through some sewers and going past a few fire giants?

>Top Tier
Ripley and Kevdak
>High Tier
K'Varn, The Briarwoods and Raishan.
>Mid Tier
Hotis
>Low Tier
Thordak
>Shit Tier
Umbrasyl and Vorugal

>>51443454
>Like, how the fuck do you make getting to the dragon as simple as going through some sewers and going past a few fire giants?
Didn't they basically skip all the encounters they were supposed to have in the city by using the sewers?

>>51443434
except for that lovely stray chain lightning mid-Thordak battle

>>51443469
Yeah, which was pretty stupid. You're telling me somehow a super paranoid dragon wouldn't have secured his sewers with all the time he had there?

>Grog's reaction in the last episode
holy fuck can Travis get any better?

>>51443434
I mean, let's be honest: she was NOT a nice person. She told VM straight-up that she was an evil person with a specific goal in mind, and her prior history certainly backs it up, thanks to a couple History checks to learn about her and what she did to the Fire Ashari people.

And the goal she was going for was not a good-aligned thing. If she's digging around in old necromancer lairs then she's probably looking for ways to become a Dracolich. And being a mostly good-aligned party they were going to kill her eventually, they just needed a good reason to do so.

>>51443454
Thordak was great at the start. He was intimidating he was powerful a literal force of nature that completely changed the nature of the game. The problem is apart from that initial start he didn't do anything to directly effect the party, unlike Raishan who was a constant source of tension.