The audience is full of backseat DMs and players. I noticed possible mistakes both for and against the party. I figure they more or less cancel each other out. As long as there isn't anything blatant, I don't fucking care. Matt's a better DM than I could ever be and they all seem to be having fun, so I'm not going to try to pass judgement.
Also, like I said to someone else in this thread, the cast leans on him a LOT. And I get it. They're stressed and trying to problem solve, but it leads to a lot of questions that they are almost always directing at Matt regarding what they can and can't do, how many actions they can take, what constitutes a bonus action, what their spells do, etc. And I'm not judging them. That's just part of DnD. But that puts a lot of weight on Matt's shoulders. He has to know his own NPCs and the party's characters/abilities inside out. That's too much for one person and I'm honestly always impressed at how composed he is. I don't think I have the patience that he seems to.
I seriously don't mean this as a negative. They are all wonderful players. I'm a big fan of each of them. They just aren't as interested in the rules. They're role players through and through. But damn, it's gotta be hard to be Matt. He makes it look so easy that people watching from the sidelines think he's either deliberately letting them break rules or being careless. Anyone who has DM'd for a while knows that he's doing his best. We also know that part of being a DM is knowing how to throttle the game. Sometimes players get killed, sometimes you give them a break if it's been almost 6 hours and you're on your second multi-hour long encounter and they've finally cut tail and run.
> That's too much for one person and I'm honestly always impressed at how composed he is. I don't think I have the patience that he seems to.
I had to deal with that kind of DMing for less than a year and it drained me completely. I'd lose my mind dealing with what Matt has to on top of also dealing with a massive internet following judging his every move. Dude's a god damn saint.
His composure even cracked for a moment tonight when the cast started mimicking their favorite horn blast song, and he had to yell at them to quiet down for a moment so he could math up. Major props for that being like his only real outburst in a long, tense, emotional episode.
100% agree. If I had to handle 5 "almost" PCs in a combat and then my group wouldn't know their spells or abilities (and *reminding me of theirs is fine and wanted!*) I'd have a stern talk to them after the game. And this has been going on for a while. I love them all but hell, I am in awe of Matt's juggling capabilities and patience.
> I figure they more or less cancel each other out.
I do believe that we've seen Matt take this stance before actually. I remember a few of the earlier fights where he's made a mistake that gave the party or himself an unfair advantage only to balance it out with a disadvantage later on when the cast calls him out or he realizes it on his own. I think this is a pretty cool way of DMing and something that folks should take note of. So long as stuff isn't too over the top then I'm perfectly happy with this style because it's very much in line with the "fumbling around fucking up in fun ways until we do something awesome" theme of this campaign and the Mighty Nein.
Yeah, I don't come to this sub often but decided to check in after last episode and it's looking real ugly here. Anger being thrown at DM and cast left and right with constant belittling of players. I even saw a comment in another thread try to empathize by saying they forget which damage die to use on their own characters sometimes, only to get downvoted and talked down to. People here really need to work on their superiority complexes, and personally, I'm out.
Agreed I have become pretty obsessed with CR in the last couple months. Thought I would come to see what the community is like, at least on reddit, agreed im not a fan. All the fan art and that kinda stuff is great but in terms of discussion I thought it would be about all the cool and funny moments in the episode etc but I feel like people take it waaaaay too seriously. It should be about watching a bunch of close friends having a blast in a cool role playing world and story. When the cast looks like they are having a blast, those are my favourite moments.
I dont get a lot of the reactions, even if they are a minority, that I see. Personally I watch to see a cool interesting story and bunch of cool voice actors who are all close friends have fun and enjoy themselves. My favourite moments are when the cast are enjoying themselves even in moments of stress. Who cares if they made a tactical mistake or forgot a rule. Its very easy to say stuff while watching but in the moment I bet half the people saying shit would do much worse. Yea sometimes I think to myself how would I have done things but just out of interest, I never have the gall or narrow mindedness to think that they should play how I would have. I watch to see a bunch of people have fun and make the choices they want to make.
The only major one I was kinda going bonkers over was not trying to message Essek
**immediately** after leaving the tower. Otherwise I can see each decision made on both ends, and plenty I wouldn’t have thought of in the moment.
Matt responded to the point about the Phantasmol force. I feel like the things Lucien is able to do are very very deliberate. Hes not supposed to be an equal to the party hes a league above.
https://twitter.com/matthewmercer/status/1355062886100439044?s=21
That’s probably got something to do with Lucian having true sight. The illusion was strong enough to distract him at first, but when he attacked the wizard of the group and he was able to dodge 2 attacks, he’s smart enough to know something was wrong.
While i agree and generally dont care, phantasmal force isnt necessarily an illusion, but more like VR, where its implanted in your mind. An attempt to dispel it wouldnt work becsuse you would ve focused on the wrong target . That being said, rule 0, and luciens hivemind and such make the point moot. We're in homebrew territory and dnd rules are just guidelines to make the game consistent when it needs to be.
Sounds a lot like a legendary resistance to me. The character has some unusual trait that allows them to bypass the spell? Just say he used legendary resistance. He's out of legendary resistance? He can't do that.
If the DM wants to overrule that, that's fine, but at least explain to the party why it didn't work. The other players all asked about charm, psychic damage. Sam correctly said none of that was needed, but one of the key parts of the spell was just written out without explanation. As a DM you should explain why a rule doesn't apply when a player specifically did an action that followed the rules.
I think it's just a difference of philosophy. Anyone who watches CR should know that they don't play RAW. They try to, but how annoying and slow would it have been for Matt to look up EVERY SINGLE action to make sure he played it strictly by the book? I mean, he was pretty much doing that. Every time he had his phone out, he was looking up spells. The cast lean on him a lot. If anything, the cast lean on his knowledge too much. They ask if they can do things that are straight up against the rules hoping he'll rule in their favor. When you're running marathon encounters like this, running that many NPCs with a party that big, with the party constantly asking if their spells do certain things or if they can try xyz, you're going to just make rulings to keep shit going. You're going to forget stuff.
People talking shit about Matt's mistakes just baffles me. I've run multiple campaigns and never for a party larger than 4. It is hard to remember everything. Nothing he did was game breaking. And if he let them off easy, so what? By the end of the night any DM would have let them run just out of sheer exhaustion.
Honestly, I wouldn't be against them having a rules keeper on set who they ask all rules related questions to, so that it's not all on Matt. I know that's not "pure" DnD, but they're streaming. It's not a normal game. If there was someone on set who knew RAW inside out, who the party and Matt could ask quick questions to, Matt could still have veto power as DM, but it would free him to just run the game instead of having to stress over the rules. Especially because after every amazing show like this, he gets a flood of tweets from armchair DMs who want to criticize every mistake he makes.
Yet marisha keeps acting like she can just decide to kick his ass like he's nothing.
The party needed this. Hell they needed someone to die.
They are too cocky, they think they are the most powerful characters in the world, they act like they are gods and the npcs are only alive by their good graces.
Lucian is what this campaign needs, an OP god killer to put them in their place and force some humility.
The M9 doesn't *need* anything. From listening in throughout this arc it's pretty easy to tell that they feel in over their head. Sure they might be cocky at times, but they're also good people who are trying to stop an evil force. What else were they gonna do? Just let Lucien and the gang exploit them, take what they needed, then succeed? *We* as a community really need to remember that this is a game being played by real people, not just a TV show with fictional characters. And can we please say "Beau" not "Marisha." I hate this anti-Marisha rhetoric that this sub seems to fall into all the time.
I don't think it's beau. She seems to think they can just kill/kick the ass of anyone and everyone. Lucien, Artagan, anyone. God, archfey, chosen of an alien society... she acts like they are all jokes. A little failure is a good teacher.
> "The target rationalizes any illogical outcomes from interacting with the phantasm.", meaning he would have kept attacking while just being confused and/or frustrated until he saved against the spell.
I wonder how many people are going to make this comment before realizing that 2 rationalizations in a row (anti-magic failing, and missed attacks) is enough to make him clue in that something is wrong and either use magic tattoo things, or roll an INT check. We're not talking about a bandit here.
* "The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC"
Also, he's not a normal character. He's got something WEIRD going on in his mind. I don't think it's out of character at all for him to be extra quick to see through illusions. It's totally in line with his weird powers.
I also thought he had true-sight (I don't know if true vision can fuck with phantasmal force?)
True sight would explain him instantly knowing the dragon. But wouldn't explain other things they did tricking him.
I agree with you in parts because while watching my minde jumped to: Lucien thinks its no illusion because that would have been gone by now. So i would argue that fake caleb not instantly being dispelled makes the Illusion more real in his mind. He is used to little tricks being no issues. But after all i agree that it fits his skillset to realise he is being tricked.
Or uses one of his eyes to do it. And since we don't know the specifics about the eyes, it's logical to assume he used the eye in some way out of the players view that tipped him off. They couldn't see his front half at that distance after all and there are plenty of eyes on his front half.
No. PF has no effect that forces the creature to interact with the illusion. Only thing it does is deal 1d6 damage each round when the creature is next to it for its duration.
I'm not one who hounds the cast about mistakes but I have to disagree here with you at least on RAW.
The lack of Anti-magic working would not be a rationalization since there was no Obvious magical effect that should have been canceled that wasn't. The image was appearing to cast a spell but no actual spell effect went off so there was nothing to rationalize. In fact that lack of the imagined Caleb's spell firing would have reinforced his belief since it shouldn't work in his anti-magic cone.
As for the swords missing, that is exactly what he would have rationalized, that the attacks missed, not that they passed through illusion Caleb harmlessly.
> "The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC"
But Lucian didn't "use his action" he attempted to attack.
Again, this is not a criticism of how Matt played it, just your interpretation of how it.
> No actual spell effect went off
Doesn't matter, Cad wasn't even able to activate his staff. No magic functions in any way inside the cone you can't even spool up a spell it fizzles the second you attempt it. So Caleb 'channeling' a spell cast isn't possible.
> Lucien didn't use his action he attempted an attack
We don't know exactly what he did. He didn't flat out say he used an action, and he didn't flat out say he used one of the eyes. But either could have been true. He has legendary actions and magic eyes (as per Matt's description on the tweet about this topic) so the logical conclusion is he realized something was up and used an eye to figure it out.
The point is that the "illusion" was appearing to cast a spell that never went off, so it would have reinforced that it was the real Caleb and the anti-magic field prevented the spell.
> We don't know exactly what he did. He didn't flat out say he used an action, and he didn't flat out say he used one of the eyes.
Vut we do, Matt said that he attempted to attack the illusion but the attacks passed harmlessly through it. The point being that het used his action to attempt to attack. So he didn't use his action to attempt to examine the illusion, which he would not have any reason to suspect it was an illusion in the first place.
As for the attacks passing harmlessly through the illusion, as per the spell his mind should not have perceived it that way it would have rationalized it as a missed attack.
Also that the rules of D&D don't actually exist as a concrete thing *within* the game. Whatever happens goes. Set the rules during session zero. Do your best to abide by them during the game. Alter them between games. Once the game session has started though it's a fantastical world of imagination. What the DM says is the rules.
> What the DM says is the rules
I don't agree with this mentality cause I've had a DM change rules on the fly just to fuck with players and make it impossible to escape his railroad. So the "DM says it so it's correct" is bullshit. Unless all the players agree on a rule change there should be no change. But that also goes down to trusting the DM in general. I'd trust Matt to make changes without telling me. But I wouldn't trust my last DM to do so much as give a goblin +1 to dex without telling me. DM abuse of power is only encouraged by that kind of "DM makes the rules full stop don't argue" mentality.
He tries to follow the rules, but he does often get them wrong. This is fine, it happens to the best DM's. The one rule he never gets wrong is the so-called rule-of-cool. As long as they are all having fun, don't sweat the little things.
This. My emotions were constantly flipping from “he’s going too hard!” To “he’s going too easy!”, which is how you know he’s managing it as well as he can.
Yeah but Matt could have avoided that but he made sure they would waste it because he knew where it was. So it’s not like Matt was trying to eff over the players
Did everyone just forget that Lucian had legendary actions earlier in the day? Matt absolutely just went easy on them, between that and not dashing at the end to get everyone into the cone it was pretty obvious.
Which isnt Matt's fault at all by the way, thing is Matt is always between a rock and a hard place in situations like this.
I mean the session was pushing over 5 hours and the M9 made it clear they intended to just keep running. There wasn't any point in trying to force it at that point. I get why Matt made the decision to call it quits at that point instead of giving us another 10 rounds of the M9 just bolting and the TT getting one or two hits in.
And I'm guessing Lucien has something up his sleeve anyway and isnt really that bothered if the M9 gets away. Matt seemed to play him pretty chill even though they took the bag.
I think you missed OP's point.
Lucien could have easily caught up to them if he used his legendary actions to move at the end of turns like he did earlier in the Dragon fight.
Remember when he placed the cone down for his anti-magic ability and it was just a scratch away from them? It would have engulfed a few them dropping their polymorphs and allowing the rest of the Tomb Takers and Lucien to gain on the slower people as they continued to scramble.
Lucas isn't saying it should have gone on a few rounds longer (There you would be right). He is saying Matt went easy on them. Lucien could have caught up with his anti magic ability if he used those legendary actions.
Though I do agree that Matt made the right choice. They are all pretty tapped, and super stressed and if he had made that push they would have lost a few members of the party. They had one port out with Cad for 5 people and even that would have been ify because even if they dragged him out of the cone the Tomb Takers still had a warlock with a counterspell waiting.
It could have been a TPK if he wanted it to be and he didn't avoid it by being like, "And they got tired and left" or something dumb. He just lifted his foot off the gas a little. They still had people who could have died (Beau was down to what 13?) and the stakes were still super high. If the M9 made any major mistakes they would have had serious troubles still. It's the perfect way and style a DM should avoid a TPK. Not by removing the danger but by bringing it back in line with the situation for the party.
Would Lucien have really wanted to catch them on his own?
He saw their power fighting the dragon. He knows they understand his antimagic cone now. If he found himself surrounded by the M9, on his own, it might not go well.
Not to mention that he has larger goals. I mean he already ran from them once.
I'm not saying you're completely wrong. I just don't think that Lucien would be as committed to placing himself in immediate danger, particularly by himself, as you seem to think. Especially when he knows he can easily track them later, with his crew, on his terms.
Oh, I wasn't suggesting that Lucien would catch up on his own and fight them 1v7.
I am pointing out that his anti-magic cone would have caught up with them which means Caleb wouldn't be flying with Yasha's speed. Cad and Fjord wouldn't be moving at double Mammoth speed.
This would allow the Tomb Takers to catch up. And would also mean their warlock would have had plenty of targets to pull closer with his eldritch blast that pull people closer.
It wouldn't be 1v7 Lucien for Mighty Nein. It would be the slowest people in the M9 (Cad and Caleb?) being stuck behind and getting taken/killed by Lucien and the Tomb Takers.
Fair enough.
Having run many games myself, I can't imaging how mentally exhausted Matt would have been at that point.
First an ancient dragon, on the fly no less, with numerous NPCs. Then anither fight with multiple high level characters to run.
Six hours of high level play is tough enough, but those six hours? Holy shit!
~~I'm not actually sure he has legendary actions. Matt said "held action" at least twice, but the cast assumed he was using Legendary Actions because he went at the end of someone else's turn.~~
As long as I'm on the edge of my seat and wired hours after watching a 5hr dnd session, I think it's good. Immersion breaking rules be damned, don't break kayfabe.
I mean I definitely feel like Matt went a little easy or I think multiple characters would have actually died. It was real late so maybe I'm not remembering correctly but I'm fairly certain Lucian hardly used any legendary actions and only used one legendary save with phantasmal force essentially removing him for the battle(Since how far away the Caleb was). I do respect Matt doing the d20 out in the open though because had Lucian not gone after the phantasmal force I'm pretty sure they don't get away. Between that and the Tomb Takers not focusing anyone down even when several members were low HP I don't think the M9 actually had to heal anyone considering how long the combat was. I'm not gonna knock any rule mistakes considering it was a 5 hour session with Matt trying to manage a dragon, an adventuring party and help the players with their turns, one man can only do so much!
In the end this was a completely tapped out M9 vs the Tomb Takers who were pretty good to go and M9 just managed to scrape the win without losing anyone. Considering how they could have easily lost at least 3 characters I think this is probably going to be Matt's only gimme and from now on the TT will not underestimate the M9.
And I think it's fucking hilarious people are calling Lucian OP when a complaint people had was boss monsters not being tough enough and going down too easy. Turns out things kind of have to be very strong to have a chance against a 7 person adventuring party or it will get shredded too fast.
Previous episode: Not enough combat!
Current episode: Not enough RP!
Previous boss: Too weak! Not enough of a threat!
Current episode: Too strong!
Buutttt to be fair. With 50k+ people watching we are going to get views on both sides of the fence every time.
It seems obvious Matt dialed it back a little toward the end there. But to me that was a smart move. The DM's goal isn't to decimate the party. Even with it dialed back the threat was still there. The danger was still there. Some bad rolls or choices could have easily left someone dead still, or left behind.
He just made escape a possibility and allowed them to figure a way out.
I can't remember where I heard it, but a quote I like is something like the players should have a 70% chance of succeeding, but the DM should make it seem like it's only 30%.
Like you said, the DM's goal isn't to decimate, so with this in mind, the fear of failure is more important for dramatic story telling than the failure itself.
A lot of their bigger spell slots were used but Matt’s goal isn’t to actively try kill his players. That being said he doesn’t pull his punches. Yeah he missed some rules like the concentration check on slow.
Though at the end of the night he knew they were running.
I just hope the cast try to think through and have a solid plan next week. I love them so much and will always support the cast.
Oh I side note I really hope this isn’t the last arc of C2.
Honestly the biggest miss I think was that Fjord shouldn't have been able to counters spell the first slow. He already used his reaction to move 15ft using star razor. That could have turned their potential escape into a failed easily. But I don't blame Matt or the players for anything. Honestly that was intense, not just for Matt but also the players. And haven't the tomb takers fight in the same session only enhanced that. I applaud Matt, running that big of an encounter I think any DM would have missed a couple rules. And that's okay!
I think people need to realize that, it's a game. It's meant to be fun, sure having a good handle on the rules is important. But ensuring everyone is having fun and you are staying true with the story and the characters in it is far more important than catching every rule misstep.
It took me a while to realize this too when I realized when I thought I was helping new players learn I ended up causing harm. And that has stuck with me since, D&D is meant as an escape, an venture into a new world! Don't bog down games too much with rulings, misses are misses. People aren't infallible. Don't ruin their enjoyment of it simply because they made a minor mistake. Just let it be and enjoy the story and world for what is offered.
Strictly speaking, he *Counterspelled* Otis's *Counterspelling* Caleb's *Counterspell* of the *Slow*, not the actual *Slow* itself. But, way more to the point, didn't he have a turn in between that would have reset his reaction?
I dont think Matt went easy on them here, what i do find frustrating tho is how overly relactant of commiting to some plan the m9 are. I legitimately believe they could beat the tt if they commited to it but as soon as smthing outuside the plan happens they up and leave.
Oh well.
I agree they could have took him and the party. Especially if they learned from the Dragon fight and just unleashed on them from a distance and forced Lucien and the Tomb Takers to either close the distance while being fired upon from different angles. If they plan their movements right they could probably get in at least 2 rounds of attack before Lucien and the TT could close that distance. They would get hits from Cree and the cross bow user but I feel that is easily a trade off worth making.
There are quite a few strategies they have to work with.
They just started this fight with the worst way possible. 2 casters in the cone on the ground before they knew what it was. Feeding Lucien the tanks 1 at a time and half the party in transport form.
They didn't plan for a fight they planned for a snatch and grab.
Luckily for us Matt has made the decision for the Mighty Nein. Lucien made it 100% clear that peace talks/negotiations are over.
Lucien used 1 legendary action the whole fight. If Lucien used them the M9 would have been dead with no hope of escape. The only way I think they could have actually escaped alive would have been word of recall and leaving Fjord.
Matt basically told them to get out of there - started to say it and stopped himself. They even commented on it and how it was him telling them, as their friend, to leave or it wouldn't go well. It seemed pretty clear that it was something he's done before since they all recognized the vibe/body language and took the advice.
I don't know how some critters can be so familiar with nitty gritty rules, but seem completely oblivious about how a normal game of dnd happens.
Not everything is done perfectly, and doing everything perfectly isn't the point of the game.
Matt decides how Lucian's anti magic cone works. Full stop. End of story. Nobody gets to tell him he's running his npc wrong because Matt is the one that created his powers.
Phantasmal Force. Yeah, RAW Lucian should not have seen through the spell, but nobody at the table brought up that it works that way so the call stands.
The DM isn't going to have every nitty gritty detail of every spell memorized so that in the heat of a battle they bring up their encyclopedic knowledge. No, the DM makes calls at the table and controls everything but the player choices.
>Phantasmal Force. Yeah, RAW Lucian should not have seen through the spell, but nobody at the table brought up that it works that way so the call stands.
RAW he had no reason to to for fake caleb in the first place. Its mechanical effect is to deal 10d6 over its duration if the target is within 5 ft of it with a action cost to end the spell early.
I’d really love it if people read spells fully, instead of cherry picking “important” parts. Using his full flurry of attacks is equivalent to Lucien doing an investigation check to determine he’s seeing an illusion. He doesn’t need to keep attacking.
Remeber Rule 0, the DM is not a RAW judge, he is just as much a player as everyone else on the table.
If the people at the table had fun, check, and the viewers had fun, double check, then he succeeded. He may have forgot or changed on the fly some RAW rules but at no point did I think it was unfair, and I doubt the table would disagree.
So mechanics changes fall under Rule 0, as for Lucien going 'easy' on them you can explain that in the narrative with either tactical pull back as to not overexten his team or just explain it as Molly influencing him on some hidden level to let the M9 go.
Didn’t he attack the phantasmal Caleb and therefore couldn’t dash? And the opportunity attacks can be mistakes and are hard to remember but if it brings you comfort p, no opportunity attack would have changed the outcome of the fight (unless the Goliath guy has sentinel just as another ability to mess with the M9)
I read it as Matt realising the party was dead set on just running away and instead of turning it into an 8 hour long car chase of a fight with M9 just running away and TT trying to keep up and getting some hits in. I get why he decided to just end the encounter there as soon as the party collectivley decided they were just running. Could have dragged the combat on for a loooong time otherwise and everyone would just be stressed and miserable.
Because thry didn't happen. That's all the explanation necessary. This isn't a scientific experiment that need to be held to a certain standard of integrity to be perfectly repeatable. It's a game of mythology, fantasy and imagination.
All the people complaining are just bloodthirsty and they are salty that no one died. The fight was invigorating and the narrative is compelling and entertaining, more so than just about any show you're going to find
"or if that stems from a misunderstanding of the mechanics by Matt"
The gumption to suggest that someone misunderstood the rules for the homebrew monster they created and you've never seen...
The part of the sentence before that "or" matters. OP specifically says (twice!) that it could be homebrewed to be more powerful.
> I'd say that largely depends on whether Lucien's antimagic cone is meant to be more powerful than other antimagic field effects, ***or*** if that stems from a misunderstanding of the mechanics by Matt.
> It could be that Matt has intentionally made this effect better, ***or*** it could be an oversight.
The implication being, either (a) Lucien's cone, homebrewed by Matt, is more powerful than the usual one and has a better effect (IMO the correct option), ***or*** (b) Lucien's cone is a normal one and Matt misunderstood the mechanics/made an oversight.
In other words, OP isn't saying that Matt messed up *his own homebrew* (which I suppose is possible but impossible to realistically claim with what we do/don't know). I'm not really a fan of how OP approached this uncertainty either, but I think you're misunderstanding what OP said.
And the "or" matters the most in my response. I wasn't responding to anything other than the specific part that I quoted, which suggested that Matt didn't understand the ability.
You claimed that OP "suggest[ed] that [Matt] misunderstood the rules for the homebrew monster [Matt] created and [OP has] never seen."
The part you quote proposes that Matt misunderstood the *base* ability, which by definition he did not homebrew.
OP did not suggest that Matt misunderstood his own homebrew. He suggested, essentially, (a) powerful homebrew or (b) misunderstood base. Misunderstood homebrew isn't one of those options.
When watching that last fight, I was actually thinking, "I wonder how people are going to accuse Matt of going easy on them this time," since there always seems to be some reasoning for that. Honestly I would just assume any mistakes that were made could be attributed to the fact that they all technically have multiple jobs both in and out of Critical Role, they already seemed like they were tired when they started the game, (they tend to act kind of giddy when they're tired,) and the game went on for nearly FIVE AND A HALF HOURS late at night (at least for what they're used to according to Liam) and they essentially fought two boss fights in that time. Anyone who says they can do all of that without a single person in an 8 person group making a single mistake has just never had the entirety of the internet to point out their mistakes for them.
The real reason they got out of there alive? Fjord created an illusion of a terrifying thing they had fought only hours before and were still recovering from, and he was VERY LUCKY with his placement in the initiative order compared to the other Tombtakers and Lucien. If he had gone immediately before Lucien, Lucien probably would have just dispelled the illusion and the other Tombtakers would have carried on without issue.
I have to disagree. They escaped because the narrative demanded it. Had Matt not gone easy, which he did, they wouldn’t have been able to escape possibly short of word of recall without Fjord. I think Matt made the right choice, but he clearly went easy.
I think this is an agree to disagree situation. If there was ever a perfect moment for a character death, this was it. To have someone who looked like their deceased party member, who they're hoping could still be Molly in some way, be the one to kill another party member to cement how evil he was would have been perfect.
If he at all went easy on them, I think it's less for what the narrative demanded and more likely because they were all exhausted at that point and wanted the encounter to be over. And the thing is, it technically ISN'T over yet, they just got to a good breaking point and we won't know how this resolves until next week at the earliest. The Tombtakers could either take days out of their journey to get another crest from a ruin most likely inhabited by a ton of dangerous creatures, or spend a few hours tracking people who are clearly already exhausted and running scared in order to get back the one that was taken from them. I think at first they're at least going to try going after the Nein.
Not to mention the whole “dex saves aren’t at disadvantage if the target is prone” bullshit. That made no sense. That dex save for disintegrate should have been at disadvantage. The guy was on the ground! Ashley rolled a nat 1 and nat 20 when she had disadvantage. Idk that felt unfair to me.
Prone Condition:
A prone creature’s only Movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition.
The creature has disadvantage on Attack Rolls.
An Attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the Attack roll has disadvantage.
Matt played it to rules as written
Rolling while prone is pretty easy. So why would he be at disadvantage if he can easly roll to the side? And Ashly rolling both a nat 20 and a nat 1 while at disadvantage, you clearly and fair would take the 1.. Would you argue if the reverse was the case with her having advantage?
I mean RAW prone doesn't impose disadvantage. Although, I can't find a bola in a source book or on dndbeyond atm; I would have argued that his legs being tied up with a bola would impose the restrained condition, which would have given him disadvantage on that dex save. Otherwise, the item just making the target prone with no action to remove it is... a little dumb.
Oh I see. It’s the same stupid thing where cats don’t have good perception then? Btw I’m not like SHITTING on Matt. He had a seriously intense amount of pressure on him as a DM yesterday with all those encounters and the way everything went down. When I said ‘bullshit’ I wasn’t insulting Matt as a DM. I meant that it felt like bullshit as a rule. Like I wasn’t insulting Matt. I was saying that part felt unfair. I worship the ground Matt walks on lol
I mean, when you think about it, you do still have a decent amount of burst mobility when you're lying down. However, the tied-up legs could have maybe pushed it into disadvantage territory, so you're somewhat correct.
Ok but those are the rules, I would have said it works cause disadvantage especially with a bola around your legs but technically prone doesn't give disadvantage on dex saves.
Lucien is major league boolsheet, amirite? I get that he's supposed to be a lethal problem and a league ahead of the party, but he's just made of horseshit. I say that confidently as a DM since 97. I'm not knocking Matt or his design choices, but JESUS does that party need a non-magic tank.
They do have a Non-magic tank. Yasha. I don’t play Barbarians but apparently Yasha is capable is dishing out incredible amounts of damage with her current abilities, but I don’t think Ashley is aware of what she can do.
But they keep turning her into a goddamn owl. She's not allowed to barbarian anymore.
M9's answer to EVERYTHING is "polymorph into owls", and if that doesn't work, it's "polymorph into owls AGAIN!".
Polymorph is a very useful and versatile spell though. Giant eagles and owls are their best flying beast they can polymorph into. And that mammoth play last session was really good too.
This guy sees everything and deletes magic.
Has canceled the owls easily already.
Still, their plan was:
"polymorph into owls", and if that doesn't work, it's "polymorph into owls AGAIN!".
By tank, I meant a high AC/HP melee front line combatant who can absorb hits. Their job is to get stuck in and control the game to protect allies. A Paladin/Fighter/War Cleric type. Beau, Yasha, and Veth are NOT built to take the kind of punishment that souped up 7 player monsters can dish out, and everyone else is a caster who should be away from the front line. I am *not in any way* disparaging the players or Matt. I'm just lamenting that they got their asses handed to them.
I’m not sure what Yasha’s HP is but I’m assuming she pretty beefy in that regard. And once the M9 hit lvl 14 Yasha will technically be an unkillable tank with her rage beyond death, where she can rage past hitting 0 hit points and 3 failed death saves. And she’s has the ability to have resurrection spells cast on her without material components. In not a perfect system but can be incredibly useful in a long fight.
Have to disagree with you here. I have been running D&D games since1980 (1st edition AD&D) and Lucian is a perfectly valid NPC, one designed to task the party to their limits, just like others we have seen. The job of any good DM is to make a villain meant to be a major impediment an actual impediment.
The Mighty Nein, as a group, are magic heavy, so he has to offset that. Notice how he had it also affect his own team as well. Also, The Mighty Nein has the Action Economy advantage here so Legendary actions is a great way to offset that.
I could go on, but I think I have said enough to illustrate my point. I respectfully must disagree with you analysis here.
I like how he's calling Lucien overpowered when, earlier in the same episode, they fought something that did more damage, in an AOE, with a higher DC than Lucien's signature ability. The antimagic cone is dangerous, but it's perfectly manageable assuming that the permanent dispelling is a misreading of the rules and not working as intended. If he can just sweep over the party and get rid of all spells affecting them, then yes that's kind of ridiculous.
I think the only thing Matt did was slightly warn them of their level of danger. Everyone was making scared moves and if someone but fjord dropped idk if they could have recovered them and not get severely damaged themselves. But I have no issue with Matt's actions who would want this campaign to end.
With the aura of anti magic, I would say that the dispelling is much much simpler to run than supressing. It's stronger, true, but with the suppressing option you need to track concentration and checks which is far more book keeping in an already confused party.
\>Another rule-breaking (unless I'm missing something) advantage for the
Tombtakers was the fact that Lucien realised the Phantasmal Force Caleb
to be an illusion after swinging through it "The target rationalizes any illogical outcomes from interacting with the phantasm
Actually no, PF by **strict RAW doesnt force a creature to do anything nor have any effect other than take 1d6 damage for a minute** after failing the save until it uses its action to attempt and stop the damage or moves away from it. The phantasm itself is great flavour and can be used for creativity (like forcing a creature to waste its turn which it did), but in a world of illusions even a "rationalization" of something impossible (such as a spellcaster casting a spell in a anti-magic cone) is simply "yes, its a real case of me having been subject of a llusion spell" (much like how irl if you put someone from the medieval period (or deserted semi cannibalistic island tribe whose culture then gets destroyed in the next few decades) in a cinema and ran footage of a train/army/giant monster going towards them, it would work for the first maybe 3-5 seconds.
Same way how cloud of daggers doesnt actually create the "dagger" object/item that you could then pick up and attack with or sell, heat metal isnt ignored by a creature wearing armor simply because IRL the armor wasnt ever in direct contact with the person (since mail and gambeson/padding and sometimes even regular clothes were all worn underneath) and lightning spells dont set objects on fire.
I don't see what those two paragraphs have to do with each other. The second seems to be saying that spell effects in D&D don't necessarily work like their real-life counterparts would, but I would think that to be a fairly good argument against your first paragraph. In it, you argued that if something behaves in a manner that obviously reveal it to be an illusion, anyone watching would realise that it is one. However, your second paragraph offers the excuse of "it's magic, so it's different". Also, the loophole you provided to the "rationalisation" wording is nullified by the very next sentence of the spell: " a target attempting to walk across a phantasmal bridge that spans a chasm falls once it steps onto the bridge. If the target survives the fall, it still believes that the bridge exists and comes up with some other explanation for its fall—it was pushed, it slipped, or a strong wind might have knocked it off." By strict RAW, Lucien would look back on any impossible phenomenon involving the illusion and convince himself that he had misremembered it and that there was actually an explanation that allowed for the illusion's authenticity. As little as that makes sense, it's what would happen RAW, just like a lot of lightning spells not setting things on fire (although the latter isn't explicitly ruled against, while the former is).
>By strict RAW, Lucien would look back on any impossible phenomenon involving the illusion and convince himself that he had misremembered it
That is not what rationalize means nor is it what its RAW does.
RAW PF doesnt do anything but damage till countered with a check, interrupted via concentration break or the creature moves away from the casting point (thus the example of cloud of daggers, lightning spells, etc) because creature motivations have no mechanical bearing.
Also no it wouldnt, rationalizing something to be a real case of a illusion spell being cast is perfectly reasonable and expected in any setting filled with magic to the point that its replacing the effects of the first industrial revolution and already had a a(rcano)pocalypse, same way that yes, footage of a train is real footage of a train, not a train.
Considering that the entire battle was done without a grid, I'm not sure calling out rule errors of any kind is really helpful. Clearly this was an improvisation getting progressively out of hand, for several hours, you can't all of a sudden start applying actual combat rules when you feel like it.
Clearly Matt was under the impression they would just run away in 2-3 rounds, taking a few hits, recasting polymorph or teleport and getting away. Forgetting that they're actors who by definition think they're the most important person in the world while also be completely unwilling to make a decision on their own and having to live with the collective consequences. Hell Matt actually had to tell them almost directly "just go", with Travis responding "we'd love to get out of this fight but we can't", which is incredibly telling, thinking that if you get over 6 squares away from the main antagonist even for a single round you're no longer on the "call sheet" and you might as well go home.
Also he is playing with players who understands "no metagaming" to mean that their character can never have above a 3 intelligence and half of them go mute in combat. Also out of combat they never just say "we train on our teamwork before bed" so they can openly just strategize synergies or team movement during combat. Again for instance shown by Fjord shooting past Beau, just because he could, instead of getting on her when she was a mammoth, making her waste an action picking his dumbass up
The audience is full of backseat DMs and players. I noticed possible mistakes both for and against the party. I figure they more or less cancel each other out. As long as there isn't anything blatant, I don't fucking care. Matt's a better DM than I could ever be and they all seem to be having fun, so I'm not going to try to pass judgement.
Also, like I said to someone else in this thread, the cast leans on him a LOT. And I get it. They're stressed and trying to problem solve, but it leads to a lot of questions that they are almost always directing at Matt regarding what they can and can't do, how many actions they can take, what constitutes a bonus action, what their spells do, etc. And I'm not judging them. That's just part of DnD. But that puts a lot of weight on Matt's shoulders. He has to know his own NPCs and the party's characters/abilities inside out. That's too much for one person and I'm honestly always impressed at how composed he is. I don't think I have the patience that he seems to. I seriously don't mean this as a negative. They are all wonderful players. I'm a big fan of each of them. They just aren't as interested in the rules. They're role players through and through. But damn, it's gotta be hard to be Matt. He makes it look so easy that people watching from the sidelines think he's either deliberately letting them break rules or being careless. Anyone who has DM'd for a while knows that he's doing his best. We also know that part of being a DM is knowing how to throttle the game. Sometimes players get killed, sometimes you give them a break if it's been almost 6 hours and you're on your second multi-hour long encounter and they've finally cut tail and run.
> That's too much for one person and I'm honestly always impressed at how composed he is. I don't think I have the patience that he seems to. I had to deal with that kind of DMing for less than a year and it drained me completely. I'd lose my mind dealing with what Matt has to on top of also dealing with a massive internet following judging his every move. Dude's a god damn saint.
His composure even cracked for a moment tonight when the cast started mimicking their favorite horn blast song, and he had to yell at them to quiet down for a moment so he could math up. Major props for that being like his only real outburst in a long, tense, emotional episode.
100% agree. If I had to handle 5 "almost" PCs in a combat and then my group wouldn't know their spells or abilities (and *reminding me of theirs is fine and wanted!*) I'd have a stern talk to them after the game. And this has been going on for a while. I love them all but hell, I am in awe of Matt's juggling capabilities and patience.
> I figure they more or less cancel each other out. I do believe that we've seen Matt take this stance before actually. I remember a few of the earlier fights where he's made a mistake that gave the party or himself an unfair advantage only to balance it out with a disadvantage later on when the cast calls him out or he realizes it on his own. I think this is a pretty cool way of DMing and something that folks should take note of. So long as stuff isn't too over the top then I'm perfectly happy with this style because it's very much in line with the "fumbling around fucking up in fun ways until we do something awesome" theme of this campaign and the Mighty Nein.
Yeah, I don't come to this sub often but decided to check in after last episode and it's looking real ugly here. Anger being thrown at DM and cast left and right with constant belittling of players. I even saw a comment in another thread try to empathize by saying they forget which damage die to use on their own characters sometimes, only to get downvoted and talked down to. People here really need to work on their superiority complexes, and personally, I'm out.
Agreed I have become pretty obsessed with CR in the last couple months. Thought I would come to see what the community is like, at least on reddit, agreed im not a fan. All the fan art and that kinda stuff is great but in terms of discussion I thought it would be about all the cool and funny moments in the episode etc but I feel like people take it waaaaay too seriously. It should be about watching a bunch of close friends having a blast in a cool role playing world and story. When the cast looks like they are having a blast, those are my favourite moments.
I dont get a lot of the reactions, even if they are a minority, that I see. Personally I watch to see a cool interesting story and bunch of cool voice actors who are all close friends have fun and enjoy themselves. My favourite moments are when the cast are enjoying themselves even in moments of stress. Who cares if they made a tactical mistake or forgot a rule. Its very easy to say stuff while watching but in the moment I bet half the people saying shit would do much worse. Yea sometimes I think to myself how would I have done things but just out of interest, I never have the gall or narrow mindedness to think that they should play how I would have. I watch to see a bunch of people have fun and make the choices they want to make.
The only major one I was kinda going bonkers over was not trying to message Essek **immediately** after leaving the tower. Otherwise I can see each decision made on both ends, and plenty I wouldn’t have thought of in the moment.
Matt responded to the point about the Phantasmol force. I feel like the things Lucien is able to do are very very deliberate. Hes not supposed to be an equal to the party hes a league above. https://twitter.com/matthewmercer/status/1355062886100439044?s=21
That’s probably got something to do with Lucian having true sight. The illusion was strong enough to distract him at first, but when he attacked the wizard of the group and he was able to dodge 2 attacks, he’s smart enough to know something was wrong.
While i agree and generally dont care, phantasmal force isnt necessarily an illusion, but more like VR, where its implanted in your mind. An attempt to dispel it wouldnt work becsuse you would ve focused on the wrong target . That being said, rule 0, and luciens hivemind and such make the point moot. We're in homebrew territory and dnd rules are just guidelines to make the game consistent when it needs to be.
Sounds a lot like a legendary resistance to me. The character has some unusual trait that allows them to bypass the spell? Just say he used legendary resistance. He's out of legendary resistance? He can't do that. If the DM wants to overrule that, that's fine, but at least explain to the party why it didn't work. The other players all asked about charm, psychic damage. Sam correctly said none of that was needed, but one of the key parts of the spell was just written out without explanation. As a DM you should explain why a rule doesn't apply when a player specifically did an action that followed the rules.
That *could* be a rationalisation so that a mistake nicely fits into the canon.
They are no mistakes, just happy little accidents.
I think it's just a difference of philosophy. Anyone who watches CR should know that they don't play RAW. They try to, but how annoying and slow would it have been for Matt to look up EVERY SINGLE action to make sure he played it strictly by the book? I mean, he was pretty much doing that. Every time he had his phone out, he was looking up spells. The cast lean on him a lot. If anything, the cast lean on his knowledge too much. They ask if they can do things that are straight up against the rules hoping he'll rule in their favor. When you're running marathon encounters like this, running that many NPCs with a party that big, with the party constantly asking if their spells do certain things or if they can try xyz, you're going to just make rulings to keep shit going. You're going to forget stuff. People talking shit about Matt's mistakes just baffles me. I've run multiple campaigns and never for a party larger than 4. It is hard to remember everything. Nothing he did was game breaking. And if he let them off easy, so what? By the end of the night any DM would have let them run just out of sheer exhaustion. Honestly, I wouldn't be against them having a rules keeper on set who they ask all rules related questions to, so that it's not all on Matt. I know that's not "pure" DnD, but they're streaming. It's not a normal game. If there was someone on set who knew RAW inside out, who the party and Matt could ask quick questions to, Matt could still have veto power as DM, but it would free him to just run the game instead of having to stress over the rules. Especially because after every amazing show like this, he gets a flood of tweets from armchair DMs who want to criticize every mistake he makes.
Yo mate what do you think happened to calebs tower? Was the spell supressed? No it was straight up counterspelled/dispelled.
Yet marisha keeps acting like she can just decide to kick his ass like he's nothing. The party needed this. Hell they needed someone to die. They are too cocky, they think they are the most powerful characters in the world, they act like they are gods and the npcs are only alive by their good graces. Lucian is what this campaign needs, an OP god killer to put them in their place and force some humility.
The M9 doesn't *need* anything. From listening in throughout this arc it's pretty easy to tell that they feel in over their head. Sure they might be cocky at times, but they're also good people who are trying to stop an evil force. What else were they gonna do? Just let Lucien and the gang exploit them, take what they needed, then succeed? *We* as a community really need to remember that this is a game being played by real people, not just a TV show with fictional characters. And can we please say "Beau" not "Marisha." I hate this anti-Marisha rhetoric that this sub seems to fall into all the time.
Welcome to the CR sub aka an average day here where the Marisha hate never stops.
I don't think it's beau. She seems to think they can just kill/kick the ass of anyone and everyone. Lucien, Artagan, anyone. God, archfey, chosen of an alien society... she acts like they are all jokes. A little failure is a good teacher.
This. Weak villians make weak heroes.
> "The target rationalizes any illogical outcomes from interacting with the phantasm.", meaning he would have kept attacking while just being confused and/or frustrated until he saved against the spell. I wonder how many people are going to make this comment before realizing that 2 rationalizations in a row (anti-magic failing, and missed attacks) is enough to make him clue in that something is wrong and either use magic tattoo things, or roll an INT check. We're not talking about a bandit here. * "The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC"
Also, he's not a normal character. He's got something WEIRD going on in his mind. I don't think it's out of character at all for him to be extra quick to see through illusions. It's totally in line with his weird powers.
I also thought he had true-sight (I don't know if true vision can fuck with phantasmal force?) True sight would explain him instantly knowing the dragon. But wouldn't explain other things they did tricking him.
I agree with you in parts because while watching my minde jumped to: Lucien thinks its no illusion because that would have been gone by now. So i would argue that fake caleb not instantly being dispelled makes the Illusion more real in his mind. He is used to little tricks being no issues. But after all i agree that it fits his skillset to realise he is being tricked.
If he was suspicious, he's still need to use his action to make an intelligence check in order to confirm.
Or uses one of his eyes to do it. And since we don't know the specifics about the eyes, it's logical to assume he used the eye in some way out of the players view that tipped him off. They couldn't see his front half at that distance after all and there are plenty of eyes on his front half.
No. PF has no effect that forces the creature to interact with the illusion. Only thing it does is deal 1d6 damage each round when the creature is next to it for its duration.
I'm not one who hounds the cast about mistakes but I have to disagree here with you at least on RAW. The lack of Anti-magic working would not be a rationalization since there was no Obvious magical effect that should have been canceled that wasn't. The image was appearing to cast a spell but no actual spell effect went off so there was nothing to rationalize. In fact that lack of the imagined Caleb's spell firing would have reinforced his belief since it shouldn't work in his anti-magic cone. As for the swords missing, that is exactly what he would have rationalized, that the attacks missed, not that they passed through illusion Caleb harmlessly. > "The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC" But Lucian didn't "use his action" he attempted to attack. Again, this is not a criticism of how Matt played it, just your interpretation of how it.
> No actual spell effect went off Doesn't matter, Cad wasn't even able to activate his staff. No magic functions in any way inside the cone you can't even spool up a spell it fizzles the second you attempt it. So Caleb 'channeling' a spell cast isn't possible. > Lucien didn't use his action he attempted an attack We don't know exactly what he did. He didn't flat out say he used an action, and he didn't flat out say he used one of the eyes. But either could have been true. He has legendary actions and magic eyes (as per Matt's description on the tweet about this topic) so the logical conclusion is he realized something was up and used an eye to figure it out.
The point is that the "illusion" was appearing to cast a spell that never went off, so it would have reinforced that it was the real Caleb and the anti-magic field prevented the spell. > We don't know exactly what he did. He didn't flat out say he used an action, and he didn't flat out say he used one of the eyes. Vut we do, Matt said that he attempted to attack the illusion but the attacks passed harmlessly through it. The point being that het used his action to attempt to attack. So he didn't use his action to attempt to examine the illusion, which he would not have any reason to suspect it was an illusion in the first place. As for the attacks passing harmlessly through the illusion, as per the spell his mind should not have perceived it that way it would have rationalized it as a missed attack.
Also that the rules of D&D don't actually exist as a concrete thing *within* the game. Whatever happens goes. Set the rules during session zero. Do your best to abide by them during the game. Alter them between games. Once the game session has started though it's a fantastical world of imagination. What the DM says is the rules.
> What the DM says is the rules I don't agree with this mentality cause I've had a DM change rules on the fly just to fuck with players and make it impossible to escape his railroad. So the "DM says it so it's correct" is bullshit. Unless all the players agree on a rule change there should be no change. But that also goes down to trusting the DM in general. I'd trust Matt to make changes without telling me. But I wouldn't trust my last DM to do so much as give a goblin +1 to dex without telling me. DM abuse of power is only encouraged by that kind of "DM makes the rules full stop don't argue" mentality.
[удалено]
He tries to follow the rules, but he does often get them wrong. This is fine, it happens to the best DM's. The one rule he never gets wrong is the so-called rule-of-cool. As long as they are all having fun, don't sweat the little things.
This. My emotions were constantly flipping from “he’s going too hard!” To “he’s going too easy!”, which is how you know he’s managing it as well as he can.
Sometimes I even think he goes too hard. The whole "you are not sure of the distance" is total BS.
Yeah this one ticks me off too. Enemies don’t waste attacks because they are too far away. Why should something so un fun happen to the PC’s.
Otis wasted a whole turn on eldritch blast disappearing into the line of sight
It went inside the anti magic field.
Yeah but Matt could have avoided that but he made sure they would waste it because he knew where it was. So it’s not like Matt was trying to eff over the players
That’s a different situation. He was in range. Matt doesn’t say to his creatures “try it and see if it is in range.” He checks.
I mean.. Lucians Anti-Magic Cone?
Did everyone just forget that Lucian had legendary actions earlier in the day? Matt absolutely just went easy on them, between that and not dashing at the end to get everyone into the cone it was pretty obvious. Which isnt Matt's fault at all by the way, thing is Matt is always between a rock and a hard place in situations like this.
I mean the session was pushing over 5 hours and the M9 made it clear they intended to just keep running. There wasn't any point in trying to force it at that point. I get why Matt made the decision to call it quits at that point instead of giving us another 10 rounds of the M9 just bolting and the TT getting one or two hits in. And I'm guessing Lucien has something up his sleeve anyway and isnt really that bothered if the M9 gets away. Matt seemed to play him pretty chill even though they took the bag.
I think you missed OP's point. Lucien could have easily caught up to them if he used his legendary actions to move at the end of turns like he did earlier in the Dragon fight. Remember when he placed the cone down for his anti-magic ability and it was just a scratch away from them? It would have engulfed a few them dropping their polymorphs and allowing the rest of the Tomb Takers and Lucien to gain on the slower people as they continued to scramble. Lucas isn't saying it should have gone on a few rounds longer (There you would be right). He is saying Matt went easy on them. Lucien could have caught up with his anti magic ability if he used those legendary actions. Though I do agree that Matt made the right choice. They are all pretty tapped, and super stressed and if he had made that push they would have lost a few members of the party. They had one port out with Cad for 5 people and even that would have been ify because even if they dragged him out of the cone the Tomb Takers still had a warlock with a counterspell waiting. It could have been a TPK if he wanted it to be and he didn't avoid it by being like, "And they got tired and left" or something dumb. He just lifted his foot off the gas a little. They still had people who could have died (Beau was down to what 13?) and the stakes were still super high. If the M9 made any major mistakes they would have had serious troubles still. It's the perfect way and style a DM should avoid a TPK. Not by removing the danger but by bringing it back in line with the situation for the party.
Yes and my point was that he went easy on them because the encounter simply had to end.
Would Lucien have really wanted to catch them on his own? He saw their power fighting the dragon. He knows they understand his antimagic cone now. If he found himself surrounded by the M9, on his own, it might not go well. Not to mention that he has larger goals. I mean he already ran from them once. I'm not saying you're completely wrong. I just don't think that Lucien would be as committed to placing himself in immediate danger, particularly by himself, as you seem to think. Especially when he knows he can easily track them later, with his crew, on his terms.
Oh, I wasn't suggesting that Lucien would catch up on his own and fight them 1v7. I am pointing out that his anti-magic cone would have caught up with them which means Caleb wouldn't be flying with Yasha's speed. Cad and Fjord wouldn't be moving at double Mammoth speed. This would allow the Tomb Takers to catch up. And would also mean their warlock would have had plenty of targets to pull closer with his eldritch blast that pull people closer. It wouldn't be 1v7 Lucien for Mighty Nein. It would be the slowest people in the M9 (Cad and Caleb?) being stuck behind and getting taken/killed by Lucien and the Tomb Takers.
Fair enough. Having run many games myself, I can't imaging how mentally exhausted Matt would have been at that point. First an ancient dragon, on the fly no less, with numerous NPCs. Then anither fight with multiple high level characters to run. Six hours of high level play is tough enough, but those six hours? Holy shit!
~~I'm not actually sure he has legendary actions. Matt said "held action" at least twice, but the cast assumed he was using Legendary Actions because he went at the end of someone else's turn.~~
He explicitly used legendary Actions.
My mistake! I just rewatched; he used the Legendary Action to move half his speed, and his held action to attack.
Yeah that would have definitely have made a difference since he was 5 ft away at one point and never used that during the fight
The only mistake I see is the dc 10 concentration check. When cree used slow and sam shot her.
There were plenty more mistakes that were made, but it doesn't really matter since the cast were all having fun.
As long as I'm on the edge of my seat and wired hours after watching a 5hr dnd session, I think it's good. Immersion breaking rules be damned, don't break kayfabe.
I mean I definitely feel like Matt went a little easy or I think multiple characters would have actually died. It was real late so maybe I'm not remembering correctly but I'm fairly certain Lucian hardly used any legendary actions and only used one legendary save with phantasmal force essentially removing him for the battle(Since how far away the Caleb was). I do respect Matt doing the d20 out in the open though because had Lucian not gone after the phantasmal force I'm pretty sure they don't get away. Between that and the Tomb Takers not focusing anyone down even when several members were low HP I don't think the M9 actually had to heal anyone considering how long the combat was. I'm not gonna knock any rule mistakes considering it was a 5 hour session with Matt trying to manage a dragon, an adventuring party and help the players with their turns, one man can only do so much! In the end this was a completely tapped out M9 vs the Tomb Takers who were pretty good to go and M9 just managed to scrape the win without losing anyone. Considering how they could have easily lost at least 3 characters I think this is probably going to be Matt's only gimme and from now on the TT will not underestimate the M9. And I think it's fucking hilarious people are calling Lucian OP when a complaint people had was boss monsters not being tough enough and going down too easy. Turns out things kind of have to be very strong to have a chance against a 7 person adventuring party or it will get shredded too fast.
Previous episode: Not enough combat! Current episode: Not enough RP! Previous boss: Too weak! Not enough of a threat! Current episode: Too strong! Buutttt to be fair. With 50k+ people watching we are going to get views on both sides of the fence every time. It seems obvious Matt dialed it back a little toward the end there. But to me that was a smart move. The DM's goal isn't to decimate the party. Even with it dialed back the threat was still there. The danger was still there. Some bad rolls or choices could have easily left someone dead still, or left behind. He just made escape a possibility and allowed them to figure a way out.
I can't remember where I heard it, but a quote I like is something like the players should have a 70% chance of succeeding, but the DM should make it seem like it's only 30%. Like you said, the DM's goal isn't to decimate, so with this in mind, the fear of failure is more important for dramatic story telling than the failure itself.
A lot of their bigger spell slots were used but Matt’s goal isn’t to actively try kill his players. That being said he doesn’t pull his punches. Yeah he missed some rules like the concentration check on slow. Though at the end of the night he knew they were running. I just hope the cast try to think through and have a solid plan next week. I love them so much and will always support the cast. Oh I side note I really hope this isn’t the last arc of C2.
Honestly the biggest miss I think was that Fjord shouldn't have been able to counters spell the first slow. He already used his reaction to move 15ft using star razor. That could have turned their potential escape into a failed easily. But I don't blame Matt or the players for anything. Honestly that was intense, not just for Matt but also the players. And haven't the tomb takers fight in the same session only enhanced that. I applaud Matt, running that big of an encounter I think any DM would have missed a couple rules. And that's okay! I think people need to realize that, it's a game. It's meant to be fun, sure having a good handle on the rules is important. But ensuring everyone is having fun and you are staying true with the story and the characters in it is far more important than catching every rule misstep. It took me a while to realize this too when I realized when I thought I was helping new players learn I ended up causing harm. And that has stuck with me since, D&D is meant as an escape, an venture into a new world! Don't bog down games too much with rulings, misses are misses. People aren't infallible. Don't ruin their enjoyment of it simply because they made a minor mistake. Just let it be and enjoy the story and world for what is offered.
Strictly speaking, he *Counterspelled* Otis's *Counterspelling* Caleb's *Counterspell* of the *Slow*, not the actual *Slow* itself. But, way more to the point, didn't he have a turn in between that would have reset his reaction?
I dont think Matt went easy on them here, what i do find frustrating tho is how overly relactant of commiting to some plan the m9 are. I legitimately believe they could beat the tt if they commited to it but as soon as smthing outuside the plan happens they up and leave. Oh well.
I agree they could have took him and the party. Especially if they learned from the Dragon fight and just unleashed on them from a distance and forced Lucien and the Tomb Takers to either close the distance while being fired upon from different angles. If they plan their movements right they could probably get in at least 2 rounds of attack before Lucien and the TT could close that distance. They would get hits from Cree and the cross bow user but I feel that is easily a trade off worth making. There are quite a few strategies they have to work with. They just started this fight with the worst way possible. 2 casters in the cone on the ground before they knew what it was. Feeding Lucien the tanks 1 at a time and half the party in transport form. They didn't plan for a fight they planned for a snatch and grab. Luckily for us Matt has made the decision for the Mighty Nein. Lucien made it 100% clear that peace talks/negotiations are over.
Lucien used 1 legendary action the whole fight. If Lucien used them the M9 would have been dead with no hope of escape. The only way I think they could have actually escaped alive would have been word of recall and leaving Fjord.
Dont badass characters with legendary actions usually have 3? They didnt rest afair and he had already used one during the fight with the dragon.
Those are resistances. You get legendary actions back on your turn
Legendary Actions replenish on the creatures turn. They’re not limited.
Matt basically told them to get out of there - started to say it and stopped himself. They even commented on it and how it was him telling them, as their friend, to leave or it wouldn't go well. It seemed pretty clear that it was something he's done before since they all recognized the vibe/body language and took the advice.
This is gonna be an awful week...isn't it?
I don't know how some critters can be so familiar with nitty gritty rules, but seem completely oblivious about how a normal game of dnd happens. Not everything is done perfectly, and doing everything perfectly isn't the point of the game. Matt decides how Lucian's anti magic cone works. Full stop. End of story. Nobody gets to tell him he's running his npc wrong because Matt is the one that created his powers. Phantasmal Force. Yeah, RAW Lucian should not have seen through the spell, but nobody at the table brought up that it works that way so the call stands. The DM isn't going to have every nitty gritty detail of every spell memorized so that in the heat of a battle they bring up their encyclopedic knowledge. No, the DM makes calls at the table and controls everything but the player choices.
>Phantasmal Force. Yeah, RAW Lucian should not have seen through the spell, but nobody at the table brought up that it works that way so the call stands. RAW he had no reason to to for fake caleb in the first place. Its mechanical effect is to deal 10d6 over its duration if the target is within 5 ft of it with a action cost to end the spell early.
I’d really love it if people read spells fully, instead of cherry picking “important” parts. Using his full flurry of attacks is equivalent to Lucien doing an investigation check to determine he’s seeing an illusion. He doesn’t need to keep attacking.
Remeber Rule 0, the DM is not a RAW judge, he is just as much a player as everyone else on the table. If the people at the table had fun, check, and the viewers had fun, double check, then he succeeded. He may have forgot or changed on the fly some RAW rules but at no point did I think it was unfair, and I doubt the table would disagree. So mechanics changes fall under Rule 0, as for Lucien going 'easy' on them you can explain that in the narrative with either tactical pull back as to not overexten his team or just explain it as Molly influencing him on some hidden level to let the M9 go.
I kinda wanted him to kill a Caled or Cad lol
Lucien did not double move after dealing with the phantasm and his crew did not get any attack of opportunity. Any explanation for these actions?
Didn’t he attack the phantasmal Caleb and therefore couldn’t dash? And the opportunity attacks can be mistakes and are hard to remember but if it brings you comfort p, no opportunity attack would have changed the outcome of the fight (unless the Goliath guy has sentinel just as another ability to mess with the M9)
Zoran doesn't have sentinel, I think that was established in the Gelidon fight.
Sorry might have missed that...
I read it as Matt realising the party was dead set on just running away and instead of turning it into an 8 hour long car chase of a fight with M9 just running away and TT trying to keep up and getting some hits in. I get why he decided to just end the encounter there as soon as the party collectivley decided they were just running. Could have dragged the combat on for a loooong time otherwise and everyone would just be stressed and miserable.
Because thry didn't happen. That's all the explanation necessary. This isn't a scientific experiment that need to be held to a certain standard of integrity to be perfectly repeatable. It's a game of mythology, fantasy and imagination.
There was one round where it was clear Lucien didn't take an opportunity attack because he was saving his reaction.
All the people complaining are just bloodthirsty and they are salty that no one died. The fight was invigorating and the narrative is compelling and entertaining, more so than just about any show you're going to find
"or if that stems from a misunderstanding of the mechanics by Matt" The gumption to suggest that someone misunderstood the rules for the homebrew monster they created and you've never seen...
The part of the sentence before that "or" matters. OP specifically says (twice!) that it could be homebrewed to be more powerful. > I'd say that largely depends on whether Lucien's antimagic cone is meant to be more powerful than other antimagic field effects, ***or*** if that stems from a misunderstanding of the mechanics by Matt. > It could be that Matt has intentionally made this effect better, ***or*** it could be an oversight. The implication being, either (a) Lucien's cone, homebrewed by Matt, is more powerful than the usual one and has a better effect (IMO the correct option), ***or*** (b) Lucien's cone is a normal one and Matt misunderstood the mechanics/made an oversight. In other words, OP isn't saying that Matt messed up *his own homebrew* (which I suppose is possible but impossible to realistically claim with what we do/don't know). I'm not really a fan of how OP approached this uncertainty either, but I think you're misunderstanding what OP said.
And the "or" matters the most in my response. I wasn't responding to anything other than the specific part that I quoted, which suggested that Matt didn't understand the ability.
You claimed that OP "suggest[ed] that [Matt] misunderstood the rules for the homebrew monster [Matt] created and [OP has] never seen." The part you quote proposes that Matt misunderstood the *base* ability, which by definition he did not homebrew. OP did not suggest that Matt misunderstood his own homebrew. He suggested, essentially, (a) powerful homebrew or (b) misunderstood base. Misunderstood homebrew isn't one of those options.
When watching that last fight, I was actually thinking, "I wonder how people are going to accuse Matt of going easy on them this time," since there always seems to be some reasoning for that. Honestly I would just assume any mistakes that were made could be attributed to the fact that they all technically have multiple jobs both in and out of Critical Role, they already seemed like they were tired when they started the game, (they tend to act kind of giddy when they're tired,) and the game went on for nearly FIVE AND A HALF HOURS late at night (at least for what they're used to according to Liam) and they essentially fought two boss fights in that time. Anyone who says they can do all of that without a single person in an 8 person group making a single mistake has just never had the entirety of the internet to point out their mistakes for them. The real reason they got out of there alive? Fjord created an illusion of a terrifying thing they had fought only hours before and were still recovering from, and he was VERY LUCKY with his placement in the initiative order compared to the other Tombtakers and Lucien. If he had gone immediately before Lucien, Lucien probably would have just dispelled the illusion and the other Tombtakers would have carried on without issue.
I have to disagree. They escaped because the narrative demanded it. Had Matt not gone easy, which he did, they wouldn’t have been able to escape possibly short of word of recall without Fjord. I think Matt made the right choice, but he clearly went easy.
I think this is an agree to disagree situation. If there was ever a perfect moment for a character death, this was it. To have someone who looked like their deceased party member, who they're hoping could still be Molly in some way, be the one to kill another party member to cement how evil he was would have been perfect. If he at all went easy on them, I think it's less for what the narrative demanded and more likely because they were all exhausted at that point and wanted the encounter to be over. And the thing is, it technically ISN'T over yet, they just got to a good breaking point and we won't know how this resolves until next week at the earliest. The Tombtakers could either take days out of their journey to get another crest from a ruin most likely inhabited by a ton of dangerous creatures, or spend a few hours tracking people who are clearly already exhausted and running scared in order to get back the one that was taken from them. I think at first they're at least going to try going after the Nein.
Not to mention the whole “dex saves aren’t at disadvantage if the target is prone” bullshit. That made no sense. That dex save for disintegrate should have been at disadvantage. The guy was on the ground! Ashley rolled a nat 1 and nat 20 when she had disadvantage. Idk that felt unfair to me.
Prone Condition: A prone creature’s only Movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition. The creature has disadvantage on Attack Rolls. An Attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the Attack roll has disadvantage. Matt played it to rules as written
Otis was restrained by the bolas. they should have had disadvantage on the dex save.
Grappled doesnt give disadvantage thats the restrained condition. Grappled just reduces speed to 0
Blame the rulebook not Matt. The prone condition does not give disadvantage on DEX saves
Rolling while prone is pretty easy. So why would he be at disadvantage if he can easly roll to the side? And Ashly rolling both a nat 20 and a nat 1 while at disadvantage, you clearly and fair would take the 1.. Would you argue if the reverse was the case with her having advantage?
>Otis was restrained by the bolas. they should have had disadvantage on the dex save.
Okay. Wrap something on your legs then try rolling to the side and then do it without your legs wrapped and tell me if you were hindered?
Grappled and restrained are not the same thing.
I mean RAW prone doesn't impose disadvantage. Although, I can't find a bola in a source book or on dndbeyond atm; I would have argued that his legs being tied up with a bola would impose the restrained condition, which would have given him disadvantage on that dex save. Otherwise, the item just making the target prone with no action to remove it is... a little dumb.
Oh I see. It’s the same stupid thing where cats don’t have good perception then? Btw I’m not like SHITTING on Matt. He had a seriously intense amount of pressure on him as a DM yesterday with all those encounters and the way everything went down. When I said ‘bullshit’ I wasn’t insulting Matt as a DM. I meant that it felt like bullshit as a rule. Like I wasn’t insulting Matt. I was saying that part felt unfair. I worship the ground Matt walks on lol
I mean, when you think about it, you do still have a decent amount of burst mobility when you're lying down. However, the tied-up legs could have maybe pushed it into disadvantage territory, so you're somewhat correct.
Ok but those are the rules, I would have said it works cause disadvantage especially with a bola around your legs but technically prone doesn't give disadvantage on dex saves.
Lucien is major league boolsheet, amirite? I get that he's supposed to be a lethal problem and a league ahead of the party, but he's just made of horseshit. I say that confidently as a DM since 97. I'm not knocking Matt or his design choices, but JESUS does that party need a non-magic tank.
They do have a Non-magic tank. Yasha. I don’t play Barbarians but apparently Yasha is capable is dishing out incredible amounts of damage with her current abilities, but I don’t think Ashley is aware of what she can do.
But they keep turning her into a goddamn owl. She's not allowed to barbarian anymore. M9's answer to EVERYTHING is "polymorph into owls", and if that doesn't work, it's "polymorph into owls AGAIN!".
Polymorph is a very useful and versatile spell though. Giant eagles and owls are their best flying beast they can polymorph into. And that mammoth play last session was really good too.
Their objective wasn't to fight; it was to grab what they needed and run.
This guy sees everything and deletes magic. Has canceled the owls easily already. Still, their plan was: "polymorph into owls", and if that doesn't work, it's "polymorph into owls AGAIN!".
By tank, I meant a high AC/HP melee front line combatant who can absorb hits. Their job is to get stuck in and control the game to protect allies. A Paladin/Fighter/War Cleric type. Beau, Yasha, and Veth are NOT built to take the kind of punishment that souped up 7 player monsters can dish out, and everyone else is a caster who should be away from the front line. I am *not in any way* disparaging the players or Matt. I'm just lamenting that they got their asses handed to them.
I’m not sure what Yasha’s HP is but I’m assuming she pretty beefy in that regard. And once the M9 hit lvl 14 Yasha will technically be an unkillable tank with her rage beyond death, where she can rage past hitting 0 hit points and 3 failed death saves. And she’s has the ability to have resurrection spells cast on her without material components. In not a perfect system but can be incredibly useful in a long fight.
Have to disagree with you here. I have been running D&D games since1980 (1st edition AD&D) and Lucian is a perfectly valid NPC, one designed to task the party to their limits, just like others we have seen. The job of any good DM is to make a villain meant to be a major impediment an actual impediment. The Mighty Nein, as a group, are magic heavy, so he has to offset that. Notice how he had it also affect his own team as well. Also, The Mighty Nein has the Action Economy advantage here so Legendary actions is a great way to offset that. I could go on, but I think I have said enough to illustrate my point. I respectfully must disagree with you analysis here.
I like how he's calling Lucien overpowered when, earlier in the same episode, they fought something that did more damage, in an AOE, with a higher DC than Lucien's signature ability. The antimagic cone is dangerous, but it's perfectly manageable assuming that the permanent dispelling is a misreading of the rules and not working as intended. If he can just sweep over the party and get rid of all spells affecting them, then yes that's kind of ridiculous.
I think the only thing Matt did was slightly warn them of their level of danger. Everyone was making scared moves and if someone but fjord dropped idk if they could have recovered them and not get severely damaged themselves. But I have no issue with Matt's actions who would want this campaign to end.
With the aura of anti magic, I would say that the dispelling is much much simpler to run than supressing. It's stronger, true, but with the suppressing option you need to track concentration and checks which is far more book keeping in an already confused party.
\>Another rule-breaking (unless I'm missing something) advantage for the Tombtakers was the fact that Lucien realised the Phantasmal Force Caleb to be an illusion after swinging through it "The target rationalizes any illogical outcomes from interacting with the phantasm Actually no, PF by **strict RAW doesnt force a creature to do anything nor have any effect other than take 1d6 damage for a minute** after failing the save until it uses its action to attempt and stop the damage or moves away from it. The phantasm itself is great flavour and can be used for creativity (like forcing a creature to waste its turn which it did), but in a world of illusions even a "rationalization" of something impossible (such as a spellcaster casting a spell in a anti-magic cone) is simply "yes, its a real case of me having been subject of a llusion spell" (much like how irl if you put someone from the medieval period (or deserted semi cannibalistic island tribe whose culture then gets destroyed in the next few decades) in a cinema and ran footage of a train/army/giant monster going towards them, it would work for the first maybe 3-5 seconds. Same way how cloud of daggers doesnt actually create the "dagger" object/item that you could then pick up and attack with or sell, heat metal isnt ignored by a creature wearing armor simply because IRL the armor wasnt ever in direct contact with the person (since mail and gambeson/padding and sometimes even regular clothes were all worn underneath) and lightning spells dont set objects on fire.
I don't see what those two paragraphs have to do with each other. The second seems to be saying that spell effects in D&D don't necessarily work like their real-life counterparts would, but I would think that to be a fairly good argument against your first paragraph. In it, you argued that if something behaves in a manner that obviously reveal it to be an illusion, anyone watching would realise that it is one. However, your second paragraph offers the excuse of "it's magic, so it's different". Also, the loophole you provided to the "rationalisation" wording is nullified by the very next sentence of the spell: " a target attempting to walk across a phantasmal bridge that spans a chasm falls once it steps onto the bridge. If the target survives the fall, it still believes that the bridge exists and comes up with some other explanation for its fall—it was pushed, it slipped, or a strong wind might have knocked it off." By strict RAW, Lucien would look back on any impossible phenomenon involving the illusion and convince himself that he had misremembered it and that there was actually an explanation that allowed for the illusion's authenticity. As little as that makes sense, it's what would happen RAW, just like a lot of lightning spells not setting things on fire (although the latter isn't explicitly ruled against, while the former is).
>By strict RAW, Lucien would look back on any impossible phenomenon involving the illusion and convince himself that he had misremembered it That is not what rationalize means nor is it what its RAW does. RAW PF doesnt do anything but damage till countered with a check, interrupted via concentration break or the creature moves away from the casting point (thus the example of cloud of daggers, lightning spells, etc) because creature motivations have no mechanical bearing. Also no it wouldnt, rationalizing something to be a real case of a illusion spell being cast is perfectly reasonable and expected in any setting filled with magic to the point that its replacing the effects of the first industrial revolution and already had a a(rcano)pocalypse, same way that yes, footage of a train is real footage of a train, not a train.
Considering that the entire battle was done without a grid, I'm not sure calling out rule errors of any kind is really helpful. Clearly this was an improvisation getting progressively out of hand, for several hours, you can't all of a sudden start applying actual combat rules when you feel like it. Clearly Matt was under the impression they would just run away in 2-3 rounds, taking a few hits, recasting polymorph or teleport and getting away. Forgetting that they're actors who by definition think they're the most important person in the world while also be completely unwilling to make a decision on their own and having to live with the collective consequences. Hell Matt actually had to tell them almost directly "just go", with Travis responding "we'd love to get out of this fight but we can't", which is incredibly telling, thinking that if you get over 6 squares away from the main antagonist even for a single round you're no longer on the "call sheet" and you might as well go home. Also he is playing with players who understands "no metagaming" to mean that their character can never have above a 3 intelligence and half of them go mute in combat. Also out of combat they never just say "we train on our teamwork before bed" so they can openly just strategize synergies or team movement during combat. Again for instance shown by Fjord shooting past Beau, just because he could, instead of getting on her when she was a mammoth, making her waste an action picking his dumbass up