Critical Role discussions (and other DnD pods/shows)

Discussion in 'TV Board' started by TheSkeeter, Feb 27, 2020.

  1. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    Well, any hope that Bertrand was sticking around went out the window with Travis’s actions in tonight’s fight. As funny as it was, a PC isn’t doing that if he’s not expendable
     
  2. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    When did you write this comment by chance?

    *edit* oh you wrote this right after hour 3
    that’s a great end to an episode!
     
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  3. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    Saw the following on Reddit and boy, that didn’t even cross my mind but it’s spot on.

    I just realized. Bertrand is this party's Agent Coulson. He helped bring them together, introduced them to their orcish version of Nick Fury, and then died to their first legit enemy, crystalizing their partnership.
     
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  4. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    It’s good story telling set up. New campaigns are always awkward. C2 was a rough start
     
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  5. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    That ending was an amazing use of the new set design. Added a lot to the scene.
     
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  6. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    Also huge spoilers for last night’s episode, but at least some definitive clarity

     
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  7. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    This was a very well done summary of the ridiculous plot of EXU

     
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  8. Illinihockey

    Illinihockey Well-Known Member
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    ok I knew it wasn’t me and this show actually sucked. I was already thinking about how much more I like Dorian and Orym in campaign 3
     
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  9. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    I normally watch/listen while I do other things. With CR, I can usually follow even if I’m not paying the closest attention. With EXU, I kept having this weird feeling of, why are they here again? Wtf are they doing now? Who is this NPC? Why does this matter? Almost every episode.

    Story was too ambitious, needed to be smaller scope imo
     
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  10. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    I tried to rewatch, but it’s insane.
     
  11. Illinihockey

    Illinihockey Well-Known Member
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    I didn’t know who the big bad was at the end
     
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  12. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    In the end, it’s society that’s the big bad.
     
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  13. Illinihockey

    Illinihockey Well-Known Member
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    Ashely and Marisha just killing it with their characters. Ashley after taking such a back seat with pike and yasha I love seeing her being so insanely chaotic. Really like the cast other than Ashton who still doesn’t do much for me.
     
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  14. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    I think it’s just because Ashley knows she’s in this season for the long hall. She doesn’t have to have pre-made “get outs” with her personality
     
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  15. Odin

    Odin social distancing since 1990
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    im sorry did bertrand die and i somehow missed it?
     
  16. Odin

    Odin social distancing since 1990
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    ok, apparently i just hadnt watched the end of the episode. oops.
     
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  17. Odin

    Odin social distancing since 1990
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    11 hour drive today. finally gonna listen to dalen's closet.
     
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  18. Odin

    Odin social distancing since 1990
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    i wonder if theres any relation between derrig and orym. the former is a half elf and the latter a halfling but theyre both battlemasters from zephrah played by liam with no accent.
     
  19. Odin

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    i just realized a standard d&d character would run the 40 in 12 seconds
     
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  20. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    Heavy armor carrying sword and shield probably about right
     
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  21. Odin

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    that was a solid but nothing special transition/exposition episode with a fun ending /official review
     
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  22. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    Pretty much nailed it.
     
  23. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    I really don’t care for Ashton.
     
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  24. Illinihockey

    Illinihockey Well-Known Member
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    by far the worst character. Is he some kind of paladin barbarian? Seems like he has some sort of divine smite ability called a chaos burst. At least tal knows always use reckless attack
     
  25. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    Home brew barbarian class

    his personality is the word fuck.
     
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  26. LuPoor

    LuPoor Cuddle with the homies watching Stand By Me
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    Broken ass barbarian homebrew
     
  27. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    Complete speculation - think Travis gets introduced this episode as he’s a member of the group they are currently in front of.
     
  28. DuckD

    DuckD Well-Known Member
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    Still think Travis is The Anger. They talked last episode about that person having sustained an injury and recuperating. Would explain why the character "wasn't available" at the beginning.
     
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  29. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    Matt says Ashton’s burst damage is just 2d4 twice per long rest, and he defends it compared to Zealot barb’s 1d6+1 on one attack every round.
    Idk guess Talesin is just rolling bananas every episode.
     
  30. Illinihockey

    Illinihockey Well-Known Member
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    Something is weird then because he’s doing like 16-31 damage per hit. 1d10+ 2 for rage + strength (don’t know what is is but let’s say +3) that’s 15 max before chaos burst
     
  31. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

  32. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    2d6 + 2 rage + 3 str + 2d4 chaos burst.

    max 25 (unless Crit), average 17.
     
  33. Illinihockey

    Illinihockey Well-Known Member
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    I’ve been binging adventure zone and the entire cast is great but taako is such a great character. Justin McElroy is hilarious
     
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  34. DuckD

    DuckD Well-Known Member
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    End of last episode Esteross(sp?) said something about setting up a meeting with Oshad Breshio (The Anger). I think we might finally get Travis' character this coming episode
     
  35. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    I had a headache last night and didn’t even make it to the break before falling asleep. Some awesome backstory thanks to Tal early though.
     
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  36. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    Laudna is such a great character. The star of C3 so far imo.
     
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  37. Odin

    Odin social distancing since 1990
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    i'm interested in seeing the level split marisha ends up going with
     
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  38. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    It’s hard to make a bad Sorlock build tbh. Lots of flexibility
     
  39. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    It’s 2-3 of Warlock the rest is sorcery, right? It’s been a long time since I played with any sort of power build
     
  40. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    You really don’t need any more than 2 warlock. UNLESS you go pact of chain for familiar (pate?) or pact of tome for rituals.


    Always start sorc for Con save proficiency.

    then warlock 2 (or3 For familiar/rituals)

    then sorcerer probably all the way to 20 for spell slot progression and better spell choices, more sorcery points.

    Quickened spell is key to build. Twinned spell pretty valuable. Hexblade makes build OP but still good without.

    here’s an easy build, nothing shady or rule bending about it, that AVERAGES 60 DAMAGE PER ROUND AT LEVEL 5 (there’s a typo -in it says twinned instead of quickened for doubling the eldritch blasts per round.)

    Putting it All Together

    Ok, now that we’ve created our sorlock, let’s take a look at what a 5th level sorlock (3 sorcerer/ 2 warlock) can do.

    Let’s assume that our sorlock has 16 Dexterity, 16 Charisma, took the elven accuracy feat at 4th level, and took the shadow magic and hexblade archetypes, along with the agonizing blast and devil’s sight invocations, and the quickened spell metamagic.

    To start with, our lil sorlock can wear medium armor and a shield, so with either a breastplate or half plate and a shield we’ve got a 19 or 20 AC which rivals a paladin. In a pinch we can also cast the shield spell, popping us up to a 24 AC or 25 AC, not too shabby at all and no glass cannon here! If you're especially worried, you can even use mirror image for even more protection but at the cost of some of the damage we're about to stack up.

    Next let’s figure out our ELDRITCH BLAST MACHINE GUN OF DOOM!

    Eldritch blast deals 1d10 per bolt, and at 5th level we’re up to 2 bolts so we’ve got a 2d10 force damage roll on our hands.

    We smartly took the agonizing blast invocation, which lets us add our Charisma to each bolt, now we’re at 2d10 + 6 force damage.

    The twinned spell metamagic lets us cast another eldritch blast as a bonus action at the cost of 2 sorcery points, which we should currently have a whopping 5 of, but with the ability to convert spell slots to sorcerer points (even a warlock spell slot that recovers on short rests), so we technically have access to 23 spell points if we need them. With our eldritch blast twinned our 2 bolts suddenly became 4 and now we’re at 4d10 + 12 force damage.

    But wait! There’s more. It takes a bonus action (so we can’t twin our blast on the same turn but we can still blast in addition) but if we cast the lovely warlock spell hex , our target takes an additional 1d6 necrotic damage on each hit with disadvantage on the saving throw of our choice thrown in for good measure. Now each round of blasting will be dealing them 4d10 + 12 force damage and 4d6 necrotic damage.

    But there’s STILL more. We’re a hexblade, and as a bonus action we can slap a hexblade curse on our target, which adds a bonus to damage on each hit equal to our proficiency (currently +3) AND our critical hit chance is raised against them to a 19-20. So now we’re dealing 4d10 + 24 force damage and 4d6 necrotic damage.

    STILL MORE. We’ve hit the current cap for the machine gun damage , but let’s get those hit chances up eh? Because we took the edgy shadow sorcerer option, we can cheaply cast darkness for just 2 sorcerer points and see our targets using our warlock invocation devil's sight, but they can’t see us. So now we’re dealing 4d10 + 24 force damage and 4d6 necrotic damage, with a 19-20 crit range, and all 4 of our attacks are at advantage . All the while attacks against us with our 19-20 AC get disadvantage on attack rolls. Keep in mind though that if you’re using your own darkness rather than some dark you found in the wild, you can’t concentrate on both hex and darkness at the same time, so you’ll have to choose between the advantage/disadvantage or the secondary damage. (If you really don't want to go the shadow sorcerer route, the greater invisibility spell sets up a similar situation but at a high spell slot cost).

    AND A BAG OF CHIPS! We still haven’t factored in our elven accuracy feat, which means all of those attacks aren’t just at advantage, they’re at super advantage and are essentially rolling 3 dice for each attack and picking the highest.

    So between our 4 shots, all of which are very likely to hit just about any target, with a mathematically high critical strike chance every turn , we’re dealing on average of 60 damage (4d10 + 24 + 4d6) before factoring in critical hit damage every turn with our cantrip! This is at level 5! Admittedly that’s a best case scenario with a couple turns casting the setup and you're draining spell points but MAN this can melt a dragon. This is outpacing even a rogue sneak attack for DPS.

    And don’t forget that eldritch blast goes up to 3 blasts at 11th level, so go through all those calculations with 2 extra blasts, a bump to proficiency, and assuming we get up to 18 Charisma we land at a whopping average 102 (6d10 + 48 + 6d6) damage a TURN.

    CR doesn’t power gamer anything (Travis arguably tries to min-max more than anyone) and Marisha won’t build optimally, but rather based on background, but Sorlocks are hard to not be OP in combat.
     
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  41. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    Well she has her two in Warlock, and if
    Delilah
    is her patron then it sounds like she won’t take more power from that source.
     
    #1191 TheSkeeter, Dec 7, 2021
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2021
  42. Odin

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    i love ashley's commitment to stealing shit despite not even being proficient in sleight of hand. so far she has rolled very well but its sure to go poorly/hilariously at some point.
     
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  43. Illinihockey

    Illinihockey Well-Known Member
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    Just binged TAZ Balance arc and man, that was just fucking fantastic. It started out just as goofy fun but Travis really incorporated a really interesting story and by the end it got pretty fucking emotional. Thanks again to whoever recommended it to me. Completely worth the time if someone hasn't listened to it.
     
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  44. Odin

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    pact of the chain is the only one that would make sense
     
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  45. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    It’s great. Listened briefly to other campaigns and they aren’t even close to as good. They really captured lightning in a bottle.
     
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  46. Illinihockey

    Illinihockey Well-Known Member
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    have you listened to any of the stuff with Aabria DMing for them? Imbalance it’s called
     
  47. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    Nope
     
  48. Odin

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    after reading through it i think id love playing through strixhaven
     
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  49. TheSkeeter

    TheSkeeter Well-Known Member
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    The MtG story line was pretty horrendous. But I mean, it's a full on Hogwarts plane of existance, so that's awesome.
     
  50. Odin

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    im not a HUGE fan of the decision but that character was hilarious
     
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