Critical Role Thread

Thoughts on tonight's episode? How do you see Vox Machina's future?

Typical whiny, angst bullshit to retire a character. It's a trope that deserves a swift kick to the balls of the player who tries to do it. If Sam doesn't want to play Scanlan any more, fine. He doesn't need to conjure up drama like some twilight-reading tween on the character's way out.

Sam and Travis deserve better.

I think from Sam's POV this is meant to be a part of Scanlan's journey where he goes off to connect with his daughter, a thing that he's been running away from for so long since it's reveal.
I feel like Sam and Matt talked this out ahead of time (probably around the time they met for Talks Machina) and the two worked together on how they can best get Scanlan to leave and where his new character can show up at. Because Sam still wants to play with everyone, so he has to introduce a new character somehow. Enter Terry, who looks to be an Artificer from the WotC UA a few weeks back.

Also, if this doesn't cement Sam as the best roleplayer in the group I don't know what will.

The content and direction isn't what I have issue with. It's the execution. There are so many ways Scanlan could have bowed out and reconnected with his daughter. Instead we got nearly an hour of "fuck this, fuck you, I'm out" across the entire table. Most of which came out of left field on the part of Scanlan. "Boo hoo you all never knew me I quit" isn't good roleplay. It was mega forced and in no way reflected what the character was like up until then.

I don't like Terry either. Marsha of all things made a good point that VM is basically just getting another guinea pig. I get that they have a show to do every week and Sam not being a part of that is kinda a big deal. But to just let (albeit reluctantly) a new party member join out of fucking nowhere like that? I mean, we already give them shit for not making death matter. This is just as much faggotry.

i thought it was great drama, Scanlan made a lot of good points and it made sense how he acted seeing what he went through

After following the show for so long, he actually has a fair point: people have tried to talk to him and inquire about stuff (his age, his past, etc.) but Scanlan's lied to them almost every single time, usually tying it with a joke. And after a point they just stopped trying because the rest of VM didn't care, they figured Scanlan was this happy-go-lucky guy who was wise beyond his years, and instead wasn't just flying by the seat of his pants. Not to mention the downward spiral that Scanlan's been on since Kaylee, being a bigger risk taker and getting into the fray sometimes. That's partially why he died twice against Raishan: he stuck his nose out to try and stop her and she bitch slapped him for it, especially after she saw him Counterspell her Prismatic Spray the first time around.

I also feel like Terry isn't meant to be liked; he's supposed to come off as that snobby little rich kid playing with mom and dad's money. Yes, Keyleth makes a good point about the guinea pig example, but for out-of-game reasons they have to take him along. Sam did roleplay it out and convinced a majority to let him along. He impressed Grog with the magical weapon (a Rod of Lordly Might), bribed his way past Vex (he's flashing around so much gold and magical shit it can't all be a lie), and intrigued Percy on a mechanical level (the magic coin that can turn someone Invisible).

Let Vax and Keyleth be the ones that are wary of him, and the moment Vex can get any solid coin out of him she'll drop him like a bag of bricks. Until then, let's see this unfold. More than likely they'll spend 10-15 minutes delivering the hand, then go help Keyleth finish her Aramente (probably a trial of some sort there), and then they can deal with the Rakshasha before there's a time skip before the last arc begins, where VM (probably with Scanaln returned) deals with a threat that affects the entire Material Plane (my guess is Vecna).

i actually feel kinda bad for sam, you could see the worry on his face when they said they hated Terry. i think he wanted them to like him

No, he's intentionally egging them on with this obnoxious character.

>I have no idea how to tell a story and I think any character development is whiny bullshit.

Please go away.

yeah, after his introduction made them angry. before that he seemed worried

What's this vehemence against drama?

They hate Terry (in-game) because he's playing it off like the stereotypical obnoxious rich kid who doesn't know the actual dangers of the world.

Out of game they just hate Sam because of his roleplaying of tearing out VM's hearts with the emotional drama of Scanlan leaving and then shoving this Terry-sized asshole in front of them.

It's great drama and they hate/love him for it. Hell, there were moments during the Terry introduction where he insults Laura (calling Vex, 'little elf girl') and literally EVERYONE gets out of her line of sight as she shoots daggers from her eyes at Sam, and all the while Sam's got that stupid shit-eating grin on his face.

Alchemist or Gunsmith? He did like Percy's guns and it would be a funny joke, but I think he would prefer playing Alchemist more.

i'm pretty sure terry is an artificer

Not him, but a story is supposed to have lead up and hints that such an outburst is coming. We had none here unless you want to count Scanlan overdosing on whatever drug it was after Thordak.

I think he meant the archetype of the Artificer: Alchemist or Gunsmith.

I'm hoping for Gunsmith, because then Terry can look at Percy's guns and go, "oh, that little old thing? Look at the size of my toy" and pull out the Thunder Cannon.

there were plenty of hints, most of it was outside of their view

can you have a warforged and use guns at the same time?

The Mechanical Servant is a class feature of the Artificer, not tied into either archetype. All it has to be based upon is a Large beast creature of CR 2 or less.

Some of the suggested ones when the class was revealed were things like Allosaurus, Polar Bear, and a couple CR 1s that can grapple like a crocodile or constrictor snake. It could be modeled after a Half-Ogre or a normal Ogre, if Matt's willing to bend the rules a bit to allow a more humanoid - ie., warforged - servant act as, for lack of a better term, scribe while Terry goes about adventuring.

how/when will terry die?

Ten weeks.

Something about the entire affair says to me Sam did it just to bug people.

Maybe I'm just biased against players who reroll into an identical replacement character.

Well people decided 4 hour long episodes of rolling Doce and doing math in combat is really boring so when the crew puts battle aside and attempts to create some plot development (with some surprising acting quality, mind you. ) Everyone's gut reaction is to shit on it because it doesn't match up 1:1 with a joke made in episode 15 or because Sam wants to continue playing in a campaign he's been a part of for literal years the show is now terrible.

I feel sad that watching people have fun is making some other people angry.

Wait, which joke? Also, Sam Riegel is a amazing cheeky cunt, and his new character have a fucking Rod of Lordly Might and a Helm of Brilliance, which is fucking insane.

My theory is thus:
>Sam decides as Scanlan that he needs a break from the group
>Decides to roll douche mcdouche
>Douche is actually a future antagonist, collaborated with Mercer
>Douche betrays Vox Moochina
>SCANLAN TO THE RESCUE

I kinda want that Douche McDouche become his character for a longer while and not a future plot point. It feels too obvious for that, and it would be better if he's just a silly cunt when Scanlan was a funny cunt. Let the gnome be happy with his daughter, he earned it.

I believe the Helm of Brilliance is probably as-written in the book. The Rod of Lordly Might, however, might be tweaked or modified in some fashion, as it can't normally turn into a Heavy Crossbow.

However, if he is playing an Artificer, it's possible he found (read: bought) a Rod and then used his Artificer skills to modify it even more.

And if you look at the "wealth" of Scanlan from a magic item perspective, he was pretty fucking rich. Mythcarver is an artifact (and is fucking busted in the hands of a Bard), his Ioun Stone is rather par for the course, but he also ran around with a few various "Wand of X" and would use them to pretty good effect. My guess is that the new character is actually a level below the group (so probably a level 15 Artificer) and would have around 100k gold in equivalent worth of magic items and another 25-50k in hard currency.

Yeah, compared with Scanlan, Taryon doesn't have an artifact, but I believe he's the first new character to have up to Legendary-tier magical items. I don't remember if any of the guests had high-tier items other than Zahra's Cloak of the Bat.

>that pic
wut

What would Grog have done with the Skull? What bad shit would have happened if he used it?

We could've had a more unpredictable Conclave arc depending on his wish, with a interesting monkey's paw, if we consider Matt not having too much attachment to the dragons and just rolling with another variable thrown into the chaos.

The skull was Githyanki, and I don't remember if the spirit inside of it was male or female, but it could've been Gith or someone inspired on her.

And it wont matter because they'll just res him anyway.
Remember when people were optimistic that Tallesin would retire Percy after he died for the first time? I believed it too.
Critical Role deaths are basically Marvel deaths at this point. People crying over basically nothing.

I think Matt should make a change on his res ritual and lower how much a success can affect the DC. As of now, Percy, Grog and Vex have a base DC of 12. A success can decrease it by 3. With one success the chances of a failure are below 50%, and it becomes even more retarded with more successes.

If he really want to make a resurrection to be meaningful he should make the DC higher if he want doesn't want to tweak the contribution system, or make a success have a lesser impact or a quantitative impact. The bigger the contribution, the more powerful it is, with an actual sacrifice (e.g. an item sacrifice, like what Grog did with his belt and vestige) making an big impact on the DC. If the chance of failure is not around 50% on average then why the fuck would you create another system for it?