Critical Role Thread

Ep. 107 Edition

How will Keyleth fuck up this time?

From Marisha's (Keyleth) AMA on Plebbit:

>Hmm. Yeah, ya know, it took some time and acceptance. It also took a few moments of realization both on my part, and some of the audience members. After the episode with the Kerrek intervention (and on a few other occasions), I got flooded with a decent amount of letters from people saying that they realized their hatred towards Keyleth, her insecurities and self doubts and innate ability to put her foot in her mouth... their hatred stemmed from familiarity. The qualities they despised the most were the same qualities they despised in themselves. "Keyleth is my dark mirror" many have similarly said. And, truthfully, while the negativity doesn't fully go away, it does seem to have subsided.

>Those who don't feel that way, and still hate her? Well, I dunno. I've heard a million theories from my cast mates, coworkers, friends, fellow fans, and I'm sure many of them are true for many people. Some people want to see a bunch of flawless heroes kicking ass, and they cant comprehend why I'd want to play someone who doesn't believe they're a hero. Some despise the way I play her, or think I'm doing Druids, and therefore the game, a disservice. And, I think some are just looking for something, ANYTHING, to be angry at, and anger promotes more anger. Mostly, I try to ignore it. Regardless, It's taken time to come to the understanding that the problem is not with me, and is honestly something I still struggle with from time to time. I get hate mail in my inbox after almost every game. (There are a lot of word filters on my incoming email these days). And, after most games, I tend to get tweets that say, "Oh Marisha, just ignore the haters! There was nothing wrong with what you did tonight!", and almost always my response is, "Wait... what did I do? Not sure what they're referring to this time..."

Clueless as per usual. "I do nothing wrong so it must be everyone else's desire to be angry!" Please.

>"Wait... what did I do? Not sure what they're referring to this time..."
Perhaps the problem is her ENTIRE LACK OF SELF AWARENESS?

My only problem is that she is suppose to be like one of the most wise mortals in the world (22 wis I think ) yet she doesn't think or act wisely which bothers me

LETS HAVE A RECAP OF Veeky ForumsS RECCOMENDED BATTLE STRATEGY AGAINST VECNA PART 1/3!!!


Well, the best ways they can beat up Vecna is by going into the fight with as many non-Concentration buffs on the party as they can:

> Freedom of Movement on the martial DPS and support, at the very least Vax, Vex, and Scanlan.
> Heroes Feast the night before, probably in Scanlan's mansion.
> Focus fire one target at a time, don't split up the damage sources.
> If you can temporarily enchant Percy's guns so they can affect Vecna, do it.
> Protect Scanalan, he's the only one who can Counterspell Vecna's big spells and the save or suck stuff.
> Keep Pike alive to provide healing and potentially burn Vecna's own Counterspells.

The most important thing is this:

> Keyleth has to become another support character during the fight, and look to use her staff charges during the fight when the opportunity is available.

This means stuff like Lesser or Greater Restoration when people get paralyzed or mind controlled, Healing Word should be read nearly every round to top people up or get them moving again if they go down via damage and not by something like Power Word Kill, Finger of Death, or Disintegrate.

But this means Marisha would have to actually play her character to its fullest potential, and she just doesn't know how to do that.
The Death Knight will probably try to Banishment Grog once again like in the last fight, and then look to bop the support/squishies.

PART 2/3!!!
For the moment, let's assume everyone in the party is level 18 when they go into the fight against Vecna just to keep the options simple (I know they won't be; some will be level 20, others will be 19, and I think Pike will be the only level 18 in the fight).

Level 18 Moon Druid:
24 Prepared spells.

Level 18 War Cleric:
23 Prepared spells, 10 Domain spells.

Level 18 Lore Bard:
24 known spells

Level 13 Assassin Rouge/5 Vengeance Paladin:
Four 1st level, Two 2nd level slots.

Level 14 Ranger/4 Assassin Rogue:
8 spells known, Four 1st level, Three 2nd and 3rd level, One 4th level spell slots

Level 15 Berserker Barbarian/Battlemaster Fighter 3:
3 maneuvers, lots of Rage

Level 18 Gunslinger Fighter:
Lots of trickshot uses and two Action Surges, along with Hex

Pre-battle buffs:

Heroes Feast the night before. Between the Cleric and the Druid, they blow their 4th level slots and a 5th level slot from the Druid on Freedom of Movement on the party.

Bard looks to use a mix of Bardic Inspiration and Cutting Words along with his higher level spell slots on Counterspelling the large stuff from Vecna (Finger of Death, Power Word Kill, Disintegrate, etc.), uses the lower level stuff to keep everyone topped up via Healing Word.

Cleric uses her spells on Cure Wounds, Mass Cure Wounds, Heal, etc., while helping to beat up Delilah if she's on the ground. Otherwise Cleric stays in back and is on defensive to protect Bard and Druid.

Druid looks to provide more healing or use some save or suck spells, or the spells in the staff, to try and burn through Legendary Resists.

Grog, Percy, and the Twins blow up Delilah, looking to take her out quickly before she can overwhelm the combined focus firing that the Bard will draw upon himself. After that, you kill or disable the Death Knight, ideally by removing his weapon and then subjecting him to Hold Person or Banishment.

After that, you blow EVERYTHING on Vecna, overwhelm him with action economy.

PART 3/3!!!!!

My guess is that Vecna and Delilah will look to take out Scanlan first, being the only arcane caster in the group who can potentially thwart their arcane spells. The Death Knight will probably try to Banishment Grog once again like in the last fight, and then look to bop the support/squishies.

My guess is Delilah will shift her focus off Scanlan and go for Pike and Keyleth once she sees the amount of protection they're giving him and look to use save or suck spells on them, or do something like Finger of Death, Power Word Kill, or Disintegrate on them. Meanwhile, Vecna's hovering in the air, teleporting around and firing off Cone of Cold with Legendary Actions, and using his turn to fire off his own large spells like Power Word Kill, Finger of Death, Disintegrate, and trying to Dispel the buffs on the party (a thing not normally allowed, but Matt's done it before against the party).

It's probably only when things start turning south on Vecna that he's going to start tapping into his divine powers and look to auto-succeed on some of his spells, or recharge the higher level spell slots burned earlier in the fight. At that point it's going to be a race to see if action economy and some lucky rolls let VM over-ride the lich god.

My personal hope is that he goes to leave the fight via Gate, thinking that at least him attaining godhood is enough and that leaving the Mortal Plane means the other gods can't deal with him, only for a weak and barely alive Scanlan to blow his 9th level Counterspell - a thing he'd been saving the entire fight - with something to the effect of him mooning the lich god and farting so loud it disrupts his Gate spell.

PART 4/3 WHICH IS JUST BULLSHIT NOT!-STRATEGY BUT MORE THEORY!!!
Its doable against a ~lvl30 wiz and his 2 (but probably more) buffed up companions but if Matt even tries to win the fight its all over.
Vecna has a modified "Hold monster/person" called "Hold Creature" that works on any creature alive or unliving.
His spells are DC 25 at a minimum.
He should have 3 spellslots for every level, or at least 2 for 9th lvl because he is ~10lvls above a regular wizard.
He should have the "wish" spell which gives him infinite resources to fuel things like 'clone' 'create dead' 'symbol' 'glyph of warding' etc. So he can just have spent the last 2 days booby trapping the place into hell and having glyphs rigged to summon like 8+ CR5 Balguras.
If Matt really wants to kill them just place glyphs everywhere with the "Hypnotic Pattern" , "Bestow Curse" and "Hold Person" then even Delilah and the Death Knight can take VM on and win.

I can only assume that Matt is going to pull his punch with preparation because if he didn't it would just be game over.
_________________________________________
Personally I think they're going to get an airlift into the base of Vecna and do a sort of magical HALO drop into the throne room of Vecna.

You can make the siege/approach on the ground terrible, but even Vecna can't do glyphs and trap wards in the air without making his own floating terrain, which he can do, but would he have been able to do that in maybe 2-3 days of post godhood preparation, when you're busy getting ready to siege Vasselheim with a horde of undead?

>only for a weak and barely alive Scanlan to blow his 9th level Counterspell
The problem with a counterspell war is that it favors the original caster. Think of Scanlan saving his level 9 spell, the entire fight, only to have Vecna counter it.

if VM don't bring extra people i don't think they can outpower the amount of save or die that vecna's legendary actions can bring
they need allura or gilmore, someone else who can counterspell

White balance is fucked up on both Alpha and Twitch in two different ways. Gonna be listening and not watching today.

GODDAM IT. not more vax and keylith bullshit.

>Starting off the night with Vax/Keyleth

Please stop.

where is the hands on the face
vax is fucking this all up

I can't think of her ever being Wise as in giving good advice.

as far as "sensing stuff" with Wisdom, she makes the dice checks I guess

Yeah, I had to mute it. It's way too cringe-inducing.

>Not starting off with a Grog and Percy scene, since this episode is probably gonna be focused on them
>Not having someone else than Keyleth or Vax start the episode's shenanigans, since they do it literally every fucking time
>Not letting Sam ride on the coattails of his brilliant last session, where he cemented his place as the best member on the cast

Just fuck my life up, senpai.

do you think the other players hate having to wait every time liam starts a long conversation?

I fucking wish Pike was here.

>Vax and Keyleth open their mouths

ishygddt

looks like they use the time to look through notes and shit.

this is the only place I can argue against shit they do online.

everywhere else is a hugbox

I still fucking love the show tho

Travis always goes from looking annoyed, to talking with/glancing at Laura, then puts on a blank face. Happens every time.

Travis staring intently at Marisha.

critical is shit

>this is the only place I can argue against shit they do online.
>everywhere else is a hugbox
>I still fucking love the show tho

Exact same here, man. I love the show but I want to be able to shit on out without a bunch of fanboys jumping at me.

Why does Keyleth assume she'll survive her whole 1000+ year lifespan? Am I missing something? She died from a cliff for fucks sake, they're no guarantee she'll make it to old age.

I'm starting to think Matt and Liam do this Vax/Keyleth talks for actual therapy, so the former doesn't has to do this at home

Sam sometimes makes funny faces and judgements on what they say with his expressions towards Travis, usually funny even wordless

I mean, if she survives this Vecna fight there's a good chance she'll live that long. Like, a 20th level Druid is basically immortal at a certain point.

Did you not see that one game he ran a few months back?

Laura looks fucking good tonight.

resurrection is ensured with all the other druids she'll train over the years, I guess

also could be a dragon forever right? true form?

not the other guy but I heard the beach scene was fucked up but I didn't actually see the one-shot.

the anxiety of Marisha's life can have an outlet I guess

and Liam can be emo without annoying people at parties

The first one shot he ran was about a group of thieves, all of them wanting to backstab each other in some way, that ended in a rocks fall and an edgy villian monologue. The second one was a Cthulu-esque dream world with recursion and horror elements. Dude is entirely edgelord.

>marishas voice is shot
thank fuck

Do you mean Liam's two-shot? When did Marisha talk about her issues?

kek that was pretty funny

Damn, I really enjoyed that.

if he had to run a longer than 1 shot it could go places/ also the Lovecrafty oneshot left itself open for "many worlds" dimensions etc

are they going to fight vecna this episode or nah?

they're going to the ocean but vecna said he'd follow them there

no, i'd give it two more episodes

I gotta admit that fake tribal chant music was great

I didn't say they were terrible, they were both fine for the most part. Edgy isn't synonymous with bad, but they WERE edgy.

I meant Liam's issues. I misread you post. I may also be remembering wrong but Liam also mentioned how he's going through his own issues and this game and his friends helped him get through it.

Marisha might just have "anxiety."

yeah they were edgy. lovecraft is always edgy tho unless it's some Munchkins shit

I just meant he may be capable of a long campaign if given the chance instead of meat grinding/rocks falling

I assume thats why she drinks like a horse.

If he were a player of mine, i think that WHAT he wanted to run would be really important in whether or not i'd want it to happen. A cthulu, horror, or intrigue campaign, or even a "war is terrible" campaign, i think he could do pretty well. I don't think standard or heroic fantasy would mesh, and a light hearted campaign would be beyond my expectations of what he could handle/

Travis coming in again making sure they get the Buffs from the away player

if he ever plays Wizard things will get fucking AMAZING

>Drinks like a horse
>Smokes weed
>Clear issues with authority
She must be a tigress in the sack for Matt to put up with her.

Grog: Flip for it.
Percy: We do.

Say what you want about Taelsin, but he's got some fucking great banter.

that was in response to scanlan saying "kiss already"

she has hyperhidrosis so she's always wet

>Gust Cantrip

Fill out your bingo board

get out of my head

I like the grizzled voice pirates

>people unironically watch this show

>it's another Keyleth doesn't prepare Freedom of Movement for an underwater encounter episode

>Implying I'm not doing it ironically

I fucking hate Critical Roll viewers. They are generally the worst kind of roleplayers, expect the DM to be a master voice actor, and for his improv to compete with a scripted webshow. They also try to turn everything into comedy because they think that that is what D&D is about. Being shallow normo-niggers, they cannot comprehend the idea of someone finding enjoyment in a hobby beyond pure light-hearted fun, and disparage those who do so. Their minds are crushed into a narrow blinder by Matt Mercer. I once went to a friend's house to watch an episode. He is part of my RPG group but I was over there for a different gathering and people hadn't arrived yet. He was taking care of his wife's son and so we were sitting and watching Critical Roll on his TV. It was without a doubt the most mind-numbingly boring shit I've imagined. Not only do the 6 different millennial cunts constantly talk over each other trying to get in their latest funny comment, but the entire set-up is retarded, Mercer's storytelling is bland at best, and his world is entirely boring. Generic fantasy world number 10,203,321 can be fun and interesting, without even that much effort, but Mercer fails even at that. Probably because everything they do has been processed by a team of six-figure marketing specialists who are trying to squeeze as much money from this sad pathetic phenomenon as they can. After a half-hour some other guests arrived and we finally shut it off. We had also watched some YouTube video of RoosterTeeth (some equally autistic wastes for flesh, for those who don't know) where they play some video game where you are a baby on an apartment balcony trying to shit on people on the street below. Scary thing is, when we switched to Critical Roll I didn't notice much of a difference in quality. The level of autistic, mic-frothing laughter was still the same, for one thing.

what do you guys eat/drink when watching CR?

i always get soda, bag of chips, and some sweets

>54686971
No (You) for you, everyone ignore the copy paste please

>Wifes son
You keep posting this pasta and it gets me every time.

Spamming this copypasta in every tangential related thread has made it shit. Come up with something new faggot.

I'm currently eating a box of shortbread cookies. I love shortbread cookies.

God, Travis suggested something really smart, but no one wanted to do it. Smartest player at the table ignored again.

Eating leftover meatloaf and mash potatoes.

Man, this shit is fucking boring right now.

lol travis looks pissed, per usual

really, it's the point where it's his fault, if you have a plan just fucking say it and keep saying it

I'm a bit behind, why does marisha have to over exaggerate everything she does? The keeps trying to get the party to get with her idea. And damn she needs to memorise spells.

Also purple wurm scanlin sounded bad ass

Because unlike an action packed section, or a heavy feels episode, they're actually playing the game and planning shit out.

Well, that's what happens when you play a low Int character. He pitched his idea, literally no one listened to him.

i always end up looking up porn in another tab and masturbating until important stuff like fights start happening

My sides, they're getting gassed.

Hey welcome back buddy

>Everyone surprised Travis has a good idea

>Grog has the best idea ever

I really wanted him to say mayonnaise

>Travis uses alchemy jug to breathe in

Once again, Travis is smarter than the rest of his peers, he needs to be a spell-caster

The players aren't surprised, it's the character's surprise at Grog coming up with a solution.

the battle against vecna is probably gonna be at gencon
GODDAMN IT FUCK

...

Of course it is. How could you not have figured that out already? It's a special anniversary for Gencon, and they couldn't pick a more climatic session for the live show than the Vecna fight.

I sincerely hope someone does a one shot instead; maybe even the battle royale as long as the conclusion doesn't have Tumblrinas screeching as I try to watch

someone is going to lose their shit when the fans start yelling what to do in a high stress battle against vecna

Matt already confirmed it's going to be a canon episode, and the team is deciding to move at a molasses pace all of a sudden

>all of a sudden
Good one user.

Is it a molasses-type of slow that will push the conclusion after Gen-Con? I certainly hope so

kek

What creature is this?

Bulette (elemental buff)

>no one noticed the dark as fuck Percy joke

Grog: "Can I quietly go into a rage?"
Percy: "You're not my parents"

This, but lava.

It's just a custom Bulette. Expect it to do a small amount of fire damage, and have tons of extra hp. Maybe a retaliation fire damage.

I don't watch much Critical Role but didn't she jump off a cliff and Wild Shape into a goldfish a few episodes ago, then die horribly and get resurrected like it was nothing? That irritates me. I don't mind people playing 'flawed characters' or ones who don't see themselves as heroic. That's 80% of the PCs I see at my table. What annoys me is when people start treating the game world like it's no longer dangerous or as if stupid, suicidal actions don't have consequences. I feel bad for Matt Mercer; he knows that he can't kill off the PCs permanently and they don't even seem to pretend like they're in mortal danger anymore.

I'm honestly more into Gamma Crawl X as my RPG play podcast of choice. The cast is smaller, there's genuine charisma with nearly no cringe, and the PCs really are in mortal danger. The system is Gamma World 7E so character creation is very quick (and 100% random) and it's been stated that if a PC dies that player will just roll up a new one and join the party. The system is amazing by the way and lets you generate crazy weird characters, for example one of the PCs is an Octopoid Wheeled character and is basically playing C'thuhlu stuck inside a bumper car from a county fair. He rolled an 18 Charisma so he's also the party face. It's hilarious.

Can they ever make the battle map window bigger? Like make the cast a single room on the top and the map/Matt split the bottom? I'm not an ant

>then die horribly and get resurrected like it was nothing
She got revivified, because Vex had a coin charged with Revivify by Taryon