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I'm assuming Ripley wasn't anywhere near this prominent at this point in the live stream
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Feb 24, 2023 04:40
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 09:08 |
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No, but she'll be back for a pretty major story beat next season. They just don't want you to forget who she is by the time season 3 comes out (which, considering how many people forgot who she was already, seems pointless).
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Feb 24, 2023 08:56
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Alan Smithee posted:I'm assuming Ripley wasn't anywhere near this prominent at this point in the live stream She was operating covertly. The difference is we get the perspective of the villains in the show, which we do not get in the stream. So, as I recall, we just saw the bit with Viktor mentioning here and some very vague clues in the campaign rather than the scenes we're getting with her in the show.
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Feb 24, 2023 15:54
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No idea if this is right but I see Ripley's presence this season as serving 3 purposes -- obviously, keeping her in viewers minds and showing her offstream machinations in advance of her return is one. Maybe less obvious(?) are two others... one is establishing her as someone delusional enough to think she can manipulate a dragon (and talented/threatening enough for it to work), but as important is showing that the Conclave will work against each other so that the cliffhanger doesn't come completely out of left field. I get that it's irritating to see them cut treasured stream moments while devoting even a small amount of their screentime to offstream things, but I think they've been threading the needle well in adaptation. e: VVV I somehow missed the biggest purpose Paracaidas fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Feb 24, 2023 |
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Feb 24, 2023 17:04
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Plus more Kelly Hu, which is always good.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:08
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I've been making my way making my way through the watchalong videos and got to the batch of episodes where Troy Baker was a guest. Is it just me or does the man seem incredibly full of himself?
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Feb 24, 2023 17:11
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It’s a bit, albeit not a very funny one.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:36
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Pussy Quipped posted:It’s a bit, albeit not a very funny one. Yeah. I've known way too many people who were genuinely high on their own farts and incredibly off putting as a result, and that's really soured me on that kind of attitude be it an affectation or not.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:39
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Huh. Seemed very committed to the bit... Just makes him a different kind of rear end in a top hat then.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:46
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Eh, this season didn’t really do it for me. I think splitting Vex/ax, Percy, and Keylith off from the entertaining characters made a good chunk of the season boring for me. I just really don’t find their characters entertaining/interesting. But Pike, Grog, and Scanlan are still very entertaining and I really enjoyed their arch. The daughter reveal was pretty funny because I had thought to myself “huh, that chick kinda has Scanlan’s side burns…wonder if sideburns are a gnome thing?” Nope.
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Feb 24, 2023 19:40
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I really enjoyed the season. Vex's arc is where it's at. Being a champion for the goddess of death is very 
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Feb 25, 2023 01:12
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Philthy posted:I really enjoyed the season. Vex's arc is where it's at. Being a champion for the goddess of death is very Accidentally becoming the champion of death and fate by making a deal for a family member's life is pretty amazing. Usually you get saddled with a demon instead of a deity. He ends up with almost the opposite of the situation Percy was in.
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Feb 25, 2023 01:24
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Philthy posted:I really enjoyed the season. Vex's arc is where it's at. Being a champion for the goddess of death is very He's Vax, she's Vex  very easy and common mistake to make, they even made t-shirts about it lol 
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Feb 25, 2023 02:47
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The most common mnemonic I've seen for it is that Vax is mAle and Vex is fEmale. Personally I remember it because Vax'ildan is named after Liam's biggest emo edgelord rear end in a top hat voice acting role, Illidan from World of Warcraft.
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Feb 25, 2023 03:10
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Liam gave a mnemonic somewhere in C1 that I've used ever since "Vax will stab you in the bax"
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Feb 25, 2023 04:27
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vex looks vexxed because keyleth likes vax even though she looks anti-vax
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Feb 25, 2023 04:34
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Robobot posted:Eh, this season didn’t really do it for me. I think splitting Vex/ax, Percy, and Keylith off from the entertaining characters made a good chunk of the season boring for me. I just really don’t find their characters entertaining/interesting. I honestly thought they should have pushed the separation further; the series has always had structural and tonal problems (which was always going to be a problem given that tabletop isn't overly given over to tonal consistency) but cutting between the two plots within the same episode was a fairly bad idea. I think it'd have been better to separate the two plots by episode. tbh I thought the last season handled tone / plot a lot better than this one.
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Feb 25, 2023 05:22
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To be honest, part of the issue is that they were trying to fix a world building problem - in the original stream, Craven Edge didn't sap Grog's strength, it straight up killed him and after they resurrected him, Grog still didn't want to give up the sword because he was that scared of Kevdak. None of this was funny. It was a serious, emotional beat about Grog's fear of Kevdak and honestly one of the few times that Grog even got to have any kind of serious, emotional story. But they discussed on the Q&A watch parties that they were worried about making death feel cheap and easy to fix. Vex had already died just a few episodes ago and it was a big deal to bring her back and it radically changed Vax's story. Having Craven Edge kill Grog just a few episodes later and for it to be fixed relatively easily with no major consequences would just be weird. So they needed to figure out some other way for Grog to be harmed by Craven Edge and, well. We saw what they went with. Which was funny but I kind of don't like that they ruined one of my favorite stream moments of Grog pleading with Pike to let him keep the sword just long enough to deal with Kevdak because he's not afraid of dying, but he is afraid of Kevdak. Edit - Just for the record, in the stream, every single member of the party died at least once, some of them several times, and only one was ever permanent. In their effort to make the world building a little more believable and high stakes, I'm guessing we'll only ever see 4-5 of those deaths at max (including Vex's death and the permanent one). Which already sounds like a lot of deaths to try to make feel consistently important, and those are just the plot critical ones, not the incidental "Grog got his rear end beat by a beholder, Pike revivified him mid-combat" deaths. CuwiKhons fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Feb 25, 2023 |
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Feb 25, 2023 05:36
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Why would you explain the stream to people, presumably under the assumption that they're not familiar the stream like I am not, and then include unmarked spoilers? 
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Feb 25, 2023 05:59
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Which also means we'll not get the goldfish, at least in the original form.
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Feb 25, 2023 06:00
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Doesn't ___Vax___ die like twelve times?
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Feb 25, 2023 06:05
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yeah the problem with translating a high-level actual play campaign to TV is that deaths are constant, often not a big deal, and don't come at narratively appropriate moments
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Feb 25, 2023 06:16
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Open Source Idiom posted:Why would you explain the stream to people, presumably under the assumption that they're not familiar the stream like I am not, and then include unmarked spoilers? It's a D&D campaign, I don't really consider it spoilers that people die and get rezzed? In fact I specifically said that a lot of those deaths probably won't happen in the show. I didn't specify which ones they'll likely keep, where they are, why they're important, or anything like that.
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Feb 25, 2023 06:25
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CuwiKhons posted:It's a D&D campaign, I don't really consider it spoilers that people die and get rezzed? In fact I specifically said that a lot of those deaths probably won't happen in the show. I didn't specify which ones they'll likely keep, where they are, why they're important, or anything like that. CuwiKhons posted:Just for the record, in the stream, every single member of the party died at least once, some of them several times, and only one was ever permanent. In their effort to make the world building a little more believable and high stakes, I'm guessing we'll only ever see 4-5 of those deaths at max (including Vex's death and the permanent one).
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Feb 25, 2023 06:27
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You know what? Fair cop to that one, I'll fix that. I'm sorry.
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Feb 25, 2023 06:29
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CuwiKhons posted:It's a D&D campaign, I don't really consider it spoilers that people die and get rezzed? In fact I specifically said that a lot of those deaths probably won't happen in the show. I didn't specify which ones they'll likely keep, where they are, why they're important, or anything like that. I'm really hoping that they're given a powerful single use artifact to revive somebody, only for it to be used in the goldfish incident.
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Feb 25, 2023 06:32
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Rougey posted:I'm really hoping that they're given a powerful single use artifact to revive somebody, only for it to be used in the goldfish incident. No kidding, I just hope that whole bit is a whole season of Mandeville level nonsense.
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Feb 25, 2023 08:05
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Open Source Idiom posted:I honestly thought they should have pushed the separation further; the series has always had structural and tonal problems (which was always going to be a problem given that tabletop isn't overly given over to tonal consistency) but cutting between the two plots within the same episode was a fairly bad idea. I think it'd have been better to separate the two plots by episode. I think you’re right that totally separating them may have been better. Their storyline wasn’t godawful or anything but the juxtaposition of bouncing back and forth between all the characters I like to all the characters I’m less interested in had me reaching for my phone a couple of times (which I didn’t do once in season 1). Pike and Grog are still hands down my favorite parts of the show and I’m gonna keep watching so long as they’re in it. But calling one guy “buddies” is dumb. Even if he is big enough for the plural.
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Feb 25, 2023 15:17
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Robobot posted:But calling one guy “buddies” is dumb. Even if he is big enough for the plural. By this point in the game Travis had been playing Grog as kinda dumb with language. He would hear a word/phrase and make his version of it (bidet is the biggest example.) So it is quite possible Pike said to him "you and I are buddies now" and that became a singular buddies.
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Feb 25, 2023 15:53
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Their relationship really is a highlight of the show for me. Good backstories, good dynamic, good characters. They were actually the reason I checked out the stream since I figured there’d be a lot more little fun interactions between them, but I just couldn’t get into it.
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Feb 25, 2023 17:13
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The canonical explanation for why Grog is Buddies rather than Buddy is, no joke, Key and Peele was popular at the time and Ashley thought that the valets that unnecessarily pluralized everything (LIAM NEESONS) were funny
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Feb 25, 2023 19:20
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The deaths except for maybe 2 goldfish which probably gets skipped and Artagan where it's established in universe that this one is different don't even need to be deaths for plot purposes. There's functionally no difference storytelling wise between death/ressurection and critically wounded and survival is not given. Like the ressurection rituals could just be the others talking over a hospital bed or the wounded person's coma visions.
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Feb 25, 2023 20:39
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No, there's definitely at least three deaths we haven't seen yet that need to be real deaths. Vague spoilers: The one that will happen shortly after Ank'harel, the one (or potentially two) that will make Scanlan freak out, and the one that allows the Artagan one to play out the way it does.
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Feb 26, 2023 03:16
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CuwiKhons posted:No, there's definitely at least three deaths we haven't seen yet that need to be real deaths. Vague spoilers: The one that will happen shortly after Ank'harel, the one (or potentially two) that will make Scanlan freak out, and the one that allows the Artagan one to play out the way it does. In a non-D&D medium where ressurection is going to considered cheap bs, not killing them might be the better storytelling choice. You still get the emotional beat without the baggage of weakening the threat of death. We've seen there are limits to healing magic so it's not like in game where until they're dead dead, you can just toss a cantrip and they'll be fine so you have to actually cross the barrier to have consequences. Just have Pike/Keyleth be like "This is beyond my capabilities, I can keep them alive but we need time/someone more powerful" and things can still play out as is. Specifically though still vague, for the first one might hit harder as a non-death since the important bit that can't be cut is the last bit of the res ritual, which I think works better as calling someone from back from the brink "step away from the light" bedside grieving/coma vision than talking to a corpse.. The second one I can see going either way. A near death experience should be enough if they make it cool enough, but I can see going all the way. They have to change it a bit anyways since they probably cut the assholery that's the last straw. And the third one yeah, it has to happen but we've already established that it's different.
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Feb 26, 2023 04:23
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not sure how death works in D&D canonically since my experience is mostly Baldur's Gate like you lose all your HP and then go into death save mode and if you fail that you're gone gone (unless you're not allowed death save at all in which case RIP)? Idk how close that is and if you're gone gone you can still resurrect or
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Feb 26, 2023 04:38
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Re: the first one, actual serious for real do not click this spoiler, please be careful: The important part of Percy's death is not just the last bit of the rez - it's the part where Orthax has his soul, which fundamentally does not work if he's not dead. I'm sorry but Glintshore and Ripley's pure blind hatred and determination to murder that motherfucker doesn't work if he just gets critically injured. It also rips the punch out of "I forgive you, but I cannot let you leave," because it was Percy understanding he was going to die and making his peace with that before he went. Percy's death was also the first time they ever couldn't bring the person back immediately and had to just sit with their grief and pain until they could get his body back to Pike. Vex and Grog's death happened suddenly but had a cleric on hand to immediately try to fix it. Percy's death was drawn out and brutal and there was just nothing they could do about it in that moment. If they cut this so drastically that Percy doesn't even die, I would straight up stop watching because it undercuts every ounce of emotion in that story.Alan Smithee posted:not sure how death works in D&D canonically since my experience is mostly Baldur's Gate Normally death in D&D is you hit 0 hit points, then start doing death saves, if you fail three, you're out and if you pass three, you stabilize but remain at 0 hp. If you die, you can be rezzed unless someone did something to make you unrezzable or nobody has a powerful enough spell to bring you back and it's been too much time. Matt wanted death to have a little more teeth in his D&D game so he added a ritual component. Three people close to the person who died make offerings that they hope will help bring the person back or will mean something important to the dead person. They roll a check (Matt sets a DC based on how appropriate or helpful the offering is) and if it succeeds, it makes the person more likely to come back. After three offerings, Matt rolls a d20 and the DC for the person to come back is based on A. how many times they've previously died (+1 to the DC for every previous death) and B. how effective the offerings were (-3 to the DC for every successful check, +1 of +2 for a failure, I don't remember exactly). The base DC starts at 10. So if its your first death and all three offerings succeed, only a Nat 1 will cause the rez to fail. If you've died like 4 times and one or more offerings fail, it could be very difficult indeed to bring you back to life and you only get one chance. CuwiKhons fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Feb 26, 2023 |
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Feb 26, 2023 04:39
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what would be "too much time"?
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Feb 26, 2023 04:51
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Different resurrection spells have different timers on them. The lower level, the shorter the timer. So for example, the spell that rezzed Vex was Revivify, the lowest level one, which can be cast as early as level 5 and needs to be cast within one minute of the person dying (which in Matt's world, is to say you have to start the ritual within one minute of dying - the ritual is going to take longer than a minute). This is the one most people do mid-combat (without a ritual, which Matt rules as the person casting it making a solo check and if they fail, a proper rez can be tried later) or immediately after combat. The next spell up, Raise Dead, can't be cast until level 9 and can only resurrect people who died in the past 10 days (and is much more expensive to cast). The next one up after that will work on anybody dead within the past century but is very, very expensive, can't be cast until level 13, and also requires a body. In fact all three of these spells require you have the body on hand. If you don't have the body, because it was destroyed or because it decayed or you just don't have access to it but you know the person is dead elsewhere, the only spell that will work is True Resurrection and its VERY expensive and VERY high level.
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Feb 26, 2023 04:58
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expensive as in gold/jewels? Baldur's Gate never made you pay for spells so that always surprised me when I heard the TT one did
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Feb 26, 2023 05:00
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Yeah, Rez spells in D&D require diamonds worth a certain amount as a spell component. Revivify is I believe 300 gp worth of diamonds, which a smart party will keep on hand since the timer on Revivify is too short to allow you to have time to gather materials (in fact in the third campaign, I remember the cleric of the party requesting a large payment for a job be paid in diamonds so that they could have that on hand). True Resurrection requires 25,000 gp worth of diamonds if you're wondering.
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Feb 26, 2023 05:04
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