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Gaz-L posted:Sunil Malhotra's Gilmore is uncannily close to Matt's performance. I almost wish McGlynn had pushed him to make it more his own. I can see why she didn't though. Fans were really torn on whether or not Matt should get to voice his favorite character so changing the voice would just invite criticism.
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Jan 28, 2022 02:25
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Definitely agreeing that the first two episodes felt rushed but three slows it way down. Probably because the first two episodes are more or less just an introduction to the characters and setting, whereas the third is kicking off the rest of the season's plot.
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Jan 28, 2022 03:29
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I've JUST realized why Simon has an eyepatch. He's a one eyed trouser snake.
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Jan 28, 2022 05:45
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Could also have been Laura "dick jokes" Bailey. Its a very good visual pun though.
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Jan 28, 2022 05:54
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Escobarbarian posted:Grog in the show is painfully generic “big dumb guy” so far Grog never won't be the big dumb guy, but he's shockingly insightful at times and he has things he cares very, very deeply about. The show hasn't brought it up yet but (extremely minor character spoilers) Grog and Pike are effectively adopted siblings and he would do anything for her. Realistically, we're not going to get Grog (or Scanlan's) major character arcs until Season 2 but I am curious if they'll have them be more than joke characters at any point in Season 1. Because they really are more than joke characters, but so far the show hasn't sold that.
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Jan 29, 2022 02:03
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ApeHawk posted:As someone who has never watched C1, how close is this show to the source material so far? Obviously some stuff has been changed for storytelling reasons, but I'd love to know if it remains faithful in any way. So we're sort of starting even more in media res than C1 did and there's some careful excising of Orion Acaba's character for a variety of reasons that I'd prefer not to go into here (feel free to ask in the main Critical Role thread though). His character would have been due to exit soon anyway though. The first two episodes telling the story of Vox Machina becoming the heroes of Emon by uncovering that Krieg was secretly the blue dragon Brimscythe is canonical but it wasn't something we ever saw on stream because it happened earlier. Now there are two entire story arcs being skipped in between the first story and the story arc that Episode 3 introduces, but the first story arc was......... uhhhhhhhh, it was okay. It wasn't great. And it is fully skipped, they're definitely not going to go back to it later because that story arc involved Allura sending VM into the Underdark to find Lady Kima, who was missing at the time. Seeing as Kima is very much not missing, there's no reason to do that. The second story arc was quite short (and good) but it mostly just introduced a bunch of guest characters and one minor subplot that they could easily ignore. Beyond that, Episode 3 was more or less faithful to what happened at the start of this arc yes. There will have to be a couple of minor differences coming up because on stream, a guest character showed up to prevent the characters from being arrested and I don't think they're going to do that here. Pike also wasn't around for a significant part of the next arc because Ashley was off doing filming for Blindspot, so that'll be different this time.
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Jan 29, 2022 05:22
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Yeah like Rougey said, Pike was leaning a little too hard into the murderhobo nature of D&D and Matt actually had consequences for that since she worships a good deity. I'm guessing that in this case, the fact that she's been roaming around with VM who have explicitly not been doing good and mostly don't care to has been giving her a spotty connection at best to Sarenrae.
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Jan 30, 2022 05:34
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As someone who has watched all 300+ hours of the Campaign 1 stream, I can say honestly that it took me a while to warm up to Scanlan. I didn't find his whole sex-obsessed gimmick funny, I get secondhand embarrassment from song parodies, and Scanlan is very reticent with any background information about himself so it felt like he didn't have a story at all. There is a very specific point where I started to like Scanlan and I don't know if it'll be in this season or the next but I truly can't fathom them skipping it because it's a pivotal turning point for him and gives him actual impetus to even have a character arc. If you're not digging Scanlan right now, I promise he gets better (even if he's never not an Eminem parody).
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Jan 30, 2022 23:35
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Agaragon posted:Percy's great because you're either making fun at him for being a twat, making fun of him because he just made a Good Life Choice, OR making fun of him because he's went and gone absolutely feral. The only time you're not making fun of him is when he's just dropped a really good line. Then you start making fun of him again because that's not him, that's his Taliesin showing. Percy's my favorite character from Campaign 1 because he's simultaneously the smartest person in the room and also the biggest loving idiot in the room at any given time. He makes some of the worst life choices you can imagine and you just have to sit back and scream "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" while he blithely goes about his business. Then on rare occasions, he actually does something right and you cheer for him! And then he fucks it up again because he's a dipshit and Taliesin loves when bad things happen to his characters.
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Feb 2, 2022 02:09
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That was in the gap between the Briarwood arc and the next arc. I don't know how much of that we're going to get if they want to set up the next season before this one ends.
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Feb 2, 2022 03:44
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If you would like to read a massive essay on the subject, someone on Reddit very helpfully compiled a summary of all the poo poo that went down with Orion Acaba, including things that happened after he left CR (spoiler alert, he was also abusive to his ex-girlfriends and stole money from people who made the mistake of supporting him). All in all, the guy was (and probably still is) a mess and the show is better off pretending he never existed. If you want a sampler platter of his bullshit, I highly recommend the four "Trial of the Take" episodes (18-21) which feature several guest characters (two of whom are actually important) and set up a subplot that I don't think the cartoon is going to actually include but it'd be neat if they did. Orion is only in episodes 20 and 21 but while he's not at his absolute worst, he's also definitely not at his best. Orion was removed following episode 27 and I know a lot of people who recommend skipping that episode entirely because it's Orion's worst showing by far and it's wildly uncomfortable to watch.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:09
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Jesus that loving Sun Tree moment. Absolutely brutal and even knowing it was coming didn't soften the blow.
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Feb 4, 2022 03:40
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Paracaidas posted:1. With the episode ending on the burning building in the distance and the resistance rising up does that mean we're not getting scanbo?? Or do I have my timelines off? Your timeline's off. VM killed Kerrion Stonefell as a group but then they split up to hit Duke Vedmeyer and Count Tylieri's house at the same time. Scanbo was him vs Vedmeyer.
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Feb 4, 2022 04:02
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For anyone wondering about the door sequence, it's a clever adaptation of a side sequence they wouldn't have otherwise had time to include in the episode. Scanlan, Vax, and Percy split off from the party to investigate a church while trying to find Keeper Yennen (Travis and Laura were late to the session and Marisha volunteered to stay behind with Vex and Grog til they showed). When they got there, they found it was abandoned. Vax went to pick the lock and discovered it wasn't locked at all - it was barred from the inside with a heavy piece of wood. Oh okay, fine, Scanlan will Dimension Door inside and lift the beam. Problem: Nobody in this particular trio is strength based (Percy's a Dex Fighter). Scanlan rolls poorly and can't lift it. They stick a sword through the door and try to lift together but that leaves Scanlan holding the blade and he cuts himself. At that point, Vax asks if there's any windows and Scanlan admits there are, so Vax parkours in to help lift the beam. Except remember how nobody in this group is strength based? Yeah, Vax and Scanlan can't lift it even with Scanlan summoning an Unseen Servant to help. Marisha is absolutely losing her mind at this point so Scanlan finally concedes defeat and uses Bigby's Hand to solve the problem (which he hadnt wanted to do before because he thought it was a waste). Three spell slots and 4 points of damage to open a door that wasn't even locked, just heavy. Fans have helpfully animated a highlight reel of the whole situation. The animation is only a minute and a half but I assure you, it took them a solid 10 minutes or so in game. Classic D&D shenanigans.
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Feb 4, 2022 05:11
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Paracaidas posted:I would definitely say that they left themselves the space to establish the briarwoods as creepy, powerful villains and did enough to build their whole group as credibly threatening... but that's also with my stream knowledge. Maybe those who are fresh to this would disagree? I'm not fresh to this at all but I feel like the strong use of undead minions does a lot to help push the Briarwoods as creepy, powerful, and a credible threat while also not being Literally A loving Dragon. Objectively, the ghostly assassins and undead dogs sent to retrieve Delilah's book are weaker opponents than a huge dragon, but they're still a threat. They just present a different problem and necessarily different solutions which VM has to figure out on the fly. Meanwhile, Delilah and Sylas themselves proved capable during the fight after the feast, but that was also with Scanlan out as a distraction, Vax having just fallen out of a window after having Sylas' teeth in his jugular, and VM not really being prepared for a fight at the time. And they did hurt Sylas (a little bit), so it's not like they went from killing a dragon to their attacks just bouncing off the next bad guy. I feel like they've struck a good balance here between 'increase in danger' and 'wild escalation of power level'.
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Feb 4, 2022 18:11
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12, so we're halfway through.
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Feb 5, 2022 15:12
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The entire Briarwoods arc 'officially' consists of episodes 24-38 but that's including one filler episode early in the arc where Taliesin couldn't make the session so they fundamentally couldn't progress the story without Percy being present (this was between the Feast and them leaving Emon for Whitestone and was cut from the cartoon for obvious reasons), a Christmas episode after the end of the arc, and two episodes of dithering and minor subplots before the next arc started, so without those four, it's functionally only 10 episodes long (which still makes it a good 35-40 hours in total since CR streams are 3-4 hours long). The next major arc is 44 episodes long. No filler. It's not high octane action 100% of the time of course, that'd be unsustainable, but it's never not focused on that plot and those villains are never not a threat until VM deals with them. You can mentally split it up into sub-arcs pretty easily (roughly 16-15-13, so seasons 2, 3, and 4) but that's still a loving lot. And that's still not the end of the first campaign.
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Feb 5, 2022 17:52
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DesertIslandHermit posted:It does make me worry how much might be cut for the Conclave arc. (Major campaign spoilers) When VM isn't fighting the Conclave, they're looking for the Vestiges. Umbrasyl's part will be the easiest because it covers Grog's backstory, provides a Vestige and advances against the Conclave all together. Then the Conclave and Vestige progress parallel splits because they have to go through the Feywild, deal with Dr. Ripley and then go to the City of Brass before finishing off the Conclave. . Best case scenario is that they get 3 seasons to cover it. Otherwise they might have to alter the story structure and try to run them the storylines more together to keep things moving. Just the struggles of putting what is at least 120 hours into about 8 or maybe 12 hours. There's probably some things they can cut out but I think realistically, there's a few things we have to see because they're just too important:
Beyond that, there's definitely stuff that's cutable. We don't need to deal with the Sphinx - they could get the info about the Vestiges from Allura or something, as much as I hate to admit it, we don't need to bring in Kash and Zahra, nor do we need Kerr or Shale, they're going to have to plant the Artagan seed if they want to do anything with Campaign 2 but there's a lot of dithering in the Feywild that can get cut, we don't have to spend much time loving with the Ravinites because Tiberius is nonexistent so his death is meaningless (although we loving better get Yenk vs Vorugal, I need that poo poo to be animated), and the whole Fort Daxio episode was just a diversion. I watched the Youtube video of the cast watchalong and they mentioned that before they wrote out the Briarwood arc, they rewatched it and made a list of all the important moments they had to hit so they could determine would would be cut down. Seeing how they've handled it so far, I think I trust that the next arc can be done to satisfaction, even it'll take like 3 seasons. The real trick would be how much to include about the 'filler' arc that sits between that arc and the final one. Because that one was mostly just them mopping up side issues and resolving character quests.
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Feb 6, 2022 05:15
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Gaz-L posted:I think the problem was Keyleth as a spellcaster and a druid specifically had so MANY options that to not slow the game down for the audience, she had to be planning her turn while everyone else was going. Dawgstar posted:There was also a soupcon of "she's getting preferential treatment 'cause she's the DM's girlfriend" which is... yeah. These were by far the two biggest things, along with the fact that because she was a druid, she had so many options that naturally people criticized every combat choice she made because "You're an idiot, this spell would have been better for that situation." I was not at all surprised she went monk in Campaign 2 to avoid having to deal with spells at all, not that that helped. They just started calling Beau a bitch instead. Doltos posted:This shows great. Scanlon is the worst character ever created. As someone who spent a really long time hating Scanlan, he does get better but not like, quickly or in great leaps and bounds. He was very much Sam Riegel's first ever D&D character and he was not taking the character seriously at all until a specific thing happened that suddenly made him care a whole lot.
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Feb 6, 2022 23:26
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This is very pedantic so I'm sorry in advance, but Percy's not actually an Artificer, class-wise. He's a custom subclass of Fighter that Matt made for Taliesin because 5e hadn't introduced Artificer at the time the game transitioned over to 5e from Pathfinder. This is very much to Percy's benefit because it makes him a lot chunkier in terms of HP, gives him more ASIs, more attacks per turn, etc. The only thing he loses is all the magic and Percy's not too bothered by that. He did pick up the Magic Initiate feat at some point in the game to learn how to cast Hex because it was thematically appropriate for him (and also Friends and something else I can't remember) but you will never see him do more magic than that.
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Feb 8, 2022 01:43
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That character isn't in Emon. And they fundamentally have to go to Vasselheim next season so it'll probably happen then.
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Feb 9, 2022 03:29
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gently caress that was awesome, and what a great cliffhanger for next week too. And we got Sylas and Delilah backstory! It was kind of self explanatory since he's a vampire and she's a necromancer, but we didn't get to see it in the show because they certainly didn't talk about it to other people. I love villains who genuinely love each other but it doesn't make them any less evil.
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Feb 11, 2022 11:16
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lemonadesweetheart posted:There was another female name on Percy's list that wasn't Delilah but I can't remember what it was. The other name on the list was Anna Ripley. Percy has not yet made it clear who she is to him beyond an enemy, nor what she was doing for the Briarwoods.
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Feb 11, 2022 18:20
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It's a perfectly reasonable guess, I was just saying what the name was.
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Feb 11, 2022 18:24
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bou posted:I feel like how the group initially reacted to Scanlan's ideas and spiel kinda reflected the sentiment many people got of him until now. And i am kinda glad that he proved to be up to his task, albeit in a very special way (guess he has a high roll on his luck stat). In the livestream, it played out a bit differently (not a lot differently, it was still a one man rampage that was incredible to watch) because Scanlan put on a master class of using all his bard spells to the fullest - Dimension Door, Stinking Cloud, Polymorph, etc. But the plan had always been to burn the house down and once inside and alone and under attack, Sam very abruptly realized he didn't have any fire spells. So he was frantically digging through his item list for anything that might help (while being jeered at by the rest of the cast for not planning as well as he thought) and uncovered an old potion that he had to have written down years ago and totally forgot about, a potion of fire breathing. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the show limiting what spells the party knows and turning the whole incident into much more of a lucky romp instead of Scanlan proving that yes, he's actually highly competent when he wants to be, but I suppose it's funny either way and hopefully the comment about "I should remember that for next time," means Scanlan will keep using Polymorph in the future. quote:One gripe i have about the series so far: In fights, i can't really tell what's dangerous and what not. They get all-bloody, spew black goo out of their eyes, have a dozen arrows sticking out of their bodies and shrug it off. Hits only seem to matter when the plot dictates it - that's also what turns me off most superhero-movies. According to the Q&A from a few days ago, the black goo was meant to represent necrotic damage that reduces your max hit points - it's gross and bad and makes you feel weaker, but it's not as instantly fatal as the guards made it look. I agree that that wasn't communicated well though and as someone who's watched way too much of this show, I certainly didn't pick up on that. Generally speaking, any damage to Grog is not serious unless it's an overwhelming amount of damage. Any damage to the rest of the group is probably more serious. In game terms, Grog's a mountain of HP who takes half damage while raging from anything that's not magic, so he's pretty sturdy, Percy's a Fighter so he's also got a solid pool of hp and can heal himself with Second Wind to shrug off damage, Scanlan look the Tough feat so he's not as easy to put down as he looks, Keyleth tends to keep herself healthy by using Wild Shape to give herself a new hp pool, and Pike self heals. The twins were consistently the squishiest members of the group by far for the entire series due to their tendency to low roll on level ups and just not having a lot of points in Constitution. CuwiKhons fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Feb 12, 2022 |
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Feb 12, 2022 02:27
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DesertIslandHermit posted:I know (campaign spoilers based on end of Episode 7) Cassandra's throat slit was originally an illusion. And it seems they made it real this time? If so, Anders is such a fucker. . I noticed that too and I thought it was odd, but I don't think anyone in VM either in character or in real life actually realized it was an illusion until Matt told them much later? I think they were busy panicking and didn't pick up any of the hints. No reason to complicate things for the cartoon then since nobody in game had any reaction to it and they certainly gave Anders enough motivation to actually do it.
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Feb 12, 2022 08:35
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It was an illusion. The players did rush in and hastily gave her a healing potion which she took, but Matt mentioned at the time that despite her throat being cut, there was no blood on the floor. In the heat of the moment, the players kind of ignored this and Matt didn't bring it up again, clearly deciding that if they missed it then they missed it. Edit - I will say, one thing I don't like that they changed is that in the original, Vax is the one who bursts into the room and causes Anders to cut Cassandra's throat, rather than Percy being the one to do it. This has no immediate ramifications now but I do think it's worth it for a situation that happens (much) later. CuwiKhons fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Feb 12, 2022 |
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Feb 12, 2022 12:04
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Robobot posted:Maybe it’s just not that kind of a show, but that cliff hanger of Percy’s sister bleeding out on the floor made me think that maybe it was. Oh it is, it's just that it's also D&D so deaths are fixable if you've got the resources and you care enough about the individual in question. Trust me, there will be deaths. Quite a lot of them in future seasons. And at least one highly notable one that isn't fixable.
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Feb 12, 2022 15:25
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Yes. The Kickstarter made enough to fund the Briarwood arc and Amazon swooped in to fund a second season before the first one even aired. I'm not sure how widely popular the show is but I know it's been mostly well received so far (at least in terms of review outlets and fan opinions). We'll see if Amazon springs for more seasons later.
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Feb 12, 2022 15:48
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Oh huh, I didn't know they had a rankings thing. Looks like it's #3 in the US. That's pretty good then. And god knows Amazon has the money to throw around.
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Feb 12, 2022 15:58
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Alan Smithee posted:how so, I never watched the streams It was really early in the streams but Pike got a little brutal and murder happy during the Underdark arc (which this show skipped for a variety of reasons). She was mostly just going along with the rest of the group, and particularly with Grog since he's her adopted brother, but the specific instance she was punished for was executing an unconscious duergar guard. As he'd been already knocked out, it was very unnecessary to kill him. In the next episode, Matt stated her holy symbol had a crack in it. Pike, to her credit, realized immediately that it was a warning to not keep doing poo poo like that and she straightened out her behavior and went to the temple to repent once they were back in Emon. I don't remember if Matt actually imposed a punishment or if it was just a warning, but if it was the latter, it worked. Alan Smithee posted:was he one of the briar aligned guards or like just doing his job It was a different arc, unrelated to the Briarwoods. He was a bad dude but he'd already been removed from the fight so killing him in cold blood was not approved by Sarenrae.
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Feb 12, 2022 17:05
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Alan Smithee posted:Are there any arcs before the start of this show of note besides the underdark There's what's referred to as either the Vasselheim or Slayer's Take arc depending on who you ask, but it's... not really a coherent story arc? It wasn't intended to be. It was the party delivering an item to a new city they hadn't been to before, getting caught up in some shenanigans with a guild called the Slayer's Take, having a couple of very small standalone adventures (Grog got involved in a pit fighting thing, Keyleth went to visit another group of druids as part of her pilgrimage backstory, etc), then they went back to Emon and the Briarwood arc started. There's also of course stuff that happened before they started streaming the games, which includes the Krieg/Brimscythe story. But we don't have a ton of details on those and I don't know if they'll come up in the show.
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Feb 12, 2022 17:33
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I don't think they'll ever backtrack to the Underdark arc for the simple reason that frankly, it was pretty boring. I mean hell, two of the funnier sequences have already been shown on screen - Keyleth horribly killing a duergar in lava by accident and Grog ripping a bullete's tongue out with his teeth. The only other thing of note was Grog going catatonic after a fight with an intellect devourer because his intelligence score was so low to begin with.
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Feb 13, 2022 16:10
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She met up with the earth druids pre-stream didn't she? But yes, with the fire ashari at least, yes they skipped the original point where she went so they'll have to save it for the next time they're in the area.
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Feb 14, 2022 12:41
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Oh gently caress yes, Keyleth still got the killshot on Sylas!
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Feb 18, 2022 01:40
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Having Keyleth be the one to get mortally wounded in the Ziggurat instead of Vex is an interesting choice. It was clearly done to tie up Vex's awkward hostility towards her and I don't hate it, but it did catch me off guard.
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Feb 18, 2022 02:05
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I wish they'd kept the fact that even with the reveal that yeah, Orthax was tied to the gun, Percy was still mad because making the List was so loving expensive and now it was just gone. But I guess I can see why they didn't. It was just very funny at the time.
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Feb 18, 2022 02:20
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Among other things they changed, one of the more interesting ones is that Grog just finds Craven Edge (Sylas' sword) in the rubble and decides to keep it. In the original stream, the party chilled out in Whitestone for like a week afterwards for a well-timed Fantasy Christmas episode and Percy found the sword. And after inspecting it and coming to the conclusion that hmm yes, this sword is kind of hosed up, he.... gave it to Grog as a Fantasy Christmas present. Grog loved it. This change makes Percy a lot less of an rear end in a top hat but also to be honest, I kind of like that Percy's an rear end in a top hat sometimes.
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Feb 18, 2022 02:39
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Paracaidas posted:
Wyld Karde posted:To be fair, Percy just got done trying to murder his sister and all his friends. Additional arseholery on top of that would push him over the edge from 'bad boy who is kind of an arsehole' into 'irredeemably bad why the gently caress does anyone associate with him' territory. I am prepared to mildly defend Percy here in that it was an rear end in a top hat move but not a totally villainous one, however doing so would be big time spoilers for next season so it can wait.
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Feb 18, 2022 02:58
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Oh yeah, sorry, I meant I could defend it happening in the stream. There definitely wasn't time to do it in the show. Mostly I'm just disappointed that between the sword and them not going back to Krieg's stash to get the cursed skull means we'll never get to hear Percy's killer "Wow, I am a little evil magnet," line.
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Feb 18, 2022 03:22
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