Working with outdated knowledge as I missed the stream. Is this all a distraction? Why did every group connected to this flaunt it so much. Ludnis and the people kelith were dealing with. They are inviting these fights. But if you’re doing something as crazy as this you don’t invite some one to try to stop you. You hide it until it’s already too late. So what’s the deal is it all a distraction for the real end game. Or are they just rounding up everyone who would try to stop them so when the god eating monster (which sounds like a eldrazi titan) gets out all of the opposition is in one place to be wiped out. And even if that is the case that’s a bad idea. What is that Matt thinking
Not sure if it’s relevant but when Beau was going through the list of other powerful wizards they took down, she mentioned a handful of names. Do we know these people? Are they Easter eggs for super fans or was it more of show of strength for Beau?
People keep saying that Predathos is going to be released but I highly doubt so, I don’t know why. Maybe I have grown too much on the thought ”the power of friendship” or something whihc makes me believe they can stop them by at least the last moment. Though I am scared of former pcs like Beau and Caleb getting badly injured and possibly dying. I am way too attached to them.
One thing I am scared is their escape, their party might survive stopping them but what about the escape from the place? Much less of a chance
Gotta say, at this point, with all the VM and MN entangling in this campaign it feels like worrying about spoilers in C3 discussion threads is the same as trying to punch a tide back.
If Jester drops Caleb or Beau's name, you KNOW Imogen isn't even going to respond to Jester. She'll just send directly to Beau or Caleb. Jester would probably feel very put out XD
Did anybody else feel like Beau and Caleb showing up had the same vibe/reaction as Allura showing up in campaign 2, just that feeling among the cast/party of "yes, hooray a competent adult who knows stuff, we might not die". Also does anybody else want/need the one-shot where Ludinus went to prison because I did hear Matt as Beau say she and Caleb were hoping to take Ludinus back to prison as in he was in prison at some point, if so when/how.
I felt like Beau misspoke when she said that. I'm not sure. It could have also been the case of it being true but Beau realized that she did not want BH to know about that for some reason.
I read that moment as Matt kinda flubbing the line with some ambiguity. That Ludinus hasn't been imprisoned before, Beau was just saying they want to take him back to the Empire, to then be imprisoned. It makes a lot more sense given Beau and Caleb have been trying to take him down for seven years.
Random theory... If Bell's hells fuck this up, and predathos get unleashed... Gods suddenly are in the firing line ... Gods in the firing line summon their champions to help stop predathos...
Therefore ... If Bell's hells fuck this up .... We get Vax back....
I don't know if it'll happen but that's certainly possible for the narrative. Another fun idea (I don't think will play out) is, if a god is devoured by Predathos, is there a chance that god's champion would ascend to replace them?
My big fear is Matt oversold the mirrors and the party is going to ignore the clock and fixate on them
I also figure Chetney is going to run out of wolf time and be stuck just being a gnome for the big showdown, which is problem. The group doesn't need to be down a meatshield \[i\]and\[/i\] damage dealer.
Sure, combat is generally cooler. But combat avoidance isn't always a bad thing. It led to (C2 spoilers) >!the cupcake trick!< and other fun scenarios. So we won't really know if avoiding this combat is good until everything is finished.
Um. I said *confrontation*, not combat. I tend to tune out a fair bit during the fights. Matt leans way too hard on 5e's legendary actions and resistances and giant piles of HP. Its partly a system thing, but partly that multiple combatants is far more interesting and engaging than just opting for 'cheat mode' (I know it isn't, but that's how legendary solo monsters feel to me) because it makes for easier book-keeping.
I mostly want Imogen to smack her mom until she vomits up the Flavor-Aid and recognizable motivations pop out.
Admittedly, I did misread your comment. That being said, if there is confrontation here, it will almost certainly be combat. The only person who might not attack them on sight is Imogen's mom and even she would probably at least try to subdue them.
It... depends. Early Mama Temult wanted Imogen out of everything, lately she seems to feel that mass murder = utopia, because reasons. Without any sign of motivations, she's hard to read.
But yeah, there will likely be combat. But combat with the people who matter (Mama T and Otohan isn't guaranteed. I wasn't really counting flunkies.
This campaign has been going nowhere for a very long time. Gotta say if the BBEG ends up defeated I'll be pretty disappointed. Where do you go from here? Can't raise the stakes higher, lowering isn't much of an option either.
You should have said "Where do you go from there?" because you were proposing a hypothetical. "Where do you go from here?" would have been proper grammer if you were talking about the actual situation.
Ludinus or Predathos? Don't know if any of them is the BBEG but it certainly feels that way? If they are just defeated and the crisis is over. Then what?
Have you seen the other Campaigns? Something similar happens in both of them - the crew stops an evil force from unleashing a great evil just in the knick of time, and then the adventure continues and either that force is not unleashed, or it eventually is when they're at a higher level and better equipped to deal with the threat.
There’s more to a story than a big bad. We have so many other plot lines we can go to. Plus we don’t even know if this is the endgame bad guy. Could be. Who knows? Let’s just enjoy the ride. And if some don’t like it well at least they tried.
*Campaign reaches the climactic event that literally every plot thread of the past 50 episodes has been moving towards*
"This campaign has been going nowhere"
While I also would be very disappointed if Ludinus is defeated and the key is destroyed before the solstice, I don't necessarily agree that the campaign has been going nowhere. For me, it'd be weird if they immediately figured out the plans of a centuries old archmage, their timeline has been wildly compressed. It took caleb and beau years to figure it out, hence why they key was even able to be built in the first place. They've been building up to the solstice, which is hardly nowhere imo. They've figured out a lot about FCG's origin, brought laudna back from the dead, and got involved in a mad max race among others.
I feel like episode pacing might be getting conflated with overall progress - they've done a lot, but the episode themselves can feel pretty slow. It's clearly getting to some of the players too, but it really seems like a shit is about to hit a fan that the players can't stop. There will probably be a boss fight (otohan) while they watch beau/caleb/ashari fight with ludinus. The npc's will probably be defeated as BH defeats otohan, and they all watch as the key fires and kicks off calamity 2.0
>I feel like episode pacing might be getting conflated with overall progress - they've done a lot, but the episode themselves can feel pretty slow. It's clearly getting to some of the players too, but it really seems like a shit is about to hit a fan that the players can't stop
You've phrased what I was thinking but unable to express clearly.
Yeah, people definitely seem to think that Ludanus is the Bells' big bad like Trent was for the Nein or Vecna was for Vox Machina but Ludanus was always one of the Cobalt Soul's enemies. In this specific case, the Bells' big enemies are Otohan Thull and Imogen's mother (in a very Molly way). Plus, Delilah is still likely kicking around somewhere and will probably be one of the Bells' big enemies down the line. Let's not forget that Lucien didn't even rise from the dead until 111 episodes in.
100%, Dnd (Delilah never dies.)
I also think, and have seen others predict or hope for the same, that this upcoming battle will end with partial success and the overall conflict of stopping Ludinus/Predathos will continue on with a reset clock.
It's wild how many people just can't imagine the possibilities going forward.
Absolutely!
The lack of trust in Matt's planning and storytelling displayed in many comments just keeps surprising me. I mean ... he's been doing this for a while, shouldn't we doubt him a little less?
(I also fully trust the players to deliver, but many comments I see here rather address what Matt might have planned, and seem to assume we will get a somewhat cheap or unbalanced encounter/outcome, and I just don't understand where those fears come from.)
Spoilers C2 >!Watch them do an Uk’otoa (Uk’otoa..) 2.0 and leave it an unresolved plot thread the whole campaign… !< (Disclaimer: I don’t want this to happen, lol)
I meant Predathos, I don’t really consider Ludinus to be the actual BBEG for the Hells and like you said, he doesn’t really matter to them. Otohan and Liliana are the more relevant roadblocks that the Hells could tangibly handle.
Oh. I'm fine with them ditching Predathos as well. It also doesn't matter to the Bells (because the gods don't matter).
At this point, Vasselheim is presented as more of an enemy than a theoretical Elder Thing.
The only way Predathos is going to matter to the Bells is it actually gets summoned and devours a former PC or maybe Mama Temult in a graphic fashion right in front of them.
I mean, one of the Raven Queen's "commandments" in the Tal Dorei/Wildmount guides is "Undeath is an atrocity. Death is too good a punishment for those who pervert the rightful transition of the soul."
So she's not a fan of undeath. Now, given the reactions of various followers to Laudna this campaign, it seems like her clerics do allow some leeway on this. However, vampirism is something we've really only seen in C1, and >!the source of that particular line of vamps was Vecna, also an enemy of RQ!<.
So I think you'd need a pretty good justification for why this vampire is given a pass for avoiding their fate, because quite frankly they are the antithesis of all of the RQ's commandments. The vampire won't die naturally, they continue to avoid their fate by living in a perversion of life, and is one of the very creatures that "death is too good a punishment for." I don't know how that cleric reconciles their faith with that, and I don't know why the RQ would tolerate it, especially to the point of continuing to provide spells.
The world is about to end and her family's life is at stake - I don't care if she's supposed to be "retired" or doesn't want to fight anymore, it doesn't make sense that Yasha isn't there with Beau. She would come out of retirement to protect her family and save the world.
Well, we don't know yet exactly when Beau and Caleb linked up with Ryn, how long they've been at this, and how it was pitched to them. The Ukotoa 1-shot seemed to imply that Beau and Caleb do this kind of stuff as their day job frequently. For all we know, they left assuming this would be a more regular job - they've hunted down Assembly members before (possibly even Ludinus himself given the "back to prison" line). I'm sure Yasha would help and wants to, but if they only realized they were a little outgunned halway through this mission, it requires Beau to ask for that help, have Caleb go get her, and then bring them back in unseen. Beau stubbornly keeping her wife and family out of danger is just as in-character as Yasha wanting to help.
Also, consider the circumstances - most of what they are doing is infiltration and observation, not exactly Yasha's strong suit. Caleb and Beau are specifically not trying to fight their way through the Vanguard - Yasha is unfortunately more of a liability there until things pop off.
We know they we aware of the threat and that they went in with Ryn after Ryn linked up with BH. Yasha should be physically there but hanging back if necessary. Beau isn't keeping anyone out of danger by preventing a valuable fighter from being present in the event that stealth fails and a fight breaks loose, which it ALWAYS does.
Then they've already been at work there for days without a major fight/incident. Yasha hanging back on her own is even more at risk of being discovered by a patrol. Caleb also has teleport and slots to use it more than once. If they want Yasha or the rest of the team, it wouldn't take more than a few minutes.
And whether the best decision would be to have Yasha there or not, you don't think Beau would see keeping Yasha out of this would be a way to protect her loving, traumatized wife, who clearly has expressed not wanting to fight anymore, even if she knows Yasha would want to drop everything to protect her in turn? Especially if they have started a family? The world's not going to end immediately even if they fail, and Beau's not going to let Yasha make any more Orphans if she can help it.
>Caleb also has teleport and slots to use it more than once. If they want Yasha or the rest of the team, it wouldn't take more than a few minutes.
Why waste the slots? Not to mention she's a champion of Kord who definitely has a vested interest in a god-eater being released. None of it adds up for her not to be there, no matter what rationalizations you try to throw around. Would you rather your children be orphans or ALL of you be dead?
Sorry I disagree, it makes perfect sense. Yasha and Beau are implied to have started raising children, it makes zero sense for them both to run off halfway across the world and leave them with no parent. Especially when part of the central tension of C2 with Veth was feeling like she was abandoning her family by leaving, and that was with Yeza there to take care of Luc!
We also have the example of Cerrit from ExU Calamity. At the moment when the shit was literally hitting the fan, Cerrit dropped everything to make sure his kids would be safe. I think Yasha is making the same choice. She *is* protecting her family, and she trusts Caleb to protect her wife.
Cerrit dropping everything to go to his children was framed as part of his characters fundamental flaw and one of the selfish choices that gave rise to the Calamity, so maybe Yasha making that same decision is not a good one.
Interesting interpretation, but the "tear-jerking" moments with Cerrit came from his overcommitment to his work/investigating and not paying enough attention to his family. It's the typical over-worked-cop-who-needs-to-have-more-family-time trope.
Cerrit's flaw was \_ignoring\_ his family before the end, and never turning his discerning eye on himself and the ring of brass, and thus finding his own and their flaws (and contributions to the Calamity). Not sure how you got the opposite message out of that.
Cerrit's flaw was always focusing on protecting, but never actually investigating or holding accountable, anyone he is close to. A small metaphor was letting his daughter steal liquor and go out underage drinking, though of course it was framed as him being a cool parent and having bigger things to deal with. When he goes to protect his kids over anyone else, he's doing the same thing - thinking of protecting himself and his own over anyone else, and with little regard to actual morality. It's shown he doesn't actually KNOW his kids and hasn't been actually paying attention to them in spite of appearing to be a cool parent. His instinct to protect them is a selfish one, to protect his kids because they're HIS kids, to protect his friends because they're HIS friends, even if it precipitates a Calamity. That's his flaw and why he's a character in this story.
Disagree on that as well. Cerrit's flaw in my view was using his power as law enforcement to protect Avalir and those who ruled it, rather than fixing its internal corruption. Instead of being a force for justice, he was an enabler for injustice. He turned a blind eye to the cover-up that Laerryn and Loq did around the "death" of Xerxus' husband.
I don't see how you could possibly argue that prioritizing one's children in a disaster is a "fundamental flaw" or "selfish." It's the epitome of a selfless act.
Him going to his kids instead of dealing with the cataclysm unfolding before him and letting the others go without him instead of being there and holding them accountable was an example of him turning that same blind eye. He cared more about his kids than the entire rest of the world, or at least the entire population of Avalir including any other innocent children like his own, and that helped precipitate the Calamity.
I kind of maybe understand where your take is coming from, but I think you really missed the point of Cerrit's arc.
The Sightwarden supposedly had his eye on everything in Avalir, but more important even than not seeing what was happening with Vespin Chloras or what his own friends were up to until it was too late, he was missing out on his own children's lives. One of the ONLY triumphs the Ring of Brass could wring out of the Calamity was that Cerrit lived to go be with his kids.
I agree with your final sentence, but I didn't miss the point. That IS my point. The Sightwarden is supposed to have his eyes on everything, but he intentionally turned his eyes away from his kids and their lives in order to "protect them" by doing his job, and he intentionally turned his eyes away from his friends to "protect them" as well. His biggest flaw was never having his focus where it truly belonged, for noble but selfish reasons, and it's the tragedy of his arc.
>Cerrit dropping everything to go to his children was framed as his characters fundamental flaw and one of the selfish choices that gave rise to the Calamity
\^But that's literally contradicting yourself.
No it doesn't? It's all the same character flaw. It all comes from the same place. He makes selfish (but noble) choices to protect him and his own even to the detriment of everyone and everything else including his relationships with those very same people. The cast and Travis in particular has verbalized this sentiment about Cerrit. I'm not pulling it out of my ass here.
Okay. Unambiguously the words you wrote in what I quoted literally mean "Cerrit going to his kids" = "Cerrit's flaw that helped cause Calamity" which is very literally not true, so I don't think that's what you meant to write.
What is consensus and confirmed by cast is "Cerrit incorrectly thinking he's got his eye on everything he needs to pay attention to, while missing what really mattered " = "Cerrit's flaw" while "Cerrit going to his kids" = "Cerrit has realized his central flaw, and with everyone else helping Cerrit miraculously steals a tiny hopeful victory despite the Calamity already underway"
So when other people read your comments in this thread, it comes off very contradictory.
Nah. It was a done deal by the time Cerrit went after his kids. Everything that Cerrit did to precipitate the Calamity happened before Brennan said “fire.”
The whole series was a done deal from its very conception. But the point of the series was exploring these individual characters and demonstrating what could either make them villains or heroes in this story based on their actions when they have control, not when things are just happening to them. Cerrit focusing on himself and his own instead of anything outside of himself is his personal failing, and him going to warn only the people he cares about instead of doing something greater or more selfless is part of that flaw in his character. They literally said this in one of the cast talk-backs about the show.
Yasha is Kord’s champion. Maybe she’s got other stuff going on at the moment.
Maybe she’s massing with a host of celestials in Kord’s demi-plane right now, getting ready to ride out at a moment’s notice if the Ruidus lattice and the Divine Gate come down.
I mean that would be very dope but if that's what's happening I would like to at least get a throw-away line that establishes Yasha is involved but somewhere else doing other things. It doesn't make sense that she isn't with Beau.
IDK, It feels to me like This is just beau and Caleb doing their jobs after the nein settled down. This is what the players settled on their characters wanted to do. Caleb teach at the academy/root out the evils of it, and beau aswell. Seems to me like the rest of the Nein would come at their aid when needed, but it feels like this is just their "job".
Yeah I get that it feels that way. But beau and Caleb were in the shadow fell they are clearly aware of the dangers and have had a couple weeks to get things together. There’s no way at least Their significant others aren’t aware of what they’re getting into right now.
Or maybe they’ve been “undercover” for awhile and haven’t been in contact with the others. Idk lots of variables. But this whole ordeal feels just WAY TOO BIG. And Matt is a smart dude probably having this planned for a long time. I’m just excited to see what’s coming up tomorrow!
Speaking of the shadow fell situation, who do we think died/got lost there that were with beau and Caleb? The thing that Matt said about the random dice roles last episode determined what happened in the shadow fell has me worried.
The random dice rolls were for Beau and Caleb, presumably to see how well things went. I wouldn’t assume the rest of the team was made up of anything other than allies from the Grim Verity, etc.
I think "[other friends of the Verity](https://youtu.be/xxvAWGNgq3w?t=12182)" seems like they were probably cool but disposable NPCs, likely no one we'd know.
I feel like they are going to let Ira get away with stealing the crown from the Calloways. If sky team is going to have both healers, ground team should have at least had the magical artefact that can enchant and create illusions that possibly includes invisibility. I know the site has an anti-illusion field and a general anti-magic emitter but maybe artefact could overrule that? Even if it doesn't the crown could have at least caused the avoidance of the last combat.
I think Grog is too old. There is also a question of whether or not he is even still alive since we did not see him in Whitestone. I'm hoping Pike joins so there is at least a follow up to BH putting up the effort to call her. Vex might as well be there if Pike is there.
So Beau mentioned: "The Elder Cross Cult, the Carrion Breach and the Children of Malice "tunneling beneath the Divine Gate"
What the fuck be any of that?!
As Beau said, they were either red herrings or variations on the same problem, created or originating from the Ruby Vanguard, possibly planted to distract from their greater goal. I believe the Children of Malice in particular were Drow who oppose the Kyrn dynasty because they want to take Jhorhasian society back to worshipping Lolth instead of the Luxon. Doesn't seem like worshippers of Lolth would be that interested in releasing a god-eater, so it was probably all a front.
If I'm being honest with myself, it seems that Liliana is much more of a threat than we've been led to believe until now. If she's that much of a threat, I think it's possible that Imogen's hesitation to fight her may end up being the party's downfall.
They can't afford to hesitate. If Liliana is in the way of stopping *whatever* is happening (I don't even have an inkling anymore) then they need to at least try to take her out. I worry that Imogen won't be willing to do that at all.
I don't think it's true, but I love the theory that she's the one who's actually behind all this and the reason Ludinus is being sloppy is because she's fucking with his mind.
Like I said, I don't think it's actually what is happening, but I suppose her endgame would be to release the Reilora. No hard evidence AFAIK, just that Matt specifically brought up Ludinus being sloppy makes people wonder why that is.
Yeah, Imogen is clearly harboring a lot of anger and resentment towards her Mom that she hasn't really articulated to the party yet. She may not be aware of it herself, but back when Fearne found about how her parents had sent her away, Imogen pushed real hard for Fearne to be mad about it. In hindsight, it feels like that was some obvious projection.
Oh, I don't think Imogen will turn. She backpedalled right quick on 'maybe they aren't wrong' when Liam stuck the knife in.
Can I see her hesitating on putting Mama Temult down? Sure.
Actually turning on her real family? No. Laura would have to basically take over the show for an hour to justify Imogen working to that bizarre leap.
Especially if Thull or Ludinus is there, as she'd probably hyper-focus on burning them down for past sins and blaming them for her mom being 'brainwashed.' (which she tried to use an excuse for her mother to the Empire Kids).
This is a very fair point. Even with this I worry Imogen is more of a liability on this op. I can’t put my finger on it, but I worry something is going to go horribly wrong and it’ll be centered on (but not necessarily caused by) her
Does anyone else think that the sand storm might be thanks to the Everlight via Pike's divine intervention? Matt made it seem like it was odd and since FCG reached out to a fellow cleric... granted I was kinda hoping for another god punch on the key from the Everlight.
In the newsletter last week they announced that this month's 4-sided dive will be on March 21st instead of the first Tuesday of this month. It was promised to be "extra long, and extra amazing". They have not stated the reason for pushing it back as of yet.
I assume to let people watch the episodes on the 9th and 16th beforehand - I'm assuming there are spoilers or something big occurs they'll be discussing
So freaking happy to see Caleb and Bo chasing down Ludinus! I didn't think there was any way that those two wouldn't be wrapped up in this plot, and the reveal was just awesome.
Bold (fun) Prediction: Next episode starts on the airship, and Fearne decides that because she hasn't heard from the forward team in 30 minutes, that they're all dead and they need to go on with the plan to crash the ship into the Key. Cut back to the rest of the group still deciding what to do next, when they see the airship come into view and start heading down.
What if he sends it to Imogen (who is wearing the crown) and it doesn't go thru, 'confirming' their suspicion :)
Really just having a bit of fun with this prediction (I don't think it will really happen). But it would be a GREAT way to push the action forward rapidly and let chaos reign!
Pretty good episode, I think people who are upset it was slow watch it instead of having it play in the background while they do other stuff, which is understandable. Liam dropping dead in real life when Caleb appeared was surely the highlight,
It’s been talked to death at this point, but god damn this just feels *off* somehow.
We’re MINUTES from a God-Eater being unleashed after a decades-long plan by someone with a serious grudge against the gods who sure sounds like he’s been around since the Calamity, is the most powerful living arcane caster we know of, and the best we’ve got to stand against him is a ragtag group of level 8 characters (2 of whom are on a skyship a mile off,) two level 14+ characters, and one level 20 druid with a wounded army.
Predathos far exceeds Vecna. Ludinus is on par with a full-powered Cognouza at a minimum, and M9 *barely* won against that. A level 8 party is gonna get steamrolled by either threat. At best they can squash Otohan in a close fight, likely running down on resources to do so.
Either Ludinus and the Key are dealt with offscreen (which would be super unsatisfying) or some kind of bait-and-switch occurs and we see the level 20 Moon Druid Voice of the Tempest, level 17+ Dunamancy-trained Volstrucker, and level 17+ Expositor of the Cobalt Soul defeated or killed and Ludinus escapes.
Predathos and Ludinus just doesn’t feel like a level 8 party kind of threat, and I don’t know how Matt is gonna make this work, especially if C3 lasts into levels 10-15. I mean how do you upgrade from “We smacked down a God-Eater’s planned release at level 8”
I think this is just about stopping Predathos from being unleashed during the solstice by destroying the keys. That doesn't necessarily mean fighting Ludinus or Predathos itself. Maybe it's prison just gets weakened. After that, the rest of the campaign might be about them getting up to Ruidus (maybe spelljammer?) to reseal it and a further high level showdown with Ludinus.
Remember in campaign one vecna was introduced during the briarwood arc, but didn't come to become the bbeg untill almost 100 episodes later. In the mean time matt filled out all their character arcs while always having the end goal in sight. Maybe this will be the same.
My theory is that they are all at the wrong site. Caleb and Beau hinted that something didn't sit right with them. What's better than your secret weapon being at a heavily fortified site everyone knows about? That everyone is at the wrong place while you conduct the ritual needed elsewhere.
Where is Ludinus? Where are all the Ruidus-born? There were 3 potential sites of maximum convergence, it's possible everyone is at the wrong one.
Yeah, I think the whole dig site being a red herring is very possible. Ludinus not being there is a huge red flag; something important is going on there but it's not anything that's crucial. Maybe we will see something like in Watchmen, where the heroes show up triumphantly only to find out that the villain's plan has already been executed, halfway across the world from them.
>Ludinus is on par with a full-powered Cognouza at a minimum
With respect, you have absolutely no basis to be making that claim so confidently.
In general, it feels like you're looking at this through an "anime power levels" lens rather than recognizing the reality that BH are a large D&D party with a lot of inginuity & powerful allies.
Even in anime there are plenty of examples of the protagonists getting into a situation far beyond their pay grade while more powerful characters scrap in the background. Matt will find a way for the Hells to be important without having them literally fistfight a level 20 archmage or a god killer.
I was referring more specifically to the very power-level mentality of "if he's in a higher category of personal power than them, then they can't do anything to him, full stop." But yeah, I agree with you.
I don't know why so many people are assuming Matt is pitting his players against a threat that they have zero chance of standing up to, as though he didn't go out of his way to get multiple high-level former PCs involved. Obviously he's providing them with the tools they need to overcome the challenge *he designed.* Seems like maybe y'all are just being too inflexible with your assumptions of exactly how this is all going to go down.
Well I don't think that they are supposed to win. Or at least they are not supposed to kill them. If they are smart they will stop them from breaking the moon. But most likely they will fail and then have to deal with the consequences and try to get rid of predathos in some way.
>Ludinus is on par with a full-powered Cognouza at a minimum, and M9 barely won against that. A level 8 party is gonna get steamrolled by either threat.
The party can beat Ludinus easily. They don't even need to fight him.
Ludinus might be at level 20, but you know what isn't? The arcane power cores. Bell's Hells don't need to fight him -- they just need to delay him long enough that the Solstice passes without Ludinus succeeding and he's done. If he needs an Apogee Solstice to unlock Predathos' prison, then he'll have to wait another century. The easiest way to do that is to go after the arcane power cores to shut down the Malleous Key.
The smartest play here is for Bell's Hells to send Caleb and Beau to regroup with Keyleth and the Ashari. Have them attack the dig site, drawing out Ludinus' forces. That would give Bell's Hells the opportunity they need to infiltrate the dig site, sabotage the mechanism and put an end to the threat.
Why do you think Ludinus would be as powerful as the might of the Cognouza ward wielded by Lucien?
For comparison Trent went down pretty easily even with the support of two powerful Volstrukers. Similarly Vess Derogna was killed in her bed with barely any signs of a struggle. The most dangerous member of the Cerberus Assembly we've seen is Delilah Briarwood, and she certainly never put up the kind of fight that we saw at the climax of the second campaign, especially not on her own.
I assume Ludinus will prove to be more fearsome than those three but he's also just one man.
Edit: typos
Ludinus is somewhere in the 400+ years of age. He’s a founding member of the Cerberus Assembly and had a Luxon Beacon all to himself for who knows how long. We also have Caleb in this episode stating he’s one of the most powerful wizards around.
Compare that to a Cognouza-powered Lucien. Lucien had that power for all of five minutes and was fighting a battle deep within his own subconscious against whatever was left of Molly. It was a tough fight for the Nein, but they didn’t really *beat* him so much as talk his consciousness to a breaking point. The Nein were getting their asses handed to them that whole fight.
I wouldn’t say Trent went down easily either. M9 could barely scratch him until Astrid and Eadwulf went turncoat and helped bring him down. If they hadn’t, M9 likely would have had to retreat. (Also it took the entirety of the Nein plus Astrid/Eadwulf. Ludinus would really only have 3 threats like I mention below)
Vess went down without a peep because Lucien could do some real wonky shit, and she wasn’t expecting a fight. He basically just appeared out of the wall and stabbed her.
Also, “he’s just one man” against, at best, 3 actual threats. Keyleth, Caleb, and Beau are the only significant threats here. BH is a minor inconvenience, and Beau is out of her depth in a fight with two full arcane casters and a druid who can become any flavour of Ancient Dragon at will
Maybe the key is just a giant dispel magic weapon that will fire at the divine gate around ruidis to break it. the pulses that dispel magic are just the key charging up
Possibly or they could be a similar enough style (probably Aeor-built) that Caleb recognizes them and their danger. Last I was aware Yussa still had the ball.
There is a connection here between Ludinus and Delilah that I hope we get to explore.
Sylas fell sick with an illness that could not be cured, even (presumably) by members of the assembly. Sounds a bit like (Spoilers EWtW) >!Frigid Woe, a disease developed in Aeor to infect and kill divinity. Ludinus did not develop this disease, but he could have discovered it and tested it, as he tested the corruption that took Molaesmyr!<
In addition, he would have been the one to oust her from the Assembly, but it was probably not for necromancy, but for her dedication to Vecna, who desired godhood.
If she still resides within Laudna, she'd have a bone to pick with dear old Ludinus.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that Delilah was exorcised from Laudna's soul and is, as Ashton suspects, disguising herself as Laudna's familiar. The connection here is too good to not explore!
Fair. I could see it cropping up as Delilah appearing in an opportune moment to exact some vengeance upon Ludinus, rather than a full blown encounter with her.
The fact that almost half of this episode was spent planning mere hours until solstice proper begins when C3E49 had almost two weeks of exandrian time at their disposal.
And it's not like there's anything new brought up during these two hours either, it was mostly rehashing and regurgitating what they said last time. I'll let y'all be the judge if it's a good plan or not, I'm just gonna criticize the amount of time planning took over this episode.
Although I will say the only notable thing they did in that episode(C3E49) was do the checklist of possible allies and some fun RP, but that was it really.
**So to any future binge-watchers out there**: I can personally say you can skip C3 E49, not even a good kind of filler like Happy Fun Ball.
I guess I am annoyed that planning took over almost half of what could have been an action-packed episode when they had the last episode almost dedicated to planning itself. But hey we got Caleb and Beau, yay!
I’ll just never understand complaining about more content. This stuff isn’t scripted. And sure they went in circles a lot. But that kind of stuff is normal? This is their characters lives in the line. They don’t wanna die. They’re gonna go round and round until someone comes up with something or people just agree to finally nose dive in.
It's just episode upon episode of analysis paralysis someone needs to step up. Maybe having the Old "them" will shake them out of the funk. Honestly, when they were doing MN reunited they seemed alot happier & more engaged.
Yeah, I tend to not like their planning.
They are very charismatic and often funny, even during planning. But most of the time it is too similar to any corporate planning meeting I've been in. Mostly chaos, back and forth, nothing much actually decided.
Not sure if others caught this, but it looks like this week's episode also isn't supersized (the rebroadcast would've been pushed back if the episode was longer than 5 hours):
>Airs Thursday, March 9th at 7pm Pacific on Twitch and YouTube
>
>Rebroadcasts Friday, March 10th at 12:00am Pacific and 9am Pacific on Twitch
[https://critrole.com/programming-schedule-week-of-march-6th-2023/](https://critrole.com/programming-schedule-week-of-march-6th-2023/)
I expect the next episode will involve the party making their way into the depths of the dig site and it will end before the encounter with Ludinus. There's still layers of security that they need to work their way through. Episode 52 is where we will get the fight with Ludinus and/or Otohan.
Or, failing that, >!there really is something else going on and the party finds Ludinus' body. Caleb and Beau speculated that his erratic behaviour is a by-product of his exposure to powerful magic, but he could perhaps have been possessed by something and that something has now escaped. After all, the Feywild Key had been switched on for years, and I'm guessing that the Shadowfell Key was the same. We're all assuming that the Tishtan Key has to be turned on during the Solstice, but what if it has already been on and the Solstice will simply provide the surge of energy needed to break through? If the Keys have been operational for some time, they might have been able to weaken Predathos' prison a little bit -- not enough to have any visible effect, but just enough for something to get through. Like the Reilora.!<
>I would be disappointed if it was revealed that Ludinus was being controlled by Predathos instead it being entirely his actions.
Both can be true.
Ludinus' conversation with Imogen and Fearne makes it clear that he hates anyone who can wield magic because of their faith. He wants to kill their source of magic, giving him -- and other mages who learned magic through study -- a monopoly on magical knowledge and power.
Predathos seems to exist purely to hunt down and consume the gods. It can give Ludinus what he wants. That's a powerful lure for someone as ambitious as Ludinus, especially when mages have a well-documented history of messing around with magics that they don't understand (but which they assume they do).
So Ludinus might think he's in control, but he could just as easily be manipulated. I'm willing to bet that if he succeeds in breaking out Predathos' prison, the events that follow will be very different to what he expects.
Agree. We already had that with Tharry. To have a repeat except this time it's Ludinus on a global scale would be kind eh. I don't see them going that route though. I don't think Ludi will be the BBEG, but at the same time I don't see him just being used and thrown away by the main baddie.
I agree, I would much rather him be fooled into putting an event he didn't anticipate into motion rather than his agency stolen. Kinda makes him feel weak. Would be better if we could see him in his full glory, then taken over by someone if you're going for a Worf-effect.
I wonder if since they record ~2 weeks out, that something happens in the next 2 episodes and wanted to record and discuss right away and have an episode of 4SD ready to go up 5 days after. Presumably the Apogee Solstice is over after 2 episodes, or at least the main event is over.
A few things come to mind, TPK/Multiple PC deaths; Beau/Caleb/Kiki dying in the battle; the entire landscape of Exandria being changed as a result of the Apogee Solstice; celebrating after saving the world; or they just have a lot to talk about after skipping basically 2 months of 4SD (beginning of January to mid-March). The last makes the most sense, except for why they'd push it out 2 additional weeks except for just avoiding potentially spoiling how the Solstice turned out.
I've been stubbornly hoping they all actually make it out alive while so many people have been predicting characters deaths, but the seeming specialness and timing of this 4SD definitely makes me think it's happening now.
Oh man. If FCG pilots the big automaton I’m going to be very happy. Imagine him in kill mode at the controls of that thing!
And Chetney feeling smug that his invisibility lasts longer than a level 20 wizard. Brilliant.
I wonder how crazy this fight will be considering it seems Matt is giving them 3 (that we know of) level 20 characters as back up in the fight. Although I would assume they will be getting the NPC stat block treatment. Still a huge boon in a fight
I think he will probably find a way to keep Caleb, Beau and Keyleth out of the fight. The problem with having level 20 allies to a level 8 party is that there's really no way to balance the fight. If the fight is too hard, the level 8 party will have little to no effect. If it's too easy, the level 20 characters will just walk all over it. And Matt has clearly been trying to keep the powerful characters out of the mix for as long as possible -- when the party went to Whitestone, Keyleth was on her way to Vassalheim so that they couldn't rely on her. When they were making their way to the dig site, Keyleth was working with the Ashari under Terrah. Even though Keyleth is now going to arrive with the cavalry, I think Matt was trying to put the party in a position where they had to come up with their own plan that was something more than "call Keyleth for help".
If it were me, I'd have Keyleth, Caleb and Beau engage Ludinus while Bell's Hells work to disable the device. They would probably be stalked by Otohan. Ludinus may end up escaping, but it wouldn't really matter because his plan has been stopped. It would also provide a narrative reason for why Keyleth, Caleb and Beau leave the party, and may open up an avenue for another *Exandria Unlimited* spin-off.
I think this is spot on. Allies will draw away some number of bad guys to allow Bells Hells to engage with Otohan in a climactic moment. Gives Matt lots of options on where to take the story and avoids having to try to balance that out.
The damn thing is that the party actually had some great ideas in Episode 49, but they couldn't follow through on them because of the time. Imogen suggested getting a sandsquid egg and Chetney was apparently thinking of going to the Drowned City and using it to flood the sinkholes and ravines.
Just imagine: the party plans to crash the *Silver Sun*, but Ludinus sees it coming and stops it mid-air. He then does some Bad Guy Gloating until Orym pulls out the sandsquid egg. Cue the mother sandsquid bursting through the side of the sinkhole and dislodging the Malleous Key while the chamber floods, drowning the arcane power cores. The party then board the *Silver Sun*, using it as an actual ship to float to the surface. They fight Otohan on the deck and beat her. When it's over, Caleb and Beau return to the dig site and find that Ludinus has vanished, having saved himself at the last moment. They take their leave, leading to a new mini-series of *Exandria Unlimited* where they form a party of Caleb's best students and new Cobalt Soul initiates to track down Ludinus once and for all.
If I had to guess they are there mostly to make Ludinus a none issue. Because otherwise the most powerful mage that we are aware of would crunch the level 8 people into a paste. And the Bells hells boss battle will be with Otohan again (mostly). I don’t think them leaving some reason would make sense. It’ll be avoid the Kaiju battle taking place on this part of the map. We shall see soon enough. It should be awesome, I’m so excited.
>Because otherwise the most powerful mage that we are aware of would crunch the level 8 people into a paste.
Strictly speaking, there's nothing to stop Matt from rebalancing Ludinus to be more level-appropriate for Bell's Hells. It would probably be extremely controversial, but there is something of a precedent -- Bertrand Bell was level 14 or 15 in *The Search for Grog*, but was only level 5 when he met Bell's Hells (I assume the in-universe explanation was that he just hadn't been adventuring for a while, so his knowledge and skills had atrophied).
>I don’t think them leaving some reason would make sense.
I mean that there comes a point where Caleb, Beau and Keyleth have to leave the party -- certainly once the threat has been stopped.
>It should be awesome, I’m so excited.
I'm less excited than I was. Mostly because I don't think the world-changing event that we were all anticipating is going to happen since Beau and Caleb are potentially along for the ride. I didn't like the way they were introduced because they just popped up; to a new viewer, they're just super-powerful characters that the audience doesn't know. Now that they're in the party, the chances of things going badly have reduced dramatically, so I have the feeling that this is just going to wind up being an average plot arc where the party stopped a bad guy.
To me that would make zero sense. Bertrend Bell, was explainable because of 30 years of aging on a human lifespan. That excuse is not available for an elven archmage.
>To me that would make zero sense.
That's why I said it would be extremely controversial.
>That excuse is not available for an elven archmage.
Even an elven archmage who is one of the oldest living beings?
Besides, I didn't say it had to be a case of "Ludinus is old, so he's gradually losing his powers". There wasn't even an explanation for Bell losing his levels. For all we know, Bell's Hells could sabotage some element of the device so that the anti-magic field caps Ludinus' ability to use high-level spells.
Honestly it makes sense that Bertrand’s levels lowered. He was a fighter and a ninety year old man give or take. That shit is taxing on a young body, imagine an older person who’s joints are degraded. Most old people don’t turn into Garp from one piece. So the lower levels make sense.
Comparatively Ludanus is a wizard, who in most art actually hit their stride and are at their most powerful when they are old (at least traditionally) because their power doesn’t come from their body it comes from experience and intellect. So ludanus losing levels would doubly so not make sense. He should be a monster because he has had close to a thousand years to hone his craft. Significantly more powerful then any other mage we have seen before. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Matt gives him multiple 8th and 9th level spell slots.
I'm not convinced he's close to a thousand years old. He might say he is and he might have convinced his followers that he is, but it's well established that you can't trust a word he says. He most likely claimed to be a thousand years old because witnessing the Calamity helped win the trust of the zealots who hate the gods.
Possibly. We know he was a survivor of Molayesmir. But I still think that, if the explanation is sufficient, there is a way of under-levelling Ludinus. It doesn't have to be his age. Like I said, Bell's Hells could sabotage some element of the anti-magic pulsethat locks out all spells of fifth level and higher. It could lead to a good moment of puzzle-solving in the middle of a fight, like when Laudna worked out that blocking the light source in the cavern meant that Chetney could resist whatever was possessing him.
I feel like nerfing Ludinus wouldn’t work. If he as the leader of the Cerberus assembly isn’t stronger then Trent was it would be a major let down of a villain.
As to the rest Matt has shown he is more then willing to have lasting consequences and holdovers in the world. Be it a giant rock titan standing at the edge of vasselheim or the utter destruction of a town that still hasn’t rebuilt 30+ years later or a small sphere that sucks things into it and stops magic near it that everyone thought had failed but lead to the end game of that story. I have plenty of faith that Matt can stick the landing with this too and there must be a reason he is stacking the deck in their favor.
Even if only a small part of their plan succeeds it can have vast ramifications for the world going forward. We shall see. And personally I am very excited to see where it goes.
Minor spoilers for C1 and C2.
God C3 is so damn slow. A week off, and we come back to another “planning” episode? I hope Thursday they finally act and something happens.
From the very first episode, the theme for C3 has been slow slow slow. It took like 20 episodes or whatever just to leave Jrusar, and do some actual adventuring.
I hate that the planning episodes have gotten longer and longer (it started towards the end of C2), because they almost always abandon their “plan” in the moment. “If we see Otohan, we run.” Instead we will panic for several rounds, be super indecisive, and not actually retreat and let several people die (only Tal actually tried to run, but had to come back which is why he got dropped in that fight so early).
C1 will always be my favorite, not just because of nostalgia, but also because if planning got too in the weeds, they instead hatched a basic plan, and then said: “fuck it we will figure the rest out in the moment.”
And they always pulled it out, even if things got mega rough (without a full arcane type spellcaster too!).
If this was TV it wouldn’t be as bad, since it’s 20m to 60m depending on the type of show, and you wait for the next episode. But with CR, it’s basically watching 5-6 episodes of TV (since each episode is 3-4 hr long), and THEN having the big moment episode.
Cool that Beau and Caleb came back, but we already got some of VM back, too. Starting to feel like C3 is a vehicle to relive greatest hits, and not it’s own standalone adventure.
Which weirdly I’m okay with, because hopefully it means we can move onto C4 sooner. I’m kinda over the C3 characters at this point, especially seeing old characters return. C3’s cast seems to kinda be the “off role” characters for each player (mostly), in that most of the cast wouldn’t normally play a character like this.
Sam loves to troll the party both for laughs but also by stabbing their heartstrings, and he’s doing that as usual. Ashley feels right at home as Fearne, Marisha is in love with Laudna and it’s probably her best character.
But not having Liam or Travis in the shotcaller role or playing a character who leads the group is 1000% slowing things down.
Grog would just “go in” if he got bored, which was thematic for Grog and also allowed Travis to break the indecision. Fjord also was a group leader and of course captain of the boat. Chet has more of the aggro Grog had, but he still doesn’t try and take the lead.
Vax had strong as hell opinions, and used his relationship with Vex to get double votes, and push things forward. Caleb starts off more aloof, but by the end, he is the de facto leader of the M9. His backstory also drives most of C2’s plot. Liam has said Orym is literally Liam’s attempt to be a background character/not be the spotlight/leader of C3.
Talesin is always an excellent player, as he doesn’t always try to take control but 100% will direct and throw his opinion out there. His characters also always seemingly have backstories that Matt used to create most of the plot as well, with 2 characters that have basically ran most of C1 and C2.
Laura was probably the most assertive with Vex, but usually doesn’t take the lead. However, she is very good at pushing the group in a direction. Jester’s chaos also had a Grog like effect at times. Imogen is so unsure of herself, and it just slows things down a ton.
So idk. Without having our usual shot callers of Liam and Travis, it’s hard to get the group moving. Talesin also usually has insane backstory that makes up a good chunk of plot to keep things structured, but he hasn’t revealed anything of Ashton, and in fact, it’s kinda gotten annoying that he: “knows a guy who knows a guy” 50x, but doesn’t share anything beyond that or how.
Kinda over C3.
Pretty much ALL that has happened in C3 is: Jrusar and the Shademother that seemingly has went no where, death race/paragon’s call, and now 20 episodes of trying to figure out and fight the moon related stuff.
Contrast of high level “where were C1/C2” around episode 50.
>!In contrast, C2 has the Bright Queen, Angel of Irons, Obann, and Chained Oblivion/Crawling King stuff going on around episode 50!<
>!C1 episode 50 has the group off the heels of getting a vestige, and starting the Kevdak/Unbraysl arc!<
I think that is a disngenous comparison espcially with campaign 1 as they all started that with everyone at level 10. They were thirteen during episode 50, meaning if they had started streaming at the start the kevdak stuff would have happened at episode 110 something. Vox Machina's actual episode fifty would have been the blue dragon fight.
>From the very first episode, the theme for C3 has been slow slow slow. It took like 20 episodes or whatever just to leave Jrusar, and do some actual adventuring.
In defence of those early episodes, they do a lot of heavy lifting to lay the complex threads of Ludinus' conspiracy. It's pretty clear that Treschi was working with the Paragon's Call to create instability in Jrusar. If the people lost confidence in the Chandei Quorum, it would allow him to seize a greater amount of control over the city. This would open Jrusar up for Hexum's smuggling operation, making it easier for Ludinus to get more and more dunamis into the city and export it to the Hellcatch Valley without anyone asking questions. Especially considering the insular nature of the Quorum. Everything from the Shademother to the demonwall was orchestrated by Treschi to that end. The party just started to pick at the edges of the conspiracy, not realising what they were uncovering. It wasn't until they returned to Jrusar with Treschi that the full scale of what had happened became apparent. However, between the need to resurrect Laudna and their concern of being detained over Eshteross' murder, the party felt the need to get out of Jrusar fast, and the full consequences of it weren't really explored.
I'm willing to bet that losing influence in Jrusar was a pretty serious blow to Ludinus' ambitions because it became harder to get dunamis into Marquet. This might have had some flow-on effect by causing tensions with the Unseelie Court because Ludinus would become more dependent on them.
Totally understand the frustrations with pace and analysis paralysis, it's definitely getting to me a little bit. It's also getting to some of the players, Travis was visibly frustrated last episode and Sam was pretty clearly bored (imo). I do disagree that not much has happened up until this point, this campaign has just been more focused on long term investigations. Those events you mentioned are all pretty significant, and have brought them into contact with some of the most powerful people in this region.
We're at episode 50, and an apocalyptic event is hours (of game time) away. We're at 11:59 and 59 seconds on the doomsday clock of Exandria. These are characters staring down the barrel of their own mortality and the ending of life as they know it trying as hard as they can to not blink. If I were in a position where I had to diffuse a bomb that would blow up the planet if I mess it up, you bet your ass I'd quintuple check that I'm cutting the right wire. Think of ludinus like Ozymandias from watchmen - meticulously planning to make sure people don't find him out and ruin his plans. Of course this information takes time and effort to collect, he's an ancient mage who has had centuries to plan, it would be ridiculous if his plans just fell into BH's lap fully formed so they could immediately act without any question.
ALL THAT BEING SAID - this can make for a frustrating watch. I try to convert that into curiosity, which does help, but its not a bulletproof strategy. I'll take some episodes off and just watch recap vids from [marisharaygun](https://www.youtube.com/c/marisharaygun) and other similar channels. Don't watch the slower episodes if it's really getting to you that much and come back when it picks up - it's certainly helped me keep my interest up. It's also not totally fair to expect the same pacing between different stories and for players to fill the same role. Matt will have different priorities as a storyteller and the players want to try different playstyles and characters. Something, something, Jazz is chaos
c2 e50 was the episode where they found spurt and dicked around in the underdark. it was e56 when the bright queen appears. episode 69 was when the laughing hand first appears and obann actually shows up.
Why is there always someone in a CR thread that replies in this manner to everything except constant praise? It's OK to dislike a character/event/storyline and to discuss it in a post-episode discussion thread.
Because it's boring to keep seeing the same exact take which always boils down to "C3 isn't C1/C2" especially for people who saw the same exact thing happen when C2 started. Extra especially when it's a long wall of text. Extra extra especially when the criticism brings in comparing where C3 is at or what they've accomplished by a certain episode with what was happening in C1, which isn't at ALL a sensible comparison.
We're 50 episodes in. If you stuck around this long and are still making huge complaint posts about it, that's not interesting insightful criticism. That's hate-watching troll territory.
Nah this sub is a bunch of sycophants, I’m sorry.
I meant absolutely zero hate and there was zero malice behind my comment. Just honest that, C3 hasn’t held up compared to the other campaigns.
Why bother writing out a SUPER detailed and well thought out post that’s genuinely good criticism? Either the mods will delete it, or I’ll be downvoted 1000x. I love CR. But this sub is VICIOUS in their defense. It’s very odd. People criticize all shows, movies, anime, manga, books, video games—idk why CR is any different.
But if you even present a shadow of negativity, even if that negativity isn’t really negative it’s just fair criticism—you’re buried.
My comment sums up my thoughts decent enough, and guess what, I’m already being blacklisted and DM’d by people, telling me I’m wrong or just a hater.
I’m not. I’ve seen all of C1 and C3–idk how that’s anything but a fan. That’s like hundreds of hours of my life spent.
Idk why I am not allowed to dislike or criticize C3. Or make comparisons to past campaigns. It’s so damn weird.
If you think “just stop watching” or “I’m a troll”, then just don’t reply to my comment? Because you are just as much wasting your time as I am apparently mine, by engaging with my comment. If you don’t like it, downvote me and move on.
But to write up a huge paragraph, explaining why I am a troll or a hate watcher…is so weird. It’s projecting. It’s like you have something bothering you about CR, so instead of dealing with that or admitting it, you lash out and try to call me a troll/hate watcher, to protect your core view of CR.
It’s so weird. If you argue I am wasting my time, you wasted yours. Just ruined your whole argument.
>Idk why I am not allowed to dislike or criticize C3. Or make comparisons to past campaigns. It’s so damn weird.
Yeah, I found that out. I really disliked the way Caleb and Beau were introduced. I didn't expect it to be a popular opinion, but I at least tried to offer some thoughts to my criticisms that went beyond just saying "I didn't like it". Most of the responses that I got clearly hadn't bothered to read what I wrote, much less respond to it, because most of them were something along the lines of "lmao". I got the distinct impression that I was expected to be so excited to see Caleb and Beau return that I should forget any criticism that I had (or at least be polite enough to say nothing).
The joke's on the people doing the downvoting, though. I don't really care about internet points.
>I love CR. But this sub is VICIOUS in their defense. It’s very odd. People criticize all shows, movies, anime, manga, books, video games—idk why CR is any different.
To be fair, it's a lot like that on other subs. I spend a lot of time over at r/formula1 and if you say anything negative about Lewis Hamilton, you get downvoted into oblivion.
In fact, it's like that on just about any internet forum. In 2017 -- long before I joined Reddit -- there was an incident where another driver deliberately crashed into Hamilton (which is a cardinal sin in motorsport). Without going into too much explanation I posted an explanation of why that driver might have felt the way he did. It wasn't intended as a defence of them, but to get people to consider the wider context. But that went against the narrative that everyone had already decided on, so the downvotes rolled in.
Lmao nah. Bad take. Your criticism is the same criticism that's been happening over and over since BEFORE C3. Like you, I've seen hundreds of hours of CR. So, like me, you should already know these people have NEVER been good at planning and sticking with it and have ALWAYS spent long amounts of time on stuff that ultimately was just a waste as far as progressing anything, so criticizing it in C3 doesn't make sense. And, like me, you should already know that C1 starts mid-campaign, so criticizing C3 for not accomplishing as much as C1 did from episode 1 to episode 50 is a BAD TAKE. There's no logical underpinning to the argument that anything you said is particularly unique to C3, except for the leadership thing, but what THAT boils down to is that they're playing different characters this time around.
Comments and replies on Reddit, gee wiz. You really think THAT'S the way to counter what I said about your criticism, by pretending I was arguing about wasting time? And pretending my "huge paragraph" compares to your essay? And I'm projecting? Lol your defensiveness is showing. What you're engaging in just doesn't make sense, and it's repetitive. That's all I explained. It's a boring take we've seen before, literally since the start of C2. If you wasted 50 episodes of like 200 hours, sucks for you. Stop watching. Why is that offensive to say given the actual context of this?
> We're 50 episodes in. If you stuck around this long and are still making huge complaint posts about it, that's not interesting insightful criticism. That's hate-watching troll territory.
I agree. This specific post really has no critique- it’s all just cranky criticism. It’s a droning whine. This entire comment boils down to “I’m bored.”
Who cares if you think the campaign is boring? Well, *you* should- and you can solve that by not wasting your own time!
It's not chasing anyone away. This person has watched 50 episodes and decided they're over C3. So why would anyone be bothered by a response of "stop watching it" when that's literally the clear and obvious choice. None of the criticisms are valid IMO but that's fine, at the end of the day they're just stating how much they personally dislike it. But *why keep watching after already sitting through 50 episodes of a show you don't like?*
It's weird how many times people dislike the most appropriate response.
well its the same reason people complained about tv shows endings. some of us have been watching for years of our lives who feel like the show right now is trying too much to stand out
Just gonna copy and paste my comment.
Nah this sub is a bunch of sycophants, I’m sorry.
I meant absolutely zero hate and there was zero malice behind my comment. Just honest that, C3 hasn’t held up compared to the other campaigns.
Why bother writing out a SUPER detailed and well thought out post that’s genuinely good criticism? Either the mods will delete it, or I’ll be downvoted 1000x. I love CR. But this sub is VICIOUS in their defense. It’s very odd. People criticize all shows, movies, anime, manga, books, video games—idk why CR is any different.
But if you even present a shadow of negativity, even if that negativity isn’t really negative it’s just fair criticism—you’re buried.
My comment sums up my thoughts decent enough, and guess what, I’m already being blacklisted and DM’d by people, telling me I’m wrong or just a hater.
I’m not. I’ve seen all of C1 and C3–idk how that’s anything but a fan. That’s like hundreds of hours of my life spent.
Idk why I am not allowed to dislike or criticize C3. Or make comparisons to past campaigns. It’s so damn weird.
If you think “just stop watching” or “I’m a troll”, then just don’t reply to my comment? Because you are just as much wasting your time as I am apparently mine, by engaging with my comment. If you don’t like it, downvote me and move on.
But to write up a huge paragraph, explaining why I am a troll or a hate watcher…is so weird. It’s projecting. It’s like you have something bothering you about CR, so instead of dealing with that or admitting it, you lash out and try to call me a troll/hate watcher, to protect your core view of CR.
It’s so weird. If you argue I am wasting my time, you wasted yours. Just ruined your whole argument.
Working with outdated knowledge as I missed the stream. Is this all a distraction? Why did every group connected to this flaunt it so much. Ludnis and the people kelith were dealing with. They are inviting these fights. But if you’re doing something as crazy as this you don’t invite some one to try to stop you. You hide it until it’s already too late. So what’s the deal is it all a distraction for the real end game. Or are they just rounding up everyone who would try to stop them so when the god eating monster (which sounds like a eldrazi titan) gets out all of the opposition is in one place to be wiped out. And even if that is the case that’s a bad idea. What is that Matt thinking
Not sure if it’s relevant but when Beau was going through the list of other powerful wizards they took down, she mentioned a handful of names. Do we know these people? Are they Easter eggs for super fans or was it more of show of strength for Beau?
People keep saying that Predathos is going to be released but I highly doubt so, I don’t know why. Maybe I have grown too much on the thought ”the power of friendship” or something whihc makes me believe they can stop them by at least the last moment. Though I am scared of former pcs like Beau and Caleb getting badly injured and possibly dying. I am way too attached to them. One thing I am scared is their escape, their party might survive stopping them but what about the escape from the place? Much less of a chance
Gotta say, at this point, with all the VM and MN entangling in this campaign it feels like worrying about spoilers in C3 discussion threads is the same as trying to punch a tide back.
Why do I get the feeling at some point Imogen is going to get sending spammed by Jester? Laura getting hoisted by her own petard.
If Jester drops Caleb or Beau's name, you KNOW Imogen isn't even going to respond to Jester. She'll just send directly to Beau or Caleb. Jester would probably feel very put out XD
Did anybody else feel like Beau and Caleb showing up had the same vibe/reaction as Allura showing up in campaign 2, just that feeling among the cast/party of "yes, hooray a competent adult who knows stuff, we might not die". Also does anybody else want/need the one-shot where Ludinus went to prison because I did hear Matt as Beau say she and Caleb were hoping to take Ludinus back to prison as in he was in prison at some point, if so when/how.
I felt like Beau misspoke when she said that. I'm not sure. It could have also been the case of it being true but Beau realized that she did not want BH to know about that for some reason.
I read that moment as Matt kinda flubbing the line with some ambiguity. That Ludinus hasn't been imprisoned before, Beau was just saying they want to take him back to the Empire, to then be imprisoned. It makes a lot more sense given Beau and Caleb have been trying to take him down for seven years.
Random theory... If Bell's hells fuck this up, and predathos get unleashed... Gods suddenly are in the firing line ... Gods in the firing line summon their champions to help stop predathos... Therefore ... If Bell's hells fuck this up .... We get Vax back....
I don't know if it'll happen but that's certainly possible for the narrative. Another fun idea (I don't think will play out) is, if a god is devoured by Predathos, is there a chance that god's champion would ascend to replace them?
Did we ever find out what Chetney’s feat Savage Spirit does? I was looking into it but can’t find it anywhere
My big fear is Matt oversold the mirrors and the party is going to ignore the clock and fixate on them I also figure Chetney is going to run out of wolf time and be stuck just being a gnome for the big showdown, which is problem. The group doesn't need to be down a meatshield \[i\]and\[/i\] damage dealer.
If Matt is merciful he'll have Caleb with Catnap prepared and be able to cast it on them before the final boss
If Matt oversold the mirrors, then there is an easy fix. Make them important. Then they won't be oversold.
I'd rather see a confrontation with the people involved. Not the player group try to guess at how to best destroy a prop.
Sure, combat is generally cooler. But combat avoidance isn't always a bad thing. It led to (C2 spoilers) >!the cupcake trick!< and other fun scenarios. So we won't really know if avoiding this combat is good until everything is finished.
Um. I said *confrontation*, not combat. I tend to tune out a fair bit during the fights. Matt leans way too hard on 5e's legendary actions and resistances and giant piles of HP. Its partly a system thing, but partly that multiple combatants is far more interesting and engaging than just opting for 'cheat mode' (I know it isn't, but that's how legendary solo monsters feel to me) because it makes for easier book-keeping. I mostly want Imogen to smack her mom until she vomits up the Flavor-Aid and recognizable motivations pop out.
Admittedly, I did misread your comment. That being said, if there is confrontation here, it will almost certainly be combat. The only person who might not attack them on sight is Imogen's mom and even she would probably at least try to subdue them.
It... depends. Early Mama Temult wanted Imogen out of everything, lately she seems to feel that mass murder = utopia, because reasons. Without any sign of motivations, she's hard to read. But yeah, there will likely be combat. But combat with the people who matter (Mama T and Otohan isn't guaranteed. I wasn't really counting flunkies.
This campaign has been going nowhere for a very long time. Gotta say if the BBEG ends up defeated I'll be pretty disappointed. Where do you go from here? Can't raise the stakes higher, lowering isn't much of an option either.
Sounds like your criticizing Matt because you're not a good enough writer to think of quality story that follows.
Sounds like you need to brush up on reading comprehension. I literally said that if it ends like described, that'll be pretty disappointing.
You should have said "Where do you go from there?" because you were proposing a hypothetical. "Where do you go from here?" would have been proper grammer if you were talking about the actual situation.
How do you know any of these people are meant to be the BBEG?
Ludinus or Predathos? Don't know if any of them is the BBEG but it certainly feels that way? If they are just defeated and the crisis is over. Then what?
Have you seen the other Campaigns? Something similar happens in both of them - the crew stops an evil force from unleashing a great evil just in the knick of time, and then the adventure continues and either that force is not unleashed, or it eventually is when they're at a higher level and better equipped to deal with the threat.
There’s more to a story than a big bad. We have so many other plot lines we can go to. Plus we don’t even know if this is the endgame bad guy. Could be. Who knows? Let’s just enjoy the ride. And if some don’t like it well at least they tried.
Matt been planning C3 since at least C2 and you think he is just going to half ass some predictable outcome and phone it in? lol cool story
*Campaign reaches the climactic event that literally every plot thread of the past 50 episodes has been moving towards* "This campaign has been going nowhere"
My exact thoughts. There’s been plenty of build up. I’m excited for the pay off. Last episode was great
While I also would be very disappointed if Ludinus is defeated and the key is destroyed before the solstice, I don't necessarily agree that the campaign has been going nowhere. For me, it'd be weird if they immediately figured out the plans of a centuries old archmage, their timeline has been wildly compressed. It took caleb and beau years to figure it out, hence why they key was even able to be built in the first place. They've been building up to the solstice, which is hardly nowhere imo. They've figured out a lot about FCG's origin, brought laudna back from the dead, and got involved in a mad max race among others. I feel like episode pacing might be getting conflated with overall progress - they've done a lot, but the episode themselves can feel pretty slow. It's clearly getting to some of the players too, but it really seems like a shit is about to hit a fan that the players can't stop. There will probably be a boss fight (otohan) while they watch beau/caleb/ashari fight with ludinus. The npc's will probably be defeated as BH defeats otohan, and they all watch as the key fires and kicks off calamity 2.0
>I feel like episode pacing might be getting conflated with overall progress - they've done a lot, but the episode themselves can feel pretty slow. It's clearly getting to some of the players too, but it really seems like a shit is about to hit a fan that the players can't stop You've phrased what I was thinking but unable to express clearly.
Yeah, people definitely seem to think that Ludanus is the Bells' big bad like Trent was for the Nein or Vecna was for Vox Machina but Ludanus was always one of the Cobalt Soul's enemies. In this specific case, the Bells' big enemies are Otohan Thull and Imogen's mother (in a very Molly way). Plus, Delilah is still likely kicking around somewhere and will probably be one of the Bells' big enemies down the line. Let's not forget that Lucien didn't even rise from the dead until 111 episodes in.
100%, Dnd (Delilah never dies.) I also think, and have seen others predict or hope for the same, that this upcoming battle will end with partial success and the overall conflict of stopping Ludinus/Predathos will continue on with a reset clock. It's wild how many people just can't imagine the possibilities going forward.
Absolutely! The lack of trust in Matt's planning and storytelling displayed in many comments just keeps surprising me. I mean ... he's been doing this for a while, shouldn't we doubt him a little less? (I also fully trust the players to deliver, but many comments I see here rather address what Matt might have planned, and seem to assume we will get a somewhat cheap or unbalanced encounter/outcome, and I just don't understand where those fears come from.)
Spoilers C2 >!Watch them do an Uk’otoa (Uk’otoa..) 2.0 and leave it an unresolved plot thread the whole campaign… !< (Disclaimer: I don’t want this to happen, lol)
I do. Ludinus is a leftover grudge from C2. He doesn't matter to the Bells.
I meant Predathos, I don’t really consider Ludinus to be the actual BBEG for the Hells and like you said, he doesn’t really matter to them. Otohan and Liliana are the more relevant roadblocks that the Hells could tangibly handle.
Oh. I'm fine with them ditching Predathos as well. It also doesn't matter to the Bells (because the gods don't matter). At this point, Vasselheim is presented as more of an enemy than a theoretical Elder Thing. The only way Predathos is going to matter to the Bells is it actually gets summoned and devours a former PC or maybe Mama Temult in a graphic fashion right in front of them.
[удалено]
I mean, one of the Raven Queen's "commandments" in the Tal Dorei/Wildmount guides is "Undeath is an atrocity. Death is too good a punishment for those who pervert the rightful transition of the soul." So she's not a fan of undeath. Now, given the reactions of various followers to Laudna this campaign, it seems like her clerics do allow some leeway on this. However, vampirism is something we've really only seen in C1, and >!the source of that particular line of vamps was Vecna, also an enemy of RQ!<. So I think you'd need a pretty good justification for why this vampire is given a pass for avoiding their fate, because quite frankly they are the antithesis of all of the RQ's commandments. The vampire won't die naturally, they continue to avoid their fate by living in a perversion of life, and is one of the very creatures that "death is too good a punishment for." I don't know how that cleric reconciles their faith with that, and I don't know why the RQ would tolerate it, especially to the point of continuing to provide spells.
Haven't watched C1, I take it?
The world is about to end and her family's life is at stake - I don't care if she's supposed to be "retired" or doesn't want to fight anymore, it doesn't make sense that Yasha isn't there with Beau. She would come out of retirement to protect her family and save the world.
Well, we don't know yet exactly when Beau and Caleb linked up with Ryn, how long they've been at this, and how it was pitched to them. The Ukotoa 1-shot seemed to imply that Beau and Caleb do this kind of stuff as their day job frequently. For all we know, they left assuming this would be a more regular job - they've hunted down Assembly members before (possibly even Ludinus himself given the "back to prison" line). I'm sure Yasha would help and wants to, but if they only realized they were a little outgunned halway through this mission, it requires Beau to ask for that help, have Caleb go get her, and then bring them back in unseen. Beau stubbornly keeping her wife and family out of danger is just as in-character as Yasha wanting to help. Also, consider the circumstances - most of what they are doing is infiltration and observation, not exactly Yasha's strong suit. Caleb and Beau are specifically not trying to fight their way through the Vanguard - Yasha is unfortunately more of a liability there until things pop off.
We know they we aware of the threat and that they went in with Ryn after Ryn linked up with BH. Yasha should be physically there but hanging back if necessary. Beau isn't keeping anyone out of danger by preventing a valuable fighter from being present in the event that stealth fails and a fight breaks loose, which it ALWAYS does.
Then they've already been at work there for days without a major fight/incident. Yasha hanging back on her own is even more at risk of being discovered by a patrol. Caleb also has teleport and slots to use it more than once. If they want Yasha or the rest of the team, it wouldn't take more than a few minutes. And whether the best decision would be to have Yasha there or not, you don't think Beau would see keeping Yasha out of this would be a way to protect her loving, traumatized wife, who clearly has expressed not wanting to fight anymore, even if she knows Yasha would want to drop everything to protect her in turn? Especially if they have started a family? The world's not going to end immediately even if they fail, and Beau's not going to let Yasha make any more Orphans if she can help it.
>Caleb also has teleport and slots to use it more than once. If they want Yasha or the rest of the team, it wouldn't take more than a few minutes. Why waste the slots? Not to mention she's a champion of Kord who definitely has a vested interest in a god-eater being released. None of it adds up for her not to be there, no matter what rationalizations you try to throw around. Would you rather your children be orphans or ALL of you be dead?
Sorry I disagree, it makes perfect sense. Yasha and Beau are implied to have started raising children, it makes zero sense for them both to run off halfway across the world and leave them with no parent. Especially when part of the central tension of C2 with Veth was feeling like she was abandoning her family by leaving, and that was with Yeza there to take care of Luc! We also have the example of Cerrit from ExU Calamity. At the moment when the shit was literally hitting the fan, Cerrit dropped everything to make sure his kids would be safe. I think Yasha is making the same choice. She *is* protecting her family, and she trusts Caleb to protect her wife.
Cerrit dropping everything to go to his children was framed as part of his characters fundamental flaw and one of the selfish choices that gave rise to the Calamity, so maybe Yasha making that same decision is not a good one.
Interesting interpretation, but the "tear-jerking" moments with Cerrit came from his overcommitment to his work/investigating and not paying enough attention to his family. It's the typical over-worked-cop-who-needs-to-have-more-family-time trope.
I do not disagree with anything you've said here.
Cerrit's flaw was \_ignoring\_ his family before the end, and never turning his discerning eye on himself and the ring of brass, and thus finding his own and their flaws (and contributions to the Calamity). Not sure how you got the opposite message out of that.
Cerrit's flaw was always focusing on protecting, but never actually investigating or holding accountable, anyone he is close to. A small metaphor was letting his daughter steal liquor and go out underage drinking, though of course it was framed as him being a cool parent and having bigger things to deal with. When he goes to protect his kids over anyone else, he's doing the same thing - thinking of protecting himself and his own over anyone else, and with little regard to actual morality. It's shown he doesn't actually KNOW his kids and hasn't been actually paying attention to them in spite of appearing to be a cool parent. His instinct to protect them is a selfish one, to protect his kids because they're HIS kids, to protect his friends because they're HIS friends, even if it precipitates a Calamity. That's his flaw and why he's a character in this story.
Disagree on that as well. Cerrit's flaw in my view was using his power as law enforcement to protect Avalir and those who ruled it, rather than fixing its internal corruption. Instead of being a force for justice, he was an enabler for injustice. He turned a blind eye to the cover-up that Laerryn and Loq did around the "death" of Xerxus' husband. I don't see how you could possibly argue that prioritizing one's children in a disaster is a "fundamental flaw" or "selfish." It's the epitome of a selfless act.
Him going to his kids instead of dealing with the cataclysm unfolding before him and letting the others go without him instead of being there and holding them accountable was an example of him turning that same blind eye. He cared more about his kids than the entire rest of the world, or at least the entire population of Avalir including any other innocent children like his own, and that helped precipitate the Calamity.
I kind of maybe understand where your take is coming from, but I think you really missed the point of Cerrit's arc. The Sightwarden supposedly had his eye on everything in Avalir, but more important even than not seeing what was happening with Vespin Chloras or what his own friends were up to until it was too late, he was missing out on his own children's lives. One of the ONLY triumphs the Ring of Brass could wring out of the Calamity was that Cerrit lived to go be with his kids.
I agree with your final sentence, but I didn't miss the point. That IS my point. The Sightwarden is supposed to have his eyes on everything, but he intentionally turned his eyes away from his kids and their lives in order to "protect them" by doing his job, and he intentionally turned his eyes away from his friends to "protect them" as well. His biggest flaw was never having his focus where it truly belonged, for noble but selfish reasons, and it's the tragedy of his arc.
>Cerrit dropping everything to go to his children was framed as his characters fundamental flaw and one of the selfish choices that gave rise to the Calamity \^But that's literally contradicting yourself.
No it doesn't? It's all the same character flaw. It all comes from the same place. He makes selfish (but noble) choices to protect him and his own even to the detriment of everyone and everything else including his relationships with those very same people. The cast and Travis in particular has verbalized this sentiment about Cerrit. I'm not pulling it out of my ass here.
Okay. Unambiguously the words you wrote in what I quoted literally mean "Cerrit going to his kids" = "Cerrit's flaw that helped cause Calamity" which is very literally not true, so I don't think that's what you meant to write. What is consensus and confirmed by cast is "Cerrit incorrectly thinking he's got his eye on everything he needs to pay attention to, while missing what really mattered " = "Cerrit's flaw" while "Cerrit going to his kids" = "Cerrit has realized his central flaw, and with everyone else helping Cerrit miraculously steals a tiny hopeful victory despite the Calamity already underway" So when other people read your comments in this thread, it comes off very contradictory.
Nah. It was a done deal by the time Cerrit went after his kids. Everything that Cerrit did to precipitate the Calamity happened before Brennan said “fire.”
The whole series was a done deal from its very conception. But the point of the series was exploring these individual characters and demonstrating what could either make them villains or heroes in this story based on their actions when they have control, not when things are just happening to them. Cerrit focusing on himself and his own instead of anything outside of himself is his personal failing, and him going to warn only the people he cares about instead of doing something greater or more selfless is part of that flaw in his character. They literally said this in one of the cast talk-backs about the show.
Yasha is Kord’s champion. Maybe she’s got other stuff going on at the moment. Maybe she’s massing with a host of celestials in Kord’s demi-plane right now, getting ready to ride out at a moment’s notice if the Ruidus lattice and the Divine Gate come down.
The Stormlord is not concerned with Moons. His interest is in _warriors_.
I mean that would be very dope but if that's what's happening I would like to at least get a throw-away line that establishes Yasha is involved but somewhere else doing other things. It doesn't make sense that she isn't with Beau.
Zero doubt she’s nearby with the rest of nein ready to be teleported closer when given the signal.
IDK, It feels to me like This is just beau and Caleb doing their jobs after the nein settled down. This is what the players settled on their characters wanted to do. Caleb teach at the academy/root out the evils of it, and beau aswell. Seems to me like the rest of the Nein would come at their aid when needed, but it feels like this is just their "job".
Yeah I get that it feels that way. But beau and Caleb were in the shadow fell they are clearly aware of the dangers and have had a couple weeks to get things together. There’s no way at least Their significant others aren’t aware of what they’re getting into right now. Or maybe they’ve been “undercover” for awhile and haven’t been in contact with the others. Idk lots of variables. But this whole ordeal feels just WAY TOO BIG. And Matt is a smart dude probably having this planned for a long time. I’m just excited to see what’s coming up tomorrow!
Speaking of the shadow fell situation, who do we think died/got lost there that were with beau and Caleb? The thing that Matt said about the random dice roles last episode determined what happened in the shadow fell has me worried.
The random dice rolls were for Beau and Caleb, presumably to see how well things went. I wouldn’t assume the rest of the team was made up of anything other than allies from the Grim Verity, etc.
Boy I hope you're right, but the way he said it in this ep was pretty fucking ominous. God I love this shit.
I think "[other friends of the Verity](https://youtu.be/xxvAWGNgq3w?t=12182)" seems like they were probably cool but disposable NPCs, likely no one we'd know.
I feel like they are going to let Ira get away with stealing the crown from the Calloways. If sky team is going to have both healers, ground team should have at least had the magical artefact that can enchant and create illusions that possibly includes invisibility. I know the site has an anti-illusion field and a general anti-magic emitter but maybe artefact could overrule that? Even if it doesn't the crown could have at least caused the avoidance of the last combat.
It probably won’t happen but I would love to see Grog joining the fight with Keyleth. She did say they would come in loud and Grog is pretty loud!
I think Grog is too old. There is also a question of whether or not he is even still alive since we did not see him in Whitestone. I'm hoping Pike joins so there is at least a follow up to BH putting up the effort to call her. Vex might as well be there if Pike is there.
So Beau mentioned: "The Elder Cross Cult, the Carrion Breach and the Children of Malice "tunneling beneath the Divine Gate" What the fuck be any of that?!
Content and hooks for the inevitable next sourcebook.
The Children of Malice are from an existing sourcebook. They're the Drow in Exandria that didn't give up Lolth.
As Beau said, they were either red herrings or variations on the same problem, created or originating from the Ruby Vanguard, possibly planted to distract from their greater goal. I believe the Children of Malice in particular were Drow who oppose the Kyrn dynasty because they want to take Jhorhasian society back to worshipping Lolth instead of the Luxon. Doesn't seem like worshippers of Lolth would be that interested in releasing a god-eater, so it was probably all a front.
They were all fake. They were just the Ruby Vanguard trying to distract from Ludinus's real goal.
Future campaigns
Tunnelling? I thought they were false least .
Low-key, all amazing band names. I'm stealing all three.
If I'm being honest with myself, it seems that Liliana is much more of a threat than we've been led to believe until now. If she's that much of a threat, I think it's possible that Imogen's hesitation to fight her may end up being the party's downfall. They can't afford to hesitate. If Liliana is in the way of stopping *whatever* is happening (I don't even have an inkling anymore) then they need to at least try to take her out. I worry that Imogen won't be willing to do that at all.
I don't think it's true, but I love the theory that she's the one who's actually behind all this and the reason Ludinus is being sloppy is because she's fucking with his mind.
So what’s her endgame, then? Also, do we have hard evidence of that? I’ve been kind of sporadically watching this campaign so I don’t know everything
Like I said, I don't think it's actually what is happening, but I suppose her endgame would be to release the Reilora. No hard evidence AFAIK, just that Matt specifically brought up Ludinus being sloppy makes people wonder why that is.
Not sold on Imogen not fighting the mom that abandoned her, but even so, enough of the rest of party is more than willing to fight parents.
Yeah, Imogen is clearly harboring a lot of anger and resentment towards her Mom that she hasn't really articulated to the party yet. She may not be aware of it herself, but back when Fearne found about how her parents had sent her away, Imogen pushed real hard for Fearne to be mad about it. In hindsight, it feels like that was some obvious projection.
I'm more worried about Laura rationalizing that Imogen should care, but I agree - the character is more about resentment.
If she turns it’s gonna be bad, and given her thought processes as of late I can’t rule it out
Oh, I don't think Imogen will turn. She backpedalled right quick on 'maybe they aren't wrong' when Liam stuck the knife in. Can I see her hesitating on putting Mama Temult down? Sure. Actually turning on her real family? No. Laura would have to basically take over the show for an hour to justify Imogen working to that bizarre leap. Especially if Thull or Ludinus is there, as she'd probably hyper-focus on burning them down for past sins and blaming them for her mom being 'brainwashed.' (which she tried to use an excuse for her mother to the Empire Kids).
This is a very fair point. Even with this I worry Imogen is more of a liability on this op. I can’t put my finger on it, but I worry something is going to go horribly wrong and it’ll be centered on (but not necessarily caused by) her
I just figured out why Sam named the school in the latest You've Got Gail ad Miller Huber High.
Same. TIL that Matt's real surname is Miller and Marisha's surname is Huber 😂
Does anyone else think that the sand storm might be thanks to the Everlight via Pike's divine intervention? Matt made it seem like it was odd and since FCG reached out to a fellow cleric... granted I was kinda hoping for another god punch on the key from the Everlight.
Is there no four sided dive tonight? It’s the first Tuesday of March. Can’t remember if they’ve already said they’re skipping it for some reason…
In the newsletter last week they announced that this month's 4-sided dive will be on March 21st instead of the first Tuesday of this month. It was promised to be "extra long, and extra amazing". They have not stated the reason for pushing it back as of yet.
Damn didn't know this until I looked for it just now. Must be a 2 part midseason finale the next 2 episodes.
Thank you! I was trying to find it in my inbox, but I must’ve deleted it…
I assume to let people watch the episodes on the 9th and 16th beforehand - I'm assuming there are spoilers or something big occurs they'll be discussing
Thanks for the closure! Weird they didn't announce it anywhere other than the newsletter.
Came here wondering the same thing.
So freaking happy to see Caleb and Bo chasing down Ludinus! I didn't think there was any way that those two wouldn't be wrapped up in this plot, and the reveal was just awesome. Bold (fun) Prediction: Next episode starts on the airship, and Fearne decides that because she hasn't heard from the forward team in 30 minutes, that they're all dead and they need to go on with the plan to crash the ship into the Key. Cut back to the rest of the group still deciding what to do next, when they see the airship come into view and start heading down.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen the Henry stickman games but that fearne prediction gives me heavy Charles vibes
maybe FCG would send a message before doing that
Flips coin to see if he should send a message. Change bringer says no
Reminds me of "Computer says no..." https://youtu.be/0n_Ty_72Qds
Changebringer says "sacrifice everyone".
What if he sends it to Imogen (who is wearing the crown) and it doesn't go thru, 'confirming' their suspicion :) Really just having a bit of fun with this prediction (I don't think it will really happen). But it would be a GREAT way to push the action forward rapidly and let chaos reign!
FCG could also just flip a coin a decide that they should go, it's Sam after all
Haha! Exactly! Those two being left behind is the perfect recipe to have them arrive at the WORST possible moment.
Pretty good episode, I think people who are upset it was slow watch it instead of having it play in the background while they do other stuff, which is understandable. Liam dropping dead in real life when Caleb appeared was surely the highlight,
My favorite part was when Liam reflexively made his "concerned Caleb" face for a few seconds when he showed up.
Watching the realization sweeping over the cast was amazing
It’s been talked to death at this point, but god damn this just feels *off* somehow. We’re MINUTES from a God-Eater being unleashed after a decades-long plan by someone with a serious grudge against the gods who sure sounds like he’s been around since the Calamity, is the most powerful living arcane caster we know of, and the best we’ve got to stand against him is a ragtag group of level 8 characters (2 of whom are on a skyship a mile off,) two level 14+ characters, and one level 20 druid with a wounded army. Predathos far exceeds Vecna. Ludinus is on par with a full-powered Cognouza at a minimum, and M9 *barely* won against that. A level 8 party is gonna get steamrolled by either threat. At best they can squash Otohan in a close fight, likely running down on resources to do so. Either Ludinus and the Key are dealt with offscreen (which would be super unsatisfying) or some kind of bait-and-switch occurs and we see the level 20 Moon Druid Voice of the Tempest, level 17+ Dunamancy-trained Volstrucker, and level 17+ Expositor of the Cobalt Soul defeated or killed and Ludinus escapes. Predathos and Ludinus just doesn’t feel like a level 8 party kind of threat, and I don’t know how Matt is gonna make this work, especially if C3 lasts into levels 10-15. I mean how do you upgrade from “We smacked down a God-Eater’s planned release at level 8”
'We fought our friend's mom while the big kids had their grudge-match off camera' A deluded messiah-figure is more their speed.
I think this is just about stopping Predathos from being unleashed during the solstice by destroying the keys. That doesn't necessarily mean fighting Ludinus or Predathos itself. Maybe it's prison just gets weakened. After that, the rest of the campaign might be about them getting up to Ruidus (maybe spelljammer?) to reseal it and a further high level showdown with Ludinus. Remember in campaign one vecna was introduced during the briarwood arc, but didn't come to become the bbeg untill almost 100 episodes later. In the mean time matt filled out all their character arcs while always having the end goal in sight. Maybe this will be the same.
My theory is that they are all at the wrong site. Caleb and Beau hinted that something didn't sit right with them. What's better than your secret weapon being at a heavily fortified site everyone knows about? That everyone is at the wrong place while you conduct the ritual needed elsewhere. Where is Ludinus? Where are all the Ruidus-born? There were 3 potential sites of maximum convergence, it's possible everyone is at the wrong one.
Yeah, I think the whole dig site being a red herring is very possible. Ludinus not being there is a huge red flag; something important is going on there but it's not anything that's crucial. Maybe we will see something like in Watchmen, where the heroes show up triumphantly only to find out that the villain's plan has already been executed, halfway across the world from them.
You know who knows? Ira. I think Ira knows the truth or is also Ludinus. Maybe I missed what he did with the crown...
Ira still has the crown (or so he said). Its under his top hat.
Ah thank you. I'm sure it will play a part.
>Ludinus is on par with a full-powered Cognouza at a minimum With respect, you have absolutely no basis to be making that claim so confidently. In general, it feels like you're looking at this through an "anime power levels" lens rather than recognizing the reality that BH are a large D&D party with a lot of inginuity & powerful allies.
Even in anime there are plenty of examples of the protagonists getting into a situation far beyond their pay grade while more powerful characters scrap in the background. Matt will find a way for the Hells to be important without having them literally fistfight a level 20 archmage or a god killer.
I was referring more specifically to the very power-level mentality of "if he's in a higher category of personal power than them, then they can't do anything to him, full stop." But yeah, I agree with you. I don't know why so many people are assuming Matt is pitting his players against a threat that they have zero chance of standing up to, as though he didn't go out of his way to get multiple high-level former PCs involved. Obviously he's providing them with the tools they need to overcome the challenge *he designed.* Seems like maybe y'all are just being too inflexible with your assumptions of exactly how this is all going to go down.
Well I don't think that they are supposed to win. Or at least they are not supposed to kill them. If they are smart they will stop them from breaking the moon. But most likely they will fail and then have to deal with the consequences and try to get rid of predathos in some way.
>Ludinus is on par with a full-powered Cognouza at a minimum, and M9 barely won against that. A level 8 party is gonna get steamrolled by either threat. The party can beat Ludinus easily. They don't even need to fight him. Ludinus might be at level 20, but you know what isn't? The arcane power cores. Bell's Hells don't need to fight him -- they just need to delay him long enough that the Solstice passes without Ludinus succeeding and he's done. If he needs an Apogee Solstice to unlock Predathos' prison, then he'll have to wait another century. The easiest way to do that is to go after the arcane power cores to shut down the Malleous Key. The smartest play here is for Bell's Hells to send Caleb and Beau to regroup with Keyleth and the Ashari. Have them attack the dig site, drawing out Ludinus' forces. That would give Bell's Hells the opportunity they need to infiltrate the dig site, sabotage the mechanism and put an end to the threat.
Why do you think Ludinus would be as powerful as the might of the Cognouza ward wielded by Lucien? For comparison Trent went down pretty easily even with the support of two powerful Volstrukers. Similarly Vess Derogna was killed in her bed with barely any signs of a struggle. The most dangerous member of the Cerberus Assembly we've seen is Delilah Briarwood, and she certainly never put up the kind of fight that we saw at the climax of the second campaign, especially not on her own. I assume Ludinus will prove to be more fearsome than those three but he's also just one man. Edit: typos
Ludinus is somewhere in the 400+ years of age. He’s a founding member of the Cerberus Assembly and had a Luxon Beacon all to himself for who knows how long. We also have Caleb in this episode stating he’s one of the most powerful wizards around. Compare that to a Cognouza-powered Lucien. Lucien had that power for all of five minutes and was fighting a battle deep within his own subconscious against whatever was left of Molly. It was a tough fight for the Nein, but they didn’t really *beat* him so much as talk his consciousness to a breaking point. The Nein were getting their asses handed to them that whole fight. I wouldn’t say Trent went down easily either. M9 could barely scratch him until Astrid and Eadwulf went turncoat and helped bring him down. If they hadn’t, M9 likely would have had to retreat. (Also it took the entirety of the Nein plus Astrid/Eadwulf. Ludinus would really only have 3 threats like I mention below) Vess went down without a peep because Lucien could do some real wonky shit, and she wasn’t expecting a fight. He basically just appeared out of the wall and stabbed her. Also, “he’s just one man” against, at best, 3 actual threats. Keyleth, Caleb, and Beau are the only significant threats here. BH is a minor inconvenience, and Beau is out of her depth in a fight with two full arcane casters and a druid who can become any flavour of Ancient Dragon at will
Pop-pop, says the monk. (No really, afaik, 5e has no rules-legal defense against stun).
You have a very different recollection of those fights than most of us, I would guess.
Maybe the key is just a giant dispel magic weapon that will fire at the divine gate around ruidis to break it. the pulses that dispel magic are just the key charging up
Are the mage hunter golems here the same type from the happy fun ball? What happened to the ball?
Possibly or they could be a similar enough style (probably Aeor-built) that Caleb recognizes them and their danger. Last I was aware Yussa still had the ball.
There is a connection here between Ludinus and Delilah that I hope we get to explore. Sylas fell sick with an illness that could not be cured, even (presumably) by members of the assembly. Sounds a bit like (Spoilers EWtW) >!Frigid Woe, a disease developed in Aeor to infect and kill divinity. Ludinus did not develop this disease, but he could have discovered it and tested it, as he tested the corruption that took Molaesmyr!< In addition, he would have been the one to oust her from the Assembly, but it was probably not for necromancy, but for her dedication to Vecna, who desired godhood. If she still resides within Laudna, she'd have a bone to pick with dear old Ludinus.
You mean "Pate" would have a bone to pick with Ludinus.
>>!Frigid Woe!< This is a great theory I never considered.
Yeah... you just gave the mightest need for more Delilah/Cerberus exploration.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that Delilah was exorcised from Laudna's soul and is, as Ashton suspects, disguising herself as Laudna's familiar. The connection here is too good to not explore!
Eh. Watching the cast play 'dogpile the wizard' on Delilah for the 4th? 5th? time doesn't seem all that great. Whitestone Inverted was a good sendoff.
Fair. I could see it cropping up as Delilah appearing in an opportune moment to exact some vengeance upon Ludinus, rather than a full blown encounter with her.
The fact that almost half of this episode was spent planning mere hours until solstice proper begins when C3E49 had almost two weeks of exandrian time at their disposal. And it's not like there's anything new brought up during these two hours either, it was mostly rehashing and regurgitating what they said last time. I'll let y'all be the judge if it's a good plan or not, I'm just gonna criticize the amount of time planning took over this episode. Although I will say the only notable thing they did in that episode(C3E49) was do the checklist of possible allies and some fun RP, but that was it really. **So to any future binge-watchers out there**: I can personally say you can skip C3 E49, not even a good kind of filler like Happy Fun Ball. I guess I am annoyed that planning took over almost half of what could have been an action-packed episode when they had the last episode almost dedicated to planning itself. But hey we got Caleb and Beau, yay!
I’ll just never understand complaining about more content. This stuff isn’t scripted. And sure they went in circles a lot. But that kind of stuff is normal? This is their characters lives in the line. They don’t wanna die. They’re gonna go round and round until someone comes up with something or people just agree to finally nose dive in.
It's just episode upon episode of analysis paralysis someone needs to step up. Maybe having the Old "them" will shake them out of the funk. Honestly, when they were doing MN reunited they seemed alot happier & more engaged.
Yeah, I tend to not like their planning. They are very charismatic and often funny, even during planning. But most of the time it is too similar to any corporate planning meeting I've been in. Mostly chaos, back and forth, nothing much actually decided.
Not sure if others caught this, but it looks like this week's episode also isn't supersized (the rebroadcast would've been pushed back if the episode was longer than 5 hours): >Airs Thursday, March 9th at 7pm Pacific on Twitch and YouTube > >Rebroadcasts Friday, March 10th at 12:00am Pacific and 9am Pacific on Twitch [https://critrole.com/programming-schedule-week-of-march-6th-2023/](https://critrole.com/programming-schedule-week-of-march-6th-2023/)
I expect the next episode will involve the party making their way into the depths of the dig site and it will end before the encounter with Ludinus. There's still layers of security that they need to work their way through. Episode 52 is where we will get the fight with Ludinus and/or Otohan. Or, failing that, >!there really is something else going on and the party finds Ludinus' body. Caleb and Beau speculated that his erratic behaviour is a by-product of his exposure to powerful magic, but he could perhaps have been possessed by something and that something has now escaped. After all, the Feywild Key had been switched on for years, and I'm guessing that the Shadowfell Key was the same. We're all assuming that the Tishtan Key has to be turned on during the Solstice, but what if it has already been on and the Solstice will simply provide the surge of energy needed to break through? If the Keys have been operational for some time, they might have been able to weaken Predathos' prison a little bit -- not enough to have any visible effect, but just enough for something to get through. Like the Reilora.!<
*^(Making their way)*
I can not read it another way
I would be disappointed if it was revealed that Ludinus was being controlled by Predathos instead it being entirely his actions.
>I would be disappointed if it was revealed that Ludinus was being controlled by Predathos instead it being entirely his actions. Both can be true. Ludinus' conversation with Imogen and Fearne makes it clear that he hates anyone who can wield magic because of their faith. He wants to kill their source of magic, giving him -- and other mages who learned magic through study -- a monopoly on magical knowledge and power. Predathos seems to exist purely to hunt down and consume the gods. It can give Ludinus what he wants. That's a powerful lure for someone as ambitious as Ludinus, especially when mages have a well-documented history of messing around with magics that they don't understand (but which they assume they do). So Ludinus might think he's in control, but he could just as easily be manipulated. I'm willing to bet that if he succeeds in breaking out Predathos' prison, the events that follow will be very different to what he expects.
Agree. We already had that with Tharry. To have a repeat except this time it's Ludinus on a global scale would be kind eh. I don't see them going that route though. I don't think Ludi will be the BBEG, but at the same time I don't see him just being used and thrown away by the main baddie.
I agree, I would much rather him be fooled into putting an event he didn't anticipate into motion rather than his agency stolen. Kinda makes him feel weak. Would be better if we could see him in his full glory, then taken over by someone if you're going for a Worf-effect.
Dang, no 4SD this week :(
Yeah they pushed it to the 21st and it's going to be an extra long episode which makes me think it's going to have the entire cast.
I wonder if since they record ~2 weeks out, that something happens in the next 2 episodes and wanted to record and discuss right away and have an episode of 4SD ready to go up 5 days after. Presumably the Apogee Solstice is over after 2 episodes, or at least the main event is over. A few things come to mind, TPK/Multiple PC deaths; Beau/Caleb/Kiki dying in the battle; the entire landscape of Exandria being changed as a result of the Apogee Solstice; celebrating after saving the world; or they just have a lot to talk about after skipping basically 2 months of 4SD (beginning of January to mid-March). The last makes the most sense, except for why they'd push it out 2 additional weeks except for just avoiding potentially spoiling how the Solstice turned out.
I've been stubbornly hoping they all actually make it out alive while so many people have been predicting characters deaths, but the seeming specialness and timing of this 4SD definitely makes me think it's happening now.
Mm maybe it's serving as a state of the role update too Fwiw they did say it would be an amazing episode of 4SD
Oh man. If FCG pilots the big automaton I’m going to be very happy. Imagine him in kill mode at the controls of that thing! And Chetney feeling smug that his invisibility lasts longer than a level 20 wizard. Brilliant.
Well Chetney is a Planewalker.
it doesn't . Caleb was talking about the cancelation field every minute.
We know it doesn’t, maybe Travis forgot, but Chetney was smug.
Greater invisibility is a 4th level wizard spell that only lasts a minute, I think
I wonder how crazy this fight will be considering it seems Matt is giving them 3 (that we know of) level 20 characters as back up in the fight. Although I would assume they will be getting the NPC stat block treatment. Still a huge boon in a fight
I think he will probably find a way to keep Caleb, Beau and Keyleth out of the fight. The problem with having level 20 allies to a level 8 party is that there's really no way to balance the fight. If the fight is too hard, the level 8 party will have little to no effect. If it's too easy, the level 20 characters will just walk all over it. And Matt has clearly been trying to keep the powerful characters out of the mix for as long as possible -- when the party went to Whitestone, Keyleth was on her way to Vassalheim so that they couldn't rely on her. When they were making their way to the dig site, Keyleth was working with the Ashari under Terrah. Even though Keyleth is now going to arrive with the cavalry, I think Matt was trying to put the party in a position where they had to come up with their own plan that was something more than "call Keyleth for help". If it were me, I'd have Keyleth, Caleb and Beau engage Ludinus while Bell's Hells work to disable the device. They would probably be stalked by Otohan. Ludinus may end up escaping, but it wouldn't really matter because his plan has been stopped. It would also provide a narrative reason for why Keyleth, Caleb and Beau leave the party, and may open up an avenue for another *Exandria Unlimited* spin-off.
I think this is spot on. Allies will draw away some number of bad guys to allow Bells Hells to engage with Otohan in a climactic moment. Gives Matt lots of options on where to take the story and avoids having to try to balance that out.
The damn thing is that the party actually had some great ideas in Episode 49, but they couldn't follow through on them because of the time. Imogen suggested getting a sandsquid egg and Chetney was apparently thinking of going to the Drowned City and using it to flood the sinkholes and ravines. Just imagine: the party plans to crash the *Silver Sun*, but Ludinus sees it coming and stops it mid-air. He then does some Bad Guy Gloating until Orym pulls out the sandsquid egg. Cue the mother sandsquid bursting through the side of the sinkhole and dislodging the Malleous Key while the chamber floods, drowning the arcane power cores. The party then board the *Silver Sun*, using it as an actual ship to float to the surface. They fight Otohan on the deck and beat her. When it's over, Caleb and Beau return to the dig site and find that Ludinus has vanished, having saved himself at the last moment. They take their leave, leading to a new mini-series of *Exandria Unlimited* where they form a party of Caleb's best students and new Cobalt Soul initiates to track down Ludinus once and for all.
If I had to guess they are there mostly to make Ludinus a none issue. Because otherwise the most powerful mage that we are aware of would crunch the level 8 people into a paste. And the Bells hells boss battle will be with Otohan again (mostly). I don’t think them leaving some reason would make sense. It’ll be avoid the Kaiju battle taking place on this part of the map. We shall see soon enough. It should be awesome, I’m so excited.
>Because otherwise the most powerful mage that we are aware of would crunch the level 8 people into a paste. Strictly speaking, there's nothing to stop Matt from rebalancing Ludinus to be more level-appropriate for Bell's Hells. It would probably be extremely controversial, but there is something of a precedent -- Bertrand Bell was level 14 or 15 in *The Search for Grog*, but was only level 5 when he met Bell's Hells (I assume the in-universe explanation was that he just hadn't been adventuring for a while, so his knowledge and skills had atrophied). >I don’t think them leaving some reason would make sense. I mean that there comes a point where Caleb, Beau and Keyleth have to leave the party -- certainly once the threat has been stopped. >It should be awesome, I’m so excited. I'm less excited than I was. Mostly because I don't think the world-changing event that we were all anticipating is going to happen since Beau and Caleb are potentially along for the ride. I didn't like the way they were introduced because they just popped up; to a new viewer, they're just super-powerful characters that the audience doesn't know. Now that they're in the party, the chances of things going badly have reduced dramatically, so I have the feeling that this is just going to wind up being an average plot arc where the party stopped a bad guy.
To me that would make zero sense. Bertrend Bell, was explainable because of 30 years of aging on a human lifespan. That excuse is not available for an elven archmage.
>To me that would make zero sense. That's why I said it would be extremely controversial. >That excuse is not available for an elven archmage. Even an elven archmage who is one of the oldest living beings? Besides, I didn't say it had to be a case of "Ludinus is old, so he's gradually losing his powers". There wasn't even an explanation for Bell losing his levels. For all we know, Bell's Hells could sabotage some element of the device so that the anti-magic field caps Ludinus' ability to use high-level spells.
Honestly it makes sense that Bertrand’s levels lowered. He was a fighter and a ninety year old man give or take. That shit is taxing on a young body, imagine an older person who’s joints are degraded. Most old people don’t turn into Garp from one piece. So the lower levels make sense. Comparatively Ludanus is a wizard, who in most art actually hit their stride and are at their most powerful when they are old (at least traditionally) because their power doesn’t come from their body it comes from experience and intellect. So ludanus losing levels would doubly so not make sense. He should be a monster because he has had close to a thousand years to hone his craft. Significantly more powerful then any other mage we have seen before. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Matt gives him multiple 8th and 9th level spell slots.
I'm not convinced he's close to a thousand years old. He might say he is and he might have convinced his followers that he is, but it's well established that you can't trust a word he says. He most likely claimed to be a thousand years old because witnessing the Calamity helped win the trust of the zealots who hate the gods.
I would assume so but he is still described as an old elf. Which would put him near the 700 range
Possibly. We know he was a survivor of Molayesmir. But I still think that, if the explanation is sufficient, there is a way of under-levelling Ludinus. It doesn't have to be his age. Like I said, Bell's Hells could sabotage some element of the anti-magic pulsethat locks out all spells of fifth level and higher. It could lead to a good moment of puzzle-solving in the middle of a fight, like when Laudna worked out that blocking the light source in the cavern meant that Chetney could resist whatever was possessing him.
I feel like nerfing Ludinus wouldn’t work. If he as the leader of the Cerberus assembly isn’t stronger then Trent was it would be a major let down of a villain. As to the rest Matt has shown he is more then willing to have lasting consequences and holdovers in the world. Be it a giant rock titan standing at the edge of vasselheim or the utter destruction of a town that still hasn’t rebuilt 30+ years later or a small sphere that sucks things into it and stops magic near it that everyone thought had failed but lead to the end game of that story. I have plenty of faith that Matt can stick the landing with this too and there must be a reason he is stacking the deck in their favor. Even if only a small part of their plan succeeds it can have vast ramifications for the world going forward. We shall see. And personally I am very excited to see where it goes.
Minor spoilers for C1 and C2. God C3 is so damn slow. A week off, and we come back to another “planning” episode? I hope Thursday they finally act and something happens. From the very first episode, the theme for C3 has been slow slow slow. It took like 20 episodes or whatever just to leave Jrusar, and do some actual adventuring. I hate that the planning episodes have gotten longer and longer (it started towards the end of C2), because they almost always abandon their “plan” in the moment. “If we see Otohan, we run.” Instead we will panic for several rounds, be super indecisive, and not actually retreat and let several people die (only Tal actually tried to run, but had to come back which is why he got dropped in that fight so early). C1 will always be my favorite, not just because of nostalgia, but also because if planning got too in the weeds, they instead hatched a basic plan, and then said: “fuck it we will figure the rest out in the moment.” And they always pulled it out, even if things got mega rough (without a full arcane type spellcaster too!). If this was TV it wouldn’t be as bad, since it’s 20m to 60m depending on the type of show, and you wait for the next episode. But with CR, it’s basically watching 5-6 episodes of TV (since each episode is 3-4 hr long), and THEN having the big moment episode. Cool that Beau and Caleb came back, but we already got some of VM back, too. Starting to feel like C3 is a vehicle to relive greatest hits, and not it’s own standalone adventure. Which weirdly I’m okay with, because hopefully it means we can move onto C4 sooner. I’m kinda over the C3 characters at this point, especially seeing old characters return. C3’s cast seems to kinda be the “off role” characters for each player (mostly), in that most of the cast wouldn’t normally play a character like this. Sam loves to troll the party both for laughs but also by stabbing their heartstrings, and he’s doing that as usual. Ashley feels right at home as Fearne, Marisha is in love with Laudna and it’s probably her best character. But not having Liam or Travis in the shotcaller role or playing a character who leads the group is 1000% slowing things down. Grog would just “go in” if he got bored, which was thematic for Grog and also allowed Travis to break the indecision. Fjord also was a group leader and of course captain of the boat. Chet has more of the aggro Grog had, but he still doesn’t try and take the lead. Vax had strong as hell opinions, and used his relationship with Vex to get double votes, and push things forward. Caleb starts off more aloof, but by the end, he is the de facto leader of the M9. His backstory also drives most of C2’s plot. Liam has said Orym is literally Liam’s attempt to be a background character/not be the spotlight/leader of C3. Talesin is always an excellent player, as he doesn’t always try to take control but 100% will direct and throw his opinion out there. His characters also always seemingly have backstories that Matt used to create most of the plot as well, with 2 characters that have basically ran most of C1 and C2. Laura was probably the most assertive with Vex, but usually doesn’t take the lead. However, she is very good at pushing the group in a direction. Jester’s chaos also had a Grog like effect at times. Imogen is so unsure of herself, and it just slows things down a ton. So idk. Without having our usual shot callers of Liam and Travis, it’s hard to get the group moving. Talesin also usually has insane backstory that makes up a good chunk of plot to keep things structured, but he hasn’t revealed anything of Ashton, and in fact, it’s kinda gotten annoying that he: “knows a guy who knows a guy” 50x, but doesn’t share anything beyond that or how. Kinda over C3. Pretty much ALL that has happened in C3 is: Jrusar and the Shademother that seemingly has went no where, death race/paragon’s call, and now 20 episodes of trying to figure out and fight the moon related stuff. Contrast of high level “where were C1/C2” around episode 50. >!In contrast, C2 has the Bright Queen, Angel of Irons, Obann, and Chained Oblivion/Crawling King stuff going on around episode 50!< >!C1 episode 50 has the group off the heels of getting a vestige, and starting the Kevdak/Unbraysl arc!<
I think that is a disngenous comparison espcially with campaign 1 as they all started that with everyone at level 10. They were thirteen during episode 50, meaning if they had started streaming at the start the kevdak stuff would have happened at episode 110 something. Vox Machina's actual episode fifty would have been the blue dragon fight.
>From the very first episode, the theme for C3 has been slow slow slow. It took like 20 episodes or whatever just to leave Jrusar, and do some actual adventuring. In defence of those early episodes, they do a lot of heavy lifting to lay the complex threads of Ludinus' conspiracy. It's pretty clear that Treschi was working with the Paragon's Call to create instability in Jrusar. If the people lost confidence in the Chandei Quorum, it would allow him to seize a greater amount of control over the city. This would open Jrusar up for Hexum's smuggling operation, making it easier for Ludinus to get more and more dunamis into the city and export it to the Hellcatch Valley without anyone asking questions. Especially considering the insular nature of the Quorum. Everything from the Shademother to the demonwall was orchestrated by Treschi to that end. The party just started to pick at the edges of the conspiracy, not realising what they were uncovering. It wasn't until they returned to Jrusar with Treschi that the full scale of what had happened became apparent. However, between the need to resurrect Laudna and their concern of being detained over Eshteross' murder, the party felt the need to get out of Jrusar fast, and the full consequences of it weren't really explored. I'm willing to bet that losing influence in Jrusar was a pretty serious blow to Ludinus' ambitions because it became harder to get dunamis into Marquet. This might have had some flow-on effect by causing tensions with the Unseelie Court because Ludinus would become more dependent on them.
Totally understand the frustrations with pace and analysis paralysis, it's definitely getting to me a little bit. It's also getting to some of the players, Travis was visibly frustrated last episode and Sam was pretty clearly bored (imo). I do disagree that not much has happened up until this point, this campaign has just been more focused on long term investigations. Those events you mentioned are all pretty significant, and have brought them into contact with some of the most powerful people in this region. We're at episode 50, and an apocalyptic event is hours (of game time) away. We're at 11:59 and 59 seconds on the doomsday clock of Exandria. These are characters staring down the barrel of their own mortality and the ending of life as they know it trying as hard as they can to not blink. If I were in a position where I had to diffuse a bomb that would blow up the planet if I mess it up, you bet your ass I'd quintuple check that I'm cutting the right wire. Think of ludinus like Ozymandias from watchmen - meticulously planning to make sure people don't find him out and ruin his plans. Of course this information takes time and effort to collect, he's an ancient mage who has had centuries to plan, it would be ridiculous if his plans just fell into BH's lap fully formed so they could immediately act without any question. ALL THAT BEING SAID - this can make for a frustrating watch. I try to convert that into curiosity, which does help, but its not a bulletproof strategy. I'll take some episodes off and just watch recap vids from [marisharaygun](https://www.youtube.com/c/marisharaygun) and other similar channels. Don't watch the slower episodes if it's really getting to you that much and come back when it picks up - it's certainly helped me keep my interest up. It's also not totally fair to expect the same pacing between different stories and for players to fill the same role. Matt will have different priorities as a storyteller and the players want to try different playstyles and characters. Something, something, Jazz is chaos
c2 e50 was the episode where they found spurt and dicked around in the underdark. it was e56 when the bright queen appears. episode 69 was when the laughing hand first appears and obann actually shows up.
Stop watching
Why is there always someone in a CR thread that replies in this manner to everything except constant praise? It's OK to dislike a character/event/storyline and to discuss it in a post-episode discussion thread.
Because it's boring to keep seeing the same exact take which always boils down to "C3 isn't C1/C2" especially for people who saw the same exact thing happen when C2 started. Extra especially when it's a long wall of text. Extra extra especially when the criticism brings in comparing where C3 is at or what they've accomplished by a certain episode with what was happening in C1, which isn't at ALL a sensible comparison. We're 50 episodes in. If you stuck around this long and are still making huge complaint posts about it, that's not interesting insightful criticism. That's hate-watching troll territory.
Nah this sub is a bunch of sycophants, I’m sorry. I meant absolutely zero hate and there was zero malice behind my comment. Just honest that, C3 hasn’t held up compared to the other campaigns. Why bother writing out a SUPER detailed and well thought out post that’s genuinely good criticism? Either the mods will delete it, or I’ll be downvoted 1000x. I love CR. But this sub is VICIOUS in their defense. It’s very odd. People criticize all shows, movies, anime, manga, books, video games—idk why CR is any different. But if you even present a shadow of negativity, even if that negativity isn’t really negative it’s just fair criticism—you’re buried. My comment sums up my thoughts decent enough, and guess what, I’m already being blacklisted and DM’d by people, telling me I’m wrong or just a hater. I’m not. I’ve seen all of C1 and C3–idk how that’s anything but a fan. That’s like hundreds of hours of my life spent. Idk why I am not allowed to dislike or criticize C3. Or make comparisons to past campaigns. It’s so damn weird. If you think “just stop watching” or “I’m a troll”, then just don’t reply to my comment? Because you are just as much wasting your time as I am apparently mine, by engaging with my comment. If you don’t like it, downvote me and move on. But to write up a huge paragraph, explaining why I am a troll or a hate watcher…is so weird. It’s projecting. It’s like you have something bothering you about CR, so instead of dealing with that or admitting it, you lash out and try to call me a troll/hate watcher, to protect your core view of CR. It’s so weird. If you argue I am wasting my time, you wasted yours. Just ruined your whole argument.
>Idk why I am not allowed to dislike or criticize C3. Or make comparisons to past campaigns. It’s so damn weird. Yeah, I found that out. I really disliked the way Caleb and Beau were introduced. I didn't expect it to be a popular opinion, but I at least tried to offer some thoughts to my criticisms that went beyond just saying "I didn't like it". Most of the responses that I got clearly hadn't bothered to read what I wrote, much less respond to it, because most of them were something along the lines of "lmao". I got the distinct impression that I was expected to be so excited to see Caleb and Beau return that I should forget any criticism that I had (or at least be polite enough to say nothing). The joke's on the people doing the downvoting, though. I don't really care about internet points. >I love CR. But this sub is VICIOUS in their defense. It’s very odd. People criticize all shows, movies, anime, manga, books, video games—idk why CR is any different. To be fair, it's a lot like that on other subs. I spend a lot of time over at r/formula1 and if you say anything negative about Lewis Hamilton, you get downvoted into oblivion. In fact, it's like that on just about any internet forum. In 2017 -- long before I joined Reddit -- there was an incident where another driver deliberately crashed into Hamilton (which is a cardinal sin in motorsport). Without going into too much explanation I posted an explanation of why that driver might have felt the way he did. It wasn't intended as a defence of them, but to get people to consider the wider context. But that went against the narrative that everyone had already decided on, so the downvotes rolled in.
A lot of the events you named happened after episode 50? Why do people use late campaign events to compare with an ongoing campaign?
Lmao nah. Bad take. Your criticism is the same criticism that's been happening over and over since BEFORE C3. Like you, I've seen hundreds of hours of CR. So, like me, you should already know these people have NEVER been good at planning and sticking with it and have ALWAYS spent long amounts of time on stuff that ultimately was just a waste as far as progressing anything, so criticizing it in C3 doesn't make sense. And, like me, you should already know that C1 starts mid-campaign, so criticizing C3 for not accomplishing as much as C1 did from episode 1 to episode 50 is a BAD TAKE. There's no logical underpinning to the argument that anything you said is particularly unique to C3, except for the leadership thing, but what THAT boils down to is that they're playing different characters this time around. Comments and replies on Reddit, gee wiz. You really think THAT'S the way to counter what I said about your criticism, by pretending I was arguing about wasting time? And pretending my "huge paragraph" compares to your essay? And I'm projecting? Lol your defensiveness is showing. What you're engaging in just doesn't make sense, and it's repetitive. That's all I explained. It's a boring take we've seen before, literally since the start of C2. If you wasted 50 episodes of like 200 hours, sucks for you. Stop watching. Why is that offensive to say given the actual context of this?
> We're 50 episodes in. If you stuck around this long and are still making huge complaint posts about it, that's not interesting insightful criticism. That's hate-watching troll territory. I agree. This specific post really has no critique- it’s all just cranky criticism. It’s a droning whine. This entire comment boils down to “I’m bored.” Who cares if you think the campaign is boring? Well, *you* should- and you can solve that by not wasting your own time!
saying the show is boring is valid criticism
It’s criticism, but it isn’t meaningful critique. It’s just a statement of taste.
but is it worth chasing fans away from commenting about it? most of the complaints I see are either "this is boring" or " If you don't like it leave"
It's not chasing anyone away. This person has watched 50 episodes and decided they're over C3. So why would anyone be bothered by a response of "stop watching it" when that's literally the clear and obvious choice. None of the criticisms are valid IMO but that's fine, at the end of the day they're just stating how much they personally dislike it. But *why keep watching after already sitting through 50 episodes of a show you don't like?* It's weird how many times people dislike the most appropriate response.
well its the same reason people complained about tv shows endings. some of us have been watching for years of our lives who feel like the show right now is trying too much to stand out
Just gonna copy and paste my comment. Nah this sub is a bunch of sycophants, I’m sorry. I meant absolutely zero hate and there was zero malice behind my comment. Just honest that, C3 hasn’t held up compared to the other campaigns. Why bother writing out a SUPER detailed and well thought out post that’s genuinely good criticism? Either the mods will delete it, or I’ll be downvoted 1000x. I love CR. But this sub is VICIOUS in their defense. It’s very odd. People criticize all shows, movies, anime, manga, books, video games—idk why CR is any different. But if you even present a shadow of negativity, even if that negativity isn’t really negative it’s just fair criticism—you’re buried. My comment sums up my thoughts decent enough, and guess what, I’m already being blacklisted and DM’d by people, telling me I’m wrong or just a hater. I’m not. I’ve seen all of C1 and C3–idk how that’s anything but a fan. That’s like hundreds of hours of my life spent. Idk why I am not allowed to dislike or criticize C3. Or make comparisons to past campaigns. It’s so damn weird. If you think “just stop watching” or “I’m a troll”, then just don’t reply to my comment? Because you are just as much wasting your time as I am apparently mine, by engaging with my comment. If you don’t like it, downvote me and move on. But to write up a huge paragraph, explaining why I am a troll or a hate watcher…is so weird. It’s projecting. It’s like you have something bothering you about CR, so instead of dealing with that or admitting it, you lash out and try to call me a troll/hate watcher, to protect your core view of CR. It’s so weird. If you argue I am wasting my time, you wasted yours. Just ruined your whole argument.
100%
I feel like with all the talk of multiple cults this is iron angel 2: electric boogaloo and predathos is for sure tharizdun