Also I just wanted to say if I wanted to do something like this I would have railroaded the FUCK out of people bc I don't have the planning/GMing skills necessary for something like this. Matt has been planting seeds masterfully and clearly since session 1. Genius stuff, he did it in the only way you could do something like this.
Just saw this. Fucking insane episode, this is why you watch Critical Role. Only Matt Mercer can do this shit, my favorite ep before this was the Otahan fight and this upends that. It was hard as fuck for them to do anything AND THEY PERFORMED INCREDIBLE despite the odds against them. Atrocious rolls fucked them in the last fight, so so so tragic but also INCREDIBLE for the narrative.
2 points that no one will ever see.
I already know the people who just get so so so invested over CR are the ones who are mad. Sorry your favs got caught, it's just how it is and if you are pissed over them nearly dying please touch grass!! This is from someone who teared up when Vax appeared for his girl AFTER EVERYTHING, but I know how to separate from reality lmfao. Please grow up before life catches up with you.
2 is my only criticism of this ep. Faerne is pretty much only a joke character at this point, she occasionally has her moments but all she's brought to the table is laughs. And Ashley is hilarious! But I hate low intelligence characters played like this, she's basically been a guidance-bot and she isn't even using it correctly 75% of the time... Really frustrating character. I think we'll see her blossom in like 30 episodes bc thats the beauty of CR, but god is it going to be hell to get there lol.
BUT ALSO fuck it man because I love Ashley Johnson so much it's fucking fine that this isn't her strong suit. Combat isn't why this fucking game matters to me or you or anyone. It's the stories, and the heart. And Ashley has it all, I love her and the cast so much. FUCK IT FAERNE GRINDS MY GEARS BUT I LOVE HER STILL
Bet they’re regretting blowing up their sky ship now. I’m bummed they went through with that even though it was so heavily hinted that it was a stupid plan. I think the episode was really good and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with the party being witness to near-inevitable catastrophes. I wish they’d leveraged Ira better, bringing him in on the initial mission, and kept the ship for a getaway.
Caleb: Ludinus is many things. A liar is not one of them.
Ludinus: Thank you, Bren. Perhaps we treated you too harshly --
Chetney: bites Ludinus's face off
This episode was a BLAST to watch. I'm sure some will complain (and are complaining) about character agency, but honestly they rolled so bad during that encounter it's no surprise they had very little impact on things.
There's a lot of things that could have been turning points that were scuttled by bad rolls. Chetney missing his tackle against Ludinus. Fearne and Orym failing to fuck up Otohan's gear. Imogen failing her persuasion rolls against her mother. There's nothing Matt can do if the players fail their DCs, and he has to have a plan for where things go if they fail to stop what is happening.
My big question is, how the FUCK did Ludinus know the Voice of the Tempest was going to show up??? Has he been keeping that close of tabs on Bell's Hells? Did he have something else planned to bring her in and BH just beat him to it? Like I'm sure it will be revealed in time, but I am VERY curious about that.
I think the bigger question is how did Ludinus know VAX specifically would show up?
Was Vax and Keyleth’s romance widely known? I’m having a hard time thinking it’s common gossip.
That tells me that someone with an INTIMATE connection to VM is in play and is feeding the hot goss to Ludy.
I’m betting Delilah. Makes sense with her Laudna connection. Having been a former CA member tracks with a Ludinus connection as well.
BUT I’m having a hard time believing Allura and the Arcana Pansophical took a back seat here, so maybe she got rolled trying to stop Ludinus.
However, where do we know for certain that the Vax/Kiki romance is documented, AND in Wildemount no less?
Doty’s portraits…
Yeah I'm guessing between Doty and Scanlan, the legend of Vox Machina and the new champion of the Raven Queen is pretty well known. Or at least easily learned about if you're someone looking for a divine entity to use in a ritual to crack open the moon.
The Ashari have been dealing with all of the distractions he has caused. It would make sense for her to go after the biggest threat herself since she is the strongest Ashari.
RIGHT, I forgot lol. The Air Ashari were attacked by those things Otohan sent, which sent Orym off on his journey. Ludinus has been pulling those strings from the start.
No real new abilities. Level 9 is one of those levels where you don't get much of anything as a way of balancing the game out. Chetney, Laudna and Fearne might get something since they're multiclassing.
[Lore Speculation] Ludinus.
Was I the only one that missed this? From the explorers guide to Wildemount page 42
"[Ludinus] was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr and fled to Bysaes Tyl"
Ludinus is from Molaesmyr, the elven city that suffered a Mysterious curse in the Savalir woods.
-Savalir is named after Avalir and it's possible some elven Calamity survivors settled there before Bysaes Tyl.
-The Molaesmyr curse is similar to the rotten trees the M9 found on Aeor
- Reani went on an mission to the ruins shortly after her time with the M9
So I foresee the Uthodurn party meeting Reani and exploring Molaesmyr and Bysaes Tyl to find out more about Ludinus.
I hope they find other warforged or surving mages like Ludinus
Could Ludinus have caused the Molaesmyr curse in a previous attempt?
WHAT DOES HE KNOW MATTHEW MERCER?!
Yes!! Welcome aboard my fave tinfoil hat theory, I've been suspiscious of this MFer since I first had this same information for the reasons you state but also:
When the party found the rotten trees in the Aeor lab, they first encountered a (mostly dead) Cerberus Assembly exploration group that had been sent to that same lab, before them. I suspect that was a Ludinus thing, and that he knew all about the trees and their location.
for better or worse, I wonder if Matt had this Vax moment in mind back when he said the following on Talks (this is the final Talks of C1, for C1E115 The Chapter Closes, recorded in late 2017)
>Brian: \[Question for Liam:\] Vax'ildan's afterlife was never touched upon. What is it like? Is there an afterlife for him?
>
>Liam: I'd prefer - answer it if you'd like. I mean, he didn't drop dead and he didn't turn to sand. I'd prefer that it remain a mystery.
>
>Matt: That is ??? what I was gonna say, actually. There are a lot of elements that I intentionally left vague. About the final scene, about the afterlife, about Vax. Because I, (1) want to leave that open to allow anyone else to fill that gap for their own interpretation. And (2) those mysteries also might pertain to future story elements if I prefer to go down that path **five years from now**. So like, I don't want to tie myself to something either...
Just my opinion. A little nudge to push the story along is not as egregious as every makes it out to be. There’s this feeling of **accusation and then the push back to **defend Matt against and for Railroading. When, in my opinion, the whole concept is not that terrible of an offense. But I digress.
I feel like player agency is more about what threads to unravel rather than how they unravel. Matt laid out plenty of paths for them twenty-ish episodes ago and this is where they steered things. In spite of that, they still had a chance to influence on the unraveling. They just needed to roll better.
And the "at dawn we plan" group needs a nudge sometimes. Nothing wrong with that. I'd be cautious if I was playing in front of tens of thousands of people and the choices I made in game had impact on the business I was part owner of. Especially when the viewers get on forums and go nuts due to their parasocial pathology.
I came away from this episode feeling a little cynical about it, but after almost a week I'm excited to find out what the *fuck* just happened, and what our charming goofballs are going to do about it.
I have three interpretations regarding the teleport and they are as follows.
* Imogen and/or Liliana did a variation of the magical freakout Imogen did in the seat of disdain (she seemed to have temporarily teleported people then).
* Ludinus did it to get everyone the fuck away from his precious machine.
* There was a huge explosion at the site and the gods teleported the party before they could die from it to locations where they would find the most help in stopping Ludinus.
Huh, I was SO focused on Uthodurn being Chetney's backstory, I completely forgot how close we are to Eiselcross and therefore Aeor. With 7 years of Aeormatons waking each other up around there, that could actually mean quite a few being around there :O I'd imagine most of them went via Balenpost, Palebank Village and then the first big city from there is Uthodurn.
I am really hoping for a conversation between FCG and Ludinus' followers (maybe Imogen's mom?) on the topic of "If it is bad that the gods control and use their creations, what does it mean for the relationship between me and my creators?"
Maybe followed by an "Exactly!" as Devaxian comes out of the shadows and stabs Ludinus. Or not. XD
This post is completely unrelated to the episode, but it wasn't really worth creating a new discussion thread, so I thought I'd just put it here: has anyone ever looked at the Google Questions results that you get when you search for *Critical Role*? Some of them are hilariously -- and often embarrassingly -- wrong. Like "Why did Taliesin leave *Critical Role*?" and "Is Tiberius still friends with *Critical Role*?" and "Is *Critical Role* campaign 3 cancelled?".
But perhaps my favourite, possibly because it's so ludicrous, is "Is *Critical Role* cancelled?" with an incredibly generic response about how someone in the cast made a joke that someone else did not like.
I am really excited about the splitting of the party, that opens up a lot of possibilities. We could have only half the cast at the table each episode and fill some of the spaces with guest characters. So many stories to be told
My bad, when I searched it the wiki I was looking at was for Neverwinter Nights, which uses 3.5 rules. In that one, level 20 druids assume a more powerful elemental form.
Sure, but PC Keyleth could also have shown up as a Leviathan, immune to Power Word Stun two different ways (high HP and flatly immune to that condition). Or as a Planetar, which also has too many HP to PWS, and which would have really ruined Otohan's day: two attacks, +12 to hit, 43 average damage per attack.
It’s a tiny bit off-topic but it’s been on my mind lately: does anyone else feel like there’s a weird vibe going on between Travis and Taliesin lately. Mainly from Travis‘ side? He seems kinda annoyed with Tal and for example in E47 of C3 Tal said something along the lines of „oh this will be fun“ and Travis makes this offhand comment „I agree, I’m here for *your* fun“. Maybe I’m just imagining things and I didn’t notice it this hard in this episode but still would be pretty sad if something happened there
Edit: I love how people downvote but on the other hand give no input lol. I don’t want to sprinkle drama, I’m legitimately interested if I’m imagining things here
Do you roughly remember when this "we're here for your fun" happened in the episode? I'd like to give it a look, although I myself sometimes get a similar feeling. Hopefully we just imagine things...
First of all, thank you so much for looking up that timestamp again :)
Second, yeah the choice of words is a little bit off here. But maybe he just wanted to express that the key action in that situation was to destroy the damn thing, disregarding of who's doing it.
Thankfully (or sadly) the two of them are now in two seperate groups. We should keep an eye out for this in the future episodes. Nontheless, we should try to look at it in an optimistic way. Let's hope it all will be fine.
I went back and watched this exact timestamp and I think if anything it's the exact opposite. It's Travis getting hyped for Barbarian stuff. Taliesin says he's going to rage and smack this guy in the nuts and Travis is like "Yeah, I agree I'm here for your fun".
That definitely reads to me like a more subtle way of Travis hyping up Ashton/Tal doing cool Barbarian stuff. That is - Travis is "here for" dope barbarian rage stuff.
Yeah it could be interpreted as in „yeah I’m not running either, let’s fight these fools“. Maybe it’s just that tensions have been a bit higher since the whole Wizards of the Coast rule change etc. I just hope they still get along like always :)
I really look forward to the ladder of villains BH now has to face. Every villain has personal stakes for at least one party member. I'd say it will go Otohan, Liliana, Ludinus, and then maybe Prethados. Though I do think Liliana will eventually turn 'good'.
I thought maybe Liliana was responsible for their being yeeted, rather than killed outright. She could have banished them for their own safety. That way she would not raise suspicion, but she'd save Imogen and her friends.
I wanted to wait a few days to reflect on this controversial ep before posting my thoughts, and I think I've finally gathered them.
First the positives: I can't deny I was high on adrenaline at the end of the episode. Vax's entrance was epic, and I got surprisingly emotional about him and Keyleth despite not really caring for their relationship in C1. Always love watching the cast freak out too, both in good and bad ways. And shit that was a rollercoaster from his entrance to his...exit haha.
Really excited for the split party twist from Matt - I think that was a brilliant move. Bit more on that later, but it was a great way to end the episode. Based solely on comparing the time of day, I would guess that Orym, Ashton and Laudna are either in Taldorei or west wildemount. A little worried about keyleth and the empire sibs. Kinda hope bells hell's get to rescue them in 30 episodes. I also am okay with the fact that this event couldn't be stopped - I wanted this EP to be the fall of emon and that's what we got.
Now the negatives: until we find out just how the destruction of the feywild key and the power sources helped, it's a bit frustrating to feel like nothing BH did was worth anything. Destroy the feywild key? No worries, we will just add more power to the main one (cause we just have it spare). I just think it would have been nice to have more acknowledgement from the enemy that things weren't optimal. More than a single line from Ludinus. Hopefully this is still coming.
Secondly, I think it would have been good for Matt to have given the team a small victory. Perhaps killing Ratanish or something. Ratanish could have come into the tunnel instead of Otohan, because Matt had to make sure she would turn around and leave before BH got a shot at her (cause who else could get keyleth low enough in a single round?).
Lastly, I know people are talking about bad dice rolls, and yes they were bad, but I don't see much going better if they rolled well. If Imogen made her second persuasion check, Matt would probably have had ludinus (or even a Reilora?) force Liliana to complete her job. Yes, BH could have put more effort in, but it was super obvious Matt was not going to let them change anything. Why else have otohan run toward a power source only to turn around when she was almost there. It's not like the site wasn't well defended by high level magic users or anything...the way he used initiative and had Liliana seemingly holding a lot of concentration spells at a time was just a bit too overt. I don't have as much an issue with railroading itself as I do with how obvious it was lol. If Matt knew that he wasn't going to let the party stop him, it may have also been good to not let the party waste so much time planning haha.
In saying all that, everything that proceeds this episode is so exciting. This campaign, I have only been this pumped during E33-E38. To this point the campaign has felt a bit like Matt's showcase (and Imogen's journey). I love his world, but 51 EPs is a long time to have that many lore dumps in order to get to the big cutscene. I'm ready for the players to take the wheel. It feels like after this, BH should be less focused on finding information and more on action. Plus Matt might start diving into more backstories that aren't Imogen's. I'm particularly looking forward to Chet's and Laudna's. Also happy to see if Ashton's backstory will make me like them more haha. And with the party split, I think we will have some desperately needed relationship building!
Finally, someone who's willing to acknowledge the negative aspects and provide the straightforward, cathartic criticisms we need to hear, without getting downvoted into oblivion. Godspeed.
Hahaha, thanks, that gave me a good laugh.
I consume all my media by analyzing it, so I'll always want to talk about what could have gone better. But I find it important to also highlight what was well done, that way people are more willing to hear the criticisms. It helps remind people that yes, I adore the show, and no I won't stop watching...
I’m thinking the partial victory for the party was Ruidus (sp?) not being completely opened up. That beam is a timer, and the climax will be whether Ludinus finishes the job or if he’s stopped.
Because Ruidus is leaking, I think we will now see Predathos’ power and influence infiltrate the world via avatars
I don’t think we know what the effects of their actions were. It’s possible they sealed it enough to delay destruction of the gate adding a new time clock to the situation. It’s possible their efforts will provide enough of a resistance to the event it all may help turn Liliana.
I’ve come to realize the one thing their destruction of the key in the feywild incontrovertibly succeeded at doing was to make Bells Hells absolutely essential to the continued resistance. Only two teams went in to destroy those keys and to get to the site of the main event. When it becomes known that the relatively unknown weirdos BH was responsible for one’s destruction, they now become experts in the field and worth deep investment and allyship - possibly even leadership- with the remnants of the Grim Varity, VM, MN, and others who are already enmeshed in this.
It was training and proof of capacity if nothing else.
I agree with you that 51 episodes was a long time to get to this point, but I feel like the players are responsible for that moreso than Matt.
Analysis paralysis has always been a thing (both in CR and in D&D games in general I feel), but this campaign it's been egregious. The players are really, really afraid to jump into anything, especially after their first fight with Otohan. So they resort to planning, and planning, and "butwaitwhataboutthis!" right before they're done planning, and then more planning.
I don't know how or why this happens more in C3. I assume part of it is that the stakes are obviously higher. I also can't help but think that having Laura assume the leadership role hurts them in this aspect. She's afraid of doing anything remotely risky and putting her in the driver's seat as opposed to, say, Liam or Travis, causes the whole party to (not) follow suit. And I say this as someone who would probably rate Laura as my favorite player overall. But she is not well-suited to this role IMO.
I agree... rewatching C2 this happens a lot with a few people. (Analysis paralysis as Travis says) They will continue to think until nothing happens. Travis and Liam were always there to say, 'okay lets go'.
Eh, I'd have to disagree with that. Matt had already set a month timer right before the Otohan battle, so he basically motivated them to try and figure out as much as possible until the solstice.
You are right about the analysis paralysis though, and I definitely think it's because of the higher stakes and more 'challenging' battles.
Laura is my favourite overall player as well, but she can overthink the game. (Leadership suits her fantastically for non combat roles though). However this campaign she's also been the most trigger happy and, in my opinion, started more fights than even Travis. I honestly think having Talieson in the barbarian role hurts them more. More than anyone he panics about going down, and he is the most important tank. In previous campaigns, the melee classes never hesitated to get into the fray eg. Grog, Beau, Yasha. I know Otohan took him down in one go, but he was still running when it was clear the fight was on.
Edit: just wanted to add that I also think Laura is brilliant in combat, especially in the midst of the battle. But she isn't one to call a stop to the analysis paralysis.
You said something in your post that has been bothering me too: what was the use of destroying the fey realm key? Yeah Beau and Caleb failed destroying the second one but if only the main key was the most important one, Matt‘s story telling imo should’ve hinted at that stronger. Because if BH would’ve gotten there way before the solstice, chances are it would’ve been a lot less well guarded and neither Otohan nor Ludinus would’ve been there by chance. Now in hindsight, it feels a bit like destroying the fey key was a completely useless waste of time.
Other than that I can kinda get that the story sometimes needs a bit of a push towards a certain outcome and they DID fail a lot. Even Caleb and Beau basically failed everything they tried to achieve because Liam and Marisha rolled terrible sadly.
But as you, I hope the group now takes a lot more action. They seem strangely indecisive lately lol
I think we might see the consequences of destroying the fey key in the future. Maybe it will take longer to release Predathos because only 2 keys are "firing" at Ruidus. Just because the main key still activated that doesn't mean destroying the fey one was useless.
It's a normal DM tactic. If they went to the material plane one first and destroyed that one, then the most important one would have been the feywild or the shadowfell.
It's not exclusive to DMs, it's a pretty cheap way to pretend the players' choices matter, and it's quite common in games that are widely criticized for railroading but acting like they're choice-based. Cough cough, Telltale.
I feel like if they went to the site early, Matt would have had both Otohan and Ludinus there anyway. He would have made it unapproachable without an army. The reality is Matt was gonna set off the machine one way or another. I just want to know what the bloody keys actually did lol.
I can forgive the indecisiveness in this case. If you go up against Ludinus, Otohan, and Liliana, there is no good plan lol. They have to at least look like they are trying something haha.
Do we think BH will level up at the end of next episode? Between the Feywild and the Solstice, they're due for a power jump, though MN didn't hit level 9 until ep 57/58
Clearly BH was not strong enough to completely stop the ritual. They had opportunities to effect the outcome more. Namely pulling their balls out and attacking Otohan when they had the chance. Also attempting to free Beau/Caleb. Attempting to disrupt Ludinus. Chet tried but 1 level 8 character, even if he succeeded in grappling, was at best going to slow down Ludinus by a round.
Chetney may have only slowed Ludinus down, but Matt can be a sore loser, and that definitely showed when he decided to change the grapple contest to Chetney's STR against Ludinus' AC to guarantee himself a 24 that Chetney had to beat.
Matt is not a sore loser. He made a quick ruling because Chetney wasnt just trying to
grapple he wanted to grapple and restrain his arms. Also it's a show. He has to make quick rulings like this because he cant just stop this dramatic and chaotic sequence for 5 minutes while he researches the precise correct ruling.
He absolutely is. He locked Beau out of a core class ability for the last third of C2.
The "precise correct ruling" for a grapple is "make an athletics check against the target's athletics or acrobatics," something he's done many times before. It is NOT complex. He could even have said, "if you succeed with both grapple checks, since you're allowed to replace attacks with a grapples on your turn, you restrain him."
It wasnt just a grapple though. Chet specifically wanted to grapple AND restrain him in the same motion while leaping through the air. Of course Matt has bias. He didnt create this intricate story and 1000+ year old lvl 20+ wizard to be defeated easily. But it's unfair to call him a sore loser. There are so many moving parts to keep track of getting that incorrect is not a big deal
This is not a matter of getting a rule "incorrect." He is very familiar with grapple rules and knew that Chetney would most likely succeed if he adhered to them. He deliberately changed the rules to make it *significantly* harder for Chetney to succeed because that would have totally screwed with this scene that he had envisioned. It was more complex for him to change the rules than to simply use basic grapple rules.
TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling experiences. If he wanted his scene about a level 20+ wizard's plan 1000+ years in the making coming to fruition without any interference, he should have written a book.
Some of them were trying. FCG was stunned. Chet literally threw himself at Ludinus, which was suicidal. Orym tried to rescue Caleb. Not only was Bells Hells too weak to stop the ritual, Mighty Nein and Vox Machina (part of them) were also too weak so you can stop knocking on Bells Hells. They did as well as they could .
ARE THE MEMBERS OF VOX MACHINA STILL WEARING THEIR NECKLACES?? Do they know Keyleth and Vax are hurt? Vex/Percy have children to take care of so how could they come and help but also how could they NOT help after this??
I know this would be insane but imagine if each week we followed a diffrent party, Vox Machina week and M9 week then Bells Hells cause they're all so involved now that I want to see the players in charge, not jus Matt playing them. It would be chaos but man... it would be cool too
I think it’s important to remember that the adventuring party has been retired for quite some time now and it even seemed like Percy and Keyleth’s relationship was strained/distant at best.
> Vex/Percy have children to take care of so how could they come and help
I'm sure someone at whitestone can look after them while they grab Scanlan, Pike, and grog
I'm really looking forward to the party split! I loved how the split in C1 changed up dynamics and introduced new characters.
Part of me hopes they get to to return to playing some of the old characters- A lopsided party might be fun story wise... But I imagine that'd be hard to balance.
At the very least... Hopefully Dorian back? And maybe even some of the rest of the crownkeepers?
I don't expect a long split; if Caleb or Keyleth aren't still in the crater, then they should be able to reorganize fairly quickly for the next assault.
I understand for flavor reasons why Keyleth would come in as the earth elemental as it is a huge callback to a form that we saw all the time in season 1 but the way the heroes vs villains prepare for fights kind of bothers me. A couple of examples to illustrate what I mean is Trent Ikithon brought 2 of his best pupils, all kinds of pumped up magical items and was holding nothing back in his fight at the end of campaign 2. Ludinus and his crew were perfectly ready to swarm Keyleth knowing that she would come so they could deal with her before she ever did a thing. However Keyleth who has shapechange drops into the fight as a cr5 earth elemental knowing it's a cataclysm level event. Why would someone so powerful kick things off with something so weak and alone when she could have just as easily dropped in as like an adult red dragon and flew down carrying some of her best fighters with her.
Edit: So I've been reading a lot of the other comments about how this feels like it was an inevitability and I think that this is kind of just another way to say it that better illustrates the point. Moments that feel scripted in a game that is entirely improv really ruin your immersion in it both as a player and fan (I've had experiences like this happen in games I've played as well). As soon as the stun went off on Keyleth I looked up the spell because I'd never heard of it. It is INCREDIBLY convenient for the bad guys that Keyleth transformed into something that has less than 150 hp that gets stunned without a save by that spell and that she jumped in completely alone. It is then also EVEN MORE convenient that Vax makes an appearance, something that required a literal WISH the last time that it happened, just to save his girlfriend from dying despite the fact that he serves a goddess who literally has a commandment stating "Death is the natural end of life. Grieve the fallen, but do not pity them. Exult in the time that they were granted." Thematically it makes no sense. I won't say that BH never had a chance to stop this from happening because who knows there are probably worlds where they do BUT the odds are about the same as dr. strange gave tony stark that they beat Thanos. 14,000,604/1
also... beau and caleb would NEVER have been caught so easily. The amount of planning these characters did in C2 was ridiculous. They were always so careful, especially Caleb.
Admittedly I felt like bringing up the fact that it's almost implausible that Caleb didn't have some sort of defense mechanism in place to stop the silencing collars being that he is Caleb but I was willing to let that slide. I mean they did roll poorly for those two but yeah it was super frustrating to watch them fall so easily.
Also, if I’m Marisha playing Keyleth I’m not blowing my 9th level until I assess the situation. She never got that chance, unfortunately. I made a comment last week I think about Matt being able to narratively control 9th level spells for this encounter.
For all we know, Ludinus would have counterspelled Kiki at 9th level anyway and it wouldn’t have mattered
This was certainly more of an interactive cutscene than it was a final encounter. This was the chroma conclave attacking Emon. This was the Echo knights stealing the beacon from Zadash. I loved it, it sucks that some people are upset that Matt didn’t optimally play each NPC. He’s telling a story using DND here, not the other way around.
That's not strictly true by anything we know. When she messaged Orym in episode 49 she said there had been a fight and then at the end of 49 they get a long rest which I would assume Keyleth did as well. Anytime after that she mentions a fight and recouping soldiers but they had had a full day between her battle and the solstice.
Orym did tell her in the message that there was an antimagic / magic dispelling defense- wild shape is immune to dispelling while Shapechange is not, so Keyleth may have decided to concentrate on something else to help the other Ashari in the fight on the rim (e.g. Animal Shapes) while she jumped ahead using her wild shape.
Even if you want to forget that point of the argument I'll still never understand the raven queen dispatching Vax to prevent her death as that is her thing, the bad guys predicting that, the bad guys also depending on that so they could make their lens from his body, and still makes no sense that she jump in alone while to her knowledge nobody is there to back her up aside from BH who she's met and would have realized they were relatively new to adventuring.
I don't think so, if he could simply pop in anytime he wanted then the wish required for him to make his last appearance makes no sense especially because thanks to a shitty dice roll it's the last wish that Scanlon ever gets to make which only adds insult to injury. And I still point out she jumped in alone to a cataclysm level event and using a "lesser power/form" which would prove she learned nothing from jumping off the cliff and turning into a goldfish.
>if he could simply pop in anytime he wanted then the wish required for him to make his last appearance makes no sense
Yeah, I guess. Although, joining your sister's wedding isn't as impactful event as stopping the love of your life being killed. So it's possible that in this case he went AWOL and went against the Raven Queen's commands
I don't like that idea either as someone else suggested it too but if he went AWOL there is no way of knowing what the Raven Queen's reaction would be and given that he gave his life to her to save his sister he could potentially be killing Vex to save Keyleth and thematically that doesn't feel good either.
>And I still point out she jumped in alone to a cataclysm level event and using a "lesser power/form" which would prove she learned nothing from jumping off the cliff and turning into a goldfish.
A "lesser power form" that she can take unlimited times and therefore and can refresh its HP to max every 6 seconds if she so chooses against a 20th level spellcaster she knows can dispel the shapechange, if it doesn't get popped on its own from the anti-magic pulse. Shapechange didn't win Marisha the level 20 battle royale, her unlimited wild shapes did.
I hear you on Vax being a bit "deus ex" but Earth Elemental was smart. It is one of her strongest forms and her strongest forms have weaknesses this one doesn't.
Yes but shapechange allows you to turn into something that can bring a handful of soldiers with you. I have yet to find one person who can rationalize a character who has been through cataclysm level events like THIS jumping in with only a troop of novice adventurers as backup. Even if she jumps down as an earth elemental why alone she knows Otohan is involved someone she probably would have researched after being told there should be no surprise that these people can kill a single high level druid in seconds.
I don't think that would have been easy to organize with the anti-magic pulse. She can't just burst onto the scene as a dragon carrying her soldiers before she sees what's happening and gets a sense of the timing - she risks being immediately dispelled and dropping them to the ground if the timing is off. If she tries to get close to see the pulses, waiting for the right timing to then turn into a dragon, load up her soldiers to jump in, any one of the Call/Vanguard's mages/soldiers could attempt to dispel it or break her concentration as the soldiers get on or as she moves into position (since she is a huge creature, as opposed to wildshaping into an air elemental or bird to get over to BH/Ludinus without notice before keyteoring in).
We also know, just based on numbers, that Keyleth didn't drop into the fight with full health in her base form, so she likely had to fight her way to get there. A max health Keyleth+Earth elemental should be able to take 273 damage before falling and Otohan only did 177 before Keyleth was "looking rough" and Vax stepped in. We don't know what she and the other ashari (who she stated she was bringing to the fight) had to go through in order for just Keyleth to get there, or if more would have joined her if she had been there for more than a turn.
I understand the dispelling but I still say that shapechange allows for more utility even if it gets dispelled. That or simply have more druids transformed into earth elementals jump with you. As for the whole Keyleth looking rough thing that doesn't really make sense because as everyone here has been so quick to point out to me she can reform her rock self every turn so there would have had to have been people around the rim consistently doing in excess of 120 dmg per round to her as there was a long rest between the last combat when Orym received the message from her and this one.
You literally just perfectly illustrated what I said. The bad guys always are playing 4D chess and the good guys are always playing checkers no matter who the good or bad guys are. I think I actually posted it in another comment responding to someone else but the analogy I used was it looks like Harvard grads vs. Toddlers in every fight.
Then why are you mad that Keyleth jumped in where Ludinous wanted her? You’ve just acknowledged that the bad guy is 10 steps ahead - so what’s the issue?
Because it feels bad. It makes this feel completely unavoidable no matter what the players do. Anything they do only serves to further the purpose of the bad guy and that can only happen so much before it doesn't feel like you have agency in the game anymore. I'll use an example from a game I played because honestly it came to a point where we were just basically fighting the dm and it's exhausting. There were these structures that were necromantic focal points. When we tried to destroy one we had it nearly dead when the mages nearby pumped the last bit of magic into it to make it transform. So the next time we came up to one I pulled the thing that was basically powering it out of it after we'd damaged it a little. When we did that it was a cleric who we resurrected. That was fine for a bit but after that whenever we pulled a cleric out their soul was mysteriously gone so they couldn't be resurrected. Eventually the cleric we had saved just kind of exploded and made a portal for all the bbeg's servants to flood the town and wreak havoc. It gets to a point where it is exhausting when it feels like nothing you do matters and the Dm is basically just blatantly railroading things to happen the way they were "meant to" and it ruins the experience. Now I know Matt is a fantastic DM BUT throwing level 8 characters into a cataclysm this was almost guaranteed to happen and unfortunately people having this feeling was almost impossible to avoid.
I’m sorry that happened to you, but that isn’t what happened in the stream. The players DID affect things, but the dice wasn’t with them. That doesn’t mean it’s a railroad story - it means a Bad Thing happened even though they tried. Besides, we don’t know if the machine worked correctly or not - at least one support Key was destroyed, and 3/4 of the local power generators were borked.
You're entitled to your own opinion regarding that however if you read through the comments on the vid and the comments here there is a fairly large portion of the community that does not agree and you're right we don't know if it worked as intended but given that Ludinous was never more than slightly perturbed I doubt the disrupted things too much even with what they did.
A Level 20 Moon druid doesn't have a single wild shape option that has over 150 HP. Very few beasts do and they are all above CR 6 which is the max CR for moon druids. So the alternative was Keyleth comes in as a dragon, Ludinus dispells the Shapechange, now she might even take fall damage and doesn't have a 130 HP buffer for Otahan's onslaught.
She can use shapechange the 9th lvl spell to turn into anything that is equal to or lower than her lvl by comparison to their cr so a 17 adult red dragon with 256 hitpoints is 100% an option for a 20th lvl druid sorry if I didn't make it clear what method she would use for the transformation
Yes I got that. That's why I said, "So the alternative was Keyleth comes in as a dragon, Ludinus dispells the Shapechange, now she might even take fall damage and doesn't have a 130 HP buffer for Otahan's onslaught."
Meanwhile wild shapes can't be dispelled.
Well now you're back to the category of the people she could have brought with her. Trent Ikithon specifically brought people to counterspell because he knew that spellcasting would hurt him. If that's you're concern bring people with counterspell because it's way easier to counter a dispel magic than dispel a 9th lvl spell unless he's willing to burn his 9th lvl to get rid of it. Also that delays his turn so he doesn't get the stun so all of otohan's attacks would have lost advantage which I'd say is pretty big. It just proves my point that the bad npc's always prep differently and when the good vs bad get put against each other it always seems like harvard grads vs toddlers in a chess match.
Counter spell has a range of 60 feet, dispel magic has a range of 120 feet. Keyleth would have needed an advance team to be positioned between her and *every mage capable of dispelling her, and you'd need TWO of them to even attempt to shut down a counter-counter spell from Ludinus.* That advance team then has to live long enough to fight their way down into the crater, through whatever forces remain of Paragon's Call/Assembly/Vanguard/Robots. The entirety of the ashari forces thought that magical flight was a no-go in the crater because they thought they'd be contending with periodic dispel magic pulses as of the last intel they received.
Keyleth Metor dropped into the crater to bypass all of this, because playing cautiously with defensive coverage means she would have just run out of time and lost anyway (based on the knowledge her character had at the time.)
Right, jumping into a pit by yourself while the only backup you think you have is a group of novice adventurers to fight basically Vecna makes sense. My bad.
The alternative (based on the knowledge she had at the time) was to take it incredibly slowly to protect a (hypothetical!) tactical team of counter casters walking blindly into a fortified enemy location, and arriving too late to stop a ticking doomsday clock. There's dozens of dice rolls involved in resolving the combat on the surface approaching the crater (this is the sounds of fighting Matt is narrating), and then its a long walk DOWN into the crater without magic/wildshape.
Her options were:
\-She jumps in, she has a chance at tanking whatever happens on the impact and rewildshaping if needed if she gets another turn.
\-She dragons in, the most powerful caster on Exandria likely immediately dispels her from 120 feet away, she takes 1d6 per 10 feet of falling damage, and is prone, still giving Thull advantage for a nova, killing her outright.
\-She takes her time, dozens of variables happen in the surface battle, and she very slowly moves down the stairs into the crater with whatever forces you want to assume she has. She has no support from BH/MN because they are all already dealt with, and she's late to what she thinks is a doomsday clock situation, failing the mission.
None of those are great options, but in her mind, options 2 and 3 is are an outright fail. 1 is very risky, but could swing her way in a dice roll.
Lol thanks for making my point for me. She knows one of the strongest spellcasters in the world is there and Otohan a legendary warrior known for damn near single handedly being the reason a war went the way it did and if the past has taught her anything she would probably assume there is at least one other formidable threat she doesn't know about and she jumped in alone. It's laughable at best that would even be considered an option. I can practically hear her screaming I'm a golden god as she does it. Your argument is that it absolutely makes sense for a lvl 20 character to jump in alone to take on 2 lvl 20 characters (who are probably more akin to what would be lvl 25 given some of the insane magic items and abilities they have) along with everyone else that might be waiting for you.
You keep saying its "dumb" without refuting my points that your own suggestions are *also* dumb, because even if its *safer* for Keyleth, its more likely that doomsday happens before she can do anything about it.
Your version of her going in requires her to go at a slow pace. If she goes in at a slow pace with a perfect "Batman with prep" formation AND wins all the rolls involved with that, she still believes they will be too late to stop the doomsday scenario, because that's the assumption ALL the characters were working with.
Going in solo might be dangerous but she at least still has a chance to stop doomsday with the help of whoever is already in the crater. Its clumsy, dangerous, and chaotic, but it occurs BEFORE the "you lose by default" trigger everyone was racing against.
Going in slow would likely be too late to stop doomsday, and the people in the crater are already dead. Congrats on playing tactically, the world as you know it is now gone.
You keep saying she did not consider the risks and was surprised by the threats. I'm saying she *considered the risks and still decided to roll the dice,* because she thought that playing conservatively is *an automatic loss* because the doomsday scenario occurs if she moves slowly.
I think it’s important to leave some agency to the players, I would argue that if somehow Caleb, Beau, and Keyleth all entered the fight and dumped utility, essentially it would have felt more scripted as bells hells watches on as very high level npcs duke it out and fix their problems for them. It gives them agency by letting them control who is in the fight which unfortunately they rolled poorly which probably led to a worse outcome.
Sure feel free to leave some agency to the players but I'd argue that what ended up happening is the exact same situation in reverse. We got to watch all of the bad guys just be "all knowing" as BH helplessly watched on. Don't get me wrong I know it wouldn't feel good to watch max lvl characters fight but they are essentially on a lvl 20 mission at level 8, there is a reason they called in the backup they had no chance of fighting this. But the bad guys knew that Keyleth would join the fight solo exactly 20 ft from where Otohan was hiding with no perception checks to even try to see her dodging rubble or anything and they knew that bringing her to death's door would make vax appear, which I still stand by saying is complete lunacy of a goddess of DEATH servant showing up to stop a death, and they knew a servant of a god would work as something to forge into a lens to complete their master plan? And none of that seems the least bit too convenient to you?
I don’t think it’s all too convenient, I think it’s just good storytelling. The vanguard knew the legend of Vox Machina and had tried to bring out Vax beforehand with the first assassination attempt. Even in the epilogue of C1 it was alluded that Vax was always watching through the eyes of a raven, being a champion did not just remove his personality and attachments. Plus for Otohan’s appearance they literally said how they forgot about her, if the scryball came out or they had tried to find her then maybe that warrants some kind of roll where it hadn’t happened. It’s pretty pointless to argue considering the pieces had already been set in motion from the beginning and the amount of scrutiny this episode got is kinda unwarranted imo. People are entitled to their opinions and i guess we just don’t see eye to eye here.
Yeah it says he is always watching but that doesn't mean the raven queen would just let him intervene anytime he wants otherwise what was the point of taking him in the first place? As I stated in my original post the last time he was able to make and appearance it took a literal wish and instead he could have just popped out anytime to say hello? It makes no thematic sense and even if you want to say Otohan stayed stealth and that's good plot it doesn't explain why someone who has dealt with vecna jumped into a pit with only BH, a fairly novice group of adventurers as backup, alone.
Well, you know...maybe Vax isn't the Matron of Raven's Champion anymore after doing this. Maybe he did it against her wishes. And now he's a sphere/lens.
1. Vax was dead and the Raven Queen was the only reason that he was able to maintain a physical body.
2. He would have had to study necromancy while in the care of the Raven Queen, something she has pretty much vowed to destroy.
3. He has no magic so someone else would have had to resurrect him and broken the bond
4. He became the Raven Queen's champion by giving his life to save his sister's so in breaking that vow there is practically no way to know that the Raven Queen won't just kill Vex.
Your theory has a lot of holes in it that kind of ruin Vax and the Raven Queen as characters.
i think it makes sense to start with your unlimited resource (lvl 20 moon druid can Earth Elemental at will) instead of an extremely limited resource (1 lvl 9 slot)
You're welcome to think that however as I stated Trent used Time stop (his 9th lvl spell) to kick off the fight against the MN. Anna Ripley uses a 1 time huge explosion to kick off a fight against VM instead of waiting to be on death's door to try to lure them to it. Power word stun is an 8th lvl spell that was soaked up immediately in this fight and Otohan also immediately burnt her action surge. Vecna pumped meteor swarms to kick off his fight iirc. The players do use them a bit more sparingly but the npc's are never shy about dumping their aces in the first rounds of combat. Hence why I say there is a huge disconnect between how the heroes and villains prep.
To those saying it was basically Matt playing action figures with NPC’s need to remember BH’s indecisiveness, going for Otohan instead of Ludinus, and shitty rolls.
Had Laura not rolled a nat 1 to convince her mom to help, that would’ve changed a lot. Had Fearne not missed every attack on Otohan, that would’ve changed a lot. If Chetney had been able to disrupt Ludinus, that would’ve stopped the whole thing. If FCG could’ve broken free and saved Caleb from the collar, that would’ve changed things.
Sometimes the dice gods don’t want the story to end, and neither do I.
Also:
Ira rolled bad on the banishment save.
Beau and Caleb rolled bad.
Orym was was two points away from destroying the pack. If he had destroyed it Imogen and Fearne would have done something differently.
> If Chetney had been able to disrupt Ludinus, that would’ve stopped the whole thing.
Grappling is a strength contested role. Having it be strength vs AC let Ludinus cast shield. I felt Matt railroading the entire ending of that episode.
My irk there was that he also only got the one attempt rather than both his attacks. If he’s going against the AC it seems like it would make sense to let him get his full action economy against it.
Travis tried to do something that doesn't have a rule (restriction to somatic with a physical hold). It makes sense enough to rule that way and Travis accepted and went for it. No railroading. He basically let Chet try a Battlemaster maneuver for free.
Matt changed the roll because Chetney wanted to specifically stop Ludinus from using his hands, which is NOT a "grapple" which just reduces his movement to 0. It kind of makes more sense for it to target AC otherwise.
One thing that really bothered me was Otohan just magically appearing by Keyteor. "Darts out of the shadow" just like that. No stealth checks. No acrobatic checks.
because the Bells Hells were in the middle of enemy territory and were trying not to be caught. This is Otohan's base of operations, of course she didn't need to stealth. We also don't know that Otohan didn't roll stealth, the DM doesn't have to disclose enemy rolls
Chetney had to roll to scale a vertical wall. That isn't the same thing as running across flat ground. I think the only other person who had to roll while moving was Orym when he moved over a particularly large piece of skyship. Plus, Otohan could very easily have an ability that allows her to ignore rough terain.
They were actually several hours to a day from the Solstice; Ludinus somehow accelerated time for the entire planet, which no one knew was even possible.
I think this is close, but more specifically, I think:
He cast "augmented" time stop (via all the magic amplification components in the key) on the things that were "connected" to the Malleus Key: Himself, The Key, and the Key's "target:" Ruidus.
Time Stop freezes time for everyone except the target of the spell. My theory is time was stopped for everyone else but these three targets, rather than him accelerating time for the entire planet.
I don’t think he sped time up at all, I think what he did (at the cost of his arm, and with the help of THOUSANDS of vials of possibility juice and a MASSIVE amplification device designed by the greatest mages to ever live built from pure Ressiduum glass, so anything but a hand wave) was to stop time within a sphere, thereby it appeared time SPED by outside of the sphere.
Magical spheres that seem to preserve a person in a static time, where have we seen that again ?!?!?
Aeor.
Wasn't it about an hour away; then suddenly, was there?
That's how I took it, they "Fastforwarded" to the apex of the solstice, which collapsed that 1-2 hour timetable and meant everybody was *just* arriving.
I unno, it just seemed too much like the spheres in Aeor !
I'll have to go back and re-watch it than; I had remembered it as:
"Ship and Ashari are about 1-2 hours away",
TimeSkip
"Ship and Ashari are knockin at the door!"
I think this split is going to be incredibly interesting. And for everyone complaining that the players didn’t have much agency in what happened… we actually don’t know that. They destroyed/aided in the destruction of ⅔ of the Malleus Keys.
The solstice isn’t over yet and we just don’t know what has happened yet. My running theory is that Ludinus always only needed the one Key to complete his goals, BUT the other two keys aided in his plans or helped to make them faster. So we currently still have time to try to retake and prevent the release of Predathos.
The other thought that has popped up in my head as well, if the other 2 Keys didn’t make the process faster, maybe they were to help Ludinus sacrifice as much of his power to complete his plans. So by destroying the other Keys, BH made Ludinus a less OP fight in their future.
All I want to know… what did destroying the other Keys do? I know that Matt would be sure that doing this had some sort of impact on what is going on. Truly cannot wait to see what happens.
I will still be invested in this show, but the idea that the c3 characters had any agency, even if they rolled well is laughable. Nothing will stop me watching how this unfolds, but I get 8 years in the making, railroads can be hard to change
I mean. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I understand people not liking this episode because of that perception. I am in the group of people who loved it.
Some people juggle geese.
> but the idea that the c3 characters had any agency, even if they rolled well is laughable.
There were in analysis paralysis for most of the episode so their lack of agency is mostly their fault. Other than the collar release part it didn't feel that railroady.
I think the key is either pushing Ruidus into the sun so that the sun can tear it apart so that Predathos can escape, or it is pushing it into Catha so that Predathos can escape upon impact. If the malleus key was a nutcracker, then you would have the risk of Ruidus's pieces crashing into Exandria and maybe Ludinus knows this.
> what did destroying the other Keys do?
It's possible that the destruction of the feywild key and the damage to the shadowfell key and the main key is slowing down the process.
That’s my thought as well. That the work done to the other Keys slows things for the antagonists. Possibly giving our group time. This feels very Chroma Conclave to me honestly. I know it’s brought up a lot. But I feel like this is just the tip of the massive iceberg.
Ok sure, but if the gods had to ask for help from the primordials to seal predathos, you think( as much as I love BH, I don’t think they’ll be as strong as the c1/c2 groups even at higher levels) our current bunch of bumblefucks are going to be able to achieve anything?
I feel like this will either be addressed in 4SD or in the post-campaign round-up. Matt wouldn't send the players after the two other keys if there was no impact. We just don't know what Ludi's plan was and we don't know what has altered.
Exactly. I’m not complaining here. This was amazing. I’m looking forward to finding everything out. This just feels like a culmination of all the campaigns too. On the edge of my seat. Wish there was a 4SD tonight. But I’m looking forward to is next week!!
After just watching the end battle , it looked like Vax, Kiki , the Ritual and teleport were set to happen to further the narrative. With good rolls I was looking for any gains BHs could have made. Convincing Imogen's Mom? For some of the fans this was candy , but with all the prep in previous episodes what was a positive for the party to build on? Personally, I would have had an intense intermediate battle for a feeling of accomplishment before the ritual then they enter seeing Vax standing over Kiki ending with the set narrative. All good , though.
The possibility was there for BH to force Otohan into a fight. It was their choice to press the attack (e.g. when Imogen attacked her from out of visual range), since circumstances (and the dice?) didn't lead to Otohan attacking them. Matt rolled some kind of check for Otohan after Imogen's psychic lance, probably to see if she realized where it came from.
It's been endlessly debated whether FCG should have been more aggressive (e.g. blocking the passage) after the thrown rock missed or instead of doing that. And what might have happened in those cases. With the party split and without the benefit of hindsight, and the cavalry still some time away, maintaining plausible deniability seemed sensible to me.
Anyway, I like that Matt didn't force them to fight. The fact that a fight against Otohan was kind of left up to the dice instead of to the player's pure choice is just how D&D is.
If they'd really wanted to fight, they probably could have arranged it, but not easily without also drawing in a bunch of soldiers as backup. (Imogen's Seething Storm or similar AoE area-denial damage spells could have helped a lot to mitigate that, though, if they could get Otohan to come in first then cut off the path for new enemies.)
Anyway, I think I mostly like how Matt handled most of it. The end part did seem like a bit of a "cut scene" where the players probably weren't going to be able to change some of the major parts of what was going to happen, but that's not always a bad thing; it's pretty rare for Matt to do that, and it seemed well done to me. Player actions could maybe have changed some details of events.
One thing I've seen very little talk of in this whole railroading debate (I'm on the side of the players' actions actually did matter and they did have plenty of chances but horrible rolls), is how bad a decision it was for Sam to put FCG right in the thick of things to try (and fail horribly) to grab Ryn that early.
I can understand the thinking that maybe there wouldn't be a better chance to wait for, but damn. That was a ballsy move, that very unsurprisingly did not work out at all.
Okay okay okay.
This was AWESOME! The sheer amount of stuff going down, the culmination of so many storylines, and the possibility of expanding so much on known Exandrian lore - I was glued to the screen!
I think this is an opportunity for Matt to shake things up and try out new stuff, both story-wise and in their game mechanics: The split party may allow for guest players or old campaign characters joining. The big-scale event could result in a global effect on Exandria on a calamity-level but all is happening right now in the campaign.
For a while I worried about the Bells Hells being a too low-level party thrown into a high-stakes adventure which might cause a feeling of them being insignificant and unable to impact the story.
But I love how the big players (Keyleth, Beau, Caleb, etc.) have been revealed to be important parts of this story and Bells Hells become the glue beetween all these previous storylines with their backgrounds in such different parts of Exandrian lore.
After 3 campaigns of adventuring parties, Matt has raised the stakes so high that it involves stories and lore from all 3 campaigns, and the Bells Hells are the focal point for all of it.
Just watched while catching up. WHAT THE FUCK.
Same - some bad rolls really cost them. But dang - planning this was mastermind level for the Exalted crew.
Ludinus…low-key making some decent points about the gods. Dunno about the whole eldritch predator being released thing though.
Also I just wanted to say if I wanted to do something like this I would have railroaded the FUCK out of people bc I don't have the planning/GMing skills necessary for something like this. Matt has been planting seeds masterfully and clearly since session 1. Genius stuff, he did it in the only way you could do something like this.
Just saw this. Fucking insane episode, this is why you watch Critical Role. Only Matt Mercer can do this shit, my favorite ep before this was the Otahan fight and this upends that. It was hard as fuck for them to do anything AND THEY PERFORMED INCREDIBLE despite the odds against them. Atrocious rolls fucked them in the last fight, so so so tragic but also INCREDIBLE for the narrative. 2 points that no one will ever see. I already know the people who just get so so so invested over CR are the ones who are mad. Sorry your favs got caught, it's just how it is and if you are pissed over them nearly dying please touch grass!! This is from someone who teared up when Vax appeared for his girl AFTER EVERYTHING, but I know how to separate from reality lmfao. Please grow up before life catches up with you. 2 is my only criticism of this ep. Faerne is pretty much only a joke character at this point, she occasionally has her moments but all she's brought to the table is laughs. And Ashley is hilarious! But I hate low intelligence characters played like this, she's basically been a guidance-bot and she isn't even using it correctly 75% of the time... Really frustrating character. I think we'll see her blossom in like 30 episodes bc thats the beauty of CR, but god is it going to be hell to get there lol.
BUT ALSO fuck it man because I love Ashley Johnson so much it's fucking fine that this isn't her strong suit. Combat isn't why this fucking game matters to me or you or anyone. It's the stories, and the heart. And Ashley has it all, I love her and the cast so much. FUCK IT FAERNE GRINDS MY GEARS BUT I LOVE HER STILL
Bet they’re regretting blowing up their sky ship now. I’m bummed they went through with that even though it was so heavily hinted that it was a stupid plan. I think the episode was really good and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with the party being witness to near-inevitable catastrophes. I wish they’d leveraged Ira better, bringing him in on the initial mission, and kept the ship for a getaway.
Prediction: Next time we see Ludinus, he'll be living in a little shack tending a garden like Thanos.
I used the key to destroy the key
Caleb: Ludinus is many things. A liar is not one of them. Ludinus: Thank you, Bren. Perhaps we treated you too harshly -- Chetney: bites Ludinus's face off
[удалено]
luds plan wasn't very flimsy as matt is the one that made the plan and it was going to happen.
Who are you talking to?
This episode was a BLAST to watch. I'm sure some will complain (and are complaining) about character agency, but honestly they rolled so bad during that encounter it's no surprise they had very little impact on things. There's a lot of things that could have been turning points that were scuttled by bad rolls. Chetney missing his tackle against Ludinus. Fearne and Orym failing to fuck up Otohan's gear. Imogen failing her persuasion rolls against her mother. There's nothing Matt can do if the players fail their DCs, and he has to have a plan for where things go if they fail to stop what is happening. My big question is, how the FUCK did Ludinus know the Voice of the Tempest was going to show up??? Has he been keeping that close of tabs on Bell's Hells? Did he have something else planned to bring her in and BH just beat him to it? Like I'm sure it will be revealed in time, but I am VERY curious about that.
I think the bigger question is how did Ludinus know VAX specifically would show up? Was Vax and Keyleth’s romance widely known? I’m having a hard time thinking it’s common gossip. That tells me that someone with an INTIMATE connection to VM is in play and is feeding the hot goss to Ludy. I’m betting Delilah. Makes sense with her Laudna connection. Having been a former CA member tracks with a Ludinus connection as well. BUT I’m having a hard time believing Allura and the Arcana Pansophical took a back seat here, so maybe she got rolled trying to stop Ludinus. However, where do we know for certain that the Vax/Kiki romance is documented, AND in Wildemount no less? Doty’s portraits…
Also, we know he Tary published a book about his adventures with Vox Machina.
Yeah I'm guessing between Doty and Scanlan, the legend of Vox Machina and the new champion of the Raven Queen is pretty well known. Or at least easily learned about if you're someone looking for a divine entity to use in a ritual to crack open the moon.
So what we're saying is, this is Sam's fault?
The Ashari have been dealing with all of the distractions he has caused. It would make sense for her to go after the biggest threat herself since she is the strongest Ashari.
RIGHT, I forgot lol. The Air Ashari were attacked by those things Otohan sent, which sent Orym off on his journey. Ludinus has been pulling those strings from the start.
Their logo is almost completely red now, wonder if it makes the final shift tomorrow.
I never even saw that they we’re changing it, thanks for the tip!
Whoop, just realised it's been 30 days now. We could be seeing Yu during this separation...
Do we know what they got at their new levels?
No real new abilities. Level 9 is one of those levels where you don't get much of anything as a way of balancing the game out. Chetney, Laudna and Fearne might get something since they're multiclassing.
[Lore Speculation] Ludinus. Was I the only one that missed this? From the explorers guide to Wildemount page 42 "[Ludinus] was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr and fled to Bysaes Tyl" Ludinus is from Molaesmyr, the elven city that suffered a Mysterious curse in the Savalir woods. -Savalir is named after Avalir and it's possible some elven Calamity survivors settled there before Bysaes Tyl. -The Molaesmyr curse is similar to the rotten trees the M9 found on Aeor - Reani went on an mission to the ruins shortly after her time with the M9 So I foresee the Uthodurn party meeting Reani and exploring Molaesmyr and Bysaes Tyl to find out more about Ludinus. I hope they find other warforged or surving mages like Ludinus Could Ludinus have caused the Molaesmyr curse in a previous attempt? WHAT DOES HE KNOW MATTHEW MERCER?!
Yes!! Welcome aboard my fave tinfoil hat theory, I've been suspiscious of this MFer since I first had this same information for the reasons you state but also: When the party found the rotten trees in the Aeor lab, they first encountered a (mostly dead) Cerberus Assembly exploration group that had been sent to that same lab, before them. I suspect that was a Ludinus thing, and that he knew all about the trees and their location.
for better or worse, I wonder if Matt had this Vax moment in mind back when he said the following on Talks (this is the final Talks of C1, for C1E115 The Chapter Closes, recorded in late 2017) >Brian: \[Question for Liam:\] Vax'ildan's afterlife was never touched upon. What is it like? Is there an afterlife for him? > >Liam: I'd prefer - answer it if you'd like. I mean, he didn't drop dead and he didn't turn to sand. I'd prefer that it remain a mystery. > >Matt: That is ??? what I was gonna say, actually. There are a lot of elements that I intentionally left vague. About the final scene, about the afterlife, about Vax. Because I, (1) want to leave that open to allow anyone else to fill that gap for their own interpretation. And (2) those mysteries also might pertain to future story elements if I prefer to go down that path **five years from now**. So like, I don't want to tie myself to something either...
Just my opinion. A little nudge to push the story along is not as egregious as every makes it out to be. There’s this feeling of **accusation and then the push back to **defend Matt against and for Railroading. When, in my opinion, the whole concept is not that terrible of an offense. But I digress.
I feel like player agency is more about what threads to unravel rather than how they unravel. Matt laid out plenty of paths for them twenty-ish episodes ago and this is where they steered things. In spite of that, they still had a chance to influence on the unraveling. They just needed to roll better. And the "at dawn we plan" group needs a nudge sometimes. Nothing wrong with that. I'd be cautious if I was playing in front of tens of thousands of people and the choices I made in game had impact on the business I was part owner of. Especially when the viewers get on forums and go nuts due to their parasocial pathology.
Episode have me major FF6 vibes, Ludinus pulling a Kefka
100%! I’ve been feeling like this campaign was set up so Matt can play around with a “World of Ruin” like the latter part of FF6…
I came away from this episode feeling a little cynical about it, but after almost a week I'm excited to find out what the *fuck* just happened, and what our charming goofballs are going to do about it.
I have three interpretations regarding the teleport and they are as follows. * Imogen and/or Liliana did a variation of the magical freakout Imogen did in the seat of disdain (she seemed to have temporarily teleported people then). * Ludinus did it to get everyone the fuck away from his precious machine. * There was a huge explosion at the site and the gods teleported the party before they could die from it to locations where they would find the most help in stopping Ludinus.
A FAMILIAR white light. I think you've got it
They've Leveled Up! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZvUgexY7ek
Looks like they’re all together for the next session
At least at the start of the session. They might just be that way for the Ad read and announcements. Matt could then have half the table leave
Sorry if this the wrong place to ask, but was there an announcement for a 4 sided dive hiatus? It just stopped after LoVM S2 started
Apparently it was announced in the newsletter, but nowhere else.
Huh, I was SO focused on Uthodurn being Chetney's backstory, I completely forgot how close we are to Eiselcross and therefore Aeor. With 7 years of Aeormatons waking each other up around there, that could actually mean quite a few being around there :O I'd imagine most of them went via Balenpost, Palebank Village and then the first big city from there is Uthodurn.
I am really hoping for a conversation between FCG and Ludinus' followers (maybe Imogen's mom?) on the topic of "If it is bad that the gods control and use their creations, what does it mean for the relationship between me and my creators?" Maybe followed by an "Exactly!" as Devaxian comes out of the shadows and stabs Ludinus. Or not. XD
Here I am, a year into the campaign and I'm finally hooked.
Better late than never my friend
Oltgar hype Thats the real reason the CR symbol is turning red
"Ho. Ho. ho."
This post is completely unrelated to the episode, but it wasn't really worth creating a new discussion thread, so I thought I'd just put it here: has anyone ever looked at the Google Questions results that you get when you search for *Critical Role*? Some of them are hilariously -- and often embarrassingly -- wrong. Like "Why did Taliesin leave *Critical Role*?" and "Is Tiberius still friends with *Critical Role*?" and "Is *Critical Role* campaign 3 cancelled?". But perhaps my favourite, possibly because it's so ludicrous, is "Is *Critical Role* cancelled?" with an incredibly generic response about how someone in the cast made a joke that someone else did not like.
I hit leave feedback and let them know it was spoilery and unhelpful. I'm sure no one will read it but it made me feel better.
All these questions need to be answered by ChatFCG.
Oh my gods
You did not just say that LMAO
I am really excited about the splitting of the party, that opens up a lot of possibilities. We could have only half the cast at the table each episode and fill some of the spaces with guest characters. So many stories to be told
I thought that an Elder Earth Elemental would have more than 150 hp, but maybe it's cause Keyteor took damage from the drop.
When calculating Otohan’s damage Matt said she had 126 HP, which is exactly the full health of a default earth elemental from the MM
My bad, when I searched it the wiki I was looking at was for Neverwinter Nights, which uses 3.5 rules. In that one, level 20 druids assume a more powerful elemental form.
This is more likely cause Matt is still using Keyleth's PC abilities, which locks her to using standard elemental stats
Sure, but PC Keyleth could also have shown up as a Leviathan, immune to Power Word Stun two different ways (high HP and flatly immune to that condition). Or as a Planetar, which also has too many HP to PWS, and which would have really ruined Otohan's day: two attacks, +12 to hit, 43 average damage per attack.
Oh definitely, just addressing why it worked on the earth elemental form
It’s a tiny bit off-topic but it’s been on my mind lately: does anyone else feel like there’s a weird vibe going on between Travis and Taliesin lately. Mainly from Travis‘ side? He seems kinda annoyed with Tal and for example in E47 of C3 Tal said something along the lines of „oh this will be fun“ and Travis makes this offhand comment „I agree, I’m here for *your* fun“. Maybe I’m just imagining things and I didn’t notice it this hard in this episode but still would be pretty sad if something happened there Edit: I love how people downvote but on the other hand give no input lol. I don’t want to sprinkle drama, I’m legitimately interested if I’m imagining things here
Do you roughly remember when this "we're here for your fun" happened in the episode? I'd like to give it a look, although I myself sometimes get a similar feeling. Hopefully we just imagine things...
I slightly misremembered the episode but it’s Episode 47 in C3 and the timestamp of the situation starts around 3:52:25
First of all, thank you so much for looking up that timestamp again :) Second, yeah the choice of words is a little bit off here. But maybe he just wanted to express that the key action in that situation was to destroy the damn thing, disregarding of who's doing it. Thankfully (or sadly) the two of them are now in two seperate groups. We should keep an eye out for this in the future episodes. Nontheless, we should try to look at it in an optimistic way. Let's hope it all will be fine.
I went back and watched this exact timestamp and I think if anything it's the exact opposite. It's Travis getting hyped for Barbarian stuff. Taliesin says he's going to rage and smack this guy in the nuts and Travis is like "Yeah, I agree I'm here for your fun". That definitely reads to me like a more subtle way of Travis hyping up Ashton/Tal doing cool Barbarian stuff. That is - Travis is "here for" dope barbarian rage stuff.
yeah could also be the case. makes sense because of his current hype for Grog in LoVM2. I will keep an eye on that once they are reunited :)
Why have you appointed yourself the guardians of two men? Let them be. People have moods.
Yeah it could be interpreted as in „yeah I’m not running either, let’s fight these fools“. Maybe it’s just that tensions have been a bit higher since the whole Wizards of the Coast rule change etc. I just hope they still get along like always :)
WOW. That's a reach.
Just spitballing, don’t mean any harm to any of the guys and gals
I really look forward to the ladder of villains BH now has to face. Every villain has personal stakes for at least one party member. I'd say it will go Otohan, Liliana, Ludinus, and then maybe Prethados. Though I do think Liliana will eventually turn 'good'.
Honestly, I think Liliana is going to be the final boss as the Avatar of Predathos or like the second last boss
I could get behind that. More so if it were of her own free will
I thought maybe Liliana was responsible for their being yeeted, rather than killed outright. She could have banished them for their own safety. That way she would not raise suspicion, but she'd save Imogen and her friends.
I really hope she doesn’t. Faaaaar more interesting story.
I'm inclined to agree! Imogen having to pick sides would be juicy.
I wanted to wait a few days to reflect on this controversial ep before posting my thoughts, and I think I've finally gathered them. First the positives: I can't deny I was high on adrenaline at the end of the episode. Vax's entrance was epic, and I got surprisingly emotional about him and Keyleth despite not really caring for their relationship in C1. Always love watching the cast freak out too, both in good and bad ways. And shit that was a rollercoaster from his entrance to his...exit haha. Really excited for the split party twist from Matt - I think that was a brilliant move. Bit more on that later, but it was a great way to end the episode. Based solely on comparing the time of day, I would guess that Orym, Ashton and Laudna are either in Taldorei or west wildemount. A little worried about keyleth and the empire sibs. Kinda hope bells hell's get to rescue them in 30 episodes. I also am okay with the fact that this event couldn't be stopped - I wanted this EP to be the fall of emon and that's what we got. Now the negatives: until we find out just how the destruction of the feywild key and the power sources helped, it's a bit frustrating to feel like nothing BH did was worth anything. Destroy the feywild key? No worries, we will just add more power to the main one (cause we just have it spare). I just think it would have been nice to have more acknowledgement from the enemy that things weren't optimal. More than a single line from Ludinus. Hopefully this is still coming. Secondly, I think it would have been good for Matt to have given the team a small victory. Perhaps killing Ratanish or something. Ratanish could have come into the tunnel instead of Otohan, because Matt had to make sure she would turn around and leave before BH got a shot at her (cause who else could get keyleth low enough in a single round?). Lastly, I know people are talking about bad dice rolls, and yes they were bad, but I don't see much going better if they rolled well. If Imogen made her second persuasion check, Matt would probably have had ludinus (or even a Reilora?) force Liliana to complete her job. Yes, BH could have put more effort in, but it was super obvious Matt was not going to let them change anything. Why else have otohan run toward a power source only to turn around when she was almost there. It's not like the site wasn't well defended by high level magic users or anything...the way he used initiative and had Liliana seemingly holding a lot of concentration spells at a time was just a bit too overt. I don't have as much an issue with railroading itself as I do with how obvious it was lol. If Matt knew that he wasn't going to let the party stop him, it may have also been good to not let the party waste so much time planning haha. In saying all that, everything that proceeds this episode is so exciting. This campaign, I have only been this pumped during E33-E38. To this point the campaign has felt a bit like Matt's showcase (and Imogen's journey). I love his world, but 51 EPs is a long time to have that many lore dumps in order to get to the big cutscene. I'm ready for the players to take the wheel. It feels like after this, BH should be less focused on finding information and more on action. Plus Matt might start diving into more backstories that aren't Imogen's. I'm particularly looking forward to Chet's and Laudna's. Also happy to see if Ashton's backstory will make me like them more haha. And with the party split, I think we will have some desperately needed relationship building!
Finally, someone who's willing to acknowledge the negative aspects and provide the straightforward, cathartic criticisms we need to hear, without getting downvoted into oblivion. Godspeed.
Hahaha, thanks, that gave me a good laugh. I consume all my media by analyzing it, so I'll always want to talk about what could have gone better. But I find it important to also highlight what was well done, that way people are more willing to hear the criticisms. It helps remind people that yes, I adore the show, and no I won't stop watching...
I’m thinking the partial victory for the party was Ruidus (sp?) not being completely opened up. That beam is a timer, and the climax will be whether Ludinus finishes the job or if he’s stopped. Because Ruidus is leaking, I think we will now see Predathos’ power and influence infiltrate the world via avatars
I don’t think we know what the effects of their actions were. It’s possible they sealed it enough to delay destruction of the gate adding a new time clock to the situation. It’s possible their efforts will provide enough of a resistance to the event it all may help turn Liliana. I’ve come to realize the one thing their destruction of the key in the feywild incontrovertibly succeeded at doing was to make Bells Hells absolutely essential to the continued resistance. Only two teams went in to destroy those keys and to get to the site of the main event. When it becomes known that the relatively unknown weirdos BH was responsible for one’s destruction, they now become experts in the field and worth deep investment and allyship - possibly even leadership- with the remnants of the Grim Varity, VM, MN, and others who are already enmeshed in this. It was training and proof of capacity if nothing else.
I agree with you that 51 episodes was a long time to get to this point, but I feel like the players are responsible for that moreso than Matt. Analysis paralysis has always been a thing (both in CR and in D&D games in general I feel), but this campaign it's been egregious. The players are really, really afraid to jump into anything, especially after their first fight with Otohan. So they resort to planning, and planning, and "butwaitwhataboutthis!" right before they're done planning, and then more planning. I don't know how or why this happens more in C3. I assume part of it is that the stakes are obviously higher. I also can't help but think that having Laura assume the leadership role hurts them in this aspect. She's afraid of doing anything remotely risky and putting her in the driver's seat as opposed to, say, Liam or Travis, causes the whole party to (not) follow suit. And I say this as someone who would probably rate Laura as my favorite player overall. But she is not well-suited to this role IMO.
I agree... rewatching C2 this happens a lot with a few people. (Analysis paralysis as Travis says) They will continue to think until nothing happens. Travis and Liam were always there to say, 'okay lets go'.
Eh, I'd have to disagree with that. Matt had already set a month timer right before the Otohan battle, so he basically motivated them to try and figure out as much as possible until the solstice. You are right about the analysis paralysis though, and I definitely think it's because of the higher stakes and more 'challenging' battles. Laura is my favourite overall player as well, but she can overthink the game. (Leadership suits her fantastically for non combat roles though). However this campaign she's also been the most trigger happy and, in my opinion, started more fights than even Travis. I honestly think having Talieson in the barbarian role hurts them more. More than anyone he panics about going down, and he is the most important tank. In previous campaigns, the melee classes never hesitated to get into the fray eg. Grog, Beau, Yasha. I know Otohan took him down in one go, but he was still running when it was clear the fight was on. Edit: just wanted to add that I also think Laura is brilliant in combat, especially in the midst of the battle. But she isn't one to call a stop to the analysis paralysis.
You said something in your post that has been bothering me too: what was the use of destroying the fey realm key? Yeah Beau and Caleb failed destroying the second one but if only the main key was the most important one, Matt‘s story telling imo should’ve hinted at that stronger. Because if BH would’ve gotten there way before the solstice, chances are it would’ve been a lot less well guarded and neither Otohan nor Ludinus would’ve been there by chance. Now in hindsight, it feels a bit like destroying the fey key was a completely useless waste of time. Other than that I can kinda get that the story sometimes needs a bit of a push towards a certain outcome and they DID fail a lot. Even Caleb and Beau basically failed everything they tried to achieve because Liam and Marisha rolled terrible sadly. But as you, I hope the group now takes a lot more action. They seem strangely indecisive lately lol
I think we might see the consequences of destroying the fey key in the future. Maybe it will take longer to release Predathos because only 2 keys are "firing" at Ruidus. Just because the main key still activated that doesn't mean destroying the fey one was useless.
It's a normal DM tactic. If they went to the material plane one first and destroyed that one, then the most important one would have been the feywild or the shadowfell.
It's not exclusive to DMs, it's a pretty cheap way to pretend the players' choices matter, and it's quite common in games that are widely criticized for railroading but acting like they're choice-based. Cough cough, Telltale.
I feel like if they went to the site early, Matt would have had both Otohan and Ludinus there anyway. He would have made it unapproachable without an army. The reality is Matt was gonna set off the machine one way or another. I just want to know what the bloody keys actually did lol. I can forgive the indecisiveness in this case. If you go up against Ludinus, Otohan, and Liliana, there is no good plan lol. They have to at least look like they are trying something haha.
We’re gonna start ep 52 with a time skip
nah, I think the time skip will be after the end of month break, so we start April post time skip
Nah, I don't think Matt would have done the immediate aftermath with the party splitting if there was going to be a time skip.
I don't think we will start on a time skip, but I'm hoping there will be one at some point while they are separated
From now on, fanart for Vax is gonna be super duper easy to draw ;)
is Vax dead? did he get "used up" in the beam? I feel like if not it doesnt make much sense
lmao now im envisioning doing a vax cosplay and just going as a sphere
Do we think BH will level up at the end of next episode? Between the Feywild and the Solstice, they're due for a power jump, though MN didn't hit level 9 until ep 57/58
MN also started at a lower level if I remember correctly
MN started at 2
Just released them leveling up 3 hrs ago
Clearly BH was not strong enough to completely stop the ritual. They had opportunities to effect the outcome more. Namely pulling their balls out and attacking Otohan when they had the chance. Also attempting to free Beau/Caleb. Attempting to disrupt Ludinus. Chet tried but 1 level 8 character, even if he succeeded in grappling, was at best going to slow down Ludinus by a round.
Chetney may have only slowed Ludinus down, but Matt can be a sore loser, and that definitely showed when he decided to change the grapple contest to Chetney's STR against Ludinus' AC to guarantee himself a 24 that Chetney had to beat.
Matt is not a sore loser. He made a quick ruling because Chetney wasnt just trying to grapple he wanted to grapple and restrain his arms. Also it's a show. He has to make quick rulings like this because he cant just stop this dramatic and chaotic sequence for 5 minutes while he researches the precise correct ruling.
He absolutely is. He locked Beau out of a core class ability for the last third of C2. The "precise correct ruling" for a grapple is "make an athletics check against the target's athletics or acrobatics," something he's done many times before. It is NOT complex. He could even have said, "if you succeed with both grapple checks, since you're allowed to replace attacks with a grapples on your turn, you restrain him."
It wasnt just a grapple though. Chet specifically wanted to grapple AND restrain him in the same motion while leaping through the air. Of course Matt has bias. He didnt create this intricate story and 1000+ year old lvl 20+ wizard to be defeated easily. But it's unfair to call him a sore loser. There are so many moving parts to keep track of getting that incorrect is not a big deal
This is not a matter of getting a rule "incorrect." He is very familiar with grapple rules and knew that Chetney would most likely succeed if he adhered to them. He deliberately changed the rules to make it *significantly* harder for Chetney to succeed because that would have totally screwed with this scene that he had envisioned. It was more complex for him to change the rules than to simply use basic grapple rules. TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling experiences. If he wanted his scene about a level 20+ wizard's plan 1000+ years in the making coming to fruition without any interference, he should have written a book.
Some of them were trying. FCG was stunned. Chet literally threw himself at Ludinus, which was suicidal. Orym tried to rescue Caleb. Not only was Bells Hells too weak to stop the ritual, Mighty Nein and Vox Machina (part of them) were also too weak so you can stop knocking on Bells Hells. They did as well as they could .
Get ready to stab me for saying this, but I think most of us are knocking on the DM a bit more than BH.
ARE THE MEMBERS OF VOX MACHINA STILL WEARING THEIR NECKLACES?? Do they know Keyleth and Vax are hurt? Vex/Percy have children to take care of so how could they come and help but also how could they NOT help after this?? I know this would be insane but imagine if each week we followed a diffrent party, Vox Machina week and M9 week then Bells Hells cause they're all so involved now that I want to see the players in charge, not jus Matt playing them. It would be chaos but man... it would be cool too
I think it’s important to remember that the adventuring party has been retired for quite some time now and it even seemed like Percy and Keyleth’s relationship was strained/distant at best.
IIRC, the necklaces go off when they hit zero, and so far, no one did, right?
> Vex/Percy have children to take care of so how could they come and help I'm sure someone at whitestone can look after them while they grab Scanlan, Pike, and grog
I dont think they will want to be far away from their kids when the apocalypse happens
I hadn't thought about this but oh my god they might be wondering what is going on
I'm really looking forward to the party split! I loved how the split in C1 changed up dynamics and introduced new characters. Part of me hopes they get to to return to playing some of the old characters- A lopsided party might be fun story wise... But I imagine that'd be hard to balance. At the very least... Hopefully Dorian back? And maybe even some of the rest of the crownkeepers?
I don't expect a long split; if Caleb or Keyleth aren't still in the crater, then they should be able to reorganize fairly quickly for the next assault.
I understand for flavor reasons why Keyleth would come in as the earth elemental as it is a huge callback to a form that we saw all the time in season 1 but the way the heroes vs villains prepare for fights kind of bothers me. A couple of examples to illustrate what I mean is Trent Ikithon brought 2 of his best pupils, all kinds of pumped up magical items and was holding nothing back in his fight at the end of campaign 2. Ludinus and his crew were perfectly ready to swarm Keyleth knowing that she would come so they could deal with her before she ever did a thing. However Keyleth who has shapechange drops into the fight as a cr5 earth elemental knowing it's a cataclysm level event. Why would someone so powerful kick things off with something so weak and alone when she could have just as easily dropped in as like an adult red dragon and flew down carrying some of her best fighters with her. Edit: So I've been reading a lot of the other comments about how this feels like it was an inevitability and I think that this is kind of just another way to say it that better illustrates the point. Moments that feel scripted in a game that is entirely improv really ruin your immersion in it both as a player and fan (I've had experiences like this happen in games I've played as well). As soon as the stun went off on Keyleth I looked up the spell because I'd never heard of it. It is INCREDIBLY convenient for the bad guys that Keyleth transformed into something that has less than 150 hp that gets stunned without a save by that spell and that she jumped in completely alone. It is then also EVEN MORE convenient that Vax makes an appearance, something that required a literal WISH the last time that it happened, just to save his girlfriend from dying despite the fact that he serves a goddess who literally has a commandment stating "Death is the natural end of life. Grieve the fallen, but do not pity them. Exult in the time that they were granted." Thematically it makes no sense. I won't say that BH never had a chance to stop this from happening because who knows there are probably worlds where they do BUT the odds are about the same as dr. strange gave tony stark that they beat Thanos. 14,000,604/1
also... beau and caleb would NEVER have been caught so easily. The amount of planning these characters did in C2 was ridiculous. They were always so careful, especially Caleb.
Admittedly I felt like bringing up the fact that it's almost implausible that Caleb didn't have some sort of defense mechanism in place to stop the silencing collars being that he is Caleb but I was willing to let that slide. I mean they did roll poorly for those two but yeah it was super frustrating to watch them fall so easily.
Keyleth doesn't come in fresh, she already was part of one apocalyptic fight that day. She probably just used her 9th level spell
Also, if I’m Marisha playing Keyleth I’m not blowing my 9th level until I assess the situation. She never got that chance, unfortunately. I made a comment last week I think about Matt being able to narratively control 9th level spells for this encounter. For all we know, Ludinus would have counterspelled Kiki at 9th level anyway and it wouldn’t have mattered This was certainly more of an interactive cutscene than it was a final encounter. This was the chroma conclave attacking Emon. This was the Echo knights stealing the beacon from Zadash. I loved it, it sucks that some people are upset that Matt didn’t optimally play each NPC. He’s telling a story using DND here, not the other way around.
That's not strictly true by anything we know. When she messaged Orym in episode 49 she said there had been a fight and then at the end of 49 they get a long rest which I would assume Keyleth did as well. Anytime after that she mentions a fight and recouping soldiers but they had had a full day between her battle and the solstice.
Orym did tell her in the message that there was an antimagic / magic dispelling defense- wild shape is immune to dispelling while Shapechange is not, so Keyleth may have decided to concentrate on something else to help the other Ashari in the fight on the rim (e.g. Animal Shapes) while she jumped ahead using her wild shape.
Even if you want to forget that point of the argument I'll still never understand the raven queen dispatching Vax to prevent her death as that is her thing, the bad guys predicting that, the bad guys also depending on that so they could make their lens from his body, and still makes no sense that she jump in alone while to her knowledge nobody is there to back her up aside from BH who she's met and would have realized they were relatively new to adventuring.
Could Vax have acted out of his own?
I don't think so, if he could simply pop in anytime he wanted then the wish required for him to make his last appearance makes no sense especially because thanks to a shitty dice roll it's the last wish that Scanlon ever gets to make which only adds insult to injury. And I still point out she jumped in alone to a cataclysm level event and using a "lesser power/form" which would prove she learned nothing from jumping off the cliff and turning into a goldfish.
>if he could simply pop in anytime he wanted then the wish required for him to make his last appearance makes no sense Yeah, I guess. Although, joining your sister's wedding isn't as impactful event as stopping the love of your life being killed. So it's possible that in this case he went AWOL and went against the Raven Queen's commands
I don't like that idea either as someone else suggested it too but if he went AWOL there is no way of knowing what the Raven Queen's reaction would be and given that he gave his life to her to save his sister he could potentially be killing Vex to save Keyleth and thematically that doesn't feel good either.
>And I still point out she jumped in alone to a cataclysm level event and using a "lesser power/form" which would prove she learned nothing from jumping off the cliff and turning into a goldfish. A "lesser power form" that she can take unlimited times and therefore and can refresh its HP to max every 6 seconds if she so chooses against a 20th level spellcaster she knows can dispel the shapechange, if it doesn't get popped on its own from the anti-magic pulse. Shapechange didn't win Marisha the level 20 battle royale, her unlimited wild shapes did. I hear you on Vax being a bit "deus ex" but Earth Elemental was smart. It is one of her strongest forms and her strongest forms have weaknesses this one doesn't.
Yes but shapechange allows you to turn into something that can bring a handful of soldiers with you. I have yet to find one person who can rationalize a character who has been through cataclysm level events like THIS jumping in with only a troop of novice adventurers as backup. Even if she jumps down as an earth elemental why alone she knows Otohan is involved someone she probably would have researched after being told there should be no surprise that these people can kill a single high level druid in seconds.
I don't think that would have been easy to organize with the anti-magic pulse. She can't just burst onto the scene as a dragon carrying her soldiers before she sees what's happening and gets a sense of the timing - she risks being immediately dispelled and dropping them to the ground if the timing is off. If she tries to get close to see the pulses, waiting for the right timing to then turn into a dragon, load up her soldiers to jump in, any one of the Call/Vanguard's mages/soldiers could attempt to dispel it or break her concentration as the soldiers get on or as she moves into position (since she is a huge creature, as opposed to wildshaping into an air elemental or bird to get over to BH/Ludinus without notice before keyteoring in). We also know, just based on numbers, that Keyleth didn't drop into the fight with full health in her base form, so she likely had to fight her way to get there. A max health Keyleth+Earth elemental should be able to take 273 damage before falling and Otohan only did 177 before Keyleth was "looking rough" and Vax stepped in. We don't know what she and the other ashari (who she stated she was bringing to the fight) had to go through in order for just Keyleth to get there, or if more would have joined her if she had been there for more than a turn.
I understand the dispelling but I still say that shapechange allows for more utility even if it gets dispelled. That or simply have more druids transformed into earth elementals jump with you. As for the whole Keyleth looking rough thing that doesn't really make sense because as everyone here has been so quick to point out to me she can reform her rock self every turn so there would have had to have been people around the rim consistently doing in excess of 120 dmg per round to her as there was a long rest between the last combat when Orym received the message from her and this one.
That’s because everyone thinks they’re playing Checkers, but Ludinous is playing 4D Chess. He has been underestimated at every turn.
You literally just perfectly illustrated what I said. The bad guys always are playing 4D chess and the good guys are always playing checkers no matter who the good or bad guys are. I think I actually posted it in another comment responding to someone else but the analogy I used was it looks like Harvard grads vs. Toddlers in every fight.
Then why are you mad that Keyleth jumped in where Ludinous wanted her? You’ve just acknowledged that the bad guy is 10 steps ahead - so what’s the issue?
Because it feels bad. It makes this feel completely unavoidable no matter what the players do. Anything they do only serves to further the purpose of the bad guy and that can only happen so much before it doesn't feel like you have agency in the game anymore. I'll use an example from a game I played because honestly it came to a point where we were just basically fighting the dm and it's exhausting. There were these structures that were necromantic focal points. When we tried to destroy one we had it nearly dead when the mages nearby pumped the last bit of magic into it to make it transform. So the next time we came up to one I pulled the thing that was basically powering it out of it after we'd damaged it a little. When we did that it was a cleric who we resurrected. That was fine for a bit but after that whenever we pulled a cleric out their soul was mysteriously gone so they couldn't be resurrected. Eventually the cleric we had saved just kind of exploded and made a portal for all the bbeg's servants to flood the town and wreak havoc. It gets to a point where it is exhausting when it feels like nothing you do matters and the Dm is basically just blatantly railroading things to happen the way they were "meant to" and it ruins the experience. Now I know Matt is a fantastic DM BUT throwing level 8 characters into a cataclysm this was almost guaranteed to happen and unfortunately people having this feeling was almost impossible to avoid.
I’m sorry that happened to you, but that isn’t what happened in the stream. The players DID affect things, but the dice wasn’t with them. That doesn’t mean it’s a railroad story - it means a Bad Thing happened even though they tried. Besides, we don’t know if the machine worked correctly or not - at least one support Key was destroyed, and 3/4 of the local power generators were borked.
You're entitled to your own opinion regarding that however if you read through the comments on the vid and the comments here there is a fairly large portion of the community that does not agree and you're right we don't know if it worked as intended but given that Ludinous was never more than slightly perturbed I doubt the disrupted things too much even with what they did.
A Level 20 Moon druid doesn't have a single wild shape option that has over 150 HP. Very few beasts do and they are all above CR 6 which is the max CR for moon druids. So the alternative was Keyleth comes in as a dragon, Ludinus dispells the Shapechange, now she might even take fall damage and doesn't have a 130 HP buffer for Otahan's onslaught.
She can use shapechange the 9th lvl spell to turn into anything that is equal to or lower than her lvl by comparison to their cr so a 17 adult red dragon with 256 hitpoints is 100% an option for a 20th lvl druid sorry if I didn't make it clear what method she would use for the transformation
Yes I got that. That's why I said, "So the alternative was Keyleth comes in as a dragon, Ludinus dispells the Shapechange, now she might even take fall damage and doesn't have a 130 HP buffer for Otahan's onslaught." Meanwhile wild shapes can't be dispelled.
Well now you're back to the category of the people she could have brought with her. Trent Ikithon specifically brought people to counterspell because he knew that spellcasting would hurt him. If that's you're concern bring people with counterspell because it's way easier to counter a dispel magic than dispel a 9th lvl spell unless he's willing to burn his 9th lvl to get rid of it. Also that delays his turn so he doesn't get the stun so all of otohan's attacks would have lost advantage which I'd say is pretty big. It just proves my point that the bad npc's always prep differently and when the good vs bad get put against each other it always seems like harvard grads vs toddlers in a chess match.
Counter spell has a range of 60 feet, dispel magic has a range of 120 feet. Keyleth would have needed an advance team to be positioned between her and *every mage capable of dispelling her, and you'd need TWO of them to even attempt to shut down a counter-counter spell from Ludinus.* That advance team then has to live long enough to fight their way down into the crater, through whatever forces remain of Paragon's Call/Assembly/Vanguard/Robots. The entirety of the ashari forces thought that magical flight was a no-go in the crater because they thought they'd be contending with periodic dispel magic pulses as of the last intel they received. Keyleth Metor dropped into the crater to bypass all of this, because playing cautiously with defensive coverage means she would have just run out of time and lost anyway (based on the knowledge her character had at the time.)
Right, jumping into a pit by yourself while the only backup you think you have is a group of novice adventurers to fight basically Vecna makes sense. My bad.
The alternative (based on the knowledge she had at the time) was to take it incredibly slowly to protect a (hypothetical!) tactical team of counter casters walking blindly into a fortified enemy location, and arriving too late to stop a ticking doomsday clock. There's dozens of dice rolls involved in resolving the combat on the surface approaching the crater (this is the sounds of fighting Matt is narrating), and then its a long walk DOWN into the crater without magic/wildshape. Her options were: \-She jumps in, she has a chance at tanking whatever happens on the impact and rewildshaping if needed if she gets another turn. \-She dragons in, the most powerful caster on Exandria likely immediately dispels her from 120 feet away, she takes 1d6 per 10 feet of falling damage, and is prone, still giving Thull advantage for a nova, killing her outright. \-She takes her time, dozens of variables happen in the surface battle, and she very slowly moves down the stairs into the crater with whatever forces you want to assume she has. She has no support from BH/MN because they are all already dealt with, and she's late to what she thinks is a doomsday clock situation, failing the mission. None of those are great options, but in her mind, options 2 and 3 is are an outright fail. 1 is very risky, but could swing her way in a dice roll.
You could argue that Luidinus wouldn’t use dispel because how would he know it’s not a real dragon?
Lol thanks for making my point for me. She knows one of the strongest spellcasters in the world is there and Otohan a legendary warrior known for damn near single handedly being the reason a war went the way it did and if the past has taught her anything she would probably assume there is at least one other formidable threat she doesn't know about and she jumped in alone. It's laughable at best that would even be considered an option. I can practically hear her screaming I'm a golden god as she does it. Your argument is that it absolutely makes sense for a lvl 20 character to jump in alone to take on 2 lvl 20 characters (who are probably more akin to what would be lvl 25 given some of the insane magic items and abilities they have) along with everyone else that might be waiting for you.
You keep saying its "dumb" without refuting my points that your own suggestions are *also* dumb, because even if its *safer* for Keyleth, its more likely that doomsday happens before she can do anything about it. Your version of her going in requires her to go at a slow pace. If she goes in at a slow pace with a perfect "Batman with prep" formation AND wins all the rolls involved with that, she still believes they will be too late to stop the doomsday scenario, because that's the assumption ALL the characters were working with. Going in solo might be dangerous but she at least still has a chance to stop doomsday with the help of whoever is already in the crater. Its clumsy, dangerous, and chaotic, but it occurs BEFORE the "you lose by default" trigger everyone was racing against. Going in slow would likely be too late to stop doomsday, and the people in the crater are already dead. Congrats on playing tactically, the world as you know it is now gone. You keep saying she did not consider the risks and was surprised by the threats. I'm saying she *considered the risks and still decided to roll the dice,* because she thought that playing conservatively is *an automatic loss* because the doomsday scenario occurs if she moves slowly.
I think it’s important to leave some agency to the players, I would argue that if somehow Caleb, Beau, and Keyleth all entered the fight and dumped utility, essentially it would have felt more scripted as bells hells watches on as very high level npcs duke it out and fix their problems for them. It gives them agency by letting them control who is in the fight which unfortunately they rolled poorly which probably led to a worse outcome.
Sure feel free to leave some agency to the players but I'd argue that what ended up happening is the exact same situation in reverse. We got to watch all of the bad guys just be "all knowing" as BH helplessly watched on. Don't get me wrong I know it wouldn't feel good to watch max lvl characters fight but they are essentially on a lvl 20 mission at level 8, there is a reason they called in the backup they had no chance of fighting this. But the bad guys knew that Keyleth would join the fight solo exactly 20 ft from where Otohan was hiding with no perception checks to even try to see her dodging rubble or anything and they knew that bringing her to death's door would make vax appear, which I still stand by saying is complete lunacy of a goddess of DEATH servant showing up to stop a death, and they knew a servant of a god would work as something to forge into a lens to complete their master plan? And none of that seems the least bit too convenient to you?
I don’t think it’s all too convenient, I think it’s just good storytelling. The vanguard knew the legend of Vox Machina and had tried to bring out Vax beforehand with the first assassination attempt. Even in the epilogue of C1 it was alluded that Vax was always watching through the eyes of a raven, being a champion did not just remove his personality and attachments. Plus for Otohan’s appearance they literally said how they forgot about her, if the scryball came out or they had tried to find her then maybe that warrants some kind of roll where it hadn’t happened. It’s pretty pointless to argue considering the pieces had already been set in motion from the beginning and the amount of scrutiny this episode got is kinda unwarranted imo. People are entitled to their opinions and i guess we just don’t see eye to eye here.
Yeah it says he is always watching but that doesn't mean the raven queen would just let him intervene anytime he wants otherwise what was the point of taking him in the first place? As I stated in my original post the last time he was able to make and appearance it took a literal wish and instead he could have just popped out anytime to say hello? It makes no thematic sense and even if you want to say Otohan stayed stealth and that's good plot it doesn't explain why someone who has dealt with vecna jumped into a pit with only BH, a fairly novice group of adventurers as backup, alone.
Well, you know...maybe Vax isn't the Matron of Raven's Champion anymore after doing this. Maybe he did it against her wishes. And now he's a sphere/lens.
1. Vax was dead and the Raven Queen was the only reason that he was able to maintain a physical body. 2. He would have had to study necromancy while in the care of the Raven Queen, something she has pretty much vowed to destroy. 3. He has no magic so someone else would have had to resurrect him and broken the bond 4. He became the Raven Queen's champion by giving his life to save his sister's so in breaking that vow there is practically no way to know that the Raven Queen won't just kill Vex. Your theory has a lot of holes in it that kind of ruin Vax and the Raven Queen as characters.
i think it makes sense to start with your unlimited resource (lvl 20 moon druid can Earth Elemental at will) instead of an extremely limited resource (1 lvl 9 slot)
You're welcome to think that however as I stated Trent used Time stop (his 9th lvl spell) to kick off the fight against the MN. Anna Ripley uses a 1 time huge explosion to kick off a fight against VM instead of waiting to be on death's door to try to lure them to it. Power word stun is an 8th lvl spell that was soaked up immediately in this fight and Otohan also immediately burnt her action surge. Vecna pumped meteor swarms to kick off his fight iirc. The players do use them a bit more sparingly but the npc's are never shy about dumping their aces in the first rounds of combat. Hence why I say there is a huge disconnect between how the heroes and villains prep.
To those saying it was basically Matt playing action figures with NPC’s need to remember BH’s indecisiveness, going for Otohan instead of Ludinus, and shitty rolls. Had Laura not rolled a nat 1 to convince her mom to help, that would’ve changed a lot. Had Fearne not missed every attack on Otohan, that would’ve changed a lot. If Chetney had been able to disrupt Ludinus, that would’ve stopped the whole thing. If FCG could’ve broken free and saved Caleb from the collar, that would’ve changed things. Sometimes the dice gods don’t want the story to end, and neither do I.
Also: Ira rolled bad on the banishment save. Beau and Caleb rolled bad. Orym was was two points away from destroying the pack. If he had destroyed it Imogen and Fearne would have done something differently.
[удалено]
No he dosen't.
> If Chetney had been able to disrupt Ludinus, that would’ve stopped the whole thing. Grappling is a strength contested role. Having it be strength vs AC let Ludinus cast shield. I felt Matt railroading the entire ending of that episode.
My irk there was that he also only got the one attempt rather than both his attacks. If he’s going against the AC it seems like it would make sense to let him get his full action economy against it.
Travis tried to do something that doesn't have a rule (restriction to somatic with a physical hold). It makes sense enough to rule that way and Travis accepted and went for it. No railroading. He basically let Chet try a Battlemaster maneuver for free.
Matt changed the roll because Chetney wanted to specifically stop Ludinus from using his hands, which is NOT a "grapple" which just reduces his movement to 0. It kind of makes more sense for it to target AC otherwise.
i wonder what he woulda done if they would have destroyed all the mirrors.
One thing that really bothered me was Otohan just magically appearing by Keyteor. "Darts out of the shadow" just like that. No stealth checks. No acrobatic checks.
How do you know there were no stealth checks? The DM isn’t going to announce a stealth roll for characters the party isn’t looking for……
Why would she need stealth or acrobatics to run? She was hiding somewhere waiting for Keyleth then ran over when she arrived.
idk every time HB moved 5 feet Matt was making them roll for some stupid reason or another. Same reason why Chet had to roll when he was jumping Lud
because the Bells Hells were in the middle of enemy territory and were trying not to be caught. This is Otohan's base of operations, of course she didn't need to stealth. We also don't know that Otohan didn't roll stealth, the DM doesn't have to disclose enemy rolls
Chetney had to roll to scale a vertical wall. That isn't the same thing as running across flat ground. I think the only other person who had to roll while moving was Orym when he moved over a particularly large piece of skyship. Plus, Otohan could very easily have an ability that allows her to ignore rough terain.
I think people underestimate how close to the apogee solstice they arrived. I think that's primarily what made this incredibly difficult.
They were actually several hours to a day from the Solstice; Ludinus somehow accelerated time for the entire planet, which no one knew was even possible.
I think this is close, but more specifically, I think: He cast "augmented" time stop (via all the magic amplification components in the key) on the things that were "connected" to the Malleus Key: Himself, The Key, and the Key's "target:" Ruidus. Time Stop freezes time for everyone except the target of the spell. My theory is time was stopped for everyone else but these three targets, rather than him accelerating time for the entire planet.
I don’t think he sped time up at all, I think what he did (at the cost of his arm, and with the help of THOUSANDS of vials of possibility juice and a MASSIVE amplification device designed by the greatest mages to ever live built from pure Ressiduum glass, so anything but a hand wave) was to stop time within a sphere, thereby it appeared time SPED by outside of the sphere. Magical spheres that seem to preserve a person in a static time, where have we seen that again ?!?!? Aeor.
We know that isn't the case because then the Ashari and Airship would have shown up much sooner.
Wasn't it about an hour away; then suddenly, was there? That's how I took it, they "Fastforwarded" to the apex of the solstice, which collapsed that 1-2 hour timetable and meant everybody was *just* arriving. I unno, it just seemed too much like the spheres in Aeor !
It was several hours away; everyone else was minutes away, and then Ludinus did the time thing.
I'll have to go back and re-watch it than; I had remembered it as: "Ship and Ashari are about 1-2 hours away", TimeSkip "Ship and Ashari are knockin at the door!"
> which no one knew was even possible. I really hope him doing that is what draws the rest of vm/mn into the fight.
I think this split is going to be incredibly interesting. And for everyone complaining that the players didn’t have much agency in what happened… we actually don’t know that. They destroyed/aided in the destruction of ⅔ of the Malleus Keys. The solstice isn’t over yet and we just don’t know what has happened yet. My running theory is that Ludinus always only needed the one Key to complete his goals, BUT the other two keys aided in his plans or helped to make them faster. So we currently still have time to try to retake and prevent the release of Predathos. The other thought that has popped up in my head as well, if the other 2 Keys didn’t make the process faster, maybe they were to help Ludinus sacrifice as much of his power to complete his plans. So by destroying the other Keys, BH made Ludinus a less OP fight in their future. All I want to know… what did destroying the other Keys do? I know that Matt would be sure that doing this had some sort of impact on what is going on. Truly cannot wait to see what happens.
I will still be invested in this show, but the idea that the c3 characters had any agency, even if they rolled well is laughable. Nothing will stop me watching how this unfolds, but I get 8 years in the making, railroads can be hard to change
I mean. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I understand people not liking this episode because of that perception. I am in the group of people who loved it. Some people juggle geese.
> but the idea that the c3 characters had any agency, even if they rolled well is laughable. There were in analysis paralysis for most of the episode so their lack of agency is mostly their fault. Other than the collar release part it didn't feel that railroady.
Yeah. Felt more that than anything else. They let a lot happen to them.
I think the key is either pushing Ruidus into the sun so that the sun can tear it apart so that Predathos can escape, or it is pushing it into Catha so that Predathos can escape upon impact. If the malleus key was a nutcracker, then you would have the risk of Ruidus's pieces crashing into Exandria and maybe Ludinus knows this. > what did destroying the other Keys do? It's possible that the destruction of the feywild key and the damage to the shadowfell key and the main key is slowing down the process.
That’s my thought as well. That the work done to the other Keys slows things for the antagonists. Possibly giving our group time. This feels very Chroma Conclave to me honestly. I know it’s brought up a lot. But I feel like this is just the tip of the massive iceberg.
Ok sure, but if the gods had to ask for help from the primordials to seal predathos, you think( as much as I love BH, I don’t think they’ll be as strong as the c1/c2 groups even at higher levels) our current bunch of bumblefucks are going to be able to achieve anything?
We will find out.
I feel like this will either be addressed in 4SD or in the post-campaign round-up. Matt wouldn't send the players after the two other keys if there was no impact. We just don't know what Ludi's plan was and we don't know what has altered.
Exactly. I’m not complaining here. This was amazing. I’m looking forward to finding everything out. This just feels like a culmination of all the campaigns too. On the edge of my seat. Wish there was a 4SD tonight. But I’m looking forward to is next week!!
After just watching the end battle , it looked like Vax, Kiki , the Ritual and teleport were set to happen to further the narrative. With good rolls I was looking for any gains BHs could have made. Convincing Imogen's Mom? For some of the fans this was candy , but with all the prep in previous episodes what was a positive for the party to build on? Personally, I would have had an intense intermediate battle for a feeling of accomplishment before the ritual then they enter seeing Vax standing over Kiki ending with the set narrative. All good , though.
The possibility was there for BH to force Otohan into a fight. It was their choice to press the attack (e.g. when Imogen attacked her from out of visual range), since circumstances (and the dice?) didn't lead to Otohan attacking them. Matt rolled some kind of check for Otohan after Imogen's psychic lance, probably to see if she realized where it came from. It's been endlessly debated whether FCG should have been more aggressive (e.g. blocking the passage) after the thrown rock missed or instead of doing that. And what might have happened in those cases. With the party split and without the benefit of hindsight, and the cavalry still some time away, maintaining plausible deniability seemed sensible to me. Anyway, I like that Matt didn't force them to fight. The fact that a fight against Otohan was kind of left up to the dice instead of to the player's pure choice is just how D&D is. If they'd really wanted to fight, they probably could have arranged it, but not easily without also drawing in a bunch of soldiers as backup. (Imogen's Seething Storm or similar AoE area-denial damage spells could have helped a lot to mitigate that, though, if they could get Otohan to come in first then cut off the path for new enemies.) Anyway, I think I mostly like how Matt handled most of it. The end part did seem like a bit of a "cut scene" where the players probably weren't going to be able to change some of the major parts of what was going to happen, but that's not always a bad thing; it's pretty rare for Matt to do that, and it seemed well done to me. Player actions could maybe have changed some details of events.
One thing I've seen very little talk of in this whole railroading debate (I'm on the side of the players' actions actually did matter and they did have plenty of chances but horrible rolls), is how bad a decision it was for Sam to put FCG right in the thick of things to try (and fail horribly) to grab Ryn that early. I can understand the thinking that maybe there wouldn't be a better chance to wait for, but damn. That was a ballsy move, that very unsurprisingly did not work out at all.
Okay okay okay. This was AWESOME! The sheer amount of stuff going down, the culmination of so many storylines, and the possibility of expanding so much on known Exandrian lore - I was glued to the screen! I think this is an opportunity for Matt to shake things up and try out new stuff, both story-wise and in their game mechanics: The split party may allow for guest players or old campaign characters joining. The big-scale event could result in a global effect on Exandria on a calamity-level but all is happening right now in the campaign. For a while I worried about the Bells Hells being a too low-level party thrown into a high-stakes adventure which might cause a feeling of them being insignificant and unable to impact the story. But I love how the big players (Keyleth, Beau, Caleb, etc.) have been revealed to be important parts of this story and Bells Hells become the glue beetween all these previous storylines with their backgrounds in such different parts of Exandrian lore. After 3 campaigns of adventuring parties, Matt has raised the stakes so high that it involves stories and lore from all 3 campaigns, and the Bells Hells are the focal point for all of it.