I think maybe Vax’s inner thoughts as he faces the Briarwoods. Both as the initiation into Liam O’Brien’s expression of his characters’ vulnerabilities, and as such a change in tension/emotion from the situation Vax was in. 😢 It was one of those moments that (once again) really made the characters come alive for me. P.S.: Congrats on the 100th video! (Edited to fix spelling)
I think if Liam had made that wisdom saving throw, he would've created a connection with Serenrae. Liam had already wanted to multiclass into paladin at this point...but he ended up finding a much different god later. Also, Taliesin Jaffe has fucking arrived ladies and gentlemen.
I had forgotten that this was when Sam got his original giant stein. And yes, he does indeed commit to the bit as his drinking vessels get increasingly (and ridiculously) larger with each new campaign.
Flashbacks to Search for Grog when he drank out of the stein after it didn’t get cleaned out properly and had been sitting on a shelf for at least a year. 😬
I’m glad that they made the “your soul is forfeit” line delivered against the coachman in LoVM. It really plays up Percy loosing his cool around someone associated with the Briarwoods.
I was a bit disappointed if only because they changed the emotion. In the campaign he's just so DONE with bullshit today. Vax nearly died, Vex got hit by a finger of death, the Briarwoods got away... and when he's almost home this basic bitch criminal tries to fuck with him, and he just snaps. This guy could have done anything with his time but now his soul is going to be nibbled on by Orthax for eternity. But obviously that tone wouldn't have made sense if he used with Desmond though.
I honestly forgot it wasn't against the coachman, the two moments must have blended together in my mind, it just makes sense for that to be when he says it.
I think this was one of Taliesin's most brilliant moments of Percy: those words he screams at the mercernaries are clearly meant for Percy himself and you can feel how much the character hates himself which is amazing when you think about how much love and peace Caduceus will bring next campaign
TBH, i think the old lady incident in itself isn't too much of a big deal if it was an isolated incident. I think this was Matt very firmly saying (after giving a few warnings beforehand) *hey, you guys are recognized in this city you need to be careful*. From what I remember from early stream and heard about from pre-stream VM had the tendency of going all out on some kills when it came to the level of violence. That's not a bad thing, and it seems like everyone at the table is chill with it, so it's less "Hey you guys need to stop" and more "If you guys are gonna do that, be careful when you do it in Emon."
Especially since they just very publicly attacked two people who, from Uriel's perspective, were just visiting diplomats who hadn't done anything wrong. (And, again from his perspective, the legitimate rulers of Whitestone)
Also, Lady Briarwood is highly intelligent. She would have every reason to go for the unarmored one expecting it to be a caster. But they had the whole dinner to observe them.
Yeah, as I remember it is not just that she was running away, it is that she was put out of combat already. The particularly brutal way she got killed also didn't help, though that wouldn't be aproblem in other situation.
Exactly. It's not that she was a fleeing combatant, at that point she was an incapacitated non-combatant. I'd go so far as to say it's a step further on the evil trajectory than what Pike did in the Underdark because she at least was quick about killing the prisoner. No mess no fuss slit his throat. Well... a little mess. The manner of the kill also matters to me.
Tht Vax moment, when he fell...that was it. That was the moment I fell in LOVE with critical role and the characters. At first, I was kind of liking it, but then that moment of roleplay. That moment of a character falling and describing what he was thinking, made it real. This suddently became what a good roleplay was to me and an actual play for me.
A note about Vex's holy arrows. In Pathfinder, the Holy Enchantment deals extra damage to anyone of Evil Alignment. Anyone can rightfully assume that the Briarwoods are evil. Though there's a possibility of metagaming too. Idk for sure
Was thinking the same thing and glad someone else mentioned it. This cast actually does a really good job of policing their own metagaming and even acknowleding it with "meta pigeons" later. This is one of those cases where I think Laura just happened to have these from pathfinder, thought they affected all evil things, and turned out it was *far more effective* than intended. And Happy accidents are good! They also show good loot distribution by the DM (assuming this wasnt purchased by the players of course)
The first time we have Vex end up getting “fingered”, and by no means the last. To the point where even Laura eventually says “I fucking hate Finger of Death!”
Taliesin: Percy kills this character brutally because we've just encountered the Briarwoods and Percy's backstory. And this has unleashed something in Percy that is truly horrifying... Orion: I can do one better!
I never noticed before, in the list of his family names, Taliesin doesn't mention Cassandra. I'm sure it was an oversight rather than on purpose, but I wonder what would have been said if Taliesin had mentioned her.
This is beyond silly and random. But I've just been wanting to stay for a long time how pleased I am that you have 11-22-63 in a place of Pride on your shelf. It is probably my favorite novel ever written.
Vax's speech is where critical role really begins to me. Prior to this moment, Matt provided the drama and the players reacted to it, or played up the comedy. This is the first moment where a player fully acted out their drama and brought the cast(and us) to tears with their sincerity. The rest of this campaign, let alone C2&C3 would be nowhere near as good without this moment.
That's the beauty of Liam's passion for the story and his characters. C2 with him being quite a "main character" for story beats made for such a great campaign, and even in C3 and him taking a step back, I LOVE what he's doing with Orym.
I always forget how new your channel is! "Only" 100 videos is crazy for how high-quality all of your content is. Keep up the great work, I hope going full-time works out!
27:15 No, the kill was one hundred percent the problem. The old lady was under a sleep spell and defenseless. It wasn't a self defence combat kill. It was a brutal murder. And you saw the episode, you saw how Orion got Tiberius to kill this lady. Not only was it violent, sadistic, over the top and cruel, it was unnecessarily out of character for Tiberius. It was a horrible thing done for shock value only. And it's really hypocritical to be fine with that but then have a problem with scalping. Either cruel mutilation is ok or it's not. Vox Machina are far from perfect, upstanding individuals, but they're still heroes. They shouldn't and aren't the people to mutilate foes for fun, even Percy. There was a reason they stopped him from torturing the coachman.
I don't agree. Yes the kill is obviously is an issue (and the fact that it's a fucking mortal kombat fatality does tiberious no favors in-world), but that's not really the point Mike was trying to make. As he explains in the next episode, Tiberius doesn't learn from this encounter and its consequences. You might say that its ooc for Tiberius to murder someone so brutally, and lets say that's true, the point still is that Orion is not taking the world seriously that he doesn't have Tiberius reflect on these actions of brutally murdering a defenseless woman. So yeah, the kill is very bad. What's worse is later not having Tiberius go 'wow that was fucked', and even more try to justify the kill
Full time content creator? Awesome! Just make sure to post on as many platforms as possible. Build your audience in more places than just UA-cam. That way, if you get demonitized you still have income from the other platforms. You deserve success, your content is good.
Your analysis and insightful videos have become an informative and enjoyable bit of my week. Thank you so much for all the work you do! You are one of those people I could listen to for hours.
Congratulations on 100 episodes. It's kinda poetic that the breakdown of c1e25 is the one that is the 100th episode. That episode is what cemented my love of CR. I was already loving the previous episodes but everyone in the cast really started dialling it to 11 in this episode. The stakes felt so much higher, Liam's speech made me very (ofc, it's Liam), the fighting was so damn cool, everything about the episode was great. I didn't even notice the turn of the players policing themselves more and more but that's something I appreciate even more about this episode. It also makes me a lil sad, Orion, in my opinion, had more of a video game tendency towards the game and therefore fit the least with the more dramatic turn CR was taking at the time. I genuinely would have liked to have seen what Tiberius could have done in the future arcs of Vox Machina if Orion had been able to deal with his issues in a better way
Regarding Matt improvising "glissfoil," I thought he said (and rewound to clarify) kingsfoil, the common name of athelas, the plant Aragorn uses in Lord of the Rings. And honestly, it's what popped into my head when the group asked what it was before I heard what Matt said, which might have caused my confusion. So, not saying that what Matt makes looks effortless is actually easy, but I think a good chunk of improvising is stealing from sources and filing off the serial numbers. Just a guess on how Matt came up with the name.
This was my favorite moment in the animated series and I am very happy with how the series handled it with " pull on my beads of love" was surprised it wasn't in the podcast
One thing thays wild to me is in the animated series ALL of the songs are more or less original (for obvious copyright reasons) yet they all feel so natural
I had no idea your channel was so young in the large scheme of things. You have been doing amazing work. Happy 100th episode. You deserve all the praise.
Really glad to hear you're taking the plunge into content creation! Even if it isn't under the best of circumstances. Enjoying the videos, and hope you keep it up!
Grats on one hundo and the anniversary! I've never been able to stick with C1 because of their early audio spiking so often, so the Origins comics, animation, and this series are how I consume C1. I'll be jumping on Patreon after work today. Cheers to your success and here's to more!
I think part of why Delilah cast Feeblemind on Tiberius was Matt partially punishing him for some pretty egregious meta gaming. That’s an EXTREMELY devastating 8th level spell that has the potential of permanently ruining whoever it’s cast on.
Yeah, it was a punishment from Matt that worked well for the character. Luckily they had Pike and Keyleth so it wasn't something that was permanment (Greater restoration and Heal can fix feeblemind) . I loved how it worked, because Deliah would be smart enough to see one of the bigger threats i.e the guy who knows Sylas's weakness and hit him with the most powerful spell in her arsenal.
@@Domesthenesbetween this and the carpet, my biggest issue with Matt at this point in CR is that he uses in-game consequences for stuff that should probably be resolved with some discussion behind the scenes (although tbf I have no idea if any discussion did or did not take place).
I'm currently on the fence about signing up to patreon, I think the extra clips will push me over the edge. Im not a gm and while I greatly enjoy your commentary and tips and analysis, but the main reason I watch these is to get through 550h of campaign 1 content with only 20-30 minutes per episode. I enjoy the pace at which you break down the moments and plot, and absolutely a key part of summarising the episodes is the iconic moments or quotes or just quips. More clips will absolutely add more value to these videos and I think it will absolutely justify the (pain) effort in needing to download, file manage, and trim the livestream vods into these episodes! Thanks for all you do!
It is absolutely BONKERS to me that Taliesin had been playing a completely different character in the home games because he feels as invested in Percy as the others do their own PCs. Maybe I'm not explaining my thoughts well, because of course Taliesin is invested, he loved these games, but between him and Matt if feels like the Briarwoods have been coming together very slowly in the background of the game for ages. It's very compelling!
To clarify, Taliesin only played a different character in their first home game. I believe he sat out the next session or two, but when they recruited him as a full-time player after that, he played Percy starting then.
I don't think killing the old lady in and of itself was a bad idea, but I feel like essentially buzzsawing her was needlessly brutal. At least she was asleep, but in a way that made it worse for me. But then again, I was given shit in the past for not wanting to kill enemies in their sleep that would be in a lot more pain if they woke up before attacking, so maybe I'm just weird.
I just keep loving your insights on Tiberius! You Keep getting the nuance ljust right and comparing him to the other characters in a fair way. It's such a breath of fresh air compared to the (hateful) forums and comment on reddit and such
With almost one year in the bag and have your fair share of people hooked to your content. Congratulations on everything you've achieved, you deserve it.
THE BIRTH OF NO MERCY PERCY, also, when you mention how this is the shift in game play to a more "dramatic" way/rp way is also when we REALLY lost orion. not that there is anything wrong with it but he always seemed more like a action/combat oriented player and not the kind of player the way the show was headed.
Was not expecting this type of wholesome but still a great video. I noticed the calendar in the background of one of your videos. The logo on ur junk is hilarious.
Congrats on 100! I do like how you pointed out how the cast is now policing themselves on course correcting mistakes. It isn't a home game anymore. Such as asking for inspiration. I do think that it is a bit meta gamey to only fire holy arrows at the 1 vamp; even if they don't know for sure if both are. They (as players) 100% know that Sylas is so holy arrows go to him.
There is also the fact that when they arrived on scene, it was Lord Briarwood, not Lady Briarwood, who was standing near the "dead" body of her twin brother. Also, since Percy took the first shot, she could see the wounds starting to heal themselves, which may explain the use of Holy arrows. Laura's mind works so quickly and she portrayed that in Vex so often, all that could have gone through Vex's mind that quickly. We don't really know for sure, but that's how I add it to the reality of the situation, instead of thinking of it as meta gamey.
@@narvalin5905 If in later episodes they are questioning if both are vamps then at the time of this episode she was meta gaming because she was firing only at the KNOWN vamp to cause the most amount of damage. In order to find out an unknown you test it. Holy arrow would have tested well.
Big grats on the milestones! On a rewatch, the Broker fight seems too easy so I'm wondering what Matt's thinking was on that. Were the party always supposed to completely and utterly destroy them, and thereby provide more reasons for Uriel/the council to mistrust VM?
I always thought of that fight as Matt's offering to his players after the Briarwoods escape would have left them frustrated, basically a punching bag for them to let off steam, maybe under challenging out or inexperince with 5E or expecting VM to be out of more resources
This is still one of my favourite CR episodes overall, but one moment I remember getting a lot of praise from the community was Keyleth dropping her Antilife Shell in shock after witnessing Percy's brutal kill. Tactically, this makes no sense and is an incredibly bad move. And people applauded her for it, since it takes a lot of guts to make a deliberately bad play in combat for the sake of role-playing. Marisha decided that Keyleth would be so horrified in that moment she'd drop concentration. Given this was a little into the "Marisha hate era" of the show (it seemed like when Orion left, the chat needed a "new target" and a lot of their ire transferred to her), it was nice to see one of her moments get this much positivity.
It helps that Liam specifically called it out as a moment where she chose RP over tactics and approved of it. I suspect some (though CERTAINLY not all) of the Marisha hate comes from people misinterpreting similar moments and assuming she was just bad at D&D, so having someone understand what she was going for and actively describe it on-camera probably helped a lot to blunt any negative reaction.
@@SupergeekMike I haven't seen the second half of the episode in a while. That'd make sense. I noticed that it wasn't until Campaign 2 started and people saw Marisha as Beau that the Keyleth hate started fading. I guess once they saw her play such a different character, they realized a lot of the things they disliked about Keyleth were deliberate character flaws rather than bad acting or playing. That's the thing with CR's cast: they're such good actors that it's sometimes hard to tell they're ACTING. Even the players are fooled sometimes, like how it took until Campaign 1's final battle for them to realize Scanlan had low Wisdom and that's why he, in Sam's own words, "made terrible decisions all the time."
I really enjoy your videos - very balanced and insightful observations for me, as a fellow DM. I remember watching this episodes live and thinking that Liam was problematic with the drama as Orion was with the metagaming. He really takes over the spotlight and it disrupts the flow of the game. I felt this way a few other times while watching across 3 campaigns. In retrospect, it really brings the internal space of the character to life and sets a precedent, though it really feels shoe-horned to me. I think, also, that by not having the original intro sequences with the backstories in the UA-cam videos does a disservice to understanding how the players viewed their characters prior to the first episode.
The clip at 3:31 is excellent for showing new DMs and players that thry dont *need* fancy items for playing. Matt has a dry erase map, and minis. Thats it. Thats all any group needs, and sometimes not even then if theyre more theater of the mind.
Asking for a blessing for the Decanter of Endless Water is a huge power gaming move. I've been apologetic of Tiberius's behavior, since a lot of criticism can be said of the rest of the party. Like the old woman death you bring up. But stacking additional effects on magic items is just asking for an imbalance in how the game functions. It was probably spur of the moment, since the party was visiting the temple anyway, but Matt thankfully didn't fully commit to the upgrade. Despite the end product being on par with Very Rare items in this arc of the campaign. I do like the idea of magic items that can experience growth, but it needs sacrifice. Gold costs are largely irrelevant to the party at this point in time. Even if the clergy asked for a sizable donation to perform this mixture of Divine and Arcane magic it wouldn't have been a hindrance to anyone but Laura.
congrats on 100. been binging these analasys videos over a few days, and while i've seen both the show and.. the show it's nice to also sometimes just lean back and listen to someone going through and lightly disecting these sessions and highlighting moments in them. keep it up!
That’s awesome that you’re going full time with content creation for now!!! I love your stuff and look forward to every Monday and Thursday because of it
Congratulations on 100 videos Mike ! I can't believe it's been that much already :) 100 videos, 100 bangers too; I've said it here before but you produce extremeley high quality content. You r videos are incredibly well structured and yet you manage to keep a natural tone while conveying your ideas. It's a fine line to walk between structure, quality, concision and flow, and you manage it better than most DnD youtubers I know. Here's to hundreds more ! Oh, and a small correction: I think Sam's stein was a gift from the cast themselves (with help from Burning Man critters if memory serves, true).
Hey Mike, great video as always! I've been wondering, do you have any plans on making a video about playing evil characters or running games for evil characters? I've been really interested in the subject lately I've also just began running Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden for a couple of friends, my second time DMing and really my first time DMing something that goes above Level 5. Any recommendations?
I do plan to make an evil characters video at some point, I’m not sure when but it’s something I’d love to discuss. I have a friend who wants to run Rime of the Frostmaiden for my group, so I have not read it yet. Sorry I couldn’t help with that part!
@@SupergeekMike thank you!!! You’re doing such amazing work Mike I really appreciate how easily you convey topics. Getting me prepped for dm’ing down the line 😁
It's been a year of Mike already? Damn, that flew by, you've also hugely improved in such little time too it's awesome. Here's to another year, and then another, and then another, and so forth? :D
I hope the full time content creation goes well for you! I always wanted and thought about doing it, so I hope you can live a dream I had. I'll be supporting you as best I can
If you have a chance to take a look, "Level Up: 5E Advanced" has a really cool standard mechanic for how to use inspiration. It gets tied to a "destiny" feature you choose, so whenever your roleplay harkens to that feature, you get inspiration. If you achieve your "destiny" you get a new way to get inspiration. It's a mechanic designed to get you to follow a character growth arch that you choose at the start to show what your overall story hopes are. It even has one where you aren't sure and can pick a different destiny later!
@@SupergeekMike it's a really cool system, they have a couple live plays. The second one had more examples of the new mechanics, and as a bonus it was a conversion of the first dragonlance module! I really enjoy the channel, I hope you can do it full time. Love the dream!
For all of Orion’s faults, at least he gave the “killing an old lady” meme which they have referenced several times even in later campaigns. One of my favorite in-universe running jokes they’ve got.
while you are correct about how finger of death *should* work. as you say, i don't think thats how Matt was planning to run it. its a pretty common misconception in 5e that that is how FoD works. And later, when she again casts it on Vex (in the ziggaraut fight) its heavily implied that he intends to have it transform anyone that is reduced to 0 HP.
I just want you to know... I spent 10 seconds trying to remove the pink sticky note from my screen AND trying to figure out how it go there in the first place before I realized it wasn't real.
Having extended cuts on Pattreon sounds fair. It's one more reason to help ya. I have my own opinions about such approaches. But that's not relevant. If we're getting the same content here on UA-cam as we've been having already , I can't really complain. So as long as you're OK with it, I am
Regarding Inspiration: The only way I've ever felt happy with it is - Any player can give any other player inspiration for any reason that makes sense to them. I've never had it abused and my players seem happy. Some things that people get inspiration for: -One player makes write ups every game that recaps the session in story form, another player gives them inspiration for the next game -A player makes a super fitting in-character joke at an incredibly tensemoment. -A player had the best and totally unexpected idea that completely removes an intense threat without anyone else having to worry about it.
With all the “Tiberius killed and old woman” drama I was expecting her to be a simple NPC. Watching this episode I didn’t even realise this was the point all the drama was about. Vex even shoots an arrow at her that misses as she is running away. Tiberius is justified as far as I see it, but I haven’t watched the next episode yet 🤷♀️
I definitely feel the killing of the old woman itself was gruesome(saw blade on a sleeping lady), but the reprocussions of it was blown a bit out of proportion in game. It feels like they received some community backlash about killing “innocents” and Matt decided to take it seriously. The next episode is also a good lesson to counteract this.
It does look like he glanced at a specific spot right after telling Marisha to make a roll, that's what he and many DMs are great at, the cast is either looking down or at Marisha as she rolls, that's exactly when Mercer looks to the bottom right. before he has an answer for her, it looks like he glanced at the name to tell her if she rolled high enough on the DC. Taliesin says he didn't look down cus Matt deflected their attention(probably on accident) and noone saw that he might have. A good trick i use is a side list of names that could be used in a few different scenarios and quickly scanning across and picking any of those names, then giving the description of what it is, the name is arbitrary until it's said. And it's how you freak out your players XD
Technically I do, I have a Downtime channel where the goal is to sometimes drop videos that don’t really fit with the main feed. (And I used to have an AuthorTube channel, but that was ages ago lol)
What is your favorite moment from this episode?
"Jenga." Definitely!
"Who the fuck are these people?"
I think maybe Vax’s inner thoughts as he faces the Briarwoods. Both as the initiation into Liam O’Brien’s expression of his characters’ vulnerabilities, and as such a change in tension/emotion from the situation Vax was in. 😢 It was one of those moments that (once again) really made the characters come alive for me.
P.S.: Congrats on the 100th video!
(Edited to fix spelling)
No mercy Percy.
It's always no mercy Percy.
No matter the episode. He's just THAT good
For me, this episode reminds me that you can have verisimilitude and rule of cool both. It doesn't have to be one or the other
Taliesin shouting "SYLAS!" will forever be iconic
100% agree I think they did that moment justice in the series
I think if Liam had made that wisdom saving throw, he would've created a connection with Serenrae. Liam had already wanted to multiclass into paladin at this point...but he ended up finding a much different god later.
Also, Taliesin Jaffe has fucking arrived ladies and gentlemen.
I had forgotten that this was when Sam got his original giant stein. And yes, he does indeed commit to the bit as his drinking vessels get increasingly (and ridiculously) larger with each new campaign.
I want him to play like a biiig character next, for a long time just to see him do the bit but with tiny things
@@bjam89 Agreed! I'd love to see him play a Firbolg or Goliath and have to use a shot glass for scale :D
Flashbacks to Search for Grog when he drank out of the stein after it didn’t get cleaned out properly and had been sitting on a shelf for at least a year. 😬
@@bjam89 i was JUST thinking that.
I’m glad that they made the “your soul is forfeit” line delivered against the coachman in LoVM. It really plays up Percy loosing his cool around someone associated with the Briarwoods.
I was a bit disappointed if only because they changed the emotion. In the campaign he's just so DONE with bullshit today. Vax nearly died, Vex got hit by a finger of death, the Briarwoods got away... and when he's almost home this basic bitch criminal tries to fuck with him, and he just snaps. This guy could have done anything with his time but now his soul is going to be nibbled on by Orthax for eternity.
But obviously that tone wouldn't have made sense if he used with Desmond though.
@@andyenglish4303 But it makes no sense on some random bandits. A servant of the Briarwoods fits much better.
I honestly forgot it wasn't against the coachman, the two moments must have blended together in my mind, it just makes sense for that to be when he says it.
I think this was one of Taliesin's most brilliant moments of Percy: those words he screams at the mercernaries are clearly meant for Percy himself and you can feel how much the character hates himself which is amazing when you think about how much love and peace Caduceus will bring next campaign
TBH, i think the old lady incident in itself isn't too much of a big deal if it was an isolated incident. I think this was Matt very firmly saying (after giving a few warnings beforehand) *hey, you guys are recognized in this city you need to be careful*. From what I remember from early stream and heard about from pre-stream VM had the tendency of going all out on some kills when it came to the level of violence. That's not a bad thing, and it seems like everyone at the table is chill with it, so it's less "Hey you guys need to stop" and more "If you guys are gonna do that, be careful when you do it in Emon."
Especially since they just very publicly attacked two people who, from Uriel's perspective, were just visiting diplomats who hadn't done anything wrong. (And, again from his perspective, the legitimate rulers of Whitestone)
Also, Lady Briarwood is highly intelligent. She would have every reason to go for the unarmored one expecting it to be a caster. But they had the whole dinner to observe them.
I recall Sam giving Orion grief for killing that old lady. He cast sleep for a reason.
Yeah, as I remember it is not just that she was running away, it is that she was put out of combat already. The particularly brutal way she got killed also didn't help, though that wouldn't be aproblem in other situation.
And I think he wanted to get Intel from her
Exactly. It's not that she was a fleeing combatant, at that point she was an incapacitated non-combatant. I'd go so far as to say it's a step further on the evil trajectory than what Pike did in the Underdark because she at least was quick about killing the prisoner. No mess no fuss slit his throat. Well... a little mess. The manner of the kill also matters to me.
Tht Vax moment, when he fell...that was it. That was the moment I fell in LOVE with critical role and the characters. At first, I was kind of liking it, but then that moment of roleplay. That moment of a character falling and describing what he was thinking, made it real. This suddently became what a good roleplay was to me and an actual play for me.
as vax falls unconscious and says a prayer, I got a commercial for a church which began "We believe prayer changes everything", lol.
😂😂😂
I love when the algorithm commits to the bit
A note about Vex's holy arrows. In Pathfinder, the Holy Enchantment deals extra damage to anyone of Evil Alignment. Anyone can rightfully assume that the Briarwoods are evil. Though there's a possibility of metagaming too. Idk for sure
Was thinking the same thing and glad someone else mentioned it. This cast actually does a really good job of policing their own metagaming and even acknowleding it with "meta pigeons" later. This is one of those cases where I think Laura just happened to have these from pathfinder, thought they affected all evil things, and turned out it was *far more effective* than intended.
And Happy accidents are good! They also show good loot distribution by the DM (assuming this wasnt purchased by the players of course)
Fascinating!
Taliesin is fucking amazing in this arc, the man's such a good actor and he really commits to Percy's rage.
I had forgotten that Vax began to follow Sarenrae before he was chosen by the Raven Queen. I love this game.
I’ll help you out. :3
Sarenrae
@@Boundwithflame23 thank you!
The first time we have Vex end up getting “fingered”, and by no means the last. To the point where even Laura eventually says “I fucking hate Finger of Death!”
Taliesin: Percy kills this character brutally because we've just encountered the Briarwoods and Percy's backstory. And this has unleashed something in Percy that is truly horrifying...
Orion: I can do one better!
I never noticed before, in the list of his family names, Taliesin doesn't mention Cassandra. I'm sure it was an oversight rather than on purpose, but I wonder what would have been said if Taliesin had mentioned her.
Or maybe Percy 'knows' that she's dead since he saw her shot so he doesn't feel the need to confirm.
@@andyenglish4303 That's an excellent point as well.
Congratulations on the 100 episodes! I'm glad you're feeling better, thank you so much for your thoughts :)
Thank you so much!
This is beyond silly and random. But I've just been wanting to stay for a long time how pleased I am that you have 11-22-63 in a place of Pride on your shelf. It is probably my favorite novel ever written.
😁 It’s a great one!
Vax's speech is where critical role really begins to me.
Prior to this moment, Matt provided the drama and the players reacted to it, or played up the comedy. This is the first moment where a player fully acted out their drama and brought the cast(and us) to tears with their sincerity.
The rest of this campaign, let alone C2&C3 would be nowhere near as good without this moment.
That's the beauty of Liam's passion for the story and his characters. C2 with him being quite a "main character" for story beats made for such a great campaign, and even in C3 and him taking a step back, I LOVE what he's doing with Orym.
Just sitting here eagerly waiting for the can of worms that is Episode 27
I will never forget the incredulity I felt watching that episode for the first time.
I always forget how new your channel is! "Only" 100 videos is crazy for how high-quality all of your content is. Keep up the great work, I hope going full-time works out!
Thank you so much!
27:15 No, the kill was one hundred percent the problem. The old lady was under a sleep spell and defenseless. It wasn't a self defence combat kill. It was a brutal murder. And you saw the episode, you saw how Orion got Tiberius to kill this lady. Not only was it violent, sadistic, over the top and cruel, it was unnecessarily out of character for Tiberius. It was a horrible thing done for shock value only. And it's really hypocritical to be fine with that but then have a problem with scalping. Either cruel mutilation is ok or it's not. Vox Machina are far from perfect, upstanding individuals, but they're still heroes. They shouldn't and aren't the people to mutilate foes for fun, even Percy. There was a reason they stopped him from torturing the coachman.
I don't agree. Yes the kill is obviously is an issue (and the fact that it's a fucking mortal kombat fatality does tiberious no favors in-world), but that's not really the point Mike was trying to make. As he explains in the next episode, Tiberius doesn't learn from this encounter and its consequences. You might say that its ooc for Tiberius to murder someone so brutally, and lets say that's true, the point still is that Orion is not taking the world seriously that he doesn't have Tiberius reflect on these actions of brutally murdering a defenseless woman.
So yeah, the kill is very bad. What's worse is later not having Tiberius go 'wow that was fucked', and even more try to justify the kill
Full time content creator? Awesome! Just make sure to post on as many platforms as possible. Build your audience in more places than just UA-cam. That way, if you get demonitized you still have income from the other platforms. You deserve success, your content is good.
Love seeing the fuller scene of "Your soul is forfeit!" I've seen that clip many a time, and it's so intense with more context.
It’s honestly fun seeing when everyone was still green. Folks forget that even they needed time to get good.
Liam´s speech is one of those moments I realised that this is something special!
Your analysis and insightful videos have become an informative and enjoyable bit of my week. Thank you so much for all the work you do! You are one of those people I could listen to for hours.
Thank you so much!
Congratulations on 100 episodes. It's kinda poetic that the breakdown of c1e25 is the one that is the 100th episode. That episode is what cemented my love of CR. I was already loving the previous episodes but everyone in the cast really started dialling it to 11 in this episode. The stakes felt so much higher, Liam's speech made me very (ofc, it's Liam), the fighting was so damn cool, everything about the episode was great. I didn't even notice the turn of the players policing themselves more and more but that's something I appreciate even more about this episode. It also makes me a lil sad, Orion, in my opinion, had more of a video game tendency towards the game and therefore fit the least with the more dramatic turn CR was taking at the time. I genuinely would have liked to have seen what Tiberius could have done in the future arcs of Vox Machina if Orion had been able to deal with his issues in a better way
I had forgotten just how much was packed into this one episode! And yes, that Liam monologue is where Critical Role became what it is today.
Regarding Matt improvising "glissfoil," I thought he said (and rewound to clarify) kingsfoil, the common name of athelas, the plant Aragorn uses in Lord of the Rings. And honestly, it's what popped into my head when the group asked what it was before I heard what Matt said, which might have caused my confusion. So, not saying that what Matt makes looks effortless is actually easy, but I think a good chunk of improvising is stealing from sources and filing off the serial numbers. Just a guess on how Matt came up with the name.
This was my favorite moment in the animated series and I am very happy with how the series handled it with " pull on my beads of love" was surprised it wasn't in the podcast
One thing thays wild to me is in the animated series ALL of the songs are more or less original (for obvious copyright reasons) yet they all feel so natural
@@gingerwithglasses I couldn't agree more
I had no idea your channel was so young in the large scheme of things. You have been doing amazing work. Happy 100th episode. You deserve all the praise.
Thank you so much!
Really glad to hear you're taking the plunge into content creation! Even if it isn't under the best of circumstances. Enjoying the videos, and hope you keep it up!
Grats on one hundo and the anniversary! I've never been able to stick with C1 because of their early audio spiking so often, so the Origins comics, animation, and this series are how I consume C1.
I'll be jumping on Patreon after work today. Cheers to your success and here's to more!
Thank you so much!
I think part of why Delilah cast Feeblemind on Tiberius was Matt partially punishing him for some pretty egregious meta gaming. That’s an EXTREMELY devastating 8th level spell that has the potential of permanently ruining whoever it’s cast on.
That's been my understanding, too. I don't know if I agree with it, because Out of Game issues and in game solutions, right?
@@Domesthenes I think meta gaming qualifies for an in game issue too. Though I don’t think Feeblemind was for the other issues.
Yeah, it was a punishment from Matt that worked well for the character. Luckily they had Pike and Keyleth so it wasn't something that was permanment (Greater restoration and Heal can fix feeblemind) . I loved how it worked, because Deliah would be smart enough to see one of the bigger threats i.e the guy who knows Sylas's weakness and hit him with the most powerful spell in her arsenal.
@@Domesthenesbetween this and the carpet, my biggest issue with Matt at this point in CR is that he uses in-game consequences for stuff that should probably be resolved with some discussion behind the scenes (although tbf I have no idea if any discussion did or did not take place).
Hm it’s certainly possible
I'm currently on the fence about signing up to patreon, I think the extra clips will push me over the edge. Im not a gm and while I greatly enjoy your commentary and tips and analysis, but the main reason I watch these is to get through 550h of campaign 1 content with only 20-30 minutes per episode. I enjoy the pace at which you break down the moments and plot, and absolutely a key part of summarising the episodes is the iconic moments or quotes or just quips. More clips will absolutely add more value to these videos and I think it will absolutely justify the (pain) effort in needing to download, file manage, and trim the livestream vods into these episodes! Thanks for all you do!
Don't forget, if he gets a certain amount of patrons (I forgot the exact number) he'll release these weekly, which would be super cool
It is absolutely BONKERS to me that Taliesin had been playing a completely different character in the home games because he feels as invested in Percy as the others do their own PCs.
Maybe I'm not explaining my thoughts well, because of course Taliesin is invested, he loved these games, but between him and Matt if feels like the Briarwoods have been coming together very slowly in the background of the game for ages. It's very compelling!
To clarify, Taliesin only played a different character in their first home game. I believe he sat out the next session or two, but when they recruited him as a full-time player after that, he played Percy starting then.
I don't think killing the old lady in and of itself was a bad idea, but I feel like essentially buzzsawing her was needlessly brutal. At least she was asleep, but in a way that made it worse for me. But then again, I was given shit in the past for not wanting to kill enemies in their sleep that would be in a lot more pain if they woke up before attacking, so maybe I'm just weird.
I just keep loving your insights on Tiberius! You Keep getting the nuance ljust right and comparing him to the other characters in a fair way. It's such a breath of fresh air compared to the (hateful) forums and comment on reddit and such
With almost one year in the bag and have your fair share of people hooked to your content. Congratulations on everything you've achieved, you deserve it.
Thank you so much!
THE BIRTH OF NO MERCY PERCY, also, when you mention how this is the shift in game play to a more "dramatic" way/rp way is also when we REALLY lost orion. not that there is anything wrong with it but he always seemed more like a action/combat oriented player and not the kind of player the way the show was headed.
Was not expecting this type of wholesome but still a great video. I noticed the calendar in the background of one of your videos. The logo on ur junk is hilarious.
Thank you!
Congrats on 100!
I do like how you pointed out how the cast is now policing themselves on course correcting mistakes. It isn't a home game anymore. Such as asking for inspiration. I do think that it is a bit meta gamey to only fire holy arrows at the 1 vamp; even if they don't know for sure if both are. They (as players) 100% know that Sylas is so holy arrows go to him.
There is also the fact that when they arrived on scene, it was Lord Briarwood, not Lady Briarwood, who was standing near the "dead" body of her twin brother. Also, since Percy took the first shot, she could see the wounds starting to heal themselves, which may explain the use of Holy arrows. Laura's mind works so quickly and she portrayed that in Vex so often, all that could have gone through Vex's mind that quickly. We don't really know for sure, but that's how I add it to the reality of the situation, instead of thinking of it as meta gamey.
@@narvalin5905 If in later episodes they are questioning if both are vamps then at the time of this episode she was meta gaming because she was firing only at the KNOWN vamp to cause the most amount of damage. In order to find out an unknown you test it. Holy arrow would have tested well.
Big grats on the milestones!
On a rewatch, the Broker fight seems too easy so I'm wondering what Matt's thinking was on that. Were the party always supposed to completely and utterly destroy them, and thereby provide more reasons for Uriel/the council to mistrust VM?
I always thought of that fight as Matt's offering to his players after the Briarwoods escape would have left them frustrated, basically a punching bag for them to let off steam, maybe under challenging out or inexperince with 5E or expecting VM to be out of more resources
This episode has my favorite guest quote. I love that moment with Uriel so much!
This is still one of my favourite CR episodes overall, but one moment I remember getting a lot of praise from the community was Keyleth dropping her Antilife Shell in shock after witnessing Percy's brutal kill. Tactically, this makes no sense and is an incredibly bad move. And people applauded her for it, since it takes a lot of guts to make a deliberately bad play in combat for the sake of role-playing. Marisha decided that Keyleth would be so horrified in that moment she'd drop concentration. Given this was a little into the "Marisha hate era" of the show (it seemed like when Orion left, the chat needed a "new target" and a lot of their ire transferred to her), it was nice to see one of her moments get this much positivity.
It helps that Liam specifically called it out as a moment where she chose RP over tactics and approved of it. I suspect some (though CERTAINLY not all) of the Marisha hate comes from people misinterpreting similar moments and assuming she was just bad at D&D, so having someone understand what she was going for and actively describe it on-camera probably helped a lot to blunt any negative reaction.
@@SupergeekMike I haven't seen the second half of the episode in a while. That'd make sense.
I noticed that it wasn't until Campaign 2 started and people saw Marisha as Beau that the Keyleth hate started fading. I guess once they saw her play such a different character, they realized a lot of the things they disliked about Keyleth were deliberate character flaws rather than bad acting or playing.
That's the thing with CR's cast: they're such good actors that it's sometimes hard to tell they're ACTING. Even the players are fooled sometimes, like how it took until Campaign 1's final battle for them to realize Scanlan had low Wisdom and that's why he, in Sam's own words, "made terrible decisions all the time."
Oof, sorry to hear you've been ill Mike. Not being able to eat really sucks.
I really enjoy your videos - very balanced and insightful observations for me, as a fellow DM.
I remember watching this episodes live and thinking that Liam was problematic with the drama as Orion was with the metagaming. He really takes over the spotlight and it disrupts the flow of the game.
I felt this way a few other times while watching across 3 campaigns. In retrospect, it really brings the internal space of the character to life and sets a precedent, though it really feels shoe-horned to me.
I think, also, that by not having the original intro sequences with the backstories in the UA-cam videos does a disservice to understanding how the players viewed their characters prior to the first episode.
Hey happy 100th dude. I'm happy to have been around for it
Thank you!
Congrats on the milestone Mike! Your videos are very educational to me.
Awesome! Thank you!
Each recap creeps closer to 27...
The clip at 3:31 is excellent for showing new DMs and players that thry dont *need* fancy items for playing.
Matt has a dry erase map, and minis. Thats it. Thats all any group needs, and sometimes not even then if theyre more theater of the mind.
Asking for a blessing for the Decanter of Endless Water is a huge power gaming move.
I've been apologetic of Tiberius's behavior, since a lot of criticism can be said of the rest of the party. Like the old woman death you bring up.
But stacking additional effects on magic items is just asking for an imbalance in how the game functions. It was probably spur of the moment, since the party was visiting the temple anyway, but Matt thankfully didn't fully commit to the upgrade. Despite the end product being on par with Very Rare items in this arc of the campaign.
I do like the idea of magic items that can experience growth, but it needs sacrifice. Gold costs are largely irrelevant to the party at this point in time. Even if the clergy asked for a sizable donation to perform this mixture of Divine and Arcane magic it wouldn't have been a hindrance to anyone but Laura.
Matt's solution to the Holy water request is good one though - arguably still very strong but at least not insane.
Gratz on the milestone and glad you are feeling better.
Thank you!
congrats on 100. been binging these analasys videos over a few days, and while i've seen both the show and.. the show it's nice to also sometimes just lean back and listen to someone going through and lightly disecting these sessions and highlighting moments in them. keep it up!
Glad you like them, thank you so much!
Geeze Mike. Glad you're feeling better. And congrats on the milestones!
Thank you!
That’s awesome that you’re going full time with content creation for now!!! I love your stuff and look forward to every Monday and Thursday because of it
Thank you so much!!
@@SupergeekMike You’re quite welcome. Thank you for making these amazing videos!
Congrats on 100 videos! I always enjoy watching these vids and seeing your takes on critical role and tabletops as a whole! :D Here's to 100 more. ❤🍾
Thank you so much!
Proud to be patron! Congrats on reaching 100, Mike.
Thank you!
Congrats on the 100! You are a treasure to the community!
Thank you so much! Love the avatar, always happy to see Princess Bride represented 😁
Congrats on the 100th video. Love these CR recap vids.
I had my own percy yelling sylas moment recently. When i called out to vecna himself as he was facing off against our paladin in a grudge match
Thanks!
Thank you!!
Hope you’re feeling better! Congrats on the 100th episode can’t wait for more!
Thank you!
WOOOOOO! ONE HUNDRED!
Thanks!
Yay!! Congrats on 100 Mike 😊👏
Hope you are feeling better. Bananas are great for stomach bugs as are white rice and apple sauce.
Gratzi on the big ‘00! Here’s to 100 more~
Congratulations on 100 videos Mike ! I can't believe it's been that much already :) 100 videos, 100 bangers too; I've said it here before but you produce extremeley high quality content. You r videos are incredibly well structured and yet you manage to keep a natural tone while conveying your ideas. It's a fine line to walk between structure, quality, concision and flow, and you manage it better than most DnD youtubers I know. Here's to hundreds more !
Oh, and a small correction: I think Sam's stein was a gift from the cast themselves (with help from Burning Man critters if memory serves, true).
Thank you so much, Bruno!
Hey Mike, great video as always! I've been wondering, do you have any plans on making a video about playing evil characters or running games for evil characters? I've been really interested in the subject lately
I've also just began running Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden for a couple of friends, my second time DMing and really my first time DMing something that goes above Level 5. Any recommendations?
I do plan to make an evil characters video at some point, I’m not sure when but it’s something I’d love to discuss.
I have a friend who wants to run Rime of the Frostmaiden for my group, so I have not read it yet. Sorry I couldn’t help with that part!
Congrats on 100 episodes. I really enjoy your work.
Thank you very much!
I'm a fairly new DND player, absolutely obsessed with your content man, you have such a great vibe and cadence !! keep it up
Thank you!
@@SupergeekMike thank you!!! You’re doing such amazing work Mike I really appreciate how easily you convey topics. Getting me prepped for dm’ing down the line 😁
That’s awesome! 😁
It's been a year of Mike already? Damn, that flew by, you've also hugely improved in such little time too it's awesome. Here's to another year, and then another, and then another, and so forth? :D
Thank you!!
Glad you are feeling better and happy 100th video
Thank you!
Congrats on the 100! Sucks that I can’t afford to become a patron…
I hope the full time content creation goes well for you! I always wanted and thought about doing it, so I hope you can live a dream I had.
I'll be supporting you as best I can
Thank you!
This episode is so amazing.
Congrats on 100 and good luck on making a go as a full timer.
Thank you!
If you have a chance to take a look, "Level Up: 5E Advanced" has a really cool standard mechanic for how to use inspiration. It gets tied to a "destiny" feature you choose, so whenever your roleplay harkens to that feature, you get inspiration. If you achieve your "destiny" you get a new way to get inspiration.
It's a mechanic designed to get you to follow a character growth arch that you choose at the start to show what your overall story hopes are. It even has one where you aren't sure and can pick a different destiny later!
Ooh yet another reason I’m excited to check out Level Up 5e when I get the chance!
@@SupergeekMike it's a really cool system, they have a couple live plays. The second one had more examples of the new mechanics, and as a bonus it was a conversion of the first dragonlance module!
I really enjoy the channel, I hope you can do it full time. Love the dream!
For all of Orion’s faults, at least he gave the “killing an old lady” meme which they have referenced several times even in later campaigns. One of my favorite in-universe running jokes they’ve got.
while you are correct about how finger of death *should* work. as you say, i don't think thats how Matt was planning to run it. its a pretty common misconception in 5e that that is how FoD works. And later, when she again casts it on Vex (in the ziggaraut fight) its heavily implied that he intends to have it transform anyone that is reduced to 0 HP.
Congrats! 🎉
congrats on 100
Thank you!
Congratulations on 100 videos!
Thank you!
I just want you to know... I spent 10 seconds trying to remove the pink sticky note from my screen AND trying to figure out how it go there in the first place before I realized it wasn't real.
congrats on 100! :)
Thank you!!
VM: run before we kill you, also VM kills them when they try to run.
Having extended cuts on Pattreon sounds fair.
It's one more reason to help ya.
I have my own opinions about such approaches. But that's not relevant. If we're getting the same content here on UA-cam as we've been having already , I can't really complain. So as long as you're OK with it, I am
Regarding Inspiration: The only way I've ever felt happy with it is - Any player can give any other player inspiration for any reason that makes sense to them. I've never had it abused and my players seem happy. Some things that people get inspiration for:
-One player makes write ups every game that recaps the session in story form, another player gives them inspiration for the next game
-A player makes a super fitting in-character joke at an incredibly tensemoment.
-A player had the best and totally unexpected idea that completely removes an intense threat without anyone else having to worry about it.
With all the “Tiberius killed and old woman” drama I was expecting her to be a simple NPC. Watching this episode I didn’t even realise this was the point all the drama was about. Vex even shoots an arrow at her that misses as she is running away. Tiberius is justified as far as I see it, but I haven’t watched the next episode yet 🤷♀️
I definitely feel the killing of the old woman itself was gruesome(saw blade on a sleeping lady), but the reprocussions of it was blown a bit out of proportion in game. It feels like they received some community backlash about killing “innocents” and Matt decided to take it seriously. The next episode is also a good lesson to counteract this.
We’ll go into a lot of detail about that in my next Demystified video
Wait... both finger and circle don't kill at 0?
Am I going insane?
It does look like he glanced at a specific spot right after telling Marisha to make a roll, that's what he and many DMs are great at, the cast is either looking down or at Marisha as she rolls, that's exactly when Mercer looks to the bottom right. before he has an answer for her, it looks like he glanced at the name to tell her if she rolled high enough on the DC. Taliesin says he didn't look down cus Matt deflected their attention(probably on accident) and noone saw that he might have. A good trick i use is a side list of names that could be used in a few different scenarios and quickly scanning across and picking any of those names, then giving the description of what it is, the name is arbitrary until it's said. And it's how you freak out your players XD
I honestly figured he was looking at his water bottle since he reached down and took a drink right after lol
@@SupergeekMike oh yea you're right, that is a habit he has, and if that's the case he baffles me even morexD
S tier thumbnail
Thank you!
Mike's been painting I see.
Lol yep we are re-painting our kitchen cabinets
Fuck, I caught up..
great 100th video
Thanks!
LETS GOOOO!
100 vids on this channel, do you have another channel?
Technically I do, I have a Downtime channel where the goal is to sometimes drop videos that don’t really fit with the main feed. (And I used to have an AuthorTube channel, but that was ages ago lol)