It took almost the whole city being evacuated, the Volition to blow up their castle and a high level team to deal with the Weave Mind. On top of that is was already established that their bodies look very weak. So as soon as M9 was able to enter the Arx, dealing with the Weave Mind became much easier. Also they prepared a lot and made smart choices during the fight. Fights like this are why I love CR. We won't always get the narrativly satisfying fight but the one that is "realistic". Matt very rarely will make a fight harder when his players show themself to be smart. And again, a lot had to happen for M9 to be able to confront the Weave Mind.
Yeah I didn’t necessarily want the fight to be harder, I just wanted some more info. It’s really a credit to Matt’s worldbuiling that he made such a mysterious and interesting society that I am desperate for more info!
I loved Jester's Divine Intervention. You need a Faerie Fire spell on a massive scale? Call an Arch Fae. Perfect! And I bet he LOVED being able to mess with a bunch of jerks in power.
Now that MN has dealt with them, I'm sort of expecting the next EXU / Downfall type arc to be about how the original inhabitants of the land that formed Ruidus rose to become The Weave Mind and how their possibly benevolent origins twist over millennia into becoming cruel dictators that the Deities ignored (which in my mind, is almost crueler than the Weave Mind themselves). I could see Liam O'Brien stepping into a prime Weave Mind role - and I'd love to see them invite Dani Carr, Spenser Starke, Emily Axford and maybe even Matt Mercer himself in as the other 4 Weave Mind, as they're another four people with beautiful minds!!
I agree that only hearing about the weave mind's actions does take away some satisfaction from the fight, but i think this is the result of this being a BH campaign rather than a MN one, if anything this only adds to the MN reputation of unknown heroes fighting unknown threats, even if BH were the ones fighting the weave mind Ludinus is the bbeg of this campaign so it make sense for him to have that focus instead of the weave mind (as dissapointing as it might be), we had many episodes for the heroes to gather and compose, now is the time for action.
i feel as though the MN's narrative arcs have largely been dealt with already. really, they're lending a hand because they can, not out of any bonds. so besides the broader goal of "saving Exandria", personal stakes are kinda low at this point in the party's story
Yeah, the only reason they originally got dragged into the mess to begin with is caleb and Beau were investigating Ludinous still cause they were trying to bring him down, and it just so happened a group of powerful psionic wizards were in the mix and they were like "hey we've handled something like this before leave it to us."
I do agree with you that a guide from Darrington Press would be awesome, but I do think you might be being a little hard on Matt here. The battle was challenging but I don’t mind so much that it wasn’t personal. The Mighty Nein have always been pretty irreverent against big powerful stuff and the whole Lucien/Molly story was so personal I think they deserve a break on that count. I mean, I too would like to learn more about the shattered teeth and Ruidus, however, I think we could be content a written guide. I mean, Matt already did a great amount of world building and I know, for me, the idea of being finished in Exandria over all is a sad thought, so maybe that’s part of it? Just think of the great stuff that’s going to be coming! And do please, keep up the great work! You’re my favorite commentator on Critical Role.
They could probably have done with another hour of M9 seeing the freeing of the Ruidian people (maybe catching up with Gaz?) but it was already a 5 hour episode!
I felt the same way about the VM mission. I SO wanted to see Vax interact with his nieces and nephews as well as have a private conversation with Keyleth, but there just wasn't enough time! People had places to be! 😩 lol
Ehhh, I think it's a rough take at the end. I think the battle was great, and to expect more than we got is unrealistic. Maybe in an animated series that makes sense, but very impractical for a table game.
I feel like they rushed through this also because the characters in the world are in a rush as well? They need to get this over quickly to help the people in Exandria by taking out one of the big hitters and also to have time to help Bell's Hells as well.
I didn't notice it before, but Yasha and Caleb were the two that had Mind Blank for the fight and also happened to be the ones who dealt killing blows to the Weavemind. Hilariously poetic if you ask me 😂
Okay so the more I think about the episode, the more I come to the conclusion that the fight seemed so underwhelming because of MN's high level and how some of them were resistant to psychic damage. While I agree that it doesn't really make sense for the MN to fight the weavemind and that it would've great to find out more about them, I also don't think it would've great to switch this up with BH. Personally I wished BH would've been able to fight both the weavemind and Ludinus, however I do understand that that wouldn't have been able. Anyway I'm really happy we get to see BH again this week
Some of the really high stakes things got taken off the table early on. They destroyed the arch before any of them got shunted back to Exandria and they also never actually opened up the manhole crystal that was potentially hiding engineered creatures. Either of those things would have complicated the battle a bit.
I feel like I have mixed feelings at the end take. The Weavemind were cool and I would have loved to see them be more menacing and powerful. That said, I'd have preferred to see it earlier in the campaign, either as Bells Hells learning about Ruidus or as the Mighty Nein in the special mission they were on before meeting Bells Hells at the lake. As for the other big point, not every fight needs personal stakes. Plus, I feel like we had a bit in there anyway. For me, it was really satisfying to watch them do a combat mirroring the big boss fight of C2 but with more confidence and knowledge. Yasha got to avoid psychic control and kill people who forcefully impose their will, Caleb got to let loose some CRAZY spells and didn't even go down, Cadeusus and Jester made fight-turning moves with their DI and BOTH healed during combat, Veth held concentration on a spell for the whole combat and got a lot of sneak attack damage off, Beau decided to just be resistant to all damage and stunned two enemies at the end, and Fjord took out a few crystals while keeping the Weavemind on their toes. To me, this felt like a chance for them to prove that they learned from the Somnovum fight. They got stronger, smarter. No being stuck under pillars of flesh, no mind control, Cadeusus was the only one that even almost went down. They've mastered fighting this kind of enemy, and once again, they'll beat it without needing the praise or a reward other than helping Exandria. Obviously, they didn't outright say all that in the episode, so the cast or characters may not see it that way, but as a viewer, this is the Mighty Nein beating their own personal best with even higher stakes. Plus, even if no one shares that opinion, Veth made it EXTREMELY personal with all the gambling 😂
Yeah I agree. I wish I had worded things a bit differently, because I did really enjoy the combat. I loved seeing them use their powers and they were super strategic which was great to see rewarded. It was more my desire to learn more about the weavemind as an overall power on ruidus that felt let down. Veth and Beau's bickering was my favourite part of the episode haha
You are killing it, Lu! Thanks for the shout out. I'm glad to be here. As for the Weave Mind, I agree that it hasn't been fleshed out as much as it could have been. What has frustrated me more than that though is how they never planted that seed on Ruidus. Being a seed implies that it would need time to grow, which there wouldn't be time to do now. I know possible plot threads get dropped all the time, but this one irks me because Taliesin mentioned it a number of times.
it was tal himself who also said "next time" lol but i get your frustration, i feel like this campaign has been the one where they keep forgetting detail or really interesting things that lead to nowhere because they didnt pursue them
As a Dungeon Master, I often create fights that I think will be more challenging than they actually are. The players sweep the fight quickly, and I feel weird. But that's because the players are prepared and work carefully. So... this fight was difficult but not hard. Tricky. As soon as they realized the strategy, they succeeded quickly. It's fun, that's what it should be! I loved the fight and the episode as a whole. It just reminded me how much I miss the Mighty Nein, and how much I look forward to their animated series
It’s funny, I think if Imogen’s mum wasn’t tied inherently to Ludinus, BH would have been better suited to fighting the Weave Mind, especially with being conflicted about releasing Predathos. Plus Caleb would have gotten his retribution against Ludinus. There seemed to be an attempt to roleplay more and have a back and forth about what’s going on - we know Ludinus’s motivation but the WM are unclear. But with them being invisible and the jumbled way they all sort of didn’t even enter the room, there was no chance of learning lore or motivation. Fun combat tho
please correct me if i’m wrong in any of this i may have misremembered some moments. i agree with bits and pieces of the end section for sure. the weave mind were really cool in combat and we’ve always heard how powerful they were, but the one thing that really had me disappointed was we only ever really got one face to face (if you count their projections talking to the hells as “face to face”) interaction with them before this whereas all the other BBEGs in the campaigns have had multiple interactions with the party before their big final fight which helped build on their characters if that makes sense. to me personally, only hearing about how powerful they are but having little actual interaction with them didn’t really make me feel connected to them like i did the other bad guys in the main three campaigns. idk i guess we had just gotten a bit more of a glimpse into the weave mind as characters prior to this episode.
I see where you're coming from about the mighty neins battle but I don't think all fights needs to have that personal touch to them. And with ludinas being bells hells bbeg them taking on the weave mind is just the mighty nein doing their part to save the Exandria. Which isn't a bad thing imo
The Weave Mind was so feared that 7 LVL 20 heavies were pulled away from the main fight to go deal with them. I'd agree it would be cool to see more of how they imposed their control Also, from a motivation standpoint, a bunch of psychic puppet master baddies would irk Yasha and Caleb especially, probably rankle Fjord as well
I completely agree with you. I understand time constraints, but it would have been nice to get a few more episodes about the Weave Mind. As you illustrated, since they were foreshadowed for soooo long, I would have liked some more interactions with them and some more nuanced narrative instead of a big fight.
I think the meta of it all did hurt it a bit - the future M9 live show hurt it the most for me, but you also have the end of BH coming after this so as a company/DM/players you don't want to overshadow that finale. But it was a fun romp in between the personal stakes of VM and possibly existence on the line with BH. So, to keep it in the meta space, pacing-wise it did feel like the right call thinking of this as a story product, and also as a DM to give your players a more fun kind of feel before the heaviness of what's coming.
I don't think this is the last we'll see of Ruidis. If anything, its only a taste of what's possibly coming in future campaigns. Now that Exandria is reconnected with Ruidis, it opens up the possibility of travel, trade, migration, and with that you might even see one of the cast playing a Ruidian migrant in the next campaign. The weavemind may not be completely destroyed. It may have backup seeds of itself scattered about Ruidis that take time to regrow or a ruidian weavemind cult works to regrow them. There are many ways Matt can make more Ruidis content. And an Explorer's Guide to Ruidis sounds amazing.
Thank you for putting into words how I felt about that fight, there was something off when it finished and I couldn't put my finger on it, but your description was perfect. I think also a big problem with a lot campaigns where exploration has to take a back seat so you can deal with the bbeg, just look at what happened with the shattered teeth, everyone wanted to do more but had to move on cuz war was coming. It's been like that this whole campaign with ruidis being front and centre the whole time.
A really fun combat episode, the mighty nein doing what they do best. With all their abilities and preparation, they were by far the best option to fight the weave mind. All of them have proficiency in wisdom saves except Yasha who had mind blank. That puppet ability didn’t work once because of that, if it were bells bells a few of them would have been very susceptible to that. Imagine Ashton or Imogen being dominated every round
I totally agree with your point on the fight. I loved the fight itself, but it just didn't feel appropriately high stakes. In an ideal situation I think they should have had one or two more episode, where they encountered all the weird experiments beforehand and had to fight them. But then the whole timeline would have to be stretched. So not totally sure if it would have created more problems then it solved. Guess/hope they will release more details in books ^^
I mean to me it sounds like the player played smart and strategic (barrel through till you get to the target while holding as much resources as possible to go nova) also setting up abilities that counter,raise defenses and heal(Jesters 350 JP group heal, Caleb 4 casting defense spells, Jester Divine intervention faerie fire and beau’s resist all dmg) plus the whole group being lvl 20 (nearly impossible to kill them unless the DM is deep modding some enemies which is a problem inherent with 5E not a campaign or GM problem) Also from the info you have Matt gave the Weave mind a myriad of abilities that target different things rather than just making something an HP sponge or beat stick like say Thordak was he was very creative with all these abilities so idk “the dice giveth and the dice taketh away and the story plays out how it does”.
Just think, it should have been harder, but their ability to plan ahead, plus navigating Matt's maze and puzzle to get there and allow them to keep most of their spells and abilities.
Your problem at the end is the real problem of this campaign. Ludinus is a TERRIBLE villian for C3. It starts and ends there. He is a C2 villian. He belongs to the Mighty Nein. He should not have been brought to C3 or if he was he should not have been made the C3 BBEG. Everytime I see or of him im thinking this should be a C2 thing. For C3 they would have had the weave mind as their main villian with Ludinus as a general if they want a Campaign tie in. His presence in just reminds just that Beau and Caleb should have had this sorted years ago.
This fight did seem a bit too easy, I did not get the impression that the characters (players) had to dig deep- or maybe they made it look easy because they are so good.
Love your recaps so much. I rarely get time to watch a full episode anymore because I have to sleep and live. Don't know how you do it but thank you. Still kind of concerned that they all might die fighting Predathos. They are not contractedly obliged to live because they have Fjord and Jester's wedding planned as I'm pretty sure they could just do something else during that live show instead.
I completely understand that bit of disappointment. I get why they did it this way. However, I do wish we had more time with this arc and that MN had a bigger connection to the Weave Mind. Also, I wish that ending wasn’t so abrupt
I am a huge SG franchise fan too..... I LOVE Amanda(Sam Carter's actress) too and I have met her at a convention, she is such a humble and kind person in RL.
If Imogen's character was not so closely tied to Ludinus via her mother, I think you're right that M9 should've fought Ludinus and BH fights the Weave Mind.
The weave mind were great Rulers, not great warriors. And the Mighty Nein are an almost entirely outside context problem for them. All of their tactics, technologies and techniques are predicated on their psychic abilities, they don't really have experience fighting Divine magic and the kind of martial might that the Nein have access to.
To your point about the lore. It does make me feel like there is gonna be a massive shift in the next campaign no matter what. Like it's not worth fleshing out the lore when it's not going to matter in a few months. Ftr it's a sentiment that i don't agree with, i also want to know the lore. But i think its going to end up the same way we see the calamity. We know the gist of what happened but we only have small vignettes of the details (aeor and avalir) so this period of exandria will be seen in the same fog of history for the next campaign
Honestly i never felt like BHs interacted with the Weavemind enough to really have a personal connection with them. If memory serves me well they only saw them ONCE briefly when they project imaged themselves to BH. Ludinus and Otohan were/are the two main nemesis' of BH in my eyes, so I was never like "Bells Hells NEEDS to fight the Weavemind!"
I’d love to see a Setting Guide to Marquet (and possibly the Shattered Teeth) in the same vein as The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and Tal’dorei Campaign Setting Reborn. Give us character stats and magic items from BH. A good gazetteer of the places they visited, possibly even for Ruidus itself. I’m sure Darrington Press must be working on something like that, especially if they are preparing to say goodbye to the current version of Exandria and do some type of time or location jump for Campaign 4 and Daggerheart.
Alot has been congruently happening throughout these last episodes of the campaign. Trying to figure it all out is a mission impossible, there are things going on behind the scenes and in Matt's head we dont know about. There were alot of clutch moments from lvl 20 characters that helped out against the weave mind, all the while they were trying to control all the battlefields from 3 different attacks simultaneously. Sounds like a lost cause on the weave minds part, their over-power was their weekness and Ludinus is next. A good story gets you emotionally involved and hooked. Did you enjoy the time you spent within and are you willing to move farther in? Then simply enjoy the ride.
I have to say that I found the complete lack of spells and a counterspell effect that Caleb or Veth could never counter was a bit frustrating for me. I don't begrudge Matt needing to make the battle harder bc SEVEN level 20 characters is a lot, but I think I would have preferred to see a diversity of mechanics? Making everything an ability that the players couldn't do anything about every time just felt idk kinda ehhh to me.
Campaign one has been the only personal end game fight. The somnovum didn’t have any emotional connection whatsoever and that’s what I joined with. The only thing that made that personal at all was that the bad guys body was the same as their dead friend. This fight had about the same emotional energy as back then excluding the birth of Kingsley. The fights themselves are the same. They’re just doing a job to stop the end of the world.
Certainly, these things could have been fleshed out much more, and those of us who are lore-hounds and love this kind of background detail (of course!) and who wouldn't mind a colossal info dump are always going to prefer that; unfortunately, the current narrative on "what makes good narrative" doesn't exactly allow that (and, in fact, punishes those who engage in it), and so it's not surprising that they didn't go this way. That does leave it as a possibility for something that will be in a book on Ruidus (as you very rightfully suggested--a million copies pre-sold immediately!), or on the campaign debrief video that will follow in a month or two. As far as the Mighty Nein's role in the narrative, though, it also wouldn't make very much sense for them to have been the ones to explore that and find it out (unless, of course, they had taken the Weave Mind up on the invitation to talk before the battle began, chair availability or not!) because they were brought in as "Seal Team Six," so to speak: get in there and act on the intelligence that was in place (incomplete though it was) and just do the thing that needed doing. To use the Seal Team Six analogy: I am pretty sure every member of the team did not have to write a short research essay on Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, the historical context of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on Sunni extremist religious movements, they just kept to their training, were given instructions on what to do, and went in and did the job. The Mighty Nein in this scenario fall into a similar category: Beau and Caleb had done their homework on Ludinus, certainly, and it got them to where they entered the campaign at the Malleus Key earlier in the campaign; but at this point, "going to the alien place and dealing with psychic nonsense" was the mission, and one they had successfully accomplished previously with little to no information as well on what exactly they were dealing with. I suspect, if Matt Mercer doesn't just tell what was going on in the campaign wrap-up sessions, that perhaps a shard of one of the crystals there or something of that nature will go along with Cadeuceus, Caleb, or Beau and be studied, and psychic signatures be extracted from the crystal to fill in some of that info. And if Cadeuceus does carry through on the promise to the Wild Mother to make this the new graveyard/Ruidian Blooming Grove, then that is another way it could be found out eventually. (Bell's Hells need to see if All Minds Burn's "seed" can get in on that action as well...they appear to have forgotten about that, unfortunately, so I hope they remember it and perhaps plant that seed when they're done dealing with Ludinus and Predathos...!)
I definitely came out of this episode thinking the build up was lacking. And yes the M9 did some really smart strategies that helped them out in the long run, but literally at the end they all were nearly full health with a huge amount of resources left. VM's fight left them straggling and felt satisfyingly long for what's supposed to be this epic final duel (maybe of CR playing DnD ever). The Weave Mind just needed that little something extra and maybe it was just cause the players rolled really well on their saves. I think Matt should've had them release whatever creature he hinted at in the cooldown below that one crystal that they thought Fjord attacked. That would've at least stalled it out a little bit and added SOME stakes
I think this battle was just one step ahead of the Maleus Keep fight with VM in terms of difficulty. These are level 20 characters fighting main story villians that could very easily be BBEG's all their own. VM with two clerics, an archdruid, two snipers that cant stop attacking and Grog MF-ing Strongjaw. Of course they were going to walk Ozo Cruth! Likewise MN with two clerics, a monstrous blaster and tactician in Fjord, the ability to learn and destroy in baue and yasha and Caleb MF-ing Widowgast, an extremely powerful Wizard in his own right, of course they were going to walk the Weavemind. Now, we get to the much less powerful team in BH who are the ultimate underdogs. Nobody truly believes they're going to survive their fight including all of the members of VM and MN. They have the true boss of the campaign and i can guarantee that fight will not disappoint and may even be heartbreaking as we watch some characters fall. I love these past few episodes and truly enjoyed the "avengers" arch that we've gotten, but its time to end the story and watch BH go to work.
Everything on ruidus is extremely cool but undeveloped. They’ve maybe spent 10 hours exploring it and that is what makes sense for the story Matt set up. The weave mind couldn’t be more fleshed out in time for the fight because they were revealed halfway through the exploration. In hindsight Matt shouldn’t have stressed the lay lines strain as much. The threat of the world ending is good enough and would have given the story more time to breathe. But we’re not going to be perfect every time.
I agree I was less engaged this ep than with Vox Machina. Perhaps I will have a relisten. Also I kept noticing Matt saying "holding space" and I couldn't help having distracted thoughts of "holding space for defying gravity" 😆.
Fun episode but, yeah, I agree that the weave mind felt a little short, underwhelming. Lots of potential. But I think they had a timeline so Matt had to make it for the actual production number of episodes
The encounter seemed... really easy. Veth was betting someone would die, and I don't think anyone even dropped?? Maybe it would feel more dangerous if we could see the tallies of HP going up and down... but based on the Keeper of Souls ability, they only had, like, 15 HD..??? I would think that it'd be closer to twice that many for a level 20 encounter. I recently had a Boss Fight for my level 13 home campaign, and the boss had 500 hp, and dropped (or almost dropped) 3 characters.
One of my hottest takes: opinions aren't really that interesting in recap shows. Inevitably, it becomes a tasting menu: I like this, don't like this, like this, don't like that, etc. It becomes the tail wagging the dog. If you can describe the action, dig deeper into plot and motive, that's really satisfying. I believe we all seek community through these epic tales. But what we like or don't like kind of becomes secondary to participating in the plot.
And, literally, you can center your opinion without the big neon assertions. Your opinion is endemic to your experience, but when you make it the whole recap, it becomes boring.
I got so excited when Cad went down, and not just because i kinda hate all of Tals characters 😅the fight really needed a death, it really felt like they couldve skipped this episode and said 'yeah, they deafeated the weavenind no problem' in some other episode without us losing anything
My opinion is that both vox machina and mighty nein was jarring to switch between. Like each player talking like and inhabiting different characters felt disjointed and jarring.
I hadn’t thought about an Eiselcross style episode but Weavemind, that makes a lot of sense for MN to do. I do wish post-battle we learned more about the Weavemind, so many mysteries. My perfect vision of how the battle would have worked, would have been both the MN and BH together running through a stronghold, where the MN have to take on Weavemind so BH could run ahead to Ludinus. Or vice versa. Good title! Happy to have a recap!
More convinced than ever that the end of the campaign is imminent. With them committing to this being a 2 episode thing for both groups, just gives me the feeling they will defeat ludinus or be immediately confronting predathos after ludinus does something
![ประสบการณ์ จ้าง Developer ที่ผมจะไม่มีวันลืม [ภาค2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pZbsSDRrmXA/mqdefault.jpg)
Update! Tyler Walpole has posted the Weave Mind art 🙌🙌🙌 bsky.app/profile/tylerwalpole.bsky.social/post/3ld5iep7rt22h
It took almost the whole city being evacuated, the Volition to blow up their castle and a high level team to deal with the Weave Mind. On top of that is was already established that their bodies look very weak. So as soon as M9 was able to enter the Arx, dealing with the Weave Mind became much easier. Also they prepared a lot and made smart choices during the fight. Fights like this are why I love CR. We won't always get the narrativly satisfying fight but the one that is "realistic". Matt very rarely will make a fight harder when his players show themself to be smart. And again, a lot had to happen for M9 to be able to confront the Weave Mind.
Yeah I didn’t necessarily want the fight to be harder, I just wanted some more info. It’s really a credit to Matt’s worldbuiling that he made such a mysterious and interesting society that I am desperate for more info!
“This is where we will begin the next graveyard.”
Was such a hard line!!
Taliesen always delivers
In my headcanon he stays on the moon to start the garden, anchoring the peace talks between Ruidus and Exandria.
7:56 Sam’s delivery with “there’s no chairs in here” has killed me every single time I’ve watched it back, maybe my favorite Nott/Veth line period
That was such a good comeback 🤣
Same, I was cackling
It’s so layered considering the early M9 mystery of a chair alone in the middle of a destroyed room… I love it!!
I loved Jester's Divine Intervention. You need a Faerie Fire spell on a massive scale? Call an Arch Fae. Perfect! And I bet he LOVED being able to mess with a bunch of jerks in power.
Anytime Artie shows up it’s a good day 😁
Caleb; "things aren't on fire enough yet"
Now that MN has dealt with them, I'm sort of expecting the next EXU / Downfall type arc to be about how the original inhabitants of the land that formed Ruidus rose to become The Weave Mind and how their possibly benevolent origins twist over millennia into becoming cruel dictators that the Deities ignored (which in my mind, is almost crueler than the Weave Mind themselves). I could see Liam O'Brien stepping into a prime Weave Mind role - and I'd love to see them invite Dani Carr, Spenser Starke, Emily Axford and maybe even Matt Mercer himself in as the other 4 Weave Mind, as they're another four people with beautiful minds!!
Not only an explorer's guide to Ruidus, but to Marquet as well, I loved that continent!
I want to see Marquet, Issylra, and the Shattered Teeth before I see Ruidus.
Yes please!
I agree that only hearing about the weave mind's actions does take away some satisfaction from the fight, but i think this is the result of this being a BH campaign rather than a MN one, if anything this only adds to the MN reputation of unknown heroes fighting unknown threats, even if BH were the ones fighting the weave mind Ludinus is the bbeg of this campaign so it make sense for him to have that focus instead of the weave mind (as dissapointing as it might be), we had many episodes for the heroes to gather and compose, now is the time for action.
i feel as though the MN's narrative arcs have largely been dealt with already. really, they're lending a hand because they can, not out of any bonds. so besides the broader goal of "saving Exandria", personal stakes are kinda low at this point in the party's story
Yeah, the only reason they originally got dragged into the mess to begin with is caleb and Beau were investigating Ludinous still cause they were trying to bring him down, and it just so happened a group of powerful psionic wizards were in the mix and they were like "hey we've handled something like this before leave it to us."
I do agree with you that a guide from Darrington Press would be awesome, but I do think you might be being a little hard on Matt here. The battle was challenging but I don’t mind so much that it wasn’t personal. The Mighty Nein have always been pretty irreverent against big powerful stuff and the whole Lucien/Molly story was so personal I think they deserve a break on that count. I mean, I too would like to learn more about the shattered teeth and Ruidus, however, I think we could be content a written guide. I mean, Matt already did a great amount of world building and I know, for me, the idea of being finished in Exandria over all is a sad thought, so maybe that’s part of it? Just think of the great stuff that’s going to be coming! And do please, keep up the great work! You’re my favorite commentator on Critical Role.
They could probably have done with another hour of M9 seeing the freeing of the Ruidian people (maybe catching up with Gaz?) but it was already a 5 hour episode!
Yeah I would have enjoyed that, but there’s only so much they can fit in
I felt the same way about the VM mission. I SO wanted to see Vax interact with his nieces and nephews as well as have a private conversation with Keyleth, but there just wasn't enough time! People had places to be! 😩 lol
Ehhh, I think it's a rough take at the end. I think the battle was great, and to expect more than we got is unrealistic. Maybe in an animated series that makes sense, but very impractical for a table game.
I feel like they rushed through this also because the characters in the world are in a rush as well? They need to get this over quickly to help the people in Exandria by taking out one of the big hitters and also to have time to help Bell's Hells as well.
I didn't notice it before, but Yasha and Caleb were the two that had Mind Blank for the fight and also happened to be the ones who dealt killing blows to the Weavemind. Hilariously poetic if you ask me 😂
Okay so the more I think about the episode, the more I come to the conclusion that the fight seemed so underwhelming because of MN's high level and how some of them were resistant to psychic damage. While I agree that it doesn't really make sense for the MN to fight the weavemind and that it would've great to find out more about them, I also don't think it would've great to switch this up with BH. Personally I wished BH would've been able to fight both the weavemind and Ludinus, however I do understand that that wouldn't have been able. Anyway I'm really happy we get to see BH again this week
Some of the really high stakes things got taken off the table early on. They destroyed the arch before any of them got shunted back to Exandria and they also never actually opened up the manhole crystal that was potentially hiding engineered creatures. Either of those things would have complicated the battle a bit.
I feel like I have mixed feelings at the end take. The Weavemind were cool and I would have loved to see them be more menacing and powerful. That said, I'd have preferred to see it earlier in the campaign, either as Bells Hells learning about Ruidus or as the Mighty Nein in the special mission they were on before meeting Bells Hells at the lake. As for the other big point, not every fight needs personal stakes. Plus, I feel like we had a bit in there anyway. For me, it was really satisfying to watch them do a combat mirroring the big boss fight of C2 but with more confidence and knowledge. Yasha got to avoid psychic control and kill people who forcefully impose their will, Caleb got to let loose some CRAZY spells and didn't even go down, Cadeusus and Jester made fight-turning moves with their DI and BOTH healed during combat, Veth held concentration on a spell for the whole combat and got a lot of sneak attack damage off, Beau decided to just be resistant to all damage and stunned two enemies at the end, and Fjord took out a few crystals while keeping the Weavemind on their toes. To me, this felt like a chance for them to prove that they learned from the Somnovum fight. They got stronger, smarter. No being stuck under pillars of flesh, no mind control, Cadeusus was the only one that even almost went down. They've mastered fighting this kind of enemy, and once again, they'll beat it without needing the praise or a reward other than helping Exandria. Obviously, they didn't outright say all that in the episode, so the cast or characters may not see it that way, but as a viewer, this is the Mighty Nein beating their own personal best with even higher stakes. Plus, even if no one shares that opinion, Veth made it EXTREMELY personal with all the gambling 😂
Yeah I agree. I wish I had worded things a bit differently, because I did really enjoy the combat. I loved seeing them use their powers and they were super strategic which was great to see rewarded. It was more my desire to learn more about the weavemind as an overall power on ruidus that felt let down.
Veth and Beau's bickering was my favourite part of the episode haha
You are killing it, Lu! Thanks for the shout out. I'm glad to be here.
As for the Weave Mind, I agree that it hasn't been fleshed out as much as it could have been. What has frustrated me more than that though is how they never planted that seed on Ruidus. Being a seed implies that it would need time to grow, which there wouldn't be time to do now. I know possible plot threads get dropped all the time, but this one irks me because Taliesin mentioned it a number of times.
Thankyou for the support! 🩷 hopefully the seed comes up when they get to the hallowed cage
it was tal himself who also said "next time" lol but i get your frustration, i feel like this campaign has been the one where they keep forgetting detail or really interesting things that lead to nowhere because they didnt pursue them
As a Dungeon Master, I often create fights that I think will be more challenging than they actually are. The players sweep the fight quickly, and I feel weird. But that's because the players are prepared and work carefully. So... this fight was difficult but not hard. Tricky. As soon as they realized the strategy, they succeeded quickly. It's fun, that's what it should be! I loved the fight and the episode as a whole.
It just reminded me how much I miss the Mighty Nein, and how much I look forward to their animated series
It’s funny, I think if Imogen’s mum wasn’t tied inherently to Ludinus, BH would have been better suited to fighting the Weave Mind, especially with being conflicted about releasing Predathos. Plus Caleb would have gotten his retribution against Ludinus. There seemed to be an attempt to roleplay more and have a back and forth about what’s going on - we know Ludinus’s motivation but the WM are unclear. But with them being invisible and the jumbled way they all sort of didn’t even enter the room, there was no chance of learning lore or motivation. Fun combat tho
please correct me if i’m wrong in any of this i may have misremembered some moments.
i agree with bits and pieces of the end section for sure. the weave mind were really cool in combat and we’ve always heard how powerful they were, but the one thing that really had me disappointed was we only ever really got one face to face (if you count their projections talking to the hells as “face to face”) interaction with them before this whereas all the other BBEGs in the campaigns have had multiple interactions with the party before their big final fight which helped build on their characters if that makes sense. to me personally, only hearing about how powerful they are but having little actual interaction with them didn’t really make me feel connected to them like i did the other bad guys in the main three campaigns. idk i guess we had just gotten a bit more of a glimpse into the weave mind as characters prior to this episode.
I see where you're coming from about the mighty neins battle but I don't think all fights needs to have that personal touch to them. And with ludinas being bells hells bbeg them taking on the weave mind is just the mighty nein doing their part to save the Exandria. Which isn't a bad thing imo
Somebody wrote "Fjorce Damge" in the twitch chat, and I have not stopped laughing since hahaha
We might have learned more if they had rolled better on the ziplines. 🤣
Bahaha TRUE. Think of the untold knowledge they could have found 😂
So proud to see my name among the patron list!
I liked the episode, but if you're feeling underwhelmed... ya gotta remember... they can't all be bangers.
Definitely true! Individually the episode was a banger for me but I wish we had more time with the story.
@@Luboffin Totally fair. Hey, who knows, maybe we'll get some backstory from one of the other NPCs?
I love the twins' Mighty Vibes in the background!
I think the M9 was just smart like that fr
Chaotic smart if that makes sense
The Weave Mind was so feared that 7 LVL 20 heavies were pulled away from the main fight to go deal with them. I'd agree it would be cool to see more of how they imposed their control
Also, from a motivation standpoint, a bunch of psychic puppet master baddies would irk Yasha and Caleb especially, probably rankle Fjord as well
I completely agree with you. I understand time constraints, but it would have been nice to get a few more episodes about the Weave Mind. As you illustrated, since they were foreshadowed for soooo long, I would have liked some more interactions with them and some more nuanced narrative instead of a big fight.
I think the meta of it all did hurt it a bit - the future M9 live show hurt it the most for me, but you also have the end of BH coming after this so as a company/DM/players you don't want to overshadow that finale. But it was a fun romp in between the personal stakes of VM and possibly existence on the line with BH. So, to keep it in the meta space, pacing-wise it did feel like the right call thinking of this as a story product, and also as a DM to give your players a more fun kind of feel before the heaviness of what's coming.
luvv luvv luvv & appreciate you LUNA!
That sure was fast, but they also went in hard with all their abilities. Fun recap!
I don't think this is the last we'll see of Ruidis. If anything, its only a taste of what's possibly coming in future campaigns. Now that Exandria is reconnected with Ruidis, it opens up the possibility of travel, trade, migration, and with that you might even see one of the cast playing a Ruidian migrant in the next campaign. The weavemind may not be completely destroyed. It may have backup seeds of itself scattered about Ruidis that take time to regrow or a ruidian weavemind cult works to regrow them. There are many ways Matt can make more Ruidis content. And an Explorer's Guide to Ruidis sounds amazing.
Thank you for putting into words how I felt about that fight, there was something off when it finished and I couldn't put my finger on it, but your description was perfect.
I think also a big problem with a lot campaigns where exploration has to take a back seat so you can deal with the bbeg, just look at what happened with the shattered teeth, everyone wanted to do more but had to move on cuz war was coming. It's been like that this whole campaign with ruidis being front and centre the whole time.
Gotta love caleb finishing a fight with a disintegrate lol
Engagement for the engagement god!
THE ALGORITHM CARES NOT FROM WHERE THE CLICKS FLOW!
A really fun combat episode, the mighty nein doing what they do best. With all their abilities and preparation, they were by far the best option to fight the weave mind. All of them have proficiency in wisdom saves except Yasha who had mind blank. That puppet ability didn’t work once because of that, if it were bells bells a few of them would have been very susceptible to that. Imagine Ashton or Imogen being dominated every round
I totally agree with your point on the fight. I loved the fight itself, but it just didn't feel appropriately high stakes. In an ideal situation I think they should have had one or two more episode, where they encountered all the weird experiments beforehand and had to fight them. But then the whole timeline would have to be stretched. So not totally sure if it would have created more problems then it solved. Guess/hope they will release more details in books ^^
I mean to me it sounds like the player played smart and strategic (barrel through till you get to the target while holding as much resources as possible to go nova) also setting up abilities that counter,raise defenses and heal(Jesters 350 JP group heal, Caleb 4 casting defense spells, Jester Divine intervention faerie fire and beau’s resist all dmg) plus the whole group being lvl 20 (nearly impossible to kill them unless the DM is deep modding some enemies which is a problem inherent with 5E not a campaign or GM problem) Also from the info you have Matt gave the Weave mind a myriad of abilities that target different things rather than just making something an HP sponge or beat stick like say Thordak was he was very creative with all these abilities so idk “the dice giveth and the dice taketh away and the story plays out how it does”.
Just think, it should have been harder, but their ability to plan ahead, plus navigating Matt's maze and puzzle to get there and allow them to keep most of their spells and abilities.
Your problem at the end is the real problem of this campaign. Ludinus is a TERRIBLE villian for C3. It starts and ends there. He is a C2 villian. He belongs to the Mighty Nein. He should not have been brought to C3 or if he was he should not have been made the C3 BBEG. Everytime I see or of him im thinking this should be a C2 thing.
For C3 they would have had the weave mind as their main villian with Ludinus as a general if they want a Campaign tie in. His presence in just reminds just that Beau and Caleb should have had this sorted years ago.
This fight did seem a bit too easy, I did not get the impression that the characters (players) had to dig deep- or maybe they made it look easy because they are so good.
Love your recaps so much. I rarely get time to watch a full episode anymore because I have to sleep and live. Don't know how you do it but thank you. Still kind of concerned that they all might die fighting Predathos. They are not contractedly obliged to live because they have Fjord and Jester's wedding planned as I'm pretty sure they could just do something else during that live show instead.
Weavemind sounds like an EXU campaign to me ;)
And a spinoff comic/novel
"There's no chairs in here" is SUCH A HARD LINE
"Put it in the trailer!"
I completely understand that bit of disappointment. I get why they did it this way. However, I do wish we had more time with this arc and that MN had a bigger connection to the Weave Mind. Also, I wish that ending wasn’t so abrupt
I am a huge SG franchise fan too..... I LOVE Amanda(Sam Carter's actress) too and I have met her at a convention, she is such a humble and kind person in RL.
If Imogen's character was not so closely tied to Ludinus via her mother, I think you're right that M9 should've fought Ludinus and BH fights the Weave Mind.
The weave mind were great Rulers, not great warriors. And the Mighty Nein are an almost entirely outside context problem for them. All of their tactics, technologies and techniques are predicated on their psychic abilities, they don't really have experience fighting Divine magic and the kind of martial might that the Nein have access to.
I didn't even watch the show anymore tbh too long, but I always watch your recap. Thank you
To your point about the lore. It does make me feel like there is gonna be a massive shift in the next campaign no matter what. Like it's not worth fleshing out the lore when it's not going to matter in a few months. Ftr it's a sentiment that i don't agree with, i also want to know the lore. But i think its going to end up the same way we see the calamity. We know the gist of what happened but we only have small vignettes of the details (aeor and avalir) so this period of exandria will be seen in the same fog of history for the next campaign
Craziest thing about this episode was Travis referencing Stargate but only through the movie! Where was the SG1 representation?
Honestly i never felt like BHs interacted with the Weavemind enough to really have a personal connection with them. If memory serves me well they only saw them ONCE briefly when they project imaged themselves to BH. Ludinus and Otohan were/are the two main nemesis' of BH in my eyes, so I was never like "Bells Hells NEEDS to fight the Weavemind!"
I’d love to see a Setting Guide to Marquet (and possibly the Shattered Teeth) in the same vein as The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and Tal’dorei Campaign Setting Reborn. Give us character stats and magic items from BH. A good gazetteer of the places they visited, possibly even for Ruidus itself. I’m sure Darrington Press must be working on something like that, especially if they are preparing to say goodbye to the current version of Exandria and do some type of time or location jump for Campaign 4 and Daggerheart.
Alot has been congruently happening throughout these last episodes of the campaign. Trying to figure it all out is a mission impossible, there are things going on behind the scenes and in Matt's head we dont know about. There were alot of clutch moments from lvl 20 characters that helped out against the weave mind, all the while they were trying to control all the battlefields from 3 different attacks simultaneously. Sounds like a lost cause on the weave minds part, their over-power was their weekness and Ludinus is next. A good story gets you emotionally involved and hooked. Did you enjoy the time you spent within and are you willing to move farther in? Then simply enjoy the ride.
I have to say that I found the complete lack of spells and a counterspell effect that Caleb or Veth could never counter was a bit frustrating for me. I don't begrudge Matt needing to make the battle harder bc SEVEN level 20 characters is a lot, but I think I would have preferred to see a diversity of mechanics? Making everything an ability that the players couldn't do anything about every time just felt idk kinda ehhh to me.
Campaign one has been the only personal end game fight. The somnovum didn’t have any emotional connection whatsoever and that’s what I joined with. The only thing that made that personal at all was that the bad guys body was the same as their dead friend. This fight had about the same emotional energy as back then excluding the birth of Kingsley. The fights themselves are the same. They’re just doing a job to stop the end of the world.
Certainly, these things could have been fleshed out much more, and those of us who are lore-hounds and love this kind of background detail (of course!) and who wouldn't mind a colossal info dump are always going to prefer that; unfortunately, the current narrative on "what makes good narrative" doesn't exactly allow that (and, in fact, punishes those who engage in it), and so it's not surprising that they didn't go this way.
That does leave it as a possibility for something that will be in a book on Ruidus (as you very rightfully suggested--a million copies pre-sold immediately!), or on the campaign debrief video that will follow in a month or two.
As far as the Mighty Nein's role in the narrative, though, it also wouldn't make very much sense for them to have been the ones to explore that and find it out (unless, of course, they had taken the Weave Mind up on the invitation to talk before the battle began, chair availability or not!) because they were brought in as "Seal Team Six," so to speak: get in there and act on the intelligence that was in place (incomplete though it was) and just do the thing that needed doing. To use the Seal Team Six analogy: I am pretty sure every member of the team did not have to write a short research essay on Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, the historical context of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on Sunni extremist religious movements, they just kept to their training, were given instructions on what to do, and went in and did the job. The Mighty Nein in this scenario fall into a similar category: Beau and Caleb had done their homework on Ludinus, certainly, and it got them to where they entered the campaign at the Malleus Key earlier in the campaign; but at this point, "going to the alien place and dealing with psychic nonsense" was the mission, and one they had successfully accomplished previously with little to no information as well on what exactly they were dealing with.
I suspect, if Matt Mercer doesn't just tell what was going on in the campaign wrap-up sessions, that perhaps a shard of one of the crystals there or something of that nature will go along with Cadeuceus, Caleb, or Beau and be studied, and psychic signatures be extracted from the crystal to fill in some of that info. And if Cadeuceus does carry through on the promise to the Wild Mother to make this the new graveyard/Ruidian Blooming Grove, then that is another way it could be found out eventually.
(Bell's Hells need to see if All Minds Burn's "seed" can get in on that action as well...they appear to have forgotten about that, unfortunately, so I hope they remember it and perhaps plant that seed when they're done dealing with Ludinus and Predathos...!)
I definitely came out of this episode thinking the build up was lacking. And yes the M9 did some really smart strategies that helped them out in the long run, but literally at the end they all were nearly full health with a huge amount of resources left. VM's fight left them straggling and felt satisfyingly long for what's supposed to be this epic final duel (maybe of CR playing DnD ever). The Weave Mind just needed that little something extra and maybe it was just cause the players rolled really well on their saves. I think Matt should've had them release whatever creature he hinted at in the cooldown below that one crystal that they thought Fjord attacked. That would've at least stalled it out a little bit and added SOME stakes
We stan Major Carter 🫡
🫡🫡🫡
I think this battle was just one step ahead of the Maleus Keep fight with VM in terms of difficulty. These are level 20 characters fighting main story villians that could very easily be BBEG's all their own.
VM with two clerics, an archdruid, two snipers that cant stop attacking and Grog MF-ing Strongjaw. Of course they were going to walk Ozo Cruth!
Likewise MN with two clerics, a monstrous blaster and tactician in Fjord, the ability to learn and destroy in baue and yasha and Caleb MF-ing Widowgast, an extremely powerful Wizard in his own right, of course they were going to walk the Weavemind.
Now, we get to the much less powerful team in BH who are the ultimate underdogs. Nobody truly believes they're going to survive their fight including all of the members of VM and MN. They have the true boss of the campaign and i can guarantee that fight will not disappoint and may even be heartbreaking as we watch some characters fall. I love these past few episodes and truly enjoyed the "avengers" arch that we've gotten, but its time to end the story and watch BH go to work.
Everything on ruidus is extremely cool but undeveloped. They’ve maybe spent 10 hours exploring it and that is what makes sense for the story Matt set up. The weave mind couldn’t be more fleshed out in time for the fight because they were revealed halfway through the exploration. In hindsight Matt shouldn’t have stressed the lay lines strain as much. The threat of the world ending is good enough and would have given the story more time to breathe. But we’re not going to be perfect every time.
I agree I was less engaged this ep than with Vox Machina. Perhaps I will have a relisten. Also I kept noticing Matt saying "holding space" and I couldn't help having distracted thoughts of "holding space for defying gravity" 😆.
I think the story of Ruidus will develop in future campaigns
Fun episode but, yeah, I agree that the weave mind felt a little short, underwhelming. Lots of potential. But I think they had a timeline so Matt had to make it for the actual production number of episodes
The encounter seemed... really easy.
Veth was betting someone would die, and I don't think anyone even dropped?? Maybe it would feel more dangerous if we could see the tallies of HP going up and down... but based on the Keeper of Souls ability, they only had, like, 15 HD..??? I would think that it'd be closer to twice that many for a level 20 encounter.
I recently had a Boss Fight for my level 13 home campaign, and the boss had 500 hp, and dropped (or almost dropped) 3 characters.
Exandria is Springfield....It will all stay the way it is at the end of the day. Let's see if Predatos does something relevant
You should do breakdowns of sg1...loved that series.
One of my hottest takes: opinions aren't really that interesting in recap shows. Inevitably, it becomes a tasting menu: I like this, don't like this, like this, don't like that, etc. It becomes the tail wagging the dog. If you can describe the action, dig deeper into plot and motive, that's really satisfying. I believe we all seek community through these epic tales. But what we like or don't like kind of becomes secondary to participating in the plot.
And, literally, you can center your opinion without the big neon assertions. Your opinion is endemic to your experience, but when you make it the whole recap, it becomes boring.
I didn’t make it the whole recap. It’s the last 7 minutes in a 28 minute video.
i think they were expecting to feel more high lvl stakes forgetting this team eats that for dinner..
I would love if Arti was actually there to cast faerei fire
Yay 🎉🎉 hope you are good. Thanx for another amazing video
I am! And thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it! 🥰
Same problem I'm havng with all these recent combats. Just wasn't challenging enough for a level 20 team who are approaching godlike.
These are a necessity for me, so hard to keep up otherwise!
I got so excited when Cad went down, and not just because i kinda hate all of Tals characters 😅the fight really needed a death, it really felt like they couldve skipped this episode and said 'yeah, they deafeated the weavenind no problem' in some other episode without us losing anything
I believe you mean Brigadier general Samantha Carter :P
I also yearn for more weavemind lore. Great video as always Luna!
They can always give us more juicy lore with novels or comics!
Thank you!
Yes
My opinion is that both vox machina and mighty nein was jarring to switch between. Like each player talking like and inhabiting different characters felt disjointed and jarring.
I hadn’t thought about an Eiselcross style episode but Weavemind, that makes a lot of sense for MN to do. I do wish post-battle we learned more about the Weavemind, so many mysteries.
My perfect vision of how the battle would have worked, would have been both the MN and BH together running through a stronghold, where the MN have to take on Weavemind so BH could run ahead to Ludinus. Or vice versa.
Good title! Happy to have a recap!
More convinced than ever that the end of the campaign is imminent. With them committing to this being a 2 episode thing for both groups, just gives me the feeling they will defeat ludinus or be immediately confronting predathos after ludinus does something
I didn't care about Ruidus I wanted to but it's just too much. I am over the moon tbh.
I realized today that I don't really care about your backseat DM'ing opinions. So that's valuable.
I mean that’s fine, like I said everyone has their own opinions because stories are subjective.