Sorry this video isn't available in HD. I set my processing for lower quality and forgot to change it back. Video quality will be back to normal next episode.
I know how it is as ex content creator. Technical difficulties and all. There were times I had to make 240p vids due to length and my PC crashing. I am a new sub and loved all the vids of yours I have seen.
Just to make sure, I am joking. Honestly, I didn't notice. I don't even watch CR but I found this video interesting and important to talk about regardless of if I watch it or not. Great video.
Plus it was foreshadowed for nearly half the campaign. Fcg mentioned about being a bomb at least 3 times Previous. What will be a let down is if fern casts resurrection on his head and he comes back as a human, elf etc. what would be funny is if he came back as an aarakocra since the Most memorable thing about him was his hate of birds
a fighter loaded with magic items and buffed to high heaven to fight not one or two but seven 13th level adventurers at once should not be controversial
Keep in mind he also tried to have them fight her at level 7 also after they’d had drained resources and Matt had to introduce dm bs to not too the party.
One of the things I admire about Matt Mercer and CR in general is how well they walk the line between TPKs and success in their major boss battles. That's so difficult, especially with a party of 6-7 players. It makes the whole encounter much more entertaining.
Im sorry but they dont walk that Line at all. Their combat are a joke. as Cripsy mentined the previous combat where half the party died, and then "nah all come back to life" had anyone but Sam died, they would have been brought back in 1 week.
I prefer that kind of game. Its how my dad and I DM too. When done well, people feel very successful. There are some people its not a great style for though. Some people want to feel like they are smoking the enemy 100% of the time and can be real downers during play even after it seems more in their favor. Even deaths aren't a big deal if they weren't for stupid reasons and some people survive. Raises are a slap on the wrist in 5e.
@@mikkelmv3991 Well since there are resurrection mechanics in dnd of course they will bring back someone who they can. There are cases in the game's system when resurrection is not really possible since you need a very high level spell for it because the 3rd level revivify spell only has a 1 minute window, but mostly the game is designed to make this happen, I don't really get why people are angry at them using their class abilities. Also Matt even made the resurrections harder since in RAW dnd the spells just succeed automatically, Matt makes them roll for every resurrection, meaning there's a chance the spell fails. He also "punishes" the characters If they need to be brought back a lot since the DC increases with each death.
One of the greatest moments in my decades of playing was a sacrifice by a Paladin in a one-shot adventure. My friend created the character for the game that day and his decision to sacrifice his character to allow the rest of the party to escape the collapse of the bad guy's keep is something my players still talk about and it happened in 1989.
Matt did actually do one error. It's when Laura got a nat 20 on her death save, and Matt said it happens at the end of her turn when it does, in fact, happen at the start of your turn. It have happened many times watching D&D streams where they had a nat 20 deathsave and supprised the enemy and got a big or even final hit on the enemy.
He makes little errors like that often, and a few times it was pretty stupid timing since it would either greatly effect the outcome or just completely make a player do something else if they were told the correct thing.
I see so many DMs screeching they "would NEVER do what Matt did in that fight". And I'm just like... you couldn't. You could not run a combat like that with all the tension and fear he brought in. You could probably not even handle that many players in less high stakes or even just RP. I've played with a lot of DMs who think they're fantastic and they're thoroughly average. A lot of the people screaming about that fight have gotten so used to how good Matt Mercer is, they think it's not even special. Do y'all remember when CR first started on GnS? EVERYBODY watching at home was exploding at how amazing he was. But they're so used to shrimp and steak now, it might was well be cold oatmeal to them. People are just ungrateful.
The amount of dm's I've seen gloat about how good they are, just to actually play with them and they're stale as hell is hilarious. And you're absolutely right. It's VERY telling to me when dm's take it as a chance to boast THEIR games. Listen, be proud of what you make sure but understand not everyone cares how you run your games, not everyone cares about your world or how you rule things. We aren't involved in YOUR worlds or your rules. What we do care about is how Matt does it because we're hooked on his stories, we're invested in the characters and the lore of his world is well thought out and he's open to grow it WITH people. Yet in the SAME BREATH he will not claim to be great. This is the important distinction between good dm's and stale ones. The stale ones are very, VERY loud about how things SHOULD BE. They're... just control freaks. He runs his games for his friends and has said multiple times it's FOR them, he's shut down people glorifying his dming style and encouraged and showcased other dm talents multiple times without pedestalling himself. When people defend him, it's literally because the dude has never once claimed the high praise people give him. He's incredibly awkward when his friends still speak highly of him. That's just humility, my guys. They just put it online because they're voice actors and it probably helped showcase their acting, which was obviously a smart business move they never knew they had until it blew up. (A lot of dm's are bitter about that from comments I've seen, who actively try to discredit everything) As well as Matt just loving the creation process - enough to even let OTHER PEOPLE contribute to making it bigger; Whitestone, Brennan Lee fucking Mulligan with the historical Calamity. Other regular dm's are sometimes too much of control freaks to even let something be collaborative like that. If you step out of line in their campaigns, they will kill or outright deny your character or decide FOR you. A lot of people are hypocritical now because it's successful and they use that as an excuse to take their frustrations and bitterness out. Because they are in fact bitter. If you dm for your friends and just because you love making things/making stories or even just running mechanical combats alone - this should not bother you so much. There's criticism, then there's bitterness. And often, it's not genuine criticism being shown because again, Matt has stated, this is for his friends and if people like it cool. At this point, this far into it, if people hate it so much they genuinely have no excuse for why they're on campaign 3 this late throwing vitriol into chats, it is just hating. You can love something and let it go if it changes, you can be sad if it changes away from your likes, but people will take that mourning of their interest into something very vile. "I have my right to state my opinion!" You do. We also have the right to tell you it's stupid and to go watch something you enjoy instead of upsetting yourself over any changes or decisions you dislike. Because when you target ACTUAL PEOPLE and not just 'oh I didn't like that story beat, oh well.' or 'i'm not as engaged this campaign' that's not criticism anymore. I'm actively closing out of chats because of how vile people get in them about the players decisions or dm choices/styles. I dunno, people screaming about that fight have been screaming a lot for really dumb reasons, I've noticed. They act like because it's media they're entitled to how it runs and some folk really bank on that argument but... they'll continue playing dnd regardless of your screaming, so chill out or stop watching.
Critical Roll and Matt Mercer have done nothing but hurt the industry. There's NOTHING authentic of real about the scripted crap that goes on in the CR production. They brought in a bunch of tourists that only played d&d because it was trendy. Which of course led to activists and grifters pushing bullshit narratives like "OrCS aRe rAcISts". Now we're left with a sanitized boring toothless d&d that sold out it's REAL supporters and fans in the pursuit of money and the approval of Twitter slactivists. You simping for cr is cringe as fuck.
Matt (and the rest of the cast) has talked about this campaign being more dangerous and brutal than previous ones, and that the players are fully on board with him pushing them to their limits. Through that lens, Otohan being so OP makes perfect sense. I also think it’s worth exploring the idea that Bell’s Hells might not have been meant to win the fight at all? Or at the very least, that Matt was fully prepared for a TPK. Someone in the comments on this episode on YT compared BH to the crew that goes to Scarif in Rogue One: a group of nobodies who sacrifice themselves in a heroic play to allow the big guns to actually step up and win the day. The idea that BH aren’t exactly cut from the same cloth as Vox Machina or even the Mighty Nein has come up several times both in the campaign and behind the scenes. It seems fully possible that BH weren’t meant to survive their trip to Ruidus, but by finding the portal, they enable someone else to actually beat Ludinus.
I agree but I will say when he had the chance to out right kill.... his wife and Laura he didn't and just the moved combat to the other side of the board. That's the only complaint I have about this whole series
@@TheKillaShow And any opportunity to make an impact on the story. Him and Travis LOVE to embrace the chaos and it is fantastic. I remember in C2 when Fjord made that hard call near the end of the campaign while everyone slept
@@sandpiperrpeople that act like Marisha and Matt have never butt heads at the table are so obnoxious. Hell, he damn near killed Keyleth earlier this campaign and only came short because of dice rolls
In my mind, a war hero like Otahan hasn’t gotten her legendary reputation without being prepared. She’s going to have a way to heal herself. As far as the damage thing, as far as we know the damage FCG did could have had a multiplier for being so close and a literal core explosion. I mean it could have done double or triple damage to anyone within 5 feet or something like that. Now wait for the screams if he gets resurrected.
unpopular opinion: I hope they find a way to rebuild him.. only because theres no way sam's next character is a cleric and theres too many squishy party members for them not to have a healer
I don't think FCG's damage mattered at all. From everything I've seen of CR and everything I've heard Matt say about storytelling, he wouldn't risk making FCG's sacrifice meaningless by sticking to HP. Sam made a conscious choice to sacrifice his character and Matt made a conscious choice to make it work, regardless of what those 20 dice would have turned up. That's what I think happened during that session. Matt wouldn't trivialize his player's choice of self-sacrifice. Ultimately, he's a storyteller first, DM second.
Yup that’s my issue with fcg’s death. It really doesn’t matter fern has resurrection and took his head. The Resurrection spell closes all mortal wounds and restores any missing body parts. So not really an issue. I just hope FCG comes back as a aarakocra, has it would be funny at least.
Matt has said (in response to questions about Mollymauk) that he leaves resurrection up to the player. If they want to sit out until the party can find a way to bring them back, he'll create a path the party can follow to do that. If they want to play a new character, he'll create an appropriate time to introduce them. So it's entirely up to Sam whether he wants FCG back or to come up with something new. Knowing him, he'll probably go for something new.
Sometimes your players do something so narratively awesome, that the right thing to do for the story is end the fight. If I'm DMing a game and the Paladin just landed a crit smite for insane amounts of damage on his mortal enemy that's been taunting him the entire game and leaves him at 2 hit points, I'm just giving the Paladin the HDYWTDT. I think that Matt did this at the end of the Search for Grog oneshot - Grog wakes up, gets two nat 20s in a row, and does something like 160 points of damage. You're not going to end the fight on a better note than that, and it's one of the most fun moments in CR history. Similarly, Otohan by raw numbers should have survived FCG's explosion with plenty of HP left, but it would have completely taken away the narrative power of that moment and made FCG's sacrifice mean nothing. Something similar happened in a Feywild game we were in. My character is a rune knight from the material plane who saw her home decimated in a previous war orchestrated as a Vietnam-type situation between two of the fey courts, and we had finally made our way to the palace to confront the one who was responsible, finding out that the Queen who orchestrated it was a pretender. My character and another (who was on the other side of that war) were seriously invested in this fight as it was our chance to get back at the one who made our homes bleed. My turn comes around and I'm able to successfully grapple the Pretender, and I action surged and told the DM I wanted to swing them around overhead as hard as I could and smash their head into the stone stairs leading up to the throne. I had just previously rolled a Nat-20 on the wisdom save to avoid being mind controlled (the only way I could have passed it because my Wisdom score was too low to pass any other way) and the enemy still had 30ish HP. The DM gave me the kill because it was so satisfying for the sake of the story.
Regarding the potion : I kinda get going with a potion instead of extra HP, if the enemy is a warrior of renown. Makes sense they'd keep an emergency heal of themselves, like a player would, and it gives a chance to bypass that HP if DPSed down enough. Good tie to them not just being another monstrous enemy. Regarding the death of a PC, it's interesting to see people bemoan possible DR bypass and such when other systems do use sacrifice as a mechanic. Fabula Ultima has mechanics for this exact situation, where a permanent character death gives a huge payoff to the party under specific circumstances. DND just... Doesn't have those mechanics, but why not borrow them instead of having a hole in the rules. A character death is a huge price to pay, so something something the first law of alchemy.
The Law of Equivalent Exchange. In order to obtain something, something of equivalent value must be lost. Give a life to take a life. I'm on board with that.
I swear every encounter with Otohan has been absolutely brutal. The episode 33 bloodbath where she killed at least two of them and downed more; she nearly killed Keyleth at the Malleus Key; here she killed Chetney immediately, downed several more of them, taking some monster rolls from Orym (Liam got how many critical hits that combat?), and having been relieved of her backpack super early...it was never going to be an easy fight, and I think she's proved to be one of Matt's most vicious adversaries to date. TPK was looming overhead like a Sword of Damocles, and we know that Matt isn't afraid to fray that string.
Matt played the enemy brilliantly. He trusted that the players are experienced enough to handle a very challenging fight, and it created incredible story moments. Epic!
I think it was in an earlier episode of 4 Sided Dive Matt and the gang made it clear that the intent for this campaign was that stakes would be MUCH higher, they wanted to feel like there were risks, and taking those risks would come with consequences. So Matt is delivering an amazing experience for his players where things are brutal and not pulling punches because that is what the players wanted. He's doing exactly what he is supposed to.
I'm sorry people are complaining that the enemy isn't doing what "psionic fighters can do normally"? Since when did we care about monsters having powerful abilities?
It's really ironic that the same people that claim they love custom monsters/enemies will cringe when the enemy that is effectively also an NPC is able to do things that characters can't. They love custom enemies until it looks & acts just human enough...
& tbh as someone that enjoys making custom enemies and monsters myself, it can be kind of feels bad if an enemy i'm making doesn't have all the same sort of things that a player of an equivalent level would have, but also, my players tend to enjoy it b/c then they genuinely don't know what to expect out of the fight, rather than realizing off the bat what class/classes the enemy is and understanding exactly what to do to fight it.
@@trevorstammler I'm fortunate in a way that my players are all relatively new with only a very general knowledge of monsters and spells so not only do they not metagame, they don't even notice if I make changes. Which is also helpful because I'm still learning how to DM
If I recall correctly Matt was asked a question about obeying rules to the letter of the law and he responded by saying he was a bit too strict with obeying all rules in campaign 1 and 2 and it prevented a lot of cool moments from happening. I watch CR because I like their group dynamic, story, characters, etc. If Matt had obeyed the rules then FCG would not be able to self-destruct with a nuclear blast. I think people forget sometimes that D&D is about the story, the adventures, the banter and the jokes, the silly moments and most importantly, its about role-playing. That fight was fucking epic and I wouldn't change anything. Honestly, I kinda was hoping for a TPK just to see how it would affect the story. Can you imagine? A bunch of lvl 1 adventurers living in a world where gods are dying and there's this whole apocalyptic vibe. Wooo boy, that would be some juicy role-playing.
The blast thing was probably something worked out already between sessions by Matt and Sam. He IS the rules and fcg is a homebrew creation. He probably had the self destruct built into his character for a while, but its been kept secret, though its been hinted that by overloading FCG's core that it could explode during talks with imahara joe.
Dnd isnt a part of the story solely there are other systems that are focused on the story and do it well however dnd is about fights,rolling dice(which they tell the story) and cool adventures about things like exploring cool dungeons,fighting dragons and so many other cool stuff.
@@companyoflosersit wasnt a secret there was an episode that showed where fcg had a very powerfull arcane core that it could be used to destroy a lot of land and has a huge range of power.
I saw a lot of people referencing the daggerheart rules too, something along the lines of: "a character can make a heroic sacrifice, if they do they'll (permanently) die and take the threat out with them"
Oh no, she was level 20. And then Matt gave her a supermode that pumped her up even higher. With her stats, her abilities, her weapons - she was CR30 easily.
@@jonathanhibberd9983 All the high damage rolls, killing Chet on her first turn, going super sayin, that healing potion, then FCG. That was a roller coaster of a combat. We're not even mentioning the rest of the episode!!
@@owens945Her AC was 25 after she went supersaian, the same as Vekna in the final L20 VM battle! She almost killed Keyleth with ease! She was designed to be a possible TPK! If she kept her power pack she would have easily TPK'd them! She took Chetney down in a single round!
@@johnwiese3926 your point? Vecna also had over 900hp and 9th level spells your taking one stat out of context and she didn't keep her power pack soo thats a moot point .
It occurs to me that players can't see the boss's hp so having her drink a potion is basically an intimidation tactic. A DM can just decide on the fly that an NPC's current health is now higher or lower in order to influence the length or flow of combat but telling the players that a strong enemy is revovering has a psychological effect
It's not an empty intimidation tactic when the homebrewed potion has double the dice of the highest RAW potion and the enemy has a surprise resistance factor. The potion functionally gave her 132 HP. The party doesn't even have decent consistent DPR so it is nearly irrefutable that Ottohan's design was a miscalculation
Came here to say this. No one knows the HP of the boss, unless the DM blurts it out (which isn't particularly good DMing if that's the case). So the health potion could have added a single point to 100 HP, or 80 points to 11 HP, or whatever. The DM can decide the remaining HP of the boss on the fly depending on how the combat unfolds. The initial HP is really just a guideline...
@@yiklongtay6029 Since it was OP it was "nearly irrefutable"? Matt could have rolled some dice, said a big number and then went about his day. He has complete control over when he feels like the players have done enough damage to defeat his boss, if he chooses to do that. At the end of the day, none of the players were in any danger of no longer being able to play. If a campaign were to end in a TPK, they would just start another campaign with new players and keep on having fun. That is the point of the game. To have fun. Not to try and "win".
When the boss heals once: ah hell no!potions are busted! When the party heals for the 500th time: potions are so resourceful.im glad the bad guys are to stupid to use em.
This has been a thing with Pokemon as well. Player: "My Pokemon is nearly out! Better give them a Full Restore to get them back to full health!" Gym Leader: (uses a potion on a Pokemon on critical health to heal them to full) Also the player: "OMFG this is so broken! How dare they! This is the worst thing in the world! I hope the devs suffer endless night terrors for this piece of garbage game design!"
Most people seem to forget that at 17th level fighters get a second action surge, and when she Exalted it was a Mythic Awakening like you can see on many monster stats, the monsters refresh their ability and technically should’ve fully healed, look at Aspect of Bahamut’s Platinum Brilliance ability, Otohan’s Exalted State is basically the same, Matt wanted to party to live
Yup despite the game supposedly being high stakes i havent felt that it was the case unless otohan was present and even then matt really threw the encounter by holding himself back when playing her and not playing her to her best extent possible.
I love my wild magic tiefling and I just want him to be happy, but if his death would be super cool and (preferably) completed his arc, I would grieve but I would love that for his character too.
12:28 this is also very different from Molly, because this was SAM’S CHOICE. he knew what he was doing, and Matt even warned him a couple of times. Molly’s death was also just a straight up tragedy. there was no silver lining. the party lost, and they lost badly. FCG’s death at the very least resulted in the defeat of a long time, very powerful foe. it wasn’t for nothing.
I didn't see an issue with what happened. It sucks but that's what DnD is. It's unpredictable. The same thing happened to me when my first ever character died. It wasn't a self sacrifice like FCG but she died at the jaws of a white dragon. It sucked and I was very sad but I accepted it. But it was an opportunity for growth for me as a player and I got to play a wizard for the first time ever. Turns out I'm better with magic based classes than melee classes. Things happen and I don't understand why people are so butt hurt about it
I made the decision as a DM to let my players have full control over when they're character's story ends. There are other consequences than death. Sam's decision here is a great end to FCG's story because not only was it very in character, and concluded their character arc well, it also was Sam's decision.
I think the only issue i had was they were so stressed they were forgetting things and no one caught it. Not blaming them, it was stressful, and even on best of times it is easy to forget. The only one i really wanted to yell at the screen for was the shocking grasp then not moving away, and her saying she couldnt move because of AoO. she used it a couple times and it would have saved a few reactions if she had remembered, but when she said it out loud and *no one* was like wait! you can move! it was frustrating. Again though, i cant really blame them it was a high stress fight.
My problem with the fight, I dont think they could have won even if they had been at full gear. But beyond that, the supreme healing potion? Deciding as a bonus action that you rolled a 4 on all 10d4s, and then added 6 to the highest possible amounted healed on a opponet that is killing a character every turn and is resistant to all damage? Yeah. Nah fam
Opened the video just to comment- I watched the stream via TH-cam last week. I was light headed with stress from it. I sobbed for FCG. I was HORRIFIED by how OP Otohan was. Just full on screaming in terror cuz this was not a chance for them to run. It was literally a Fight or Die combat, unlike the last few encounters with her. I have seen clips that show how upset even Matt was getting at the possibility of a TPK which definitely tells me it was mostly dice luck and poor Opening Round positioning spiraling down. I love the fight for what it was, but I can understand being upset and frustrated as well, especially when “Resists Everything” comes into play. It’s one of those things that makes sense to give to an enemy (I wish I had when I homebrew buffed The Black Spider in Lost Mine of Phandelver cuz he was Crit One Shot by a paladin), but it also can feel, less spectacular for the players if it goes one too long. Tldr: Aspects of the fight could be upsetting if used at the wrong tables. They are fun regardless. Most of the issue came down to poor dice rolls.
I'll start by saying that I'm currently about 7 episodes behind in CR, but based on the bit of spoilers I've gotten, I think it's dumb that the community is so angry at Matt and the combat. Sometimes bad things happen to characters in D&D and more than anyone else at that table, I think both Sam and Liam have been shown to fully accept that. We knew from their earlier match that Otohan was going to be a tough fight when they ran into her again. And honestly, she's kind of the big bad that I feel like this campaign needed... and I hope that this fight (and the aftermath) provide similar plot developments and opportunities for character and party growth as c1's Briarwood and c2's Iron Shepherds arcs did.
I still don't like how he surprised them with the encounter, even though Laudna had the scry ball out constantly as they were tunneling out. He acknowledged that she could clearly see the ball, but just shrugged and said, yeah well, she's here now. Marisha tried to say that she would have told the others that Otahan was right behind them, but Mat said Otahan basically was on their tail and they can't escape her now. I also agree that Mat having her down that potion (or even having it on her at that time) was an interesting choice. AND she could have had a bunch of shadow soldiers, but they happened to get the backpack off of her to avoid that. Mat just really wanted this encounter and combat to happen.
He also made it clear that the scry ball wasn't an exact GPS. How would knowing Otohan was closing in help them in advance? I'm pretty sure he even gave them another "round or two" of running. The issue was they had to go at the speed of their slowest. Which was a rescued NPC.
Part of the Fandom was complaining that Matt was playing soft and not punishing Talison whenever Ashton took the shard not meant for him and survived - even though at one point he did die and almost permadeathed had it not been for that ring. And now episodes later when they fight a very powerful baddie and it ends in a death like FCG's there's a part of the Fandom that is complaining that Matt is too mean and punishing the characters. It's that age old issue where there is always someone out there who is going to be upset that something didn't play exactly like they wanted it to. RIP FCG! The best of the boys
I REWATCHED the battle and did the math, AFTER Odahan took the potion which gave her 66hp effectively 132 because she was taking half damage, BH did exactly 200hp damage including FCGs detonation, SO even taking half damage she would be DEAD, UNLESS she took that potion with MORE THAN 34hp left. It may have been close BUT it was a legit kill, NOBODY takes a potion with over 35hp! No removal of resistances was necessary.
@@JonBondgsrI don't need to know her max hp! I know she got 66hp from the potion, she was taking half damage in her exalted form, she took 200 damage AFTER taking the potion AND I ASSUME she was VERY LOW on HP when she took the potion, SO unless she had 35hp or more when she took the potion it was a legitimate kill. Where am I wrong?
Let's face it, the real tragedy is that Matt gave them the staff that could get them out when they needed it, and they blew it. Deep inside enemy territory and brush off your evac option. Dumb.
@Kaladelia I am aware. And i remember thinking at the time that it could bite them later. The plan was always to use it as a get out card. I can't remember what they used it for but I remember thinking it wasn't all that necessary.
@@BillCasey-r7c Right, and Critical Role wouldn't exist beause no one other than weird grandpas who have the weather channel on all day would watch that. Why do gamerbros not get that CR is entertainment not a proficiency exam?
I'm not fond of a lot of Matt's homebrew spells, classes/subclasses, and items, but his monsters/bosses are excellent and are almost always perfectly tailored for whatever the party is, no matter the party composition.
To me the healing potion was a master touch on Matt's part. 1) She was a high level fighter, not a thug. She was going to have access o healing potions. 2) Imagine the excitement of knowing the players forced her to drink one. yeah they had to burn through those HP again but she was taking them very seriously because she was forced to. This, to me at least is vastly more engaging than just giving more HP to start with. Also, it is POSSIBLE to bring FCG back, it's just not going to be cheap. This is also assumes that Sam wants to bring FCG back. In any event I am looking forward to Sam's decision, whatever it is.
It's freaking crazy to me that buying healing potions, even a low levels, is just considered normal for PCs, but people scream "no fair!" when a foe has. Otohan exists in human form and had an army, so there's absolutely no realistic reason to think she wouldn't have lackeys to buy or make healing potions for her. People just like to complain. Sam likes playing new characters, so I think he'll probably go new character. However, you just know that if FCG is brought back somehow the same people who are complaining right now that he's dead will complain that him being brought back shows that there's no real steaks in CR!
@@sandpiperr Agreed on the idea that Sam is likely going new character, but disagree on bringing FCG back would be "without consequences" Far as I am aware Bell's Hells do not have ready access to 25-50k in diamonds currently. That amount is going to require doing things for the nations of Exandria, likely an entire arc that has nothing to do with what they are doing now. All for something that might not work if FCG doesn't want to come back.
@@loka7783 Did you read what I actually wrote? I wasn't saying that! I was saying that if FCG did comeback somehow, people would start whining about how "ugh, you see! there's no real steaks in CR! I knew Matt Mercer wouldn't have the balls to actually kill off a character permanently!" and a lot of them would probably be the same people who are complaining about his death right now. I don't mind either way if FCG comes back. The point wasn't how I feel about it, it's that for some people there's just nothing that CR can do right with this storyline because they just want to bitch.
I think it was in CR Cooldown, but Matt said that he didn’t have FCG’s explosion damage be resisted by Otohan’s ability because it was crazy Aeorian tech-magic “she’s not resistant to that shit!” I believe were his exact words 😂
Matt answered on twitter recently that the math DOES work out, because he decided she doesn't get double resistance to a nuke that was actively trying to tackle her. She only got one resistance, so the damage was halved, not 1/4 of what they rolled. Matt also said he would have kept her up if Sam rolled low bc he felt getting her HP low enough for someone else to one-shot her on their next turn was also a worthy use of their sacrifice.
I don't see many dissenting opinions in the comments so I'll provide my thoughts/issues in as clear and concise a manner as I can. I found every encounter with Otohan Thull to be the most miserable viewing experience I've ever had with Critical Roll, and I'll list my reasons below. But before I get into it, I'll respond to some of the points made in the video. I agree that enemies should have access to spells and abilities that the players don't. Where i take issue is when those spells and/or abilities bypass the balancing factor built into the game (ie. the number of actions you can take in a turn). In my opinion, with expressions of great power there needs to be some drawback that allows players to reevaluate the situation once that power has been expressed; they can't do that if they're dead. And when you can kill (not down, KILL) a PC and still have attacks left over, you've failed in that regard. I agree that the requirements of balancing for 7 players is difficult. That does not mean we aren't allowed to voice our criticism when Matt fails to do so. I agree that Matt must also take the audience into consideration and try to make combat dynamic and interesting. Again this does not mean I'm not allowed to say i find a combat encounter to be tedious at best. I agree that players need to be challenged. However, I also believe those challenges should be reasonable, and constructed with your particular party in mind. And running a combat encounter that would give min-maxed dungeon crawlers a run for their money for non-optimized PCs is probably not the wisest move. I agree FCG's sacrifice, and the subsequent death of Otohan, made narrative sense and was well executed. I just wish the narrative impact weren't dulled for me by having to slog through the preceding combat encounter. Now to my points: 1. While each fight was 1 on 7, both times the 1 was at full strength, and the 7 were down a significant number of spells and class/racial abilities. At no point was there a true 1v7 combat encounter where there wasn't the near certainty of a TPK, and even in a scenario where everyone was at full strength, the odds would still favor Otohan. What gave the party even a sliver of a chance was the backpack (which I'll get into later) being removed by Imogen. And in the end even that didn't make the fight winnable. 2. From the jump, the mechanical build for the character was FAR too powerful for the party to contend with. They could have encountered a dragon in that tunnel and been in less danger. Matt could have rolled a 5 and still hit all but 1 or 2 of the PCs with each of Otohan's 4 attacks per action that each dealt damage in the low 20's. Not even accounting for the action surges, bonus actions, and legendary actions this would down all but 2 members of the party with only average rolls. Taking the action surges, and legendary actions into account would make what's been noted so far a reasonably difficult encounter. But wait, there's more... She can also make 3 duplicates of herself with her backpack, each with the same 4 attacks per action with the same attack bonus and damage output. And she can do this with a bonus action. This means, once again with average rolls, at the end of a single turn, 4 party members are either bleeding out or at single digit HP levels. But wait, there's more. Even if you manage to live through more than a single round of combat and miraculously reduce her HP past bloodied, her AC goes up and she becomes resistant to ALL damage types. But wait there's more. Cause even if you're, somehow, still alive and dealing damage she'll drink a health potion so rare that even the players had no idea it existed and effectively triple her HP. Was there more? Probably. 3. The only reason more characters didn't die in this encounter is Matt had Otohan uncharacteristically start spreading the damage around and leave characters to bleed out rather than finish the job. Had he not done this, Chetney and Imogen would certainly be dead, and Laudna and Orym would likely be dead. Matt having Otohan behave out of character was the only reason any of the characters survived. 4. Every encounter involving Otohan was FORCED. The only one you might, MIGHT, be able to make an argument for making sense is the first one; beyond that, every subsequent run in made less and less plausible sense. (Oh she randomly shows up with this caravan. What's she doing there? Um, she sensed Imogen. And she got here this fast how? Um... she's really fast. And the caravan didn't slow her down? Umm...) (We're escaping through the tunnels. Cool, Otohan's here. How? She followed you. How'd she find us? Um. And howed she catch up to us? Ummm....) 5. Both combat encounters HAD to end with a DM ex machina to prevent a TPK. First when Imogen went super Saiyan, and then again allowing FCG to self destruct (You'll note that said self destruct neither damaged the tunnel they were in, nor any other party member despite the apparent power of the explosion and the party's, particularly Fearne's, proximity). I wouldn't have a problem with most of this if i couldn't so blatantly see the hand of the DM in every aspect of the character. Nothing about her or the encounters involving her felt organic or flowed naturally with the narrative. Obviously all of this is my opinion, and you're more than welcome to disagree, but at the end of the day the best I can say for the last encounter with Otohan is at least there wont be another.
I’ll preface this with “These are my opinions based on my experience as a DM.” Okay, from a numbers perspective Bell’s Hells were at a huge disadvantage due to resources and hit points of a few characters being at half. As most know, that’s a standard method of making battles challenging for parties above level 10. However, Thull is far from a standard enemy with her unique abilities, echo clones, multiple action surges, magical weapons, and a Last Stand Final Form. Not to mention an unknown amount of magical items and/or armor adding to their bonuses. Thull could have fought Bell’s Hells at full strength and still downed multiple members. Many would argue that she would get stomped with Action Economy alone but I will say that Legendary Actions and Resistances combined with her high stats would result in exactly what we saw: Chet taken down on turn 1, her high AC shrugging off most attacks, spells having little to no effect due to high resistances with 3 get out of jail free cards, dealing high chunks of damage with near a perfect hit rate on half of the turns in a round, and enough hit points to tank a nuke after a prolonged fight with 7 PCs WITHOUT utilizing Echos. All of that makes for a very strong challenge since 4 action surges could take out a whole member of BH with each use. I would not have allowed this fight to occur until the party was level 15 or 17. But what makes this situation taste sour to me is that Thull facing them at that point was too much. I couldn’t help but feel like there were some shenanigans going on behind the screen. Narratively it paid off with a heroic and emotional performance by FCG but difficult to justify ethically on the table.
I loved that boss. I hate to see her die tbh...she had that thanos quality to add tension. The cast just cant string many good decisions together. As good as they are at acting and roleplaying, they are probably in the bottom 5% mechanically for people with that many hours in the game. I enjoyed when Emily Axford played with them and they looked like highschoolers playing pick-up with Jordan lmao.
The potion was used for dramatic effect. I mean Its better to have her drink a potion instead of just having 50 more hp. Also it adds a bit of randomness and wastes a bonus action. Also you can somehow prevent it, if you manage to nuke her before the potion or disable her in some way. They all went for damage and she was very resistant. They wasted a lot of spell slots before the fight. They forgot advantage. Imogen was supposed to play her turn on a nat 20 death saving throw. Many mistakes were made. The boss was hard and good, they just tend to panic and forget to think when shit hits the fan :D
Agreed! Some of y'all don't want Matt to have nice things. You know how many times Sam and Laura fucked Matt's shit up? Let this man have his moment. God a TPK would have been epic AF.
This isn't the cast's first campaign, they have become Adept, if he doesn't raise enemies to challenge them they and those who watch them will get bored, Thul needed to be what she was a terrifying war hero who never retired.
I think the important point about the health potion is it does 3 things. Like you said, it helps "pad" the amount of hitpoints that the players have to chew through to defeat her, but the latter 2 are the most important and why *I* favor giving the monster a potion or cure spell instead of adding another 50-100 hitpoints to the base block. It gives the characters an indicator that "hey, you're taking it on the chin.... but you've also hurt your foe and look they have to heal to keep in the fight." Lastly, it uses up part of a turn, and so that is part of a turn where this terrifying foe is not raining down death and destruction and gives the players an opportunity to press in or recover themselves.
My table were just talking about scaling combat tonight. So, my table recently jumped from 2 PC to 6 PCs tonight. We were discussing combat now vs how it was for just the 2 of us, when one of the new players said he wanted to try to DM but didn't know how to create monsters and run combat. We walked him through some monsters and stat blocks and a few scenarios involving different numbers of PCs. Some of the more experienced players were saying to not be afraid to scale up or down a monster for the table you're running. You don't have to strictly adhere to a certain stat block, if a creature has 100 HP and the Barb comes running up and casually drops 40 damage go ahead and and add a zero or one to that HP. That way all PCs get a chance to do something. Also you might get one of those players who thinks they know more than you and has memorized the stat block.
in one of my games, i was a little disappointed when the healer healed me of the slaad tadpole, though at the time, the healer wasn't aware they had done that, and in character my character didn't know. But i thought it would have been something really cool to explore if it had gotten to play out.
Stumbled on this by accident. Thought I’d leave some feedback. For some context about my statements: I’ve been playing over 47 years. I’m a “forever DM”. I’ve run many, many games sessions from one-shots, to five-year-long-plus campaigns. To sum, I’ve got a ton of experience at the game, across *every* iteration of the rules. Timestamp ~3:33. You: “Otahan is a legendary figure. She’s not going to go down like some chump. And Matt Mercer made her in a way that facilitated that.” Correct. Take a look at the episode in question - Timestamp 1:09:20. After taking Chetney down in less than one round, and the cast is agog at how brutal the assault was, Mercer says, “…she was designed for this.” Timestamp ~4:34. You: “…I am sick of people thinking that monsters and player characters need to be made the same way…” I agree, thoroughly. There seems to be a slowly broadening swath of people in the D&D ‘community’ who just can’t grasp what used to be foundational concepts in this game. One) Don’t criticize people for the choices they make. It’s their character, let them play it their way. Two) The DM is the DM. They’re “god”. What they say goes. But no… people today just can’t let that be a thing. They have to back-seat drive the entire campaign, down to the smallest detail, because that’s not the way they would do it, or because they’re not comfortable with it somehow. Idiots. Mind your manners by minding your business. I can’t help but compare today’s gaming community to what existed when I started in very early February, 1977. Players characters died like flies in winter. It was common for people to roll up four or five characters at a time so they had an immediate replacement for when (not if) one died. Today, all the snowflakes just can’t handle the trauma. It’s shameful. The game was born out of combat. Its mechanics are centered around combat. Even the storytelling flavor that’s grown up around it (not that much of a thing in the early days) requires conflict to have a plot. And that conflict is resolved, the vast majority of the time, with combat. Grow up and get over it. Mercer made choices. The players made choices. The dice did what they did and the outcome was what it was. If what’s going on in that game bothers you that badly, stop watching and let those of us who are enjoying it do so in peace.
The death of a player character isn't the end, but a chance for a new beginning. My half-elf monk died two sessions into Lost Mines of Phandelver, but it just mean that I got to play my autistic teenage wizard, who ended up being one of my favourite player characters ever.
I was DMing a game and two of my player’s characters (I also run a game for 7 people) died in a fight. They were ambushed by some criminals that wanted revenge on the party, and the party split up into different areas of the encounter and we did not have a healer at the time, and the party would never buy healing potions. So sadly, one of the characters was finished off while unconscious (I rolled percentile in front of the the party to see if the criminal would finish him off or attack someone that is conscious). Another player character was hit twice, first one knocking him unconscious, and the second one causing him two death save fails. Hit turn immediately followed and he rolled an 8 on his death save. Luckily, at the time, I also did blaze of glory deaths, so both of them were able to take out two of the people on the battlefield, one of them actually killed the boss with a critical hit sneak attack. It was pretty awesome, but also pretty sad.
I will say the only 'bs' moments I felt from the combat was the superior healing potion, 66 heals when she's taking half damage was, kinda 'dickish' And the blade that just said 'yeah no, screw your concentration check' against fearne and her spell that could have made a rebound. Thats about all i had 'against' it, i mean obviously it was meant to be a really tough fight, and the way it was ended was beautiful, so overall im fine with it, and sad to see a faithful caretaker guardian go.
While in the moment i screamed “no you cant do that” when she drank the potion. Its a totally valid move. Otohan is an intelligent person with access to powerful resources. Theres no reason for her not to have an emergency potion jic. Especially as someone who lived through a war. And has fought the BH befow
I think a lifetime of playing RPGs where you refuse to use healing potions - even on the last boss when you know it's the last boss - has trained gamers to think that using them is a bad thing. I cannot tell you how many times I've played Final Fantasy games and reloaded a save file instead of using a Megalixer, lol
As a DM I don’t have an issue with Otahan’s build. It’s pretty epic and well built. My bosses are just as hard. The potion wasn’t an issue to me….. makes sense really….. it’s a first aid kit. I don’t have an issue with the FCG’s sacrifice. It was narratively good, my issue at the time was the rails leading to the wreck. Looking back at it a few days later I’m almost wondering if things are going on above the table to allow for a party reset leading to the end game. That also narratively makes sense……. So we will see how this goes in the next few sessions since something was mentioned by both Travis and Sam in the March 4SD and they kind of picked their way to sunset the characters.
I guess I’m shocked that some people think a DM is bound by any rules in regards to what their creatures can do as well as they should be tailored for their characters to beat. Monsters should absolutely be able to heal themselves too.
Well Bell’s Hells took out Otohan Thull (Kass) and only one of them died. Now they are going after Ludinus Da'leth (Vecna), and the chances of all of them dying is very high. Characters die in campaigns all the time. Back in 1e that happened almost every play session.
One more thing, they didn't prepare specifically to fight Otohan before their respective missions. I'm sure their prepared spells are geared more toward utility rather than Combat. Just a level 3 Slow would have made a difference to counter her multiattack and insane mobility . I also noticed that for attack spells they repeatedly targeted Intelligence and Constitution saving throws (Blight, Psychic Lance) which Otohan has max modifier in. She failed Bane's charisma saving throw early on and didn't even care. Her wisdom and charisma couldn't be that high. Fearne could have focused more on support and healing rather than doing damage. She cast a high level scorching ray to try and hurt her in her exalted stage. Why not Polymorph Imogen or Orym into an Ape or something when they're on death's door instead? No hate to Ashley, just an observation. Anyway after two encounters, they didn't seem to study their nemesis and prepare very well. Caleb would have done so much better at the same level
My only gripe with the encounter was knowing how powerful Otahan was and that previous encounter with her was ultra challenging, having the encounter take place after they had already had multiple encounters in the same day draining their health and spells before this encounter takes place is little shitty but I agree with everything else.
5e is built around resource management, so I can't really agree with you here. The fact that they'd burned through the kits is a big part of why they were terrified, and part of why that had such a baller time.
Couldn't agree with you more finally someone from your generation that is actually quite intelligent and has a good opinion about something 😊 also I recommend importing 4th edition monsters into your campaign assuming you can find the book you will find them full of unusual abilities that you probably have never heard of. Matt from mcdm also does this 👍
Not trying to be rude but I kinda have to disagree with you and it feels like you didn't watch the fight. The ability people were talking about was Psionic Strike which is pretty much a smite Psi Warriors can do once per turn and she was using it pretty much every attack, the problem is that Otohan was mostly attacking one character per tuen not hitting multiple characters like you say in the video.she killed a PC turn 1 and had Damage per Turn at around 120-150. Also one of the big things is she couldn't do her Echo stuff which means she downed allmost the entire party without a big part of her kit. I've seen it mentioned that she'd of had like 4 more attacks per round if she'd had it so yeah this feels like an overturned fight that would be more frustrating then anything.
@@TheKillaShow With a PC sacrifice and a potential DM just setting the bosses hit points to 0, also again her kit was functionally cut in half. Saying a fight is balanced or good because the DM decided the boss dies the turn before they TPK the party is kinda out there.
I don't think that Otahan Had resistance to force damage. Laudna hit her with an Eldritch Blast and Matt never said that the damage type did less damage than it usually would, something that he is usually really good at mentioning in all cases. So they only needed around 70 damage to kill her at that point. But he also didn't really care about the total either, so it's a hard call.
My DM gave our party 'The Horn of Grim Duty' a magic item that when blown by someone who fully consents and understands the gravity and consequences of the action, detonates. Dealing twice the maximum of the horn blower's hitpoints to everything within a 60 ft sphere. The hornblower themselves is atomised and cannnot be revived by anything short of 9th level magic. We haven't used it yet, although there have been times when it's been a possibility.
As a player in a seven member party, it is a slog getting thru combat. We’re fighting Auril. We made it thru 3 turns in tonight’s entire session, and most of turn 1 was holding actions and casting buffs and support spells. Matt is masterclass.
I was having a conversation with a friend about Challenge Rating. He's recently started GMming again after a long time. He thinks challenge rating is a good indication of difficulty. Im trying to tell him, its not so much cr as it is action economy. If 7 players are fighting 1 creature it needs to have enough attacks to threaten at least half the part and all of them on a limited basis. Thats what Matt did. She may have had too many resistances though with no way of breaking through. Smiley Day
Everything you said 💯. The whole point of the game is to have fun. DM’s true responsibility is to the players and players only. If they’re good who cares
Agree wholeheartedly! IMO the death of FCG in this fight made it feel more real, more visceral and more realistic to who they were up against and all that happened with this particular boss leading up to the fight. But as to whether the damage of FCG's blast would have actually finished the boss, rule of cool applies and this was definitely a super cool moment. As others have said in the 4-sided dive talk, Matt says FCG's blast damage wasn't resisted due to crazy Aeorian tech-magic or some such.
Imagine if FCG's sacrifice didn't finish Otohan off. Then what? The only real outcome would have been a TPK, Otohan is a ruthless character that felt over tuned but that is probably because things went poorly in the previous episodes and this fight happened sooner than it might have, and with resources already dwindling. This felt more authentic than having Imogen's mom come to the rescue, cause that would have cheapened the whole encounter and everything they've pushed through up till now. As for Matt's DMing choices with rules and such - It feels more authentic when they "go with it" or even make/miss silly mistakes without breaking the flow to constantly refer to rules. Who watches all these episodes to learn the rules?
Matt's human too. There are a lot of rules to remember in the heat of the moment and nobody is perfect. There were also a lot of people in C1 who complained about Keyleth's cliff dive and how fall damage maxes out at 20d6. It's actually a really good thing too because that is hands down one of the funniest moments in CR history and you're not realistically expecting someone to survive swan diving a thousand feet onto jagged rocks. The average roll on 20d6 is 60 points of damage. By that logic, a raging barbarian at level 5 would be able to survive a fall from low-earth orbit. I don't think you need a set of rules to specifically apply to that situation - sometimes you just have to go with what the intent of the action and what its consequences should be.
for the most part, the fight was fine and handled well, though like Crispy, there are a couple of his choices that I would not have made, those still remain valid choices. My main issue was that Laudna was very actively looking at the scry ball such that it felt cheap for Matt to say prior to the fight that Laudna missed her sneaking up because she wasn't mechanically reading the ball correctly. They might have avoided the fight or called in mom for support earlier if this did not play out as it did. The circumstances of the fight starting are the bigger issue, though again, i still think its fine overall. Beyond that, it was a great and tense fight that got to a huge thematic moment for Sam
This is what has frustrated me as well, especially because there was absolutely no way for them to run once Otohan caught up with them. So this OP enemy shows up to a party that's trying to run, knowing they're at less than half strength as a group, and the only choice they have is to fight until they're all dead. If they had other options and chose to be bullheaded and keep fighting her, I'd understand. But she would've chased them down if they ran.
FCG's death gives the players a reason to regroup and fight. For a long time, C3 has been lacklustre, with the players seemingly checked out a little, at least on the surface. This even could inspire the players to re-engage with the campaign and find something for them all to rally around.
For me, It was less the op character for me, and more the fudging of numbers (superior healing potion that healed well over the max of what the possible die roll could be, and the seemingly endless psionic dice)
An old school note on optimization: what's good for the goose is good for the gander. An old school note in general terms on "fair and balanced": The DMG says encounters should be balanced to a chosen threat level using the PC Level as a base (or words to that effect). The players handbook and the DMG provides the option to change the rules as the party and DM see fit for their table and style of play. Therefore: If players make OP characters and the DM approves, the players have given their DM permission to do the same. PS: Who lied to any of you and said life was fair?
The note about for their table and style of play is something I wish some of the armchair DMs who are talking about how this encounter was unfair to the players would take in! This group have been friends for years, have played together for nearly a decade, and have made it into a whole company. I think Matt probably knows what his players can and can't handle by this point.
My party (I was player) we attempted a coup and we were incredibly under-prepared. No one was honestly surprised and we are now left to fend for ourselves on a slaver island. Self-sacrifice should be an incredible epic moment. I lost a crusader to a purple worm because he was willing to be the bait to lure it out. He cared for the party and it was his sacrifice that lead to no one else had to take that risk.
Personally, i don't mind that Otohan was not like a PC because... she was not, she was a monster. It kinda bothered me that it was not a winnable fight. It was an encounter that, as designed, couldn't be avoided -they tried to escape collapsed a tunnel on her and it didn't even slow her- or beaten. The whole "matt rolled really well" isn't really that relevant this fight when she has like a +17 to attack. She had 5 attacks per turn and most of her damage ignored resistances+ 3 legendary actions, really high AC and really good saves, to the point that she didn't need to use legendary resistances. The superior Healing potion, i think was also a miscalculation, he said 66 healing (effectively 132) which is more than a potion can give. This was an unavoidable TPK for the players, playing by the rules there was no way they survived. (ok... maybe if everyone rolled 20's and Matt rolled like he was Dariax) The sacrifice was GREAT, i loved it, and Matt accepted the narrative moment and ignored the "resistant to damage". I'm Not mad at the result, it just kinda bothered me during combat because it was helpless. And the same as when there is no stakes a helpless fight feels a bit boring? -not really the word, but to me it felt less exiting than other boss fights- even the players were half out of it after the potion . I do think it was a design error, does that make Matthew Mercer bad? Nah it means he made a mistake... apparently he IS human after all.
Bit of a ramble, by all means ignore this commant all ye who start reading here. I just had thoughts on this I felt like sorting through and posting. Maybe these specific points are what people are complaining about; I'm not into or keeping abreast of conversation or talk. But from my perspective, being caught up on "watching" all the videos, it seems like the actual issue (and what people are *actually* upset about, even if they're not putting their finger on it) is more just how contrived Otahon encounters are in this campaign; it has been (or at least feels like) a "rocks fall everyone dies" moment with extra steps. To claim any encounter with Otahon is "difficult" is wholly inaccurate; they are impossible. This latest example was them basically TPK-ing the party with a huge powerful swath of their toolkit tied behind their back. And it really seems like those encounters were inevitable to happen and could not be escaped or bypassed or gotten around. And the fact is that Sam made a gambit up on the spot, and Matt just "yes, and"ed it because there *was* no other way out. What explosive core was he talking about? This is some made up stuff, and Matt even said things to that effect as Sam said it. And it's that feeling of "DM says you die now" that I would argue is ruffling people. I don't remember seeing this same level of uproar when characters have died in the past (generally), sacrificed themselves, or when enemies had abilities and powers that weren't strictly in the character creation rules, etc. If it were any of those individual things people were complaining about, we would have seen this before. The new element is how un-overcomeable the opponent has been in multiple situations and how forced on the players they have been with near-or-full-on total removal of player agency or ability. Both encounters, now, have been resolved by sheer Deus ex Machina. And that never feels good. Even if the impossible situation is a direct result of consequences of the player's own actions.
One hundred percent this. I will point out, FCG's core being a nuclear reactor had already been established in game by an expert scientist. That aside, this Otohan fight in particular frustrates me because Laudna had been watching the scry ball and it wasn't until Otohan was ON TOP OF THEM that Matt decided it doesn't actually work the way they'd established for like 90 episodes. So he has Otohan find them even though they're tracking her, knowing from a meta perspective that the party is on their last legs after their missions, and there literally wasn't anything they could do to either avoid the fight altogether or get away once Otohan showed up. So you're exactly right, it felt the entire time like "welp, guess the DM decided it's TPK Day, that sucks" and you could see it on the cast's faces. They talked about getting out of the situation more than once but they were right that Otohan was way too fast and would just follow and kill them one at a time. So to put your players in that situation and THEN give the enemy resistance to everything and THEN an OP healing potion is just a dick move.
ofcourse it's not lost on me that what happened was heroic and really good... but when you look at how we got to that point - either, Matt was baiting out a character sacrifice or he had some deus ex machina to pull if a tpk happened. Otohan took down Keyleth through her earth elemental form and was going to kill her, in one turn... basically with her weapons out, she was going to kill any one of the party within a round with a surge. - she has two. narratively she's an assassin, she has met the party before, to achieve her goal, everyone but Imogen SHOULD die... so with that in mind, there was no running, there was only the fight - BUT to make that fight that insurmountable... it was basically a scripted tpk... it was fine killing chet in one round ... it raised the stakes ... but on top of that, Otohan could dash around at her own discretion, basically nothing phased her in that regard... on top of that the party got rid of her backpack and it didn't slow her down by any noticable margin... ON TOP OF THAT she exalted and went phase 2 with Barbarian level resistances + psychic... ON TOP OF THAT she had a potion that gave her 70 hp / effectively 140 points of damage because of the resistances ON TOP OF her AC being 25... ON TOP OF THAT there was no mechanic to lean on as there were in their first encounter (Imogen giving in to Ruidus and exploding)... ON TOP OF THAT when at least 140 damage had to be shelled out, the party was basically spent, 2 - 3 spell slots each for the casters, Chet, Imogen, FCG, Ashton were down in single digit or low double digit hp and had burnt all their resources... Orym had no martial dice left or action surge... so either this was Matt baiting out a "blaze of glory" for the story OR he had plans for if a TPK happened, with how surprised and emotionally hit he was with Sams ask, I don't think he was baiting out a sacrifice... so what was gonna happen? was the party gonna tpk and the gods intervene?? were we just gonna let Bells hells die and take over as Vox machina against the ruidus threat? it felt so forced with how powerful Otohan was, that it couldn't have been a fight designed for them to win...
Since Bells Hells arrived on Rudius, I've been anticipating fight #2 with Otahan. If it hadn't happened, it would have at some other point. I'm sure Matt has planned this out but it all comes down to when it's possible and what players do and if it interfers with the DMs plans. Some plans happen, some don't.
I think one thing he fudged was the blast radius to avoid a lot more deaths and letting sam save the party. I don't think Sam quite caught that warning, and was focused on his own certain demise. Appropriate in that circumstance, I thought, to change how that blast worked in the interest of good storytelling. If a PC decides to sacrifice themselves to save their party and make an awesome moment- Let it Count.
Damn, these people would hate Clawfang, my natural werewolf with no danger of going feral while transformed along with his spell use and skull bombs he throws as grenades.
tbh I’ve been loving how more brutal this campaign has been. It truly feels like a veteran game of DnD with high stakes. Otohan is a powerful character, as we’ve seen earlier in the campaign, and still is. It certainly feels as if BH aren’t meant to survive this. Which opens the door for a better group to handle the chaos going on. I can’t wait to see how it ends!
Like everything I love, there is a critical mass where the fandom becomes trash as a whole and you just gotta not engage with the fandom or you'll lose your love. Sonic, hazbin hotel, undertale, etc.
Late to the party on this one! but you make some brilliant points in this better than I could. Maybe it's because I've abandoned 5e for other systems (Cypher and Blades in the Dark my beloved) but you really break down one of the things that drove me away from 5e when you talked about boxing monsters and bosses into the role of being just like the players. A great breakdown of a great scene, love your work.
The players and the DM are telling a story. Many tales of heroes giving their lives to destroy a threat to their allies and the world. I am not a DM, but one advice that stuck with me is the story comes before the rules. If a player decides to bring down a cavern to kill an ancient dragon, are aware of the consequences, and has a legitimate character reason for doing so, it would be insulting to deny that if the story would benefit. RIP FCG #SmileyDay
Before we start a rant - the video is great, as always. And it was really intense and memorable episode of CR even without F.C.G's sacrifice, but that moved it from being just cool to legendary. Now about stuff, that been bothering me about people's respond to the fight. 4:17 - But she could use Action surge twice, if she's lvl 17 Fighter. And being 20 lvl Fighter she would have 4 attacks per her turn (which she did and which implies, that she would be able to use lvl 17 ability of the same class, isn't it). And it's possible to twin a result of a special effect (like Otahan did with the psionic stuff) both for players and monsters. And get equipment, that does those special effects too. Top it with legendary actions esistances cause why not => Even from game-mechanical stand point, the fight could be legit, all needed stuff is there. But spoiler alert (and the point of this video) - it doesn't have to be legit. Like it happened with Otahan going anime mode and resetting some of her cool stuff. Monster can do stuff, that players can't. And they're supposed to.
Anything the DM decides is legit. We are not bound by the players handbook. The moment you cite a level 17 fighter abilities is the moment you lost me. Matt balanced it for a party of 7 high level toons. So anything is fair game. The monsters Matt creates are not beholden to any book you can buy. And thank good DMs worth their salt know this. Monsters and PCs are just not the same and don’t need to be balanced. Full stop. Players need to get this. Or in this case, audience members need to stfu.
@@TheKillaShow by mentioning lvl 17 of a Fighter i meant, that Otahan (who's echo knight in every possible way possible mechanic-wise) could have access to that ability the same way she could have access to 4th attack by being straight lvl 20 in the same class. And so any PC with the same amount of Fighter lvl could do 90% of what she did in that fight until she goes Saytama mode -> argument against thing said on the timecode (yeah, it was a quote from reddit, so it's an argument against reddit, not the video). "The monsters Matt creates are not beholden to any book you can buy" - but they kinda do. Almost all bosses Matt have created so far are somewhat close to what PC could do, if there wasn't 20 lvl cap(and some campaigns go beyond that cap, tbf). Lucien and his gang in C2 - just 4 Blood Hunter (or 5, i don't remember the exact number), who did exactly the same stuff any BH can do with the right amount of lvl. Then Lucien grew some tentacles and went into a different territory, but that happened way later. Otahan, like i've mentioned, is an Echo Knight in her core and with the stuff she does. Yeah, she's like 20 lvl Echo Knight with maybe a dip into the Totem Warrior Barb for "everything resistance"-bit and cool equipment. Does her statblock actually says, that she's 25 lvl character with 20 lvl of Fighter, 3 of barb and like 2 of Rogue(why not)? Probably not, it says "Otahan the ass kicker" or something. Could a PC with that amount of lvls do all the same stuff, except for legendary actions? Definitely. So even if we through the idea of PC abilities=\=their enemies abilities out of the window for just a sec for the sake of argument, we still ended up with the same result => Mechanically, everything that Otahan did before entering Saytama mode was legit and possible for PC. And yeah, it'd be probably lvl 30-35 of a character to solo fight 7 13lvls, not 25, but whatever. And on top of all of that goes: "Monsters and PCs are just not the same and don’t need to be balanced." Which i also mentioned in the last part of my original post. Like, yeah, DM can do, homebrew and reinvent whatever the hell they want with what they throw on PCs - that's literally part of their job. I'm not arguing that, i'm arguing that if you wanna go and throw game design of 5e from PC perspective into the argument (and people on reddit did so) - you'd still be wrong. Maybe should've articulated it better, but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
DM's shouldn't be afraid of killing PCs IMHO, ESPECIALLY not in a campaign like CR. Matt's a legendary DM for a reason, his planning and forethought are up there with the best, and these players are telling a story in a way that only the emergent gameplay of D&D or something like it can replicate. It's an incredibly unique experience as a storyteller to have key critical plot descisions in the hands of a collaborator like that. Let's also not forget that CR have been playing together for A DECADE and I am 100000% sure they have had this conversation about boundaries and killing PCs. It's a show we're all great fans of but it IS also their game, and they get to set the tone and boundaries they're comfortable with first and foremost.
With Sam's announcement today, now we know why he did what he did, and it was most likely planned with the crew to some extent so he could take the time off for treatment. The cast's tears seem different now, they didn't know if their friend was going to be ok at the time.
Sorry this video isn't available in HD. I set my processing for lower quality and forgot to change it back. Video quality will be back to normal next episode.
I know how it is as ex content creator. Technical difficulties and all. There were times I had to make 240p vids due to length and my PC crashing. I am a new sub and loved all the vids of yours I have seen.
And don't get me started on manually backing up videos to a TH-cam alternative. It needs to be 720p or lower.
I'm watching on my phone and can't tell the difference 😅
It's not 4k 600fps. Unwatchable. Dislike. 1 star yelp review. Even told my mom how the video single handedly made my eyes bleed.
Just to make sure, I am joking. Honestly, I didn't notice. I don't even watch CR but I found this video interesting and important to talk about regardless of if I watch it or not. Great video.
Self sacrifice, and the willingness to do so, is the epitome of heroism. Full stop.
Giving PCs an opportunity to have this sort of moment (and have it feel _earned_ after the campaign that gets there) is a valuable DM skill.
Plus it was foreshadowed for nearly half the campaign. Fcg mentioned about being a bomb at least 3 times Previous. What will be a let down is if fern casts resurrection on his head and he comes back as a human, elf etc. what would be funny is if he came back as an aarakocra since the Most memorable thing about him was his hate of birds
RIP Fresh Cut Grass
May the rolls of Lauras dice collection sing thee to thy rest
a fighter loaded with magic items and buffed to high heaven to fight not one or two but seven 13th level adventurers at once should not be controversial
@@horicrow2657They were level 13 in that fight. They leveled up after episode 90.
To be fair they were fairly low on resources after their missions.
Keep in mind he also tried to have them fight her at level 7 also after they’d had drained resources and Matt had to introduce dm bs to not too the party.
Remember this was not 7 healthy characters. They had two full days of playing before the fight. Fcg and Tal were at 1/2 hit points.
@shootfromtheright2712 in a home game why wpuld you let your players fight a boss healthy and fully stocked?
One of the things I admire about Matt Mercer and CR in general is how well they walk the line between TPKs and success in their major boss battles. That's so difficult, especially with a party of 6-7 players. It makes the whole encounter much more entertaining.
Im sorry but they dont walk that Line at all. Their combat are a joke. as Cripsy mentined the previous combat where half the party died, and then "nah all come back to life" had anyone but Sam died, they would have been brought back in 1 week.
I prefer that kind of game. Its how my dad and I DM too. When done well, people feel very successful. There are some people its not a great style for though. Some people want to feel like they are smoking the enemy 100% of the time and can be real downers during play even after it seems more in their favor.
Even deaths aren't a big deal if they weren't for stupid reasons and some people survive. Raises are a slap on the wrist in 5e.
@@mikkelmv3991 Well since there are resurrection mechanics in dnd of course they will bring back someone who they can. There are cases in the game's system when resurrection is not really possible since you need a very high level spell for it because the 3rd level revivify spell only has a 1 minute window, but mostly the game is designed to make this happen, I don't really get why people are angry at them using their class abilities.
Also Matt even made the resurrections harder since in RAW dnd the spells just succeed automatically, Matt makes them roll for every resurrection, meaning there's a chance the spell fails. He also "punishes" the characters If they need to be brought back a lot since the DC increases with each death.
It's scripted. All of it. There's nothing genuine about CR.
One of the greatest moments in my decades of playing was a sacrifice by a Paladin in a one-shot adventure. My friend created the character for the game that day and his decision to sacrifice his character to allow the rest of the party to escape the collapse of the bad guy's keep is something my players still talk about and it happened in 1989.
Matt did actually do one error. It's when Laura got a nat 20 on her death save, and Matt said it happens at the end of her turn when it does, in fact, happen at the start of your turn. It have happened many times watching D&D streams where they had a nat 20 deathsave and supprised the enemy and got a big or even final hit on the enemy.
He makes little errors like that often, and a few times it was pretty stupid timing since it would either greatly effect the outcome or just completely make a player do something else if they were told the correct thing.
Yes, but he went to look it up. He just couldn't find it and wanted to continue and wing it instead.
@@lazyvipurr4698 show me a DM that doesn't and I'll show you a liar.
@@lazyvipurr4698 yeah but thats not a little error. That cost Imogens whole turn. Pretty big when boss can just slash her and kill her
I see so many DMs screeching they "would NEVER do what Matt did in that fight".
And I'm just like... you couldn't. You could not run a combat like that with all the tension and fear he brought in. You could probably not even handle that many players in less high stakes or even just RP.
I've played with a lot of DMs who think they're fantastic and they're thoroughly average.
A lot of the people screaming about that fight have gotten so used to how good Matt Mercer is, they think it's not even special.
Do y'all remember when CR first started on GnS? EVERYBODY watching at home was exploding at how amazing he was. But they're so used to shrimp and steak now, it might was well be cold oatmeal to them.
People are just ungrateful.
The amount of dm's I've seen gloat about how good they are, just to actually play with them and they're stale as hell is hilarious. And you're absolutely right. It's VERY telling to me when dm's take it as a chance to boast THEIR games. Listen, be proud of what you make sure but understand not everyone cares how you run your games, not everyone cares about your world or how you rule things. We aren't involved in YOUR worlds or your rules. What we do care about is how Matt does it because we're hooked on his stories, we're invested in the characters and the lore of his world is well thought out and he's open to grow it WITH people. Yet in the SAME BREATH he will not claim to be great. This is the important distinction between good dm's and stale ones. The stale ones are very, VERY loud about how things SHOULD BE. They're... just control freaks. He runs his games for his friends and has said multiple times it's FOR them, he's shut down people glorifying his dming style and encouraged and showcased other dm talents multiple times without pedestalling himself. When people defend him, it's literally because the dude has never once claimed the high praise people give him. He's incredibly awkward when his friends still speak highly of him. That's just humility, my guys.
They just put it online because they're voice actors and it probably helped showcase their acting, which was obviously a smart business move they never knew they had until it blew up. (A lot of dm's are bitter about that from comments I've seen, who actively try to discredit everything) As well as Matt just loving the creation process - enough to even let OTHER PEOPLE contribute to making it bigger; Whitestone, Brennan Lee fucking Mulligan with the historical Calamity. Other regular dm's are sometimes too much of control freaks to even let something be collaborative like that. If you step out of line in their campaigns, they will kill or outright deny your character or decide FOR you.
A lot of people are hypocritical now because it's successful and they use that as an excuse to take their frustrations and bitterness out. Because they are in fact bitter. If you dm for your friends and just because you love making things/making stories or even just running mechanical combats alone - this should not bother you so much. There's criticism, then there's bitterness. And often, it's not genuine criticism being shown because again, Matt has stated, this is for his friends and if people like it cool. At this point, this far into it, if people hate it so much they genuinely have no excuse for why they're on campaign 3 this late throwing vitriol into chats, it is just hating. You can love something and let it go if it changes, you can be sad if it changes away from your likes, but people will take that mourning of their interest into something very vile. "I have my right to state my opinion!" You do. We also have the right to tell you it's stupid and to go watch something you enjoy instead of upsetting yourself over any changes or decisions you dislike. Because when you target ACTUAL PEOPLE and not just 'oh I didn't like that story beat, oh well.' or 'i'm not as engaged this campaign' that's not criticism anymore. I'm actively closing out of chats because of how vile people get in them about the players decisions or dm choices/styles. I dunno, people screaming about that fight have been screaming a lot for really dumb reasons, I've noticed. They act like because it's media they're entitled to how it runs and some folk really bank on that argument but... they'll continue playing dnd regardless of your screaming, so chill out or stop watching.
I think you are putting Matt on too high a pedestal as though others cannot also make a high tension combat lol
@@lazyvipurr4698 No, people can but a lot of people can't but THINK they can.
@@lazyvipurr4698 I'm not saying there are no other good DMs. I'm saying a lot of DMs think they're amazing and they're actually boring AF.
Critical Roll and Matt Mercer have done nothing but hurt the industry. There's NOTHING authentic of real about the scripted crap that goes on in the CR production.
They brought in a bunch of tourists that only played d&d because it was trendy. Which of course led to activists and grifters pushing bullshit narratives like "OrCS aRe rAcISts".
Now we're left with a sanitized boring toothless d&d that sold out it's REAL supporters and fans in the pursuit of money and the approval of Twitter slactivists.
You simping for cr is cringe as fuck.
Matt (and the rest of the cast) has talked about this campaign being more dangerous and brutal than previous ones, and that the players are fully on board with him pushing them to their limits. Through that lens, Otohan being so OP makes perfect sense.
I also think it’s worth exploring the idea that Bell’s Hells might not have been meant to win the fight at all? Or at the very least, that Matt was fully prepared for a TPK. Someone in the comments on this episode on YT compared BH to the crew that goes to Scarif in Rogue One: a group of nobodies who sacrifice themselves in a heroic play to allow the big guns to actually step up and win the day. The idea that BH aren’t exactly cut from the same cloth as Vox Machina or even the Mighty Nein has come up several times both in the campaign and behind the scenes. It seems fully possible that BH weren’t meant to survive their trip to Ruidus, but by finding the portal, they enable someone else to actually beat Ludinus.
Matt will never TPK. Never.
@@Tom-em1oz Man that comment is going to age reeeaaal poorly if Matt ever TPKs any group EVER
Player character deaths are just apart of the game these people need to calm down
Especially from Sam who will take any opportunity to play a new character lol.
I agree but I will say when he had the chance to out right kill.... his wife and Laura he didn't and just the moved combat to the other side of the board. That's the only complaint I have about this whole series
@@jasongreenlee6982 Ugh. Let me guess....you still believe the Keyleth/Marisha hate squad from campaign 1 were totally justified, right?
@@TheKillaShow And any opportunity to make an impact on the story. Him and Travis LOVE to embrace the chaos and it is fantastic. I remember in C2 when Fjord made that hard call near the end of the campaign while everyone slept
@@sandpiperrpeople that act like Marisha and Matt have never butt heads at the table are so obnoxious. Hell, he damn near killed Keyleth earlier this campaign and only came short because of dice rolls
In my mind, a war hero like Otahan hasn’t gotten her legendary reputation without being prepared. She’s going to have a way to heal herself.
As far as the damage thing, as far as we know the damage FCG did could have had a multiplier for being so close and a literal core explosion. I mean it could have done double or triple damage to anyone within 5 feet or something like that.
Now wait for the screams if he gets resurrected.
unpopular opinion: I hope they find a way to rebuild him.. only because theres no way sam's next character is a cleric and theres too many squishy party members for them not to have a healer
I don't think FCG's damage mattered at all. From everything I've seen of CR and everything I've heard Matt say about storytelling, he wouldn't risk making FCG's sacrifice meaningless by sticking to HP. Sam made a conscious choice to sacrifice his character and Matt made a conscious choice to make it work, regardless of what those 20 dice would have turned up. That's what I think happened during that session. Matt wouldn't trivialize his player's choice of self-sacrifice. Ultimately, he's a storyteller first, DM second.
Yup that’s my issue with fcg’s death. It really doesn’t matter fern has resurrection and took his head. The Resurrection spell closes all mortal wounds and restores any missing body parts. So not really an issue. I just hope FCG comes back as a aarakocra, has it would be funny at least.
Matt has said (in response to questions about Mollymauk) that he leaves resurrection up to the player. If they want to sit out until the party can find a way to bring them back, he'll create a path the party can follow to do that. If they want to play a new character, he'll create an appropriate time to introduce them. So it's entirely up to Sam whether he wants FCG back or to come up with something new. Knowing him, he'll probably go for something new.
Sometimes your players do something so narratively awesome, that the right thing to do for the story is end the fight.
If I'm DMing a game and the Paladin just landed a crit smite for insane amounts of damage on his mortal enemy that's been taunting him the entire game and leaves him at 2 hit points, I'm just giving the Paladin the HDYWTDT. I think that Matt did this at the end of the Search for Grog oneshot - Grog wakes up, gets two nat 20s in a row, and does something like 160 points of damage. You're not going to end the fight on a better note than that, and it's one of the most fun moments in CR history.
Similarly, Otohan by raw numbers should have survived FCG's explosion with plenty of HP left, but it would have completely taken away the narrative power of that moment and made FCG's sacrifice mean nothing.
Something similar happened in a Feywild game we were in. My character is a rune knight from the material plane who saw her home decimated in a previous war orchestrated as a Vietnam-type situation between two of the fey courts, and we had finally made our way to the palace to confront the one who was responsible, finding out that the Queen who orchestrated it was a pretender. My character and another (who was on the other side of that war) were seriously invested in this fight as it was our chance to get back at the one who made our homes bleed.
My turn comes around and I'm able to successfully grapple the Pretender, and I action surged and told the DM I wanted to swing them around overhead as hard as I could and smash their head into the stone stairs leading up to the throne. I had just previously rolled a Nat-20 on the wisdom save to avoid being mind controlled (the only way I could have passed it because my Wisdom score was too low to pass any other way) and the enemy still had 30ish HP. The DM gave me the kill because it was so satisfying for the sake of the story.
Regarding the potion : I kinda get going with a potion instead of extra HP, if the enemy is a warrior of renown. Makes sense they'd keep an emergency heal of themselves, like a player would, and it gives a chance to bypass that HP if DPSed down enough. Good tie to them not just being another monstrous enemy.
Regarding the death of a PC, it's interesting to see people bemoan possible DR bypass and such when other systems do use sacrifice as a mechanic. Fabula Ultima has mechanics for this exact situation, where a permanent character death gives a huge payoff to the party under specific circumstances. DND just... Doesn't have those mechanics, but why not borrow them instead of having a hole in the rules. A character death is a huge price to pay, so something something the first law of alchemy.
The Law of Equivalent Exchange. In order to obtain something, something of equivalent value must be lost. Give a life to take a life. I'm on board with that.
I swear every encounter with Otohan has been absolutely brutal. The episode 33 bloodbath where she killed at least two of them and downed more; she nearly killed Keyleth at the Malleus Key; here she killed Chetney immediately, downed several more of them, taking some monster rolls from Orym (Liam got how many critical hits that combat?), and having been relieved of her backpack super early...it was never going to be an easy fight, and I think she's proved to be one of Matt's most vicious adversaries to date. TPK was looming overhead like a Sword of Damocles, and we know that Matt isn't afraid to fray that string.
5-7 the crystal blade crits on 18+
Matt played the enemy brilliantly. He trusted that the players are experienced enough to handle a very challenging fight, and it created incredible story moments. Epic!
I think it was in an earlier episode of 4 Sided Dive Matt and the gang made it clear that the intent for this campaign was that stakes would be MUCH higher, they wanted to feel like there were risks, and taking those risks would come with consequences. So Matt is delivering an amazing experience for his players where things are brutal and not pulling punches because that is what the players wanted. He's doing exactly what he is supposed to.
I'm sorry people are complaining that the enemy isn't doing what "psionic fighters can do normally"?
Since when did we care about monsters having powerful abilities?
When people make complaints like that all I hear is "waaah I can't metagame"
Right? As if every RPG ever hasn't given NPCs and monsters abilities that aren't available to players
It's really ironic that the same people that claim they love custom monsters/enemies will cringe when the enemy that is effectively also an NPC is able to do things that characters can't.
They love custom enemies until it looks & acts just human enough...
& tbh as someone that enjoys making custom enemies and monsters myself, it can be kind of feels bad if an enemy i'm making doesn't have all the same sort of things that a player of an equivalent level would have, but also, my players tend to enjoy it b/c then they genuinely don't know what to expect out of the fight, rather than realizing off the bat what class/classes the enemy is and understanding exactly what to do to fight it.
@@trevorstammler I'm fortunate in a way that my players are all relatively new with only a very general knowledge of monsters and spells so not only do they not metagame, they don't even notice if I make changes. Which is also helpful because I'm still learning how to DM
If I recall correctly Matt was asked a question about obeying rules to the letter of the law and he responded by saying he was a bit too strict with obeying all rules in campaign 1 and 2 and it prevented a lot of cool moments from happening. I watch CR because I like their group dynamic, story, characters, etc. If Matt had obeyed the rules then FCG would not be able to self-destruct with a nuclear blast.
I think people forget sometimes that D&D is about the story, the adventures, the banter and the jokes, the silly moments and most importantly, its about role-playing. That fight was fucking epic and I wouldn't change anything.
Honestly, I kinda was hoping for a TPK just to see how it would affect the story. Can you imagine? A bunch of lvl 1 adventurers living in a world where gods are dying and there's this whole apocalyptic vibe. Wooo boy, that would be some juicy role-playing.
The blast thing was probably something worked out already between sessions by Matt and Sam. He IS the rules and fcg is a homebrew creation. He probably had the self destruct built into his character for a while, but its been kept secret, though its been hinted that by overloading FCG's core that it could explode during talks with imahara joe.
Dnd isnt a part of the story solely there are other systems that are focused on the story and do it well however dnd is about fights,rolling dice(which they tell the story) and cool adventures about things like exploring cool dungeons,fighting dragons and so many other cool stuff.
@@companyoflosersit wasnt a secret there was an episode that showed where fcg had a very powerfull arcane core that it could be used to destroy a lot of land and has a huge range of power.
@@companyoflosers they said in the episode they didnt have the explosion damage laid out yet
I saw a lot of people referencing the daggerheart rules too, something along the lines of: "a character can make a heroic sacrifice, if they do they'll (permanently) die and take the threat out with them"
Bruh, I fucking cried over FCG
But also, OVER 500 HIT POINTS FOR A ROUGHLY CR17 FIGHTER?! Jesus Christ. That was nerve-wracking
Oh no, she was level 20. And then Matt gave her a supermode that pumped her up even higher. With her stats, her abilities, her weapons - she was CR30 easily.
@@jonathanhibberd9983 All the high damage rolls, killing Chet on her first turn, going super sayin, that healing potion, then FCG. That was a roller coaster of a combat. We're not even mentioning the rest of the episode!!
@@jonathanhibberd9983 she was not a CR30.
@@owens945Her AC was 25 after she went supersaian, the same as Vekna in the final L20 VM battle! She almost killed Keyleth with ease! She was designed to be a possible TPK! If she kept her power pack she would have easily TPK'd them! She took Chetney down in a single round!
@@johnwiese3926 your point? Vecna also had over 900hp and 9th level spells your taking one stat out of context and she didn't keep her power pack soo thats a moot point .
It occurs to me that players can't see the boss's hp so having her drink a potion is basically an intimidation tactic. A DM can just decide on the fly that an NPC's current health is now higher or lower in order to influence the length or flow of combat but telling the players that a strong enemy is revovering has a psychological effect
It's not an empty intimidation tactic when the homebrewed potion has double the dice of the highest RAW potion and the enemy has a surprise resistance factor. The potion functionally gave her 132 HP. The party doesn't even have decent consistent DPR so it is nearly irrefutable that Ottohan's design was a miscalculation
Came here to say this. No one knows the HP of the boss, unless the DM blurts it out (which isn't particularly good DMing if that's the case). So the health potion could have added a single point to 100 HP, or 80 points to 11 HP, or whatever. The DM can decide the remaining HP of the boss on the fly depending on how the combat unfolds. The initial HP is really just a guideline...
Excellent point!
@@yiklongtay6029 Since it was OP it was "nearly irrefutable"? Matt could have rolled some dice, said a big number and then went about his day. He has complete control over when he feels like the players have done enough damage to defeat his boss, if he chooses to do that. At the end of the day, none of the players were in any danger of no longer being able to play. If a campaign were to end in a TPK, they would just start another campaign with new players and keep on having fun. That is the point of the game. To have fun. Not to try and "win".
@@Nariasan Do tell, why do you think that telling the players the HP of an enemy is bad DMing?
It was a 1 v 7. Why did anyone think it was gonna be a fair fight? DMs need to beat your asses more often.
When the boss heals once: ah hell no!potions are busted!
When the party heals for the 500th time: potions are so resourceful.im glad the bad guys are to stupid to use em.
She healed 66 hit points on 10d4 +20, you know 6 above the max.
@@edwardcalvo4047 thank you for proving the meme is correct lol.
@edwardcalvo4047 I remember that the Supreme potion was upgraded to 20d4 +20. So it could have been worse.
This has been a thing with Pokemon as well.
Player: "My Pokemon is nearly out! Better give them a Full Restore to get them back to full health!"
Gym Leader: (uses a potion on a Pokemon on critical health to heal them to full)
Also the player: "OMFG this is so broken! How dare they! This is the worst thing in the world! I hope the devs suffer endless night terrors for this piece of garbage game design!"
@@cobaltsable1800 oh where is that? Not doubting you but I only found 10d4 +20 with a quick search.
Most people seem to forget that at 17th level fighters get a second action surge, and when she Exalted it was a Mythic Awakening like you can see on many monster stats, the monsters refresh their ability and technically should’ve fully healed, look at Aspect of Bahamut’s Platinum Brilliance ability, Otohan’s Exalted State is basically the same, Matt wanted to party to live
Yup despite the game supposedly being high stakes i havent felt that it was the case unless otohan was present and even then matt really threw the encounter by holding himself back when playing her and not playing her to her best extent possible.
I love my wild magic tiefling and I just want him to be happy, but if his death would be super cool and (preferably) completed his arc, I would grieve but I would love that for his character too.
12:28 this is also very different from Molly, because this was SAM’S CHOICE. he knew what he was doing, and Matt even warned him a couple of times. Molly’s death was also just a straight up tragedy. there was no silver lining. the party lost, and they lost badly. FCG’s death at the very least resulted in the defeat of a long time, very powerful foe. it wasn’t for nothing.
If these people ever played original D&D, from 1974, both PC death and NPCs/monsters having powers inaccessible to the PCs would be much more normal.
I didn't see an issue with what happened. It sucks but that's what DnD is. It's unpredictable. The same thing happened to me when my first ever character died. It wasn't a self sacrifice like FCG but she died at the jaws of a white dragon. It sucked and I was very sad but I accepted it. But it was an opportunity for growth for me as a player and I got to play a wizard for the first time ever. Turns out I'm better with magic based classes than melee classes.
Things happen and I don't understand why people are so butt hurt about it
I made the decision as a DM to let my players have full control over when they're character's story ends. There are other consequences than death. Sam's decision here is a great end to FCG's story because not only was it very in character, and concluded their character arc well, it also was Sam's decision.
It's called the Player's Handbook, not The Guide By Which Everything In The Game Must Adhere.
Players who don’t get this are the worst. They are also the ones that want home brew subclasses go figure
Thank you! I kinda hate when people try to rules-lawyer monsters and NPCs. Those should not have to follow the same rules as PCs.
Matt did what he thought was right in the moment. I do enjoy a DM that try's to out think the players.
I think the only issue i had was they were so stressed they were forgetting things and no one caught it. Not blaming them, it was stressful, and even on best of times it is easy to forget. The only one i really wanted to yell at the screen for was the shocking grasp then not moving away, and her saying she couldnt move because of AoO. she used it a couple times and it would have saved a few reactions if she had remembered, but when she said it out loud and *no one* was like wait! you can move! it was frustrating. Again though, i cant really blame them it was a high stress fight.
My problem with the fight, I dont think they could have won even if they had been at full gear. But beyond that, the supreme healing potion? Deciding as a bonus action that you rolled a 4 on all 10d4s, and then added 6 to the highest possible amounted healed on a opponet that is killing a character every turn and is resistant to all damage? Yeah. Nah fam
Heroic sacrifice bypasses damage reduction, at least it should
I would say it is part of the rule of cool.
I disagree especialy since hero tropes are overated to me and yes rule of cool matters but it shouldnt alter the game that much just to follow it.
@@f2pcoder92 Not your game, not your table nor is it mine. Not everyone plays the game the way you want or how I would want and that just fine.
Opened the video just to comment- I watched the stream via TH-cam last week. I was light headed with stress from it. I sobbed for FCG. I was HORRIFIED by how OP Otohan was. Just full on screaming in terror cuz this was not a chance for them to run. It was literally a Fight or Die combat, unlike the last few encounters with her. I have seen clips that show how upset even Matt was getting at the possibility of a TPK which definitely tells me it was mostly dice luck and poor Opening Round positioning spiraling down. I love the fight for what it was, but I can understand being upset and frustrated as well, especially when “Resists Everything” comes into play. It’s one of those things that makes sense to give to an enemy (I wish I had when I homebrew buffed The Black Spider in Lost Mine of Phandelver cuz he was Crit One Shot by a paladin), but it also can feel, less spectacular for the players if it goes one too long.
Tldr: Aspects of the fight could be upsetting if used at the wrong tables. They are fun regardless. Most of the issue came down to poor dice rolls.
I'll start by saying that I'm currently about 7 episodes behind in CR, but based on the bit of spoilers I've gotten, I think it's dumb that the community is so angry at Matt and the combat. Sometimes bad things happen to characters in D&D and more than anyone else at that table, I think both Sam and Liam have been shown to fully accept that. We knew from their earlier match that Otohan was going to be a tough fight when they ran into her again. And honestly, she's kind of the big bad that I feel like this campaign needed... and I hope that this fight (and the aftermath) provide similar plot developments and opportunities for character and party growth as c1's Briarwood and c2's Iron Shepherds arcs did.
I still don't like how he surprised them with the encounter, even though Laudna had the scry ball out constantly as they were tunneling out. He acknowledged that she could clearly see the ball, but just shrugged and said, yeah well, she's here now. Marisha tried to say that she would have told the others that Otahan was right behind them, but Mat said Otahan basically was on their tail and they can't escape her now. I also agree that Mat having her down that potion (or even having it on her at that time) was an interesting choice. AND she could have had a bunch of shadow soldiers, but they happened to get the backpack off of her to avoid that.
Mat just really wanted this encounter and combat to happen.
He also made it clear that the scry ball wasn't an exact GPS. How would knowing Otohan was closing in help them in advance? I'm pretty sure he even gave them another "round or two" of running. The issue was they had to go at the speed of their slowest. Which was a rescued NPC.
Part of the Fandom was complaining that Matt was playing soft and not punishing Talison whenever Ashton took the shard not meant for him and survived - even though at one point he did die and almost permadeathed had it not been for that ring. And now episodes later when they fight a very powerful baddie and it ends in a death like FCG's there's a part of the Fandom that is complaining that Matt is too mean and punishing the characters. It's that age old issue where there is always someone out there who is going to be upset that something didn't play exactly like they wanted it to.
RIP FCG! The best of the boys
And you now that if FCG gets resurrected those exact same people will complain about it!
I REWATCHED the battle and did the math, AFTER Odahan took the potion which gave her 66hp effectively 132 because she was taking half damage, BH did exactly 200hp damage including FCGs detonation, SO even taking half damage she would be DEAD, UNLESS she took that potion with MORE THAN 34hp left. It may have been close BUT it was a legit kill, NOBODY takes a potion with over 35hp! No removal of resistances was necessary.
How do you know what Odahan max HP is? And the statement NOBODY takes a potion with over 35hp! is also just a terrible take.
@@JonBondgsrI don't need to know her max hp! I know she got 66hp from the potion, she was taking half damage in her exalted form, she took 200 damage AFTER taking the potion AND I ASSUME she was VERY LOW on HP when she took the potion, SO unless she had 35hp or more when she took the potion it was a legitimate kill. Where am I wrong?
Let's face it, the real tragedy is that Matt gave them the staff that could get them out when they needed it, and they blew it. Deep inside enemy territory and brush off your evac option. Dumb.
I used to game with military guys. Less roleplaying, but they would have had their ordinance lined up.!!‼️‼️
They didn't mess up, FCG had used the charges for something else earlier in the game. And it made sense at that moment he used it.
@Kaladelia I am aware. And i remember thinking at the time that it could bite them later. The plan was always to use it as a get out card. I can't remember what they used it for but I remember thinking it wasn't all that necessary.
@@BillCasey-r7c Right, and Critical Role wouldn't exist beause no one other than weird grandpas who have the weather channel on all day would watch that.
Why do gamerbros not get that CR is entertainment not a proficiency exam?
I watched your earlier videos and the growth was amazing !!!
I'm not fond of a lot of Matt's homebrew spells, classes/subclasses, and items, but his monsters/bosses are excellent and are almost always perfectly tailored for whatever the party is, no matter the party composition.
Give your monsters healing potions. One, it's action economy that can actually favor your players. Two, give rogues something to pick pocket.
To me the healing potion was a master touch on Matt's part. 1) She was a high level fighter, not a thug. She was going to have access o healing potions. 2) Imagine the excitement of knowing the players forced her to drink one. yeah they had to burn through those HP again but she was taking them very seriously because she was forced to. This, to me at least is vastly more engaging than just giving more HP to start with.
Also, it is POSSIBLE to bring FCG back, it's just not going to be cheap. This is also assumes that Sam wants to bring FCG back. In any event I am looking forward to Sam's decision, whatever it is.
It's freaking crazy to me that buying healing potions, even a low levels, is just considered normal for PCs, but people scream "no fair!" when a foe has. Otohan exists in human form and had an army, so there's absolutely no realistic reason to think she wouldn't have lackeys to buy or make healing potions for her.
People just like to complain. Sam likes playing new characters, so I think he'll probably go new character.
However, you just know that if FCG is brought back somehow the same people who are complaining right now that he's dead will complain that him being brought back shows that there's no real steaks in CR!
@@sandpiperr Agreed on the idea that Sam is likely going new character, but disagree on bringing FCG back would be "without consequences" Far as I am aware Bell's Hells do not have ready access to 25-50k in diamonds currently. That amount is going to require doing things for the nations of Exandria, likely an entire arc that has nothing to do with what they are doing now. All for something that might not work if FCG doesn't want to come back.
@@loka7783 Did you read what I actually wrote?
I wasn't saying that! I was saying that if FCG did comeback somehow, people would start whining about how "ugh, you see! there's no real steaks in CR! I knew Matt Mercer wouldn't have the balls to actually kill off a character permanently!" and a lot of them would probably be the same people who are complaining about his death right now.
I don't mind either way if FCG comes back.
The point wasn't how I feel about it, it's that for some people there's just nothing that CR can do right with this storyline because they just want to bitch.
I think it was in CR Cooldown, but Matt said that he didn’t have FCG’s explosion damage be resisted by Otohan’s ability because it was crazy Aeorian tech-magic “she’s not resistant to that shit!” I believe were his exact words 😂
Matt answered on twitter recently that the math DOES work out, because he decided she doesn't get double resistance to a nuke that was actively trying to tackle her. She only got one resistance, so the damage was halved, not 1/4 of what they rolled. Matt also said he would have kept her up if Sam rolled low bc he felt getting her HP low enough for someone else to one-shot her on their next turn was also a worthy use of their sacrifice.
I don't see many dissenting opinions in the comments so I'll provide my thoughts/issues in as clear and concise a manner as I can. I found every encounter with Otohan Thull to be the most miserable viewing experience I've ever had with Critical Roll, and I'll list my reasons below. But before I get into it, I'll respond to some of the points made in the video.
I agree that enemies should have access to spells and abilities that the players don't. Where i take issue is when those spells and/or abilities bypass the balancing factor built into the game (ie. the number of actions you can take in a turn). In my opinion, with expressions of great power there needs to be some drawback that allows players to reevaluate the situation once that power has been expressed; they can't do that if they're dead. And when you can kill (not down, KILL) a PC and still have attacks left over, you've failed in that regard.
I agree that the requirements of balancing for 7 players is difficult. That does not mean we aren't allowed to voice our criticism when Matt fails to do so.
I agree that Matt must also take the audience into consideration and try to make combat dynamic and interesting. Again this does not mean I'm not allowed to say i find a combat encounter to be tedious at best.
I agree that players need to be challenged. However, I also believe those challenges should be reasonable, and constructed with your particular party in mind. And running a combat encounter that would give min-maxed dungeon crawlers a run for their money for non-optimized PCs is probably not the wisest move.
I agree FCG's sacrifice, and the subsequent death of Otohan, made narrative sense and was well executed. I just wish the narrative impact weren't dulled for me by having to slog through the preceding combat encounter.
Now to my points:
1. While each fight was 1 on 7, both times the 1 was at full strength, and the 7 were down a significant number of spells and class/racial abilities. At no point was there a true 1v7 combat encounter where there wasn't the near certainty of a TPK, and even in a scenario where everyone was at full strength, the odds would still favor Otohan. What gave the party even a sliver of a chance was the backpack (which I'll get into later) being removed by Imogen. And in the end even that didn't make the fight winnable.
2. From the jump, the mechanical build for the character was FAR too powerful for the party to contend with. They could have encountered a dragon in that tunnel and been in less danger. Matt could have rolled a 5 and still hit all but 1 or 2 of the PCs with each of Otohan's 4 attacks per action that each dealt damage in the low 20's. Not even accounting for the action surges, bonus actions, and legendary actions this would down all but 2 members of the party with only average rolls. Taking the action surges, and legendary actions into account would make what's been noted so far a reasonably difficult encounter. But wait, there's more... She can also make 3 duplicates of herself with her backpack, each with the same 4 attacks per action with the same attack bonus and damage output. And she can do this with a bonus action. This means, once again with average rolls, at the end of a single turn, 4 party members are either bleeding out or at single digit HP levels. But wait, there's more. Even if you manage to live through more than a single round of combat and miraculously reduce her HP past bloodied, her AC goes up and she becomes resistant to ALL damage types. But wait there's more. Cause even if you're, somehow, still alive and dealing damage she'll drink a health potion so rare that even the players had no idea it existed and effectively triple her HP. Was there more? Probably.
3. The only reason more characters didn't die in this encounter is Matt had Otohan uncharacteristically start spreading the damage around and leave characters to bleed out rather than finish the job. Had he not done this, Chetney and Imogen would certainly be dead, and Laudna and Orym would likely be dead. Matt having Otohan behave out of character was the only reason any of the characters survived.
4. Every encounter involving Otohan was FORCED. The only one you might, MIGHT, be able to make an argument for making sense is the first one; beyond that, every subsequent run in made less and less plausible sense. (Oh she randomly shows up with this caravan. What's she doing there? Um, she sensed Imogen. And she got here this fast how? Um... she's really fast. And the caravan didn't slow her down? Umm...) (We're escaping through the tunnels. Cool, Otohan's here. How? She followed you. How'd she find us? Um. And howed she catch up to us? Ummm....)
5. Both combat encounters HAD to end with a DM ex machina to prevent a TPK. First when Imogen went super Saiyan, and then again allowing FCG to self destruct (You'll note that said self destruct neither damaged the tunnel they were in, nor any other party member despite the apparent power of the explosion and the party's, particularly Fearne's, proximity).
I wouldn't have a problem with most of this if i couldn't so blatantly see the hand of the DM in every aspect of the character. Nothing about her or the encounters involving her felt organic or flowed naturally with the narrative. Obviously all of this is my opinion, and you're more than welcome to disagree, but at the end of the day the best I can say for the last encounter with Otohan is at least there wont be another.
I’ll preface this with “These are my opinions based on my experience as a DM.”
Okay, from a numbers perspective Bell’s Hells were at a huge disadvantage due to resources and hit points of a few characters being at half. As most know, that’s a standard method of making battles challenging for parties above level 10. However, Thull is far from a standard enemy with her unique abilities, echo clones, multiple action surges, magical weapons, and a Last Stand Final Form. Not to mention an unknown amount of magical items and/or armor adding to their bonuses.
Thull could have fought Bell’s Hells at full strength and still downed multiple members. Many would argue that she would get stomped with Action Economy alone but I will say that Legendary Actions and Resistances combined with her high stats would result in exactly what we saw: Chet taken down on turn 1, her high AC shrugging off most attacks, spells having little to no effect due to high resistances with 3 get out of jail free cards, dealing high chunks of damage with near a perfect hit rate on half of the turns in a round, and enough hit points to tank a nuke after a prolonged fight with 7 PCs WITHOUT utilizing Echos. All of that makes for a very strong challenge since 4 action surges could take out a whole member of BH with each use. I would not have allowed this fight to occur until the party was level 15 or 17.
But what makes this situation taste sour to me is that Thull facing them at that point was too much. I couldn’t help but feel like there were some shenanigans going on behind the screen.
Narratively it paid off with a heroic and emotional performance by FCG but difficult to justify ethically on the table.
I loved that boss. I hate to see her die tbh...she had that thanos quality to add tension.
The cast just cant string many good decisions together. As good as they are at acting and roleplaying, they are probably in the bottom 5% mechanically for people with that many hours in the game.
I enjoyed when Emily Axford played with them and they looked like highschoolers playing pick-up with Jordan lmao.
The potion was used for dramatic effect. I mean Its better to have her drink a potion instead of just having 50 more hp. Also it adds a bit of randomness and wastes a bonus action. Also you can somehow prevent it, if you manage to nuke her before the potion or disable her in some way.
They all went for damage and she was very resistant. They wasted a lot of spell slots before the fight. They forgot advantage. Imogen was supposed to play her turn on a nat 20 death saving throw. Many mistakes were made. The boss was hard and good, they just tend to panic and forget to think when shit hits the fan :D
Agreed! Some of y'all don't want Matt to have nice things. You know how many times Sam and Laura fucked Matt's shit up? Let this man have his moment. God a TPK would have been epic AF.
It would have happened if matt wasnt holding himself back as much when playing otohan.
This isn't the cast's first campaign, they have become Adept, if he doesn't raise enemies to challenge them they and those who watch them will get bored, Thul needed to be what she was a terrifying war hero who never retired.
I think the important point about the health potion is it does 3 things. Like you said, it helps "pad" the amount of hitpoints that the players have to chew through to defeat her, but the latter 2 are the most important and why *I* favor giving the monster a potion or cure spell instead of adding another 50-100 hitpoints to the base block. It gives the characters an indicator that "hey, you're taking it on the chin.... but you've also hurt your foe and look they have to heal to keep in the fight." Lastly, it uses up part of a turn, and so that is part of a turn where this terrifying foe is not raining down death and destruction and gives the players an opportunity to press in or recover themselves.
My table were just talking about scaling combat tonight. So, my table recently jumped from 2 PC to 6 PCs tonight. We were discussing combat now vs how it was for just the 2 of us, when one of the new players said he wanted to try to DM but didn't know how to create monsters and run combat. We walked him through some monsters and stat blocks and a few scenarios involving different numbers of PCs. Some of the more experienced players were saying to not be afraid to scale up or down a monster for the table you're running. You don't have to strictly adhere to a certain stat block, if a creature has 100 HP and the Barb comes running up and casually drops 40 damage go ahead and and add a zero or one to that HP. That way all PCs get a chance to do something. Also you might get one of those players who thinks they know more than you and has memorized the stat block.
in one of my games, i was a little disappointed when the healer healed me of the slaad tadpole, though at the time, the healer wasn't aware they had done that, and in character my character didn't know. But i thought it would have been something really cool to explore if it had gotten to play out.
FCG's sacrifice was a beautiful moment. Otohan's phylactery will never forget it.
Stumbled on this by accident. Thought I’d leave some feedback. For some context about my statements: I’ve been playing over 47 years. I’m a “forever DM”. I’ve run many, many games sessions from one-shots, to five-year-long-plus campaigns. To sum, I’ve got a ton of experience at the game, across *every* iteration of the rules.
Timestamp ~3:33. You: “Otahan is a legendary figure. She’s not going to go down like some chump. And Matt Mercer made her in a way that facilitated that.”
Correct. Take a look at the episode in question - Timestamp 1:09:20. After taking Chetney down in less than one round, and the cast is agog at how brutal the assault was, Mercer says, “…she was designed for this.”
Timestamp ~4:34. You: “…I am sick of people thinking that monsters and player characters need to be made the same way…”
I agree, thoroughly. There seems to be a slowly broadening swath of people in the D&D ‘community’ who just can’t grasp what used to be foundational concepts in this game. One) Don’t criticize people for the choices they make. It’s their character, let them play it their way. Two) The DM is the DM. They’re “god”. What they say goes. But no… people today just can’t let that be a thing. They have to back-seat drive the entire campaign, down to the smallest detail, because that’s not the way they would do it, or because they’re not comfortable with it somehow. Idiots. Mind your manners by minding your business.
I can’t help but compare today’s gaming community to what existed when I started in very early February, 1977. Players characters died like flies in winter. It was common for people to roll up four or five characters at a time so they had an immediate replacement for when (not if) one died. Today, all the snowflakes just can’t handle the trauma. It’s shameful. The game was born out of combat. Its mechanics are centered around combat. Even the storytelling flavor that’s grown up around it (not that much of a thing in the early days) requires conflict to have a plot. And that conflict is resolved, the vast majority of the time, with combat. Grow up and get over it.
Mercer made choices. The players made choices. The dice did what they did and the outcome was what it was. If what’s going on in that game bothers you that badly, stop watching and let those of us who are enjoying it do so in peace.
I think it’s the fact that she’s not a monster but a dmnpc with 2 subclasses.
The death of a player character isn't the end, but a chance for a new beginning. My half-elf monk died two sessions into Lost Mines of Phandelver, but it just mean that I got to play my autistic teenage wizard, who ended up being one of my favourite player characters ever.
I was DMing a game and two of my player’s characters (I also run a game for 7 people) died in a fight. They were ambushed by some criminals that wanted revenge on the party, and the party split up into different areas of the encounter and we did not have a healer at the time, and the party would never buy healing potions. So sadly, one of the characters was finished off while unconscious (I rolled percentile in front of the the party to see if the criminal would finish him off or attack someone that is conscious). Another player character was hit twice, first one knocking him unconscious, and the second one causing him two death save fails. Hit turn immediately followed and he rolled an 8 on his death save. Luckily, at the time, I also did blaze of glory deaths, so both of them were able to take out two of the people on the battlefield, one of them actually killed the boss with a critical hit sneak attack. It was pretty awesome, but also pretty sad.
I will say the only 'bs' moments I felt from the combat was the superior healing potion, 66 heals when she's taking half damage was, kinda 'dickish'
And the blade that just said 'yeah no, screw your concentration check' against fearne and her spell that could have made a rebound.
Thats about all i had 'against' it, i mean obviously it was meant to be a really tough fight, and the way it was ended was beautiful, so overall im fine with it, and sad to see a faithful caretaker guardian go.
While in the moment i screamed “no you cant do that” when she drank the potion. Its a totally valid move. Otohan is an intelligent person with access to powerful resources. Theres no reason for her not to have an emergency potion jic. Especially as someone who lived through a war. And has fought the BH befow
I think a lifetime of playing RPGs where you refuse to use healing potions - even on the last boss when you know it's the last boss - has trained gamers to think that using them is a bad thing.
I cannot tell you how many times I've played Final Fantasy games and reloaded a save file instead of using a Megalixer, lol
Given how the fight was going at that point, FCG's sacrifice saved Bell's Hells from losing more people if not a full TPK
This Whole video is *chef's kiss*, smiley day to you my friend
As a DM I don’t have an issue with Otahan’s build. It’s pretty epic and well built. My bosses are just as hard. The potion wasn’t an issue to me….. makes sense really….. it’s a first aid kit.
I don’t have an issue with the FCG’s sacrifice. It was narratively good, my issue at the time was the rails leading to the wreck. Looking back at it a few days later I’m almost wondering if things are going on above the table to allow for a party reset leading to the end game. That also narratively makes sense……. So we will see how this goes in the next few sessions since something was mentioned by both Travis and Sam in the March 4SD and they kind of picked their way to sunset the characters.
It's no secret that Travis has wanted to retire Chetney for a while.
Man I needed this amidst a shit day from sunrise to sundown. Keep up the content.
"That. Is. Dumb."
Agreed, Rat-Man, agreed.
I guess I’m shocked that some people think a DM is bound by any rules in regards to what their creatures can do as well as they should be tailored for their characters to beat. Monsters should absolutely be able to heal themselves too.
Well Bell’s Hells took out Otohan Thull (Kass) and only one of them died. Now they are going after Ludinus Da'leth (Vecna), and the chances of all of them dying is very high. Characters die in campaigns all the time. Back in 1e that happened almost every play session.
One more thing, they didn't prepare specifically to fight Otohan before their respective missions. I'm sure their prepared spells are geared more toward utility rather than Combat. Just a level 3 Slow would have made a difference to counter her multiattack and insane mobility . I also noticed that for attack spells they repeatedly targeted Intelligence and Constitution saving throws (Blight, Psychic Lance) which Otohan has max modifier in. She failed Bane's charisma saving throw early on and didn't even care. Her wisdom and charisma couldn't be that high. Fearne could have focused more on support and healing rather than doing damage. She cast a high level scorching ray to try and hurt her in her exalted stage. Why not Polymorph Imogen or Orym into an Ape or something when they're on death's door instead? No hate to Ashley, just an observation. Anyway after two encounters, they didn't seem to study their nemesis and prepare very well. Caleb would have done so much better at the same level
Love your videos man! Keep it up!
My only gripe with the encounter was knowing how powerful Otahan was and that previous encounter with her was ultra challenging, having the encounter take place after they had already had multiple encounters in the same day draining their health and spells before this encounter takes place is little shitty but I agree with everything else.
5e is built around resource management, so I can't really agree with you here. The fact that they'd burned through the kits is a big part of why they were terrified, and part of why that had such a baller time.
Couldn't agree with you more finally someone from your generation that is actually quite intelligent and has a good opinion about something 😊 also I recommend importing 4th edition monsters into your campaign assuming you can find the book you will find them full of unusual abilities that you probably have never heard of.
Matt from mcdm also does this 👍
Im interested to see what Sam's next character is. When he had Scanlan leave and introduced Tary it was to me at least an absolute gutpunch.
Critics when nobody dies in CR: the stakes aren’t high enough, it’s too boring. Critics when somebody dies in CR: it’s not fair, she was overpowered
Exactly. No matter what happens, someone’s going to be pissed. Especially the parasocials.
Not trying to be rude but I kinda have to disagree with you and it feels like you didn't watch the fight. The ability people were talking about was Psionic Strike which is pretty much a smite Psi Warriors can do once per turn and she was using it pretty much every attack, the problem is that Otohan was mostly attacking one character per tuen not hitting multiple characters like you say in the video.she killed a PC turn 1 and had Damage per Turn at around 120-150.
Also one of the big things is she couldn't do her Echo stuff which means she downed allmost the entire party without a big part of her kit. I've seen it mentioned that she'd of had like 4 more attacks per round if she'd had it so yeah this feels like an overturned fight that would be more frustrating then anything.
And. They. Still. Won.
@@TheKillaShow With a PC sacrifice and a potential DM just setting the bosses hit points to 0, also again her kit was functionally cut in half. Saying a fight is balanced or good because the DM decided the boss dies the turn before they TPK the party is kinda out there.
Otohan has a starblock, not a character sheet. And Matt gave them a revivify, otohan deserved something, I think the potion was well needed.
I don't think that Otahan Had resistance to force damage. Laudna hit her with an Eldritch Blast and Matt never said that the damage type did less damage than it usually would, something that he is usually really good at mentioning in all cases. So they only needed around 70 damage to kill her at that point. But he also didn't really care about the total either, so it's a hard call.
My DM gave our party 'The Horn of Grim Duty' a magic item that when blown by someone who fully consents and understands the gravity and consequences of the action, detonates. Dealing twice the maximum of the horn blower's hitpoints to everything within a 60 ft sphere. The hornblower themselves is atomised and cannnot be revived by anything short of 9th level magic.
We haven't used it yet, although there have been times when it's been a possibility.
As a player in a seven member party, it is a slog getting thru combat. We’re fighting Auril. We made it thru 3 turns in tonight’s entire session, and most of turn 1 was holding actions and casting buffs and support spells.
Matt is masterclass.
I was having a conversation with a friend about Challenge Rating.
He's recently started GMming again after a long time. He thinks challenge rating is a good indication of difficulty. Im trying to tell him, its not so much cr as it is action economy.
If 7 players are fighting 1 creature it needs to have enough attacks to threaten at least half the part and all of them on a limited basis. Thats what Matt did.
She may have had too many resistances though with no way of breaking through.
Smiley Day
Everything you said 💯. The whole point of the game is to have fun. DM’s true responsibility is to the players and players only. If they’re good who cares
Agree wholeheartedly! IMO the death of FCG in this fight made it feel more real, more visceral and more realistic to who they were up against and all that happened with this particular boss leading up to the fight. But as to whether the damage of FCG's blast would have actually finished the boss, rule of cool applies and this was definitely a super cool moment. As others have said in the 4-sided dive talk, Matt says FCG's blast damage wasn't resisted due to crazy Aeorian tech-magic or some such.
Imagine if FCG's sacrifice didn't finish Otohan off. Then what? The only real outcome would have been a TPK, Otohan is a ruthless character that felt over tuned but that is probably because things went poorly in the previous episodes and this fight happened sooner than it might have, and with resources already dwindling. This felt more authentic than having Imogen's mom come to the rescue, cause that would have cheapened the whole encounter and everything they've pushed through up till now.
As for Matt's DMing choices with rules and such - It feels more authentic when they "go with it" or even make/miss silly mistakes without breaking the flow to constantly refer to rules. Who watches all these episodes to learn the rules?
Matt's human too. There are a lot of rules to remember in the heat of the moment and nobody is perfect.
There were also a lot of people in C1 who complained about Keyleth's cliff dive and how fall damage maxes out at 20d6. It's actually a really good thing too because that is hands down one of the funniest moments in CR history and you're not realistically expecting someone to survive swan diving a thousand feet onto jagged rocks.
The average roll on 20d6 is 60 points of damage. By that logic, a raging barbarian at level 5 would be able to survive a fall from low-earth orbit. I don't think you need a set of rules to specifically apply to that situation - sometimes you just have to go with what the intent of the action and what its consequences should be.
for the most part, the fight was fine and handled well, though like Crispy, there are a couple of his choices that I would not have made, those still remain valid choices.
My main issue was that Laudna was very actively looking at the scry ball such that it felt cheap for Matt to say prior to the fight that Laudna missed her sneaking up because she wasn't mechanically reading the ball correctly. They might have avoided the fight or called in mom for support earlier if this did not play out as it did. The circumstances of the fight starting are the bigger issue, though again, i still think its fine overall.
Beyond that, it was a great and tense fight that got to a huge thematic moment for Sam
This is what has frustrated me as well, especially because there was absolutely no way for them to run once Otohan caught up with them. So this OP enemy shows up to a party that's trying to run, knowing they're at less than half strength as a group, and the only choice they have is to fight until they're all dead. If they had other options and chose to be bullheaded and keep fighting her, I'd understand. But she would've chased them down if they ran.
FCG's death gives the players a reason to regroup and fight. For a long time, C3 has been lacklustre, with the players seemingly checked out a little, at least on the surface. This even could inspire the players to re-engage with the campaign and find something for them all to rally around.
Please stop making assumptions about what is going on in the players heads. You don't know. Don't speculate, please
For me, It was less the op character for me, and more the fudging of numbers (superior healing potion that healed well over the max of what the possible die roll could be, and the seemingly endless psionic dice)
An old school note on optimization: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
An old school note in general terms on "fair and balanced": The DMG says encounters should be balanced to a chosen threat level using the PC Level as a base (or words to that effect).
The players handbook and the DMG provides the option to change the rules as the party and DM see fit for their table and style of play.
Therefore: If players make OP characters and the DM approves, the players have given their DM permission to do the same.
PS: Who lied to any of you and said life was fair?
The note about for their table and style of play is something I wish some of the armchair DMs who are talking about how this encounter was unfair to the players would take in!
This group have been friends for years, have played together for nearly a decade, and have made it into a whole company. I think Matt probably knows what his players can and can't handle by this point.
My party (I was player) we attempted a coup and we were incredibly under-prepared. No one was honestly surprised and we are now left to fend for ourselves on a slaver island.
Self-sacrifice should be an incredible epic moment. I lost a crusader to a purple worm because he was willing to be the bait to lure it out. He cared for the party and it was his sacrifice that lead to no one else had to take that risk.
Personally, i don't mind that Otohan was not like a PC because... she was not, she was a monster. It kinda bothered me that it was not a winnable fight. It was an encounter that, as designed, couldn't be avoided -they tried to escape collapsed a tunnel on her and it didn't even slow her- or beaten. The whole "matt rolled really well" isn't really that relevant this fight when she has like a +17 to attack. She had 5 attacks per turn and most of her damage ignored resistances+ 3 legendary actions, really high AC and really good saves, to the point that she didn't need to use legendary resistances.
The superior Healing potion, i think was also a miscalculation, he said 66 healing (effectively 132) which is more than a potion can give.
This was an unavoidable TPK for the players, playing by the rules there was no way they survived. (ok... maybe if everyone rolled 20's and Matt rolled like he was Dariax)
The sacrifice was GREAT, i loved it, and Matt accepted the narrative moment and ignored the "resistant to damage".
I'm Not mad at the result, it just kinda bothered me during combat because it was helpless. And the same as when there is no stakes a helpless fight feels a bit boring? -not really the word, but to me it felt less exiting than other boss fights- even the players were half out of it after the potion .
I do think it was a design error, does that make Matthew Mercer bad? Nah it means he made a mistake... apparently he IS human after all.
Bit of a ramble, by all means ignore this commant all ye who start reading here. I just had thoughts on this I felt like sorting through and posting.
Maybe these specific points are what people are complaining about; I'm not into or keeping abreast of conversation or talk.
But from my perspective, being caught up on "watching" all the videos, it seems like the actual issue (and what people are *actually* upset about, even if they're not putting their finger on it) is more just how contrived Otahon encounters are in this campaign; it has been (or at least feels like) a "rocks fall everyone dies" moment with extra steps.
To claim any encounter with Otahon is "difficult" is wholly inaccurate; they are impossible. This latest example was them basically TPK-ing the party with a huge powerful swath of their toolkit tied behind their back. And it really seems like those encounters were inevitable to happen and could not be escaped or bypassed or gotten around. And the fact is that Sam made a gambit up on the spot, and Matt just "yes, and"ed it because there *was* no other way out. What explosive core was he talking about? This is some made up stuff, and Matt even said things to that effect as Sam said it.
And it's that feeling of "DM says you die now" that I would argue is ruffling people. I don't remember seeing this same level of uproar when characters have died in the past (generally), sacrificed themselves, or when enemies had abilities and powers that weren't strictly in the character creation rules, etc. If it were any of those individual things people were complaining about, we would have seen this before. The new element is how un-overcomeable the opponent has been in multiple situations and how forced on the players they have been with near-or-full-on total removal of player agency or ability. Both encounters, now, have been resolved by sheer Deus ex Machina. And that never feels good. Even if the impossible situation is a direct result of consequences of the player's own actions.
One hundred percent this. I will point out, FCG's core being a nuclear reactor had already been established in game by an expert scientist. That aside, this Otohan fight in particular frustrates me because Laudna had been watching the scry ball and it wasn't until Otohan was ON TOP OF THEM that Matt decided it doesn't actually work the way they'd established for like 90 episodes. So he has Otohan find them even though they're tracking her, knowing from a meta perspective that the party is on their last legs after their missions, and there literally wasn't anything they could do to either avoid the fight altogether or get away once Otohan showed up. So you're exactly right, it felt the entire time like "welp, guess the DM decided it's TPK Day, that sucks" and you could see it on the cast's faces. They talked about getting out of the situation more than once but they were right that Otohan was way too fast and would just follow and kill them one at a time. So to put your players in that situation and THEN give the enemy resistance to everything and THEN an OP healing potion is just a dick move.
ofcourse it's not lost on me that what happened was heroic and really good... but when you look at how we got to that point - either, Matt was baiting out a character sacrifice or he had some deus ex machina to pull if a tpk happened. Otohan took down Keyleth through her earth elemental form and was going to kill her, in one turn... basically with her weapons out, she was going to kill any one of the party within a round with a surge. - she has two. narratively she's an assassin, she has met the party before, to achieve her goal, everyone but Imogen SHOULD die...
so with that in mind, there was no running, there was only the fight - BUT to make that fight that insurmountable... it was basically a scripted tpk...
it was fine killing chet in one round ... it raised the stakes ... but on top of that, Otohan could dash around at her own discretion, basically nothing phased her in that regard...
on top of that the party got rid of her backpack and it didn't slow her down by any noticable margin... ON TOP OF THAT she exalted and went phase 2 with Barbarian level resistances + psychic... ON TOP OF THAT she had a potion that gave her 70 hp / effectively 140 points of damage because of the resistances ON TOP OF her AC being 25...
ON TOP OF THAT there was no mechanic to lean on as there were in their first encounter (Imogen giving in to Ruidus and exploding)...
ON TOP OF THAT when at least 140 damage had to be shelled out, the party was basically spent, 2 - 3 spell slots each for the casters, Chet, Imogen, FCG, Ashton were down in single digit or low double digit hp and had burnt all their resources... Orym had no martial dice left or action surge...
so either this was Matt baiting out a "blaze of glory" for the story OR he had plans for if a TPK happened, with how surprised and emotionally hit he was with Sams ask, I don't think he was baiting out a sacrifice... so what was gonna happen? was the party gonna tpk and the gods intervene?? were we just gonna let Bells hells die and take over as Vox machina against the ruidus threat?
it felt so forced with how powerful Otohan was, that it couldn't have been a fight designed for them to win...
Since Bells Hells arrived on Rudius, I've been anticipating fight #2 with Otahan. If it hadn't happened, it would have at some other point. I'm sure Matt has planned this out but it all comes down to when it's possible and what players do and if it interfers with the DMs plans. Some plans happen, some don't.
I think one thing he fudged was the blast radius to avoid a lot more deaths and letting sam save the party. I don't think Sam quite caught that warning, and was focused on his own certain demise. Appropriate in that circumstance, I thought, to change how that blast worked in the interest of good storytelling.
If a PC decides to sacrifice themselves to save their party and make an awesome moment- Let it Count.
Damn, these people would hate Clawfang, my natural werewolf with no danger of going feral while transformed along with his spell use and skull bombs he throws as grenades.
tbh I’ve been loving how more brutal this campaign has been. It truly feels like a veteran game of DnD with high stakes. Otohan is a powerful character, as we’ve seen earlier in the campaign, and still is. It certainly feels as if BH aren’t meant to survive this. Which opens the door for a better group to handle the chaos going on. I can’t wait to see how it ends!
Like everything I love, there is a critical mass where the fandom becomes trash as a whole and you just gotta not engage with the fandom or you'll lose your love. Sonic, hazbin hotel, undertale, etc.
Late to the party on this one! but you make some brilliant points in this better than I could. Maybe it's because I've abandoned 5e for other systems (Cypher and Blades in the Dark my beloved) but you really break down one of the things that drove me away from 5e when you talked about boxing monsters and bosses into the role of being just like the players. A great breakdown of a great scene, love your work.
The players and the DM are telling a story. Many tales of heroes giving their lives to destroy a threat to their allies and the world.
I am not a DM, but one advice that stuck with me is the story comes before the rules. If a player decides to bring down a cavern to kill an ancient dragon, are aware of the consequences, and has a legitimate character reason for doing so, it would be insulting to deny that if the story would benefit.
RIP FCG #SmileyDay
Before we start a rant - the video is great, as always.
And it was really intense and memorable episode of CR even without F.C.G's sacrifice, but that moved it from being just cool to legendary.
Now about stuff, that been bothering me about people's respond to the fight.
4:17 - But she could use Action surge twice, if she's lvl 17 Fighter. And being 20 lvl Fighter she would have 4 attacks per her turn (which she did and which implies, that she would be able to use lvl 17 ability of the same class, isn't it). And it's possible to twin a result of a special effect (like Otahan did with the psionic stuff) both for players and monsters. And get equipment, that does those special effects too. Top it with legendary actions
esistances cause why not => Even from game-mechanical stand point, the fight could be legit, all needed stuff is there. But spoiler alert (and the point of this video) - it doesn't have to be legit. Like it happened with Otahan going anime mode and resetting some of her cool stuff. Monster can do stuff, that players can't. And they're supposed to.
Anything the DM decides is legit. We are not bound by the players handbook. The moment you cite a level 17 fighter abilities is the moment you lost me. Matt balanced it for a party of 7 high level toons. So anything is fair game. The monsters Matt creates are not beholden to any book you can buy. And thank good DMs worth their salt know this. Monsters and PCs are just not the same and don’t need to be balanced. Full stop. Players need to get this. Or in this case, audience members need to stfu.
@@TheKillaShow by mentioning lvl 17 of a Fighter i meant, that Otahan (who's echo knight in every possible way possible mechanic-wise) could have access to that ability the same way she could have access to 4th attack by being straight lvl 20 in the same class. And so any PC with the same amount of Fighter lvl could do 90% of what she did in that fight until she goes Saytama mode -> argument against thing said on the timecode (yeah, it was a quote from reddit, so it's an argument against reddit, not the video).
"The monsters Matt creates are not beholden to any book you can buy" - but they kinda do. Almost all bosses Matt have created so far are somewhat close to what PC could do, if there wasn't 20 lvl cap(and some campaigns go beyond that cap, tbf). Lucien and his gang in C2 - just 4 Blood Hunter (or 5, i don't remember the exact number), who did exactly the same stuff any BH can do with the right amount of lvl. Then Lucien grew some tentacles and went into a different territory, but that happened way later. Otahan, like i've mentioned, is an Echo Knight in her core and with the stuff she does. Yeah, she's like 20 lvl Echo Knight with maybe a dip into the Totem Warrior Barb for "everything resistance"-bit and cool equipment. Does her statblock actually says, that she's 25 lvl character with 20 lvl of Fighter, 3 of barb and like 2 of Rogue(why not)? Probably not, it says "Otahan the ass kicker" or something. Could a PC with that amount of lvls do all the same stuff, except for legendary actions? Definitely. So even if we through the idea of PC abilities=\=their enemies abilities out of the window for just a sec for the sake of argument, we still ended up with the same result => Mechanically, everything that Otahan did before entering Saytama mode was legit and possible for PC. And yeah, it'd be probably lvl 30-35 of a character to solo fight 7 13lvls, not 25, but whatever.
And on top of all of that goes:
"Monsters and PCs are just not the same and don’t need to be balanced." Which i also mentioned in the last part of my original post.
Like, yeah, DM can do, homebrew and reinvent whatever the hell they want with what they throw on PCs - that's literally part of their job. I'm not arguing that, i'm arguing that if you wanna go and throw game design of 5e from PC perspective into the argument (and people on reddit did so) - you'd still be wrong.
Maybe should've articulated it better, but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
DM's shouldn't be afraid of killing PCs IMHO, ESPECIALLY not in a campaign like CR. Matt's a legendary DM for a reason, his planning and forethought are up there with the best, and these players are telling a story in a way that only the emergent gameplay of D&D or something like it can replicate. It's an incredibly unique experience as a storyteller to have key critical plot descisions in the hands of a collaborator like that. Let's also not forget that CR have been playing together for A DECADE and I am 100000% sure they have had this conversation about boundaries and killing PCs. It's a show we're all great fans of but it IS also their game, and they get to set the tone and boundaries they're comfortable with first and foremost.
With Sam's announcement today, now we know why he did what he did, and it was most likely planned with the crew to some extent so he could take the time off for treatment. The cast's tears seem different now, they didn't know if their friend was going to be ok at the time.