Critical Role: Rime and Reason
August 19, 2019 7:23 PM - Season 2, Episode 75 - Subscribe
The Mighty Nein find themselves transported to snowy Mythburrow in pursuit of a white dragon, and must use all their wisdom to escape with their prize and their lives intact...(guest starring Mica Burton!)
That was bracing!
I like how Marisha's accent - no matter what she attempts - seem to detour into Swedish Chef territory.
Also, the fact that their plan started as ridiculous, detoured into poor communication and working at cross purposes, and then ended up working pretty well at the end. Like all D&D plans should!
Caduceus's offer of a commune with Fjord was interesting - I love how he was incredibly Caduceus about it, both wise and incredibly unsettling when Uk'otoa Uk'otoa Uk'otoa came up
posted by dinty_moore at 8:19 PM on August 19, 2019
I like how Marisha's accent - no matter what she attempts - seem to detour into Swedish Chef territory.
Also, the fact that their plan started as ridiculous, detoured into poor communication and working at cross purposes, and then ended up working pretty well at the end. Like all D&D plans should!
Caduceus's offer of a commune with Fjord was interesting - I love how he was incredibly Caduceus about it, both wise and incredibly unsettling when Uk'otoa Uk'otoa Uk'otoa came up
posted by dinty_moore at 8:19 PM on August 19, 2019
Commune is a fascinating and powerful spell that is surprisingly cheap to cast. There are no component costs listed in the PHB, so unless Matt has decreed some costs, it's essentially free in terms of gold. On the other hand, there's a major strategic cost, since it's a 5th level spell, and it's Cad's only 5th level spell. I love how they make character choices rather than min/max strategic choices for what they pick; it makes for some lovely characters and role play.
posted by booksherpa at 11:29 AM on August 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by booksherpa at 11:29 AM on August 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, there's a major strategic cost, since it's a 5th level spell, and it's Cad's only 5th level spell. I love how they make character choices rather than min/max strategic choices for what they pick; it makes for some lovely characters and role play.
Critical Role in general and this session in particular suffer from the "fifteen minute adventuring day" problem. Most days the group is only ever going to face a single encounter before Matt allows them time for a long rest so choosing and rationing spells with an eye towards adventuring utility is not particularly important. Sometimes it works out in a way that I think is really cool, like Taliesin using Commune to create some roleplaying opportunities with Travis. Sometimes it leaves me grumbling, like Laura using Guiding Bolt at 4th level on a yeti that wasn't a particularly big threat to the party.
The group needs Liam around to play the adult. Jester throwing out a ridiculous idea that has no realistic chance of success is a good comedy bit but without Caleb as the adult voice in the room you end up spending twenty minutes while most of the group humors the suggestion and everyone ignores Fjord's protests. It works better when Jester says "three adventurers in a homemade yeti suit" and Caleb says "nope, next idea…" Marisha's terrible accent is great fun but she's not even a little bit interested in playing Caleb like Caleb; I hope Liam is back soon.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:00 PM on August 22, 2019
Critical Role in general and this session in particular suffer from the "fifteen minute adventuring day" problem. Most days the group is only ever going to face a single encounter before Matt allows them time for a long rest so choosing and rationing spells with an eye towards adventuring utility is not particularly important. Sometimes it works out in a way that I think is really cool, like Taliesin using Commune to create some roleplaying opportunities with Travis. Sometimes it leaves me grumbling, like Laura using Guiding Bolt at 4th level on a yeti that wasn't a particularly big threat to the party.
The group needs Liam around to play the adult. Jester throwing out a ridiculous idea that has no realistic chance of success is a good comedy bit but without Caleb as the adult voice in the room you end up spending twenty minutes while most of the group humors the suggestion and everyone ignores Fjord's protests. It works better when Jester says "three adventurers in a homemade yeti suit" and Caleb says "nope, next idea…" Marisha's terrible accent is great fun but she's not even a little bit interested in playing Caleb like Caleb; I hope Liam is back soon.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:00 PM on August 22, 2019
I'd be reluctant to call Caleb/Liam the adult voice in the room. He's possibly better than he was in C1, but it's not like he doesn't also favor big risk/big reward scenarios and sometimes ignores/doesn't catch on with what's going on with other players (which is fine! It's exciting!). If anyone, I'd say that Travis and Taliesin are probably the better strategic thinkers, followed by Marisha. Taliesin just isn't playing a character that tries to figure out strategy right now.
For anyone who might have missed, Liam did leave Marisha instructions - the main thing that went differently is that Marisha announced what the identified items were. Also, I do like the phrase 'rube-goldbering that shit'
(As an aside - one of the things I'm proposing with my home group is to switch a short rest to be overnight and a long rest to be 24 hours. I'm waiting until they hit the next area to switch it up, but in theory it should help with the tension between short rests being underused, days taking multiple sessions to play through, and one-fight-per-rest scenarios.)
posted by dinty_moore at 5:53 PM on August 22, 2019
For anyone who might have missed, Liam did leave Marisha instructions - the main thing that went differently is that Marisha announced what the identified items were. Also, I do like the phrase 'rube-goldbering that shit'
(As an aside - one of the things I'm proposing with my home group is to switch a short rest to be overnight and a long rest to be 24 hours. I'm waiting until they hit the next area to switch it up, but in theory it should help with the tension between short rests being underused, days taking multiple sessions to play through, and one-fight-per-rest scenarios.)
posted by dinty_moore at 5:53 PM on August 22, 2019
I hope Liam is back soon.
It was a known quantity - he was on vacation in Washington State, I think, and had hoped to be able to Skype in, but didn't have the connectivity for it. He was there tonight. Depending on the intelligence of the dragon, the yeti suit wasn't an *awful* idea, and probably wasn't meant to only be funny.
I will not spoil the episode I literally just finished watching, but suffice it to say it's interesting when the planning happens before you choose spells for the next day.
I would agree with dinty_moore that Travis is one of their top strategic thinkers, as is Taliesin. It's been so lovely to watch Tal explore with Caduceus what it means to be wise but not smart.
posted by booksherpa at 12:19 AM on August 23, 2019
It was a known quantity - he was on vacation in Washington State, I think, and had hoped to be able to Skype in, but didn't have the connectivity for it. He was there tonight. Depending on the intelligence of the dragon, the yeti suit wasn't an *awful* idea, and probably wasn't meant to only be funny.
I will not spoil the episode I literally just finished watching, but suffice it to say it's interesting when the planning happens before you choose spells for the next day.
I would agree with dinty_moore that Travis is one of their top strategic thinkers, as is Taliesin. It's been so lovely to watch Tal explore with Caduceus what it means to be wise but not smart.
posted by booksherpa at 12:19 AM on August 23, 2019
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posted by booksherpa at 7:25 PM on August 19, 2019